Books Are the Basis

The Following is an excerpt from “Our Family Business”

By His Grace Vaisesika Dasa,

In ISKCON we hear devotees say “Books are the basis.” Śrīla Prabhupāda himself used this phrase in a letter to Maṇḍali Bhadra Dāsa dated January 20, 1972: “My first concern is that my books shall be published and distributed profusely all over the world. Practically, books are the basis of our movement. Without them our preaching has no effect.” He uses it again in a letter to Tuṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami (January 9, 1976): “Books are the basis of our movement. Whatever appreciation we are getting on account of our books, it is because we are following the path chalked out by exalted devotees.”

So what does it mean that Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books are the foundation – the basis – of ISKCON? We can begin to understand by reading the letter Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote to Dāmodara Dāsa on December 3, 1971:

I’m especially pleased to hear that your distribution of our books and magazines has increased. Go on in this way, increasing more and more. Each time someone reads some solid information about Kṛṣṇa his life becomes changed in some way. These literatures are the solid ground upon which our preaching stands, so I want that they should be available to everyone, as many as possible. So please try for this.

It is interesting that Śrīla Prabhupāda uses the word “solid” twice in this letter. Before Śrīla Prabhupāda published Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, there were hundreds of translations of the Gītā in English, but almost none of them introduced Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead and encouraged readers to surrender to Him and attain the supreme goal of life, pure love of God. Consequently, after reading those translations, hardly anyone outside of India became a devotee of Kṛṣṇa – they did not read “some solid information about Kṛṣṇa” and so change their lives.

In stark contrast, as soon as Śrīla Prabhupāda’s disciples began to circulate Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, hundreds of thousands of people in the West took up Kṛṣṇa consciousness seriously, as the text recommends, and many, many more took it up in India. Today, millions of devotees have heard the clarion call of Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, and more continue to do so daily. Bhagavad-gītā As It Is – and all of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s other books – are “the solid ground upon which our preaching stands.” These books change lives.

What makes them special? First, they undeviatingly and ceaselessly promote unmotivated, uninterrupted devotional service to the Supreme along with the practical means to attain it. Second, they precisely and authoritatively describe the name, form, abode, pastimes, and loving associates of the Supreme Personality of Godhead along with instructions on how to make one’s way back to the spiritual world. Śrīla Prabhupāda’s purports are not simply the musings of a single author; they are both authoritative and realized. This not only makes Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books relishable, it makes them rare in the world of spiritual literature. As he wrote in the letter to Tuṣṭa Kṛṣṇa Swami I just quoted, “Whatever appreciation we are getting on account of our books, it is because we are following the path chalked out by exalted devotees.”