Hare Kṛṣṇa, Guru Mahārāja!
Please accept my prostrated obeisances.
All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda.
All glories to your divine service.
nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate jayapatāka svāmin iti nāmine
nama ācārya-pādāya nitāi-kṛpā-pradāyine
gaura-kathā-dhāma-dāya nagara-grāma-tāriṇe
nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine
namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe
I don't know where to begin. Although I have no qualification to glorify His Divine Grace, I have heard that Lord Kṛṣṇa is very much pleased when His pure devotee is glorified. So, by Kṛṣṇa’s mercy, I will attempt to glorify you.
A few years back, when I was going through the most difficult phase of my life, my younger brother’s friend told him about this Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra. Initially, I was reluctant to take it up. But gradually, I started practicing. It was not until I met His Divine Grace’s most dedicated disciple, H.G. Amṛteśa Prabhuji, that I began to take this transcendental process seriously. Although I felt some sort of connection with His Divine Grace, I paid no heed to it. It is only in the association of your disciples that I began to realize this connection.
I once heard:
"It is only by the mercy of Guru that one can understand and serve Kṛṣṇa, and it is only by the mercy of Kṛṣṇa that one is able to understand and render some service to the Guru."
By the mercy of Kṛṣṇa, I gradually started to understand His Divine Grace and discover your innumerable qualities. Among these, the one that stands out for me is the personal care you give, not just to your disciples, but to anyone who comes to you in distress. This is only possible because of your oceanic love and compassion for all the conditioned souls of this material world.
Such magnanimity is only possible for a true representative and associate of Nityānanda Prabhu (nitāi-kṛpā-pradāyine), whose sole purpose is to bring the fallen souls of this world under the shelter of the lotus feet of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
Your tireless efforts remind me of Vāsudeva Datta Ṭhākura:
“He wished to take the sins of every single living being and suffer in hell in their place so that they could be liberated.”
(Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Ādi 10.42)
Your protection and guidance at every step of my life are unfathomable. You pray for your disciples every single day. You are my only sun in this darkest ocean of nescience.
I beg forgiveness for committing countless offenses unto your lotus feet. I struggle to maintain my daily sādhana, to read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books, and to hear your transcendental vāṇī. But I promise, by your mercy, I will try—with all my energy—to improve and progress on this eternally blissful path of devotion. I will perform my sādhana, read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books with complete sincerity and seriousness, and preach this knowledge to others as it is, on your behalf, without any whimsical interpretation.
As you have said many times in your classes, you want all your disciples to be gurus, and all your gṛhastha disciples to be paramahaṁsas. I beg your prayers and mercy so I may live up to your expectations as a householder.
You once said, and I quote:
"No disciple can ever repay the debt of one instruction of his spiritual master with any amount of money and gifts of this material world in millions of years."
I will be indebted to you forever, life after life. I have no desire whatsoever for liberation from this material world or to go back home, back to Godhead—because of my material conditioning since time immemorial. But I do know that I want to remain under the shelter of your lotus feet, birth after birth. You are my only refuge, my only connection to the spiritual world.
Happy 76th Vyāsa-pūjā Day, Guru Mahārāja!
Your most fallen disciple,
Manohara Rādhājīvana Dāsa