Our most beloved Śrīla Prabhupāda,
Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to Your Divine Grace!
nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāminn iti nāmine
namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe
You are indeed the most merciful and advanced personality to have visited this planet of death in recent times. Your closeness to Kṛṣṇa is truly astounding. You are His very intimate associate. We have seen this repeatedly in the pastimes you manifested in this material world. In reality, you were not even in this world. You were always with Lord Kṛṣṇa. You never forgot Him. And yet you hardly ever publicly displayed ecstatic signs of love for God. By that I mean signs such as rolling on the ground, incoherent speech, loss of consciousness and the like. You could have, but for our sake, you acted in such a way that we could gain as much as possible from pure devotional service. You remained understandable to our Western minds. You thought of us. You performed many miracles and accomplished deeds that are unparalleled in the history of this universe. Your greatness is very difficult for us to comprehend. And yet you remained perfectly personal and normal.
Practically everyone who came into contact with you could immediately begin to love you. You knew very well that when a conditioned soul loves someone like you, they gain immense spiritual benefit. Repeatedly in your lectures you teach that our attachment to sense gratification must be transformed into attachment to a sādhu. You also perfectly embodied this sādhu. You were not a charlatan who merely performed cheap yogic or magical tricks to gain popularity among the uninformed public. You took the ancient teachings originating from the spiritual world and descending into this material world through Lord Brahmā, Nārada Muni, Vyāsadeva, Madhvācārya, and Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. You took this very noble message and very carefully and expertly presented it to us, the people of the West.
And who are we? Merely the degenerate remnants of the mlecchas and Yavanas who, many years ago, broke away from the Vedic tradition and went in search of happiness on a lower, even animalistic, level. But that did not bother you. Although from the Vedic perspective we are untouchable, and a pure person should take a bath as soon as they see any of us, you paid no heed to such regulations. The only thing on your mind was to fulfill the instruction of your spiritual master. You set out into hardship and foreign lands. You proudly carried the message of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and proved yourself a true general who defeats the armies of material energy with the ease of a little boy.
Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda, you have Kṛṣṇa. Everyone knows this. Even little Saraswati knew it. And yet you are constantly in the mood of earnest effort to find Kṛṣṇa, just like the Gosvāmīs of Vrindavan. He rādhe vraja-devike ca lalite he nanda-sūno kutaḥ … “Where is Kṛṣṇa? When will the day come when I see Kṛṣṇa?” This is what you taught us. You never taught, “I have Kṛṣṇa. I am very advanced. I am a noble devotee.” That was not your mood. You perfectly embodied the mood of Rūpa Gosvāmī. You gave us countless perfect examples of what a true Vaiṣṇava looks like. You were a perfect servant. Although your position is most exalted, you yourself washed the plates of your future disciples and cleaned up after the feasts you yourself cooked. You did everything so that the conditioned souls of this material world could find a crack in the impenetrable external energy of the Supreme Lord. Like a needle, you created a tiny crack that gradually grew into a vast path leading directly from this brahmāṇḍa to Goloka Vṛndāvana. You built a bridge across which even the blind or mute can safely walk home, back to God.
You feared nothing and no one. And you preached the same: whoever knows Kṛṣṇa has no fear. Fear is merely a sign of ignorance. You alone have done what is utterly impossible for thousands of others. Your glories are celebrated every day. In many places on this planet, hundreds and hundreds of ashrams, temples, and farm projects celebrate your glories, which are constantly expanding. Unlike materially famous personalities, your glories will never fade; on the contrary, they will spread throughout all three worlds. Ebe jaśa ghuṣuk tribhuvana.
Our dearest Śrīla Prabhupāda, you saved us. You saved us from ourselves. We had fallen into the dark well of the material world and lost our direction, purpose, and sense of reality. Like madmen, we wandered from place to place in a hopeless search for happiness. We wanted to be happy, but we didn’t know how to go about it. You came and gave us that supreme happiness, just as if it were a completely ordinary and natural thing. We were engaged in the most dreadful sinful activities, hoping they would bring us joy. But instead of joy, frustration and suffering came again and again. You taught us to chant the holy name of Lord Hari. You taught us to prepare delicious prasādam, and you gave us a yajña perfectly suited to the present age and the condition of humanity. You engaged us in the production and distribution of your books, your transcendental ecstasies.
You taught us perfect selflessness. You taught us that if we truly want to take Kṛṣṇa consciousness seriously, we must spread this consciousness far and wide. Only by sharing Kṛṣṇa consciousness can a living being experience true happiness, which comes directly from the spiritual world. You brought the spiritual world with you and gave it to us. Again and again, you asked, “Where is book? Where is book?” But you did not ask for yourself; you asked for the good of all humanity. Until the very last moment of your presence in this world, you were translating Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. You fought until your last breath and showed us a perfect example.
Your lotus feet hold the mission and the secret to true happiness. I say “hold,” yet it is no secret at all; service to your lotus feet is the perfection of life. Nothing else in our lives has any real meaning or significance. Taking one, two, three, or more of your books and going to try to place them in the hands of any conditioned living being is the foundation of your mission – the foundation upon which everything else stands.
You, however, are a genius and will not be satisfied with merely partial success. As soon as we understand the importance of your mission, which you received in disciplic succession, and fully engage in it, we will be given a specific place, tailored just for us as individual living beings. You relate to each of us in a perfectly personal way. You know each of your followers perfectly, because you know Kṛṣṇa. You can discern our mentality with absolute precision and engage us perfectly in service to Kṛṣṇa. Although our tendencies are very low and our inclinations among the lowest, you search our hearts for even the slightest interest in Kṛṣṇa and gradually nurture it more and more. As you said, “fan the spark.”* You take even the tiniest spark of interest in Kṛṣṇa consciousness and elevate it very highly. You inspire and nurture this slightest interest to the point where it becomes a great fire – a fire that burns away all material attachments, leaving only interest in Kṛṣṇa. You are a perfect sādhu and perfectly care for the plant of bhakti, whose seed you distribute wherever there is even the slightest chance of it sprouting.
In addition to distributing books, you established and announced another vital program. This program is even more challenging than book distribution. It’s a program that engages a vast number of devotees in direct service to the lotus feet of the Divine Couple, Śrī Śrī Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, in the mood of Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa. This program aims at helping all of humanity engage in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. I’m referring to varṇāśrama-dharma. You have repeatedly said in your lectures that it is not possible for everyone to practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness. There will always be people who oppose it. Such is the nature of the material world. However, this did not bother you; you strove to expand self-sustaining communities and teach all of humanity simple living and high thinking. This is especially true in Western countries, which have a culture far removed from traditional Vedic culture – a culture that is, in every aspect, highly conducive to the development of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. It is particularly in these countries that a cultural revolution is needed to enable the mass participation of humanity in the worship of Śrī Śrī Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa.
This endeavor is still in its humble beginnings. Here and there, glimmers of hope and some efforts in this direction appear. The varṇāśrama cultural direction goes against the current social mainstream. The whole world is striving for greater comfort and sense pleasure. Most people seek happiness in making money and satisfying their senses. You, however, teach us how to engage in renunciation and to satisfy the senses of the original master of the senses, Hṛṣīkeśa. You teach us how to live a simple life centered on the protection of cows, chanting the holy name, and serving the temple Deities. In this way, you engage our inclinations and tendencies in pure transcendental activity. You very graciously give us a way to live with our strong conditioning in the service of Kṛṣṇa. You do not send us away because we cannot always follow the perfect ideal you teach; on the contrary, very leniently and patiently, you teach us the basics of Kṛṣṇa consciousness again and again. We hear in practically every one of your lectures that we are not this body. Nevertheless, realizing this fact seems to be a lifelong project. And you very patiently walk with us and help us at every step to overcome the pitfalls of our own material desires. You are more merciful than our own parents. You are a true master on the path upward toward the perfection of human life, and it is only by your grace that it is possible to live in the company of devotees. There is so much I would like to say about you, and there is so much I would like to write to you. Today, therefore, let this be at least a modest effort to glorify your lotus feet, which are the sole comfort and hope of our lives.
We beg you, dearest Śrīla Prabhupāda, shower us with your mercy and make our insignificant efforts successful by being pleased all our mistakes and shortcomings. We will strive to improve ourselves as much as possible.
On behalf of your servants at Prabhupāda Bhavan and Nava Gokula,
Sureśvara Dāsa
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* Memories: Anecdotes of a Modern Day Saint, volume 2, by Siddhānta Dāsa (Jadurāṇī: Prabhupāda said, “If you see a spark of Kṛṣṇa consciousness in someone, you should fan that spark.”)