Nandimukhi devi dasi
Dear Guru Maharaja – my most benevolent spiritual master and eternal father,
I beg to offer my most humble and submissive obeisances unto you. All glories to you and Srila Prabhupada.
om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana salakaya
caksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri gurave namah
On the occasion of your Vyasa-pūja celebration, your cintamani-like disciples and well-wishers gather, creating an intriguing network connection that allows bhakti currents to flow from heart to heart without any loss of energy or data. This network connection is so powerful that anyone close to it would lose all resistance caused by ahankara and be transformed into a superconductor of bhakti. Carried by the oceanic flow of bhakti, I find myself coming before you and falling at your feet. Like a blade of grass enveloped by the darkness of night earnestly pray for the first rays of morning sun bursting over the horizon, I beg for your merciful glance, which brightens up the faces of whoever receives it and nourishes their very beings. I beg for the required humility and resilience that would lead me through this chapter of my life, which is filled with gloomy uncertainties.
I cannot help but thinking about you, Guru Maharaja. How have you sailed through years of thick and thin in serving Srila Prabhupada’s mission of distributing Krsna consciousness across the continent? In the Thousand Character Essay, a classical Chinese poem composed in the sixth century that was a well-known text for elementary education in ancient China, it is said, “in attending one’s father and serving one’s master, be serious and reverent. Filial means sparing no effort, loyal means giving one’s life.”
Certainly, you have been sparing no effort and giving your life to this sacred mission, committing to live up to Srila Prabhupada’s highest expectation and aspiring to be a living example of his teachings. Your never-fading gratitude towards Srila Prabhupada is a secret of your success. As you say, gratitude is the seed of love.
Very soon, we will honor Srila Prabhupada’s one hundred thirtieth anniversary and the sixtieth year since he legally incorporated ISKCON and laid down its seven purposes. Needless to say, it is sixty years of hope and growth, sharing and caring, inspiration and jubilation, as well as sixty years of twists and turns, trials and errors, challenges and controversies. Awaiting us ahead is the task of making sure ISKCON continues to thrive for decades to come.
As an expanding international organization in a multi-cultural world, it becomes increasingly important for us to be focused within and inclusive without. Emphasizing both inner development and outward contribution, we want to preserve and broadcast the Krsna consciousness practice meticulously taught by Srila Prabhupada and his faithful followers, and at the same time respect others for who they are and not see anyone as an alien that should not be allowed to be themselves. It is also important for us to willingly reach out and connect, forging supportive and dynamic vaisnava-sangas. As described in the Rasa Pascadhyayi, when the vraja gopikas joined together in their intense search for Krsna—singing, remembering, and speaking their hearts out—Krsna, who had become invisible out of His love for them, made His splendid appearance before them. And when the gopikas linked their arms and connected their hearts in forming a festive rasa-manḍala, Krsna gave Himself exclusively to each one of them. Krsna-vasa-hetu eka—prema-bhakti-rasa, “unalloyed devotional love for Krsna is the only cause for the Lord’s satisfaction” (Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi-lila 17.75).
Who can fathom the power of the prema-bhakti that is exchanged between and flows from the hearts of the divine couple and descends to this kali-yuga infested place through the transparent medium of disciplic succession? I have the good fortune of having a glimpse of this unimaginable power by coming in contact with you, a maker of magic in your quest for eternal service to Srila Prabhupada. By your causeless care and unconditional love, you awaken in us self-worth and self-esteem, inner-security and inner-stability, confidence in Krsna that everything is under His perfect arrangement. The warm harbor of your association is the best place of refuge and comfort, as you are forever ready to give us your protection and keep us by your side.
Guru Maharaja, you are the worthiest master and the most nurturing father I could ever have. Every time remembering that I am one of your dependent children, my heart becomes overjoyed. It is only by the grace of providence that, after lifetimes of wandering, I finally landed at the shelter of your lotus feet. Let me now cast aside all reservations and plunge into this ocean of mercy.
Once again, I fall at your feet. Please accept me, maintain me, and train me to dedicate myself single-mindedly to you in your service to Srila Prabhupada, sparing no effort and giving my life, although I am insignificant, frail and fallible, and have little to offer.
Your eternal servant,
Nandimukhi devi-dasi