Dearest Śrīla Prabhupāda, revered Vaiṣṇava Ṭhākura,

I am fortunate to again offer prostrate obeisance unto your blessed feet on the occasion of your divine appearance celebration. Always at the feet of Viṣṇu, dear to Lord Kṛṣṇa, you are known as the perfect embodiment of the fusion of bhakti and vedānta, as the master (svāmī) of both. As the exalted servant of Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, you have infused the Western lands with gaura-vāṇī, freeing them from the confines of impersonal, empty (mis) conceptions of ultimate reality.

Your Vyāsa-pūjā celebration is always an occasion for renewed rejoicing. In particular, we rejoice in the grand flow of your luminous words in the form of your books, lectures, and conversations. Yet, for myself, as I rejoice in your enlightening words, I also wish to ponder your silences. Your moments—and sometimes longer stretches—of silence are by no means those of the impersonalist, who (with so many words) claims that words cannot reach to ultimate reality. Rather, your silences are indicators, in a variety of ways, of your deep connection with Kṛṣṇa, and reminders for us, your followers, that silence is a necessary condition for proper hearing.

There were any number of occasions on which you exhibited sublime silence. On one occasion, your silence was your refusal to descend to the level of useless argument: Representatives of a certain publisher in India, no doubt feeling threatened by the success of your Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, assembled to severely vilify you, pitching one volley after another of vitriol to your face. Yet you remained completely silent throughout the tirade, and when those men had nothing further to say, and you refused to reply to them with even one word, they could do nothing but leave in embarrassed silence. Thus by your noble silence you showed your superiority to your would-be adversaries, exhibiting the sublime character of a true sādhu.

At other times, on more than one occasion, when you have been aware of a disciple’s improper, fallen behavior, you have been silent while that devotee has been in your presence, simply allowing the person to understand for himself the need to correct Tributes 51 his waywardness. In a not-unrelated spirit, on a certain occasion, knowing that the intentions of a disciple to serve you were misdirected, but nonetheless were meant to please you, you silently agreed to receive a massage with sandalwood oil to encourage the (insistent) disciple who had supplied the oil, despite knowing that it would make you ill (as it indeed did).

Although on many morning walks you spoke vigorously, often debating with disciples and friends on numerous topics, sometimes as you walked you remained silent, softly chanting japa. One such occasion was in the summer of 1974 at Schloss Rettershof, Germany. At the time, as I accompanied you and a few other devotees through the wheat fields down to the nearest village, I felt some disappointment at your silence, only to realize my foolishness in expecting you to engage in one of your animated conversations I had heard about or heard recordings of. In retrospect, I cherish the memory of your silence on that occasion. Of course, you were not at all silent at that time. Rather, you were softly chanting japa, surely communing with your Lord in ways that I may never comprehend, and simultaneously teaching us the importance of meditatively chanting the holy names in all circumstances.  

Indeed, on occasion, devotees witnessed you silently and unexpectedly withdraw into what could only be called samādhi, returning to outward consciousness after some minutes with humble words of apology. Thus—in case we needed reminding— you reminded us what a huge gulf yawned between yourself and us in terms of the level of our consciousness, putting into sharp relief the reality of our great fortune. You showed, sometimes with your silences, your patient determination to bridge the gulf for us, enabling us to also approach the Lord under your watchful guidance.

In your Bhāgavatam lecture just prior to giving me formal initiation, you spoke of the necessity of preparing oneself for the final test, comparing the situation of facing death to the solo flight of a newly trained pilot. Now that you are no longer physically with us, and now that you seem to be “permanently” silent, I need all the more to remember the instructions you have imparted during training—during your manifest presence. At the same time I must be self-reliant, recalling how, whenever important decisions were to be made, you always consulted with some of your disciples: You encouraged and expected your followers to be “independently thoughtful.”

On this present occasion of celebrating your presence through your vāṇī, I beg for   your blessings to also remember your instructive, meaningful silences, praying that I may learn from you the art of attentively listening, culturing the bounty of Kṛṣṇa’s kindness through your explicit and implicit guidance in the course of my life.

Praying to be your servant, I remain Kṛṣṇakṣetra Swami