Srila Prabhupad Vyasa Puja | HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj | Goloka Eco farm, Italy | Aug 17 2025
Of course, like Krishna is born, but actually he’s not really born, because he’s eternal. Similarly, we have great devotees they appear or they disappear in this material world, this is not an ordinary appearance or disappearance. So, the devotees are servants of Krishna, the Supreme Lord, and they are eternally serving Him. So, they appear in this world, they disappear, but still somewhere they are eternally serving Krishna. However, when the devotee makes his appearance in this world, it is a most auspicious occasion. And when we have a greatly empowered devotee making his appearance in this world, it is very, very auspicious. By the appearance of a very great devotee, then the whole world begins to change.
We saw when Lord Caitanya appeared in the world, then great changes took place. When great devotees following Lord Caitanya appear, then they become an inspiration for everyone. And they often leave their mark upon the world. Lord Caitanya, ideally He inspired the Sankirtana movement, He really didn’t write much, other than the Siksastaka. But the great devotees who also appeared with and after Lord Caitanya, they left their mark upon writing the books.
So, Srila Prabhupad appeared in this world. And of course, this is one thing he did – He wrote many books, and then he established the printing press, Bhaktivedanta BBT Book Trust, and then he established his books as authoritative scriptures on Bhakti. Apart from writing books and establishing the book trust, he also established a movement. Of course, before him, his spiritual master, Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, also established a movement. So, these were movements, which are say modern movements, with particular type of organization, legal status, etc. Before that, there were Vaishnava preachers in Lord Caitanya’s movement, but they did not establish very formal organizations.
So, establishing an organization is one way of preserving the movement and its teachings. So, we see if you study the history of Srila Prabhupad, then, when he came to America, one of the things he did in the first year or so was, establishing a society, a legal society [Laughs]. Of course, there are also say arguments against that, why not just chant Hare Krishna freely, not bother about rules and regulations or anything [Laughs]. We could also argue that better not to establish an organization, because it can be bureaucratic and let’s be free and let’s preach nicely.
And we find that over the years after establishing that organization, International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Prabhupada instituted many rules. He established a managerial structure. And of course, after his disappearance all many details of that organization were filled in. And, of course, that was very, very bureaucratic [Laughs]. Just like a company or a government has so many rules to follow, same, ISKCON also develops so many rules. Of course we cannot go to extremes, but Srila Prabhupad definitely wanted an organization. Why did he want an organization? He wanted the movement to continue and continue and continue for thousands of years.
We see that religious movements that have lasted more than 500 or 1000 years have some sort of organization [Laughs]. And Srila Prabhupad had also have seen previously that Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur’s organization, fell apart. It did not stay as one organization; it divided up into many organizations. And Srila Prabhupad was actually very disappointed in what happened. So, Srila Prabhupad also was worried about what would happen after his disappearance. And so, he made up arrangements. So, of course, by good fortune and his intelligence, we’ve seen that the movement has lasted for over 40 years in his absence.
This is quite surprising for an organization to start from nothing and last that long [Laughs]. Even material businesses, companies, if they last 50 years, it’s a pretty good record [Laughs]. And to see a new spiritual organization last that long is very rare. Many yogis before Srila Prabhupada and after Srila Prabhupada went to America or Western world and preached and established organizations. But after the disappearance of the founder, the organization disappears. So usually, after ten years, no longer it’s there. So, by Prabhupada’s forethought, he was thinking of the future, he is able to make the movement last until this point of time. And hopefully it will continue into the future.
But it all depends on the efforts of the members. One of course is, we have to keep the organization unified. We have to keep the organization spiritually enlivened. And obviously if we continue in the future, we have to keep making more members [Laughs]. So, this of course, requires a good preaching spirit. But it also requires the organizational spirit. So once Prabhupad called Giriraj Swami and said, OK, he was worried about the future of the movement. So, he asked Giriraj Swami, and Giriraj Swami said, ‘Oh, well, you know, be spiritual, and chant, whatever’. Of course, we do need spiritual backbone. But Prabhupad answered, ‘you have to use your intelligence’ [Laughs].
So, we know that society keeps changing. The people of that society of 1970’s was not the same society say after 50 years, it was completely different. After another 50 years, different, another 50 years different [Laughs]. People have different values, different interests. Their types of work change. Their livelihood and how they support themselves change. Even diet changes [Laughs]. They change all the time and then people’s minds change also. So, the society has to communicate with the people of the present, not the people of the past. Often when we preach and we have books and we say, ‘oh look, George Harrison, he was our believer, you know’. But people will say, ‘who’s that’ [Laughs]? ‘He was a Beatle’ [Laughs]. ‘What’s a Beatle’ [Laughs]? So I see on YouTube now there’s little channels and then people that young people maybe that 25 years old, first time they’re hearing the Beatles [Laughs], you know, and they’re surprised by the music [Laughs]. So everything changes. So now it’s 40, 50 years down the line. It is a completely different society, with different knowledge, different backgrounds, everything. Fortunately, people are human beings, and they do have some sort of longing for eternal happiness in the spiritual world. But it may be grossly covered over. Somehow, we have to find that need and interest and inspire those people.
The nature of a spiritual movement, particularly, our spiritual movement is that, it is very conservative and traditional and does not like to change anything. There’s a great fear of changing anything, even changing how you walk, or offer obeisances, or whatever, everything. If you change it, people will criticize. So, of course, yes, we are traditional, and the tradition is, of course, we can never change our philosophy. And therefore, Srila Prabhupad wrote books, so this is the basis of our beliefs. But beyond that, many things may have to change according to the present circumstances.
But it becomes controversial. It becomes controversy also. What can we change, and what we cannot change [Laughs]? So that may be in many different areas, we get controversies. Even how you dress becomes a controversy. How you cut your hair becomes a controversy [Laughs]. So, we have many different controversies. People have philosophical controversies. Of course, so many things we can resolve by scripture, other things we cannot. We can take guidance from Srila Prabhupada’s statements for all the different things. But in some areas, he didn’t make any statements. And in some cases, he may make two opposite statements. So that’s why we have to use our intelligence to see how we adapt our movement to our present circumstances.
So, one thing we can do is, always meditate upon the desires and will of Srila Prabhupad. Of course, we cannot understand everything about Srila Prabhupad. But to the best of our ability, by reading his biography, seeing his videos, movies, whatever, by hearing his lectures and by studying his works, then we can atleast get some basic understanding of his thinking. So, just like this Vyasa Puja celebration, Srila Prabhupad’s appearance, it’s an opportunity for us to actually contemplate how we can get inspiration from Srila Prabhupad.
When he founded the movement, he also gave himself a title. He gave himself this title, ‘Founder Acharya’. He insisted that always be printed on all the letterheads with ISKCON’s title [Laughs]. So, this was one technique also for preserving the movement. The ‘Founder- Acharya’ means one who has founded this movement. Of course, he’s not the founder of Krishna consciousness, that is Lord Caitanya’s Sankirtan movement [Laughs], but he found this particular movement. So all the members, not only his immediate disciples, but all of the members of the future have to regard him as founder. ‘Founder’ means he is the root and ‘Acharya’ means he is the spiritual authority.
So every member now and in the future or the past, whatever, they should somehow establish their relationship with Srila Prabhupad. In the past, devotees usually thought, well, Prabhupad was there, he gave initiation, so he had his disciples. So those disciples have a relationship with Srila Prabhupad. And then after that we have disciples of disciples, well, do they have a relationship with Prabhupad or not [Laughs]? Because they are disciples of somebody else [Laughs]. So all those future disciples of disciples of disciples, may think, well, we don’t have a relationship with Srila Prabhupad, it’s very indirect [Laughs]. But that is actually a false conception. So by that title ‘Founder-Acharya’ means actually everybody has a relationship with Srila Prabhupad. In fact, even the GBC in 2014 made a statement that, all disciples now and in the future have a direct relationship with Srila Prabhupad.
So even though we do take shelter of our initiating spiritual master, Diksha Guru, still we also take shelter of Srila Prabhupad. And to take shelter of Srila Prabhupad is very necessary to maintain the unity of the movement. So we should use this day of course, to contemplate our own relationship with Srila Prabhupad and how we can follow his instructions. But our relationship and inspiration is not a one-day affair, what we do in our daily life. It is not just the worship of one day a year [Laughs]. It is how we can try to fulfill his desires on a day to day basis. And by doing that, of course, Srila Prabhupad also becomes very satisfied. So we should take this opportunity to establish our relationship with Srila Prabhupad if we’ve not already and try to increase that relationship day by day.
Hare Krsna !
Devotees: Thank you Maharaj. Thank you very much for this special offering. HH Bhanu Swami Maharaj Ki.. Jai !!