Yamuna Jivana dasa and Sri Radhika devi dasi
om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
caksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah
nama om visnu-padaya krsna-presthaya bhu-tale
srimate romapada-svamin iti namine
My dear Guru Maharaja,
Hare Krsna. Please accept my humble obeisances unto your merciful lotus feet. All glories to Your Divine Grace, and to Srila Prabhupada.
A few lessons you have taught me…
“One who is kind to all living entities… is very dear to Me” [Bhagavad-gita 12.13] “Serve the devotees”. When Rupa Sanatana Prabhu, the then-Temple President for St. Louis, was diagnosed with bladder cancer, you challenged us: “Now is the time to show how we care for devotees”. We launched a significant campaign to support his medical expenses throughout the arduous battle against what turned out to be a fatal disease. All the while you carefully ensured that the service of supporting him was done with the right mood and considering various nuances and sensitivities of the devotee community.
“For the service of the Lord, he is always daring and active and is not influenced by attachment or aversion” [Bhagavad-gita 2.56 purport]. When experiencing resistance to establish a Krsna house project to expand the preaching among youth, you infused my heart with assertiveness in service to Srila Prabhupada, guiding me at every step of the way. You taught me to be daring and active.
“The skin relation is the cause of material bondage, but the relation of the soul is the cause of freedom. This relation of the soul to the soul can be established by the via medium of the relation with the Supersoul.” [Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.8.42 purport]. “Team spirit and Collaboration”. When making the decision to transition from St. Louis to Chicago, you encouraged us to consult with the kids who were barely 5 years old! Several times in the past when seeking your guidance, catching me off-guard, you would ask: “What does your wife think?” When a leader in the community was feeling disappointed and started to distance himself, you insisted that we repair the relationship. You have taught me the value of being sensitive to Krsna’s devotees around me because they are dear to Krsna.
“Be Genuine”. Because you truly care, before Sri Jiva was born, and despite your intense travel and preaching services to hundreds of devotees, you remembered us, and proactively reached out asking when we were going to request you for a name for our yet unborn son. We were touched by your authentic care.
“Don’t get absorbed in the material energy”. [Srimad-Bhagavatam 11.2.37]. While Gopinatha was recovering from Jaundice in the hospital right after birth, you called me to talk about a marriage arrangement opportunity – not for myself of course – but for someone I was assisting you in guiding. Sensing my worry about Gopinatha, you commented on how I was absorbed in that energy. You helped pluck me out of unproductive worry and helped me stay connected to service.
“Be a steward of Krsna’s resources” “Seeing Krsna’s energy everywhere”. Recently when trying to share a computer login password with you, I flipped a full page of written to-do items to clearly write the password on the next page. You stopped me in time and asked that I squeeze the password in one corner of the original page! It was tough to find the space, but it was easy to pick up your intended lesson.
Maharaja, these are just a few samples of rice from the rice pot. What to speak of the umpteen hours of powerful lectures we have heard from you in two decades that has shaped my value system, offered a smidgen of attraction to Mahaprabhu and Radha-Krsna, and infused my heart with inspiration to grow from an artificially significant somebody, to an authentic insignificant jiva, servant of Krsna and His devotees.
What did I do to deserve this relationship with you? How much do I really represent what you have taught me? What would I have been doing if you had not descended into our lives? Where would I go in my next life? What would my inner value system have looked like? Who would have been my friends?
Deeply grateful, thoroughly embarrassed, painfully concerned, yet foolishly hopeful, I sincerely plead: Please do not forsake us. Please keep us engaged in your service. Please keep instructing us. Please keep us in your potent prayers.
Your aspiring servant,
Yamuna Jivana dasa
Sri Radhika devi dasi’s offering:
My dear Guru Maharaja,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Your Divine Grace! All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
“It is not joy that makes us grateful, but gratitude that makes us joyful.”
Lest we take the benedictions we have been bestowed with lightly, it is important to take this opportunity, on your Vyasa-puja day, to deeply reflect on, and express gratitude for your gifts.
“If I can summarize what you mean to me, it is this…
You are the centering force of my life. My life rests upon your gifts.”
In particular, I am grateful to you for the two peak experiences I had last year of being engaged in your Gita-nagari retreats. Since the participants were mostly middle-aged, with rich life experiences, these retreats truly gave me an opportunity to practice the definition of compassion that I most resonate with, by Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun: “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.” Kaustuba Prabhu refers to this as lateral, rather than horizontal preaching. For too many years, I have haughtily armored behind the impenetrable shield of, “Let me tell you about spirituality”. However, these Gita-nagari retreats gave me an opportunity to practice connecting on the basis of shared human experience. I connected to the places within me that know the same emotions of grief, depression, shame, envy, pain, and joy. Showing up in such vulnerable ways involved great emotional exposure, but also allowed for the connection to be real and mutually nourishing!
Even though you have twice personally told me to “learn to speak the right message in the right way”, you invited me to share Empathic Communication at the retreat. Doing so at Gita-nagari, the place where it all began for me, owing to your EC retreat in 2018, was magical! Gita-nagari is also the very place where I’ve undergone major purification for being hard-hearted. Yet, you didn’t forever condemn me for my imperfections. You allowed me to teach what I most desperately need to learn. You gave me an arena to dare greatly within.
I am deeply indebted to you for your gift of the holy name. The grounding moments when I have an opportunity to attempt to be mindfully present with Nama Prabhu, in the peaceful, quiet, dark hours of the morning, illuminated only by the light of a flickering candle, sitting in my balmy, heated blanket, hearing the soft chanting of Srila Prabhupada, while my rambunctious boys are asleep, are truly precious! I have often heard you say, “It all begins in our bead bag” and “the holy name of Sri Hari alone is everything”. To be a thoroughly imperfect, yet deeply engaged parent requires every ounce of moment-to-moment presence that I can muster, which is impossible without first attempting to be present with Nama Prabhu. This, my dear Guru Maharaja, is my most treasured gift from you for it is my only shelter in what is by far, my boldest and most daring adventure in Krsna consciousness – parenting, which requires terrifying amounts of vulnerability, for I have to let my children share in my own journey to grow, change, and learn.
It took a lot of internal courage for me to stand up for myself in front of you this year and express my needs for respect and understanding. I am grateful for how deeply you care about me, to actually pay attention to my letter, and to take the time to respond to it, that too, via a phone call. Although I do a pretty good job of pretending to be tough, if you could have seen me while I spoke on the phone with you that day, you would have known that my body was shaking through that entire phone call. Thank you for your openness to hearing my feelings and needs, and for how vulnerable you yourself were. This incident tells me that you see me and that I matter to you. Brene Brown writes, “We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection.” You gave me a sacred space to show my most vulnerable self, and to stand in my authentic power. You demonstrated that there is room for feedback in our relationship, room for understanding and deep personalism. Thank you for this indelible gift.
Thank you for giving me the honor to read your Vyasa-puja offering to Srila Bir Krsna Goswami Maharaja at his Vyasa-puja last October. You wrote, “Given the health circumstances that you have been dealing with, most likely you will not be able to visit Vrndavana during Kartika. However, I will! While I am there, particularly when performing Govardhan parikrama, my thoughts will be with you, hoping that sometime in the future, we can be by one another’s side, making our pilgrimage, circumambulating Govardhan Hill, and remembering the wonderful pastimes that Krsna performed there on a regular basis.” What an absolute privilege to get a glimpse into your emotions-filled heart!
At one home program in Chicago last summer, you introduced me by saying, “This is Sri Radhika. She likes to hear.” Yes, I like to hear from you, Guru Maharaja, because, for the past two decades, you have invested your heart into our relationship. Please bless me, in this latter half of my life, to move closer to a more wholehearted existence, aligned intimately with the values you model for me.
Your beloved spiritual daughter,
Sri Radhika devi dasi