haripada chāḍi’, ‘nirjanatā bāḍi’
labhiyā ki phala, ‘phalgu’ se vaibhava
rādhādāsye rahi’ chāḍa ‘bhoga-ahi’
‘pratiṣṭhāśā’ nahe ‘kīrtana-gaurava’
haripada – the lotus feet of Lord Hari; chāḍi’ – giving up; nirjanatā – solitary bāḍi – home; labhiyā – gaining; ki – what; phala – useless; phalgu – false; se – that; vaibhava – opulence; rādhādāsye – in the service of Radharani; rahi’ – being situated; chāḍa – give up; bhoga-ahi – the indulgence of sitting in solitude and making a show of chanting; pratiṣṭhāśā – desire for gaining material name, fame, and worship; nahe – is never; kīrtana-gaurava – glorification of the Lord’s divine names.
What is the use of making a show of chanting the holy names, sitting in a solitary place, and renouncing our service to the lotus feet of Lord Hari and His pure devotees? The opulence and material recognition you gain from the public through your show of solitary chanting is useless. Situate yourself in your eternal position as the maidservant of Srimati Radharani. Give up your solitary indulgence. Your desire to gain material name, fame, and recognition is not genuine glorification of Lord Hari’s names.
A few days before his physical departure, His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur said that everyone should unite under one shelter: Srimati Radharani. This is because Srimati Radharani is our acharya. The actual acharya teaches aspiring devotees the topmost method of service to the Supreme Lord. No one can render service equal to the service offered by Radharani, not to speak of surpassing Her. Prabhupada instructed his followers to spread the loving message of Rupa Goswami and Raghunath Das Goswami with supreme enthusiasm. Chanting the holy names gives us the qualification to serve the Lord. If we chant the holy names alone with a desire to gain material name and fame, then it is understood that this is not true glorification of Lord Hari. Such a show is useless (phalgu). However, if we chant the holy names alone with the blessings of the guru-parampara and a desire to become spiritually strong enough to spread the message of Rupa and Raghunath, then that’s understood to be genuine glorification of Lord Hari.
Before spreading the loving message of Lord Chaitanya, His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur sat in a solitary place in Mayapur with a vow to chant one billion holy names. Completing such a vow would take more than ten years for someone chanting three hundred thousand names (192 rounds) per day. We shouldn’t think that Prabhupada was sitting alone and chanting in order to indulge a desire for material recognition. Rather, his solitary practice was performed to fulfill the will of Lord Chaitanya: prthivite ache yata nagaradi-grama sarvatra prachara haibe mora nama – “My holy names will be spread in every town and village on the earth.” After completing his vow, Prabhupada Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur started to preach, first alone, and then later by sending his disciples to various places all over the world.
We know that in 1930, Prabhupada sent three of his disciples, namely His Divine Grace Bhakti Pradipa Tirtha Goswami Maharaj, His Divine Grace Bhakti Hridaya Vana Goswami Maharaj, and His Divine Grace Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj, abroad to preach the message of Lord Chaitanya. Prabhupada Bhaktisiddhanta also instructed one of his householder disciples, Abhaya Charanaravinda Das Adhikari, to preach in the Western countries, since this disciple was proficient in English. In 1959, Abhaya Charanaravinda Das Adhikari took sannyasa from his senior godbrother, His Divine Grace Bhakti Prajnan Keshav Goswami Maharaj, who was the founder of the Gaudiya Vedanta Samiti. Abhaya Charanaravinda Das Adhikari received the name His Divine Grace Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj. Before fulfilling the desire of his gurudeva, Prabhupada Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, that he spread the loving message of Lord Chaitanya in the Western world, he spent his valuable time from 1950 to 1965 alone at the Radha-Damodar Mandir in Vrindavan, chanting the holy names and translating the Bhagavat Purana into English. With the blessings of his gurudeva he went to the Western world in 1965 and massively spread the loving message of Lord Chaitanya all over the world. Nowadays, he is famously known as His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).
His Divine Grace Bhakti Dayita Madhava Goswami Maharaj, founder of Sri Chaitanya Gaudiya Math, spread the loving message of Lord Chaitanya all over India in order to fulfill the desire of his gurudeva, Prabhupada Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. He especially preached in areas where the Mayavadi philosophy was rampant, and he helped many Mayavadis to transform into servants of Lord Chaitanya’s loving mission. He wholeheartedly served all his godbrothers and other Vaishnavas. Through his exemplary service attitude and his gurudeva’s blessings he was able to legally obtain the birthplace of Prabhupada Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, which is an extremely holy place for the entire Gaudiya Vaishnava community.
His Divine Grace Bhakti Pramod Puri Goswami Maharaj, who is now famously known as Bhakti Pramod Puri Goswami Thakur, in order to fulfill the will of his gurudeva, Prabhupada Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, spent his whole life in solitary places chanting the holy names and writing devotional articles for publication. Nowadays, those articles are being compiled into books such as Art of Sadhana, The Heart of Krishna, The Heart of a Vaiṣṇava, Of Love and Separation, and others. He was famously known in the Vaishnava community as the embodiment of the third shloka of Mahaprabhu’s Shikshashtakam: trinad api sunichena taror iva sahishnuna amanina manadena kirtaniya sada harih – “One should be humbler than a blade of grass and more tolerant than a tree. One should offer respect to everyone and expect respect from no one. In this way, always chant the holy names of the Lord.”
His Divine Grace Bhakti Rakshaka Sridhara Goswami Maharaj was a scholar in our spiritual lineage. He used to speak on the application of ancient scriptures to contemporary society. Many of his lectures have been compiled into books like Śrī Guru and His Grace, The Golden Volcano of Divine Love, Loving Search for the Lost Servant, and others. He also translated the Bhagavad Gita into Bengali. My spiritual master, His Divine Grace Srila Bhakti Pramod Puri Goswami Thakur, often said that His Divine Grace Bhakti Rakshaka Sridhara Goswami Maharaj was a replica of Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur in our sampradaya.
The acts of our previous teachers are called radha-dasyam because they followed in the footsteps of pure devotees. Radha-dasyam means to serve Krishna under the guidance of Radha and Her associates. Each of the books published by our guru-varga glorifies Srimati Radharani. Service to Radharani is equivalent to service to Krishna. Krishna becomes happy when we are able to please Radharani with our services.
Thus we can see that although some of our previous teachers sat in solitary places, they wanted to serve the loving mission of Lord Chaitanya and His associates, Sri Rupa and Raghunath. Therefore, those who chant independently with a sense of false prestige, lacking the mood of service to Hari, guru, and the Vaishnavas, will be unable to achieve the ultimate goal of spiritual practice.
Spiritual practice means to fix our mind and consciousness on serving the Lord under the shelter of the previous teachers. To help us learn to control our material senses, all our previous teachers taught us to serve pure devotees and chant the holy names. Prabhupada instructed us to serve by spreading the message of Rupa and Raghunath together. In this way we are engaged as eternal servants of Srimati Radharani. All our spiritual teachers are actually maidservants of Srimati Radharani. When we follow their instructions, we too are considered Her servants.