Vrndavana opening
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Imported quote 24090 Since one may easily achieve the highest success by chanting the holy name of the Lord, one may ask why there are so many Vedic ritualistic ceremonies and why people are attracted to them. This verse answers that question. As stated in Bhagavad-gita (15.15), vedais ca sarvair aham eva vedyaḥ: the real purpose of studying the Vedas is to approach the lotus feet of Lord Krsna. Unfortunately, unintelligent people bewildered by the grandeur of Vedic yajnas want to see gorgeous sacrifices performed. They want Vedic mantras chanted and huge amounts of money spent for such ceremonies. Sometimes we have to observe the Vedic ritualistic ceremonies to please such unintelligent men. Recently, when we established a large Krsna-Balarama temple in Vrndavana, we were obliged to have Vedic ceremonies enacted by brahmanas because the inhabitants of Vrndavana, especially the smarta-brahmanas, would not accept Europeans and Americans as bona fide brahmanas. Thus we had to engage brahmanas to perform costly yajnas. In spite of these yajnas, the members of our Society performed sahkirtana loudly with mrdahgas, and I considered the sahkirtana more important than the Vedic ritualistic ceremonies. Both the ceremonies and the sahkirtana were going on simultaneously. The ceremonies were meant for persons interested in Vedic rituals for elevation to heavenly planets (jaḍi-krta-matir madhu-puspitayam), whereas the sahkirtana was meant for pure devotees interested in pleasing the Supreme Personality of Godhead. We would simply have performed sahkirtana, but then the inhabitants of Vrndavana would not have taken the installation ceremony seriously. As explained here, the Vedic performances are meant for those whose intelligence has been dulled by the flowery language of the Vedas, which describe fruitive activities intended to elevate one to the higher planets.
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