"Who is Śrīla Prabhupāda?” People often ask. At various times, he was known as a scholar, a philosopher, a cultural ambassador, a prolific author, a religious leader, a spiritual teacher, a social critic, and a holy man. He was not one of those modern entrepreneurial gurus who come to the west with slickly packaged, watered down versions of eastern spirituality, promising instant well being to anyone who could spare fifty dollars.
Śrīla Prabhupāda was rather a true holy man, one who could be called an ācārya, which means a spiritual master who teaches by example. After arriving in the United States in 1965 at the age of sixty-nine, Śrīla Prabhupāda formed the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, which developed into a world-wide spiritual community with hundreds of ashrams, schools, temples, and farms, and with thousands of dedicated disciples who madeHare Kṛṣṇa a household word.
To have achieved all this in only twelve years was remarkable. But before he passed away from this world in 1977, Śrīla Prabhupāda had also written and published over eighty volumes of translation and commentary on the great spiritual classics of ancient India. His books were welcomed with great critical acclaim by the western academic community and by scholars from India as well. And they became standard texts in almost every university and library around the world.
Śrīla Prabhupāda had also succeeded in transmitting the profound wisdom of the ancient Vedic culture in a form and style that was clearly understandable to the average modern man. He could somehow explain even the most difficult philosophical concepts to people who were totally unfamiliar with the complex Indian religious tradition.
Śrīla Prabhupāda circled the globe eleven times between 1966 and 1977, and everywhere he went, he taught the same basic truths, the fundamental principles of religion that constitute the cornerstone of spiritual understanding for everyone, no matter what their nationality or religion.
Śrīla Prabhupāda was more than anything a teacher a professor emeritus of the science of self-realization, and he was the best kind of teacher because he always lived up to what he taught.