31st December 2016
Today is New years Eve and new year day is fast approaching, so for the New Year’s day, let me give a message. According to the Christian era, this New Year’s day, 2017, it’ll be a day that we can remember all the things that Prabhupada gave us. How last year was the 50th Anniversary and how every year now similarly we will be celebrating another fifty years. I joined in 1968, someone would have joined in 67, so for someone who joined in 67, this year would be the 50 anniversary for them. If we think of all the things we would like to do this year for our local deities, Srila Prabhupada, our Guru Maharaj. So we try to do something this year. Prabhupada gave this assignment to double it every year, other words we should never be happy or complacent that we have done everything and that we have nothing more to do and we have tried the best we can. So we try to do something this year . Every year we should try the best we can, that should be growing upon the previous years. So this year we have the opportunity, to complete the TOVP, the Temple Of the Vedic Planetarium, or at least to go in that direction and to develop Mayapur Dham, to develop our local temples , to increase the number of Namhattas and Bhakti Vrikshas, youth programs, and all the different types of programs. So we want to every year increase at the same time we want to increase our love for Krishna, our devotion and we can think how we can do that, What we will do this year to improve our devotional service this year? We want to do something more significant this year. Don’t be complacent, this is an opportunity we have. So of course for us, Gaura Purnima is our New Year. But we celebrate with all the other people, this New Year’s day, 2017 and we want to use this day to inspire everybody, to go deeper and deeper into their own spiritual life, after all everybody is a spirit soul, but they think that they are the body. But the body will die, but we will not die, we will continue living on, and if we are successful, we go back to Krishna. Otherwise we stay in the cycle of birth and rebirth. So if we want to take birth, we have to in the family of devotees so that we can pursue our devotional service and in this way, every year we want to make a new, improved, devotional service. So we thank you very much for giving this time to think how we can make this year the best year ever, by giving this year in our Krishna Consciousness. Hari bol!