Dearest Śrīla Prabhupāda,
My most prostrated obeisances at your transcendental lotus feet.
The more we continue to practice devotional service, the more we try to preach to others the
path of devotional service, the more we are becoming realized about our real identity, our real
purpose, our real fulfilment. We see from your personal life how if one is really happy and fearless,
compassion for others is the natural outcome. Like Your Divine Grace, we start thinking how to
bring anyone or everyone into devotional service – devotion for Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa in the footsteps
of Guru and Gaurāṅga.
Śrīla Prabhupāda, you haven’t stopped us from anything going on in our lives or whatever is
going on in the world. You taught us and showed us practically how and why to do everything for
the pleasure and satisfaction of Guru and Gaurāṅga.
I am lost in material existence. I have forgotten my identity, my relations, and my activity.
Caught up in material sense gratification and temporary body-based relationships, I have made
my life more miserable and complicated. All levels of leaders, starting from parents, teachers,
elders, bureaucrats, and lawmakers, are all in total darkness and are clueless as to how to tackle
the myriad problems of life that are inevitable and integral to worldly existence.
You didn’t tell us to improve our material situation. You have taught us how to improve our
consciousness from the material modes to soul consciousness and Kṛṣṇa consciousness. You
taught us how to dovetail our activities in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Śrīla Prabhupāda, you lifted our consciousness to our original Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and this
is simply and exactly the only business of the human form of life. The way you have given us the
highest perfection in a simple practical way is possible only for a pure devotee, an empowered
devotee like Your Divine Grace. Your glories are unfathomable and uncountable. You have shown
us how to go over the problems by seeing things in their real perspective, seeing things from a
total perspective, and seeing things from a transcendental perspective: be Kṛṣṇa conscious and be
in one’s natural blissful state.
Śrīla Prabhupāda, you were the perfect instrument in the hands of the Lord to bring about the
spiritual explosion, the Hare Kṛṣṇa explosion. You showed us how valuable is the association
of devotees, how essential is reading your books, how determined one has to be in chanting the
Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra, how one should pray to Gaurāṅga Mahāprabhu to develop the qualities
of a devotee, being humble, simple, kind, grateful, and prayerful.
Śrīla Prabhupāda, it is you who made human beings live like human beings by practicing
Kṛṣṇa consciousness. You have drilled into us how everything is there in the chanting of the Hare
Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra. We cannot repay you for what you gave us in life: eternal, blissful devotional
service unto Lord Kṛṣṇa. I fall at your divine lotus feet and beg, bless us to not forget you, your
glories, your stories, your teachings, your mission, and our eternal indebtedness to you.
Your aspiring servant of your servants,
Śukadeva Swami
ISKCON, Nellore, AP, India.