19820502 Vyāsa-pūjā homages offered by devotees

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The following are homages offered by devotees on the occasion of His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja’s Vyāsa-pūjā on May 2, 1982 – in Atlanta, USA.

What I can say to your I am very much privileged that I am here.

And I am giving my OBE to you.

Please accept that.

The importance of Yaspur today. Spiritual master in the light coming the light of the desire and how we are going to extend our spirit in the coming year. The spiritual master the ocean of mercy stand over for the Lord and Master the devotees. It is said that the spiritual master is the mercy incarnation of the Lord. When we look at Shaytarypad and beyond, we are looking at mercy for Psalm 5. Now what is the importance of celebrating disappearance date she was qualified put it very beautifully. He said adore ye all that blessed day blessed in heaven sweeter than name when he appeared at Purī, that holy place, our Lord and Master his divine grace. So when any one of us comes into the world, it is not a particularly wonderful event.

We are simply trapped in what could be an endless cycle of good and death. But when the spiritual master appears, it is very wonderful then because he had come to save us from that cycle. So this is a day for great jubilation and celebration. Spiritual master guides the disciple from the earliest days of his birth. In the Vedic culture there is the Gurukula and we also have Gurukula, the school of the spiritual master in which the young persons are trained these spiritual values. Spiritual master gives us our instructions on how to live from morning until night. Shiloh Prabhupāda instructed us how to live our daily lives exactly. He told us exactly what we should do and what we should not do. In Shriluche is now doing like ones.

So we are eternally indebted to this personality, this spiritual master who is teaching us how we may conduct our lives and how we become liberated from the cycle of broken death. Is that correct? Deep? The third thing is how we are going to expand our service. So for myself, I am a very lazy, sluggish person and I have been working at 50% capacity for the past seven years. So now I am going to try to work at 200% capacity and become a full time devotee in Atlanta and a full time devotee in Mariah Sabach. And I would like to tell you my dream that I have.

After.

There’s expression, it says there’s a wave of compassion spreads over a person. So in my dream, one of your disciples, how you find me and understanding and this beautiful wave with emotion, with curls, beautiful wave. And I said, oh look Haribani. It is really a characterized compassion coming forward towards us. And this ray came and swept around us and encircled us, first one and then the other. And I can only describe that this was the most wonderful sensation that I have ever had. I can only compare it perhaps to the satisfaction that a child feels when it is sitting in the lap of its mother. Please accept my.

Although I am a twice initiated disciple of Rla Prabhupda, I found that when Rla Prabhupāda left this planet, I’d only been initiated about slightly less than a year and a half. So I really didn’t understand Rla Prabhupāda. I had seen him a few times here, there, and I could understand some of his instruction in his books, but how to live them, that I didn’t know. So I was fortunate that by my travels, you know, throughout the United States, a little bit here and there, that I have been able to see a lot of my guru godbrothers. And I see that they have taken up what Rla Prabhupāda has left, that Rla Prabhupāda was pure and he was giving us Kṛṣṇa.

And so when Śrīla Prabhupāda left, I knew when some of my God sisters and godbrothers that weren’t so firm in their faith, they were wondering, well, what’s going to happen to this movement? Rla Prabhupāda is gone. What are we going to do? And I remember that I went to India. It was in 1978. It was right after Prabhupāda had left and the gurus were still waiting to take disciples. And it so happened that on Gor Purnim, that very eve was the first lunar eclipse since Lord Caitanya’s appearance day. It was like Lord Chaitanya, for those of you who don’t know, he appeared 500 years ago. And when he appeared, there was an eclipse. So everyone went to the Ganges and they were chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa in this way. It was a foretelling that the whole world would be chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa together.

Even the Mohammedans were chanting. So there india, after Rla Prabhupāda’s disappearance, just a few months later, were all there and went to the Ganges and were chanting and there was an eclipse. And I was thinking that now Rla Prabhupda has left us and it’s like an eclipse. So there’s a period of darkness for a while, but then the moon starts to come out again. And I realized that Rla Prabhupda was the great big moon, but he left us 11 moons, and now there are even more moons who are still giving us light. So for those of us who are initiated to Śrīla Prabhupāda, we have our God brothers who are gurus who can show us how to surrender to Kṛṣṇa. They have surrendered so much. And because they have surrendered so much, they can guide us along the path.

And for those of us who haven’t a spiritual master or are just getting a spiritual master because they’re the link in that chain which is unbroken, then by holding onto their lotus feet, we too can be connected to Rla Prabhupāda and to Kṛṣṇa and Lord Caitanya. And this is the meaning of Vyāsa Pūjā Day. We call it Vyāsa Pūjā because all the spiritual masters are connected to Vyāsa Day. So in this attempt of glorifying Rlajaya Pitaka Maharaj, we’re really stressing the need that every one of us has to become initiated to a spiritual master so that we can know Kṛṣṇa. We’re bound up in this material world by four defects. Our senses aren’t perfect. We can’t even see through the next wall. We’re subject to so many mistakes. We’re subject to illusion, not knowing what is truth and what is not truth.

And we also have the cheating propensity to try and be the teacher of something we don’t even know. But the guru, the spiritual master, is one who has risen beyond these defects. But how? Because he has accepted his guru and his guru has accepted his guru all the way back to Kṛṣṇa. By taking shelter of the lotus feet, we too become free from these defects and we can see our way out. So I am hoping that those of you here who have not accepted a spiritual master yet will be able to understand the need. And as one of the other personalities here who was speaking is saying it’s very difficult to do. But I know from my own experience that the more one associates with the words of the spiritual master, the more one will see that need.

And the more one chants the Hare Kṛṣṇa Mantra, that happy day will come when he will be able to actually pay his respects to his spiritual master and accept him fully in his life. Thank you very much.

Everyone here is a person. All of us are personalities. We all are residing in these. In these material bodies. So we have a father who’s responsible, the immediate cause of bringing this material body into this world. So I also have a father. And no one here, really, no one here knows who my father is. And no one will ever know anything about him unless I give them some information about his personal character, about his activities, about his residence, and different aspects of him. One may try to research these things, but it will be very difficult. Since he’s researching, he’s starting out without any clue or not even one clue. So it’d be very difficult to research this. The best thing to do is to accept the authority on the subject matter and hear from him and understand in this way.

So similarly, the remote cause of all creation, there’s a Father of all living beings. Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad Gītā, my Mahavaksa Jīva Lokhe Jīva Buddhas Anatana. He says that all living beings are eternally my parts and parcels, you see. And so no one can really understand about their father unless they’re hearing from a bona fide source, unless they’re hearing from the representative. Like no one here can understand anything about my father unless I tell them, because I am the son of my Father, so I know about him and I can speak to him, speak to someone about him. So similarly, we all have a Father, our Eternal Father. And unless we hear from the proper source, we won’t understand what is our relationship with him, what are his characteristics, what are his activities, where is his residence and his personality, etc.

So the spiritual master is a representative of Kṛṣṇa, and he’s come to remind us that we have a relationship with our Father, that we have a place in his place, we have activities to perform there in his service, and we’re meant to please him. Just like every day in the magazines and on television and the newspaper. Everyone is accepting authority. Everyone is accepting what they read in the newspaper as being the truth without any question. Everyone is accepting what they have seen on television. And they’re accepting so many things, they’re accepting the voice on the telephone to actually be the person that they think it is. So in this world, everyone has to accept some authority and everyone has to place his faith somewhere or other. Many people have their faith in things that’s simply detrimental to their well being. That’s just unfortunate.

But everyone has to place his faith somewhere. Everyone has to place him. It’s just like when you get out of the bed in the morning, you have faith that the floor will support your weight. It’s just simple. In every aspect of our lives, we have to accept some authority and we have to place our faith. So one who’s really interested and rising to the highest position and actually enjoying life and actually understanding what the purpose of life actually is and how all these things come about, this manifestation that we see around us. If one wants to know these questions in life, then he has to seek that authority who can give him that information which is beyond his sense perception. We all have senses, but there’s certain things that’s beyond the perception of our senses.

And as an example in our literature, for instance, the sun, when one can look directly at the sun and it will look the size of a quarter or 50 cent piece. So even by direct perception, that’s still faulty. But we can know from authoritative sources that the sun is a massive planet and is producing immense amounts of heat and light and traversing its orbit for millions and billions of years. But when we look at it looks like a small ball in the sky. So there’s knowledge that’s beyond our sense perception. And so we have to seek out that authoritative source that can give us knowledge that’s beyond our sense perception. And so, since we’re placing our faith in so many things day to day, we have to find that authoritative source, place our faith in him, hear from him and act on his instruction.

And in this way we can attain the highest goal, the perfection of life, which is love of Godhead. But one should not blindly accept the authority as being an authority. The word crya means one who teaches by example, by his own personal example. So I am saying that one should place his faith in an authoritative source. One should hear and one should act on his instruction. But it’s not a sentimental thing, it’s not a blind thing. This is not to be the spiritual master or the guru. It’s not just a fashionable thing, something that you carry around in your wallet and show to all your friends. Look, here’s my guru. There’s more. We’re eternal spirit souls. We’re eternal part and parcels of God. And our spiritual life is the actual real thing. This is the real thing, not some carbonated water.

Our spiritual life is the real thing. And when we start inquiring about our spiritual life and trying to find out about our relationship with God, this is a very serious thing, because we are eternal and our relationship with God is eternal. So this is actually the most serious, the most beneficial thing that we can do is find out the source of our creation. And what is our duty? What is our function in this world? And what happens when we leave this world? Where will we go? And what will be our function there? These are the serious questions. This is the essence in human life. We have rationale, we have Intelligence. And so this is the only thing that we have above the different species of life in the animal kingdom.

We have intelligence to inquire about our relationship with God, about the source of creation. So we must place our faith in a proper place. But we should not accept blindly. We should examine. The criterion is there. We should examine and we should understand. What is the qualification of one who can give me knowledge that’s beyond my sense perception. And when we understand those qualifications and when we see that personality exhibiting those qualities and living that lifestyle and speaking these words and never contradicting not another hypocrite, when we actually find that person, we should surrender to him and accept his words as the absolute truth and follow his order without any doubt or any questions in our mind. And in this way, our lives will become a success. But we’re accepting so many false authorities.

We’re accepting so much information from bogus sources that we found out five or 10 years later that was all wrong. It was a big force. So our spiritual life is the real thing, is the essence in life is actually a reality. All our endeavors to enjoy in this material world. It’s been spoken, all my God brothers and God uncles have spoken that this material world and all this activity is related to this material world. And everything related to this material body is only a temporary activity. But since I am not the material body, that means I have spiritual activities to perform. And so our senses are very limited. But I just want to emphasize that there’s knowledge that’s beyond our sense perception and mundane research and philosophical speculation. These things will.

It’s a very troublesome process to try to understand that the absolute truth about relative inquiry. Scientists are doing these things. They’re trying to understand things as beyond their capacity to understand. But there is, because no one else, because our friends never told us who we are and what is the purpose in life. And because our parents couldn’t give us any valid information. And because our teachers didn’t know anything. Everywhere we looked, no one knew anything. No one is acting. No one is acting like a spirit, soul. No one knows anything about our spiritual life and our relationship with God and the purpose of life. Since no one around us has told us these things. Sometimes a person can just become uninterested in the whole thing.

He just thinks that all religions and all processes of spiritual life are just, you know, it’s up to you, whatever you like. If it pleases you, then you should just do that. Whatever you like. If it feels good, then do it. That’s what they say, but our spiritual life is a very serious thing. And all those who are gathered here today can understand to some extent anyway that spiritual life is a reality and that it’s a necessity in our lives. And so we’re here today and everyone who’s come today is very fortunate. It’s a rare opportunity because Kṛṣṇa says out of many thousands among men one may endeavor for perfection. And of those who are endeavoring for perfection, one may know me in truth. So I have so many limitations personally.

But I like to be one of the ones who know Kṛṣṇa in truth. And so the only way I can do that is by surrendering to that personality who already knows Kṛṣṇa in truth. By hearing from him and accepting his words and following his instruction, then I can also come to know Kṛṣṇa in truth.

I am a disciple of Śrī Charipd and.

He accepted me at Rathal Yātrā last fall. And I feel most fortunate, most unworthy.

From having had his association. For these few days I have been trying.

To just in the most minute degree.

Understand and appreciate who this great enchantment person is. And I know that he is the.

Most intimate associate of Śrī Chaitanya Mahāprabhu.

And as Lord Caitanya was the most.

Merciful incarnation, he is the most merciful. I only pray that I may be.

Able to continue to serve you.

So much has been said already about the spiritual Master. I don’t think that I could actually elaborate too much more except to say that. All of us are actually searching for a perfect relationship and are always being let down. There’s so many routes back home to Godhead, but the Kṛṣṇa Consciousness movement is offering the direct route. It’s not a cheating process. It’s difficult, but it will get you back home to Godhead. I know for myself I had so many bad habits and was engaged in so much nonsense. Prior to my contact with the spiritual master, I frequently wanted to give up whatever bad habits I had. But even though I was strong minded, was not able to do this. Sometimes a person can give up certain bad habits, elicit behavior, but it’s usually just a temporary thing.

But by the potency of the spiritual master, a bona fide spiritual master, one can actually give these things up and can become completely happy and blissful and fulfilled. And for my own self this has become the case. My only request to those guests who have come tonight is to really search out your heart, look inward and really contemplate all the information that’s been passed on to you this evening. You’re actually very fortunate to be here in the presence of a pure devotee, this is like a rare experience. And it’s Kṛṣṇa’s arrangement that each and every one of you guests who are here are present here tonight. He’s actually giving you an opportunity to. To go back home, back to Godhead through the contact of a pure devotee, the bona fide spiritual master.

So.

I just pray that each and every one of you will just search out your heart and really consider the Kṛṣṇa Conscious process. It can actually make your life complete and full and happy. Jack.

Excuse me. I am a disciple of Shrilachari Dig. And it says in the Shriti Tenya Charitamrita that one should worship. Honor the Godbrother of your spiritual master as you’re instructing Guru. Spiritual master. I didn’t know I was going to speak tonight, but still I was. So I am doing this out of actually duty. Let me see. So one minute. Yeah, okay. Yes, I was. Anyway, one day, one incident occurred. I didn’t particularly like it that something happened. I was. I always take care of Shola charities.

Vyāsa.

Something happened and I didn’t like it. And I was trying to figure out, well, why should the Vyāsa sign be respected so forth and so on. It says in the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, no one should be allowed to sit on the Vyāsa sign. Who is not spotless in character, who is not free from the above mentioned vices. Those are illicit connection with women, animals, slaughter, intoxication, speculative art, speculative gambling of all sorts of. Like that. A ghostwami must be free from all these vices before he can dare sit on the Vyāsa sign. So we can see who’s sitting on the Vyāsa sign tonight. I keep wishing my mother was here because when I first joined the movement, she was saying, oh, you’re just going to give your money to some man, some guy. I said, I keep asking. Well, look, okay, all right.

So I am giving my money, say to some person. I am sitting, working, giving my life to some person. So you should see who that person is. Is he sitting back like some fat cat in a big mansion, so forth, smoking cigars like again, no, he’s giving his life, his soul to disseminate knowledge of Kṛṣṇa, the supreme personality of Godhead. Like this. I went to school so many years. Oh my goodness. And I ran all kinds of teachers and they were all big nonsenses. I mean, they sit there and they tell you all kinds of weird things about you know this, you know, 20th dimensions and so forth. And they’re sitting back smoking their cigars, so forth and so on like this. What do they know? What do they know about anything?

The spiritual master is the first one who smacks you in the face and says, look you nonsense.

Huh?

You’re not meant to know all this. What good is all this? You’re going to die. You’re not even this body. You’re thinking that you’re black, you’re thinking that you’re white, you’re thinking that you’re all these things, but you’re none of these things actually. You’re a pure spirit soul. You’re part of God now. Just wake up, try and figure it out and act like it. Don’t act like a fool. And he’s showing actually how to act. So that’s why he’s called Acharya teacher by example. So he’s giving his example. We’re asking everyone to look at that example.

And.

So people who are coming tonight, this is not just some sentimental program. The devotees that are speaking, they may not be so elegant in speaking, but this is not some sentimental thing. They’re actually fully understanding what they are doing with their lives. They’re actually understanding because they have studied. Don’t think they haven’t studied, don’t think they haven’t shopped around and looked. This is it. This is finally it. Finally, here we are. And if one engages in this process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness and surrenders to the spiritual master, you will find that you will have a life that’s full of knowledge, eternity and bliss even on this planet. The one thing that attracted me to this movement was Prabhupāda said in the place first issue of BTG that I got. One can experience an unending blissful kindness even in this lifetime like that.

So please try to understand what’s going on here. Read up a little bit, Ask Śrīlachari Dev and Śrīlacharipad some questions. Try to find out what’s going on. Is that three minutes?

I am always very good at speaking mundane things. It’s very hard to think how to or even say how to glorify the spiritual master with pure devotee. I only am praying for the mercy of your lotus feet and that you give me the strength to always take Kṛṣṇa consciousness and to bless our children that they be devotees of Kṛṣṇa and that maybe one day I will be qualified to be your disciple. Also.

This divine appearance in this material world for the deliverance of conditioned souls such as myself. God or Kṛṣṇa is simply God because he possesses to an unlimited degree knowledge, strength, renunciation, wisdom, beauty and so on. So actually there is nothing that we can possibly offer him. He has everything to an unlimited degree. And since he’s completely spiritual, he’s always expanding. It’s the nature of the material world to dwindle. We operate here in the material world under the law of diminishing returns. Then the spiritual world, everything is increasing. So what can we offer God or Kṛṣṇa? But the analogy is given. If there’s a rich, very rich personality. If you walked up to him and gave him, you know, $30, it wouldn’t be a big. He would just look at you and you know, ask you, well, what is this all about?

But if you simply bought a penny lollipop and gave it to his little kid and his kid grinned in delight and the father saw that would win him over, that would make him favorably disposed to you, not your $30, you know, whatever it is. So similarly, the spiritual master Ripda is a son of Kṛṣṇa. Not only that, he is a son who’s undertaken the responsibility of bringing others to Kṛṣṇa. So by our humble offering of ourselves to him and our giving ourselves to him so that he can mold our character, so that we can become befitting to re enter the spiritual world, he becomes pleased. And when he’s pleased in this way, Kṛṣṇa himself becomes pleased.

So it’s ludicrous to think that we can get to God simply on our own merit any more than its possibility of getting the affection of a millionaire by giving him 30 or $40. But if you try to satisfy the son of that millionaire, he’d be satisfied. So if we just take our times and find out what it is that the spiritual master is desiring and try to give him that, try to please him and satisfy him in that way God will become favorable to us. And in this way our life in this material world will come to an end and we can actually experience to an unlimited degree the happiness that we’re all searching for. The spiritual master, he’s not concerned with his own aggrandizement. What he simply wants is others to take this Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

It is stated in the Shastra all of the previous acharas actually desired this. And rla charjapad is directly in the line. Thus his desire is non different. So if we would just give our lives to him and let him turn us into instruments for propagating this God consciousness in this western world, he will become pleased. And thus Kṛṣṇa will become Pleased. So, personally, I am praying that someday I can awaken to that platform and bring some joy into the heart of Rla Char Yaapan. And I am praying that he. He will bestow this upon me. And I also hope that he has a very blissful Vyāsa pūjā this evening.

I simply want to thank you for being so sincere that you have taken the order of Śrīla Prabhupāda and carried it out fully by just giving your whole life to preaching the message of Lord Caitanya. And if it wasn’t for you and the other 10 gurus, we would be in a lot of trouble because it’s so hard for the conditioned soul to actually, you know, surrender 100% when for so many millions of births, we have been so conditioned. So all I’d like to do is thank you and just pray that somehow or other I could.

No.

I just pray that somehow or other I could stay and finally become purified enough and desirous enough to actually accept the mercy that Shila propheted is giving to us and that I could one day also please Śrīla Prabhupāda, as you’re already doing. Thank you.

Jai.

So we’re all very fortunate to be here tonight celebrating the divine appearance of Rla Charyapada. Śrīla Tripod appeared in these western countries. But he then, on the order of Rla Prabhupda, went to Bengal and has become citizen there. And he has done this to increase the preaching there. And he is carrying out Prabhupāda’s order of making Māyāpur known throughout the whole world preaching there. And now they have Bhagavad Gītā is in all the hotels and motels in Māyāpur like they have the Gideon Bible here in usa and he’s so kindly come back to these western countries to inspire us and to give those of you who do not have a spiritual master the chance to take initiation from him.

So we should all please beg the mercy of Rla Charipad today and every day that he may inspire us and help us in our devotional activities in life. Thank you.

Whenever I think of Rla Charipada, I think of a great giant just traversing the earth and chanting Haribo everywhere and making everyone enlivened and reminding everyone of Lord Caitanya. And it’s so inspiring for us here in the little Atlanta, Georgia to have a great personality like yourself to come and enliven us and show us how a disciple of Prabhupāda can Become. And your bold preaching is such an inspiration to every one of us that I too just want to thank you for kindly coming and letting us offer our humble respects at your lotus feet.

So I am very fortunate to be able to take part in this Kṛṣṇa Consciousness movement. And I’d like to offer my respectful obeisances into Śrī A Charipat to all my God uncles and God brothers. I am very fortunate and I’d like to also extend an invitation to everyone that’s present here to hear from a bona fide spiritual master in Acharya. Because he is qualified and he’s bona fide. He can help us to dissipate the illusion of ignorance that we’re experiencing in this material world. This is a very attractive verse for me because I felt myself to be in deep ignorance and it was like there was no hope. But seeing that the qualities of the pure devotees, I was very much attracted. So I became attracted simply by hearing and of course beside him.

So we’re inviting everyone to take part and come take some Prasadam and hear from the Crya. Because just like time and time again we experience doing Sankirtan that so many people, they due to not having any information or any understanding of what we’re doing, they take shelter of their misconceptions and the speculations of others. So this is because of ignorance. And because of this ignorance they have some suspicion, some doubt. So this suspicion and doubt can be cleared up simply by hearing our side, hearing the opinion, hearing our side of the story. So we’re simply asking that everyone.

Lend.

An ear, so to speak, and hear from the bona fide spiritual mass. And all doubts, all Luke, all illusions, all misconceptions, all speculations can be cleared up. Because hearing is evidence. That’s why the High Court judge His business is to hear. And from his hearing and from the knowledge he’s acquired from his study of the law, he can ascertain what’s the truth. So everything has its symptoms. So the symptoms of a bona fide spiritual master is given. He’s very attached to Kṛṣṇa. He’s always glorifying Kṛṣṇa. His only business is to serve Kṛṣṇa. Mind, body, heart, soul, and like this. So if were to examine, we would find these qualities present in the Acharya Śrīlacharya. And we’re just asking everyone to take the time and opportunity to hear and inquire. Inquiry is very important because one is inquiring.

This will help to dissipate his doubt or his misunderstandings or his illusions. So we’re very fortunate to be here today and I myself personally am very thankful that Chula Charipat has appeared here to enliven me and to help to readjust my focus, my aim so that I can again traverse the spiritual path and it’s very nice. So we’d like for everyone to take the opportunity hear from here, hear from him to be submissively render service unto him because this is the way that one can please Kṛṣṇa especially since spiritual master is representing Kṛṣṇa just like it’s been stated one cannot please Kṛṣṇa directly but by pleasing Kṛṣṇa’s son Kṛṣṇa becomes very pleased. So we’d like for everyone to take the opportunity to understand more about this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement to help spread this movement because it’s very important. Thank you very much.

I like it very much if you would accept my most insignificant obeyances at your Lord’s feet and I just want.

To say that I am very pleased and.

Very grateful to have the association of Ka’s pure devotee Thai Kṛṣṇa.

Sa.