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Vyāsa-pūjā 2023

Snigdhamayī Sudevī Devī Dāsī (Mayapur - India)

Dear Guru Mahārāja,

Please accept my respectful obeisances at the dust of Your Divine lotus feet. All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda! All glories to Your Divine Grace!

It feels like another day when I attended your Vyāsa-pūjā for the first time in 2011. Those days, although packed, the temple hall in Śrīdhāma Māyāpur could still accommodate your disciples and well-wishers. Over the years, your mercy reached yet far and wide that even the bigger areas within the campus started to fall short, what to speak of the temple hall! I also remember how your health was way better in those days. Despite more and more health challenges, you extended yourself, expanded preaching so much more! You are my favorite devotee. The word devotee comes from the word devoto, which means one who follows the vows. Incredible! No matter how your health is, what managerial issues you have to deal with, what services you have to execute for the pleasure of Śrīla Prabhupāda, you never fail to maintain your initiation vows. Thus setting an example for us to not only follow but live up to! Besides following the initiation vows, you also spend every second of the day in fulfilling Śrīla Prabhupāda’s instructions. Following in your example and getting encouraged by your grace thousands of your disciples and well wishers are pursuing the śāstric courses, reading Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books. For you never to fail to read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books! The signs of an advanced devotee is he never wastes a moment without being in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. You never let any moment go unused in Kṛṣṇa’s service! You perform the simple activities of devotional service like hearing and chanting so sincerely without failing that enthuses the entire devotee community to come back to the roots! I hope that by following your instruction to have taken and completed the Bhakti-śāstrī will please you and all the previous ācāryas, because by pleasing you they will be pleased, so would the Lord be pleased. In purport to SB 1.1.8, Śrīla Prabhupāda writes, “The secret of success in spiritual life is in satisfying the spiritual master and thereby getting his sincere blessings. Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura has sung in his famous eight stanzas on the spiritual master as follows: “I offer my respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of my spiritual master. Only by his satisfaction can one please the Personality of Godhead, and when he is dissatisfied there is only havoc on the path of spiritual realization.”

On the open day when you had come to SMIS, you were saying how it is not only the responsibility of the parents, but also everyone in the community for a child’s upbringing. I have been trying to serve the teenagers in the school by acting as their well-wisher besides being their subject teacher. Following the mood that your dear disciple Amala Mañjarī Mātājī guided me to be has shown some positive results. Some teenager girls opened up their hearts to me seeking help. Please bless and empower me so that I can be of some service in strengthening their faith in the process and nurturing them to continue to stay under Śrīla Prabhupāda’s shelter in ISKCON for the rest of their lives, they are our future!

By your divine arrangement, you have brought Amala Mañjari Mātājī to our lives, who kindly engaged me in translating, proof reading various Bengali texts that you needed for compiling the Caitanya book. Recently we compiled your question answers later to be published as a book. While doing that I realized how you have spent hours and hours in solving our problems. How you have mercifully dedicated yourself for the upliftment of fallen conditioned souls, extended yourself to personally guide and support your disciples. Incredible! Currently I am working on compiling your quotes on chanting for later publication as a japa book. Please bless me so that I can perform this service with determination.

Last year has been absolutely amazing, because after two long years of seeing you only one the other side of computer screens, the rooftop was then open for seeing you face to face! That was a feeling beyond expression! ‘Ānander sīmā nāi’. As a child I always wanted to remain in your personal association for longer time than just for a few hours during pandal programs in Kolkata. You fulfilled our desires beyond comprehension. For months we are now able to take your personal association. April 2023 was the best month so far, when regularly we served at your kitchen. Thank you for engaging useless person like me in doing something so wonderful that the hundreds of devotees are constantly hankering for!

Definitely there has been good things by your grace but also challenges and unexpected events took place. You would mention how the real test is to remain in Kṛṣṇa consciousness even at tough times, at easy times everyone can be Kṛṣṇa conscious. Whenever I felt like giving up, you sent different devotees to encourage me, and you continue to do the same. Thank you for not letting me fall from the path of devotional service! Please bless me dear Guru Mahārāja, so that I can keep my initiation vows, fulfill and follow your instructions as my heart and soul.

I apologize for the terrible offenses I have committed having lost control over my senses. Please forgive me. If you reject me, what is my hope? I am made up of your mercy. All the wonderful things that happen in our lives is by your divine arrangement. Please bless me to have one drop of respect and love that you have for Śrīla Prabhupāda. I remember those days of going crazy for your darshan, association. Over the years, everything has faded. Please bless me Guru Mahārāja, so that I can always remain attached to your divine lotus feet under all circumstances. Please forgive me for my misconduct. Being overwhelmed with different tribulations I have neglected your instructions, took your mercy for granted. Please forgive me. Thank you being there always. Please keep me always under your divine shelter.

This year our birthday was extraordinarily special. It was Ekādaśī, we were thinking how to get a cake and get it cut by your lotus hands since it was a working day in school. You magically chose that day to come to school and address the high school students. Thank you for your blessings. Thank you for cutting our birthday cake and fulfilling our long-cherished desire.

It is so inspiring to see how you devise methods to distribute Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books and encourage others to do the same, by saying ‘Assume it can be done’. It is extraordinary to see how sleeping so late after giving Caitanya-līlā classes, you never fail to attend maṅgala-ārati. Everything that you do is so instructive and encouraging.

You are completely absorbed in remembering the pastimes of the Lord. It is so astonishing how you can always relate everything to the Lord. How you can recall what you have read or heard from the scriptures. This is only possible for someone who is always absorbed in thinking about the Lord. As SB 10.2.37 states, “Even while engaged in various activities, devotees whose minds are completely absorbed at Your lotus feet, and who constantly hear, chant, contemplate and cause others to remember Your transcendental names and forms, are always on the transcendental platform, and thus they can understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead.”

I pray to Their Lordships of Śrī Śrī Rādhā Mādhava, Pañca-tattva, Prahlāda Narasiṁhadeva that They may give you good health and long life so that you can fulfil Śrīla Prabhupāda’s instructions and give us your priceless association for many more years to come.

Thank you,
Your spiritual daughter,
Snigdhamayī Sudevī Devī Dāsī (diksha)
Śrīdhāma Māyāpur, India