Dear Guru Mahārāja
Please accept my humble obeisances on this most auspicious day of your Vyāsa-pūjā 2024
All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda, the ISKCON founder Acharya
Please forgive all offences
By your never ending kindness I am gradually being freed from the lower modes of ignorance and passion and developing sattva(goodness).
Ordinarily I would be considered useless/a waste of time but because you are giving to us all without limit I am becoming freed from anarthas and wanting to know more and more about Kṛṣṇa something which I could not even imagine!
We are all extremely fortunate to have your association.
I still cannot believe that a person like yourself is walking the earth planet giving the pure process to achieve Kṛṣṇa-prema (as given by Śrīla Prabhupāda to you) to everyone!
In your letters to disciples and well wishers you have been highlighting the need for us all to STUDY Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books and take the necessary exams and get the qualifications.
In my years as a practicing Bhakta I took the Bhakti-śāstrī course when it first appeared. It was given by Pūrṇacandra Prabhu (Śrīla Prabhupāda disciple later he became Pūrṇacandra Mahārāja and preached a lot in Russia before he left his body).
Having this vision through the Bhakti-śāstrī has helped me interpret practical experiences in my daily life
Last week I was out to do some shopping. Prices in the UK have shot up and people are stealing a lot.
One shop I went to the prices were too high so I was leaving when the lady behind the counter said “that’s him the person who stole ten jars of honey”. I said that’s not me and was leaving the shop. Immediately the shop security man attacked me from behind /tripped me/pushed me over. I fell backwards onto the food stall outside and then onto the concrete pavement. The security man knelt across my fallen body so I could not move with his right fist raised shouting in extreme rage as if he was going to manically punch me in the head and face —all I heard was him scream very loudly “Don’t come back here”.
He did not hit me and got up from over me allowing me to get up and go on my way.
This was a case of mistaken identity!
The strange thing about the whole episode was that I was calm through it all as I had just finished my rounds
As I walked away I was thinking about
Bhagavad-gītā Chapter 12 Verse 13-14
PURPORT
“This person is acting as my enemy due to my own past misdeeds. So it is better to suffer than to protest.”
In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (10.14.8) it is stated: tat te ’nukampāṁ su-samīkṣamāṇo bhuñjāna evātma-kṛtaṁ vipākam.
Whenever a devotee is in distress or has fallen into difficulty, he thinks that it is the Lord’s mercy upon him. He thinks, “Thanks to my past misdeeds I should suffer far, far greater than I am suffering now. So it is by the mercy of the Supreme Lord that I am not getting all the punishment I am due. I am just getting a little, by the mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.”
Also I was thinking about the chapters on the Modes of material nature in Bhagavad-gītā
Bhagavad-gītā Chapter 18 Verse 13-14
Verse translation
That understanding which considers irreligion to be religion and religion to be irreligion, under the spell of illusion and darkness, and strives always in the wrong direction, o pārtha, is in the mode of ignorance.
Purport
Intelligence in the mode of ignorance is always working the opposite of the way it should. It accepts religions which are not actually religions and rejects actual religion. Men in ignorance understand a great soul to be a common man and accept a common man as a great soul. They think truth to be untruth and accept untruth as truth. In all activities they simply take the wrong path; therefore their intelligence is in the mode of ignorance.
The lady in the shop was obviously angry that some other person had stolen 10 jars of honey from her shop. Because she was in that angry mood her consciousness has dropped to tamas(ignorance) which meant she could not see the truth(facts) but she was convinced about her illusory opinion and so caused violence on an innocent person.
Having done the Bhakti-śāstrī course certainly helped me have a sattvic vision of the violence and false accusation that were directed at me
Ordinarily because I am aged 65 years old soon to be 66 years, I would have been traumatized by such an event but having done this course and studied the books in dept I was not.
Sometimes when I remember the event I do become concerned but then I remember
Bhagavad gītā Chapter 14 verse 10
Verse translation
Sometimes the mode of goodness becomes prominent, defeating the modes of passion and ignorance, O son of Bharata. Sometimes the mode of passion defeats goodness and ignorance, and at other times ignorance defeats goodness and passion. In this way there is always competition for supremacy.
So I try and get my consciousness back to Sattva(Goodness) by chanting and other devotional services.
Anyway Guru Mahārāja from my experience I can say that the Bhakti-śāstrī is purifying my consciousness and is lifting me to Sattva (Goodness) despite living in this Tamasic world and one day hopefully I will be fixed above the Modes of Nature
As well as getting an opportunity to apply the Bhakti-śāstrī knowledge I managed to go to another shop and I got some some really good bananas at a good price so it was a happy ending!!!
Following your instructions is like having an inexhaustible gold mine one keeps on getting more and more knowledge and detachment!
Thank you Guru Mahārāja for taking care of us all.
There is no one like you Guru Mahārāja. There is only one of you on this planet. In the future people may not be able to believe of what you go through on a daily basis to give association to us fallen souls so that we can go back to the spiritual world.How can anyone conceive of the extraordinary love you have for us all.
Your words and activities are full of potencies. We just have to be submissive disciples rendering service to your mission to benefit from them
Hoping for many more Vyāsa-pūjā so I can tell you how I am improving by following your instructions
Your always improving disciple because of the unending river of compassion you are giving to us all
Jaitra Dāsa (dīkṣā)
United Kingdom (London - Rādhā London Īśvara Temple Soho Street)