"The need of the hour "

People and leaders in every country are generally well versed in these arts and sciences, but despite their efforts, human society everywhere continues to be in turmoil and distress. The reason is not far to see. It is that they have not learned the science of God, the most fundamental of every other art and science, and fail to apply it to the facts of life. The need of the hour is, therefore, to do it if mankind is not only to survive but flower into a glorious existence. To teach this science of God to people everywhere and to aid them in their progress and development towards the real goal of life, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is most eminently fitted. In fact, this great ancient work of Vyāsa will fill this need of the modern times, for it is a cultural presentation for the respiritualization of the entire human society. His Divine Grace, Śrīla A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, the founder-ācārya of the ISKCON movement, has taken it upon himself, in addition to his ceaseless travels and other multifarious activities in the service of the Lord, the stupendous task of translating this Sanskrit work into English in about sixty volumes for the welfare and happiness of mankind. It is really astonishing how he is able to do this single-handed, and when one comes to think of this, apart from his other great literary works, one is tempted to wonder if he is not the same Vyāsa Muni reborn today to adapt his own old work into a universal language of this age for the spiritual upliftment of the modern man. 

 Room Conversation and Reading from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam Canto 1 and 12 -- June 25, 1976, New Vrindaban