Dearest Guru Mahārāja,
Please accept my respectful obeisances at the dust of your lotus feet, All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda! All glories to your lotus feet who like to constantly move the terrain of the globe!
On this most auspicious day I beg you to be merciful to me as I hold your lotus feet and beg pardon for offences committed knowingly and unknowingly to you. I am actually a vain man, who got attracted to Śrīla Prabhupāda s movement through his books and prasāda. Although I read his books and teach the contents, I see you as a living moving example of the devotee described in those books. For you, devotional service is very natural, and you are at home with it. You are not a sādhaka, but a highly experienced deep vaiṣṇava from the stock of Mahāprabhu’s associates, who is making himself available to one and all with the best of simple demeanors to make it easy for them to surrender. Your simplicity is not ordinary and superficial, it is deep!
Your Divine Grace described Śrīla Prabhupāda as the happiest person you had ever seen and that his eyes were always moist with the ecstasy of Krishna Consciousness within. Dear Guru Mahārāja, coming in the same line, we see you are always enthusiastic and happy. The world of ISKCON devotees have seen you for long fight any negativity and come out successful to continue to serve under any circumstance. You told me once that Śrīla Prabhupāda told one of his moody disciples "I order you to be happy in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness" Thank you for modelling this determination. It’s very inspiring.
His Holiness Janananda Mahārāja once committed an offering to you saying you are ‘light years ahead in preaching’! Your sense of outreach and the compassion you feel deeply is reflected in your tireless preaching efforts and brilliant strategies to crack open māyā’s illusion and reach out for people of this world. I have closely followed the birth of the congregation effort in ISKCON in those years and subsequently the cell program, which is now the ubiquitous Bhakti-vṛkṣa program, which have been an erupting volcano of outreach expansion in ISKCON.
I peeped into one of your letters to Śrīla Prabhupāda and his reply to you in the early years while I was in Māyāpur to help you with the Samādhi constructions. There you had complained about constant restlessness in you. Śrīla Prabhupāda replied that it was a sign of ecstasy in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness!
In another note he said that if people hear your chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa, they will be liberated!
No wonder that Śrīla Prabhupāda has given you a host of services to accomplish which you have valiantly executed in the face of many challenges.
On this most auspicious day of your 71 st appearance and in the year of 50 years of your successful Sannyāsa life,
* I beg your pardon and mercy for my wrong doings, my offences (knowingly and unknowingly committed)
* Blessings to quickly finish the Projects given to me by Your Divine Grace in my zone and expand the preaching successfully
* blessings for all the devotees who help in my zone of service, with enthusiasm and cooperation as a community or team.
I remain,
Your lowly servant,
Bhakti Vinoda Swami