"Everything is proceeding in accordance with Krsna's arrangement." -- Srila Prabhupada

There are so many thought provoking articles upon the Sun as well as transcripts and audio feeds of Srila Prabhupada that sometimes I think that one need only its pages to provide one with endless inspiration. One of the things that inspired me a while back was a consideration by Rocana das, I think, that the Lila period of Srila Prabhupada was in fact brought about by Sri Krsna's arrangement. Looking at it this way it seems that quite a lot of things went into this arrangement, and the plans for it were made quite a while ago. Accepting that there are no coincidences, nothing a-causal, has led me to some considerations which are interesting to me.

Prior to the appearance in the West of the theistic presentation of Krsna consciousness, events occurred which created in the culture certain attitudes towards the East that disposed us to think of it as the place from which such a great master as Srila Prabhupada would come to deliver us.

Our culture's exposure to Hinduism began in the later half of the 18th century, when Madam Blavatsky isolated certain components of it and presented it with the obfuscation that she considered to be characteristic of Indian Gurus. She presented it as universally salvific, but also as an elite set of principles that reached its apogee in the mysterious personages that she referred to as "The Hidden Masters" of the East.

About a decade and a half later, one lone sanyassa held sway at the Chicago Parliament of World Religions and presented Hinduism in a manner that was both approachable and engaging of the intelligentsia, while at the same time not evoking the potentially hostile responses of either a predominantly Christian audience or of an atheistic intelligentsia. While the intelligentsia were intrigued and refreshed to find spirituality without a God, the Christians communities hostility wasn't engaged because the Mayavadic presentation that was being made to them offered no theistic presentation of God with which their own religion would have to compete. Just as Lord Shiva had presented himself in the form of Sankaracharya to attract the atheists, it seems that the same presentation was extended into the West by Krsna's arrangement in order to create a cultural attitude that would result in a mood towards the East that would make young Westerners, more than half of a century later, look towards Hinduism as a source of a savior and incline them towards accepting one.

The counter-culture of the 1960's was deeply immersed in turning on, tuning in and dropping out of what they had correctly adduced to being a soul-killing society. Blind faith religious systems no longer satisfied their emotional needs, and they sought for actual spiritual vision and sought to do so through engaging in anything that would help them see, including drugs, but also including the Occult. At that time the New Age presentation of Wicca, or Witchcraft had but recently emerged and coincidental with the times, other forms of the Occult that had been heavily influenced by Monism re-emerged to influence the generation.

Blavatsky's writings were again in vogue along with those of the 20th centuries' most infamous magician, Alister Crowley. Crowley was a rather curious Monist who despised Monism, along with the teaching of the Golden Dawn, the Western World's premiere Occult society. Throughout all of these various presentations there was an infused regard of the East.

The word "Occult" simply means "Hidden", and refers to such things as the secrets behind the workings of reality. In the terminology that we employ, it correlates to Divya Jnana, or to the Western word "Gnosis". The general implication of the term "Occultism", which permeated the counter-culture of the time, is that the universe is made up of layers of secrets that remain hidden to those who have not learned to recognize them. Who held these secrets? The Hidden Masters of the East, and it was only through them that these secrets could be learned and their powers harnessed.

Along then came a Master who had previously been hidden, and he appeared to us in a form specially tailored, with a presentation specially adjusted. What he presented to us wasn't exactly what many of us who joined the movement had been looking for, for many of us wanted only to learn the secrets in order to harness their powers, and so others accepted other gurus such as, Maharishi, etc. Others accepted Srila Prabhupada thinking that they could learn the secrets upon the pretense of sincerity, they thought that they could cheat, that they could learn the secrets from Srila Prabhupada and then, after they had learned them that they could use them to harness the powers of those secrets for their own selfish aims. That hasn't happened.

Anyway it is interesting to me that all things seemed to be tailored by the will of The Sweet Lord to create in the conditioned souls an attitude that was eager for the appearance of The Hidden Master. How events and presentations made almost a hundred years before seem to have been arranged so as to create an atmosphere that was conducive to our being both eager for and accepting of such a master. It seems to me that Krsna, unlike us, makes long-range plans.

The advent of the disciples of Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu in the West were not only prophesied in the Vedic literatures, but also prophesied by Virgil, written almost two thousand years before at about the same time that the Book of Acts was written. Virgil wrote:

"Now has the last great age begun
By Cumae's seer foretold;
New born the mighty cycles run
Their course, and quit the old.
Now too, the Virgin reappears,
And Saturn re-controls the spheres.
Now is a new race on the way
From Heaven; do thou befriend
The Infant, all but born, whose day
The iron brood shall end
And with the golden fill the earth
O chaste Lucina, speed his birth "

Fourth Eclogue - Virgil

Virgil was not a Christian, he was a Pagan and an Initiate of the Western mysteries, of a tradition that had been driven out of the Western world over a thousand years before today. As an Initiate, he was a Guru of his faith and although that faith has been lost, the instructions of one of its Guru's have come through the ages, up to today, presumably to whomever would yet be born who were also Initiates of the same tradition as Virgil was. How this could possibly happen is revealed by Lord Krsna in His reply to Arjuna's question regarding the fate of a "failed transcendentalist". That is a subject that I will defray for the time being. Suffice to say for now, that sometimes the dead come back, to resume again where they, or their society, their "stock" had left off, been "failed", or halted, by death or the destruction of their society's paradigm for spiritual development.

An understanding of the first part of Virgil's prophecy requires a knowledge of Classical Paganism that would require considerable explanation, so that too will be defrayed to a later time, except to say now that the "last great cycle" refers to the last period of the Kali Yuga in which there will be a time when everyone becomes spiritually advanced; for the 10,000 years or so in which Lord Caitanya's Harinam Sankirtana movement will manifest a Golden Age, the last Great Age.

The jist is as follows. The "infant, all but born" is Krsna Consciousness; in reality, a movement consisting of actually self-realized devotees who are engaged in Krsna's service. It is obvious that it is they, and not those who Virgil is instructing to befriend them, that will accomplish this triumph over the Iron Age. The Golden who will fill the earth and end the Iron Age are the Golden followers of Lord Gauarhari

Those whom Virgil is instructing to befriend the Krsna consciousness movement see in Virgil's prophecy and in other things, that Lord Krsna is indeed arranging everything, and that everything in proceeding as planned by Him.

Who it is that Virgil is instructing, since there is no overt continuance of the Mystery Traditions, or the "Yoga of the West" that he was an Initiate of, and why was he instructing them to do so? This invites the consideration that Virgil was farsighted, but not nearsighted, that he was writing to those who would never be born, to those who would never exist, but as he was farsighted and saw them in his prophecy suggests that tradition can experience a resurgence, or re-emergence, even after it has been entirely erased upon the gross material platform, that a transcendent tradition is independent of material existence.

If what Lord Krsna said in reply to Arjuna's question in regards to the fate of "failed transcendentalists" wasn't true, or if there never had been any transcendentalists or transcendent traditions in the West whose degree of Initiation did not require of them to take birth again in the service of their tradition, then Virgil's prophecy could only hope for half-fulfilment, for the appearance of the Krsna consciousness movement -- but without those whom Virgil was speaking to, the Initiates of his tradition there to befriend it.

One thing that is exceedingly curious, however, is that in the last hundred years or so Classical Paganism and its various traditions have re-emerged in the West. And while scholars laugh at their claims to any actual continuum between them and their historical antecedents, those same scholars are products of a world view that considers religions to be the products only of men.

Anyway, that service which the Initiates of Virgil's tradition are to perform, Virgil sums up, it is one thing and one thing only, and that is to befriend Krsna consciousness. It is Virgil's conclusion that the most important thing for any of us to do is to befriend the Krsna consciousness movement, not anything else, not even the maintenance of our own traditions except for the purpose of them enabling us to befriend. Watering the roots, and by the worship of Krsna all of the demigods are satisfied.

Friends do not let friends drive drunk, nor do they let friends proceed under the influence of illusion.

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Set includes 10 audio CDs (7 CDs of sanskrit chants, 2 CDs containing english translations for the entire Bhagavad Gita, and 1 CD providing an introductory lecture on the Bhagavad Gita by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada).