Preface to the First Printing of Prabhupāda-līlā
Prabhupāda-līlā consists of biographical accounts of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda that were not included in the authorized biography, Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta. Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta was six full volumes so, at least literally, it cannot be considered an abridged version. Yet, inevitably, many interesting incidents in Śrīla Prabhupāda’s life were omitted. This is, I think, justified. Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta is intended as glorification of Lord Kṛṣṇa’s pure devotee, but it is also for preaching. We want people all over the world to hear of Śrīla Prabhupāda. His life’s activities, although virtually unknown at present, are the greatest of all welfare works. Therefore, while Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta gives full account of Prabhupāda’s life, it stresses readability even for the uninitiated. For the new readers, hearing in detail of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh visits to Los Angeles, or hearing of many, many wonderful but incidental things he did or said, might not be interesting. It is their misfortune that they do not want to go on endlessly drinking immortal nectar, but we have nevertheless given them a substantial and almost irresistible drink in books like A Lifetime in Preparation and Planting the Seed.
But many times when reading Prabhupāda’s biography in the assembly of devotees, I have been asked if someday all the pastimes of Śrīla Prabhupāda will be written and published. Until recently, I didn’t know what to say. I would usually reply that even Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja wrote that he would not fully narrate some of the pastimes of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu for fear of too much increasing the volume of his book. But somehow the devotees weren’t satisfied, knowing that certain pastimes of Prabhupāda weren’t being used in Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta. A member of our biography staff who is well acquainted with the masses of available interviews, memoirs, and letters, expressed disappointment to me in a note:
I have a rather growing anxiety that I’d like to try to express. In Volume I of the biography, because I’m familiar with the interviews in such detail, I can see that you’re leaving out things, summarizing some sections and skipping others. Volume III ends with Śrīla Prabhupāda’s ecstatic arrival in San Francisco on December 14th, but Volume IV doesn’t take me into the airport, let me see Śrīla Prabhupāda giving gifts to his devotees, and so on. I felt really disappointed. Please don’t think I’m criticizing your presentation. It’s just that these incidents are so relishable I think I just want a steady diet of them. I guess my question is what will happen to these incidents? Will you ever use them? Perhaps in another form? Prabhupāda’s pastimes are so distinctly, transcendentally attractive, I feel a great loss if we can’t somehow make them all accessible to the receptive reader.
It was this note that made me consider presenting supplementary pastimes of Prabhupāda without worrying about “readability.” For the sincere devotee, all authentic accounts of the life of the pure devotee are inspiring, instructive, relishable, and eternal. The devotees know the secret as stated in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam: “Drink deep this nectar, O men of piety, and you shall be taken from this mortal frame!” In a purport of Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Prabhupāda wrote,
Besides Svarūpa Dāmodara and Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī, there were many others who also recorded Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s activities. Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura believes that the people of the world would benefit greatly if such notes were available. It is a most unfortunate situation for human society that none of these notebooks are still extant.
— Antya-līlā 14.8, purport
Prabhupāda has also told us that Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī, when living at Rādhā-kuṇḍa after the disappearance of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, would narrate Lord Caitanya’s pastimes two hours daily for the pleasure of the Vaiṣṇavas, including Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja. Therefore I humbly offer this first volume of supplementary pastimes of Śrīla Prabhupāda, praying for the blessings of the Vaiṣṇavas and for the mercy of Śrīla Prabhupāda. Our only motive is to increase the chanting and hearing and following of the precepts and life of the jagad-guru, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda.
Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami
January 20, 1981
British Columbia