nama on vishnupadaya krishna-presthaya bhu-tale
srimate jayapataka-svamin iti namine
namo acharyapadaya nitai-kripa pradayine
gaura-katha-dhama-daya nagara-grama-tarine
My dear spiritual father,
Please accept my most respectful obeisances unto Your lotus feet. All glories to Your Divine Grace! All glories to Your beloved spiritual master ISKCON Founder Acharya His Divine Grace A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada!!!
Guru Maharaj, while meditating on what to write as Vyasa Puja offering, your amazing quality of steadiness comes to my mind. Steadiness or nistha in bhakti is a much desired quality for any devotee. Lord Krishna speaks of steadiness in BG 2.56:
duḥkheṣv anudvigna-manāḥ sukheṣu vigata-spṛhaḥ
vīta-rāga-bhaya-krodhaḥ sthita-dhīr munir ucyate
Translation : One who is not disturbed in mind even amidst the threefold miseries or elated when there is happiness, and who is free from attachment, fear and anger, is called a sage of steady mind.
Srila Prabhupada says in the beautiful purport (excerpts) : "The sthita-dhīr muni is always in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, for he has exhausted all his business of creative speculation. He is called praśānta-niḥśeṣa-mano-rathāntara (Stotra-ratna 43), or one who has surpassed the stage of mental speculations and has come to the conclusion that Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, or Vāsudeva, is everything.... Such a fully Kṛṣṇa conscious person is not at all disturbed by the onslaughts of the threefold miseries.... And, for the service of the Lord, he is always daring and active and is not influenced by attachment or aversion. Attachment means accepting things for one’s own sense gratification, and detachment is the absence of such sensual attachment. But one fixed in Kṛṣṇa consciousness has neither attachment nor detachment because his life is dedicated in the service of the Lord. Consequently he is not at all angry even when his attempts are unsuccessful. Success or no success, a Kṛṣṇa conscious person is always steady in his determination."
Your amazing example of steadiness
Guru Maharaj, every word in this purport reminds us of Your divine qualities. Your quality of steadiness is so refreshingly wonderful. Ever since Your Divine Grace came in contact with Srila Prabhupada, Your life has been one of intense, ecstatic, unconditional, unbroken, steady loving devotional service to Srila Prabhupada and Gauranga. So many decades. So many responsibilities. Thousands upon thousands of preaching programs. Tens of thousands of classes. Traveling light years. Inspiring millions to take up the Holy Name. Being a spiritual father, friend and guide for millions like us. Helping us to solve our problems. Giving us hope when we find none. Giving us confidence that Nitai Gauranga are the most merciful personalities and that we can trust Them entirely. Telling us that Mayapur Dham is our home and telling us You need help to bring more people home. Simply amazing.
And then Mayadevi declared war. She managed to wound Lord Chaitanya's soldier. But Your Divine Grace made the above BG sloka come alive. You sustain the wounds and show what it means to be steady in peace and war alike. And not just steady, but actually increasing Your services in unimaginable ways. Personifying yukta-vairagya by using all modern technology to reach Lord Chaitanya's mercy out to souls in every nook and corner. As the proverb says, when the going gets tough, the tough get going.
Transcendental Positive attitude
And the most amazing lesson for me, Guru Maharaj, is You still never become bitter. I was hearing how You never even once asked Lord Krishna why He allowed the stroke to happen. Complete surrender. And like it is said about Lord Nityananda in the doyal nitai chaitanya bole song "mar kheye preme doy" - You're accepting the pain due to the karma of errant disciples like me and yet giving out pure love. This is out of the world. This is Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita 24x7 live. Totally free from the bodily identification. Never negative, not for a moment! As Your Divine Grace says in lighter moments, "My blood group is B+ve!". In fact, whenever I got the chance to be in Your personal association, I could see that by Your presence alone You create a transcendental festive atmosphere!
Thank you Guru Maharaj for your shining example. Your glorious attitude of giving hope and spreading encouragement while Your body is in some of the most adverse conditions imaginable - this is a powerful lesson for me to meditate on and follow to my best capability.
Your qualities flowing out of pure love for Guru and Gauranga
Guru Maharaj, your supreme eagerness to speak about Lord Chaitanya EVERY DAY is the telltale sign of an associate of Lord Chaitanya. Finally I begin to understand that all Your amazing qualities are not something that a neophyte can achieve through a little good sadhana. This level of steadiness and transcendental positive energy is not something achievable merely by practice, for if it was so, it couldn't stand such extreme tests. No way! Rather, Your divine qualities are due to Your Divine Grace's complete, unreserved loving surrender to Srila Prabhupada and Lord Chaitanya. As the sastra says,
yasya deve para bhaktir yatha deve tatha gurau
tasyaite kathita hy arthah prakasante mahatmanah
“Unto those great souls who have implicit faith in both the Lord and the spiritual master, all the imports of Vedic knowledge are automatically revealed.” (Shvetasvatara Upanishad 6.23)
A fervent prayer
My dear Guru Maharaj, by Your causeless mercy and the mercy of uncountable devotees who are my Siksha gurus, I received initiation from Your Divine Grace. Since then I somehow chant 16 rounds yet still lack the level of faith or attraction required to chant the holy names willingly. Although philosophically I know many slokas, I still tend to fall short in faith and surrender. Externally I have grown in name and position, but internally I am a struggling, incomplete soul. Externally I am a Bhakti Sastri and management member in ISKCON Kerala, but internally I am struggling with so many gross and subtle material desires. I'm still stumbling in my sadhana and my service isn't at all steady. I didn't even submit the Vyasa Puja offering last year... so much for my steadiness. I'm still steeped in the bodily conception of life and very easily I tend to give in to negativity and desperation. I was reflecting on Your steadiness and transcendental positive attitude and was appalled about the lack of these in me. Sixteen years after initiation, this isn't a great story to tell....
And yet... it is a great story, why not! Somehow Your mercy has allowed me to stay within this transcendental boat called ISKCON. Somehow the daily quota of japa is happening, and somehow this desire to preach and serve Your order fully some time within this lifetime is alive. I am still within the radar of learned loving devotees who mercifully overload me(!) with services and protect me from straying too much into sense gratification. Somehow the mahaprasadam keeps coming just when I need it the most! And somehow, the association with Srila Prabhupada's books and Your Divine Grace's books (like Vaishnava Ke) and lectures are slowly but surely ploughing and tilling a parched heart. And by the power of Your prema-laden words about Gauranga, my desire to be back at Sri Mayapur Dham again and again (not empty-handed, but to bring along hundreds of souls to Lord Chaitanya's land) has been burning bright!
Dear Guru Maharaj, on the most auspicious occasion of Your Divine Grace's 72nd Sri Vyasa Puja, kindly accept this fervent prayer of mine : Personally I have neither steadiness in bhakti, nor a devotional attitude, nor any genuine faith in Krishna. But somehow by Your divine mercy You have brought me thus far. Already You allowed me a taste of Gaura-katha and Gaura-dhama though I don't even know if I deserve all this. But now it's painful to go away, although one small test from Mayadevi is all it would take for my false ego to cheat me. Guru Maharaj, kindly allow me the blessing of always staying in the shade of Your lotus feet and of ISKCON till the end of this life, and life after life. Success or failure, this would be my prayer.
Services for Srila Prabhupada 125 Celebration
Guru Maharaj, by Your kind mercy I have been allowed to be a part of the BBT team engaged in translating Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita into Malayalam. Inspired by HH Bhakti Vinoda Swami Maharaj, our team is busily and sincerely engaged in this service, very much eager to receive the smile on Your Divine Grace's lotus face as its coveted prize! We're trying to make the translation as faithful as possible to Srila Prabhupada's original English, while simultaneously taking care to keep the language simple and adding footnotes so that the common Malayali reader can get all help to understand its contents. We hope to release this as a SP125 offering and distribute Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita by the thousands, to reach it to many thoughtful people of this highly intellectual state.
Also Guru Maharaj, by the wonderful arrangement of the Lord we have moved to a new building right within the heart of the city of Kochi, close to the main road and a walk away from the nearest Metro station. Following Covid restrictions, we had a soft inauguration on this Gaura Purnima, and many pious neighbors attended. The place seems to be ideal for expansion of preaching, since many respectable families stay in this area. Though we're currently on rentals, the land itself appears to be ideal for a full-fledged city center. Also some very senior devotees are now planning to return from the Gulf and settle in Kerala. And some of the locally trained devotees are waiting to receive initiation. Our hope is to gradually and systematically increase both online and direct preaching activities and help spread Krishna Consciousness all over Kochi city and central Kerala. Since Srila Prabhupada set his lotus feet here during the Jaladuta yatra, HH Bhakti Vinoda Swami Maharaj said we should build a Srila Prabhupada memorial monument here. So with Maharaja's guidance, we wish to strategically organize preaching to all sections of society here, which is a interesting mix of people from diverse religious, cultural and financial backgrounds. We pray for Your Divine Grace's causeless mercy for the immense spiritual strength required to serve in these ways.
In closing
Guru Maharaj, I'm understanding more and more the need of spiritual strength, which the spiritual master bestows on the disciple. It is not something that the disciple can demand or acquire by himself, that's simply impossible. He/she can only beg for it from Guru, as in the prayer "jogyata bichare kichu nahi pai, tomara karuna sara". Personally, with increasing family responsibilities and also responsibilities towards the devotee congregation, I feel myself weak and lacking in devotional steadiness, positive attitude and spiritual strength.
Guru Maharaj, kindly bless me with the strength to always remember Your example and develop even a drop of genuine love and surrender unto Your lotus feet. I also pray in humility to Srila Prabhupada, Sri Panchatattva, Lord Narasimhadev, Sri Sri Jagannath Baladev Subhadra devi and Sri Sri Radha Madhava Mayapurchandra that They allow us the greatest joy by enabling Your full physical recovery and many many more decades of Your auspicious presence in this world to deliver and enliven fallen souls like me with the holy name, pastimes and dhama of Lord Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
Guru Maharaj, kindly forgive my innumerable offenses and accept my earnest prayer to be allowed to reside as a particle of dust in the safe shade of Your lotus feet.
Your unworthy spiritual son,
Gopal Gaura Guru dasa
(Harinam diksha, Kochi, Kerala, India)