Dear devotees,
I have an idea I want to share with you and hear your opinions about. Srila Saraswati Thakur had a yearly festival, perhaps in conjunction with his own Vyasa Puja, where all his disciples had to give talks glorifying each other. They would award each other titles (vidyavinoda, krtiratna, bhagavatabhusana, etc) and really go out of their way to say something nice even about the ones they didn't like that much.
Since it is difficult to arrange such a physical meeting for all of us, my idea is to revive something of this in connection with everyone's birthday. Instead of just saying "happy birthday", we could also try to say something about that persons good qualities during that day. Not in an exagerrated or false way ("What I like about Bhrigu is his total disinterest in name and fame"), but genuinely trying to focus on nice things. Vaishnavas never want to hear themselves praised, but Krishna wants to hear it.
Some of this has already been done, but I think that it could be developed. It could also be a good way to get to know each other better. What do you think? I would love to hear more about all of you in this way.
Your servant,
Bhrgu
I like this idea, but one downside is that some devotees on the forum don't know very many other members. Guru Maharaja has mentioned this as a problem with the birthday postings already. One wonderful devotee might get a lot of postings and an equally wonderful devotee who doesn't know a lot of people might get none. He doesn't want anyone to feel left out or have any element of a popularity contest.
I like the idea, too, as I am known to be a fault-finder, and I constantly need to balance it out with glorifications. Unfortunately, I don't have a solution to the points raised by Vrndaranya and Guru Maharaja, but nothing prevents us from knowing each other better through our personal profiles and our postings.
I see what you mean with the risk of such a thing becoming a popularity contest. Some devotees (e.g. the Audaryavasis) are also simply better known than others. Perhaps this could be solved by allowed no more than one glorification per person. Or does anyone have any other suggestions?