Giriraj Swami spoke on Srila Prabhupada’s Vyasa-puja offering to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, from 1936.
” ‘Had you not come,
who had told
the message of Krishna,
forceful and bold?
That is your right,
 you have the mace.Â
Save me a fallen,
Your Divine Grace.’
“Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura conveyed the message of the Bhagavad-gita, Srimad-Bhagavatam, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and the previous acharyas forcefully and boldly. And Prabhupada says, ‘That is your right, you have the mace.’ Sometimes we have to be hit with a club because we are so hard-headed and stubborn that we need that. In another place Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura said that sadhu means to cut: he cuts our illusory, material attachments. He exposes our weaknesses and material desires and attachments. They come marching out of our heart like animals, and he stands there ready to cut them. People cannot help being exposed by the sadhu, and they may not like that he is trying to cut their material attachments. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta said that therefore sometimes a sadhu has enemies. He himself had many enemies, because he challenged people who assumed artificial positions of authority over others — such as the caste brahmans — but were not actually elevating them.”
