Vyasa-puja offering 2017

 

Letting Srila Prabhupada Speak for Himself

 

nama om visnu-pädäya krsna-presthäya bhü-tale

srimate bhaktivedänta-svämin iti nämine

 

namas te särasvate deve gaura-väni-pracärine

nirvisesa-sünyavädi-päscätya-desa-tärine

 

My dearest Srila Prabhupada,

 

Please accept my humble obeisances and my deepest gratitude to you for giving the world your brilliant translations of and purports to the most elevated of Vedic literatures. You have munificently given humanity access to confidential knowledge of the Absolute Truth, the intimate personal desires of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His loving dealings with His eternal associates. You have made possible the awakening of love for Krishna and pure devotional service to His lotus feet, the goal of human life, within the heart of anyone in any part of the world who simply agrees to hear submissively with faith your transcendental ecstasies as you glorify the Lord and the process of pure devotional service in your Bhaktivedanta Purports.

 

Srila Prabhupäda, my offering to you on this auspicious day of your appearance is a kind of sequel to my previous two years’ offerings in which I glorified the daily reading of your books, especially out loud, and shared the happiness I’ve been feeling in doing so with devotees, many of whom have written or visited me since I wrote those offerings to say that their lives have changed permanently by reading your books out loud every day.

 

Last year I mentioned the survey taken at the 2016 ILS, the sanga of ISKCON’s second tier leaders held biyearly in Mayapur. The results of the survey confirmed my observation that many leaders are not reading your books, a fact that inspired the themes of my offerings in 2015 and 2016.

 

This year I attended the third biyearly meeting of ISKCON’s top tier leaders called the SGGS, the sanga of sannyasis, gurus, and members of the GBC. The facilitators of this three-day event, Gopala Bhatta Dasa, Vraja Véharé Dasa, and Kaunteya Dasa were able to distill the thoughts of the more than eighty attendees down to what the attendees felt were the three most important issues to get right if your movement is to be passed on to the next generation in tact as you desired. The three issues were:

 

1. Reading your books,

2. Substance before form,

3. The quality of our leadership.

 

I was very happy to hear these conclusions and couldn’t help but see a connection between the second two and the first – the proper and sufficient reading of your books. Interestingly, I learned recently from Dravida Prabhu, concerning your use of the words “sufficient” and “sufficiently,” that you often intend an archaic meaning, roughly “abundant, lavish” and “abundantly, lavishly,” respectively. So when you say, “My disciples should read my books sufficiently,” you likely mean we should read them a lot!

 

My question is: Without the ongoing support of your association in the form of the careful reading your books, how can we as leaders give spiritual substance or quality leadership to the devotees as we work together to improve ISKCON?

 

Srila Prabhupada, on this auspicious day of your appearance in this world, please allow me to beg your mercy. I’m convinced that you are personally present in your books. You yourself made statements such as: “I will never die. I will live forever in my books;” and “If you want to know me, read my books.” The more I read your books the closer I feel to you. Your presence is palpable.

 

For example, as I write this I’m convalescing from a two-week savage fever that put me in a hospital. I got out of the hospital just a week ago. As I was taking a break from writing due to weakness, and as I was wondering about my condition, I came upon this purport in my daily reading:

 

Sometimes if one is liberated from the material world but has no shelter at the lotus feet of Krsna, one falls down to the material world again. Liberation is like a state of convalescence, in which one is free from a fever but is still not healthy. Even in the stage of convalescence, if one is not very careful, one may have a relapse. Similarly, liberation does not offer as much security as the shelter of the lotus feet of Krsna.

 

How’s that for personal reciprocation! Unlimited thanks to you, Srila Prabhupada, for confirming so nicely that you are fully present in your books!

 

I propose that if we as leaders read your books properly ourselves, not only with the intention of learning more, making our classes and seminars more substantial, informative, professional, and so on, but also with the intention of spending quality time with you personally, we will be more apt to learn from you how to be the devotees you want us to be – how to follow in the footsteps of the great personalities manifest in the sound of Srimad-Bhagavatam and Sri Caitanya-caritamrta. And if we then teach the devotees under our care to do the same by reading your words out loud to them – letting you speak for yourself, letting you give them direction how to think, feel, will, and interact on the spiritual plane, regardless of their position in the social structure – the spiritual purity of your movement will be secure.

 

What’s more, exemplars of all types of pure Vaisnavas – from the original kings and great sages, to aristocratic brahmanas and wealthy vaisyas and landholders, to simple mendicant renunciants, in ancient times and more recent times – all live within the pages of Srimad-Bhagavatam and Sri Caitanya-caritamrta. And they are just waiting to give us their sanga and teach us how to deal with one another in genuine loving exchanges under all circumstances.

 

Srila Prabhupada, in the ocean of your nectarean translations and commentaries, you’ve given us everything. It’s up to us to mine the jewels of wisdom contained in your books, to learn proper behavior and attitudes, to reform our own characters accordingly, and then to become exemplars ourselves in your mood – in your line of authority.

 

Haridasa Thakura replied, “My dear Lord, do not be in anxiety. Do not be unhappy to see the condition of the yavanas in material existence.

 

Purport: These words of Haridasa Thakura are just befitting a devotee who has dedicated his life and soul to the service of the Lord. When the Lord is unhappy because of the condition of the fallen souls, the devotee consoles Him, saying, “My dear Lord, do not be in anxiety.” This is service. Everyone should adopt the cause of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu to try to relieve Him from the anxiety He feels. This is actually service to the Lord. One who tries to relieve Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s anxiety for the fallen souls is certainly a most dear and confidential devotee of the Lord. To blaspheme such a devotee who is trying his best to spread the cult of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu is the greatest offense. One who does so is simply awaiting punishment for his envy. (Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Antya-lila 3.52)

 

Srila Prabhupada, in this age of seminars and high tech methods of communicating through varieties of media, the crying need for all of us to hear directly your divine instructions is becoming more and more urgent.

 

Please bless me that I can be an instrument to spread this understanding for the spiritual maintenance and the proliferation of your ISKCON, the only hope for suffering humanity.

 

Hare Krishna

 

Your humble servant,

 

Kesava Bharati Dasa Goswami