Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,

nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale|
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine

namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe

My obeisances again and again at your lotus feet.

This is the fiftieth anniversary year of your setting foot in New Mayapura, France on August 11, 1975. In December this year we also have the fiftieth anniversary of the installation of Gaura-Nitāi at New Mayapura – on the tirobhāva of your own Guru Mahārāja.

One of your instructions was to “at least maintain what I have given you.” After so many years I feel sad that we are a long way short of that, or of fulfilling your vision for New Mayapura.

Still, dedicated efforts are being made by the devotees at New Mayapura – trying to fix the buildings as per your desire and construct new ones using as much local material as they can. They are also, albeit somewhat reduced, maintaining the worship of the Deities, Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Govinda Mādhava, Śrī Śrī Gaura-Nitāi, and Śrī Śrī Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma (installed by you in 1976). Over the past few years, the goshala has been resurrected – we now have two young sets of bullocks learning to plough and work. Milk is provided, at least for Their Lordships’ offerings, and the excess goes to the devotees. Slowly, efforts to produce more food from the land are underway. A restaurant was opened a few years back in the nearby city, and this year one young Vaiṣṇavī, who joined at New Mayapura just a few years back, has started a weekly preaching program there. It is already attracting dozens of youngsters. Hundreds of young volunteers from all over the world stay annually at New Mayapura.

Festivals have been revitalized, attracting devotees and guests from all over Europe, including many from the local area. The young managers are heart-and-soul dedicated to you, Śrīla Prabhupāda, and will do whatever you want. I pray that you guide them and protect them.

Young French devotees are now working alongside the elders on completing the translations and commentaries of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam into French. After all these years, it has never been finished. The book distribution has been slowly growing over the past eight years, with young and old devotees working together.

A year or so back, after much effort, the movement in France was finally accepted as a religious nonprofit, tax-exempt association. Efforts are underway to again establish a school for the devotee children and also to provide facilities to serve the elderly devotees in their final journeys or when in dire need.

On another front, in Paris there is daily harināma and book distribution going on in the city center. Undermanned we are, but again, the dedicated young devotees there are doing all they can to please you. We pray that as soon as possible your beloved Rādhā-Parisīśvara can be housed in a wonderful facility suitable for Their worship and pleasing to you. Many Indians are also coming to the temple, and programs are underway to guide them to your lotus feet.

I hope this little report brings a glimmer of happiness to you in this far distant place.

From my side I wish to offer you my obeisances in a practical way. I pray you kindly accept them. From your 1961 Vyāsa-pūjā offering, Vaiśiṣṭyāṣṭakam:

But simply a festival of flowers and fruits does not constitute worship.

The one who serves the message of the guru really worships him.

The service of the message is the real meaning of the Vedas.

Neophyte that I am, I am still attached to do what I want to do and have still not surrendered to your essential message of surrendering to Kṛṣṇa’s will. You are so mercifully accepting the efforts of egotistic followers like myself. I pray that my heart will somehow transform and truly follow your path.

My dear Lord Kṛṣṇa, You are so kind upon this useless soul, but I do not know why You have brought me here. Now You can do whatever You like with me.

O Lord, I am just like a puppet in Your hands. So, if You have brought me here to dance, then make me dance, make me dance, O Lord, make me dance as You like. (Mārkine Bhāgavata-dharma)

Somehow you have placed me in France to serve your mission. I pray that I can live by your words and dedicate this good-for-nothing body and mind in your service, to dedicate this lifetime and future ones, if need be, to fulfilling your desires. It seems this is the real way to offer obeisances (the dictionary definition of obeisance being the “act of obeying” or something you do that expresses that).

The disciple should not consider whether he is going back home, back to Godhead; his first business should be to execute the order of his spiritual master. Thus, a disciple should always meditate on the order of the spiritual master, and that is perfectional meditation. Not only should he meditate upon that order, but he should find out the means by which he can perfectly worship and execute it. (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 4.24.15, purport)

I can only say I am trying to execute your will in at least some small way or other. Please give me the strength that I do not desist, no matter what the challenge, and become the instrument of your will.

So, I thank you very much for inviting me in your temple, and I am very much pleased there are so many young boys and girls, they are chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. That is a new thing in the history, in a city like Paris, younger generation will chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. We are making history. That’s a fact. So do it sincerely. In all circumstances, trials, do not give up. (Arrival address, August 8, 1973, Paris)

If you desire, I am willing to come back again and again. Your example of sacrifice sustains me, maintains me, and remains with me always. Reflecting on the years when you walked the streets of Delhi and New York alone distributing Kṛṣṇa conscious literature gives me the strength to soldier on.

I often have my own meditation, strange at it seems, to be in Paris – in the heart of the city, Chatelet Les Halles, the “Gates to Hell” (chatelet means “the fortified gateway,” les halles, “the hell” – my play on words). I think of being there chanting, dancing, distributing books till I drop at your lotus feet with my last breath.

“Either you put me in the hell or heaven or this or that, [it] is all the same.” Because he is always with Kṛṣṇa, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa is always with him. So, where is the cause of being afraid that “This place is not good; this place is very good”? No. Wherever Kṛṣṇa is there is very good. That’s all. (Initiation lecture, August 27, 1969, Hamburg)

It doesn’t matter where it is. Even if we … We can go to the factory. Anywhere. We can go to the hell even. (Room conversation with John Papworth and Schumacher, August 4, 1973, London)

You have given the simple formula of transforming these hellish places into Vaikuṇṭha. Chant, dance, and distribute books and prasādam. The street becomes our temple, and all the conditioned souls there are coming to worship the Lord, even without their knowledge, particularly when they take the mercy in the form of your books. You have truly given us this gift of seeing Kṛṣṇa in everything and everywhere through this saṅkīrtana-yajña. We just have to do it. You have given us the most joyful austerity. This “austerity” is the means of transforming our intent from “what I like” to “what you like” – what Kṛṣṇa wants, the essence of our mission. The austerity is not the activity but the attitude in which we act. You again and again encouraged us to always chant – but to also hear the sound when we chant, to put Kṛṣṇa in the center. Such a sublime process.

In Kṛṣṇa consciousness, our recreation is dancing and chanting, and when we get tired, we take prasāda. Is dancing difficult? Is chanting difficult? (The Path of Perfection, “Yoga as Action”)

Simply our prayer should be, My dear Krishna, please remind me to always chant Your Holy Name, please do not put me into forgetfulness. You are sitting within me as Supersoul, so you can put me into forgetfulness or into remembering You. So please do not put me into forgetfulness. Please always remind me to chant, even You send me into the hell, it doesn’t matter, just so long as I can always chant Hare Krishna. (Letter to Devānanda Dāsa, November 23, 1968)

I have no other hope than this – that you please always remind me to chant, and as long as this body works, to dance. I have no qualification for anything, but out of your causeless mercy you have given me and everyone else this divine lifeline of saṅkīrtana.

May I dedicate this lifetime to serving you wherever you put me, to sacrificing everything at my disposal. To hell with personal desires for satisfying my temporal so-called needs. The only thing of value in my life is the privilege to surrender to your will. Thank you, Śrīla Prabhupāda, for this greatest gift of allowing me to associate, if only from a distance, with the topmost līlā of harināma-saṅkīrtana. This is my only sādhana, and you are my only hope.

May you cast your glance on France and make us dance. I pray you please shower your glance of mercy on us all that we can continue on the path of becoming your unalloyed servants – fulfilling your desires to preach the saṅkīrtana movement without the self-aggrandizing false ego that drives me on.

Your lowly begging servant,

Janānanda Goswami

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