My dear and most respected spiritual master and eternal father,
oṁ ajñāna-timirāndhasya jñānāñjana-śalākayā
cakṣur unmīlitaṁ yena tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ
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
mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
Please accept my most humble and respectful obeisances in the dust of your most merciful lotus feet! All glories to you, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
To whom shall we express our deepest heartfelt gratitude for your presence in our life? Without your personal sacrifice, bold and fearless risk-taking, with obedience to your Guru Mahārāja’s request for service, countless souls like me – wandering aimlessly in abject ignorance in the darkness of material existence – would remain hopelessly lost.
The bhakti-śakti and intense love for Kṛṣṇa that you carried and liberally disseminated has captured my heart, irrevocably – both in this life and forever.
As an ideal follower of Rūpa Gosvāmī, the foremost Gauḍīya authority on bhakti–rasa, you held profound love for him and his Deity, Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Govinda. This was exhibited when the queen of Jaipur, Mahārāṇī Gāyatrī Devī, so moved by your devotion and to show her appreciation, gifted you a pair of large marble Deities of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, similar to the original Rādhā-Govindajī Deities. After shipping Them to New York, you installed Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Govinda as the presiding Deity at the Henry Street temple in Brooklyn.
While the magnitude of your love for Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Govinda was not always on public display, at times you could not conceal it.
- In the summer of 1974, you were in New York to give association to disciples and other devotees from all over the East Coast who had assembled to be in your presence. Following the Sunday evening ārati, the Henry Street temple room was packed to capacity, awaiting your arrival and your Sunday Feast lecture. Coming in front of the altar, standing before the Deities with hands folded in supplication, you prepared to offer prostrated obeisances to Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Govinda. While extending your body before the Deities, a large gush of tears streamed from your eyes like a syringe! Those seated before you, to the right side of the altar, were literally splashed with your profuse stream of tears. Those seated there turned to Rukmiṇī Dāsī, who was standing hidden behind a curtain on the left side of the altar, to see if she had tossed mahā-water remnants from the ārati that had just been completed. Instantly, Rukmiṇī Dāsī and a dear friend of hers understood what had just happened. She descended from the slightly raised altar and together they quickly gathered the spiritual remnants from your exhibition of loving ecstasy through your eyes. You then glided slowly to the back of the room to deliver your Sunday feast class as if nothing had happened.
- Similar public exhibitions of syringelike ecstatic symptoms, displaying to the public your intense innermost elevated prema–bhakti, were exhibited in Atlanta and Mayapur.
While clearly on the platform of uttama–bhakti, you came before us with Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s sublime message, teaching your followers by your personal example the standards of a fearless madhyama preacher.
All qualified Vaiṣṇavas give full credit for their spiritual attainment to their predecessors, as did you; empowerment comes down to a recipient of mercy by way of the disciplic succession. Naturally, on the occasion of his Vyāsa-pūjā in March 1952, in choice poetry you graciously gave all credit to Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī as the champion of the highest stages of bhakti, a conclusion echoed by thousands of cheering mouths through the passage of time. In choice poetry, you expressed awe at the erudition of Śrīla Siddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī, acknowledging his gift to you, which you so liberally passed on to all of us.
Had you not come
Who had told,
The message of Krishna
Forceful and bold,
That’s your right
You have the mace.
Save me a fallen
Your Divine Grace.
In a similar fashion, like rivers flowing to the sea, abundant mercy descends through our awesome disciplic succession, commencing from Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and descending through His empowered followers.
Yet you accepted the specific mandate to flood the world outside of Bhārata-bhūmi, carrying in your heart the simple wish for everyone to be truly transcendentally happy: sarve sukhino bhavantu.
Receiving this gift from you with profound gratitude – the very seed of love – your many followers in turn have received the same mandate. May you become pleased with us as we strive to expand, preserve, and protect the purity and integrity of your mood and mission.
Our shortcomings are abundant. Please protect us and cleanse us from anarthas, thereby instead allowing us to become your true and faithful followers.
I beg to remain your eternal servant!
Romapāda Swami