Your Divine Grace Śrīla Jayapataka Swami!
Dear Guru Maharaj!
Accept my respectful obeisances in the dust of your lotus feet
on this auspicious day of your Vyasa Puja!
I deeply believe in Śrīla Prabhupāda's words about the main principle of disciplic succession, parampara (SB 3.22.6.komm. “A person becomes a mahatma by the grace of another mahatma, his spiritual master” and “in order to attain spiritual perfection, it is enough to touch sacred dust from [ his] lotus feet ... Unless a person has the happy opportunity to sprinkle his head with the dust from the lotus feet of the Mahatma, he cannot attain spiritual perfection. ”
Today is an extremely auspicious day in my life. Your special anniversary Vyasa Puja is one of those rare “happy opportunities” to touch the mercy of the dust of your lotus feet. And I don’t think about anything except the great and most serious task of my life, one way or another to find the lotus feet of the spiritual master in my heart!
Last year, I realized even more that the shelter at the feet of the spiritual master is the most precious wealth that is possible for a man in general. There is no other value at all: if there is no grace of the spiritual master, the other values simply lose all meaning, this is a multitude of zeros, which without one in total give all the same useless zeros. Without the presence of the Guru, life becomes like deceptive rice husk, seemingly valuable but empty in its real content. On the other hand, if the lotus feet of the spiritual master are firmly entered into the heart, such a successful person acquires the highest meaning of life and with it all conceivable and inconceivable values, both spiritual and material! Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur once said amazing words: “My guru is as good as God! And in all these three worlds you will not buy even a speck of dust from the lotus feet of my Guruji! ”
On the way to the lotus feet of the Guru, the great obstacle is guror avagñya, the offensive bodily perception of the guru. Jiva Goswami explains: Guru-dosha-acchadana chhatrah-sila-masya: a disciple is one who has one quality (sila), he voluntarily refuses to want to see the so-called “physical defects” in his spiritual master and thus becomes his umbrella, protection from bodily perception. It is at this very moment that the miracle occurs, which is described in Śrīla Sanatana Goswami's Hari-bhakti vilasa and in Śrīla Jiva Goswami's Bhakti-Sandarbha: "Just as having come into contact with the alchemical process of preparation, copper becomes gold if the disciple begins serving his guru with love, he will acquire all the qualities of Vishnu. " Therefore, the great impetus and guarantee of success in surrendering to the lotus feet and finding eternal loving service to the spiritual master serves as guru-smaranam, constant remembrance of one’s Guru Mahārāja, regardless of his bodily presence. Truly, the essence of genuine communication with the Guru is uninterrupted remembrance of his personal patronage of every moment of our service. Śrīla Prabhupāda often said that he remembers his Guru Mahārāja every second, which in itself is a proof that Śrīla Prabhupāda was busy serving his spiritual master every moment of his life.
On this most auspicious of days, I pray at your feet for the blessing to attain the qualification of an authentic disciple who has an exclusively spiritual vision of his Guru, and thus become firmly established in true loving service to your lotus feet in my heart through constant remembrance of your personal presence in my life.
I try to invite your lotus feet to my heart, doing my best to serve your mission. Remembering your personal instruction in a scientific preaching, over the past year we managed to significantly expand the preaching of the Bhaktivedanta Institute ashram created by your grace in Yekaterinburg. We took an active part in the major conference of the Bhaktivedanta Institute, which took place in the United States in early 2019 under the leadership of senior BI Vaishnavas authorized to do this service by Śrīla Prabhupāda himself, Hridayanada Swami, Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu, Brahma Tirtha Prabhu, Rameshvara Prabhu and others. It’s important that a separate meeting of the conference was devoted to the participation of the Bhaktivedanta Institute in the creation of a scientific center of the Vedic Planetarium in Māyāpur, which you also asked for in your personal instructions. This year, we also defended three dissertations, took part in several conferences, opened a scientific nama-hutta in Yekaterinburg, the Bhaktivedanta Institute center in Tyumen, and entered the magistracy department of the Ural University's philosophy department to improve professional qualifications and gain influence in the scientific and educational sphere.
Scientific preaching is just a part of my service to your mission. Most of the time I am engaged in serving the Vaishnava community of Yekaterinburg, trying to help your beloved disciple Caitanya Chandra Charan Prabhu, GBC of our region: first of all, I participate in the full morning program of the Temple, thereby contributing to the formation of a healthy and active sanga of leaders in Yekaterinburg and the entire Ural region I also try to take care of all the Vaishnavas around me as far as possible.
A big part of my service is taking care of dad. It so happened that my aged father (88 years old) was completely dependent on my immediate care. By the grace of close devotees, father was able to move to the next apartment near the BI ashram, thanks to which my father, who rejected God all his life, now gets close contact with Vaishnavas, eats prasāda and progresses in spiritual life literally at cosmic speed. I am sure that this miracle happened thanks to your infinite and omnipotent compassion.
So much amazing service has happened last year, and this transcendental saturation is just a small part of your incomprehensible lilas in this world, which thousands of devotees had the good fortune to watch this year. I would like to sincerely congratulate you on the successful operation and wish you a final recovery and many years of heroic service to Śrīla Prabhupāda and Śrī Śrī Gaura Nitāi. Please accept my endless gratitude for your great sacrifice for the salvation of a lost civilization to the joy of Gaurāṅga Mahāprabhu !! Gaurāṅga !!!
In an attempt to become your servant,
Vasushreshtha Dasa.
