In ISKCON, and in the Vaishnava tradition, disciples follow in the footsteps of previous saints or great souls. The disciples gather around on special festival days and celebrate the Lord's pastimes. Disciples also do the same for their spiritual master. One such festival is the appearance day of the spiritual master. On this day, the disciples write words of gratitude and praise to the pure spiritual master to display externally feelings of love and emotion. The commemoration of the spiritual master's appearance day is called "vyasa puja" because the spiritual master represents Mahamuni Vyasa.
Anyways, all this time, I was thinking that this ceremony of offering words of gratitude/love was a formality that senior disciples did for their spiritual master. In other words, I did not fully understand the gravity of this process of offering to the spiritual master. I read the actual meaning explained by Prabhupada himself about this offering.
"the real meaning of Vyasa-puja homage is that it is a test of how well the disciples were understanding Krsna consciousness and serving the spiritual master. Their praises were all going to the Supreme Personality of Godhead through the disciplic succession. And such praises were required training for the disciple, just as officers train soldiers in the military. But in this case, the training was in the feelings of pure consciousness."
- Srila Prabhupada from the book Prabhupada-lila by H.H.Satsvarupa dasa Goswami
Hare Krishna
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