Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to you on your auspicious Vyāsa-pūjā day.
Thank you for everything that you gave to this world, your care, love, and compassion. You gave your blood, your life and soul, to save the conditioned living entities. Even today, and every day more and more, people are directly affected by your service and teachings to humanity. This cannot be estimated, because you gave Kṛṣṇa to the world, “as He is,” and Kṛṣṇa and His potencies means you gave the citizens of this world everything that is important in life.
A time will come that your movement will have such an influence on the planet that goodness prevails and all inhabitants of this world will understand that we are all brothers and sisters, and that there is one Supreme Personality of Godhead, who loves us, cares for us, and speaks the absolute, spiritual, scientific truth.
At that time, it will be unthinkable that governments of countries spend their citizens’ hard-earned money to destroy one another and one another’s houses, schools, and hospitals under the influence of passion and ignorance. It will be unthinkable that mothers decide to kill their babies in their own wombs because they are an impediment to their sense gratification. It will be unheard of that people pollute Mother Earth to the point that natural disasters manifest as a reaction, and that the availability of pure air and pure water are major issues in society at large. It will be unheard of that religious people have big gatherings with thousands of people where they stimulate their fellow believers to develop hard-core hatred against other religious faiths. It will be unheard of that the innocent, playful mentality of young boys and girls will be taken away by so much interactive mind-occupying devices, aggressive games, videos, and premature visual lust injecting information into the brain.
Presently, to grow up in this age means to become heart-hardened, to distrust people, to act in mean, egoistic ways toward others, to create physical and mental fences. To grow up for most youth in this world means to become engrossed in the understanding, “Let me enjoy as much as I can, even at the cost of my health or real love, real relationships.”
The world is in a precarious state. By Kṛṣṇa’s mercy upon you, and by the desire and blessings of the guru-paramparā bestowed upon you, you have been empowered to transform the world so that the prediction of ten thousand years may begin to manifest.
At the same time, you began your mission at a moment when the downward spiral was still strong – and in many ways, it remains so. Although, by your mercy, the upward movement toward spiritual life is gradually gaining momentum, the downward tendency still appears vast and overpowering. It may be, therefore, that by the laws of karma, a period of further upheaval is required before people come to their senses – before they turn toward reflection and genuine spiritual aspiration. From that point onward, in time, your teachings and your books will come to serve as guiding principles for the next ten thousand years.
Although the world is in a cloudy and confusing space, the future is very bright because predictions made by the Lord will happen; the words of the Lord and His pure devotee never go in vain.
Śrīla Prabhupāda, you are explaining that the most dangerous of the dirty things within our hearts, that thing that causes all the problems as mentioned above, is this misidentification of the body as the self. This misconception of the self is the strongest impediment, and it must be removed.
Śrīla Prabhupāda, in The Nectar of Devotion you explain that the chanting of the holy name is meant to cleanse the dust from the heart. You give us hope by emphasizing that even imperfect chanting, if done sincerely, will purify the heart and awaken devotion.
To cleanse the core of the heart, full with bodily misunderstanding, is possible through śrī-kṛṣṇa-saṅkīrtana. In The Nectar of Devotion, you describe that if one bows down in honor of the Deity, if one has tilaka markings and tulasī beads around his neck, if one accepts the mahā garland of the Lord, if one dances and chants for the Lord, one goes back to Lord Viṣṇu’s or Lord Kṛṣṇa’s planet.
You also wrote, based on Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī’s teachings, that just by clapping the hands during kirtan one can cause many birds to fly away; similarly, the birds of all sinful activities that are sitting in the body can be made to fly away simply by chanting, dancing, and clapping in kirtan before the Deity of Kṛṣṇa.
Your teachings are so merciful, logical, truthful, scientific, and heart-fulfilling, and have a healing effect on the hardened hearts of entangled souls. They are so easy to understand for simple persons,
Unfortunately, crooked people cannot understand their value at first, but then you have other ways, such as your other transcendental weapons suitable and merciful for the bewildered souls, such as harināma, prasādam, festivals like Ratha-yātrā, and holy name events, where people can get the Lord’s association and the association of the devotees.
Śrīla Prabhupāda, I try to help you in your mission, but I myself am a product of this world and, as such, full of faults. Please allow me to give the remaining part of my life in your service and the service of my Guru Mahārāja, your disciples and granddisciples.
Your servant,
Hṛdaya Caitanya Dāsa