Śrī Vyāsa-Pūjā August 17, 2025
The Appearance Day of Our Beloved Spiritual Master His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda.
*
The Appearance Day of Our Beloved Spiritual Master His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda.
INVITATION: — Everyone is welcome to join us on this day starting at 7:30 a.m., and anyone who wishes to do so may recite a poem or expression of gratitude written especially for Śrīla Prabhupāda.
The abhiṣeka (bathing ceremony) will begin at approximately 8:00 a.m., followed by beautiful Prabhupāda kathā. This means we will read about Śrīla Prabhupāda’s physical and spiritual life, and later we will accept prasādam and caraṇāmṛta (sacred drink from the bathing ceremony)!
Please come and join us!
Haribol
The Most Blessed Event Śrī Vyāsa-Pūjā August 17, 2025 — The Appearance Day of Our Beloved Spiritual Master His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda.
tad viddhi praṇipātena – paripraśnena sevayā
upadekṣyanti te jñānaṁ – jñāninas tattva-darśinaḥ
Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized soul can impart knowledge unto you because he has seen the truth. (Bg. 4.34)
The appearance day of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Śrīla Prabhupāda, the founder of the Krishna consciousness movement, is called Vyāsa Pūjā and will take place this year on August 17 at 7:30 a.m. On this day, personal prayers and thanksgiving will be offered to him in his honor.
Of course, there will also be an abhiṣeka ceremony (bathing ceremony) in which we will bathe Śrīla Prabhupāda in his mūrti form (image), and at the end there will be an extremely spiritually potent, delicious drink called caraṇāmṛta, as on Janmashtami.
Vyāsa Pūjā is an opportunity to honor the devotion and teachings of Śrīla Prabhupāda, who spread the Krishna consciousness movement throughout the world as Vishwa and Jagad Guru!
Biography: Śrīla Prabhupāda was born on September 1, 1896, on the day of Nandotsava (the day after Janmāṣṭamī) in Calcutta. He is known for bringing the Vedic spiritual teachings of Krishna consciousness to the Western world. His journey began with an encounter with his spiritual master, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Thakur, who encouraged him to spread Vedic knowledge in the West. In 1959, he took sannyāsa (the stage of renunciation) and devoted himself entirely to spreading Krishna’s teachings. In 1965, at the age of 69, he traveled to New York, almost penniless, to spread the Bhakti Yoga cult (Krishna consciousness) in the West. Despite initial difficulties, in 1966 he founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON INC), which grew worldwide and is now active in over 100 countries. Vishwa Guru Śrīla Prabhupāda travelled extensively, wrote extensively, and initiated thousands of disciples by establishing temples and centres worldwide. Among his most significant works are the translation and commentary on the Bhagavad-gītā and the multi-volume Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam into English.
Śrīla Prabhupāda left his body on November 14, 1977, in Vrindavan, India.
Personal Prayers to Śrīla Prabhupāda:
श्रील प्रभुपाद प्रणति
Śrīla Prabhupāda Praṇati
नम ॐ विष्णुपादाय क्ड़्ष्णप्रेष्ठाय भूतले
श्रीमते भक्तिवेदान्तस्वामिन् इति नामिने ।
nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine
namaḥ–obeisances; oṁ–address; viṣṇu-pādāya–unto him who is at the feet of Lord Viṣṇu; kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya–who is very dear to Lord Krsna; bhū-tale–on the earth; śrīmate–all beautiful; bhaktivedānta-svāmin–A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami; iti–thus; nāmine–who is named.
I offer my respectful obeisances unto His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, who is very dear to Lord Kṛṣṇa, having taken shelter at His lotus feet.
नमस् ते सारस्वते देवे गौरवाणीप्रचारिणे
निर्विशेषशून्यवादिपाश्चात्यदेशतारिणे ॥
namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe
namaḥ–obeisances; te–unto you; sārasvate deve–servant of Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī; gaura-vāṇī–the message of Lord Caitanya; pracāriṇe–who are preaching; nirviśeṣa–impersonalism; śūnyavādi–voidism; pāścātya–Western; deśa–countries; tāriṇe–who are delivering.
Our respectful obeisances are unto you, O spiritual master, servant of Sarasvatī Gosvāmī. You are kindly preaching the message of Lord Caitanyadeva and delivering the Western countries, which are filled with impersonalism and voidism.
Our Vyāsa-Pūjā Offering
Dear most Śrīla Prabhupāda, please accept my most humble obeisances in the dust of your lotus feet, and please kindly forgive my offenses. All glories to you!
Although I am insignificant, fallen, and full of faults, still I am constantly awaiting your causeless mercy to be bestowed upon me, trying to become your worthy disciple. I have never given up my faith, or my love, nor the hope that someday I may be a bonafide disciple. As you know my daily prayers always include the words “please forgive my offenses”, as I am always feeling myself unworthy to be receiving your mercy. Śrīla Prabhupāda you have been the one constant in my entire adult life, my best friend and ever well wisher. And I remain chaste to you, my lord and master, unconditionally.
It was you who brought a trunk of Śrīmad Bhāgavatams to the West, to open our eyes with the torchlight of knowledge. And it was you who first brought this Chanting of the Hare Krishna Mantra to Tomkins Square Park and due to your beautiful and pure chanting of the Holy Names of God you caused people to dance under the Hare Krishna Tree. It was you who turned the most fallen and most ignorant western hippies into Vaiṣṇava devotees and brāhmaṇas. It was simply by your munificent appearance and merciful glance, that the most fallen in this age of Kali were given the chance to know Lord Caitanya, and thus were given the chance to serve Śrī Śrī Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa in full Krishna-consciousness. I feel a deep sense of gratitude, and appreciation.
So on this Most Blessed day, Your Appearance day celebration, Please accept my humble obeisance’s again and again, kindly forgive my offenses, and continue to guide me as my eternal well-wisher, friend, teacher and spiritual master with your books, to steer me through the rough waters of this dangerous age of Kali and guide me back home, back to the spiritual world.
I cannot imagine my life without your presence and continued guidance. You have given me a matchless gift, the gift of Krishna consciousness, and although I can never repay the debt, I am eternally grateful.
Your insignificant servant….
KEEP THE PRABHUPADA SUN ALWAYS SHINING THEN THESE GLOWWORMS WILL BE FINISHED
Prabhupada: (break) …worm and the sun. When the sun is arisen, the glowworms, automatically finished. (break) …motto, “Kṛṣṇa is sun.” You know it? Kṛṣṇa sūrya-sama. So when Kṛṣṇa sun is there, all these glowworms’ lightening will be finished. (break) Keep this sun always shining. Then these glowworms will be finished. ( S.P.Morning Walk June 21, 1975, Los Angeles)
Prabhupada: Ah. So this is our one of the items, to vanquish all these rascals, so-called swamis. They say that “Why you criticize others also?” Because we have to vanquish them. Now these people cannot rise. When there is sunrise, there is no use of these glowworms. So this Krsna consciousness movement is Krsna Himself. Therefore they must be finished, all over the world. So-called religionists, so-called philosophers, so-called avataras, swamis, yogis–finished. Our program should be like that. (break) …all these rascals, anymore to flourish. That is one of our program. (S.P.Morning Walk Excerpts May 2, 1974, Bombay)
kṛṣṇa—sūrya-sama, māyā haya andhakāra
yāhāṅ kṛṣṇa, tāhāṅ nāhi māyāra adhikāra
“Godhead is light. Nescience is darkness. Where there is Godhead there is no nescience.” Kṛṣṇa is bright like the sun. As soon as the sun appears, there is no question of darkness or ignorance. As soon as one takes to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the darkness of illusion (the influence of the external energy) will immediately vanish.
Prabhupada: “There is one glow worm, that glow is also light. And the sunlight is also light. You cannot think that the glow worm’s light and the sunlight is the same. Now it is YOUR business to see which is glow worm light and which is the sunlight. [to differienciate] That is your business.”
The evening in the rainy season is dark all around. There is no sight of the twinkling stars on the horizon or the pleasing moon. They are covered by clouds. And the insignificant glowworms become prominent in the absence of the luminaries in the open sky.
In the godless civilization of the age of quarrel there are countless religious societies, them trying to banish God from religion. Glowworms want to be prominent in the absence of the sun and the stars, and these small groups following various religious conceptions are like glowworms trying to be prominent before the eyes of the ignorant mass of people. There are now a number of self-made incarnations people follow without authority from the Vedic literatures, and there is regular competition between one incarnation’s group and another’s. In the darkness of a cloudy evening the glowworms deny the existence of the moon and stars. Saner people should not be waylaid by such unscrupulous men.
Understanding the meaning of Vyāsa-Pūjā:
Understanding the meaning of Vyāsa-pūjā begins with understanding the full import of the well-known verse Śrīla Prabhupāda chose to begin his Introduction to Bhagavad-gītā As It Is:
oṁ ajñāna-timirāndhasya jñānāñjana-śalākayā
cakṣur unmīlitaṁ yena tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ
“I was born in the darkest ignorance, and my spiritual master opened my eyes with the torch of knowledge. I offer my respectful obeisances unto him.”
That “torch of knowledge” which Śrīla Prabhupāda acknowledged his spiritual master, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, had enlightened him with, and which Śrīla Prabhupāda in turn enlightened his disciples with, is the same transcendental knowledge Nārada Muni imparted to his disciple Śrīla Vyāsadeva, who in turn bestowed it upon his disciples and embodied in the voluminous Vedic library he wrote, culminating with Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
Śrīla Prabhupāda would often describe the bona fide spiritual master as a “transparent medium,” through which the transcendental knowledge could flow down from Lord Kṛṣṇa Him-self through the paramparā, unimpeded and undistorted, to the submissive disciples eager to hear.
So, Vyāsa-pūjā is the formal offering of glorification, worship, and expressions of heartfelt gratitude to Śrīla Prabhupāda on his appearance day because he is the genuine representative of Vyāsadeva.
Śrīla Prabhupāda embodies not only the essence of Vedic knowledge Vyāsadeva taught but also his mood of compassion, exemplified by his writing down the Vedas, which had previously been taught and received aurally, to make the knowledge accessible to the benighted people of Kali-yuga, whose minds would be too disturbed for them to simply hear and remember the words of wisdom.
At the urging of his beloved guru, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, Śrīla Prabhupāda courageously undertook the herculean task of traveling alone and virtually penniless to the West at an advanced age, founding the Hare Krishna Movement, managing the latter while circling the world fourteen times and writing commentated English translations of the essential bhakti-śāstras – the Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Caitanya-caritāmṛta, and (in the form of a summary study) the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu – and setting up the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust to publish his books, translate them into all the languages of the world, and provide them to his growing legions of disciples and followers so they could study them and distribute them by the millions.
Just as attending maṅgala-ārati and singing the Śrī Gurv-aṣṭaka should awaken a deep sense of gratitude in the hearts of all devotees present, whether Śrīla Prabhupāda’s disciples or his grand- or great-granddisciples, everyone who participates in the festivities of Śrī Vyāsa-pūjā should feel that their real treasure is Śrīla Prabhupāda’s boundless mercy.
Vaikunthanatha (ACBSP): In 1972, when Srila Prabhupada gave a series of lectures on The Nectar of Devotion for one month in Vrindavana, a thought was plaguing me. When I first joined, I’d been taught that the parampara-system is like a chain, and if you’re not initiated, if you’re not initiated, if you’re not linked up to this chain, then you can’t go back to Godhead. I thought, “We’re distributing so many books, but if the people who read them are not initiated, then they can’t go back to Godhead”. So, one day I followed Srila Prabhupada from Rupa Goswami’s samadhi, where he lectured, and just before Srila Prabhupada stepped onto his courtyard, I said, “Srila Prabhupada, we’re distributing so many books but if people aren’t initiated, then they can’t go back to Godhead”. Srila Prabhupada turned, looked me right in the eyes and said, “Just by reading my books they are initiated“. I thought, “That is an incredible example of compassion”.
“Dīkṣā is the process by which one can awaken his transcendental knowledge and vanquish all reactions caused by sinful activity. A person expert in the study of the revealed scriptures knows this process as dīkṣā.” [CC: Madhya Lila 15:108]
