September 2, 1972 : New Vrindavan

Vaiyasaki: Five hundred devotees have arrived from all over America and Canada for the biggest festival in ISKCON's brief history - the Bhagavat Dharma Discourses. The New Vrindavan residents have built a large open-air pavilion where all the programs will take place. Tremendous excitement is in the air because Srila Prabhupada has just arrived. So many devotees have come to see him and hear him speak. Everyone is in a festival mood, happy to be able to spend time with their spiritual master.

It is a beautiful sunny day as a thousand people crowd the hilltop pavilion to hear Prabhupada speak. Many scholars and local politicians have also been invited, and some even show up, including a reporter from The New York Times, who interviews Prabhupada at the farmhouse before attending his noon lecture at the pavilion. In his lecture, Prabhupada explains the significance of Vyasa-puja, because there are a number of visitors present from different places. He doesn't want the guests to think he is accepting worship on his own behalf.

"All the shastras have declared that the spiritual master is as good as God - not God, but as good as God. The mayavadis think that the spiritual master is also God. No. We Vaishnavas don't accept that theory. But actually, how a man can become God? No. But because he is God's representative, he is honored as God, but not that he has become God."