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
Please accept my most humble obeisances in the dust of your divine lotus feet. Hare Kṛṣṇa!
In 1966, my father somehow found his way to you at 26 Second Avenue. He wasn’t knowingly
searching for Kṛṣṇa, but rather had a personal agenda related to his son, who had “lost it” (gone
crazy) due to a neurosis compounded by the effects of LSD. On that occasion, you expressed your
underlying and profound compassion in a simple acknowledgment: “There is something wrong
with that boy.” You then immediately reassured your visitor: “But we can fix him up!”
(This confident statement calls to mind the title of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami’s third volume of
his Śrīla Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta: Only He Could Lead Them.)
So, let’s count how many years have passed up to the present? All right, 2025 minus 1966
equals 59 years since those wild beatnik/hippie days in downtown NYC! (From the bodily per-
spective, I was twenty years old and am now seventy-eight.)
Five years later, in 1971, by the intercession of the devotees, you permitted me one more per-
sonal darshan. This took place in another sacred enclave, namely the second ISKCON temple, in
Boston, Massachusetts, at 38 North Beacon Street. The bottom line of that exchange, or the take-
away from it, was your concluding words: “I only ask one thing of you – simply try to understand
Kṛṣṇa!”
Another five years later, in April 1976, I was formally initiated to become your disciple. Up to
the present I have been chanting at least the minimum sixteen rounds daily and have not broken
any of the four regulative principles. But it was only in 2013 that I felt steady and strong enough
to accept the order of sannyāsa.
Of course, my humble story repeats in thousands of ways, with many variations, for each one
of your fortunate disciples. After your departure, so many others would yet become initiated by
your disciples, and thus your ISKCON movement continues to spread throughout the world. This
was foreseen by the previous ācāryas, notably Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura.
Śrīla Prabhupāda, while I still mentally struggle with the challenges of the awful impressions
from my youth and, now, with the inevitable miseries associated with old age, I am thankfully
aware of my extraordinarily good fortune to have met you and to find myself in the process of sur-
rendering unto your lotus feet – and thereby to the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality
of Godhead, also known as Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
All glories to you, Śrīla Prabhupāda, on this auspicious celebration of your divine appearance
on this earth.
Your yet aspiring servant,
Bhakti Prabhupāda-vrata Dāmodara Swami
(now based at New Raman Reti, Alachua, Florida, USA)