What is Important

Māyā's function is to make the important unimportant and the unimportant or less important important. And so, in due course, the purpose and main focus of any mission may be covered or diverted to less important issues, which may appear urgent and of great value at a given time. They are not.

What is the "backbone of our society"? Śrīla Prabhupāda defines in a letter to Patit Uddhāran written in Delhi,

"This routine work, such as chanting, speaking, rising early, cleaning, cooking and offering prasadam, arati, reading books—these activities are the backbone of our Society, and if we practice them nicely in a regulative manner, then our whole program will be successful. If we become slack or neglect these things, then everything else we may try will fail. So it is very important that you keep your standards very high in these activities, then your preaching will be strong. Preaching is our real business, preaching and distributing books. If your preaching work is strong, then your management of temple affairs will also become automatically very strong. Just like if the head wills it, the hand will move. Preaching is like the head of our KC Society—if the head is removed, the whole body dies. Managing is the hands, which work nicely if the head is healthy. If the hands are removed, the body will not die, but it will be crippled. So preaching is more important than management, but both must be there if the whole body is to operate nicely."

8th of December, 1971

Surely, as Kṛṣṇa Consciousness is spreading into the congregational areas, dominated mostly by gṛhasthas, social issues—and issues of pious but nevertheless bodily nature—may gain dominance. Let them not cover the main purpose of Śrīla Prabhupāda's movement: the purpose of outgoing preaching, even by dint of exemplary life in the āśramas, and above all, not forgetting the opportune moment to introduce anybody to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books.

If this remains the focus of our lives, we may become recognised by Śrīla Prabhupāda and eventually eligible to return back home, back to Godhead—which is, after all, the final goal of every sincere devotee.