Hare Kṛṣṇa Dear Guru Mahārāja,
Please accept my respectful obeisances at Your lotus feet. All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda.
‘sādhu-saṅga’, ‘sādhu-saṅga’ — sarva-śāstre kaya
lava-mātra sādhu-saṅge sarva-siddhi haya
“The verdict of all revealed scriptures is that by even a moment’s association with a pure devotee, one can attain all success.”
Guru Mahārāja, this is what happened to me last year because of Your causeless mercy. I could directly see how my life accelerated in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness with only a few moments of Your association. I would like to first thank you for coming to USA, staying for almost 2 months, and visiting so many centers in spite of your health condition. In that time, countless devotees dipped in the pool of Kṛṣṇa’s mercy through Your association. Your presence at the 2023 Sadhu Sanga event, which You attended for the first time, was like a downpour of Your mercy on the dry souls like me, giving us a boost of inspiration in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness.
With Your mercy, the in-person Bhakti-vṛkṣa that I and my wife had started at our house here in the Greater Cleveland area is going strong. You always say that Grihastha couples should work together as a team in devotional service. Only because of the Bhakti-vṛkṣa program, I am able to understand the important role my wife is playing in my Kṛṣṇa Consciousness journey. Running this program requires so much coordination and team work that within the first few weeks we quickly identify our collective strengths and weaknesses. There will be (quite) a few arguments, disagreements and tiffs initially, but we know that You will be happy if we conduct this Bhakti-vṛkṣa program nicely and inspire new members in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. So, we must quickly build upon our strengths and seek Kṛṣṇa’s mercy to keep it going in spite of the weaknesses and disagreements. We will stumble a few times but if we keep trying, we will see how Kṛṣṇa starts to shower His mercy by arranging things that will make the program go strong on the path of success. When we start making a positive impact together in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, our mutual respect towards each other (husband and wife) grows multifold because we no longer see each other as husband and wife, but as Vaishnavas. We then start to think alike and discuss about how we can preach more. We start to go out for Book Distribution more often without having to wait for other devotees’ help. Kids will then start to help us looking at our dedication. We realized what you meant by working as a team.
I cannot say enough about the Bhakti-vṛkṣa program. We invite devotees visiting the Cleveland area to stay at our home. This gives us the opportunity to serve various devotees associated with ISKCON. Each and every one appreciates Your idea of the Bhakti-vṛkṣa program. One devotee who is a disciple of Bhakti Tirtha Swami particularly shared his experience from his past. There was his devotee friend who is Your disciple, who had a dispute with the temple management. The temple management asked him and his family to not visit the temple. In such a situation, he said, the devotee would get disheartened and could stop their sādhana altogether. But this devotee, Your disciple, he then started a Bhakti-vṛkṣa at his home and gradually more people started going to his house than the temple. The temple management was shocked to see that and they came and settled their differences.
In order to be able to preach we need to study Śrīla Prabhupāda books. You had given us the instruction, and You also keep reminding us constantly, to pursue various degrees. Some people may saw why we need degrees in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. But, we know that getting the degree is only the secondary goal. Reading Śrīla Prabhupāda books in pursuit of that degree is the primary reason behind Your instruction. Reading Śrīla Prabhupāda books means taking direct association of Śrīla Prabhupāda because Śrīla Prabhupāda told that He lives in His books. You Yourself are leading us by example by taking and completing the Bhaktivedanta course. I am happy to share that I completed my Bhakti Sastri course and now starting to pursue Bhakti Vaibhava course. Please continue to give Your blessings, so I can complete it.
You are stressing the importance of book distribution and encouraging us to go out more and distribute more books. Books are the basis for ISKCON. The team You sent from Māyāpur to Ayodhya for the Ram Mandir temple opening had distributed lakhs of Bhagavad-gītā and small books. Distributing many big and small books each month is also one of the instructions Śrīla Prabhupāda gave you. I signed up to the Book Distribution Coordination team in JPS mobile app. Please bless me so I can also render a little service in this instruction of Yours.
When we conduct a Bhakti-vṛkṣa and go out regularly for book distribution, while taking care of kids and family, we can see that there will be no more time for materialistic activities. This is the real mercy of Kṛṣṇa and Śrīla Prabhupāda, through You – always engaged in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness (satata-yuktānāṁ). Please bless us all that we continue to spread this Kṛṣṇa Consciousness movement by carefully guarding against any offences towards Vaishnavas.
Thank You Guru Mahārāja!!
Your insignificant servant,
Patita-pāvana Balarāma Dāsa
