Uttama-adhikari. But while I am preaching, how can I say I am the best devotee?

Expressions researched:
"Uttama-adhikārī. But while I am preaching, how can I say I am the best devotee"

1972 Conversations and Morning Walks

Uttama-adhikārī. But while I am preaching, how can I say I am the best devotee? Just like Rādhārāṇī. She does not see anyone nondevotee. Therefore we try to approach Rādhārāṇī.

Talk with Bob Cohen -- February 28, 1972, Mayapura:

Bob: I, I, I ask you this very humbly, but do you feel diseases and sickness?

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Bob: Do you personally feel disease and sickness?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bob: Is this a result of your past karma?

Prabhupāda: Hmm?

Bob: This is a result of your past karma?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bob: So one in this material world never escapes his karma completely?

Prabhupāda: Yes, escapes. No more karma. For a devotee, no more karma reaction.

Bob: But you must be the best devotee, and you . . .

Prabhupāda: Hmm. No, I don't consider I am the best devotee. I am the lowest.

Bob: No! No!

Prabhupāda: You are the best devotee.

Bob: (laughter) Oh, no! But lets see, you say, what you say . . . it always, always seems right.

Prabhupāda: Yes, but . . .

Bob: So then you must be the best devotee.

Prabhupāda: Yes, the thing is that even the best devotee, when he preaches, he comes to the second-class devotee.

Bob: What would the best devotee be doing?

Prabhupāda: The best devotee does not preach.

Bob: What does he do?

Prabhupāda: He sees there is no need of preaching; everyone is devotee. (Bob laughs) Yes. He sees no more nondevotee, all devotee.

Yaśodānandana: Uttama-adhikārī?

Prabhupāda: Uttama-adhikārī. But while I am preaching, how can I say I am the best devotee? Just like Rādhārāṇī: She does not see anyone nondevotee. Therefore we try to approach Rādhārāṇī.

Bob: Who is this?

Prabhupāda: Rādhārāṇī, Kṛṣṇa's consort.

Bob: Ah.

Prabhupāda: Anyone approaches Rādhārāṇī, She recommends to Kṛṣṇa, "Here is the best devotee. He's better than me." And Kṛṣṇa cannot refuse. That is best devotee. But it is not to be imitated, "I have become best devotee. Therefore I have stopped." That is . . . actually, that is a different stage. So even the best devotee . . .

Without (being) best devotee, he cannot preach actually, ācārya, but he comes to the second stage. Īśvare tad-adhīneṣu bāliśeṣu dviṣatsu ca (SB 11.2.46). He . . . he has the vision of dviṣat, somebody envious of God. But it is not the vision of the best devotee. Best devotee sees, "Nobody is envious to God. Everyone is better than me." Just like Caitanya-caritāmṛta author, Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, he says that "I am lowest than the worm in the stool."

Bob: Who was saying this?

Prabhupāda: Kṛṣṇa . . . the author of Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja. Purīṣera kīṭa haite muñi se laghiṣṭha (CC Adi 5.205). He's not making a show; he's feeling like that, that "I am the lowest. Everyone is best, I am the lowest. Everyone is engaged in Kṛṣṇa's service; I am not engaged."

Just like Caitanya Mahāprabhu said: "Oh, I have not a pinch of devotion to Kṛṣṇa. I cry to make a show. If I would have been a devotee of Kṛṣṇa I would have died long ago. I am living, that is the proof that I do not love Kṛṣṇa." That is the vision of the best devotee. He's so much absorbed in Kṛṣṇa's love that he sees, "Everything is going on; simply I am the lowest, therefore I cannot see God." That is best devotee.

Bob: So then a devotee must work for everybody's liberation.

Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. A devotee must work under the direction of a bona fide spiritual master. Not imitate the best devotee.

Bob: Excuse me?

Prabhupāda: Not imitate the best devotee.

Bob: Not . . . what is that word?

Prabhupāda: Imitate.

Devotees: Imitate, imitate.

Bob: Oh, ācchā, ācchā, I see. Imitate.