Vyasa-puja offering to Srila Prabhupada 1986

Dear Srila Prabhupada,

Please accept my humble obeisances at your lotus feet.

When presenting Vyasa-puja offerings to you, it is natural to meditate on what you want. Love means selfless striving to fulfil the desires of the beloved. You have placed on your shoulders the burden of many magnificent goals. You have also delineated the basic ways and means that will achieve the goals, so transcendentally brilliant are you. The forceful clarity of your mission effectively blocks any route for an attentive disciple to speculate and spoil things. Yet we can become so much empowered by foolishness that we cannot see the forest for the trees. Either we turn the house topsy-turvy, or else we sleep soundly, mistaking the complacency of middle age for spiritual peace.

I like to remember one particular way you explained the oft-told story of the illiterate brahmana at Sri Ranga-ksetra. The spiritual master of the illiterate brahmana knew his disciple could not read, you said. Still he ordered the brahmana to read the Bhagavad-gita every day. The illiterate brahmana struggled daily to comply. Eventually Lord Caitanya came.

In a Madhya-lila purport to this pastime you write, “This is a good example of a person who became so successful he was able to capture the attention of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu even while reading Bhagavad-gita incorrectly. His spiritual activities did not depend on material things such as correct pronunciation. Rather, his success depended on strictly following the instructions of his spiritual master …. actually the meaning of the words of Bhagavad-gita or Srimad-Bhagavatam are revealed to one strictly following the words of the spiritual master. They are also revealed to one who has equal faith in the Supreme Personality of Godhead.”

Trying to be your servant,
Devamrita Swami