# Vyasa-Puja Festival, New Vrindaban, 1973 **Location:** New Vrindaban (1973) **Duration:** 82:03 <div class="video-container" style="position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%;"> <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-aD8yzE0Rrs" style="position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; pointer-events: auto; z-index: 10;" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> </div> [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aD8yzE0Rrs) --- ## Transcript **[02:21]** This ceremony... Of course, those who are my students, they know what is this ceremony. **[02:33]** Those who are visitors, for their information, I may inform you something about this ceremony. **[02:48]** Otherwise, it may not be misunderstood. A outsider may see it that **[03:04]** "Why a person is being worshiped like God?" There may be some doubt. **[03:15]** So this is the etiquette. This ceremony is called Vyasa-puja. Vyasa. **[03:32]** Vyasa means the original author of Vedic literature. He is incarnation of Narayana. **[03:44]** He gave us all Vedic knowledge. He received the knowledge from Narada. **[03:54]** Narada received the knowledge from Brahma. Brahma received the knowledge from Krsna. **[04:00]** So in this way, by disciplic succession, we get transcendental knowledge. **[04:12]** So Vyasadeva... Formerly, before Vyasadeva, say, five thousand years ago, **[04:25]** before that time there was no need of written literature. **[04:36]** People were so sharp in their memory that whatever they would hear **[04:44]** from the spiritual master they would remember for life. **[04:50]** The memory was so sharp. But in this age-it is called Kali-yuga-we are reducing our bodily strength, **[05:04]** our memory, power of memorizing, our feelings of sympathy for others, compassion, age, **[05:18]** duration of life, religious propensities. In this way, in this age we are reducing everything. **[05:31]** Every one of you can understand very easily. **[05:42]** Formerly if somebody is attacked by another man, many persons will come to help him: **[05:54]** "Why this man is attacked?" But at the present moment if one man is attacked, **[06:03]** the passersby will not care for it because they have lost their sympathy or mercifulness for others. **[06:11]** Our neighbor may starve, but we don't care for it. But formerly the sympathy for other living entities, **[06:25]** even for an ant... Just like Maharaja Pariksit, while he was touring on his kingdom, **[06:37]** he saw that one man was trying to kill a cow. Pariksit Maharaja saw. **[06:48]** Immediately he took his sword that "Who are you? You are killing a cow in my kingdom?" **[06:56]** Because the king is supposed, or the government is supposed to give everyone protection, **[07:06]** not that the government is meant for giving protection to the human being and not to the animals. **[07:16]** Because it is Kali-yuga, the government discriminates between two nationals. **[07:25]** National means one who has taken birth in the land. That is called national. **[07:33]** That is... You know, everyone. So the trees, they are also born in the land, **[07:44]** the aquatics also born in the land. The flies, the reptiles, the snakes, the birds, **[07:53]** the beasts, human beings-everyone is born in that land. **[07:59]** Suppose your land, America, United States... **[08:02]** Why the government should give protection to one class of living entities, rejecting others? **[08:12]** This means they have lost their sympathy for others. This is Kali-yuga. **[08:19]** Formerly, before Kali-yuga, unnecessarily even an ant would not be killed. Even an ant. **[08:30]** There are many instances that a hunter who was taking advantage of killing animals, **[08:44]** but when he became a devotee he was not prepared to kill even an ant. **[08:52]** So the Krsna consciousness movement is so nice that it makes a person perfect in everything: **[09:05]** perfect in knowledge, perfect in strength, perfect in age, everything. **[09:15]** We need so many things. So this perfection of life, the process how to make life perfect, **[09:27]** is coming down from Krsna. Krsna, He is the origin of everything. **[09:37]** Therefore the knowledge of perfection is also coming from Him, and periodically- **[09:49]** periodically means after millions and millions of years-Krsna comes. **[09:56]** He comes once in a day of Brahma. So Brahma's days, even one day, the span of one day, **[10:12]** it is very difficult to calculate. Sahasra-yuga-paryantam arhad yad brahmano viduh. **[10:21]** The Brahma's one day means about 433,000,000's of years. **[10:32]** So in each day of Brahma, Krsna comes, once in a day. **[10:40]** That means after a period of 433,000,000's of years He comes. Why? **[10:52]** To give perfect knowledge of life, how a human being should live to make his life perfect. **[11:01]** So the Bhagavad-gita is there, spoken by Krsna in this millennium, in this day. **[11:11]** Now Brahma's one day we are passing through the twenty-eighth millennium. **[11:24]** No, twenty- eighth... In Brahma's day there are seventy-one Manus, and one Manu lives for... **[11:34]** That is also many millions of years, seventy- two millenniums. **[11:39]** So we are not interested now about calculation the perfect knowledge. **[11:48]** This perfect knowledge comes from God, or Krsna, and it is distributed by parampara system, **[11:56]** by disciplic succession. The example is just there, a mango tree. **[12:03]** On the top of the mango tree there is a very ripened fruit, and that fruit has to be tasted. **[12:15]** So if I drop the fruit from up, it will be lost. Therefore it is handed over, after one, after one, after... **[12:27]** Then it comes down. So all Vedic process of knowledge is taking from the authority. **[12:35]** And it comes down through disciplic succession. Just like I have already explained, **[12:43]** Krsna gives the knowledge, perfect knowledge, to Brahma, **[12:49]** and Brahma gives the knowledge to Narada. Narada gives the knowledge to Vyasa. **[12:58]** Vyasa gives the knowledge to Madhvacarya. Madhvacarya gives the knowledge **[13:05]** to his disciplic succession, later on, to Madhavendra Puri. **[13:13]** Madhavendra Puri gives that knowledge to Isvara Puri. **[13:19]** Isvara Puri gives that knowledge to Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Lord Caitanya. **[13:27]** He delivers that knowledge to His immediate disciples, six Gosvamis. **[13:33]** The six Gosvamis delivers the knowledge to Srinivasa Acarya, Jiva Gosvami. **[13:41]** Then Kaviraja Gosvami, then Visvanatha Cakravarti, then Jagannatha dasa Babaji, **[13:50]** then Bhaktivinoda Thakura, then Gaura Kisora dasa Babaji Maharaja, **[13:55]** then my spiritual master, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati. **[13:59]** Then we are distributing the same knowledge. **[14:03]** Jaya Prabhupada! Haribol! **[14:09]** We don't manufacture knowledge, because how we can manufacture? **[14:15]** Perfect knowledge means I must be perfect. But I am not perfect. **[14:23]** Every one of us, when I was speaking, because... **[14:31]** We are not perfect because in our conditional life we have got four defects. **[14:38]** The first defect is that we commit mistake. Any one of us who are sitting here, **[14:48]** nobody can vouchsafe that he has not committed any mistake in life. **[14:54]** No, that is natural. "To err is human."