Lectures by Srila Bhaktivedanta Narayana Maharaja:
Installation of a Divine Murti
[The installation of the murti
(live statue, or worshipful transcendental form or deity)
of Parama-pujyapada Srila Bhaktivedanta Vamana Maharaja
on March 14, 2006 in Navadvipa, India]
Vyasa is the personality who delineated the glories of the
name, form, qualities, and pastimes of Bhagavan in this world. The
ceremony to honour the acarya who, sitting on a throne in the
service of Bhagavan, preaches His glories and attracts people toward
him is called Vyasa-puja. Another name for Vyasa-puja is
guru-puja. In India, the general convention is that guru-puja
os pbserved on the day of Guru-purnima.. It is considered Vyasa
appearance day, and on that day all sampradayas worship their
respective gurus. But in accordance with the scriptures, the primary
acarya of modern times, Sri Srimad Bhaktisiddhanta Sarsvati
Gosvami Prabhupada, established special worship of the guru on
that guru’s own specific appearance day. Real guru-puja
is when on his appearance day, the guru worships his whole
guru-parampara and instructs his disciples on how to do the same.
In the scriptures, the glories of the guru have been described
extensively. Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura has written:
Yasya prasadad bhagavat-prasado Yasyaprasadan na gatih kuto ‘pi
By the mercy of the guru, one receives the mercy of
Bhagavan. And if one doesn’t receive the mercy of the guru, he will
never attain the krpa of Bagavan. In the Srimad-Bhagavatam
(11.17.27), Sri Krsna says:
Acaryam mam vijaniyan nvamanyeta karhicit
na martya-buddhyasuyeta
sarva-deva-mayo guruh
“One should know the guru as the asraya-vigraha and
non-different from Me. One should never disrespect him or attribute
faults to him by perceiving him with material vision, for he is the
embodiment of all the demigods.”
There are numerous demigods and goddesses, and amongst them Brahma,
Visnu and Mahesa are primary. The guru is the embodiment of
Brahma, the embodiment of Visnu, and also the embodiment of Mahesa.
He is compared to Brahma because just as Brahma creates this world.
The guru creates bhakti by sowing the seed of devotion in our
hearts. Visnu is the maintainer, and Gurudeva is he who maintains our
bhakti. As long as we haven’t attained the stage of prema,
he continues to strengthen our devotion. As conditioned souls, we
cannot even imagine how much endeavour he makes for even one
disciple. And as Mahesa is the destroyer, the guru destroys
all of our anarthas and aparadhas. This is why the
guru is said to be the embodiment of all the demigods.
There are so many jives in this world, and although some are inclined
towards Bhagavan, most are averse to Him. Their instrinsic forms are
as eternal servants of Krsna, but forgetting this, they are wandering
in material existence. Without bhakti they will never possess
any auspiciousness. Therefore sometimes Krsna Himself descends into
this world, sometimes He assumes different incarnations, and sometimes
He sends His sakti in the form of the guru. Otherwise it
would be impossible for the jivas to ever receive auspiciousness.
Only by bhakti can they attain their ultimate good fortune; yet
bhakti is not a thing of this world. Inside the eternally
perfected associates of Krsna, the essence of the samvit and
hladini saktis is always present in the form of prema-bhakti.
Until the jiva receives that essence, he will not possess any
real auspiciousness. The guru is a resident of the spiritual world,
and he descends into this world. He brings the prema of
Goloka-Vraja to this world and bestows it upon the conditioned souls.
Such a great personality, and eternally perfected ragatmika
devotee who possesses Vraja-prema and brings it to this world,
is known as a suddha-guru.
As the current of the Ganga carries water from the Himalayas down to
the ocean, there is a current flowing through our guru-parampara
which, beginning from Krsna Himself, has come down to the modern
acaryas and is presently flooding the entire material world with
Krsna-prema. This is the primary function of the guru. If
someone is not able to give this prema then he is not really a guru at
all. Being capable of bestowing Krsna-prema is the primary attribute
of a genuine Vaisnava guru.
Today is the appearance day of such a guru, Sri Srimad
Bhaktivedanta Vamana Maharaja, who serves as the president acarya of
the Sri Gauudiya Vedanta Samiti. He took birth in 1916 in the district
of Jessore in East Bengal, which is now Bangaladesh. His boyhood name
was Santosa, and his paternal uncle was one of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta
Prabhupada’s first disciples, Nrsimha Maharaja. Vamana Maharaja’s
mother was also a disciple of Prabhupada, and she was very strict; she
would even discipline her husband. If her husband had been eating any
prohibited food, she would not allow him to enter the house, and she
disciplined the children in the same manner. Vamana Maharaja was the
oldest of her four sons, and she was very concerned about him being
influenced by his father. So when Vamana Maharaja was only nine years
old, she took him to Prabhupadas’s matha in Mayapura where
Nrsimha Maharaja was already staying. When they arrived there,
Nrsimha Maharaja led them to our gurudeva, Srila bhakti
Prajnana Kesava Maharaja, who was the temple commander at that time.
Residing in the matha from that day on, Vamana Maharaja
received Harinama initiation directly from Prabhupada and has
remained a lifelong naistika-brahmacari.
Our Guru Maharaja immediately put Vamana Maharaja in school and would
say to him, “I will give you some chocolate if you will recite just
one sloka for me.” In this way he learned many slokas, and
gurudeva was always extremely affectionate to him. At that young age
Vamana Maharaja learned how to seat Vaisnavas for taking prasada
by giving the a leaf to eat from and some salt and water. And after
all the Vaisnavas were finished taking prasada, he would clean
everything.He also learned how to cook there, and he could very
quickly prepare first-class offerings.
After some time Prabhupada departed from this world, and then our Guru
Maharaja established the Gaudiya Vedanta Samiti in l943. I joined the
mission in 1946, and at that time I saw how Vamana Maharaja was doing
everything; writing letters, managing the temple, cooking, and
travelling for preaching. Together with my godbrother Srila
Trivikrama Maharaja, we received sannyasa from Guru Maharaja on
Gaura-purnima in 1954. Vamana Maharaja is a great scholar just as
our gurudeva was. It has been said that he is like a dictionary
of slokas because he knows so many verses from the scriptures.
When while lecturing Gurudeva would sometimes forget a sloka, Vamana
Maharaha would always supply it from memory. Once, when we went to
Assam for preaching, Gurudeva bodly One of the sects there, who were
virtually prepared to stone us, challenged us by saying, “You say that
Caitanya Mahaprabhu is Bhagavan Himself, but what evidence is there of
this?” Guru Maharaja turned to Vamana Maharaja and said, “Speak.”
Then Vamana Maharaja recited fifty slokas one after the other
from different scriptures as evidence, and those people were silenced.
Guru Maharajaleft the entire responsibility of editing and publishing
our Bengali magazine exclusively upon Vamana Maharaja. From his
boyhood Vamana Maharaja studied Bhagavatam verses and their
commentaries, and as a result he can speak on Vaisnava philosophy for
hours without stopping. His such great scholar, and he is a very
sweet persons as well. With children he is very affectionate, and he
speaks with them concerning things like ghosts which they enjoy
hearing about. He attracts everyone to spiritual life, and evening
an assembly of scholars, he is always the greatest scholar. He
refutes others’ misconceptions , but he does it in such a way that
their feelings are not hurt , as if carefully performing a surgical
operation.
Vamana Maharaja is very grave and quiet, and there is another special
quality which he possesses: I have seen many people, myself included,
who give explanations from the scriptures and enjoy taking praise from
others for it. But having known Vamana Maharaja for almost fifty
years, I have never seen him do this, note even by accident. He is
also very tolerant. As if taking poison and digesting it, he may see
the faults in others, but he never speaks about them. He has so much
eagerness to preach the instructions of Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and he
has preached in all the villages of West Bengal and Assam. Bhagavan
has especially empowered this great personality with many
transcendental qualities. Today I pray to Srila Vamana Maharaja that
he will mercifully allow me to always remain as his shadow, thereby
enabling me to always follow him. I consider him to be my siksa-guru,
because since the day I joined the mission he has given me whatever I
required with great affection.
---a lecture by
Srila Bhaktivedanta Narayana Maharaja given on the event of the
appearance day of Srila Bhaktivedanta Vamana Maharaja
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