Those nations to whom you are going for the propagation of the chant of Hari are mounted on the summit of proficiency in all affairs of this world. They are practiced in the exercise of their rational judgment and are endowed with the quality of good manners. This should maintain our hope unshaken that they will prove to be the worthiest recipients of the heard transcendental voice, if we unlock to them the gates of the natural exhibition of abiding argument and enduring judgment. If we unpack our baggage of the genuine discourse of Hari by relying on the qualities of forbearance, it will certainly receive the garland of welcome from the hearts of nations gifted with keen intelligence.
We have not been actuated by any attempt of rivalry or hostility in undertaking this propaganda. This should always be borne in mind. We should call at the door of every seeker of the truth, bearing on our heads the baggage of the real truth to be offered to them. It is no business of ours to be elated or discouraged by the praise or neglect of any person. We must be constantly alive to the duty of enhancing the pleasure of our Master by serving Him with perfect sincerity.
We must not look at the world by being weighed down with the mentality that is oppressed with the sense of deficiency or otherwise, by the poverty or otherwise, of the display of worldly erudition, rank, etc., by any particular person. This is the state of forgetfulness of our real selves. All persons of this world are superior to us in every way as far as this world is concerned. Such material matters are not commodities that are to be coveted by us. We are merely beggars carrying the triple staff of renunciation and devoted to the chanting of the words of Sri Chaitanya. We have no more, nor any higher desirable object than the pleasure of serving śrī-hari-guru-vaiṣṇavas.
We are not the operators of the instruments. We are only the instruments. We must always bear this in mind. The triple bhikṣus, tridaṇḍi-sannyāsīs, are the living mṛdaṅga drums of Sri Chaitanya. We must constantly give forth our music at the lotus feet of Sri Guru. We should practice the function of the peripatetic preacher, parivrājakācārya, of carrying aloft the victorious banner of the commands of the divine Sri Gaurasundara by constant submission to Sri Guru and the vaiṣṇavas, fixing our eye on the pole-star of the heard transcendental voice. We must always bear in mind that we have been initiated in the vow of peripatetic preacher for the sole purpose of promulgating the heart’s desire of Sri Guru & Gauranga. If we are constantly inspired with the duty of discoursing about the truth under the guidance of Sri Guru, then no hankering after traveling, nor any veiled form of desire other than the chanting of hari-nāma, will ever strike any terror in our hearts.
The vowed service of the name, the transcendental abode, and the desire of Sri Gaurasundara, is our only eternal function. We are bhikṣus of the triple-staff. The in-gathering of the smallest alms, even such as are gathered by the bees, is our only means for serving the manifestation of the manifestive divine form of Sri Chaitanya Math all over the world. We are neither enjoyers nor abnegators of mundane entities. We recognize as our highest objective the desire for carrying with veneration the shoes of the order of the paramahaṁsas.
It will be our only duty to proclaim to all the people that complete reliance on the transcendental absolute truth is by far the highest form of freedom. That freedom is infinitely superior to the partial independent mastery over the distorted reflected entity in the shape of this mundane world. By holding the straw between our teeth in supplication, we shall carry aloft the banner of that real freedom to all persons. We should be constantly engaged in chanting the exhilarating name of Sri Hari by adopting as our fundamental enlightening principle that the highest path is the path of submission, endorsed by Sri Rupa, with the further exhortation to cherish the unwavering faith that He will always protect us.
— Lecture given in Madras, 18 March 1933. From Śrī Caitanya’s Teachings, pages 383–384. Śrī Gauḍīya Maṭha. Madras. 1989.