Denver

The Absolute Truth is one. Amongst the tanks of intelligent society-philosophers, religionists, and transcendentalists-this is a universally accepted principle. And although seen from many angles of vision and understood in many degrees of completeness, there can be only one complete, of which everything in existence is but a part and parcel. All degrees of incompleteness are experienced due to a poor fund of knowledge from the inaccessibility of Absolute understanding to our limited material understanding.

So, as the Absolute is one, the real religion, the eternal service of the eternal Absolute Personality of Godhead cannot be a sectarian faith or relative understanding. There is one Supreme source of all emanations and all phenomenal and numinous existences are eternally related in an unbreakable tie of service to that Fountainhead of being.

In many places and in different times and circumstances, by the will of the Supreme Lord, the absolute world becomes manifest on this mundane plane. The absolute world, the abode of the Supreme Lord of all expansions, is a world where everything has the same purpose. The sky, trees, animals, inhabitants and the very land itself are all of the same eternal nature, and all are nondifferentially engaged in the service of the Lord. This transcendental truth appears differently to our limited designative understanding and is thus seen in many styles and creeds of sectarian conception. Nevertheless every living being, as part of the same complete whole, has the same natural function to fulfill. In relation with the Absolute all varieties of emanations are subordinate and therefore servants.

We have understood, then, that the original teacher or spiritual master is one. He is the Lord, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. As the primal source and master of everything, who but He can know of the real constitution of His energy? Therefore He is the original and the only teacher. When the Lord comes or sends His representative in the form of His son or servant, His message remains the same. But the path of service, by which one might approach Him, has been forgotten. Thus since time immemorial we have been lost within the maze of this material nature in different species as men, animals, demigods, plants, etc. Simply by hearing the messages coming down from the Absolute through the proper channels, this ignorance can be removed and our dormant service attitude can be completely revived.

In the beginning of creation, as the Lord released all living entities unto the supervision of this material nature, He also made provision so that they might return again to the spiritual world. It is explained in the revealed scriptures that He entrusted this knowledge to the first living being, Lord Brahma, with the command that he distribute it to his descendents, the inhabitants of the material nature.

Thus from one to another, from the beginning of creation, this supreme wisdom has been passed down from the saintly kings, sages, and teachers of the past into the modern age. Therefore, whoever has heard from the Absolute through this disciplic chain, and has molded his life to exemplify this knowledge, is the real guru, the representative of Krsna. And from him we must hear.

We can distinguish a self-realized Krsna consciousness man by the symptoms which he exhibits. In this way, we can be sure that we are hearing from the proper source. Krsna says in the Bhagavad-gita: "satatam kirtayanto mam…" "they are always engaged in chanting My glories…."

Therefore, just as a man who is sexually inclined speaks and acts always in relation with sex-life, so a man fixed in the Absolute Truth acts only for the Absolute. In everything that he does-his thinking, eating, speaking and in every movement-he is glorifying the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Such a man, 100% absorbed in Krsna Consciousness, is the real spiritual master.

On this auspicious day, seventy-eight years ago, such a rare soul appeared. This is the occasion upon which we are presenting this meager offering in a humble attempt to thank him for the message which he has preserved intact, teaching us by his example how to practically apply it. His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada is the modern representative of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, living now within our midst. He comes in a chain of spiritual masters and saints extending back to the first living being, Lord Brahma. In every action he performs he fully exhibits the symptoms of a man fixed in perfect knowledge. He speaks of nothing but the absolute, His body is 100% engaged in the service of the Absolute and he lives untinged by the relative world in which he appears. It is said that by a moment's association with such a person one can achieve the perfection for which we have searched thousands of lifetimes to find. We offer our most humble obeisances unto him.

ISKCON Denver