By Mathuresa Das
When Srila Prabhupada began his preaching labor in the West, in New York City, towards the second half of the 1960s, he synthesized in a sentence the essence of ISKCON's philosophy: "The process of Krishna consciousness is simultaneously easy and sublime." Although the phrase became very popular in those days, and was widely used as a slogan for the young preachers of our movement, it has been only with the passing of the years that we have been able to understand what Srila Prabhupada tried to communicate with that wording. The word "easy" does not mean "cheap". ISKCON as a hereditary, spiritual institution of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, has its goal as a creation of a community of pure devotees, people who serve God, without personal motives, uninterrupted and free of material desires. The progress in Krishna Consciousness should be shown by a gradual disappearance of the manifestations of lust, anger and greed in the heart of its practitioners. For that reason, we now understand that the word "easy" used in this slogan means "possible" or "available". In this way, if we follow this process it will be "easy" to reach positions like "sublime" within Pure Bhakti.