The next day was Vyasa-puja day, the celebration of Prabhupada’s seventy-fourth birthday. That morning a package arrived from New York containing several copies of the Vyasa-puja booklet, a twenty-five-page paperback filled with homages from Prabhupada’s disciples.
Months before, one of the devotees had discovered an old issue of a magazine published by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati; the magazine contained a Vyasa-puja homage Prabhupada had written commemorating the appearance day of his own spiritual master. When the article had been brought to Prabhupada’s attention, he said that his disciples could also write their own appreciations, just as he had done forty years before. So the devotees in New York had gathered offerings from seventeen different temples and had printed them all in a Vyasa-puja booklet.
Prabhupada was very pleased to receive the little booklet, and he had one of the devotees read it aloud in the temple. When all the readings were finished, he explained how service and prayers were accepted by Krishna through the medium of the disciplic succession. Although outsiders might think that, “This man is becoming flattered in hearing his own eulogy,” the real meaning of Vyasa-puja homage is that it is a test of how well the disciples were understanding Krishna consciousness and serving the spiritual master.
Their praises were all going to the Supreme Personality of Godhead through the disciplic succession. And such praises were required training for the disciple, just as officers train soldiers in the military.
Reference: Prabhupada Lila – Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami
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