Tattva-viveka
Happy Vyasa-puja, Guru Maharaja!
Bhrigu - March 2, 2007 8:36 am
Dear Guru Maharaja,
dandavat pranams. I hope you will have a great Vyasa-puja day today. I'm sure that all of us that can't come to Audarya will be remembering you especially much today, so please sometimes think of us as well.
Your servant,
Bhrigupada Dasa
Syamasundara - March 2, 2007 8:49 am
Yes my regards, too.
This year I started to celebrate this day even before waking up. I just dreamed that I was cooking the feast with Vrndaranya!
I was making a carrot cake... 
Gauravani Dasa - March 2, 2007 9:36 am
Vyasa-puja offerings for Guru Maharaja have been posted here:
Swami Tripurari - Vyasa-puja 2007
If your offering did not make it in time, please post it in this thread for Guru Maharaja to see.
Jaya Guru Maharaja!
Philip Breakenridge - March 2, 2007 12:47 pm
Guru Maharaja,
Thank you for creating a faith community infused with a spirit of inclusiveness and love. As a true spiritual master, you have embraced those marginalized and rejected by other Gaudiya traditions. Where others have used Srila Prabhupada’s words to judge and condemn, you have emphasized his mercy, flexibility, and softness. I feel that, through you, I can reclaim a relationship with him.
Thank you for making Krishna consciousness modern and accessible to the thinking person. Your preaching reaches out to individuals with progressive minds and compassionate hearts. You wisely encourage spiritual seekers to question and doubt, rather than follow blindly. I appreciate this immensely.
Thank you for helping me believe that I might have a chance at being part of Lord Caitanya’s mission, after all.
Philip C. Breakenridge
Monisha - March 2, 2007 1:10 pm
Dear Guru je,
Please accept my humble pranams.
I would essentially like to convey my heartfelt gratitude for recently taking me under your shelter and the umbrella of the Gaudiya sampradaya. I am beginning to see how fortunate I am and therefore sincerely hope that I and many others will reap the full benefit of your mercy.
I felt so unqualified, and still do to a large extent, to be in the midst of so many sweet, humble and learned devotees such as yourself and your disciples. You hardly knew me at the time of initiation but was still willing to place trust and faith in me. This has been so encouraging and given my mind much solace to be a part of your wonderful caring family. Thank you for giving my doubting mind some faith in the holy name. Chanting has never been the same after hearing from you!
I wish you all the best on this joyous day with your current projects and construction of the temple in Vrindavana. I hope you live well and long to continue your loving service and inspiring others as I have been.
Please grant me your blessings to serve you and understand you better through your books and devotees.
Your aspiring and menial servant,
Madhukari Devi Dasi
Arcanasiddhi Devi Dasi - March 2, 2007 1:23 pm
I sent this in on Sunday, but somehow it wasn't received. Anyway I offer it here:
Dear Swami,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Sri Guru and Gauranga.
It has been five years now that I have been hearing from you. Many things within me have shifted as a result of your siksa. The first time you came to our home, I repeated things I had heard from Prabhupada. You challenged my understanding and my sentiments by asking me what those statements actually meant. After several such interactions with you I felt the tremors of your words shaking the solid bedrock of my spiritual existence.
Slowly over time you have been deconstructing my old paradigms but you also have been teaching me how to think critically about spiritual principles and helping me to reconstruct a new way of thinking. Sometimes I have stubbornly resisted your prodding to move forward and you have been patient with me.
I am so grateful for the places you have taken me –deeper and deeper into sambanda, abidheya and proyajana tattva. You have introduced me to new concepts in our Gaudiya Vaisnavas philosophy and reading Prabhupada’s books has become more meaningful and relish able.
I often reflect on my good fortune to have you in my life. In fact I can’t imagine my life without you. You give me inspiration, knowledge and faith. I look forward to your CDs, conference calls and most of all, your visits to our home. I thank you again and again for giving me so much and one day I hope to do something meaningful for you in return.
Your aspiring siksa disciple,
Arcana-siddhi dd
Premarnava - March 2, 2007 2:04 pm
Dear Guru Maharaja, this year my offering will be very short:
I Love You!
Your humble servant,
Premarnava Das
Vamsidhari Dasa - March 2, 2007 2:58 pm
Dear Guru Maharaja,
Please accept my humble dandavats on this glorious day of your appearance. May Sri Radha Damodara continue to shower you with countless blessings.
Last night I was thinking that you are the light of my life, my family and my gentile guide. That everything I have I owe to you. You gave me the matchless gift that keeps nourishing me and illuminates my existence. In times of trouble and difficulties I am happy in your service and when I can offer something small in return. If I appear satisfied and radiant it is only because of being around you, the service indeed makes everything worthwhile.
You are my example and hope for the future because in you there is everything I need. What incredible fortune it is for those who can take as much as you have to offer.
I hope that one day I will be able to fully partake in your continuous company. I endeavor to uninterruptedly serve you and aspire for unalloyed devotion. I know that only with your help it is possible to move from a position of a spectator to a position of a protagonist in the spiritual life. You continuously keep us in touch with the reality of spiritual life and offer your life as example. Our fortune to have you is immense and beyond words.
I prostrate my self at your feet in love and gratitude.
Your loving servant,
Vamsidhari dasa
Tadiya Dasi - March 2, 2007 3:26 pm
Dear Gurudev,
I wish you a very happy Vyasa-puja.
Although I've let you down lately...I hope you still consider me as yours.
My heart is with you in Audarya today.
Hari Bhakti - March 2, 2007 5:54 pm
Dear Guru Maharaja:
Dandavat pranams and Happy Birthday.
As you often say we must give to live. We see by your example, you have given everything and correspondingly you are constantly showered by the mercy of the Lord. To witness this obvious outpouring of mercy as we did in Vrindavan, as a plot of land became spontaneously available to you after 5 years of separation from the Dhama. It is so sweet to see that all of your love, sincerity and patience has been so greatly rewarded.
I pray that your investment in me will come to bear fruit as well.
As always,
Yours,
Hari Bhakti dasi
Manohari Dasi - March 3, 2007 12:16 am
Dearest Guru Maharaja
Please accept my humble obeisance’s to Your lotus feet.
Gurudeva, what words can glorify You properly on Your Vyasa Puja?
You are such an extraordinary devotee of the Lord and extremely dear disciple of Your Gurudeva Srila Praphupada.
Events in Vrindavana made very clear to me how especially dear You are to Your Gurudeva Srila Prabhupada and Sri Krsna.
Your service to Your Gurudeva and Sri Krsna is the shining example to follow.
With very limited understanding of mine I realize what a great privilege is to be Your disciple. A lot harder is to follow your footsteps for someone like myself, even though I can see You influence on my life, how my priorities are slowly changing.
Thank You Gurudev for sharing the principles in such a way that is accessible and easy to understand to everyone. Thank You for making my life worth living, for having purpose to develop love to Krsna under Your guidance and I know You can give It to many people.
Your unworthy servant,
Manohari dasi
Jananivasdas - March 3, 2007 12:17 am
happy birthday maharaja!!!
The guidance of saints is our only hope. We must depend on them.
They stand like lighthouses in the infinite ocean to guide us to the land of faith.
-b.r.sridhar maharaja
i thank you for being the guiding light for many of my dear friends.
i pray that you will guide them thru this storm that we call life.
my only wish is to do some service to these devotees and
to get a little spark of the light that guides them.
servant of the servants jananivas das
Babhru Das - March 3, 2007 6:11 am
Dear Swami,
All glory to sri guru and Gauranga! What a fortunate occasion for us!
I’ve been struggling with just what I might say to mark this day. I’ve decided that, since what I might do is more significant, less is more. Besides, the problem I’ve been facing is just what to focus on this year; I can’t possibly explain all the feelings I have when contemplating my good fortune to have met you, to have come in to your association, and to have been given some small service in your mission.
What I would like to focus on is a theme we hear from you incessantly: Life progresses by giving. We see that in Srila Prabhupada’s character, and we certainly see it in yours. A list of what you give, not just to us, but to the rest of the Gaudiya vaishava community and to the rest of the world, is too exhaustive to attempt in a small offering such as this. When I try to think what you may be taking, I find only the same thing I see in Srila Prabhupada. You eagerly take away our misconceptions, and you happily accept whatever service we offer from our hearts. I offer one example as evidence.
A couple of years ago, in the midst of this same struggle, I remembered a verse from Gopala-tapani Upanisad, and it struck me how easily it could be applied to the spiritual master. I adapted it as an offering to you:
prasida suhrd artanam prasidaudarya-dharine
raga-soka-bhujangena dastam mam uddhara guro
Please be kind to me, dear friend to the distressed. Be kind, my guide, O reservoir of munificence, and deliver me, for I have been bitten by the snake of attachment and lamentation.
You seemed to like it enough to suggest that your students could use it as an abbreviated pranam mantra, although it doesn’t address you implicitly by name. (I would hold that you’re named implicitly because I deliberately sought a way to include audarya in the verse.) I stole the verse from you, altered it, and offered it to you as a “gift.” The best that could be said is that it was much like offering a lamp to the sun, or water to Mother Ganga. But you kindly accepted it.
All I can say is that I’m grateful, and that I hope I will soon be able to express my gratitude appropriately.
Yours in service,
Babhru das
Madangopal - March 4, 2007 12:14 pm
I just wanted to let everyone know that Sri Caitanya Sangha of North Carolina applied for non-profit organization status on Guru Maharaj's Vyasa Puja.
HARIBOL!!!
Thanks to Gauravani prabhu for doing all that paperwork.
Sridama Dasa - March 5, 2007 6:03 am
I'm embarrassed by my tardiness in posting this. After missing the deadline to submit my offering before my dear Gurudeva's vyasa-puja, I told myself better to wait and write something more meaningful than to post in haste. Sadly, I feel like I'm still waiting for the words to come to me.
I've often considered myself a strong communicator. Writing is what I do for a living, and I feel humbled as I realize that I simply cannot find the words or form the sentences that capture what I'd like to express.
One of my daily prayers is that "this" -- my life in Krishna Consciousness -- becomes the most important thing in my life. Too often my spirituality gets pushed to the back burner, brushed aside so I can concentrate on the crisis of the day. I tell myself that once I find a new job, or complete my upcoming move, or deal with this or that looming at work, then I'll be able to concentrate and really focus on what's important to me. I recall Guru Maharaja talking about this very trap in a class I listened to recently. Don't think like this, he said. "Practice now."
Practicing now, with diligence and with faith well-reasoned and supported by all that Guru Maharaja has so mercifully given me, is all that I need. This, I know, will please him more than anything else I can do or say. This will fuel my actions, inspire me to a life of service, and cause me to live up to the potential that he somehow sees in me.
I beg that Guru Maharaja can forgive my tardiness and my inability to find the words that I need to say. I hope he knows how much his guidance means to me, and how happy my heart has become in the four+ years since I first begged to take shelter at his lotus feet. I read the offerings written by my Godbrothers and Godsisters and see so much feeling and such emotion. Let this feeling one day resonate in my own heart. Let this become the most important thing in my life, and let me strive -- with more feeling and determination than ever before -- to do nothing more than to please my dear Guru Maharaja.
In service,
Sridama dasa
Margaret Dale - March 5, 2007 7:03 am
Dear Guru Maharaja,
You are my hope, my role model, my rock, my guardian, my lifeline. You are always patiently showing me the way to Krsna through words and example. You are the only person I know who has never disappointed me, while I disappoint you continuously. You provided clarity and sanity for me when I became frustrated with ISKCON. Your emails and lectures provide me with instantly accessible sadhu sanga. You have told me everything and I am slowly growing up enough to hear. I used to not understand the sri guru carana song; it is only after meeting you that it makes sense. I am so grateful for you.
I was going to wish you something, but I realized that you have everything one might wish for. I will wish for you healthy cows and calves for the next year!
Please forgive me for missing your Vyasa-puja.
Humbly begging for the privilege of your service,
Margaret