Lalita Kund dasa
Dear Srila Gurudeva,
nama om visnu-padaya krsna-presthaya bhu-tale
srimate romapada-svamin iti namine
namas te sarasvate deve gaura-vani-pracarine
nirvisesa-sunyavadi-pascatya-desa-tarine
Please accept my most humble obeisances unto your divine lotus feet. Today as I write about this Vyasa-puja, I was reflecting on the first time I came across Krsna consciousness. It was in India, when I used to go to Vrndavana with my parents, blissful but without much realization. Then again, I met Hare Krsnas at Penn State University. I liked going there as they answered fundamental questions about creation, karma and dharma. It was here that I met you for the first time at somebody’s home program. I tried to ask you a question and I remember now something from Srila Prabhupada’s lecture, “Not only do we [the conditioned souls] not know the right answers, we don’t even know the right questions”. Yet, you were so merciful, you understood what I was trying to ask and answered what I was searching for. Since then, I started chanting off and on. And then, after intense prayer to Krsna and Srila Prabhupada, I met you again eight years later. I was going through some very difficult time and found shelter at your lotus feet. Since then, I have not let go and you have been so kind and nurturing to even give me some service of preaching to college students. I was completely surprised and very happy to get this service, realizing your causeless mercy as I did not deserve it at all.
Ever since I have joined Krsna consciousness, I remember the following words of Srila Prabhupada from a conversation on train to Allahabad, January 11, 1977.
“Yes. We are brainwashing from bad to good. That is our business. We are washing the brain from all rascaldom. That is our business. Your brain is filled up with all rubbish things: meat-eating, illicit sex and gambling. So, we are washing them. Ceto-darpana-marjanam [Caitanya-caritamrta. Antya 20.12]. Srnvatam sva-kathah krsnah punya-sravana-kirtanah, hrdy antah-stho abhadrani [Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.2.17]. Abhadrani means bad things. The bad things should be washed off.”
Thank you, Guru Maharaja, for helping me clean this dust from lifetimes. In fact, there is another conversation of Srila Prabhupada [Room conversation, 2 November 1976, Vrndavana] that I remember “We are giving you good brain. That is our mission. That you are so dull-headed we have come to give you good brain. Su-medhasah. Yajnaih sankirtana-prayair yajanti hi su-medhasah [SB 11.5.32]. We have come to make you intelligent. Receive us well, for your benefit.”
Through your causeless mercy, I am finally realizing my priorities. It is through your mercy that I have met true friends, who have proved dear and whose friendship has proved unbreakably lasting. O Guru Maharaja, please bless me that I continue to serve Srila Prabhupada’s mission, and despite being so fallen, I have hope now that your causeless mercy and Vaisnava association will help me realize my goal of serving Sri Radha-Syamasundar.
Your eternal servant,
Lalita Kund dasa