HH Romapada Swami
om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
caksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah
nama om visnu-padaya krsna-presthaya bhu-tale
srimate bhaktivedanta-svaminn iti namine
namas te sarasvate deve gaura-vani-pracarine
nirvisesa-sunyavadi-pascatya-desa-tarine
mukam karoti vacalam pangum langhayate girim
yat-krpa tam aham vande sri gurum dina-taranam
My dear and most respected spiritual master and eternal father, Please accept my most humble and respectful obeisances in the dust of your most merciful lotus feet! All glories to you, Srila Prabhupada!
You are Krsna’s ambassador directly from Goloka Vrndavan, carrying to the world an unceasing stream of reminders of our forgotten relationship with Krsna. This is not mere hyperbole, by your own admission.
His Divine Grace told my friend Tamala Krsna Goswami: “In Goloka, Krsna told me, ‘You go down there and preach.’ I replied to the Lord, ‘It’s such a nasty place. I don’t want to go. Please let me stay here.’ but Krsna persisted and said, ‘Don’t worry about anything. I will make every arrangement for your comfort. In the meantime write your books, and when you have refinished, then you can return.’” Srila Prabhupada concluded, “‘Then I said, ‘All right.'”
– Nava Vraja Mahima by Sivaram Swami Maharaja, Volume 7, Chapter 32
Who can estimate the great fortune of being you disciple and eternal servant!
Honoring you in this mood, I want to share but a few inspirations which continue to propel me forward in the senior years of my devotional life – a life singularly and exclusively dedicated to you and your mission.
I take much inspiration from your own expression that you had the in-person association with your Guru Maharaja on only a handful to occasions, yet you never left his association and have never felt separation from him.
To Satadhanya in Tokyo, 1972: “So far personal association with the Guru is concerned, I was only with my Guru Maharaja four or five times, but I have never left his association, not even for a moment. Because I am following his instructions, I have never felt any separation. There are some of my Godbrothers here in India who had constant personal association with Guru Maharaja, but who are neglecting his orders. This is just like the bug who is sitting on the lap of the king. He may be very puffed up by his position, but all he can succeed in doing is biting the king. Personal association is not so important as association through service.”
There are many of us who, due to Providential arrangements, can also attest to the modest number of opportunities we had to be in your personal association. Much of my junior years of brahmacari life were physically distant from your divine grace, yet I remain to this day vibrantly inspired and connected to you, representing your Divine Grace and your sublime instructions.
I fall at your feet with the earnest prayer for your mercy, to always refine and amplify my aspiration to become a qualified instrument in your ongoing mission.
I take as your blessing that, as the years pass, the vitality of my dedication to your mission and to living by your teachings does not waver or fade in the least.
One of those teachings and examples set by you was your emphasis on college preaching, for which I was personally on the receiving end!
For example, in December, 1972 you wrote Sukadeva Prabhu in Seattle: “My request to you is that you enter into the universities and colleges wherever possible and preach there with a view to recruiting some first-class devotees for helping me manage and push on this movement all over the world…That will be the best contribution. Now spread this idea also to the other leaders. Appeal yourself to the high class of men, not the mass. Mass, too, we do not eliminate anyone, but if best men are there to run on things, mass will follow later.” You even requested your secretary Syamasundara Prabhu to handwrite a note at the bottom of this letter: “Kindly xerox and distribute copies of this letter to all temple presidents, GBC, and sannyasis.”
For decades, dedication to this part of your mission has occupied a major role in my life, as has the encouragement of distribution of your all-important life-changing BBT books and your Bhaktivedanta purports.
Both delight and reassurance arise again and again when, over time, all the essential elements as well as the subtle refinements found in your BBT purports trace directly to the writings of the six Goswamis and other predecessor acaryas. At the same time, your inimitable style of communication makes access to even the most subtle points of philosophy so easy to understand and digest!
Resting upon these and many more inspirations in my relationship with you as your faithful disciple, for whatever days or weeks or years remaining in this lifetime, please grant me the strength to remain always aspiring to become your ever-more useful and effective servant.
For that matter, I beg to remain your eternal servant!
Romapada Swami