Real or Fake , What's the Problem?

[Guest guest]

Wake up, sleeping soul(s), wake up. Give up the embrace of the witch called

Maya.

 

A wonderful movie, featuring a most wonderful spiritual teacher--The

Universal Teacher--has been released for the pleasure of the Vaisnavas.

 

As we have heard it, the animated photo of His Divine Grace Srila

Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura Prabhupada was salvaged from an

almost-crumbled-to-dust newsreel found somewhere in Calcutta by the family

members of a young man who used to work as a newspaperman in the early

twentieth century in Calcutta. The young man used to visit Srila

Bhaktisiddhanta, and he took some footage of His Divine Grace.

 

Does this sound too strange to be true?

 

Regarding the picture under scrutiny, are most of us not familiar with it?:

our beloved param, or param-param, guru, peering at us intently and

compassionately through his round eye glasses, elderly, a little frail, with

white beard and white hair, but still nrsimha-guru through and through.

 

Does the animated clip of that well-known photo reveal something

extraordinary? Does the acarya speak some yet-to-be-uncovered truth that

might set our ISKCON ablaze in the fire of argument? Does the acarya make

some strange, mystical gesture (like Madhvacarya's two fingers) that will

open new, albeit controversial horizons on the troubled sea of our ephemeral

pursuits?

 

Nothing of the sort. Whether the clip is real or fake makes no difference to

it. It is a bona fide picture of our acarya. In his purport to Cc Adi 10.84,

Srila Prabhupada writes: "As members of the Krsna consciousness movement we

belong to the family, or disciplic succession, of Sarasvati Gosvami, and

thus we are known as Sarasvatas. Obeisances are therefore offered to the

spiritual master as sarasvata-deva, or a member of the Sarasvata family

(namas te sarasvate deve), whose mission is to broadcast the cult of Sri

Caitanya Mahaprabhu (gaura-vani-pracarine) and to fight with impersonalists

and voidists (nirvisesa-sunyavadi-pascatya-desa-tarine)."

 

"The Universal Teacher *is* about gaura--vani-pracarine/

nirvisesa-sunyavadi-pascatya-desa-tarine. It is about the Absolute Truth.

How can it be faulty? Please, let us fight with impersonalists and

voidists--as we have been ordered by Guru and Gauranga--not with our fellow

godbrothers, god-cousins, god-uncles, or whoever tries to glorify His Divine

Grace in words and deeds.

 

So, dear sleeping soul(s), if you really want to reveal the truth to the

world in general and to the devotees in particular, please wake up. Grab

your bead bag, your karatalas, your book bag, and go give something positive

to the ignorant masses. But please, do not fan the fire of discord among the

followers of His Divine Grace.

 

With a straw in between my teeth

I remain

Your servant,

Visakha Priya dasi

www.kirtanashram.com