Dear Srila Prabhupada,
Please accept my humble obeisances at your transcendental lotus feet.
This year the entire world is celebrating your 127th Vyasa Puja, dear Srila Prabhupada. And rightly so because you have made an extraordiary impact on every devotees life. In their 127th Vyasa Puja offering to you Srila Prabhupada Your disciples, sannyasis, senior devotees have spoken in detail about your transcendental qualities and how you have transformed the lives of so many people.
As a pure devotee of Krishna, you are full of transcendental qualities, and we can learn so many lessons from your life.
Clarity about the goal
One of your greatest qualities, dear Srila Prabhupada, was that you had complete clarity about your life’s goal. Your life’s mission was to fulfil the instructions of your spiritual master. His instruction to you was to flood the world with Krishna Consciousness and make every citizen of this world a devotee of Krishna.
And without worrying about success or failure, you dedicated your entire life in spreading Krishna Consciousness.
You worked hard enthusiastically and had complete faith in the orders of your guru. With patience and determination, you kept on pursuing your mission. And again and again you prayed to the Lord that he bestows his mercy on the suffering souls.
Also, you knew that only by the causeless mercy of Krishna, you will succeed in your mission of spreading the glories of Krishna all over the world.
“Only by Your causeless mercy will my words become pure. I am sure that when this transcendental message penetrates their hearts, they will certainly feel engladdened and thus become liberated from all unhappy conditions of life. I am just like a puppet in Your hands. So if You have brought me here to dance, then make me dance, make me dance, O Lord, make me dance as You like.” Mārkine Bhāgavata-dharma
The most important reason why you made this the mission of your life is because you had great compassion in your heart. Your heart could not tolerate seeing the plight of the suffering souls.
As Prahlada you wanted to deliver all the people of this world who are caught up in this repeated cycle of birth and death.
In this world everyone suffers – some know about this, and some do not know about this.
Why we suffer here?
We suffer only because our consciousness is material, and we are convinced that by trying to enjoy this material world by our senses, we will experience happiness and will succeed in solving all our problems.
Just like a drug addict believes that taking another dose of drug will give him a kick or relieve him from the pain which he is undergoing, similarly, we think that another dose of sense enjoyment will give us a kick and relief from different sufferings.
As long as we have this mindset, we will never experience happiness in our life.
But unfortunately, almost everyone is mad after sense enjoyment. It does not matter whether one believes in God or does not believe in God, everyone is looking for carnal pleasure.
An atheist tries to enjoy this world by keeping God aside. Whereas a theist tries to enjoy this world by seeking God’s help. So, we see people thronging temples to pray to the Lord to fulfill their wishes. They are ready to go anywhere where they think their material desires can be fulfilled.
They stand in front of different demigods requesting them to give in to their demands. Not just that if such people come to know about some baba who gives benedictions which works then they go there too.
But in spite of all this endeavor, we see that we continue to suffer. Sometimes we get temporary relief from suffering but soon some new suffering pops up. And our mind always remains in constant anxiety.
And honestly speaking no one knows how to get complete relief from all the sufferings.
But you gave us a process following which we can lead a life free from all sufferings.
Why we always remain disturbed?
Your message has totally revolutionized the thought process of the people. Before reading your books or hearing your lectures, we did not even know that we were suffering. And even if we knew we are suffering, we did not know the solution for our suffering.
You made us understand that things of this material world do not have the potential to give us lasting happiness. Why? Because we are not material beings, but we are spiritual beings. We are spirit souls sitting within our material body or we can say that we are spirit souls bound within this material body.
True, this material body needs care. Just like the driver of a car takes care of the car but he is aware that he is not the car. Similarly, we the drivers of this material body should nicely take care of this body understanding that we are not this body.
As spiritual beings our needs, wants and desires are best taken care spiritually and not materially. But if we continue seeking pleasure from this world then we will always remain dissatisfied. All this wrong understanding which we have developed should be give up.
How anything material makes us miserable?
We are spirit souls and if we want to be happy then we should understand that this world is not going to give us any pleasure. Things are not going to give us pleasure. Material relationships are not going to give us any pleasure. Because they come and go.
People whom we love may leave us and go. And we just helplessly watch. Sometimes death may take them away from us and sometimes they do not want to be with us anymore.
Parents spend most important period of their life in taking care of their children. But when the children grow, they leave the parents.
A husband may love his wife, but the wife may decide to leave the husband to be with someone else. Or vice versa.
People find solace in money. But they always remain in anxiety of losing the money. People who are rich or famous are always fearful of losing their fame. A person in a high position is always fearful of people around him because at any moment they may rebel and take away his position.
So, no matter how best we try, as long as we think that this world is going to give us pleasure we will remain in pain.
So, what is the solution? The solution is to understand who we are and accordingly we should act. We need to redirect our life’s goal from material to spiritual. As souls, our needs are spiritual and not material.
How to be happy in this world too?
You taught us that as souls, we belong to Krishna. When we water the roots of a tree then everything associated with the tree – leaves, flowers, fruits, twigs, stem – get nourished. Similarly, when we serve Krishna, the root of the entire creation, then we as the parts and parcels of Krishna also feel completely satisfied.
With all our senses and mind, we should continuously render service to Krishna. Our life should be so planned that everything we do should be centered around Krishna.
We should live for Krishna, work for Krishna and be ready to die for Krishna. Sorry, we actually never die. But we just change our bodies. And in this world based on our karma we are given different bodies.
Its not that we have to continue to be in this material world. We can even go back to the spiritual world and live with Krishna forever. And if we completely dedicate our life to Krishna then even in this world we do not suffer. We can be happy here by constantly serving Krishna.
On your 127th Vyasa Puja, I beg Srila Prabhupada for your mercy so that I can give up all material attachments and develop attachment to your lotus feet and your divine instructions.
Your eternal servant
Purushottam Nitai Das
