Dear Guru Maharaja,
Please accept my respectful Obeisances
All Glories to Srila Prabhupada
All Glories to you - Srila Gurudev
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
I humbly pray to the LORD ALMIGHTY that you are in good health and doing fine, Guru Maharaja.
To introduce myself, I am your humble disciple - VISHWESHWAR GOVINDA DAS – initiated under your tender care in May 2013. I am based in Bangalore and am under the care and guidance of HG Caitanya Avtari Das and HG Rasmayi Devi Dasi.
Its that time of the year again when I do some self introspection to look at the year gone by and report to you – my Spiritual Father, on what I achieved on the spiritual front….rather what I strived for during this period. Of course, as always these are but miniscule attempts in contributing to your monumental efforts in spreading Krishna to the world as promised to your Spiritual Master. As always, I seek your guidance on how I can improve and do more on these fronts.
I remain ever indebted to you for accepting me under your tender care and opening a whole new chapter in my life about 7 years ago – the wonderful world of Krishna consciousness. I dread to think where my life would have meandered without Krisna consciousness. Thanks to KC, there is a new purpose, value-system, method and discipline to this life that I can hope to internalize.
I am also grateful to you for providing me the association of a wonderful extended family (in the form of HG Caitanya Avtari Das, HG Rasmayi Mj and HG Vaisnavananda Nitai Das) who have thanklessly been patient and loving in their efforts at correcting and guiding me on this spiritual path at all times.
I continue to be enamored by your continuous strife to carry out your commitments to Srila Prabhupada in spite of the challenges you have been facing on the health front. Your caring nature towards all devotees at all times, across all geographies and strata is an eye opener and very humbling to all of us.
Your endeavor, through technology, to reach out to maximum number of your disciples each day is a blessing for all of us; it provides much needed solace to us in an otherwise normal mundane material world. It provides succor through insights into the various pastimes while also providing an avenue to solve our quintessential doubts that arise in the practice of KC in our day-to-day life.
During the past year, we (me and my wife – Lilamayi Rukmini Devi Dasi who is also under your tender care) decided to pursue the Bhakti Sastri course from the Mayapur Academy at Sridham Mayapur. This translated into an almost 6 months stay at Mayapur (between October 2019 and early April 2020), away from Bangalore where we are normally based.
In hindsight, this decision of ours to pursue the BS course at Mayapur was among the most important decisions in recent times in more ways than one. The depth of knowledge on various scriptures provided by learned scholars, association of inquisitive students from across all geographies, the opportunity to participate in various parikramas, festivals, kirtan melas and seminars etc. and the ability to pitch in with services for various devotees in our limited capacity – all made our ongoing stay at Mayapur a truly blissful one.
Most importantly, our proximity to you (we were staying at the Grihasta-area) and the ability to attend your classes on the Lotus building terrace most of this period and getting to see you at the Chandrodaya mandir in in mornings – all provided us the opportunity to have your wonderful association.
We truly got a small taste of what it means to stay in a Dham on a long term basis – something one can only experience by actually staying here instead of going by hearsay.
Both of us completed the Bhakti Sastri course with meritorious grades and the crowning glory was to receive the Graduation certificate from your Holiness as part of the ceremony in February 2020.
Needless to say, Krishna willing and by your blessings, we hope to come back later this year to continue with the Bhakti Vaibhav course here in Mayapur.
I feel truly rejuvenated after the course and this stay at Mayapur – I hope to capitalise on this by translating these into meaningful preaching opportunities, once I am back in Bangalore in April. I seek your blessings in this regard.
I feel blessed to apprise you that our complete family is initiated under your kind spiritual care – Varadayini Yashodha Devi Dasi (Late mother), Lilamayi Rukminidevi Dasi (spouse), Rangamaya Das (brother) and Shobhamayi Keshavidevi Dasi (brother’s wife). As a family, we continue to be under your care and cherish the purpose to practice and spread the KC process to one and all under the guidance of our seniors.
I am involved in some services at our temple in Bangalore – addressing the accounting / book keeping and providing the occasional editorial support for the GKBD publications that are conceived and printed by our seniors. We do spend time in the association of devotees; this provides us the learnings from the Srimad Bhagavatam and Bhagavad Gita and also get a peek into the progress being achieved by fellow devotees and the long journey we need to traverse to reach their levels.
I continue to be involved in cooking; this has helped me improve my own cooking skills – something I now practice and cherish regularly with my cooking experiments at home. The Lord has been merciful and patient in accepting our Raj-bhoga preparations without ever complaining on its quality.
I also cherish singing for Their Lordships at our congregation center in Bangalore whenever I get an opportunity, thanks to the confidence exuded by senior devotees there on my abilities.
My preaching attempts during the past year have been limited to some youth preaching / counseling; I do feel I can do more with some focus.
In conclusion, the past year has been one of knowledge gathering (thanks to the BS course); I now feel better equipped and have an urge to share this knowledge with more and more souls in the following period. I hope to keep trying and thus ensure that more people benefit from the Lord’s mercies and enjoy Krsna Consciousness similar to what I have experienced.
I seek your blessings in this regard, Guru Maharaja.
We continue to pray for your speedy recovery so that you can continue with your mission to spread the word of the Lord to more people. Please feel free to order me to take up any service which can help your mission albeit even in a small way.
Your Diksha disciple
Vishweshwar Govinda Das