nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate jayapatākā-svāmin iti nāmine
namo ācāryapādāya nitāi-kṛpa-pradāyine
gaura-kathā dhāmadhāya nagara-grāma tāriṇe
My dear Spiritual Father,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Your Divine Grace and the vyasapuja event. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Lots of memories are coming into my mind about your most wonderful glories and qualities. But I consider the most significant and impressive one was the moment, 21 years back, when you decided to put me, by initiating, in the list of the souls whom you want to deliver from this ever-tormenting material world. This itself is enough for me to surmise the unfathomable depth of your compassion towards anyone. I am the most fallen within the fourteen worlds. My wicked mind made me go through all nonsense and useless activities life after life. Even in this life, with my stupid and fallen nature, I would have gone astray and far away from the beautiful life which Srila Prabhupada had kindly gifted us. Notwithstanding your causeless mercy stretched up to me to rescue from this whirlpool of material existence. But I am so unfortunate that even though I got this rarest opportunity to make my life successful by drowning myself in the ocean of Gaura-prema, which you are distributing so magnanimously, yet I am not able to utilize that opportunity properly.
My dear Gurudeva,
You know everything about me, even better than me. If you were not be there I wouldn't have survived in my devotional life. After completion of my academic study, when I was almost getting far away from the cooling shelter of the Lord by engaging myself in finding a material career, you dragged me on the hair to the lotus feet of of Lord Gauranga, gave shelter into the holy land of Sri Mayapur and engaged me in the service of your divine grace. Being fortunate to get the opportunity of serving you closely from your office, I got ample opportunities to uplift myself in the path of perfection. But my durdaiva is that I again could not make it. I am still struggling with lots of anarthas at the bottom of heart. I beg mercy and strength from you to overcome my laziness to be sincere in improving myself.
Sometimes I would feel that I am not able to do any vapu-seva for you. Though you have given me an important service at your office as well as stated in a meeting with the office, "office is my like my heart as you all are doing the services which I want to do. Office is my expansion". Yet the thought of receiving some vapu-seva was stirring into my mind. I approached you one evening at your room on the lotus building rooftop and asked you about my feelings at that time. You replied, "it's OK, I know you are busy in the office." Interestingly you gave me little opportunity to serve you right that moment to move you to the washroom. Similarly, I got number of opportunities on some other occasions to serve your divine grace personally in Mayapur, Kolkata, Coimbatore and in Bangladesh. But every time the thought came up to my mind that, am I really doing something useful to please you? Over the years, I have realized from various lectures of yours that your ultimate desire is that you want all your disciples should get back home, back to Godhead and this Krishna consciousness should be preached to every single souls. This way a disciple can please you he most.
My beloved Guru Maharaja,
In January 2018, in a mail, you wrote to me, "Thank you for helping me. I give you blessings for having strong faith and ruci in the holy name and for desiring to see the jivas have faith in the holy name." On this very special day of your vyasapuja celebration, I prostrate at the dust of your lotus feet and beg strength to be able to apply these two things in my personal life. Please always keep me under the cooling shelter of your lotus feet, so that I can always offenselessly chant the holy name with a heartfelt mood of 3rd verse of siksastakam, serve sri sadhu guru vaisnavas and help others towards a sincere devotional life.
As I told earlier, you know my heart, my nature, my inabilities. So please make me yours, use me as an instrument at your hand to serve Srila Prabhupada and Sri Sri Gaura-Nitai, chastise me always if I ever get deviated, make me realize the glories of the cintamani dhuli of Sri Navadvipa dhama, ultimately bless me with a craving heart to cry piteously while chanting and remembering the names and glories of Sri Hari-Guru-vaisnavas.
On this most auspicious day, I beg at the dust of your lotus feet to kindly forgive me for all my offenses at your lotus feet and thus don't let me go away from the shelter of your divine grace.
May Lord Sri Narasimhadeva and Sri Gaura-Nitai always keeps you in good health.
Your most unworthy and insignificant fallen son
Mani Gopal dasa,
JPS Office,
Sridham Mayapur
