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
Jaya oṁ viṣṇupāda paramahaṁsa parivrājakācārya aṣṭottara-śata śrī-śrīmad
His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda kī jaya!
Daṇḍavat praṇām! With all the respect and consideration we have for Your Divine Grace and your
gigantic work, we have not a single word to address to your eminent personality. But as custom
requires, we can only say thank you to sum it all up.
Indeed, at a very advanced age you took the risk of throwing yourself into the water (an
impossible thing for our generation) to free us from our respective conditionings. I offer you my
respectful homage! You were in Vrindavan (at Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Dāmodara temple), and lacked noth-
ing. You were old like most of the other sādhus preparing to leave their bodies whom we meet in
Vrindavan today.
Who reassured you that you would succeed in your mission to America? You may not have
known it yourself, but one thing was in you: faith in your spiritual master and the conviction that
Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa and Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu would not let you down. As you yourself wrote
on Friday, September 10, 1965, in your travel journal somewhere on the Atlantic, aboard a steamer
sailing toward America:
Today the ship is plying very smoothly. I feel today better. But I am feeling separa-
tion from Sri Vrindaban and my Lords Sri Govinda, Gopinath, Radha Damodar. The
only solace is Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita in which I am tasting the nectarine of Lord
Chaitanya’s Leela. I have left Bharat Bhumi just to execute the order of Sri Bhakti Sid-
dhanta Saraswati in pursuance of Lord Chaitanya’s order. I have no qualification, but
I have taken up the risk just to carry out the order of His Divine Grace. I depend fully
on Their mercy so far away from Vrindaban.
Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda, I offer you my respectful homage again and again for your faith in your
spiritual master. Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda, I am writing this offering to you personally from the
bottom of my heart. Please, if I have any talent within me that will allow me to help my spiritual
master fulfill his mission, please bring it out. Help us better serve and guide these people who are
so thirsty for your teachings but who know nothing of the process. Again and again, I offer you
my respectful homage!
The most insignificant servant of your servants,
Ananta Vijaya Dāsa
AICK, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso