VYASA PUJA 2013

 Dear Srila Prabhupada.

Please accept my humble obeisances at your lotus feet.

This year we were asked to share some recollections of your dealings with children, some stories. When I put mind to the task I realized that actually, in your eyes, we were all children, your boys and girls. 

 How did you deal with us? You empowered us. You trusted us, American, Canadian, European boys and girls, you placed your guru Maharaja’s mission in our hands. Your trust is what gave us strength. While outwardly being as lenient as we needed, with your love, you trapped us into wanting to do what would please you most: full surrender, body, mind and spirit in Krishna’s service. No time to waste, why not give this one life to Krishna, we had already spent so many lives trying to be the enjoyer. 

You empowered your boys and girls to a level that can only be maintained by your mercy. We have to remind each other how this empowerment is still available to us, if we only take shelter of your vani and keep on inquiring submissively, through your books and the following of your instructions. This is your power; this is your eternal compassion. 

With the advancement of technology, it can be so easy to side step the submission in inquiry, to use your words as weapons to prove a point, usually our point. Search Prabhupada on … any subject, pick and choose the quotes and you can have a full arsenal to bring down your opponent. This has little to do with the association that will uplift us, the main thing that becomes elevated through this process is our pride. This may be tad vidhi pani patrena but the pariprasnena sevaya cannot be underestimated.

Every year I ponder on a vyasa puja offering.  What do I have to offer? I repeatedly offer you my life, a life which truthfully has not belonged to me. The disciple’s life is the instrument of the spiritual master for achieving his mission just as your life was the instrument of your spiritual master… 

Today at your feet stands a thief, begging for forgiveness as I proceed to once again offer you what I have, once again, stolen as I stubbornly remained accustomed to call it “my” life.

Srila Prabhupada, I would like to thank you for something very big and important which you left us. I never before realized its importance to the degree I do today. 

I had the good fortune of sharing prasad and kirtan with a few god-sisters and other advanced vaisnavis recently. At least half of us were, are facing difficult life challenges: responsibilities, attachments, disease, old age, mortality. All smiled and embraced the opportunities for greater surrender, realizations and more meaningful prayers as they go about their day, sometimes cringing with pain while repeatedly reaching out to you, to Radha Madhava for help, for spiritual strength. There was such strength and love in the room, support for each other’s surrendering process and prayers. We had an ecstatic kirtan. It was most powerful association. 

I also recently met others who refuse the shelter of your society and saw what they have to endure when similar hard challenges face them. It is like night and day, on one side, serenity, love and shelter and the other side, anger, solitude, defiance and struggle. I want to thank you for your foresight in creating this society, a society meant to increase each other’s Krishna consciousness. We may not realize in our day to day life the wealth we have in each other’s association.

This sanga is available by your mercy. It is beyond what had ever been done before. You have created this very necessary forum for us, for all who want to have it. You did not create maths that only serve brahmacaris and sannyasis but worldwide communities of devotees who can assist each other on the path back to Godhead regardless of varna and ashram. You brought life to Mahaprabhu’s teachings focusing on our eternal nature of spirit soul.

kiba vipra, kiba nyasi, sudra kene naya

yei krsna-tattva-vetta, sei 'guru' haya

Your house is big enough for all. When you treat us as spirit souls, our tendency is to behave on that platform, not the body. I pray that we do not lose focus and stray away from your vision and the sanga structure you have created for us and that we also learn to treat others with a fraction of the compassion you showed your boys and girls, seeing each other as entrapped suffering spirit souls, just as you saw us.

I beg of you to forgive me for all offences and consider blessing this unqualified fool with guidance from within so that I can complete this life having learned to serve guru and Krishna with all my heart, 24 hours a day, conquering the demands of the mind and body – eating, sleeping, mating and defending – as you did so gracefully.  

I want you to be able to introduce me to Lord Caitanya with the pride of a father, being satisfied that I have lived your instructions, that I have attained the goal of life, pure guru bhakti and Krishna prema.  This is my offering. Kindly guide me to achieve it, sooner than later so that I can be a more powerful instrument in your loving hands.

Ys Yasomati dd