By Ajit Krishna Dasa

Even if the Hare Krishna mantra is chanted with imperfect pronunciation, when it is offered from the heart of a sincere devotee, it fully manifests its spiritual potency. The Lord accepts devotion, not technical precision. When the same mantra is spoken by one without devotion, even if every syllable is perfectly pronounced, it remains spiritually barren.

In the same way, a text, like Bhagavad-gita As It Is, that contains some mistakes but is written by a pure devotee is infinitely more valuable than a text polished and faultless yet composed by a non-devotee or a devotee still bound by the modes of nature, like Jayadvaita Swami. The words of a pure devotee are not of this world—they carry realization, faith, and the power to awaken dormant love of God. Even a text with mistakes written by an imperfect devotee with good intentions is incomparably more beneficial than one written without mistakes by a person bereft of devotion. The measure of truth is bhakti, not grammatical or academic refinement.

Those, like Jayadvaita Swami, Dravida Dasa and the whole BBTI, who cannot grasp this principle and imagine themselves fit to posthumously “correct” Srila Prabhupada’s books expose the arrogance of their own contamination. By inserting their so-called improvements—corrections, additions, alterations, deletions—they violate the arsa-prayoga principle and impose their conditioned, offensive mentality upon the pure devotee’s work and upon the hearts of all who read it. Even when their changes are materially correct, they are spiritually poisonous, for they spring from pride and disbelief. The transcendental mistakes of a pure devotee like Srila Prabhupada are divinely sanctioned; to tamper with them is to challenge the authority of the Lord Himself.

Therefore, to protect the integrity of the transcendental message, Srila Prabhupada’s words must be preserved exactly as he gave them—untouched, unaltered, and undefiled by the ambition of the faithless.