Our most beloved Śrīla Prabhupāda,
Hare Kṛṣṇa! Please accept our prostrated humble obeisances at the most merciful dust of your
lotus feet. All glories to Your Divine Grace!
oṁ ajñāna-timirāndhasya jñānāñjana-śalākayā
akṣur unmīlitaṁ yena tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ
nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine
namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe
On this auspicious occasion of your appearance day, we are attempting to present our humble
Vyāsa-pūjā offering at your lotus feet. Please accept this offering, written for our own benefit, and
bless us to become your dear servants, able to serve your mission of giving love of Nitāi-Gaurāṅga
to this increasingly suffering humanity in the dark age of Kali-yuga. Your compassion for other
living entities is unfathomable, founded on your deep love for the Supreme Personality of God-
head, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and profound faith and conviction in following the instructions of your Guru
Mahārāja Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Prabhupāda. Your life is a demonstration of śraddhā
(faith) as it is described by Śrī Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmī in Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta: ‘śraddhā’-
śabde – viśvāsa kahe sudṛḍha niścaya / kṛṣṇe bhakti kaile sarva-karma kṛta haya.
Śrī Akiñcana Kṛṣṇa dāsa Bābājī Mahārāja credited your success in spreading Lord Gaurāṅga’s
mission to your deep faith in the holy name. That faith of yours in the holy name continues to
manifest today in the form of spreading the saṅkīrtana movement to every nook and corner of this
globe.
It is our fortune that we have received your association through your most exalted disciples,
who have been serving you tirelessly, advancing your mission, even until their ripe old age, fol-
lowing in your footsteps. Kṛṣṇa appears once in a day of Brahmā, which spans 8.64 billion years,
followed by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s appearance. You appeared as the general of Śrīmān
Mahāprabhu’s army to accomplish His mandate of spreading the holy name of Gaurāṅga to every
town and village. Therefore, your appearance is as rare as the Supreme Personality of Godhead,
and we are only separated by a few decades from your physical presence.
An exalted ācārya in the line of the Madhva-sampradāya remarked that a personality like Your
Divine Grace had never appeared in the past and will never appear again in future. Thus our for-
tune is immeasurable, and the only way we can express our gratitude is to share that fortune with
others, following in the footsteps of your disciples.
Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda, in New Gokula Dhāma, ISKCON Vancouver, we endeavor to further
your mission of spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness by performing a variety of activities. 2024 marked
the fiftieth anniversary of the installation of the Divine Couple, Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Madana-mohana
here. We celebrated the occasion with great joy and enthusiasm, remembering your glories. One
of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s attributes is that He is satya-saṅkalpa: whatever He wills manifests.
Similarly, being a pure devotee of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, your will to have a temple in Vancouver was mani-
fested fifty years ago, and now it attracts hundreds of thousands of souls to come and participate
in the saṅkīrtana movement.
The three-day festival we held in honor of the installation anniversary included the participa-
tion of many of your disciples, such as Their Graces Pārtha and Uttama, Ānandamaya, Paratparaḥ,
Varāha Rūpa, Mahidhara, Kāla, and Rādhikā, to name only a few. These devotees were instru-
mental in establishing Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Madana-mohana’s temple, which you named New Gokula
Dhāma. It was truly inspiring to hear their memories, sacrifices, dedication, and devotion.
The Golden Dancer bus tour took us to various historical places, and this brought nostalgia
to the senior devotees and exhilaration to the younger devotees. The altar and Deities were fabu-
lously decorated by a team of young and senior devotees. A new Japa Garden, bedecked with 108
beautifully decorated steppingstones, was inaugurated, with our utsava Deities, Śrī Śrī Rādhā-
Madana-gopāla, leading the way on Their flower palanquin. Overall, the festival was a once-in-a-
lifetime experience for many.
In 2024, with the support of our community, we were able to improve the temple facilities
by adding a large patio, followed by a permanent tent in which our many hundreds of guests
can now be comfortably served prasādam. Our new Pushpanjali Farm grows varieties of flowers,
adding color to our temple campus as well as providing fresh flowers for the Deities. The distri-
bution of your books continued throughout the year, with an unprecedented number of Śrīmad-
Bhāgavatam sets distributed on Bhadra Pūrṇimā. All the devotee teams involved in outreach
activities, kīrtana programs, prasādam distribution, devotee care, and other temple-related projects,
made their contributions as offerings at your lotus feet.
Moving forward, the current temple management is focused on implementing an appropriate
nurturing model to build a vibrant devotee congregation in Vancouver. This model is the need of
the hour, as more and more new devotees are visiting our temple regularly. The growing congrega-
tion also requires a bigger temple with better facilities. The new temple construction team is forg-
ing ahead with fundraising and recruiting building experts to begin the groundbreaking as early
as possible. On the auspicious occasion of your Vyāsa-pūjā day we seek your blessings to succeed
in our endeavors in building a harmonious Kṛṣṇa conscious community and a grand new temple
building in the near future.
Whatever endeavor we may attempt may not be enough. Reading from the Śrīla Prabhupāda-
līlāmṛta, we hear: “Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī had said that if only one soul could be turned into
a pure devotee, his mission would be a success. Yet sometimes Abhay became overwhelmed when
he thought of how small he was, how much work had to be done on behalf of Kṛṣṇa, and how
difficult it was to convince even one conditioned soul.” We pray at your lotus feet that we imbibe
even an iota of this mood and become serious in our service. Let us please you and make advance-
ment in our spiritual journey. Bless us that we may bring benefit to humanity struggling in the
dark age of Kali-yuga.
With heartfelt gratitude and love,
on behalf of your servants at New Gokula Dhāma,
Nitāi Rāma Dāsa (temple president), Ananta Hari Dāsa (TEC), Jānakī Jīvana Dāsa (TEC),
Nitya Kiśorī Devī Dāsī (TEC), Mālatī Devī Dāsī (TEC), Murāri Caraṇa Dāsa (TEC),
Vṛndā Devī Dāsī (TEC), Nanda Gopāla Dāsa (servant leader, congregational development)