Vyasa-puja Festival — New Vrindaban, 1973

Subtitles

[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.”