The following is an ISTAN cinema film presentation of the sannyas ceremony of His Divine Grace Bhagavan Goswami Maharaj on the Vyasa puja day of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada on August 28, 1978. If we are not making constant progress upwards, then we will begin to make progress downwards.

There is no question of simply maintaining a certain level of consciousness. And Rupa Goswami is pointing out there is constantly a progressive step. Constantly there must be that advancement, that first initial faith, sadhā, and then the desire to associate with devotees. It is all very exciting.

It is all very exciting because the surrender demanded is not so much, and therefore one thinks I am ready for initiation, and then two weeks after initiation he is back out into the material world. One who is actually serious about getting out of material life, he doesn't like to put any material vibration on his tongue, just like stool. The only thing he wants on his tongue is descriptions about Kṛṣṇa, because he knows his time is short. He has that vision of eternity, that this life is temporary.

He wants to get situated in the eternal existence. He feels the passing of time and he takes it as a great opportunity, this human form of life. So when he associates with the devotees, it is always very meaningful. And when we have the chance to associate with advanced devotees, we should hear and render service to them.

In this way we take full advantage of sadhusatsana. One who has not learned how to properly associate in this way should not go on to the next step of bhajana kriya, should not ask for initiation. Prabhupada personally told us, he said, in the beginning of this movement I accepted anyone for initiation. Just to begin this movement I had to accept anyone even though I knew they were not qualified.

So this is our position. We have received that mercy. Although we had no idea how to associate with devotees, we had no idea of what was initiation, still Prabhupāda accepted us. But the point is that one should learn before asking for initiation how to associate with the Vaiṣṇavas. hari-guru-vaiṣṇava-bhagavad-gītā śrī-guru-vaiṣṇava-pād-padma-kori-yāśa-hari-nāma-saṅkīrtāṅkari-nara-tāma-vās How many times devotees have sat in front of Prabhupāda, completely asleep.

The pure devotee is here for ten years, not much more than ten years. Such valuable time, and still it's such a hard time to hear, such a hard time to read, such a hard time to chant. So we were not very qualified. So this kind of training must be there. everyone must be well versed in the philosophy everyone must understand what is the chanting everyone must understand what is the guru everyone must understand Krishna's supreme nature everyone must be trained in this business then we will be fixed up no one will go back to material life it is everyone's business in this moment to learn how to train devotees first of all become trained yourself and he made a very thorough study of the Bhagavad Gita as it is and came to the perfect conclusion that the essence of this human form of life is to find out a bona fide spiritual master and to surrender unto his lotus feet and to take Vaishnava initiation and thus to go back to home, back to Godhead.

Bhagavan Maharaj was married and he brought with him his good wife and they both surrendered at the lotus feet of Srila Prabhupada. At that time Srila Prabhupada was very pleased because immediately after joining, Bhagavan Maharaj took it upon himself that the essence of spiritual life is to please the spiritual master. And the most perfect way to please the spiritual master is to assist the spiritual master in spreading the Sankirtan movement. He therefore went to the city of Detroit, which was famous formerly only for producing cars.

And he opened a temple so that Detroit became known in the spiritual world also. He opened a nice temple there, and very quickly, by his staunch preaching, many Vaishnavas were made. Thereafter, after a few years of successfully organizing this temple, Srila Prabhupada sent His Divine Grace Bhagavan Maharaj to Europe. Then, under Bhagavan Maharaj's supervision, centers were opened in Rome, in Spain, now in Israel, Portugal, and throughout southern Europe.

Krishna consciousness is feeling a tremendous upsurge. Last year, when Srila Prabhupada was in Vrindaban, he mentioned that the criterion for judging the value of a devotee is to see how many books he has printed and distributed, how many devotees he has made, and how many properties he has acquired. In this respect, we can see that, indeed, Bhagavan Maharaj is a true leader of this movement because he is so ecstatically engaged in printing and publishing Srila Prabhupada's books. We all pray for the glorious success of our very dear God-brother, Bhagavan Maharaj.

Bhagavan Goswami Maharaj. Now you can bounce that in full. of course once every day every fully absorbed and appreciating knowledge that prahupada has given us by studying his books understanding them and preaching what we have understood and then staying in the renounced spirit by going out on missionary activities not getting attached to this place or that place doing everything necessary to spread Krishna consciousness all over the world Prabhupada wrote me in one letter he said practically speaking our whole institution is simply being maintained by my traveling if I do not travel then everything will be finished so in this way he experienced Vairagya right from the very beginning because he was full of knowledge and love for Krishna he said I left my comfortable home in Vrindavan I had everything I wanted beautiful room overlooking the samadhi of Rupa Goswami where I was feeling much ecstasy every day seeing the samadhi and seeing the deity of Radha Dhammadhara but instead I left to go to the western world the country of the Mlechas and to translate these books one boy has written some nice poem from Mayapur how Prabhupada has kindly come to the west and had all the Vedic shastras translated into the language of the Mlechas He says, never sitting still.

This is the spirit of vairāgya. One time a devotee went to Prabhupāda and said, Prabhupāda, I just want to always be situated at your lotus feet. Prabhupāda said, that is quite impossible. He said, because my lotus feet are always in motion.

In this way we should continue throughout our whole life. There was no time in Prabhupāda's life where we just observed him sitting still And renouncing his missionary activities, even until the last moments, Prabhupāda is laying down on his bed with the dictaphone right there, Pradumna Prabhu, reading the Sanskrit, Śrīla Prabhupāda giving the purport. Up until a few weeks before he disappeared, Śrīla Prabhupāda was on the airplane going to London because he was full of realized knowledge, jñānam vijñānam āstikam. that is the nature of the pure devotee not only knowledge but practical application of knowledge practical application of knowledge is demonstrated by one's desire to go out and preach knowledge all over the world so this is the devotee's eternal offering to Prabhupada to become fixed up in knowledge never to be defeated by anyone that is a great embarrassment for the spiritual master that his disciple will be defeated so one must regularly study these books and go out and inject Krishna consciousness into the mainstream of society.

And this will be our actual Vyasa puja offering day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. And that will go until the last moment that we are breathing.