Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Vyasa-puja - birthday of the guru

Toronto, Ontario

Here is a devotional offering to our guru, Srila Prabhupada, from this humble self:

Thanks!

thanks for Krsna's name
and for my name,
for a new goal
for this lost soul.

thanks for the real life
and "Life Comes From Life",
a new way of thinking
a nectar I've been drinking.

thanks for the chance to sing,
and for the spices, especially hing,
the food, the rotis,
kurtas and dhotis.

thanks for all the books
and "hooks or by crooks",
the travel, the adventures,
toothpaste for the dentures,
your powerful discourses,
and fighting Māyā's forces,
and for your life story--
its unfathomable glory.

thanks for nonviolence
unless it's in defense,
your liberalism
your conservatism,
and the accommodation
for apparent contradiction.

thanks for such a character as Hiranya,
and what to speak of Caitanya?
thanks for George and Jagannātha,
for Krsna and Gopinātha,
for cymbals, drums, tilak
kirtans that make us rock.
the mantra, Sanskrit, oṁ,
the ways to go back home,
for shaven heads, being clean,
and insisting on hygiene,
for the love of bull and cow--
we must tend to them right now--
for your talks and your walks
and blessings for my walks,
for the place 243,
devotees, your GBC.

thanks for teaching us dance,
chants, and trance,
giving us humour
and no room for rumor,
for farms, restaurants, schools,
four regs and rules,
for blessing me with dramas,
holy places, and dhāmas,
for the Deity, the icon,
the home we call Iskcon
backing the family,
youth, and elderly,
for prasādam and its distribution
done in great profusion,
for being father, being mother,
showing kindness to one another.

thanks for your coming,
what to say of your going?
thanks for your smile,
for you are always the boss
eternally
for me
and for us.

Bhaktimarga Swami

9 KM