The video records an Ekadashi teaching session at ISKCON Faridabad led by Srila Gopal Krishna Goswami, featuring a dialogue between two speakers that reflects on Srila Prabhupada’s intensive travel schedule, his health, and the disciples’ dependence on his guidance. The speakers recount how Prabhupada, despite his advanced age, continued to lecture, chant, and travel without rest, and how his absence affected the quality of devotees’ kirtan, prompting a compassionate reprimand. A central teaching compares a disciple’s work under a master to an engineer’s apprentice turning a screw under supervision, emphasizing that following a spiritual master confers expertise even without personal mastery. The talk also uses a cloud‑sun metaphor to illustrate the limited perception of material reality versus the ever‑present spiritual light. Throughout, references to Prasad Raval’s remarks, the Chaitanya‑caritāmṛta, and the importance of submissive service are interwoven, underscoring the need for steadfast devotion and reliance on the guru.
Chapters
Give that glass again. Whatever you want, Baba Ramakrishna will tell you. You can. You read from here. No. You read from there. Doesn't matter where you read it from.
From here, sir?
Yeah. Doesn't have to be exactly right. Try to put style. Just read together, ready, and we go.
Has not finished his work. There was no warning that Śrīla Prabhupāda's health would break down.
I am holding in, in, in.
Or if there were, no one heeded him. As he moved from his devotees in San Francisco to his devotees in New York, no one asked any words that Swāmi should slow down. After the 5.5-hour jet flight, Prabhupāda spoke of a blocking his ears, but he seemed all right. He didn't rest but went straight to the festival for reception and took 3 hours of strong lecturing and chanting in the storefront at 26th Avenue. To his new non-disciples, he appeared dazzling and lovable, and by his presence, his dances, and his words, he increased their Vishnu consciousness. To them, his advanced age now nearing 72 years, was but another of his transcendental teachers. He was their strength and they never thought Buddha could have reached strength. In the temple, speaking from a new dais behind a velvet-covered lectern, Prasad RAVAL said, "In my absence things have improved. New paintings hung on the freshly painted white walls. Otherwise it was the same tiny storefront where he had begun his International Society for Krishna Consciousness." He had written them that he wanted to enter the new building on his return, but they had failed and they had foolishly lost $6,000. But without dwelling on this, Prabhupāda made a more important observation. His disciples, despite the physical absence of their spiritual master, had made progress by following his instructions. As he sat looking happily at the freshly painted walls and the bright faces of his disciples, Prabhupāda explained how one obtains expertise in Kṛṣṇa consciousness by submissively following the spiritual master. He gave the example that although an engineer's apprentice may not be expert, if he turns a screw under the direct supervision of the expert engineer, he is acting as an expert. Many of the devotees were relieved to hear this. They knew that giving up material desires was difficult and that they weren't going to become completely pure devotees overnight. Brahmananda had ever written a poem stating that if after many lifetimes he could chant one round of the Hare Krishna Mahāprabhu's benediction, he would consider this the greatest success. But Prabhupāda was explaining that even if they weren't experts in love of Kṛṣṇa, if they worked under an expert, they were also acting as experts. The next morning, when the fanfare of Prabhupāda's arrival passed, it became apparent just how dependent the devotees were on their spiritual leader. The attendance was down to a dozen or so regulars, and Prabhupāda silently entered his storefront and began to lead the chanting. But when the moment came for the devotees to sing in response and Prabhupāda heard their first chorus, he looked out to them startled and compassionate. Now he could hear, they were weak, more like croaking than singing. They had deteriorated in his absence. The kīrtans had changed while he had been away. And now he was hearing all the devotees were lying Helpless Souls Croaking Without Joy or Word. Śrīla Prabhupāda lectured from Chaitanya-caritāmṛta. When flying from San Francisco, I noticed that the plane was flying above an ocean of clouds. When I came from India by boat, I saw an ocean of water, and on the plane I saw an ocean of clouds extending as far as you can see. Above the clouds is the sun, but when we come down through the clouds and land, Everything in New York is dim and clouded, but the sun is still shining. Those clouds cannot cover the whole world. They cannot even cover the whole United States, which is no more than a speck in the universe. From an airplane, we can see skyscrapers as very tiny.
Oh my God!
Hare Krishna, Kauravas!
Wan tia, ka pia, tawia tia. Oh, you mean I rest in that group? Okay. That's why you practice. But this is any other session. That group is with a— can I avoid? You won't. So, Prasad Raaval said, you decide which category you want to belong to. So, Prabhupāda, now to the topmost category.
