Parvati (dd) ACBSP (Vrindavan – IN): Dear Devotees, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. I was purusing a borrowed copy of the Tributes and by my great good fortune, found this most amazing offering which very few of you would be able to see. (I wrote a tribute, and they still never even sent my free copy to me…) I offer my full-hearted dandabats to the author of it, Atmeyatma prabhu, and pray that all his dreams come true. This offering captures the real spirit of a Vyasa Puja offering–not that the others didn’t, but this is a quintessence of the whole thing:
Vyasa Puja 2013 offering of Ameyatma das
My dear Srila Prabhupada, All glories to your toes–each and every one of them. Many decades ago, in the fall of 1980, my dear Srila Prabhupada, you appeared to me in a dream. That dream was more real than this world. It has been decades, but I will never forget what you told me. You gave me an instruction which you wanted me to pass on to your followers. Ashamedly, I’ve never done much to complete that task, As Lord Sri Krsna told Rukmini, “Better late than never.” I won’t relate the whole dream here, but for the benefit of others, I will share the instruction you gave. At the end of the dream, I blurted out, “Srila Prabhupada, I just want to serve your lotus feet. In the dream as I blurted this out, I went falling towards your feet. As I looked up, you were looking down and said, “Yes. Which one?” “Which one?” I thought, “Oh, no, I have to decide which foot to serve.” I placed one of your feet on my lap and began massaging. But, then I became a little disturbed by what I thought was some blemish. In my mind, I told myself any defects in the body of a pure devotee are like dark spots on the moon; they simply add to the beauty. Or like froth floating in the Ganges, one must brush it aside and take the purifying water. I became distraught and looked up at you. You compassionately told me, “That’s all right. Massage the other foot,” as you withdrew that foot and placed the other foot on my lap. I massaged from the heel to the toes, and never again did my mind disturb me. I began massaging this toe, the next, and the next, from small to large and back again. After some time, I found this one toe that just seemed so wonderful, I really like massaging that toe and kept coming back to it; I felt like I could serve that toe for the rest of my life, it just made me happy to be in association of that toe. But I thought, what will you think, Srila Prabhupada, if I mostly massaged just this one toe? Thinking like this, I looked up, and suddenly your form towered into the sky, and, looking down, you told me, “Yes, my disciples are like my toes. It doesn’t matter which one you serve. Simply find the toe you like the best and serve that one.” Just then, my sleep broke and you again departed from my presence. But as I woke, I understood that you wanted me to tell everyone about this dream. The message was that each and every one of your disciples is like one of your transcendental toes. It doesn’t matter if it’s a big, big GBC or sannyasi toe-like disciple, or the littlest toe-like disciple. Srila Prabhupada wants everyone to know that he loves ALL his toes the same. He loves all his disciples the same. Srila Prabhupada has no favorite toes. He has no favorite disciple; all of his toes, and all his disciples, are worthy of our greatest and most sincere respects. Anyone who wants to serve your lotus feet, Srila Prabhupada, must offer their respects to all of the toes of your feet, and must never think badly about any one of your toes. Please, accept my apologies, Srila Prabhupada, for taking so long to deliver this message to your followers. Somehow or other, please forgive whatever offenses I may have committed to any one of your toes. By your compassion and mercy, you taught me that if I really want to serve you, if I really want to serve you and please your lotus feet, then I must try and serve and please your toes. How can we win your favor if we become disrespectful to even one of your toes? So, on this most glorious of days, let me offer my full obeisances to all of your wonderful and glorious toe-like disciples. Only when I can finally serve all of your toes, only then can I actually serve your lotus feet. Only when I get the mercy of all your toes, only then can I actually get the mercy of your lotus feet. So, again, Srila Prabhupada: All glories to your thousands and thousands of toes. Each and every one. From the biggest of the big toes, to the littlest of the little toes. All of your toes are worthy of my respect. I am not worthy of their dust. Aspiring to someday become a most humble and worthy servant of all Srila Prabhupada’s toes,