The day after celebrations for one of our biggest festivals of the year, Krsna Janmastami, we will be celebrating one of the most important festivals for us as Hare Krishnas – Srila Prabhupada’s Vyasa Puja on Tuesday, August 31, 2021.
The Vyasa Puja festival is always held the day after Janmastami and the festival honours the appearance of our spiritual master His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada – Founder Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.
This year the program will be virtual and will begin at 11:00am with an abhisheka of Srila Prabhupada (bathing ceremony of a small Deity of Srila Prabhupada) and will continue with the arati, flower offerings and (pushpanjali). Selected devotees and groups will be getting together virtually and reading pre-written offerings to Srila prabhupada. While everyone is invited to participate in the virtual program we will likely not be able to accomadate everyone reading offerings. We will be once again encouraging everyone to write their own offering for the Toronto Virtual Vyasa Puja Book.
Traditionally, Vyasa Puja “offerings” are made by devotees who write and present personal messages to the spiritual master. The Governing Body Commission (GBC) for ISKCON has stated that every devotee in ISKCON should write an offering to Srila Prabhupada on Vyasa Puja.
We would like to encourage all devotees in our community to write a personal letter, in the form of an offering to Srila Prabhupada for this year’s festival and, to further facilitate this process, we will be making a special Virtual ISKCON Toronto Vyasa Puja Book for 2021. Offerings can be submitted HERE by August 29th, 2021.