Dear most Guru Mahārāja ! Please accept my most respectful obeisances unto your lotus feet!
All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda! All glories to your holiness!
What a whirlwind of change this year has brought for you Guru Mahārāja . You are doing so much better health wise and as I write this offering, the whole world is preparing to celebrate your 70th Vyasa Puja with great pomp. I heard that with some help you may be able to walk soon, and I know it is your desire to dance for Lord Gaurāṅga. But please take care of yourself first. Śrīla Prabhupāda said so too. Your intimate and senior disciples are working so hard so you won’t have any discomfort or pain of any sort. And they take such good care of you. All glories to them!
So please take care. Please!
Every year also means, so many new godbrothers and god sisters to learn and be inspired by. Our family is expanding rapidly. How proud Śrīla Prabhupāda must be! And each and every single one of us wants to personally somehow serve and take care of you.
Now that you are in Māyāpur, I know and pray that Śrī Narasiṁhadeva will take care and give you good health and a solid long life.
This also means I have one more whole year of your lectures and talks to catch up with as I want to hear all of yours and Śrīla Prabhupāda’s lectures ever given. I want them to be embedded in my heart so whenever I speak it will only be those words and not even slightly tainted by my own bias or opinions. I was taking a youth class here in Gaurāṅga Deśa Yatra until we decided to move to Toronto. Now I have handed over that class to His Grace Jamuna Sevika Mathaji, who is taking the classes and training them.
By your continuous shower of mercy, this year also means completing 1 year as your dīkṣā disciple. And I know my responsibility is much more than my tiny shallow brain can fathom. Still despite my weaknesses, and my not so loyal behavior, you have allowed for me to bring Śrī Śrī Kṛṣṇa Balarama into our home. Checking and making sure me and my husband will be able to take care of them offenselessly, I don’t understand how I could come upon such inconceivable mercy, if not for a pure devotee. Just by their presence you have extended the flow of your mercy into our hearts. Thank you for giving me what I couldn’t have even dreamt of!
And somehow again by your unfathomable blessings, my husband Venkat prabhu has also been guiding me so well. I’m just a poor soul, who needs to keep reminding myself of my fortune. But somehow this time, just the day after we took your blessings on the roof top after your class, we stumbled upon His Holiness Radhanatha Swami Mahārāja. And my husband, who has been waiting for a long time just to see him, go a 5 second long hug and a huge smile from Mahārāja. How could that happen? All just by gaining some piety by meeting you and paying obeisances. Thank you for flooding us with immeasurable love and kindness.
This is evidence in itself, lava-mātra sādhu-saṅge sarva-siddhi haya. Just one moment’s association, every now and then throughout my life has transformed me so much! It is unthinkable. Even though I have still have quite a lot of anartha nivrtti left, I’m a whole yuga different from who I was. And by some incredible fortune stationed to guard me in my life were two of your disciples as my parents, His Grace Ramananda Gaura prabhu & Her Grace Sachi Janani mathaji.
And even though I am leaving my service and going, which I know isn’t very pleasing to you, you are only being so so tolerant with me. This time when we met you told me that everyone knows you in Toronto, and that was so assuring because just by your association I’m getting more and more association and more and more service. Please keep showering me with your mercy, even if it means chastisement, because I’m sure that will mean your love for this daughter is without an end.
And as proof for that too, you asked me this time to write to you personally, when you have so many things to do, so many people to attend to and so many important decisions and calls to make. If you are the most busy person in this planet, and can still make time for someone as insignificant as me, what can be more inspiring, mind blowing, and heart touching?!?!
Where in this universe can I find a father so compassionate and nonjudgemental, that even when I sometimes didn’t want to see you in my childhood out of fear, you showered your tender love and care for me ?
Where in this universe can I find a father who can read my mind like the back of his hand, but says nothing about the nonsense he has seen?
Where in this universe can I find a father so tolerant, even when I lose my way out of my own whim and ego, you help me find my way back?
Where in this universe can I find a father who can ignore my faults, and only give love love love and more love in return?
Where in this universe can I find a father who can make me tremble externally, yet nourish and soothe my heart internally?
You are truly the giver of “nitāi kripa”. And I pray, that someday I will get some taste to chant, and to hear Hari katha. I am foolish to be born in your time and not have any of that. Please bless me so that I can selflessly serve you in serving Śrīla Prabhupāda’s mission and help Lord Gaurāṅga’s words come true.
And of course, I will also ask for one thing. I hope once you are better and can travel you will come to Canada and stay with us, by which time hopefully we will have a place to accommodate you and all of your entourage of disicples. I hope that is sooner than later.
Your eternal servant and student (trying to be humble)
Snigdha Rādhikā devī dāsī