His attention was always towards the basis, and the fruit will come of itself

November 7, 2020

By Srila B.R. Sridhar Maharaja, from the article “Fools Rush In Where Angels Fear to Tread”

There are many things below, but the charm and reasonableness of the higher plane, that is enough to convince a person to come this side, and these high Lilas should be left high above your head. Very cautiously we are to handle all this Lila, especially Madhurya-lila.

Just the other day I was thinking, about a year after joining the Mission, Prabhupada arranged for the full Karttik month to preach in Vrndavana. He asked the Maharaja, Bharati Maharaja at that time, to explain the Seventh Canto of Srimad Bhagavatam : the story of Prahlada, not the story of Krsna, Radha-Krsna, Yasoda or anything of Vrndavana, but, “Preach suddha-bhakti of Prahlada first. They are ripe in sahajiya. Just try to make them understand that ‘Enter the plane of bhakti; what to speak of Krsna lila- that is far, far above’.”

So, in Vrndavana the people rather wonder, “What is this? They are explaining Bhagavatam, but leaving the Tenth Canto they are explaining the Seventh Canto, the Prahlad-lila, the lower portion of bhakti. That is wonderful and strange.”

Again, I found later on that Srila Prabhupada himself gave a lecture between Radha Kunda and Syama Kunda. There is a boundary line between the two. There he used to explain for a few days. The Upadesamrtam of Srila Rupa Goswami was read by him and explained. He did not explain about Srimati Radharani, nor about Krsna, but about that Upadesamrtam – the basis. His attention was always towards the basis, and the fruit will come of itself: “Poor water onto the root; poor water onto the root, and the fruit will come up itself.”

He himself explained this while sitting in the middle between Radha Kunda and Syama Kunda. He explained not only Bhagavatam, but Upadesamrtam, Upadesamrtam is the substance of Mahaprabhu and the language of Rupa Goswami.

Gaura HariHaribol