Den 10 februari 2004 fyllde tidskriften Back To Godhead 60 år! Tidskriften startades egenhändigt av A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad - Krishnarörelsens grundare, och fortsätter alltjämt att ges ut av ISKCON, det Internationella Sällskapet för Krishnamedvetande.

Här nedan följer en sammanfattande beskrivning av Back To Godhead från utgivarna, med anledning av 60-årsjubiléet.

Today, Tuesday, February 10, 2004, is the appearance day of Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Maharaj, Shrila Prabhupad´s spiritual master. On this auspicious day, Shrila Prabhupad launched his first issue of Back to Godhead magazine. The title ran: "Back-to-Godhead, An instrument for training the mind and educating human nature to rise up to the plane of the soul spirit, First appearance on the Vyas Puja Day 1944, edited and founded under direct order of His Divine Grace Shri Shrimad Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Goswami Prabhupad, by Abhay Charan De." That was 60 years ago. This information is available from the book Back to Godhead: 1944-1960, The Pioneer Years.

To give you more of an idea how BTG was first started, one year on Janmashtami, in Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur's room, Abhay was sitting near his guru maharaja, who told him to start a magazine, giving him the idea Back To Godhead as a title. He also quoted the sloka: na tad bhasayate suryo, na sasanko na pavakah, yad gatva nanuvartante, tad dhama paramam mama: That supreme abode of Mine is not illumined by the sun or moon, nor by fire or electricity. Those who reach it never return to this material world. (Bg. 15.6) Then he said, "This idea of going back to Godhead is the basis of the Gaudiya Math."

Shrila Prabhupad remembers fondly: "At our first meeting, he ordered me to preach Krishna consciousness in the West. I was then twenty-five years old, a married man with two children. I tried my best to carry out his orders and started Back to Godhead magazine in 1944, when I was still in household life."

Working at home in Calcutta on his first issue Shrila Prabhupad conceived, wrote, edited, and typed the manuscript for a magazine. The first issues of the magazine offered translations and explanations of ancient Vedic texts, alongside political and sociological commentaries and spiritual views on current events. Shrila Prabhupad wrote about subjects ranging from the war to Theosophy to life on other planets.

Between 1944 and 1960 Shrila Prabhupad struggled to publish most of the issues almost single-handedly. The magazine then was a tabloid Y one sheet folded in half, making four pages of type. Shrila Prabhupad wrote nearly all the articles, oversaw the printing, and sold or gave out every copy (one thousand per issue), mostly by approaching people on the street.

Prabhakar Misra, one of the first to help Shrila Prabhupad publish Back to Godhead, became his first disciple, receiving the name Acharya Prabhakar.

In 1965, Shrila Prabhupad traveled to the United States to fully realize the mission of his spiritual master. In October of 1966, soon after opening his first center, in New York City, Prabhupad re-launched Back to Godhead. He gave the job of writing and publishing BTG to his first American disciples. The early issues were printed on a mimeograph machine Prabhupad bought secondhand from a country club in Queens.

Today, the magazine is a beautiful 68-page color publication published 6 times a year out of BTG's Alachua, Florida office. Each issue includes a Shrila Prabhupad lecture and conversation, as well as several pages of Bhagavatam verses and purports - a feature Prabhupad himself requested. Every year, articles by at least twenty authors appear in the magazine, with titles like "A Personal Look at the Nature of God" and "Early Miracles of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu."

The first tool Shrila Prabhupad used to spread Krishna consciousness to the English-speaking world is still going strong 60 years later. Many members of the Krishna consciousness movement point to Back to Godhead as the initial inspiration for their spiritual life. This trend will continue - last year, over 93,000 BTG's were distributed all over the world.

BTG asks all of you for your blessings on their 60th birthday. Please give your prayers that BTG will continue to grow for another 60 years. With your help, we can reach the goal Srila Prabhupad gave his disciples - to make BTG as popular as Time, Life, or Reader's Digest.


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