Report on the 30 years of the Vrinda Family 9/28/14

Hare Krishna dear devotees and mothers
Please accept my obeisances
All glories to Srila Guru Maharaja, Srila Atulananda Acharya and Srila Harijan Maharaja

Srila Guru Maharaja and Srila Atulananda Acharya can be found in Peru at Eco Truly celebrating the International Vaishnava Mela.

Several devotees from different parts of the world have come to Eco Truly Park to share in this wonderful festival. Celebrating 30 years together as Vrinda Family. Thirty years is a considerable amount of time.
Our family has entered a mature stage, where many pioneering projects have already been consolidated and expanded very efficiently.

Our Guru Maharaja spent 40 years preaching the message of Srila Prabhupada without stopping and 30 years of the Vrinda Family are the fruition of that tireless and loving preaching.

Our Guru Maharaja and our Gurudeva Atulananda have devoted much time and effort to serve Srila Prabhupada through their service to all mankind. The examples of the great Vaishnavas that we receive from the scriptures are present in the daily service of our Gurudevas. In them we see all the qualities of a devotee, without exception. They are the light that removes all traces of ignorance. They are the refuge that soothes the hearts of the devotees in difficult times.

Srila B. P. Puri Goswami Maharaj appeared in this world on a day like today, and His Vyasapuja is celebrated in every corner by members of different Vaishnava missions. He was the first president of the World Vaishnava Association, and that position he accepted with great humility following the request of our beloved Guru Maharaja. Our Guru Maharaja accepted Srila B. P. Puri Goswami Maharaj as his siksa guru after Srila Prabhupada's departure in 1977 and the departure of Srila Sridhar Maharaj in 1988.

Srila Guru Maharaj always shares very sweet pastimes about his relationship with Srila B.P. Puri Goswami Maharaj.One of them is the purchase of the Temple of Gopinath Gaudiya Math (the mission founded by Srila BP Puri Goswami Maharaj). Srila Puri Maharaj had been looking for a place for his temple in Vrindavan.

After Srila Guru Maharaj had bought Vrinda Kunja in the 90's, Srila BP Puri Goswami Maharaj approached our Gurudeva and asked him what he had done to get such a nice place so quickly, as he (Srila Puri Maharaj) had been looking for long. Srila Guru Maharaj told Srila Puri Maharaj that he had been trying several times to get places for a temple, but without any good results, until someone told him that for that to be effective, he would have to seek the blessings of Sri Gopesvara Mahadeva. So Srila Guru Maharaj followed the instruction as he was told and went to Sri Gopesvara Mahadev to ask for His blessing to find a place where the family could set Vrinda so to offer a humble service to the Dham and to the feet of Srila Prabhupada, Srila Sridhar Maharaj and all Vaishnavas.

Shortly after, Srila Guru Maharaj was walking through the market and a vrajavasi  offered a land that day which later became the beautiful Vrinda Kunja, which today is the main temple of our family in Sri Vrindavan Dham.

Today, in the same "Dauji Mandir",the Vyasapuja of Srila BP Puri Goswami Maharaj was held and all the devotees from Vrinda Kunja were invited to participate in the festival. It was a very nice celebration, full of devotees from different missions of the Gaudiya Math and other Vaishnava sampradayas. Thanks to the mercy of our beloved spiritual master, our family members can participate in those beautiful celebrations that are a reflection of "unity in diversity" that characterizes the World Vaishnava Association.

Srila B. P. Puri Goswami Maharaj was a promoter of "unity in diversity", he agreed to become president of the WVA yet he said he did not feel qualified to be. And today, the WVA continues to work under the same slogan of bringing all the Vaishnavas together in order to create an open platform which can the support the preaching of Sanatan Dharma around the world. Once again, thanks to the mercy of our Gurudeva, Vrinda family members from around the world have been involved in various services offered to the feet of all the Vaishnavas.

For example, Saksi Gopal prabhu,who at the beginning of the World Vaishnava Association was responsible for organizing the melas and meetings in addition to printing several WVA publications. Bhagavatamrta prabhu from Colombia, Gour Kesava prabhu from Germany who to this day maintain the Vaishnava page news www.vina.cc and actively participates for many years in the publication of WVA magazines and books. Pancatattwa prabhu who has also spent several years maintaining web services and communications for the World Vaishnava Association. Arup Govinda Das from Mayapur, who has been a great reporter of events for the different Maths in India. BV Madhusudhan Maharaj from Ecuador, who was for years directing Vrinda Ashrams in India and supporting all WVA services. Dasavatar prabhu from Argentina who in recent years has been dedicated to maintaining the most visited page of the WVA called "News from the world from the perspective of the Vedas", which has been a service greatly celebrated by Srila Guru Maharaj. Prem Kumari dd from Brazil who, for some time, supports and participates in maintaining multiple web services in WVA. Dina Bandhu prabhu from Chile, who from Yamuna Kunja in India supports and participates in public relations with the various temples of the WVA. And so many devotees and mothers of our spiritual family who have had the opportunity to make designs for the WVA such as Sarasvati Dasi and Damodarastaka Dasi from Colombia, Brahma Samhita Das from Sweden, Tulsi Dasi from Bulgaria, Radhe Shyam Dasi from Australia, among others.

Currently, the WVA is hosting a new exhibition of the Museum of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur Prabhupada, this time in Vrindavan during the month of Kartik. This exhibition is a humble offering to our spiritual master, to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Thakura's lotus feet, and all the Parampara of our line. For this exhibition, devotees and mothers of our family are actively involved. This exhibit was designed with the help of Vishvakarma prabhu and Stoka Krishna prabhu from Colombia, who are graphics experts.  Sarasvati Dasi did all the research and compilation of pictures with the help of Brahma Samhita Das from Sweden who compiled the texts of each graph.Ramesvari Dasi from Peru revised and corrected each of the texts in English. And Mahatma prabhu along with the Vrinda Kunja team is organizing all the details of the exhibition which will be inaugurated on October 9 by the mercy of Srivatsa Goswami Maharaj, who is Acharya in service of the Sri Radha Gokulananda temple in Vrindavan.

So, devotees of our family have had (and still have) multiple opportunities to offer service at the feet of the Vaishnavas of different missions. All thanks to the mercy of our spiritual master, who is a faithful representative of the acharyas of the past. That is the characteristic of the Vrinda family: Being an instrument of service to mankind under the guidance of our Gurudevas; and it is thanks to them and their mercy, who teach us about the distribution of the message of love to all souls of Sri Caitanya; it is thanks to their mercy that we can celebrate together in the various temples the 30 years of life of VRINDA.

Now devotees gathered at the Mela are celebrating with great joy and many service plans, these 30 years.

As part of that celebration, yesterday at the Eco Truly Park it was launched the "Review of 30 years of Vrinda," which was the result of the unified effort of a group of devotees and mothers from different countries and it came out just a few days ago. The SEVAS managers will be making copies of this magazine to later distribute them to all the temples, then to be distributed to all family members and friends who want to know more about our Mission.

Along with the launch of the magazine, these days we inaugurated a new hall in Eco Truly Park called "The chacana" which aims to become a meeting and working place of UDSA (University of Ancestral Wisdom) which is quite q development project in which Srila Gurudeva is putting a lot of energy with the help of devotees from different countries. The UDSA's objective is to create an educational platform open to all people, where they can share traditional teachings of various ancestral people and cultures who share the same ideals of love and respect for all living entities, which are of the same ideals to those of the Vaishnava culture of India. Now the UDSA will have an important place in the Eco Truly Park in Peru, where you can strengthen your service to humanity.

At this time, Srila Guru Maharaj, Srila Gurudeva Atulananda and the devotees accompanying them are returning to Lima to celebrate Rasa Yatra along the streets of the capital of Peru. That is why Srila Guru Maharaj could not send his weekly message today and rather we have shared with you this little commemorative report of 30 years of VRINDA and it service to humanity. We also share with you that within the next few days Srila Guru Maharaj will be making his arrival in Vrindavan Dham alongside the company of Srila Gurudeva Atulananda, where they will also celebrate 30 years of the Vrinda family and 30 years of Vraja Mandal Parikram.

Devotees and mothers from Vrinda Kunja Ashram have been working hard in recent months for this celebration.

Already more than 100 devotees and mothers from our family have confirmed their participation during the parikrama, which is a great joy for the devotees who do service in Vrindavan Dhama.

Sixty devotees have already arrived at the Dhama from South America and in the coming days there will be more and more arriving. All of them are very happy to participate in this beautiful Vaishnava celebration. The home team will do their best to convey the daily morning conferences of our spiritual masters and to share every day the parikram nectar through photographic and video reports.

In the coming days details of the transmissions will be announced. Thank you very much to everyone for participating today in the Sunday report.

Please, excuse any offenses and disadvantages.

Thanks to Dasavatar prabhu for translation into English and Laksmi Priya dd from Antofagasta (Chile) for later editing and publishing the report.

Please accept my obeisances again. 

All glories to Srila Guru Maharaj! 

Haribol!

The ultimate gift of life. From India. 03/16/14

Dear devotees
Goura Purnima ki jay !

A hug from the heart to all from the sanga in Mayapur Dham .
We came here to pray for all the Vrinda family. We pray that Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu continues to bless us with the association of His devotees. The greatest blessing of Krishna is the association with devotees. The ultimate gift of life. The answer to all our prayers is to have the mercy of a devotee of the Lord. And this is what we celebrate on this day, the day that God came as a devotee. And our prayer today is at least to never lose the mercy of having at least one devotee in our life.

In a temple we are super lucky to have so many devotees. One devotee can change the world and we have witnessed it in the presence of Srila Prabhupada. So the scriptures do not exaggerate at all when it says that one devotee can help us cross the material existence. It is even said that one gets all that mercy even from association with a devotee of the Lord for less than a second. So that's our meditation today. It is most auspicious to meditate all day on all the devotees of the world.

Devotees of Gauranga - :I belong to you, I want to serve you up to the last of my days.

Devotees of Gauranga! :We will do wonderful things for the Lord, now that Gauranga is the one who deserves it.

Devotees of Nityananda! :He was the first to preach the glories of Gauranga and He was the one who saved Haridas.

Devotees of Haridas, devotees of Prabhupada! You know what it means to be a devotee of Gauranga and preach from morning to night!

Devotees of sankirtan :You never miss a beat and preach with all the desire for the divine plan to keep growing!

Mayapur Dham is wonderful. Annually it increases twice in fame. It's amazing, so many people are here that you can hardly walk. One has to start walking in the water because the land is filled with so many people.

Devotees of Gauranga! Do not be discouraged by obstacles. There will always be some kind of problems so that we remember that we are still not very advanced, and that material nature still grabs our attention.

Devotees of Gauranga -Always have compassion for all ! Do not forget that Krishna is not going to forget about us and we should not forget about Him, that's what the sankirtan movement of Sri Krishna is for.

Last week I visited a pure devotee of Krishna. Such beauty, what beauty. A sweetness that emanated  from him regardless of all who were present. Devotees from all over the world. Gurudeva Srila Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Maharaja was listening to songs that devotees sang. Walking in front of everyone in his wheelchair and giving his love to everyone. His chair was pushed so lovingly by a Maharaja doctor. He is attentive 24 hours a day to the needs of Gurudeva. Everyday Gurudeva leaves his room to hear the sweet, sweet kirtan of the assembled devotees. His disciples constantly arrive to pray for his mercy. He is showing us that he will always do and act, continuing to do what he always did: to preach . His example, his life, his inner samadhi, the gestures of his hands or even when he opens his eyes: he awakens in us more love for him and for Sri Krsna. The devotees arranged a whole floor of the Sri Chaitanya Gaudiya math where it is meant to only serve him. His room is equipped like a facility for health emergencies. But really Gurudeva is showing a pastime so we can feel more attached to him. And that attachment is transferred to Krishna instantly. I remain grateful to have visited Srila Bhakti Tirtha Maharaj Ballabha. His face shows a deep tranquility and a little something that shows that he is not of this world. He belongs to the world of Vrindavan. The world of Krishna, the world of the gopis.Gurudeva is a fiery preacher. And now his preaching is his mere presence.

They asked me to sing a song for him . Since I do not know many songs in Bengali and had no memory of any nor a songbook in hand, I sang the Samsara. What was tolerated, even the melody was a morning melody. Then Vrindvan chandra brought my charango and devotees who saw it requested me to sing with the charango. Then I sang Yasomati nanda braja baro nagara and Gurudeva opened his eyes. With even more joy : Radhe Jaya Jaya Madhava Dayite, the song of Srila Rupa Goswami . I did not want to stop seeing Gurudeva happily listening . But my voice was not cooperating much.

I got up to offer to Gurudev the Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura museum in the form of a CD and the magazine that we did for Srila Prabhupada inspired by him and for him. We also offered the new brochure in English which presents the celebration of 20 years of the World Vaishnava Association. Twenty years is a significant number. At some point I felt that it would take 20 years to start the WVA . Today you can see a big change in the museum and the magazine. And also more participation . Who knows what comes later .

Just today I was writing a very important letter to a spiritual brother who was punished by his institution. It reminded me of the situation that we had in the year 77 to 84 . He wrote a letter in his defense and his letter inspired me to reflect on what happened in the past. Gurudeva Srila Tirtha Maharaj is a harmonious medium. Srila Bhakti Pramode Puri Maharaj was always able to encourage everyone. Srila Bhakti Rakshak Sridhar Maharaj embraced all the devotees who had some association with his spiritual brother Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada .

For some reason or another Krishna Consciousness is expanded in a multifaceted way.
In many branches and it was not always united. But in essence they all want the same thing. I've always wanted a united platform but as a spiritual parent of a community I realize the importance of also having some space for privacy with the disciples that Krishna sends. Where you can share with them, instruct them and delegate to them important tasks. No diplomacy, no ecclesiastical structure. Simple important tasks like caring for other souls. Because only when you take care of other souls do you deserve to be cared for.

I was reflecting on all these issues, recalling the issues of the past, and that is how I came with all of that in the head but when I got here to Srila Tirtha Maharaj it was all heart, heart to heart. Here we are of heart and so like that we arrived in Mayapur. We arrived in Mayapur with the fruit of more than a year's worth of work. The Journal of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur. A biography in pictures. And some posts of course. Which was coordinated by us with the support of many devotees and our wonderful office. Sarasvati Devi Dasi of Medellin did much research. There was also the support of Damodarastaka and Pancatattwa. And the first hand support of Gandharvika.

Everyone helped to put this wonderful magazine together. My friend Ramdas Mandala gave us some good professional reviews at the Kumbha mela. And finally the printing press of a disciple of Mahaniddhi  Swami printed the magazine. It turned out that he is a great friend and he will now print our books in Delhi, it is very good and responsible. Miraculously, although you may not believe me the museum is already on the Internet through issuu.com the address is pasted below:

http://issuu.com/wva-vvrs/docs/srila_bhaktisiddhanta_sarasvati_tha_428e0f7608ad8a

But believe me or not, just before going to Hrisikesh Sophie from Hungary appeared to know how to use tools to produce dvds. She offered to put all this museum into dvd format. The sound was missing for presenting Srila Bhakisiddhanta, but someone needed to read the fine print on the screen which is unreadable and as it appeared at that time I had the best ability to read English in Vrinda Kunja, so I took the charge and for the whole day we recorded all the texts explaining the images. We then went to the 15th Symposium on International Yoga Conferences in Hrisikesh, along with the theater team of Vrinda Kunja we presented conscious messages on behalf of Mother Earth .

In Vrinda Kunja they did a marathon to make the museum into CD format. When I returned it was ready. I remain happy to now have a DVD that people can see on a computer. It is two hours and twenty minutes of film. With this the people who have Internet or computer can see it on any DVD player. This DVD I offered to Srila Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Maharaja who is still the president of the World Vaishnava Association and he will remain so forever.

He received this gift by mercy and now going we are going to Mayapur to offer it to all the great spiritual personalities residing in Mayapur; to all those sweet hearted devotees that we want to try to serve. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur is the grandfather of all. Last time Dina bandhu appeared with a photo of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur that few had seen and everyone left happy. It is a very special photo of him with six of his sannyasis  including Vaikanas maharaja who gave sannyas to acharya Puri Maharaj and Bhakti Madhava Dayita Maharaj.

So we very pleased with this photo on the cover. And now the struggle continues. The struggle to distribute the glory of the greatest hero of divine love in the history of India. Because directly or indirectly Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur was the one who injected the excitement into the heart of Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, to Bon Maharaj and many others. He encouraged them to preach. And we are his children and therefore we are deeply indebted to such a great personality that somehow from his humility he didn't even appear as much to others just like Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada whose name also doesn't appear that much in many parts and that is why the movement is not known as the Bhaktivedanta movement but it did become famous as the Hare Krishna movement. However, for us, today is a very significant day to remember the role of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura, from many points of view and especially to remember that we are all His children and we are a family.

A big family and that any negative attitude towards other Vaisnavas is not very good even if they have made mistakes, that does not suit anyone. We must be favorable and friendly to everyone. So also all the work that the Vaishnava Association does is a public domain, of public domain means that it can be used by all Vaishnavas in their own name, and that they do not need permission to use it, hopefully they promote it.

Many devotees have worked very hard to compile the images, so we arrive at Mayapur directly to the museum, and I did not come first to my temple but I came to the Gopinath Gaudiya Math where the museum is presented.

Well, my dear devotees, I wish you a nice Gaura Purnima festival. I imagine that today very few devotees came to this chat but here I send a message of the heart from the Sangam with love .

Srila Prabhupada ki jay !

Your always well wisher

B. A. Swami Paramadvaiti