W hen Srila Prabhupada was offered some praise. Often he would say. Beauty is in the eyes of the Beholder. You are a beautiful person, that’s why you are seeing something good in me.
Once, at that time our temple was where the Chaitanya Exihibit is there now. And there were not so many local devotees. There were many devotees from different parts of the world. So Srila Prabhupada addressed us – He said “I am an elder Indian and you are young people from different countries. Why is there such a loving relationship between us. Because Srila Prabhupada was giving the response that he is old and your are young, there were cultural difference, material differences. But we loved Srila Prabhupada so much. And we knew that he loved us. And Srila Prabhupada said that because our relationship is not material. Because it is spiritual, that is why we have this relationship. Here we have devotees from Bengal, South India, South Asia, Malaysia, Africa, Latin America, North America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. There is such a close relationship. This is truth that the relationship is not material. Srila Prabhupada used to say this is my united nations of the SPIRITUAL WOOOORLD!. HARIBOL.
So we are very grateful that the Mayapur devotees are opening their hearts to receive these devotees from all over the world. Srila Prabhupada left us with a great service to finish the TOVP. And we are trying to simultaneously develop the Nawadvip Parikrama, although it is a much smaller project. So, we want to see Srila Prabhupada`s mission manifest.
It is said that, “a great person is seen by what his followers do, after he leaves”. As followers of Srila Prabhupada we want to see Srila Prabhupada`s visions manifest. And if anyone is considering themselves as my follower, I hope that will co-operate and be respectful to other vaishnavas. Also to try their level best to co-operate with all the other devotees that the vision of Srila Prabhupad is manifest.
Because we have a multiple guru system. We want to make the environment favourable to all gurus. And so the GBC gave some guidelines – what we should call a guru and what we shouldn`t call.
Except for Vyasa Puja, we should have Guru Puja in a non-public place. Some of you may have less disciples, some may have more. Any guru is the same in the eyes of Krishna in doing their service and their disciples. There is a saying that, “mad guru jagad guru” – so everyone feels like that. So we respect their sentiments.
Srila Prabhupad told me to make a certain number of disciples. I am over half way. So I have been trying to encourage my god-brothers to take up the responsibility. And I will continue to do that. And I will also be encouraging some disciples to take this responsibility.
So, I hope that everybody gets inspiration from this festival and tries to expand the movement of Srila Prabhupada. We are goshtianandis and we would like to see the number of devotees increase. But we also want that each devotee grows in their Krishna Consciousness.
So with these few words I would like to wish all the best to all of you.
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