Govinda-nandini devi dasi
My dearest Gurudeva,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada, all glories to you!
On the occasion of your auspicious Vyasa-puja celebration, I would like to highlight one word that you have been repeating again and again when speaking of how to deal with difficult situations, ‘gratitude’. As my life in Italy unfolds in a dramatic way, the word gratitude has taken on increasing importance in my heart.
In the first place I thank you for wisely and compassionately granting me the favor of initiation, with seemingly more eagerness than I had. I was a fool not to appreciate that until one day I was amazed to find out that without your initiation I couldn’t have tided over all the difficulties that followed.
I thank you for kindly giving me the contact number of an Ayurvedic doctor in Bergamo, who might be the only Italian devotee you have ever known. Although I have not contacted him yet, I appreciate your heart-warming effort.
I thank you for your enthusiastic effort in pushing devotees to read Srimad-Bhagavatam carefully and systematically. Inspired by that, I have been reading Srimad-Bhagavatam aloud every morning with other Chinese devotees soon after settling in Italy. We will be finishing Canto 6 in a couple of days accompanied by my note compilation work, later becoming translation, based on Srimad-Bhagavatam guide books written by Bhurijana Prabhu. Without your inspiration, I couldn’t have done it so consistently. After all, I never started the project during my six years’ practice in Shanghai!
I thank you for consistently giving online classes on Srimad-Bhagavatam and other krsna-katha topics every day to devotees all over the world. Your heart-felt devotion and scrupulous attitude in following scriptures and acaryas is guiding us in laying a solid foundation on the path of bhakti. I never find anyone more serious than you in this aspect. How fortunate I’m to be given this humble position to follow in your footsteps as your servant of servants.
I thank you all the more for passing the mercy of Krsna to me and making me truly grateful to Krsna’s ubiquitous mercy and thereby surrender more fully to Him. As it is said often, Krsna’s mercy comes in the form of happiness and misery. I have tasted a lot of His mercy in the form of happiness. Now it comes in the form of misery. It was because of your mercy that I came to recognize that and embrace it with gratitude and joy.
My daughter, suffering from anorexia nervosa, weighed only 30 kilos when we sent her to hospital. She was hospitalized for three months and I kept her company for one and a half months in the hospital. A seemingly traumatic experience for all my family members in the beginning turned out eventually to be a great blessing. She bravely embraced everything, cooperated very well with the doctors and was highly received by everyone. When she came back home, she was a totally new person: happy, confident, sensible and grateful, better than ever. Days after she came back, she had to face the national exam at the end of the junior high school. She not only emerged successful with the highest score 10+, but also managed to play the piano as part of her exam, fresh from the hospital! I can’t imagine how this could happen! Without your mercy, Krsna wouldn’t have given me such a pleasant surprise.
I thank you equally for empowering me to face the never-ending changes in my life. Arriving in a new country, not speaking the language, without a car, the Covid, then my daughter’s disease. All these rushed to us, but thanks to your mercy and Krsna’s, we faced them with calmness. My husband later obtained his driver’s license. We signed up the kids to a private school in Bologna. We managed to rent a house in the city center. As the house is virtually empty, we had to move our old furniture from the house in Fanano all the way to Bologna. Then we had to buy all the necessities to fill up the house. The process is to be finished soon. Next week we will be living in the new city and I will be able to join the local devotees much more easily. In fact, in two days, I will be seeing them in the park!
This is a world full of changes. My life is changing, the outside world is changing, more rapidly than we can imagine. So, what to hold on to in the hamster’s wheel? This special situation has given me no choice but to be all the more dependent on Krsna. After all, everything comes from Him and everything is controlled by Him. What can we do except follow His will and serve Him? Besides, as Krsna said in Bhagavad-gita 9.29,
“I envy no one, nor am I partial to anyone. I am equal to all. But whoever renders service unto Me in devotion is a friend, is in Me and I am also a friend to him.” [Bhagavad-gita 9.29 Translation]
I’m so fortunate to recognize Him as the ultimate shelter of my life and the best friend to serve and love.
And you are the living manifestation of the Lord as my ultimate shelter and best friend. To you, I offer my most humble obeisances in love and devotion. With great gratitude, I beg to ask for your mercy to allow me to render some service to you.
Your eternal servant,
Govinda-nandini devi dasi