O n 26th Feb, Vyasa Puja celebration of HH Bhakti Tirtha Maharaj took place at the community hall near Prabhupada Samadhi. Firstly, there was glorification of Maharaj by senior Vaisnavas who had gathered on the occasion. Some of the salient points were:
- He was an intellectual as shown by his BA in psychology and African American studies at Princeton University.So, it was easy for him to interact and preach to academicians. That can also be felt in his books where he used the language of conflict resolution and depth psychology, as well as that of the New Age.
- He was extremely humble and dedicated his success to empowerment of Srila Prabhupada.
- He was very much on spiritual platform and didn’t even care for own prasadam but used to arrange prasad distribution so that every one got prasadam.
- He was ready to do anything for spreading Krsna consciousness. Some people criticized him for wearing traditional African attire despite being a sanyasi, he did so to instill confidence in colored people that they were not inferior to white and ultimately to preach.
- He was very cooperative and wanted unity in ISKCON. HH Bhakti Madhurya Govinda Swami said that recent GBC meetings in Mayapur where there was open discussion of proposals would be pleasing to him.
After glorification, there was pushpanjali and Guru puja. This was followed by a short kirtan and distribution of a big feast to all Vaisnavas.
More can be known about him on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhakti_Tirtha_Swami and his biography Black Lotus: The Spiritual Journey of an Urban Mystic
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