Jayadeva dasa, Niyati devi dasi, Satyabhama, Yashoda and Vrndavan

om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya

caksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah

nama om visnu-padaya krsna-presthaya bhu-tale

srimate romapada-svamin iti namine

Our Dearest and worshipable Spiritual Master Srila Romapada Swami Maharaja,

Please accept our prostrated humble obeisances in the divine dust of your lotus feet. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. All glories to you.

Your Vyasa-puja is the most blessed event wherein we all gather to collectively and individually recommit to our surrender at your and thereby Srila Prabhupada’s lotus feet. It has been many years in your association but nothing has faded in our relationship. On the contrary, after all these years we still find that the joy of being with you, hearing from you or remembering you and putting efforts to follow your words all come anew. Your personality, lectures and efforts to uplift us make us realize that though you are around us on this planet, factually you are in the spiritual world and you have deep eagerness to bless us with that same residence. Your discourses in the recent Festival of the Holy Name restate this fact that you are fully enthusiastic to elevate your disciples to get krsna-bhakti-rasa. You shared that “your explicit educational objective” is to give your disciples the opportunity, inspiration and tools to go beyond the complacency as well as indifference position thereby to get close to what Srila Rupa Gosvami calls laulyam.

You take us a step further to reveal the price to achieve that krsna-bhakti-rasa, which is “the intense greed to obtain it”. But you know very well that our contaminated hearts are so much blocked that we may hardly receive this intense greed to obtain krsna-bhakti-rasa. Thus, quoting Srila Raghunath dasa Gosvami you explained the practical way of rescue for us – with straw in our teeth, praying birth after birth just to receive the dust from the lotus feet of current and predecessor acaryas.

You kindly said, “hangout with Srila Rupa Gosvami, get his mercy, be eager for his mercy, because he is eager for us to get krsna-bhakti-rasa”. The same about Srila Rupa Gosvami applies to you, Srila Gurudeva. We wish to hangout with you and get your mercy. We are eager for your mercy, because you are zillion times eager for us to get krsna-bhakti-rasa.

Finally, as a grand closure to this part of your address you said, “this is the function of guru.”

Your messages in these series of lectures touch our hearts as we witness how kind and focused you are in your desire to save us from our own material consciousness. You often bring to our awareness, the most fortunate position of our being connected to Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya-sampradaya and that you formally connected us to this chain. This glorious parampara not just holds Lord Krsna as the originator but is filled with stalwart acaryas. In fact, every acarya is unique, glorious and above all, is blessing us out of an ocean of compassion. By their grace we are blessed to receive you as the embodiment of this transcendental parampara, the living acarya.

Last year has been a wonderful period to receive your personal guidance in executing our services of facilitating Young Boys Sanga or serving my father in his final days. Your getting fully involved in these and giving directions made these to be executed beyond what could have been conceived. And then just remembering your instructions and properly serving multiple devotees who stayed for four months at our home was a thrill of mercy to witness in our hearts. Thank you so much for giving us this strength to act on your instructions. We happily look forward to having opportunities in the coming year to receive personal correspondence and guidance from you.

We do get discouraged by our limitations and shortcomings, but our hope lands on your mercy. From the real-life experiences of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples, we witness the divine power of a bonafide spiritual master, that he is there constantly with his disciple. By your sheer mercy, we also feel your presence very close to us. And holding straw in our teeth, we pray to receive the dust from your lotus feet on our head minute after minute in this life.

Often, we choose to leave you and satisfy our material desires, but we still come back to you, being optimistic to one day overcome our shortcomings and yet another one day, in this very life receive krsna-bhakti-rasa, which would be a dream come true.

Today, coming before you, we try our best to graciously thank you for investing gallons of your blood to spiritually uplift us, time and again forgiving us and unconditionally extending the guru-disciple relationship.

We pray that we have your vapu association for many many years ahead and that we live our life in your honour and do something good with it.

Our three children love you and you are their HERO, same as ours.

Very very grateful for your love for us Guru Maharaja. All glories to you and the amazing souls at your lotus feet who kindly support us in our journey.

Always seeking your mercy.

Your menial servants,

Jayadeva dasa, Niyati devi dasi, Satyabhama, Yashoda and Vrndavan