Hari Syama dasa and Hema Sundari devi dasi
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
nama om visnu-padaya krsna-presthaya bhu-tale
srimate bhaktivedanta-svamin iti namine
namas te sarasvate deve gaura-vani-pracarine
nirvisesa-sunyavadi-pascatya-desa-tarine
My dear and most respected eternal spiritual father,
Please accept our humble obeisances in the dust of your merciful lotus feet. All glories to you! All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
By your causeless mercy extended through the medium of our mentor His Grace Syama-kunda Prabhu and Vyasa-puja editorial team headed by Her Grace Sthira Mataji I get an opportunity to read, relish and edit the Vyasa-puja offerings of your divine grace by some of your dear disciples even before it is published. This made me remember an anecdote from your life in Boston temple where you were serving and you got opportunities to hear Srila Prabhupada’s translation and Bhaktivedanta Purports of Srimad-Bhagavatam before it is even printed as BBT art team was also situated there. You even skipped your lunch prasadam to have the opportunity to hear the messages of Srimad-Bhagavatam by Srila Prabhupada. This shows that right from the day of joining ISKCON till today you have been living a life as per Jiva Goswami’s definition of “desirelessness” bhajaniya-parama-purusa-sukha-matra-sva-sukhatvam. You always consider that your life is meant only for serving Srila Prabhupada. Yet out of your natural humility you feel that you are miles away from it and ardently express your desire to Srila Prabhupada about molding your life based on this principle.
You are also someone who feels genuine happiness in seeing others progress nicely in the path of bhakti. You readily encourage and acknowledge a devotee who has been blessed with the taste for chanting the holy name or a devotee who feels great relish in reading scriptures or attracted to worshipping a particular form of the Lord feeling great happiness for Krsna’s blessings in their life.
Guru Maharaja you are a patron of Srimad-Bhagavatam and your love for Srimad-Bhagavatam is well known to all of us. Looking back at my devotional life and how it started I could recall that the the very first thing the devotee friend of mine who introduced me to Krsna consciousness requested me to do was read Srimad-Bhagavatam. I read the first canto before I switched to Bhagavad-gita, then back to Bhagavatam and then to Bhagavad-gita. They complement each other in terms of principles and its applications. Then again, about ten years ago when we met your divine grace my wife asked you how we can develop interest/attachment for devotional service. You asked her to start with reading Srimad-Bhagavatam. It was initially tough for her to read alone so she started hearing your lectures then she found a sanga of Matajis in Bangalore who met online everyday to read and discuss Srila Prabhupada’s purports from Srimad-Bhagavatam. Now recently she sought and got your blessings for pursuing bhakti-vaibhava course from VIHE. Though due to work commitments I couldn’t enroll for the course myself, I did get some remnants of nectar by hearing on the side whenever time permits as she is doing it online.
One of the teachers (His Grace Kalacakra Krsna Prabhu, disciple of His Holiness Mahavisnu Goswami Maharaja) in VIHE who took few chapters from first canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam really helped us appreciate and connect with the messages of Bhagavatam in a more intimate and personal way. He remarked that the purports of Srimad-Bhagavatam are Srila Prabhupada’s kirtana-mela and manifestation of his transcendental ecstasy. I’m trying to meditate on this simple yet deep meaning of this message that these purports are Srila Prabhupada’s transcendental ecstasy. Though I’m far far away from it, yet I see Guru Maharaja your unconditional mercy on us by arranging so many things in our life that somehow or other we may develop attraction for hearing and practicing the messages of Srimad-Bhagavatam as propounded by our Founder-acarya Srila Prabhupada. It is our humble prayer to your divine grace that we may develop some attachment for hearing and reading Srimad-Bhagavatam and on that strength improve our chanting of holy names.
Your aspiring servants,
Hari Syama dasa and Hema Sundari devi dasi