Offering reverential obeisance to you, Śrīla Prabhupāda, my eternal guide, preceptor and master, I offer also these heartfelt words on the occasion of your appearance celebration as Śrī Vyāsadeva’s very dear spiritual descendent and representative.

In my Vyāsa-pūjā offering to you last year, I attempted to express appreciation for your great confidence in the success of your mission, a confidence based on your deep faith in the order of your spiritual master and in all-powerful Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Now I wish to reflect further on this special quality you have exhibited, to better appreciate your greatness and thereby to grow in my own confidence in your service.

I recall a pithy statement by you in your purport to the introductory verse of the Śrī Īśopaniṣad: “All forms of incompleteness are experienced due to incomplete knowledge of the Complete Whole.” This sentence reverberates so deeply with your devotional conviction. I can understand from it that the inverse of this statement applies to yourself: You have complete knowledge of the Complete Whole, such that you do not experience any form of incompleteness. And because of such freedom from incompleteness, you are able to so powerfully bring us in the vicinity of the Complete Whole.

I say “in the vicinity” because one way I can appreciate the Complete Whole in terms of greatness and integrity of being is as a great mountain which one may approach and thereby feel its vibrant grandeur. I am reminded of Mount Govardhana, whom Lord Kṛṣṇa urged the Vraja-vāsīs to worship because it generously provided all needs for them and for their cows. Govardhana thus represented the “complete whole” for the Vraja-vāsīs, such that they could confidently embrace Lord Kṛṣṇa’s proposal to worship Govardhana rather than the demigod Indra. Indeed, as you have narrated in your book Kṛṣṇa—The Supreme Personality of Godhead, at one point Lord Kṛṣṇa, the Divine Cowherd Complete Whole, happily revealed Himself as Mount Govardhana.

You, Śrīla Prabhupāda, had a great longing to be in the vicinity of Mount Govardhana, as indicated by your wish to perform Govardhana parikramā just days prior to your tirobhāva-līlā. Thus I meditate on you being ever situated at the foot of Govardhana, inviting us to join you there in His service. Thinking of mountains in general as symbols of wholeness and completeness, I am also reminded that in China, where by your mercy I am sometimes able to visit and associate with your Chinese devotees, an ancient tradition identifies Five Sacred Mountains (in five different regions of China). These mountains are said to have been formed in prehistoric times by the body of a certain creator being known in Mandarin as ‘Pan Gu’ (suggesting a notion of a virāṭrūpa form of divinity). To me, what is significant about this is that the Chinese (Taoist) tradition says that each of us have within us Five Sacred Mountains.

You, Śrīla Prabhupāda, in your knowledge of the Lord’s completeness, have so kindly and confidently brought us to the proximity of these Five Sacred Mountains, who are none other than the five members of Śrī Pañca-tattva. You have awakened us to discover that Lord Caitanya and His associates, like grand mountains of noble completeness—each of them individually complete and collectively most complete—are situated in our hearts, inviting us to be in Their complete shelter. In Their proximity, we can very quickly and easily understand what is the Complete Whole—its grand and exalted nature, and especially its sweetness and joyfulness.

In this way, by your mercy, I may have a glimpse of what it means to experience completeness, as your eternal servant, and thus confidently be able to help others to discover the Complete Whole in the Five Great Mountains of Śrī Pañca-tattva.

Your aspiring servant,

Krishna Kshetra Swami