Shrila Prabhupada in the Center

Nityananda! Gauranga! Hare Krishna! Jaya Shri Guru Parampara! Pranams! There has been lot of discussion about placing Shrila Prabhupada in the Center for solving all problems. I would humbly suggest that we place all our three Prachara Acharyas in the center: Shrila Sacchidananda Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada, and Shrila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, according to the desires of Shrila Prabhupada himself.

Shrila Prabhupada desired to have the Deity of his own Gurudeva Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada along with his Deity, worshiped in his temples. I suggest that the books, teachings and open-minded non-critical sincere followers of all of these three Acharyas should be given equal respect as they are our principal heritage. No discrimination should be made between the teachings of these three Acharyas and one should not claim that one is higher or more relevant than the other. One should not reject the teachings of any one of these Acharyas in favor of the other or give less importance to the teachings of any one of them. One can accept our father and reject or ignore our grandfather or our great great grandfather. If we emphasize only one of them and ignore the others, then we may end up going a little away from the flow of mercy descending from our Parampara.

Devotees should be instructed to study the teachings of all of these three Acharyas and not just one of them. Shrila Prabhupada wanted all of the books of Shrila Sacchidananda Bhaktivinoda Thakura translated and published for the great benefit of this world. Once when Gaudiya Math had a shortage of resources, Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada organized a big Vyasa Puja celebration for Shrila Sacchidananda Bhaktivinoda Thakura on His Appearance Day and the next day immediately all the shortages of resources were miraculously supplied. So all these three great Acharyas and Intimate Associates should be worshiped together in the right mood and Lord Gauranga Krishna will shower His mercy abundantly on us very miraculously in a manner which He has never done before. Yes, believe me or not, there would be miracles if this were to happen. :)

Problems will always be there in this material world but they will be greatly minmized if all these three Acharyas are worshiped together. After the disappearance of Lord Gauranga, the great trinity of Acharyas: Shrila Shrinivasa Acharya Thakura, Shrila Narottama Dasa Thakura and Shrila Shyamananda Pandit advented in this world to spread the mission of the Lord. Similarly, this great trinity: Shrila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Prabhupada and Shrila Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada have appeared in these modern times on the desire of the Lord to strenghten, establish and effectively spread this same mission. So imho we cannot just give prominence to only one and not to the other two because the mercy descended equally through all three of them.

In my ideal temple (imho), I would personally desire to see worship of the Deities of all three of them and deep studies, discussion,  katha and preaching from the books, teachings and writings of all three of them. Devotees can be taught to equally accept, respect and worship all three of them as our primary Shiksha Gurus. We should associate with and give proper respect to the followers and devotees of all these three Acharyas if they are humble, sincere and non-critical minded in whichever group they are situated. We should talk and preach from the holy books and writings of all of these Acharyas and not consider one's teaching higher than the other.

Anyway, these are some of thoughts on this subject which I would like to humbly present to the devotees for thought, deliberation and meditation.

Daaso'smi, Swami Gaurangapada.

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Orignal From: Shrila Prabhupada in the Center