ISKCON—Boulder

Dear Srila Prabhupada,

jaya om visnu-pada paramahamsa parivrajakacarya astottara-sata sri srimad bhaktivedanta gosvami prabhupada . … Divine master and eternal well-wishing friend. …

On this cherished day of Vyas Pūja, all glories are unto you, O Srila Prabhupada, for you are the bestower of the divine wisdom of bhakti, the wonderful message of Lord Caitanya, to all entities.

You are just like a suka, for just as this parrot bird enhances the flavor of the nectarean juice of the fruit, similarly, you, by your infinite mercy, have given all peoples the liquid nectar of the Srimad-Bhagavatam, in such a way that juice can be tasted by all who drink the sabda or transcendental sound.

As you have said of your Guru Maharaja, Sri Srimad Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, most beloved of souls, "He lives forever by His Divine Instructions, and the follower lives with Him." So also, anyone who drinks of the nectar of your message finds eternal life full of bliss and perfect knowledge.

You are the supreme intelligent person, paramahamsa, and like a swan who extracts milk from an ocean of water, you succor nectar essence from the flowery Vedic wisdom and give us the real story of God, our relation to Him, and our duty in this rare gift of human life.

As you have purported in Srimad-Bhagavatam, the Vedic cream, the Vedas are to be compared with the desire tree, since they contain all things knowable by the human being both for mundane necessities as well as spiritual realization. The Vedas contain regulated principles of knowledge in all spheres (social, political, medical, military, metaphysical, etc.), and beyond this there is the scientific process for spiritual realization, the highest level being the realization of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna, as the reservoir of all rasas or relationships. The essence of all relationship is love, and this love is originally a natural spiritual exchange between. the living being and Krsna, the supreme spiritual being. So, the Vedic principles are to help us come to an understanding of Krsna and our eternal relationship to Him. The Lord Himself says that the purport of the Vedas is to understand Him.

All anxiety and frustration in human society are due to lack of spiritual understanding. When a living being forgets his relationship with the supreme spiritual whole, he develops a taste for enjoying his illusory independence. But this taste for independent pleasure is never satiated because the eternal blissful living being can never be satisfied by a temporary miserable condition of life. As you have explained in Bhagavad-gita, material attachment is experienced by one of three ways: negligence of spiritual life, fear of a spiritual personal identity, or the concept of void that underlies the frustration of material life. To free oneself from these three attachments, we have to find shelter of the Lord and, guided by the bona fide spiritual master, follow the penances of regulative principles. Under the guidance of the spiritual master who is expert in engaging everyone in bhakti, or transcendental devotional service to the Supreme Lord, we can develop a taste for hearing about Krsna. Gradually, through service and surrender, we can develop attachment for the Lord, and mature attachment will blossom as bhava, eventually flowering into prema, or pure love of God. In this stage we will see Krsna face to face, and being fixed in samadhi, spiritual trance, our hankering soul will be satisfied by the perfect scientific process of perfect devotional service.

This scientific process has been so simply and tastefully arranged by you that all we have to do is drink the nectar essence of your heart and soul, and simultaneously we will lose our taste for anything else. Trying to enjoy the taste of our temporary material arrangements has conditioned us to accept the bitter as sweetness. We have forgotten the real sweetness of our loving relationship to the Lord. But you have so kindly, out of your causeless mercy, given us the fuel to reignite the spiritual light of perfect knowledge. This fuel is chanting the holy names of the Lord, the maha-mantra: Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare/Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. All glories to this highest welfare remedy for all diseased and miserable souls lost in this dangerous ocean of Kali. You have given us the divine dispensation and asked us to simply chant. Glorify always the Lord and His potency through the holy names. Anyone who submissively hears this river of liquid nectar and drinks of the sound will attain eternal life in the kingdom of God, which is far beyond this miserable kingdom of death, birth, old age and disease. This chanting process, when enriched with bhakti, loving service, can excite superexcellent unalloyed love for God and thus rid the conditioned soul of the gross and subtle coils which keep him in material entanglement.

Senses are an eternal quality of each individual living entity, and Krsna is the supreme proprietor of the senses, or Hrsikesa. Originally, it is the nature of the senses to be actively in service for the transcendental pleasure of the Supreme Lord, but when the senses are engaged for the self-centered pleasure of the minute individual soul, Krsna awards the fallen soul the facility for limited sense gratification. Thus the living being becomes captivated by the external potency of the Lord and has to undergo a purification process to rid his heart of the knot of self-centered egoism-the material disease.

This purification process meant for reviving our natural spiritual consciousness is the superexcellent mode of bhakti-yoga and is the only means of cutting the knot of material entanglement. This service attitude is implanted by the grace of the Lord in the form of the bhagavatas. By being situated in service to the bhagavatas we can become candidates for transcendental loving service-and, as is said by Krsna in Brahma-samhita, "Loving devotion-than whom there is no superior well-being who goes hand in hand with the attainment of the exclusive state of supreme bliss, and who can lead to Myself.,"

Since the devotee bhagavata is a direct representative of the Supreme Lord, by rendering service unto him with sincere submission we gradually become fixed in devotional service. Thus, being favorably situated in such service by the grace of the Lord's representative, and merely by that service alone being fully satisfied, we can overcome any hankerings for material sense activity. It is by the mercy of you, Srila Prabhupada, that we can reattain our natural constitutional position and become brahma-bhūta, or self-satisfied. In all the three worlds, only your grace can save us from this kingdom of darkness. You are the torchlight of knowledge, and your perfect endeavors for the supreme satisfaction of Krsna are automatically benefiting all peoples for all time.

As a pure devotee in the line of disciplic chain from the Lord Himself, you are always engaged in activity following your beloved Guru Maharaja on the path of the previous acaryas. By engaging your ears in hearing, your tongue in chanting, your mind in remembering the pastimes of Krsna, your body in service, you are setting the supreme example of cultivation of Krsna consciousness. By such devotional service you are giving the highest benediction to all humanity in the mode of transcendental loving service.

On this day of your Vyas Pūja, all glories to you, Prabhupada, for by your mercy all entities can partake of the nectar of hearing, chanting and remembering the glories of the Supreme Lord. You are giving the priceless gift to all entities-the beautiful gift of bhakti-vedanta.

It is only by your grace that we can ever hope to be situated in the relishable supermost life of bhakti-rasa, and being so situated is the only way, the only way, the only way to come to the transcendental platform of love of God.

On this day may we all join together with our desire as one, offering our most sincere and humble obeisances unto your divine lotus feet and begging to remain your most unworthy servants birth after birth after birth.

"By the mercy of the spiritual master one is benedicted by the mercy of Krsna. Without the grace of the spiritual master no one can make any advancement. Therefore I should always remember my spiritual master. At least three times a day I should offer my respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of my spiritual master."

All glories to you, Srila Prabhupada!'

ISKCON-Boulder