With the following words of appreciation and gratitude, I bow humbly to you, Śrīla Prabhupāda:

One of the many gifts you have brought to us, your followers, is a special vocabulary for understanding Kṛṣṇa and the culture of Kṛṣṇa-bhakti. Several words and expressions in English that you used in special ways have become, for us, inseparable from our sense of, well, “Kṛṣṇa consciousness,” as you so aptly characterized and summarized the purpose of your mission. One of my favorite terms is “pastime” or “pastimes,” your translation for the Sanskrit word līlā. Such a charming term with otherwise little present currency in the English language, for me “pastime” comes to make best sense in the “transcendental” context in which you have embedded it. Even though the word conventionally indicates leisure activities of ordinary people (significantly, perhaps, coming into use during Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s lifetime), its proper use seems nowhere to be as appropriate as in the description of the Lord’s trans-temporal activities.

It wasn’t long after I joined some of your disciples (in Stuttgart, Germany, in the summer of 1972) that I heard devotees speaking not only of Kṛṣṇa’s activities, but also of your—our spiritual master’s—activities, as “pastimes.” This extended usage of the term has had me reflecting ever since about how you participate in Kṛṣṇa’s activities, and in turn engage us in your mission.

Recently reading my godbrother Anuttamā Prabhu’s 2011 Vyāsapūjā offering, I appreciated his calling attention to your gentle suggestion, as Mukunda (now Mukunda Goswāmī) was saying goodbye to you in New York with the intention to go to India, that he could open a center on the USA west coast. Like Anuttama, I appreciate how your modest words became reality as Mukunda Goswāmī soon took up the challenge. I am happy to see this as your pastime, leading to a chain of events that eventually led, directly or indirectly, to my own initial encounter with your followers (in Berkeley, 1969). Of course (I can now recognize), this is how you “operated,”—how you collected and connected us: simply by voicing a desire that is actually Kṛṣṇa’s desire, as He performs His joyful “pastime” of expanding the community of Vaiṣṇavas, you opened the way for us to hear, through your words, Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes.

Now, so many years after first meeting your followers, I am happy to report a small, but hopefully significant, step in my own devotional service: Rādhikāramaṇa Dāsa, your granddisciple (disciple of H. H. Hanūmatpreṣaka Swami), and myself have collaborated to edit and publish a volume of essays by various scholars—all devotees or sympathizers—on various aspects of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa: Sacred Text and Living Tradition, published by the highly reputed Columbia University Press, is, by your mercy, being marketed for university classroom use. As you were concerned to reach the “intelligent class” with Kṛṣṇa’s message, our hope and prayer is that this modest book will serve as a useful link in the chain of “pastime” connections that lead people to your books— especially your Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam—and to the communities of your servants. I pray for your continued blessings upon me to be a small but useful instrument in your ongoing pastime of gathering Kṛṣṇa’s devotees to hear and chant about Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes, which draw us ever more deeply into the reality of His love for all beings.

Praying to remain always in your service,

Kṛṣṇa-kṣetra Dāsa

Oxford