Through ten years of tireless service, Prabhupada has perfectly fulfilled every promise, proving himself Krishna's genuine representative on earth.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Rūpānuga: In July 1966, Śrīla Prabhupāda in New York City formed the International ociety for Kṛṣṇa Consciousness Incorporated. Śrīla Prabhupāda mentioned this morning he was asked to call it the "International Society for God Consciousness," but he did not take that advice. He stuck to the principles of his Guru Mahārāja and called our Society an International Society for Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. At that time His Divine Grace outlined the purposes for the Society. We want to read them tonight to show that actually they have all come true.
And on this tenth anniversary, all the purposes of our Society actually are being fulfilled or already have been. The first one was to systematically propagate spiritual knowledge to society at large, to educate all people in the techniques of spiritual life in order to check the imbalance of [indistinct], to achieve real unity and peace in the world. Second, to propagate a consciousness of Kṛṣṇa as He is revealed in the Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Third, to bring the members of the Society together with each other and nearer to Kṛṣṇa, and thus to develop the idea within the members and humanity at large that each soul is part and parcel of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa. Fourth, to teach and encourage the saṅkīrtana movement, congregational chanting of the holy name of God, and to reveal the teachings of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Fifth, to erect for the members and the Society at large a holy place of transcendental pastimes dedicated to the Personality of Godhead. Sixth, to bring the members closer together for the purpose of teaching a simpler and more natural way of life. With a view towards achieving the aforementioned purposes, to publish and distribute periodicals, magazines, books and other [indistinct]. So we can see that actually Śrīla Prabhupāda has in almost a hundred centers and āśramas throughout the world, this has been established in less than ten years. One gentleman recently was saying, one respectable gentleman was saying, "I do not see how this Society has spread all over the world [indistinct]." And I explained to him what we have done already has been in ten years.
Just imagine twenty, thirty, forty years, like that. He was so surprised to see that actually in ten years alone all this has been accomplished. And revealing Kṛṣṇa's [indistinct] Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Śrīla Prabhupāda's books are now printed in almost fifteen languages around the world and distributed in millions every year. The United States and Europe, South America and Africa, the Mediterranean, every country in the world is now benedicted by Śrīla Prabhupāda's translations.
So that purpose he has kept. "To bring the members of the Society closer together in [indistinct] ...society based on love and trust." [indistinct] ...past bad activities and bad habits we have actually become more and more trusting between ourselves because we have banded together to help Śrīla Prabhupāda push this movement. We have to base our relationships with each other on love and trust; otherwise this would never happen. I've seen personally so many people gathered together under one roof who would never speak to each other in the material world, who would never even see each other, who would never [indistinct].
But in Kṛṣṇa consciousness all these things are forgotten because there's a common denominator, Kṛṣṇa, and everyone's [indistinct] together in love and trust. "To teach and encourage saṅkīrtana." There's hardly a person who travels anywhere who hasn't seen saṅkīrtana in every major city in the Western world. And now they're in India, now in Africa. People see us everywhere. One time a boy said to me...
I asked him, "How many devotees do you think, full-time devotees, do you think we have?" [indistinct] "All right. Two million?" [indistinct] ...barely a thousand at that time, but because of their energy, because Śrīla Prabhupāda's energy is [indistinct] all his disciples, it appears that there are millions. Because people see us all over the world. Actually we are simply distributing Śrīla Prabhupāda's books.
[indistinct] kept that promise, that purpose has been [indistinct] and "to erect for the members, and for society in general holy places of pilgrimage", that has been accomplished! we are seeing these tremendous and temples going up in India, almost overnight! In Vṛndāvana, the land of Kṛṣṇa, in Māyāpur, the land of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu. And now so many projects, including farm projects in India. So this is [indistinct] promise, this purpose has been [indistinct] ...so many so called gurus come and they make promises and they take money, then they are gone. In a few years they are gone, they are bound to be smuggling things in their suitcase, and they are bound to be telling lies [indistinct] their promises, and their purposes.