nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate jayapatākā-svāmin iti nāmine
namo ācāryapādāya nitāi-kṛpa-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
My dear Guru Mahārāja,
Please kindly accept my humble obeisances at the dusts of your divine lotus feet. All glories to your divine grace. All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda and his true followers.
Guru Mahārāja, you are very dear to Śrīla Prabhupāda because of your surrender to the lotus feet of his divine grace. As Śrīla Prabhupāda has taken the instructions of His Gurudeva as his life and soul, you have also done so with Śrīla Prabhupāda’s orders on you. You live by/for those instructions. Your only ambition is to fulfil those unlimited instructions and please our founder acarya.
You are Prabhupāda’s victory flag in his house like ISKCON, flying uncompromisingly, declaring the victory of Sankirtan yajña over the triumph of age of Kali. Time and time again you have proven this by your very life and example. You have tirelessly preached at all corners of the world, travelling vigorously, reaching harinam to the remotest part of every town and village (nagara grāma tarine). You have taken the message of Śrīman Mahāprabhu far and wide and truly brought His prediction (“prithivite āche yato nagarādi grāma sarvatra pracāra hoibe mora nāma”) to reality as Śrīla Prabhupāda had done and wanted his followers to expand it.
In ISKCON today, we see most of the participants in any kind of events are from Nāmahaṭṭa, which is rejuvenated and revived to great effect by your humble attempt and support. Once His Holiness Gaurāṅga Prema Swami Mahārāja was telling in one of the JSSS (Jayapataka Swami Sishya Samuha Sangha) in Māyāpur, that how you were helping the Nāmahaṭṭa preaching by caring for the devotees and boosting them with your personal interest in this style of preaching. At times the preachers would not even have sufficient Lakṣmi to travel and preach, and you gave them the guru daksina that you received in your Vyasa-puja. Now every preacher is preaching very valiantly in every district of West Bengal, Assam, and all the states of India. Your time-space-effective style of presenting Kṛṣṇa Consciousness among the educated class of people through the Bhakti-vṛkṣa preaching has shown great promise and paid off hugely in this movement. In the middle-east countries, in cities of whole world, this is the life line of ISKCON these days. Your enthusiasm to serve Śrīla Prabhupāda is ever increasing and you are getting newer and newer rasa in striving hard just to please him, and we are very much fortunate to be a follower of you and be able to assist in this movement in your mission to fulfil Śrīla Prabhupādas’s desires.
The year 2018 was a very important year in our lives as Kṛṣṇa tested all of us, and to rightly say, gave us a golden opportunity to be even closer to you and Kṛṣṇa through the medium of chanting and praying intensely for your recovery. All the devotees of Śrīdhāma Māyāpur, and whole world, had somehow come together to convince Kṛṣṇa to give you back to us safe and stronger than ever before in terms of your vapu. In this case, you again have chosen us, fallen souls, over going back home, back to Godhead. How can I, a useless impudent disciple of yours can describe your causeless mercy and your persistent shelter to me? You know my heart, even though it is filthy, still it is thirsty to serve you, to follow your vani. You always want that we become strong in our sadhana-bhakti and keep ourselves determined to walk and complete the journey back home. In doing so, we need to train our minds and preach to ourselves first tirelessly and then preach others, help and cooperate with each other. But you know, the mind, how turbulent it is. It proposes my previous bad desires again and again, and smartly places those in garb of bhakti. This leads to lack of focus on bhakti, and relationship with devotees, not treating them with respect and finding faults and ultimately offending them and what not! I know I am the culprit. No one else is.
I have joined ISKCON Māyāpur temple as a brahmacārī and by your mercy completed my one-year training now on 23rd March 2019. In my stay here during this period I have experienced a lot of turns and twists of my faith, surrender, conviction, and motivation, inspiration to perform Kṛṣṇa Consciousness and to preach the same. I have found there is a huge gap in terms of communication between devotees and their hearts. Why is this so Guru Maharaj? Why are we not together? We are we motivated by puja, labh, pratishtha? Why we only treat a fresh energy with our selfish agenda? Where is Prabhupāda kept in the center?
Now, TOVP is going to emerge. Great news. It is Śrīla Prabhupāda’s dream that he is seeing through your eyes. You are staying with us and one of the reasons is this one. So, how much are we also seeing like that as you do? How much are we dedicated to build this temple for Prabhupāda, for the whole world? By telling like this in your vyasa puja homage actually I am condemning my incapability so far and I want to reassure you that I am ready to do any sort of thing and go any far to help the project Māyāpur, and Mission Kṛṣṇa Consciousness movement. I need to educate myself and qualify myself to desire like this even now, as my practice has gone wrong over time. I again have to start from the scratch. But I am willing to do it all over again. Please help me Guru Maharja. Please don’t leave me in this bhava-sagara, ocean of material existence.
In this last year, I have gone through the brahmacārī training, where I have learnt the 26 vaishnava qualities, sadachara, acar-pracar, systematic study of different sections of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and off late successfully completed Bhakti śāstri course from Māyāpur Institute. By your mercy I am translating your daily lectures on the lotus roof top in Bengali through FM. I require your forgiveness for my incapability of following all standards of bhakti, and at the same time need your blessings and prayers that I can be a true disciple of yours by disciplining myself and be empowered to preach this cult to one and all especially to youths.
Recently I have been assigned seva in Māyāpur Bhakti-vṛkṣa Preaching department by Māyāpur management. I have previous experience of Bhakti-vṛkṣa Preaching in Bangalore during my stay there for almost 3 years. There I was doing it in English language, and here it would be in Bengali, and audience would also be different. I am seeking your blessings to understand the mood of preaching and serving the devotees by engaging my energy in this project Guru Mahārāja.
At last, I want to thank you for all your unlimited mercy on me and my parents (Nanda Priya Das, and Karuṇavati Kamala Devī Dāsī) who are also your disciples and pray to your divine lotus feet that you keep us engaged in your service to Śrīla Prabhupāda, and Gaurāṅga. May Our Lord Śrī Śrī Rādhā Mādhava Aṣṭa sakhi, Śrīman Māyāpur Candra, Śrī Śrī Pañca-tattva, Śrī Narasiṁhadeva Prahlāda Mahārāja, Śrī Śrī Jagannātha Baladeva Subhadrā Mayī, Sudarśana, Śrīla Prabhupāda give you all protection and blessing to help this movement grow to its golden pick and please their Lordships. Let us be instruments in that great attempt.
All glories to your divine grace, All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Your insignificant servant,
Nirbhaya Nityānanda Dāsa,
Śrīdhāma Māyāpur,
Brahmacārī Āśrama