In one sense the first necessity of the human species, like any other species, is self preservation. Thus we need to eat in order to live. But under scrutiny we find that human life is unique and that it has another primary necessity. It needs to love. While we eat to live, we live to love.

Mahaprabhu taught that human society is the highest because Krsna in his most original and charming nara lila appears in a humanlike form, krsnera yateka khela sarvottama nara-lila nara-vapu tahara svarupa. He appears as a cowherd with flute, ever youthful, and as an excellent dancer all of which is just suitable for humanlike pastimes, gopa-vesa, venu-kara, nava-kisora, nata-vara nara-lilara haya anurupa. Herding unlimited cows with friends equal to himself is his natural carefree pastime in Vrindavana, nija-sama sakha-sange, go-gana-carana range vrndavane svacchanda vihara.

Krsna’s nara lila is sarvottoma, the highest. Materialistic people agree that human life is the highest evolutionary form, but they think that it has arrived at this position by dominating others. Humans, they think, are the fittest to survive. Their idea is just the opposite of Mahaprabhu’s. While they think humanity is supreme because of its power to dominate, Mahaprabhu considers humanity supreme because of its weakness, its susceptibility to love. Evidence for this is Krnsa’s nara lila. Krsna comes to human society to experience the fullness of love. It is humanity’s susceptibility, its weakness for love that makes it a cut above all other species, and in this weakness lies its greatest strength. Love, with sacrifice at its heart, is unbreakable.

Bhaktivinoda Thakura surmised that if we take that which we have in common with other species, our primal animalistic necessity of self-preservation, and spiritualize it, humanity can easily realize its potential for love. Prasada, he taught, is the solution to all of our perceived problems, prasada-seva korite hoya, sakala prapanca jaya. Without prasada, we are left to create havoc in the environment, exploiting others in the name of self preservation. Prasada means “kindness, grace.” If we learn to plant, cultivate, prepare, and offer food to Krsna before taking any ourselves, we will convert out primal animal necessity into spiritual experience and realize the zenith of human potential. The act of offering our food to Krsna brings our primal material necessity of self preservation in conjunction with our spiritual capacity for love, and this then has the power to transform our entire life—to uproot our domination over others and replace it with dependence upon God. All of the reactions for our life of domination, our habitual consumption, can be overcome by this practice.

We must grow, collect, prepare, and offer ingredients for the satisfaction of Krsna. This is the first consideration, the substance of the transaction. Secondarily, because our entire life is engaged in his service, he energizes our efforts through his remnants, his kindness and grace—prasada. Not only will no adverse reaction come to us if we conduct our lives in this manner, but we will become agents of good will for others—Vaisnavas.

In this connection Bhakti Raksaka Sridhara Deva Goswami has said, “Through the godliness in one’s heart, one must be a purifying agent. God is on the throne of the heart, and from there he will emanate such a fine ray which will purify not only that person’s heart, but also the environment. ‘Vaisnava’ means a purifying agent who emanates goodness, absolute goodness, every where—through one’s movements, one’s words, one’s actions, everything: deed, thought, and word, kaya, mana, vakya. A Vaisnava is an agent of auspiciousness; te vaisnavah bhuvanamasu pavitrayanti. There are so many Vaisnavas, and by their chanting the Holy Name, by all their practices and by their whole lives, they are like so many purifying agents.

By proper knowledge, proper dealings and proper conduct, they set everything in it’s proper position and create adjustment in the domain of maladjustment. This world is maladjusted, and the balancing agents, the unifying factors, are the Vaisnavas. Just as there is a germ, a virus which spreads a particular contagious disease, so there must be the opposite of that, something which emanates only a pure and healthy atmosphere, and that is the Vaisnava.”