Dearest Guru Mahārāja,
All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda. All glories to Guru and Gaurāṅga. Please accept my most respectful obeisances at your lotus feet on the auspicious day of your appearance.
Every day I watch you dedicate your every waking moment to the service of Śrīla Prabhupāda and the mission of Lord Caitanya and I feel overwhelmingly blessed to be a part of this mission. My heart is so filled with gratitude that you have accepted me as your spiritual daughter, and I am trying my best to express my gratitude by fulfilling some of those projects that are very close to your heart. Devotee care is one of the most important topics that you continue to focus on. Realizing the need for a mentoring program, I, along with a few other devotees, under the direction of the NAC, have been working on creating the ISKCON North American Mentorship Program. We have recently launched a website dedicated to training mentors to support devotees on their path of bhakti. In order to become more qualified to address this issue of mentoring and also to become more qualified myself, I have enrolled in the ISKCON Karuna Care Practicum under the guidance of Her Grace Rambhoru dāsī (Brinkman). This is an intensive course dedicated to training chaplains in assisting others deal with issues that can impact their progress in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness.
The importance of reawakening the dormant Kṛṣṇa Consciousness in the hearts of the children is another important aspect of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness that I am also working on. I continue to teach the Sunday School at our local temple along with Varṣāṇā Devī Dāsī and we are currently practicing for a drama to be performed on Gaura Pūrṇimā. We started out with a small group and now our group has grown and the kids are creating wonderful bonds amongst themselves. His Holiness Badri Nārāyaṇa Mahārāja even remarked that he was very happy to see how the kids were so happy to be together as they practiced for their play. Varṣāṇā and I, together, continue to facilitate the San Diego Vaiṣṇavī Saṅga and are happy to report that we have become a very close knit supportive group. We read and discuss Śrīmad-bhāgavatam together once a week and I am also facilitating a Bhagavad-gītā Reading group for women that meets once a week.
I am just finishing my Bhakti-vaibhava course and have started reading for the next step in my śāstric study. It is amazing to see how Kṛṣṇa uses all these different projects I am working on to help me progress on this path of bhakti. Every time I am able to share Kṛṣṇa with someone I feel like I have just passed on what you have given me. The love you shower on us, your spiritual children, is so powerful that it just passes through us to them. This is the power of a pure devotee, the love that Śrīla Prabhupāda invested in you has not only filled you but that love is overflowing and being passed on to us. I feel that love every time I share Kṛṣṇa and bhakti with another person.
I know that in order to be able to share Kṛṣṇa my sādhana has to be strong and consistent. Some days my chanting goes well and sometimes it leaves much to be desired. My request to you, my dearest spiritual father, is that you bless me that I my sadhana stays strong, that I never lose the shelter of your lotus feet and I continue to dedicate my life to Guru and Gaurāṅga. As I continue to follow my vows of my initiation let my resolve be as strong as your love for and dedication to Śrīla Prabhupāda. Forever indebted to you.
With love and respect from the bottom of my heart, Your spiritual daughter,
Phaṇeśvarī Lakṣmī Devī Dāsī (dīkṣa) and Bhaskar Peesapati
San Diego, USA
