It is a very important tradition to remember the great personalities who contributed to our well-being. What we are doing today would not be possible without their sacrifice, without their earnest endeavour to give us some meaning in life. The concept of Krishna as God is the most amazing theology, and we take it very naturally because some great personalities dedicated their lives to giving us this chance. Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur is one such persons.

God is a person. The most ardent desire of every soul is the desire for love, but you can not love something impersonal, love is very personal. To manifest your love you have to be a person, the one you love also has to be a person, the most beautiful and wonderful person. Bhaktivinod Thakur thought about how to give Krishna to people, so he asked Lord Jagannath to send him someone who could help him. Lord Jagannath advised him to pray to Bimala Devi and she would fulfil his desire. When Bhaktisiddhana Sarasvati Thakur was born, he was given the name Bimala Prasad. He started chanting when he was six years old, and at a very early age he began to worship the Lord. He was given the title Siddhanta when he translated Surya Siddhanta. At that time he was fifteen years old.

In order to spread Krisna consciousness, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur underwent a very severe practice of chanting a billion Holy names. It is very difficult for ordinary people to relate to such practice, because their mind is not trained for meditation. But Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur wanted the Hare Krishna mantra to enter his blood.

When we chant the Hare Krishna mantra, it is on our lips, sometimes on our tongue, very rarely in our heart. When you bring your whole being into harmony with the Hare Krishna mantra, which is non-different from God Himself, then miracles can happen. You become one with God, but not in a sense as mayavadis say, but you become one in power with God. God will start acting through you and the whole power of the spiritual kingdom will flow through you by the process of harmonizing your individual consciousness with the superconsciousness of God.

Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur was a great revolutionary. Real religion is always a revolution against the establishment of this world. Every religion, once established, gradually loses its revolutionary spiritual power and becomes only a part of this material establishment. The purpose of religion is to give spiritual experience. Spiritual truth deprives us of the comfort of a peaceful life in this material world. We need to realize our spiritual nature to the fullest extent.

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur made three very important innovations: 1) he completely disregarded any hereditary rights; 2) he reestablished varnasrama dharma; 3) he said that raganuga bhakti and vaidhi bhakti, which are considered two separate paths, are actually different stages of the same path. He was a great hero and he empowered A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada to establish the mission he started all over the world.