Svetadvipa dasa

Most Respected Guru Mahārāja,

Hare Kṛṣṇa. Please accept our most humble obeisances at your lotus feet. All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda!

We are contemplating on the pastime of Lord Caitanya, in which the Lord was teaching the students in Navadvīpa before taking sannyāsa. Although Lord was respected among the students but when He was chanting the names of the gopis, students tried to correct Him. The Lord, being very compassionate, did not want the students to commit any offense towards Him. One of the reasons why the Lord took sannyāsa was that at least people would respect Him and in that way they would make advancement. What a great responsibility lies on the person who is trying to teach spiritual science to the conditioned souls! Not only does he have to inject devotion to the heart of baddha-jīva but also he has to be very careful that people should not commit offense otherwise the advancement will be in the negative direction. Even from Śrīla Prabhupāda’s life we learn that after training some devotees in close quarters for some time, he used to send the devotees away in different services to avoid familiarity. Familiarity is the root cause of offenses.

From the beginning of our devotional life, Sir repeatedly emphasized to us that we should never become familiar with the superiors in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Based on that strength only, I personally feel that I could advance in devotional life and respect different types of devotees according to their position. Since in kali-yuga hardly anyone is born with good qualities, without training one will commit serious mistakes in devotional life by judging the superiors and evaluating them.

We feel very fortunate to receive this training from Sir, who is sincerely living and presenting to us the teachings of parampara, as received from you. We are very grateful to you for your giving hearty blessings and support to Sir in offering this training to us. We seek your blessings on this most auspicious day of your Vyasa-puja to respect all the devotees according to their position and render meaningful service.

Please forgive us for our offenses.

Your aspiring servants,
Svetadvipa dasa and Krpi devi dasi