Gajendra Moksa dasa and Carana Renu devi dasi
Our most merciful Spiritual Master,
Please accept our most humble obeisances in the dust of your divine lotus feet. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
On this most sacred occasion of your appearance day, we fall in the dust of your lotus feet and beg for the ability to properly glorify your divine and magnanimous character. Kindly accepts few words of glorification for our purification. We are very grateful to you for giving us another opportunity to focus deeply on the unlimited mercy you showered on us. Guru Maharaja, your Vyasa-puja celebrations bring about in our heart an intensified sense of gratitude and transcendental happiness in glorifying the innumerable ways you have induced the presence of Krsna and his loving devotees in our lives.
Guru Maharaja, our only possession, which is “everything” to us, is our heartfelt gratitude for Your Divine Grace. As we realize more and more the greatest fortune that has been bestowed upon us, we feel more and more grateful to you. Yet, we also feel that our consciousness is so tightfisted that we are unable to fully take hold of this great transcendental gift. Still, you are always keen to show us what to aspire for. Thank you for caring about our spiritual growth and providing the impetus that keeps us spiritually motivated.
Guru Maharaja, you are always deeply committed to our spiritual welfare and have taken many personal inconveniences to instruct, inspire, and guide us despite our complicated lives. Although we don’t know what is good for us, you are always very mercifully guiding us on the path of our ultimate welfare. We witnessed a tremendous increase in our faith in the process of Krsna consciousness, your instructions and in the arrangements that you are making for our advancement. You are always tolerant to our mistakes and allowed us to correct that by your gentle behavior. Guru Maharaja, we are unfit and insignificant fallen souls, but despite such qualifications, you took so much responsibility, care, and attention and advised us how to take the right step and develop relationship amongst ourselves and within the devotee community. It is all because of your guidance and instructions that we have been able to realize the importance of relationship and are hankering for it every day.
You make all kind of efforts to reach out to us, guide us, kept us in your prayers, make many, many practical arrangements to support and nourish our spiritual life, and do whatever is necessary and most conducive for our advancement. Even though we may not have such a pure and receptive heart and we are very inexperienced in loving relationships, and many times there was some fear due to this, you have always strived to create such a loving environment where we can open our hearts and freely express our feelings with devotees who are guiding us. We are increasingly recognizing the need to become devotees at heart by participating in the six loving exchanges between devotees rather than simply based on our external appearances and activities. We see from your personal example as to how you strive to preserve Srila Prabhupada’s mood of facilitating six loving exchanges.
The most wonderful of your gifts to us is the deepening of loving relationship with His Grace Nityananda Pran Prabhu and Hemangi Mataji. Devotees submit to them because they love them and because they maintain the highest personal purity. With their uninterrupted guidance with respect to sadhana, occupational duties, or relationships, we were able to see how they are engaging us and all others with full consideration of our natures and desires and are assisting us to move forward step-by-step, to a platform that you want us to come to. Without these magnanimous personalities in our lives, we would be unable to connect to your love, to accept your mercy, and to understand that you are our ever well-wisher. What we appreciate about this training is that they are not letting us be complacent in a parasitic relationship, but that they are empowering us to grow up. With their loving care and sincerity, we are able to access your mercy. They gave us the courage to open up our hearts, seek forgiveness for our misgivings and appreciate each other’s sincerity towards the preceptor and Srila Prabhupada’s teachings.
Srila Prabhupada gave great importance to college and scientific preaching and you have taken this as your life’s mission. By your constant travels to top notch universities and organizations worldwide, you have set a perfect example for all of us to follow. A sincere desire is developing in my heart to help you in this mission in whatever way I can. I sincerely pray for your blessings so that I may act as your worthy instrument. The western outreach seminar really created a storm in me and I am hearing a voice that I should do something rather than attending these seminars and wait for another year and yet another seminar. With your blessings, I am trying to act now and some wonderful programs are already manifesting at Northwestern University.
Guru Maharaja, on your divine appearance day, our sincere and humble request at your lotus feet is to give us your blessings so we can serve you eternally. Please continue to enlighten us and we pledge to affirm our dedication to your lotus feet. We beg for you to bestow on us sufficient purity, vision, and intelligence, allowing us to glorify you in the proper way by becoming completely transparent instruments. We are forever indebted to you, Guru Maharaja, and we therefore beg you to maintain us forever in your services.
Desiring to cultivate deep gratitude in service to you through your representatives,
Your aspiring and insignificant servants
Gajendra Moksa dasa, Carana Renu devi dasi, Kirti and Lalita
Kirti Shekhawat’s offering:
To my most dearest well wisher, my Guru Maharaja,
om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
caksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah
“I was born in the darkest ignorance, and my spiritual master opened my eyes with the torch of knowledge. I offer my respectful obeisances unto him.”
śrī-caitanya-mano-’bhīṣṭaṁ sthāpitaṁ yena bhū-tale
svayaṁ rūpaḥ kadā mahyaṁ dadāti sva-padāntikam
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada, and to your lotus feet.
Maharaja, this past year has brought a lot of change in me as a person both mentally and spiritually. I am extremely happy about the person who I have molded into by your blessings and mercy, and I really hope with your blessings that it will continue to happen. Maharaja, when I wanted to start really focusing on my chanting, I felt that Krsna showed me the way and really inspired me to do 64 rounds for the first time during the Festival of Holy Name, which also inspired me to start chanting 16 rounds on a daily basis. I started and I felt that it really changed me to progress in other things in my life. It helped me focus on certain things and it also helped me become more devoted to serving Krsna. I was able to concentrate on school work and my faith in Krsna was stronger during my stressful times.
Maharaja, you have always been a strong leader and a person who I look up to with all respect. Maharaja, you have always been there for me and guided me in my spiritual life whenever I had questions. I feel blessed that Lord Krsna has given me you in the form of a spiritual master, who can guide me on right and wrong. You have always been there to support me in both my personal life and spiritual life. Now that I have been accepted into college, I will be exposed to a much bigger and newer environment. I would like to take your blessing before starting a new journey in my life and I would like to take your instruction on how to take this into a spiritual advancement form, and how I can benefit from this.
Maharaja, you have known me since I was a young child. I remember one instance where you came to my house for dinner, and you had also came to stay overnight, since you had a flight early the next morning. You came and sat down and you were asking me questions, like, “Kirti, how is school going?”, and I would very excitedly reply, “Yes Maharaja, it is going very well”. Then I would bring my report card and show you how well I am doing in school, and I also showed you my library card, and I felt on top of world, because you showed me immense kindness, and showered me with spiritual love. I also would ask you how to chant properly, even though, at that time I couldn’t understand what it actually meant. You then gave me an example of a baby, and how a baby first crawls, and when it tries to walk, it falls, but it gets up again with more determination and starts to walk again. Maharaja I reminisce in those moments and laugh, but now I understand the spiritual knowledge you gave me behind the proverbs and the pastimes you used to tell. Maharaja, I try very hard every day to apply the beautiful instructions in my chanting every day. Maharaja, please bless me to become more focus on chanting as well as my personal life. I want to improve and become a better person every day. With your blessings, and spiritual guidance only can I become a better devotee of Krsna.
Your insignificant daughter,
Kirti Shekhawat