Vyāsa-pūjā Lecture 1992

The Meaning of Vyāsa-pūjā

First I would like to thank my godbrothers, Bhakti Vighna Pūrṇa Swami and Jananivāsa Prabhu, for encouraging and enlivening my only disciple who is present here in Mayapur. In fact, up to now I had been successful in avoiding this event. For the last three or four years I have been here in Mayapur at this time and have spent this day very peacefully, without causing any disturbance in the Gurukula. But this time one of my disciples is here and he has caught me. Caitanya-maṅgala dāsa comes from Poland and has been staying here for quite some time, serving on the Māyāpur project as a designer. He has just completed architectural school, and is now using his knowledge in the service of Lord Caitanya and Śrīla Prabhupāda.

There is a certain prayer of Prahlāda Mahārāja offered to Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva:

evam janam nipatitam prabhavāhi-kupe
kāmābikāmam anu yaḥ prapatan prasangat
kṛtvātmasāt surarṣiṇā bhagavan gṛhītaḥ
so ’ham kathaṁ nu visṛje tava bhṛtya-sevām

“My dear Lord – evam janaṁ nipatitam – I have fallen into a blind well full of snakes – ahi-kupe – by following the general mass of people. Kāma-vikāma – due to association with my material desires I have fallen into the darkest regions of existence. But – kṛtvātmasāt surarṣiṇā – a great ṛṣi, namely Nārada Muni, has pulled me out of that well. Therefore – so ’ham kathaṁ nu visṛje tava bhṛtya-sevām – how could I ever abandon the service of that wonderful person, Nārada Muni?”

He spoke this to Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, who was offering him so many blessings. Prahlāda Mahārāja remembered: “My first duty is to serve my spiritual master, Nārada Muni. He saved me from that well of material existence.”

Thus this ceremony is in fact the worship of Vyāsa. Śrīla Prabhupāda explained in his Vyāsa-pūjā offering to his spiritual master in 1946 that, in a certain sense, the guru is one, because the message of the guru is one. The guru, the spiritual master, represents Kṛṣṇa, and in particular Śrīla Vyāsadeva, who is an incarnation of Kṛṣṇa propagating Kṛṣṇa’s message in this world. Therefore this ceremony is the worship of Vyāsadeva, and the spiritual master is the representative of Vyāsadeva for his disciples.

So this is a duty, a system, that the disciple must offer his worship to the spiritual master on this occasion, because the spiritual master accepts this worship and passes it on to Kṛṣṇa through his own spiritual master. And what is the mentality of the spiritual master, what does he think when he receives such worship? He thinks like Prahlāda Mahārāja. He feels that for himself this event has the purpose of increasing his sense of indebtedness to his own spiritual master.

This is how I am thinking. Before I came into contact with the devotees of Kṛṣṇa – the Vaiṣṇavas – and received the mercy of Śrīla Prabhupāda, practically speaking I had nothing to do with spiritual life. My only qualification was that I was spiritually starved. And due to our misfortune we did not have very much association with Śrīla Prabhupāda. He left this world very quickly, and I feel a certain regret that we did not take better advantage of his presence.

And we ask ourselves how it is that now we ourselves are in this position, receiving Vyāsa-pūjā offerings which, as is obvious to us, are actually meant for Śrīla Prabhupāda, the founder-ācārya of the International Society for Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. We can only come to the conclusion that it is the desire of Śrīla Prabhupāda that we become very serious in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Ultimately, when someone is given the responsibility of accepting disciples and training them in spiritual life, there is no other choice – one must become very serious and follow in the footsteps of one’s own spiritual master.

I have also been thinking of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s desire – if I remember correctly – that there be 100,000 spiritual masters preaching all over the world. And in this connection our situation here in Mayapur, in the Gurukula village, is very significant. This is guru-kula – the place of the guru. The business of the guru is to train disciples. For what purpose? So that they themselves may go back to Godhead and also take others back to Godhead.

So everyone in the Gurukula – all the residents of the Gurukula – should feel this obligation to take advantage of the mercy they are receiving from Śrīla Prabhupāda, and that all of us may become qualified, in a certain sense, to become gurus and carry forward the message of Caitanya Mahāprabhu, giving others the opportunity to go back home, back to Godhead. That is the whole idea of gurukula.

When one is young in devotional service and spiritual life, it is like being a very small child who does not properly appreciate one’s father and how much he is doing for the child. When we are small, the father takes so much care of us, works so hard, makes arrangements to provide us with education. Only later, when we grow up, do we begin to appreciate this.

So I feel myself in a similar situation – that gradually, under pressure, through the insistence of Śrīla Prabhupāda, I am getting the opportunity to grow up in spiritual life, and through this maturing I can begin to appreciate my own spiritual master, Oṁ Viṣṇupāda Paramahaṁsa Svāmī Prabhupāda ki jaya!!!

So again I would like to thank all of you for having been so kind to me.