nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate jayapatāka svāmin iti nāmine
nama ācaryapādāya nitāi-kṛpā-pradāyine
gaura-kathā-dhāma-dāya nagara-grāma-tāriṇe
Dearest Guru Mahārāja,
Please accept my humble and respectful obeisances. All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda and to your divine grace!
That wonderful time of the year is here again; the auspicious time of your Vyāsa-pūjā; the opportunity to glorify you, to offer my most sincere gratitude for the spiritual influence you have had on me and to wish you a healthy and absorbing Kṛṣṇa conscious year ahead.
This year’s Vyāsa-pūjā offering is no different in that I continue to fall short of words to express my gratitude to you. What auspicious or pious activity could I have possibly done in my past or present life to have obtained your divine association? Pure souls are hard to come by in this miserable material world and yet here you are Gurudeva, personifying purity! What’s more, I also have the good fortune of serving you as my Spiritual Master, one who is so kind, loving and nurturing to all his disciples.
māyā-mugdha jīvera nāhi svataḥ kṛṣṇa-jñāna
jīvere kṛpāya kailā kṛṣṇa veda-purāṇa
(Cc. Madhya 20.122)
“The conditioned soul cannot revive his Kṛṣṇa Consciousness by his own effort. But out of causeless mercy, Lord Kṛṣṇa compiled the Vedic literature and its supplements, the Purāṇas.”
Dear Gurudeva, the scriptures are Kṛṣṇa’s mercy upon the illusioned souls in this material world and you are a living instrument of this mercy. You have displayed so much austerity through your travels to innumerous countries, cities and towns to preach the Vedic scriptures just like your Spiritual Master desired. And when traveling wasn’t possible, you began preaching virtually! Due to your special mercy and unfailing desire to deliver the lost and fallen souls, useless people such as myself have benefited from hearing your nectarian classes on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and the Śrī Kṛṣṇa Chaitanya Book Compilation.
You do not need a certificate to prove you are well versed with the Bhāgavatam which is such an extensive scripture on the Lord’s pastimes. Yet, you chose to complete the Bhakti Vaibhava Certification to encourage all your disciples to study the scriptures to strengthen our understanding and preach more effectively.
You show us what it means to take the instructions of the Spiritual master seriously and with all your heart. You are exemplary and firmly fixed in your sādhanā. Your focus is on 1) Always remembering Kṛṣṇa and 2) Never forgetting Kṛṣṇa, which are the two main instructions called out in the Nectar of Devotion. Your unwavering example encourages and inspires thousands of devotees to keep steady with their sadhana and never give up.
I am truly humbled and filled with gratitude to you for taking me under your shelter despite me being so unworthy. This can only be your special mercy and nothing else. I continue to fail and fall multiple times and it hurts me every time I may have disappointed you through my actions or lack of steadiness in sevā. I beg for your forgiveness and request you to continue to show me your mercy so I may with a sincere heart get back up and move forward on the Bhakti path, back to you, back to Godhead.
On this auspicious day of your 74th Vyāsa-Pūjā, I pray to Their Lordships and to Śrīla Prabhupāda to bless you with good health and renewed strength to serve the mission of inspiring so many souls to take up to Kṛṣṇa consciousness and spread the saṅkīrtana movement all over.
vande guroḥ śrī caraṇāravindam
With deep love and respect in my heart for you,
Your eternally grateful spiritual daughter,
Sugopī Soumya Devī Dāsī
ISKCON Silicon Valley,
Mountain View California, USA