My dear spiritual father,
Nama om vishnupaadaya krishna preshthaya bhutale
Srimate jayapataka swamin iti namine
Nama acaryapadaya nitai kripa pradayine
Gaura katha dhama daya nagara grama tarine
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada! All glories to Your Divine Grace!
On this 70th Vyasa Puja day, we can see that you have started a new life in many ways, after your simultaneous-liver-and-kidney-transplant. I am meditating on one aspect of it in particular - that due to the limitations on your physical travel, you are now directly interacting with your disciples live, every day. So, without having to wait months or years for your arrival in their cities or towns, every disciple can hear you and message you their questions and comments live, almost every single day!
In one stroke all the barriers of time and space between you and the junior-most and most humble of your devotees have been lifted. Now everyone is close to you, they cluster around you every day to hear your heart to heart talks, they feel your amazing presence first hand. Normally this is enough for most disciples to get rid of their day-to-day anxieties and misgivings. They can ask their spiritual questions and get answers.
Dear father, I don't know if you are even aware how much it means for disciples to be able to see you and hear you without having to wait!
My next realisation is that ISKCON needs you more than ever now.You have the rare ability to reconcile the administrative needs for command-and-control with the spiritual need for freedom-and-compassion, Srila Prabhupada, from what I have read and heard, was very emphatic on combining these two opposites. Now your powerful spiritual presence is required to make sure ISKCON does not emphaise one of these needs over the other. It is this which ensures that devotional service in ISKCON can be 'joyfully performed' as Lord Krishna wished it!
My family and I are fully dependent on your mercy to be able to continue our service and get the attention of Lord Gauranga. Please keep ypour river of mercy flowing to us, and bless us that none of us will take birth again in the meterical world.
Your eager spiritual son,
Vijay Venugopal Dasa
(Koramangala Bhakti Centre)