Srida dasa and Krsna Mohini devi dasi
nama om visnu-padaya krsna-presthaya bhu-tale
srimate romapada-svamin iti namine
“I offer my respectful obeisances unto His Holiness Romapada Swami, who is very dear to Lord Krsna, having taken shelter at His lotus feet.”
Dear Guru Maharaja,
Hare Krsna! Please accept my most humble obeisances at the dust of your divine lotus feet. All glories to Srila Prabhupada and unto you!
Guru Maharaja, on the auspicious occasion of your appearance day, we deeply desire to remember you, glorify you, and worship you at your lotus feet. From the teachings of Bhagavad-gita, we understand that conditioned souls like us are completely convinced by false-ego thinking that we are actually the doers. Little did we have the information that all the actions are conducted by material modes of nature and the material nature in itself is controlled by Supreme Controller, Sri Krsna. We were proud and very impudent in our dealings. We were boldly boasting with false pride by taking credit for everything we do. In total, all we knew was sense gratification and love misdirected towards temporary material paraphernalia. But dear Guru Maharaja, being a merciful devotee of the Supreme Lord, filled with so much compassion in your heart for all the fallen living entities, you teach us who we actually are, what is our purpose in this world, who is our real father and how to approach him. By doing so, you are performing the super-most job and therefore celebrating your Vyasa-puja on this day and your glorification by all the devotees is befitting and all auspicious. Please accept my humble obeisances Srila Gurudeva!
Guru Maharaja, I was recently attending a preaching discussion where one of our devotee preachers was sharing how prison preaching is taking place in Singapore. When he was describing the incidents happening to him inside the prison, my thoughts were constantly going towards gurus like you and Srila Prabhupada. I was thinking if any sane man would ever want to visit a prison and want to spend his valuable time with prisoners inside the jail. Instead, he could have utilized his time for better things. But as the discussion unfolded, I slowly began to understand, that it is the merciful nature of the devotee. Unless one’s heart is filled with karuna (mercy) one cannot do such thing for a prolonged period of time. Similarly, Guru Maharaja, sadhus like you who are paramahamsas do not have a personal interest to come to this material world but because you feel so much pained in your heart due to our unintelligent actions, you come to this prison-like material world only to rectify us and uplift us to come to a proper standard. While teaching us, you expertly engage us in the service of the lotus feet of the Lord so that we gradually realize our eternal constitutional position that we are actually servants of Supreme Lord, Sri Krsna not anything else.
From Srimad- Bhagavatam, we heard that saintly persons have no business to visit householders except for the sake of enlightening them. It is described that householders because of being poor-hearted think that family affairs are the prime duty and self-realization is secondary. At the minimum, in the olden days, people were more pious and immediately offered all respects to sadhus. But Guru Maharaja, in converse to our previous generations we were impious and always disregarded sadhus. In doing so, we were in similar condition like that of wet wood which requires so much efforts to ignite. All the friends, relatives and other temporary relationships in the world were only pulling our consciousness down by talking and walking about mundane things. Except for sadhus like you, we have no other saving grace. So, you have kindly made yourself available to us and being merciful to us, you took extra trouble of making us dry and igniting the fire of Krsna consciousness in our hearts. Except for your mercy, what qualification do we even have to touch the spiritual literatures like Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam?
As followed by our previous acaryas and Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu Himself, you constantly remind us that our only weapons in this constant material flux are harinama and hari-katha. Accordingly, you have given us initiation to chant the holy names and our lifetimes worth of wealth spoken through your transcendental voice. Troubled by material circumstances when we come to you, you offer us such gentle words and re-center the purpose of our very existence. Indeed, your transcendental voice is so soothing and comforting to our hearts afflicted with material pangs Srila Gurudeva! In many of your classes, you said that a real friend in our life is one who reminds us about Krsna. You personally follow this, and you are truly the best friend of all the living entities.
You always diligently make plans on how to engage us in Krsna consciousness and make us favorable towards our real father, Sri Krsna. Since you are sarva-upakarakah — always endeavoring as far as possible for the welfare of all others, you are ultimately pleasing to everyone.
Guru Maharaja, you always teach us through your example. Your commitment towards the mission of spreading the teachings of Lord Caitanya and following the instructions of our Founder-acarya, Srila Prabhupada is super-excellent. I always recall your statement to the flight attendant you mentioned to our god-brothers that it is not “what” we are working on but “whom” we are working for.
You are never disturbed in your practices and always peaceful, clean inside and outside. Because you are unflinching in your devotion to Krsna, you are very dear to Krsna. This is confirmed by Lord Krsna in Srimad-Bhagavatam:
“Since pure devotees give up their homes, wives, children, relatives, riches and even their lives simply to serve Me, without any desire for material improvement in this life or in the next, how can I give up such devotees at any time?” [Srimad-Bhagavatam 9.4.65 Translation]
For the sake of spreading God-consciousness, you have given up all the material comforts that the whole world now is hankering after both day and night, and wherever you go, you elevate the consciousness of the people you meet. Because your thoughts are merged in Krsna consciousness, you are a very deep personality and ordinary people like us cannot even comprehend the depth of your thoughts.
Being inclined towards a conservative nature, I once asked you, if we should condone if at all we see faults happening in our society. For this, your answer was: “As devotees, our duty is not to find fault within others and become judgmental. Rather, we may discern the fault using our intelligence carefully but not becoming disrespectful particularly to devotees. Our duty as “Krsna dasa” is to see how we can be of service to such and such devotee who is not able to perform service to the standard. Krsna is the judge not us.” This answer has completely satisfied me Guru Maharaja. I felt so much uplifted by hearing your words, for your words have the full potency to completely uproot our fault-finding tendencies.
By hearing your words, when I follow some of the devotional principles in my life, people admire me for some qualities. I know that is only because of your merciful glances and blessings of all the kind Vaisnavas. When I look at myself, I see only bad qualities and nothing worth in spirit. My whole spiritual progress is resting only on your kindness. For the gallons and gallons of the worth of your sacrifice you have done for us, I do not find any resources with me to repay you dear Guru Maharaja. Please accept my most humble obeisances at your lotus feet.
Our only wish is that life after life, we take shelter at your lotus feet and constantly engage in hearing krsna-katha in the association of devotees. May we always remain as your menial servants and devotees. We pray to Lord Nrsimhadeva deva for your well-being.
Your aspiring servants,
Srida dasa and Krsna Mohini devi dasi