janame janame sabe pitā mātā pāya, kṛṣṇa guru nahi mile bhaja hari ei
In each and every birth one gets a father and mother, but it is very rare to get Guru and Krsna.
To you Gurudeva I am very indebted and it is my life’s mission to try to please you and get your favor. Although I am not so qualified to glorify you adequately I will try. To me, you represent many transcendental qualities of Srila Prabhupada. His mood of compassion, intense preaching mood, extensive traveling, his mood of constant care for devotees, his strict spiritual practice and his incessant resistance to compromise with the material energy.
Sometimes devotees ask, ‘is it not hard to get association with your Guru Maharaja?’. I always explain to them that although physical vapu association relatively is not so easy to obtain, as Srila Prabhupada emphasisedly taught, vani seva is most important. You have taught us that the Gurus intimate desires and aspirations are guarded within the inner depths of his heart, so if one can try to fulfill those desires, he is penetrating directly and connecting with the heart and soul of the spiritual master. I clearly remember two occasions when I had a major question to ask you –you appeared in my dreams and answered them.
From birth, my father instilled in me the mood of preaching, as he experienced Srila Prabhupada had the same mood. I always wished to take shelter of a Guru who I felt inspired me in this same mood, and who was very evidently empowered on a large scale by Lord Nityananda to preach and make thousands of devotees. I was so fulfilled at my initiation hearing the main emphasis of your class was the importance of preaching. Then I knew even more deeply that I made the right decision.
In the past six years, I have been dedicating some time to help in Latin American preaching. I first went to Latin America to Mexico, for the Mexico Bus Tour. A few months later, after completing my university in London, I decided to try to dedicate myself full time to Prabhupada's mission and try to give back. I was and am engaged in the service of traveling with Harinama Ruci World Sankirtan Party for the most part of the last 5 or 6 years. Doing street Harinama sankirtan, distributing books and lecturing. Mahavishnu Swami came and also started to give us his association with the group. With them, we visited Latin America for 3 months a year, every year, and traveled around the world every year. Over these years I have been picking up the Spanish language without study but by association, and last September in Guayaquil, the temple president Gurumangala Prabhu made me give Bhagavatam classes in Spanish, a huge milestone. I see that it is your mercy because your mood is to learn the local language of where you preach. So by your mercy, I have been able to do some service there.
I am very inspired by your mood of preaching in far off and places where not many people go, and we try to do the same distributing books and the holy name in Vietnam, Haiti, Honduras, El Salvador, Japan, Korea and many more. We often hear of your preaching strategy which you did for many years, ‘one day, one country’. Knowing you're a GBC in Latin America, and hearing about your decades of extensive preaching in there, further strengthens my enthusiasm to help there. Last year I traveled with Vicaru Prabhu through all of Central America and a couple of places in the Caribbean, doing programs at universities, schools, yoga studios, etc, and as well as Harinama and book distribution.
My hope is that our small offerings will attract your mercy and blessings. I am a very fallen and unqualified disciple, but I beg you to please give me your mercy and blessings to advance in Krsna consciousness and help to bring new people to Krsna consciousness.
Your unqualified and fallen servant,
Sandipani Muni Krsna dasa