nama om....full pranam mantra....
Dear Guru maharaj,
Please accept my sastang dandavat pranams! All glories to Your Divine Grace! All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
As I begin to write this, I realize that even after these many years my ability to write about Your Divine Grace remains at the same miserable level that it was when I first tried to write a Vyasa-puja offering. I remember struggling to find the right words befitting your truly amazing personality. As years passed by I learned more about you but still, writing about you remained a challenge. At one point I found it hopeless as whatever I thought sounded too inadequate. Writing a Vyasa puja offering is even more challenging and often restricts the flow of thoughts as although it is addressed to you, it is read by many. This, of course, is not an excuse for not writing it as you have shown by example that a disciple must write it despite all difficulties.
To me, writing to you and about you, both have their own distinct natures, enlightening memories, spiritual feelings and varying realizations connected to them. Especially when I write to you something personal, I feel both joyful and somewhat doleful. Being joyful is understandable but not feeling so puts me in a dilemma. Perhaps it has something to do with my negligence and failures in discharging duties towards your divine grace and the guru parampara. Perhaps it is something else. Whatever the case, meditating upon you and your activities is an experience of its own, almost indescribable. I do not wish to sound esoteric, casual or special but I do always find myself in a dilemma what to write and what not to. Perhaps my dilemma is no more than ignorance but it is there, nonetheless.
Back in 2018, I made a desperate attempt and tried to describe your unique characteristics in an article published on Mayapur Voice. My intention was not only to make myself understand you better but also tell the readers how, as a pure devotee of Lord Krishna, you have apparently contradictory qualities, something that the Lord also does, and how they are so perfectly blended and expertly applied in serving the Supreme Lord and His Sankirtana mission, often making it difficult for many to understand you as you are. The article begins with:
"Today, when deceitfulness and hypocrisy have become the way of life for the majority of the population, when humility is considered weakness and simplicity is looked upon as illiteracy, when selfishness is hailed as smartness and compassion is laughed at as sentimentalism, meeting a person who is unquestionably honest, unpretentiously humble, spontaneously compassionate and spotlessly simple at heart, yet impressively sophisticated, fiercely dynamic, awfully uncompromising and extraordinarily skillful, is bound to be an absolute surprise. Meet His Holiness Jayapataka Swami...".
I still think these words make good sense. While I can never claim to have fully understood your mystical personality, I can confidently say that the above description of your divine grace says a lot about you in a few words, in a sutra form, and has the potential to be expanded into a full book with examples and illustrations. Every action, every instruction and every comment, even apparently ordinary or casual ones, of your divine grace, reflects one or more of these qualities and goes beyond it depending on one’s realization of your actual position.
Often we disciples do not realize our good fortune of being around you. Often we tend to take such good fortune for granted and fail to recognize the extent of mercy showered upon us by you. We fail to realize the meaning of Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur's words when he says karuna na hoile kandiya kandiya prana na rakhibo aar. And often we lament when we lose opportunities to serve you. But you, being so very merciful, keep giving us opportunity after opportunity to be engaged in devotional service. I personally have many challenges, many, and have no qualification to serve you but you have not given up on me. I do not want to take it for granted, Guru maharaj.
I pray that one day I become mature enough to understand my responsibilities as your disciple and please your divine grace by rendering some useful devotional service without committing offenses. While I struggle to fully surrender I realize that the beauty of your persona is, you remain simple to those who surrender to you but you remain complicated and confusing to those who doubt your words, your intentions and your transcendental position.
A society which appreciates and strives to practice the highest values of human life is rare to be found in this age, and spiritual leaders who can selflessly guide such societies are even rarer. You have successfully filled in this vacuum by providing a selfless leadership and inspiring a lifestyle steered solely towards the highest goal of human life. This is commendable in no uncertain terms. Ebe jasa ghusuk tribhuvana…Let your glories be spread across the three worlds.
Not making it too long let me conclude for now by saying that an infinite and unfathomable dedication to Srila Prabhupada and the previous acharyas, and an unending compassion for the conditioned souls adorn the truly astonishing character of your divine grace. These are the very qualities that define your selfless mission and make you what you are, Guru maharaj, a pure and unalloyed devotee of Lord Krishna.
Please forgive my countless offenses and let me be always engaged in your service.
Hare Krishna.
Your stupid servant,
Bhadra Balaram das