Srila Prabhupada had the vision that the entire world would take to Krsna consciousness. Proof of his accurate prediction is that people in every continent, without exception, have taken up the process.

Lovers of maple syrup beware: “The trees were also given one fourth of the sinful reactions, and therefore they drip sap, which is prohibited for drinking.” (Summary to Srimad Bhagavatam sixth canto, ninth chapter). And, “In return for Indra’s benediction that their branches and twigs would grow back when trimmed, the trees accepted one fourth of the reactions for killing a brahmana. These reactions are visible in the flowing of sap from trees. [Therefore one is forbidden to drink this sap.]” (Srimad Bhagavatam 6.9.8). Kauri gum (sap from the giant Kauri trees of New Zealand) was widely sought after in the late nineteenth century. Many Yugoslavians (Dalmatians, also known as ‘gum diggers’) journeyed across oceans to bring blocks of Kauri gum back to Yugoslavia where it was widely sought after for use in glues, paints, soaps and other cosmetics.

In Jaiva Dharma, chapter 7, Bhaktivinoda Thakura states: “A living entity who is a pure devotee of Krsna is not conditioned by Maya. By the mercy of Krsna such a soul is liberated from the material world. He is a liberated soul and is in the liberated state. Then again, a living entity who avoids Krsna falls into the clutches of maya. He is a conditioned soul and is in the conditioned state.” (from Sri Bhaktivinoda Vani Vaibhava, translated by Bhaumipati dasa)

Srila Prabhupada has often said, or intimated, that not a blade of grass moves without the sanction of the Supreme Lord. This vision is a way of seeing Krsna everywhere. Every action has a cause, but the ultimate cause is always Krsna.

Srila Prabhupada had a wonderful way of distinguishing materialist love from spiritual love. He had a way of saying it that made you feel greater love for all beings, including your own near and dear ones. In a New York lecture in November of 1966 on the Caitanya Caritamrita (Madhya-lila 20, verses 124-125) he said, “If you love God, then you can love everyone….And if you don’t love God, then you can’t love anyone.”

Srila Prabhupada once said that there is no envy in the spiritual word. He gave the examples of the trees and grass in Krsna’s planet. He said the trees are saying to the grass, “you are providing a wonderfully soft carpet for Their Lordships to walk upon.” And the grass says to the trees, “You are giving a beautiful visage for Radha and Krsna to gaze upon as They stroll in the forest.”

Sometimes Srila Prabhupada contrasted the God-as-order- supplier, or “God please give us our daily bread” rasa with wanting to be Krishna’s mother of father. He often told us that the vatsalya rasa, the parental rasa is superior. In Mumbai on December 7, 1974, he said, “And mother Yasoda is always thinking that `If I do not feed Krsna nicely, He’ll die.’ This is love. This is love. Therefore it is said that yesam aham priya atma sutas ca. The devotee accept Krsna as suta, as son, not as father.”

Do we beings in the material world perceive things differently than Krsna? When Srila Prabhupada first flew, it was from New York to San Francisco. On arrival in San Francisco he said the houses looked like “matchboxes.” He paused briefly and then went on to say, “Just imagine how Krsna sees things.”

Enjoying the intimate rasa of chivalry, Krsna enjoyed the wounds Bhisma inflicted on him. Srila Prabhupada writes about Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura’s explanation of this phenomenon as follows: “…the wounds created on the body of the Lord by the sharpened arrows of Bhismadeva were as pleasing to the Lord as the biting of a fiancee who bites the body of the Lord directed by a strong sense of sex desire. Such biting by the opposite sex is never taken as a sign of enmity, even if there is a wound on the body. Therefore, the fighting as an exchange of transcendental pleasure between the Lord and His pure devotee, Sri Bhismadeva, was not at all mundane (Srimad Bhagavatam 1.9.34)

“Your parents are accusing me, ‘This rascal, converting our sons to become mendicant without any material enjoyment.’ ” (Conversation, July 1, 1975, Denver)