Tribute to Shrila Prabhupada for Vyasa-Puja 2023 by Shriman Matsya Avatara Prabhu

Tribute to Shrila Prabhupada for Vyasa-Puja 2023

Dearest Shrila Prabhupada,

Please accept my respectful obeisances at Your lotus feet.

Nama om vishnu padaya krishna preshthaya bhu-tale, shrimate bhaktivedanta swami iti namine.

Namaste sarasvate deve gaura vani pracharine, nirvishesha shunyavadi pashchatya desha tarine.

Om ajnana timirandhasya jnananjana shalakaya, chakshur unmiltam yena tasmai shri gurave namah..

For over half a millennium, albeit to varying degrees, the whole world has been under the cultural influence of the West.

In the last 300 years the West has been pervaded by a growing and varied materialistic influence, which, however, somehow still dialogued with religion.

In the last half century, a large part of the population of Western culture has gradually lost its spiritual, religious and cultural identity, and today no longer believes in its founding values.

The prolonged systematic and unscrupulous use of lies in the media has seriously polluted consciences and damaged the cognitive abilities of peoples.

The imposition of crazy ideologies has caused the destruction of cognitive abilities, the use of common sense, the desecration of traditional religiosity and the loss of cultural identity.

At the same time, the spread of a positivistic, relativistic, reductionist scientific culture which denies a priori the existence of God, of the soul and of transcendent reality, is weakening in body and mind a humanity in the process of dehumanization, with all the ruinous ethical-moral repercussions on customs.

Today's hegemonic culture of death appears to me as the most serious and all-encompassing attack on God, humanity and nature that history remembers. A new form of slavery is underway, the worst that mankind has ever experienced: the colonization of consciences. The aim of the new demiurges is to reduce poor people to the condition of voluntary slavery: slaves unaware of being such.

Recently I have read and re-read the transcript of your speech of March 13, 1974 in Vrindavana, I have linked it to what you said to me on August 30, 1976 in Delhi, and I was once again struck, shaken, called urgently to the fulfillment of my highest duty: to understand the profound meaning of the ongoing catastrophe in order to propose to my contemporaries conscious socio-religious solutions of Krishna, both on the immanent and on the transcendent level, solutions in dialogue between Earth and Heaven: the daivivarṇāśrama-dharma. For clarity, I quote the following extract from your aforementioned 1974 speech: 

“Their business will be to exploit the poor citizens. And they will be embarrassed and harassed so much = by one side, no sufficient rain, and therefore scarcity of food; and the other side, taxation by the government. In this way, the people will be so much harassed that they'll give up their home and go to the forest. Very piti... Unless they take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they'll not be saved. The varṇāśrama college has to be established immediately. Everywhere, wherever we have got our center, a varṇāśrama college should be established to train four divisions = one class, brāhmaṇa; one class, kṣatriya; one class, vaiśya; and one class, śūdra. But everyone will be elevated to the spiritual platform by the spiritual activities which we have prescribed. There is no inconvenience, even for the śūdras.”

Noting once again your foresight and wisdom, I reflect on what you said 49 years ago, in particular on the urgency with which you proposed solutions capable of making us immune from the devastating effects of the mighty advance of Kali-yuga.

Today, more than ever, your heartfelt request to immediately activate an institute that teaches philosophy and scientific practice of the socio-religious model known in the Indo-Vedic civilization with the name of daivi varna ashram dharma, reaches me clear and strong, adopting which the whole of humanity she may save herself before she is fully infected by the dark psychism of Kali-yuga.

I welcome your heartfelt request in my heart and I am preparing to satisfy it in order to be part of the solution, at your service, to redeem people of good will from the tremendous deception set by those who have the duty to defend them.

Since lying is the main weapon used by the powerful Asuras to confuse, deceive, subjugate and exploit the distracted and confused people, our pragmatic answer should be inspired by the teaching of the Bhagavad-gita, with particular reference to 17.15, in which Shri Krishna explains to Arjuna the characteristics of the virtuous word: the Truth.

At a time when propaganda is all about the new "Green" ideology, it is urgent to promote the ecology of the word, the four regulative principles and the supremely purifying daily practice of the Holy Name:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

In our disturbing contemporaneity, thinking of you, of your great work of spreading Krishna Consciousness in the world, I feel an unceasing and growing feeling of gratitude, which gives rise to the ever-increasing desire to serve the project founded by you to the best of my ability, and that you have left us with the exhortation to spread it with the purity with which you have delivered it to us.

So that we in turn can offer it as a model of life to all people of good will as an antidote to the pervading existential fear, please give me spiritual strength to understand your teachings more deeply and satisfy your desires.

On the occasion of the bountiful day of your Vyasa-puja 2023 I renew my sacred spiritual vows and humbly request your blessings to understand the holy scriptures and strengthen my ability to relate everything to Shri Krishna by serving Him with pure devotional sentiment and effective in spreading theory and practice of His and Your divine teachings.

With immense and heartfelt gratitude, Your servant,

Matsya Avatar Das (from Italy)