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All glories to Sri Guru and Sri Gauranga |
| Sri Vyasa-Puja Offering |
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to
His Divine Grace Srila |
| by Sripad Bhakti Kanan Giri Maharaj: |
| Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 04:43:49 -0400 Subject: Offering for Sri Vyasa-Puja A vyasa puja homage to His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad Paramahamsa Srila Bhakti Rakshak Sridhar Dev Goswami Maharaj The light of darkness. We love drama. We are drawn to it like nothing else. It attracts our sight, calls us to hear, lures us to touch, entices us to taste and tempts us to smell. It pulls at our feelings, enthralls our mind and captures our will. It excites our anger, laughter, tears and hate, and arouses our love. Would it not then be the most suitable vehicle to describe the glories of our most dear master our Gurudev? Pondering this question I recoil in awe with the implications. Could it be done? Should it be done? Yes, and yes again. But such a task must be left to those of substance, it cannot be approached by a vacant man like me cloaked in the facade of a disciple. It is not so difficult to conceive of a drama of a warrior or king. Prose, poetry and history are replete with dramas of the training, discipline, nobility, battles and heroism of great soldiers and monarchs. The struggles of lovers, rogues, families and nations also find their way easily into the making of a drama. In contrast, how do your dramatize introspection, contemplation or meditation? Are these not the real domain of the pure devotee? And if you could portray these things in some dramatic fashion, how would you not cheapen them in the process? The substance of the pure devotee lies in the depth of his realization of Krishna and this can only be known through shared experience, not superficial expressions. This is not to say that there is no drama in the life of a pure devotee. Far from it. But the play is taking place in the plane of faith; far, far away from the purview of the meager senses by which we have been conditioned to observe dramas. No doubt he has shown us many things which entice and enthrall us. But we must be ever skeptical of what we see and hear lest we be seduced by the bhushana (the trappings) of the sadhu rather than the sadhu himself. "I am a form breaker, not a form maker." These were Srila Sridhar Maharaj's words of Divine revelation piercing through the darkness of nescience like lighting through a dark rain cloud. Don't trust your eyes, your ears or even your puppy brain. These were his lessons to us. Go deeper and deeper and yet again. "The finite is running after the infinite." But it is all going on underground, unseen by the lights, the camera and the actions of this external world. "No amount of darkness can produce light. No amount of ignorance can produce knowledge. No amount of lies can produce truth." Are these truths not self evident? Then why do we not see? We have been conditioned to see with the light of darkness. What is this light? It is the light of the sun and the moon, fire and electricity all products of the form, not the substance, all artificial, all unreal, all mundane. We want to see reality, we yearn for it and this yearning is the source of our vitality. But that seemingly simple, natural and innate ability to see reality is denied to us. What a mystery, what a marvel. More wonderful still is the nature of this mystical substance which stands in front of us, sits next to us, shines with the brilliance of millions of suns and beckons us to come to Him while remaining ever obscured from our vision "I am everywhere, I am nowhere". With this enigmatic declaration He taunts us. But here is the real drama, the drama of substance. It is one of thousands upon thousands of mysteries within mysteries, the play of the sweet Absolute enticing us to pursue Him. If the drama ended here we might well conclude that such a play is one of morbid and perverse cruelty. But it does not, and it is not because it is precisely here that our dear most friend and savior, our Gurudev, the very substance of the Absolute Himself, intercedes on our behalf. The sweet Absolute, mercy incarnate, canvassing on HIs own behalf appears as His own Divine Agent in the form of Sri Gurudev to distribute faith and guide the sincere seekers to His own eternal playground. With the torchlight of Divine knowledge he opens our spiritual eyes to the light of our own soul which is the only means by which we can see anything. To conclude that any aspect of this transaction, however great or small, can be observed or encountered through the mundane senses including the intellect is an error of debilitating consequence. On this most holy of holy days we pray to His Divine Grace Srila Sridhar Maharaj, that he mercifully bestow his grace upon us allowing us to see past the shroud covering his transcendental form so that we may forever serve his lotus feet. The lowly and fallen, BK Giri |
Sri
Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Nabadwip: