Śrī Caraṇa Kamaleśu Guru Mahārāja and My Dear Spiritual Father,
Please accept my humble obeisance and respectful pranam at the dust of Your lotus feet.
All glories to His Divine Grace Śrīla Prabhupāda.
All glories to Your Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Guru Mahārāja and Śrīman Gaurāṅga Mahāprabhu.
I am fortunate for being able to write the Vyāsa-pūjā offering on this auspicious 73rd appearance day of Yours. I express sincere gratitude, praṇāma and thankfulness for all the care, mercy, and blessings that You are showering.
My Dear Spiritual Father, there are many carefully designed facilities being offered at ISKCON. I am very thankful for these offerings.
But without your shelter and prakaṭa (vapu) presence, for some of us, the entire world will become void, bitter, and ferocious despite the presence of all these high value offerings.
Thus, requesting you to consider not leaving us while we are at our neophyte – premature stage. We will enter a struggle for existence without Your prakaṭa presence.
I am choosing hereby to write about the previous two years i.e. 2020-2021. Lockdown and the Covid-19 Pandemic have been devastating.
But from a spiritual perspective, it became a boon. We got connected with You! Directly!! We found our Spiritual Father in our own space through Jayapatākā Swami App and Facebook. We can hear the JPS Archives lectures through Facebook, YouTube whenever needed.
In Your digital presence, “আনন্দের সীমা নাই, নিরানন্দ দূরে যায়” – this aura of auspicious energy cum happiness fills the complete atmosphere.
Whichever place You visit, You share the pictures of Your new residence along with the Deities. You post the temples that You visit every day. We feel so Happy and energetic after reading these messages.
I became good at Social Media Technology simply by following You. I can’t even believe myself as I was allergic to these platforms fearing it will trigger my earlier addiction of watching bad videos, bad movies, or anti devotional materials.
I started going through all the videos that you were posting on the App as well as Facebook since 2019; after several months, my addiction to the anti-devotional material which pops up so easily, started diminishing. Guru Mahārāja – You have made a fundamental change in my digital media taste.
I had this chronic disease from my childhood days and feared that I would never ever be able conquer this digital media movie - video addiction. Post growing up, I had to force myself from seeing them which put a lot of stress on me. Because I had this tendency to switch on which I was resisting by tremendous force. But You simply cut this addition very effectively.
How did you manage this Miraculous change in myself Guru Mahārāja? Now I have a much lesser tendency to see anti devotional materials or can pull off easily from a movie without stressing my mind.
I learnt Tulasī Mahārānī worship and circumambulation from You. This service has brought phenomenal change in my spiritual journey.
I also learnt how to dedicate Ekādaśī māhā-vratā, Lord Narasiṁhadeva tulasī Offerings, importance of flower offering, visiting temple physically, at least visiting one temple Deities per day over digital media, attempting to read one verse of Śrīmad-bhāgavatam per day, decorated presentation of bhoga offering.
I learnt the importance of goṣṭhy-ānandī and attempted to become one. I was highly averse to this concept because of multiple harmful experiences. I witnessed the complete spiritual and material destruction for several elevated devotees during my devotional journey. Somehow, I was being prevented from being a part of those harmful events, however those fatal incidents had a lasting impact upon me. I resolved to be a general temple visitor, occasional donor, and home practitioner of bhakti-yoga. Probably many like me also thought the same.
But then I came into direct contact with Yours through digital media from 2018; my perspective started changing very slowly. Out of many versatile qualities that You exhibit, the ones that touched me most are Your honesty, transparency, non-manipulative interactions, hard work, always leading from the front courageously, bravery, aura of pure happiness, affection, and genuine care for everybody.
I questioned myself, are these Vaikuṇṭha qualities that I am observing in my Guru Mahārāja? Because, imitating them for a short time is manageable. But it is impossible to imitate these qualities for a prolonged period. I also started reading more about your previous pastimes since 1968 and prior to that. It was overwhelming as realization struck that I have come to the shelter of a Pure Bonafide Guru and You quickly became my spiritual father.
I am learning this art of managing to be associated with proper v. This has happened owing to the Lord Narasiṁhadeva message that You post in the App Guru Mahārāja.
Initially I disliked this word very much but forced myself to read it. After reading this word for about a year or more, the message started sinking in me. This is another miraculous change you have brought in my brain.
It occurs to me that I am doing so much testing, pattern observing, fact searching about my Guru Mahārāja, but You accepted myself as a disciple in a general Bhakti-vṛkṣa program without any thoughts! Lot of my time has gone by simply researching upon You from 2018 and vice versa is not true.
So, the conclusion is that I am a Sajāru (সজারু - a thorny animal) disciple of Yours. Despite my own unworthiness and fallen status, I am kind of following and researching upon Your Holiness from all possible perspectives very persistently! What a pure - impure combination!!
I seek forgiveness and pray to remain under the moonshine of Your mercy. May I pray Your blessings for my initiated mother (Her Grace Cinmayī Gaṅgā devī dāsī) and my college going daughter Devakṛpā Dāsa Ray such that we become a Govinda’s Family. Please forgive my unwanted offenses considering I am a Sajaru (সজারু) or bad disciple of Yours sitting at neophyte stage.
Śrī Śrī Rādhā Mādhava and Śrīla Prabhupāda may be very protective of You.
I feel happiness in praying to Lord Narasiṁhadeva and Mahāprabhu for giving You protection, good health, and a very long life. I keep praying that You are not snatched away from us. We won’t be able to sustain probably if my Spiritual Father is taken away.
Your affectionate spiritual daughter and humble disciple,
Nitya Vraja-līlā devī dāsī (dīkṣa)
Kolkata, India