Hariharan and Hema

Dear Guru Maharaja,

Please accept our humble obeisances at the dust of your lotus feet.

nama om visnu-padaya krsna-presthaya bhu-tale
srimate bhaktivedanta-svamin iti namine

“The Supreme Lord, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is always fully satisfied in Himself. Therefore, when something is offered to Him, the offering, by the Lord’s mercy, is for the benefit of the devotee, for the Lord does not need service from anyone. To give an example, if one’s face is decorated, the reflection of one’s face in a mirror is also seen to be decorated.”

We have no qualification whatsoever to glorify Your Divine Grace and whatever we are presenting in this Vyasa-puja offering may not be fit enough to be offered at your lotus feet. However, by trying our best to write this offering we are purifying ourselves by mediating on your transcendental qualities and how steadfastly you are following the instructions of Srila Prabhupada and our guru-parampara. A glimpse of these qualities I witnessed personally during your stay near Coimbatore for Ayurvedic treatment earlier this year. I could observe what Lord Krsna says in Bhagavad-gita 2.69 practically at work in that environment:

“What is night for all beings is the time of awakening for the self-controlled; and the time of awakening for all beings is night for the introspective sage.”

When all other patients were spending their time sleeping, relaxing and happy due to various massages and other treatments meant to rejuvenate the tired bodies engaged in life-long pursuit of sense gratification, you were engaged in hearing, reading, and preparing for the seminar series you had planned on “Anatomy of Anarthas” to help us progress in Krsna consciousness.

I also wish to express my profound gratitude in allowing me to serve Your Divine Grace during your stay at Coimbatore and for patiently tolerating my mistakes during the service. I consider the opportunity to serve you by assisting His Grace Jagadananda Prabhu and His Grace Syama-kunda Prabhu as the highlight of my nascent Krsna conscious life. From Jagadananda Prabhu and Syama-kunda Prabhu I got to see first-hand how to serve the spiritual master for his pleasure. When serving with Jagadananda Prabhu I could appreciate his genuine and unpretentious nature and from Syama-kunda Prabhu I could appreciate how much he is striving to be a first-class servant of Your Divine Grace. I could also appreciate and understand that these qualities become manifested by serving the pure devotees of the Lord such as Your Divine Grace as stated in Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.2.16. During this year’s Vyasa-puja offering to Srila Prabhupada, I recalled how Srila Prabhupada’s causeless mercy entered my life and how it changed the perception of my life forever. Guru Maharaja, you are the living manifestation of Srila Prabhupada’s causeless mercy in our lives. When our daughter was born, you gave her her name. However, I was so unrefined and uncultured because I did not know the proper etiquette of writing you mail to thank you for your causeless mercy. Again, during last year’s South India yatra, you showered more mercy on us by performing the anna-prasana ceremony of our daughter, Uttara. The following paragraph is my wife’s testimony to your causeless mercy in her Krsna consciousness.

Guru Maharaja, though we have no qualification, still you have kindly taken us under your shelter. Even after receiving your shelter I was not making enough sincere efforts to improve my Krsna consciousness. During the South India yatra in 2015 you had instructed us to wake up early in the morning. Though we tried to follow for few days, eventually the practice disappeared and we were back to the same old practice. Your Coimbatore stay in 2016 changed our lives. I could not personally come and serve you there but my husband was there for 10 days. The day he returned I woke up early to receive him. Since there was some more time before his arrival I started chanting. That day I realized how nice it is to chant in the early hours of the day. That motivated me to get up early daily and chant. I seriously feel that you have passed on your mercy to me through my husband. You are also showering the mercy on us through the guidance of His Grace Syama-kunda Prabhu, who is constantly monitoring our progress and guiding us to increase our attachment to Krsna.

Guru Maharaja, we wrote two years back in our Vyasa-puja offering that:

“A real and appropriate glorification from us befitting your status as a true follower of Srila Prabhupada is to take your instructions as our life and soul and perfect our lives by cultivating loving devotion to Lord Krsna. We sincerely hope that someday we can truly glorify you, not only by our words alone, but through our actions as well. We beg at your lotus feet, wishing that day may happen sooner and we may write a Vyasa-puja offering befitting your position as a true rupanuga.”

We wish to reiterate our commitment and we beg for your causeless mercy that our lives may be an expression of service to Lord Krsna by sincerely and faithfully following in your footsteps.

Your aspiring servants,
Hariharan and Hema