True religion teaches eternal souls to surrender their hearts in loving service to the Supreme Lord Krishna.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Prabhupāda: I beg to thank you for your kindly coming here and participating with this great Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. You have already heard something about our activities... [break] ...about our activities we are just trying to invoke the... [break] ...the Kṛṣṇa consciousness is not an arti..
Prabhupāda: Nṛsiṁhadeva-mandir, Siṁhācalam and there are many pictures... [break] ...so about Prahlāda Mahārāja’s activities. That is very instructive for students. Prahlāda Mahārāja happened to be a son of a great atheist, his father was Hiraṇyakaśipu the celebrated atheist.
And Prahlāda Mahārāja was his son only five years old but from his very birth he was a devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa and he was chanting always, Nārāyaṇa, Nārāyaṇa. So the father did not like. The father was an atheist and he was very much angry with his son. There were many punishments for the son.
He was thrown in the ocean, he was thrown in the fire, he was thrown to be trampled by the elephants, he was thrown before the snakes, he was given poison, in so many ways he was tortured by the father. So this is another instruction that atheism and theism that is going on, that is the way of material life. In the Bhagavad-gītā you’ll find there are two classes of men, one class of men are called the atheist or asura and the other class of men they are called demigods or sura. So Śrī Rāmānujācāryapāda he has defined that the persons who are abiding by the orders of the Lord he is deva or demigod and persons who do not abide by the orders of God they are called asura. So Prahlāda Mahārāja—it is not that asuras will beget children only asuras, for example in Europe and America practically they are within the classification of asuras but they have got many children like Prahlāda and we have collected them. These boys and girls although their father are atheist by nature they have come out very theist, high class God conscious students.
So there is no question of disappointment if we take to the process the asuras can be changed into suras or devatā. Caṇḍālo 'pi dvija-śreṣṭhā hari-bhakti-parāyaṇaḥ, according to our Vedic system there are classification of brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya, śūdra and less than the śūdras they are called caṇḍālas or pañcamas or [indistinct] there are so many names. But it is not that because one is born in caṇḍālas family he cannot be elevated that is not the fact. Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad-gītā says; māṁ hi pārtha vyapāśritya ye 'pi syuḥ pāpa-yonayaḥ striya vaiśyās tathāśūdrās te 'pi yānti parāṁ gatim [Bg. 9.32] The thing is one has to take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness then it doesn’t matter where he is born.
He can be elevated to the highest position of transcendental life. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam also confirms this when Parīkṣit Mahārāja was hearing from Śukadeva Gosvāmī he stated; kirāta-hūṇāndhra-pulinda-pulkaśā ābhīra-śumbhā yavanāḥ khasādayaḥ ye 'nye ca pāpā yad-apāśrayāśrayāḥ śudhyanti… [SB 2.4.18] The description of persons who are less than the śūdra namely kirāta. Kirāta generally those who are living in the jungles, generally the Africans are called kirāta. Hūṇa, hūṇa they live in the north of Russia, Germany. Āndhra, kirāta-hūṇāndhra-pulinda-pulkaśāābhīra-śumbhā, there are many. So Bhāgavata says śudhyanti they can be purified, how?
Ye 'nye ca pāpā yad-apāśrayāśrayāḥ, if they take shelter of devotee they can be purified. So this purification process is for everyone, everyone can take to it, this is called bhāgavata-dharma. There are... Generally we understand dharma it means a kind of faith that is the modern definition of dharma, but dharma means the natural characteristics, that is called dharma. Natural characteristics of human being as stated by Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu is to understand that he is part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa or God—eternal servant of God that is natural characteristics. So Prahlāda Mahārāja because he was guarded very much by his father, atheist father, he could not preach this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement very freely.