Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami was an Indian Gaudiya Vaishnava guru who founded ISKCON, commonly known as the "Hare Krishna movement".

About: His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedant Swami Sril Prabhupad

☛ From childhood, Śrīla Prabhupāda worshiped Lord Kṛṣṇa, understanding Him to be the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the source of all existence. And beginning at age twenty-two, after his first meeting with his spiritual master, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, Śrīla Prabhupāda became more and more active in spreading the teachings of Lord Kṛṣṇa.

☛ In Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta Volume 1, we see Śrīla Prabhupāda struggling alone to publish Back to Godhead magazine, personally typing, editing, visiting the printer, and then distributing the copies on the streets of New Delhi. Working alone in Jhansi, India, Prabhupāda gathered a few part-time followers to create the League of Devotees, an early attempt to enact his vision of introducing people from all nations, races, and levels of society to Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

☛ Śrīla Prabhupāda was still alone as he arrived in America in 1965. But he was filled with faith in Kṛṣṇa and determination to establish Kṛṣṇa consciousness in the West and thus fulfill the desire of his spiritual master and the prediction of the scriptures and previous saints. Young men and women on New York’s Lower East Side joined, attracted not so much to Vedic culture as to “Swamiji” and his chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa. Thus, beginning from a small storefront, Śrīla Prabhupāda introduced the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement to America.

☛ We follow Śrīla Prabhupāda to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury during the hippie heyday of 1967, as he establishes his Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement there, just as he had done in New York City. Then in May of ’67 he appeared to suffer a heart attack and retired to India to recuperate. It became even clearer that the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement – its life and its growth – depended entirely upon him. Although a few dozen sincere workers were dedicated to his service, they felt helpless and incompetent to do any missionary work – or even to maintain their own spiritual vows to abstain from illicit sex, meat-eating, intoxication, and gambling – unless he were personally present to lead them. In December 1967 Śrīla Prabhupāda returned to America and his young spiritual family.

☛As Śrīla Prabhupāda would comment several years later, his movement didn’t really begin until this return to America in December 1967. His time was limited, he knew – the heart attack had proven that. Now, in whatever time was left, he had to accomplish his mission. And as his International Society for Krishna Consciousness began to grow, it gradually spread beyond its simple and sometimes humorous beginnings to become a spiritual institution considered noteworthy even among world religions.

☛ Śrīla Prabhupāda, however, was under orders from his spiritual master, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, to preach Kṛṣṇa consciousness beyond India. And alone, in 1965, he took the great step and left India, crossed the Atlantic, and began the International Society for Krishna Consciousness in New York City.

☛ Although some of Prabhupāda’s Godbrothers had gone to England some thirty years before, they had failed to establish anything and had even concluded that to give Kṛṣṇa consciousness to the Western people was not possible. But Śrīla Prabhupāda, fulfilling Lord Caitanya’s prediction, traveled and employed his disciples in traveling, to open centers in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Montreal, Buffalo, Seattle. He also sent his disciples abroad, to London and other countries, and they succeeded where Prabhupāda’s Godbrothers had failed.

☛ Śrīla Prabhupāda, by his faith in Kṛṣṇa, by his selfless dedication to the order of his spiritual master, and by the blessings of Lord Caitanya, did what no one else could have done. As Caitanya-caritāmṛta states, kṛṣṇa-śakti vinā nahe tāra pravartana: “Only one empowered by Lord Kṛṣṇa can actually spread the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa around the world.”

☛ My dear Śrīla Prabhupāda, I know I have to work hard to produce this literature, and I promise to do so. But my efforts will be only a spinning of concocted, empty words unless you become present in these words and bring them to life with transcendental potency.