Why do we worship Srila Prabhupada?

How did the worship of the Deity of Srila Prabhupada?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
and how did this worship start when Srila Prabhupada was in America at one time one lady came to him and she said that she was almost accusing Srila Prabhupada Swamiji, your disciples worship you so she was trying to accuse him, how are you so proud of something that you are accepting worship for yourself so Srila Prabhupada very calmly replied, yes that is the system, one should worship one’s guru, I worship my spiritual master so Srila Prabhupada himself would bow down to the picture of Bhakti Sadan Sivya Thakur would do guru puja at one time on the Vyasa Puja of Bhakti Sadan Sivya Thakur, the devotees had failed to cook properly so Srila Prabhupada although he was elderly, he himself went and cooked almost 25 items and he said everything that I am doing is for my spiritual master and he said we should celebrate his Vyasa Puja, Vyasa Puja is the day is like the birthday of the spiritual master that is celebrated by glorifying him so Srila Prabhupada himself led the festival over there he cooked, he made the offerings he spoke about the glory of his spiritual master so actually in the 13th chapter of Bhagavad Gita in verses 8 to 12 am I audible? just now it became inaudible so in the Bhagavad Gita chapter 13 verses 8 to 12 describe the symptoms of knowledge and one of the symptoms of knowledge Amanitvam Adambitvam Ahimsa Shantir Arjavam Acharyopasinam Vishavcham Sthairyam Atma Vinigraha so Acharyopasinam Krishna says that worship of the Acharya worship of the Acharya the spiritual teacher is an item of knowledge that means those who have knowledge will do this so why do we worship the spiritual master it is not that we think the spiritual master is God but that we understand God is manifesting through the spiritual master and God’s mercy God’s grace is manifesting through the spiritual master and so we worship him and overall when we worship the spiritual master it is always with the understanding that he is a great devotee of God we are not worshipping him independently just like if we sing the Mangal Aarti in the morning if you look at the Mangal Aarti it is all how the spiritual master is a great devotee of Krishna that he is giving the message of Krishna he is dancing and singing the name of Krishna he is absorbed in the remembrance of Krishna he is doing deity worship to Krishna so it is in one sense an extended form of the worship of the Supreme Lord itself and the Supreme Lord loves it because he likes his devotees to be worshipped so we see that Krishna himself did not become the emperor of the world he made Yudhishthira the emperor of the world so when Sudama came to meet Krishna Krishna worshipped Sudama he did Aarti of Sudama so the Lord likes his devotees to be respected even worshipped so that is Acharya Upasana so two things about Acharya Upasana it is there in the tradition, it is there in the scripture and it is done with the understanding that the Acharya is a representative of God, not God himself now how did it start in ISKCON? actually as the devotees in ISKCON got acquainted with the tradition more and more they came to India and they saw how the other devotees in India worshipped their spiritual master they have a picture so then they also started they also started doing this for Shila Prabhupada and Shila Prabhupada realized that this is an important part of Shila Prabhupada knew that this was an important part of the process of devotional service and he acquiesced to that so Shila Prabhupada’s deity that is there in the temple that was that was that was started after Shila Prabhupada departed from the world and the idea is that our worship to Krishna goes through the spiritual master so we don’t worship the spiritual master independent of Krishna so we recognize that the spiritual master is connected with Krishna and is connecting with Krishna and because Krishna tells us to worship the spiritual master so we worship him in the Uddhav Gita also Krishna says that acharya maam vijaniya maamanyet karijit sarva devam ayau guru there are many verses like that all the devatas are present in the form of the spiritual master so never disrespect to the spiritual master always worship him so because there is a scriptural precedence and there is a clear philosophical understanding that’s why we have the worship of the spiritual master but it is never with the idea that he is independently powerful he is actually representing God