Dear Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja, please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda! All glory to the bright day of your appearance!
Dear Guru Mahārāja, on this beautiful day I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your unstoppable service to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s mission! Everything you and your senior disciples do –is amazing. I am so grateful to you for your lectures, for tests on them in telegram app, where we can check how finely we remember various details in a playful way For your example of a serious attitude to your health and daily efforts to maintain it, for the fact that you each day write about your affairs and trips, telling us how your life is going. I am also very inspired by your senior disciples who preach so powerfully and widely.
We just have to be in this flow of love with you, holding tightly to this chariot, and helping you with all our might!
I am also grateful to you that this autumn, in Vṛndāvana, you accepted me as your shelter disciple. I have been moving towards this for a long time, and have spent a lot of time in prayer and tears in front of Śrīla Prabhupāda over the past few years, praying to him to help me understand where and from whom I should take shelter. Because I am very attached to my leaders in yātrā, but they don’t give dīkṣā. I need dīkṣā, and I didn’t want to formally receive it, for check. I wanted to be where my heart would feel something dear and very close. I have been listening to you for a long time, but I did not even hope to meet you although I dreamed about it. And so, by the grace of Girīrāja, when I arrived from Govardhana, I saw that you had come to Vṛndāvana!!! Should I say what I felt?!
Kṛṣṇa is the most subtle! He gave me you! And being next to you, there, in Vṛndāvana, listening to your lectures and Q&A sessions, I realized that this is it - the native that I was looking for! Then, already in Russia, I went to Moscow to get acquainted with your disciples and again I felt that yes - this is really my family!)
Thank you for taking this insignificant maid under your grace’s wing! I am very grateful to you for this.
In my yātrā, by the grace of the leaders, I am the leader of a small Harināma group, that has been singing every Wednesday for 2.5 years. In the summer we sing in the parks, under the tree, as Śrīla Prabhupāda used to do. And in winter, we organize walking Harināma in different parts of the city.
During these 4 months that I am under your shelter, we spent
- 12 Harināma, where was distributed
- 1380 prasad candies and cookies
- 270 books by Śrīla Prabhupāda!
I also participated in 20 Harināma (which is not organized by me) as a musician or kīrtana.
I also attended Nāmahaṭṭa every Thursday and the Sunday temple program of our yātrā.
I also served the beautiful deities of Śrī Śrī Kṛṣṇa Balarāma for 3,5 months, whom one of my mentors entrusted me to serve while he was away.
Also, by your grace, on Nityānanda Trayodaśī, the mūrti of Śrīla Prabhupāda came to me!! Please bless our worship! The Harināma devotees were very inspired by His appearance and felt that He had come to all of us, not just to me, and it’s very valuable.)
Dear Guru Mahārāja, thank you for everything. The material world is full of worries and anxieties, but the mission of Harināma saṅkīrtana always gives absolute shelter to our senses. But to get this grace of immersion in the holy name is possible only by the grace of senior devotees and Guru. Therefore, I beg you to accept my gratitude to you and accept my willingness to serve under your leadership maybe I will not succeed in everything, but I will try. Thank you for being you!
Happy servant of your servants,
Evgenia Erdyakova
Saint-Petersburg, Russia
