By Patita Pavana das Adhikary
Dear Shrila Prabhupada,
I beg to offer my humble dandavats in the dust at your lotus feet. I bow before you, my beloved spiritual master who was specifically sent to to this world by Lord Shri Krishna. You were sent by the Supreme Personality of Godhead and ordained by Him to ignite the spark which set off the chain reaction for the enlightenment the world.
You alone have appeared as the torchlight acharya to deliver mankind from the evil snares of nirveshesha and mayavada. You have appeared to reveal to the sightless citizens of the world that the divine hand of Shri Krishna moves every breath of the wind, colors each golden ray of the Sun and paints each pastel change of Nature’s revolving tapestry. And you have blessed each one with a vision of the eternal world that waits beyond this one. You have come to reveal that personal philosophy which is the highest of the high, the eternal religion which is the most confidential of all secrets and the Absolute knowledge that is the essence of all truths. For you have freely given that personal understanding for which even great tapasvis seek for thousands of years without success.
All fortunate souls who have come under your divine presence have witnessed that you are absorbed in thinking, thinking, thinking of new approaches to serve Shri Guru and Gauranga in every way possible. That is your open secret, your unalloyed dedication to your own Guru Maharaja.
There was always so much activity going on around you—so many fresh ideas and revelations that were new to us—as you constantly brainstormed new methods to innaugurate the Golden Age of Kali Yuga on the direct order of your own Shrila Prabhupada and the Supreme Lord Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. And that is why any soul with the requisite piety who obtained your darshan was immediately humbled into submission by your very presence. For—as you say—dry leaves once fallen from the tree can never rise up again. Those who came before you found themselves within the transcendental and spiritual domain of the World Prophet, the shaktyavesha avatara, the very savior of mankind.The energies moving in waves about you spoke silently that you would not, could not, rest until you had fulfilled the prophecy of the Supreme Lord Himself in the role of His own devotee, Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Your darshan truly meant falling under the divine presence of the pure devotee whom the powerful demigods in heaven revere in awe and admiration.
Back in 1968 in LA with a grand gesture of your index finger and an ever so slight toss of your head, Your Divine Grace gravely ordered this fortunate soul back to New York to engage in your vision of the coming ISKCON Press. With my thumb out to traffic I hit the roads through both desert and snow drifts and a week later I was reunited with Brahmananda, Madhusudan, Kanchanbala and the other devotees at 26 2nd Ave. I was there to learn bookbinding for—as your secretary back in California had noted—the fortunate soul who would be blessed to bind your books would become “the most celebrated bookbinder in the Universe.” Well, after a year of working in the factories of Brooklyn and Hell’s Kitchen to learn the craft, we finally set up the bindery in Boston as part of ISKCON Press. Along with Vaikunthanath I began hand binding your precious literatures as well as stapling and hand trimming Back to Godheads. In one run alone, I hand cut 80,000 magazines by your blessings.
Some time later, I would hand you a copy of the 1935 edition of Shri Brahma Samhita and ask if Your Divine Grace would like me to bind that one for you, too. By way of reply you opened the book, and lo and behold, there was the eternal portrait of your own spiritual master His Divine Grace Shrila Shri 108 Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura. Suddenly that swirling and rushing transcendental vibration moving at the speed of the mind that always accompanied you seemed to cease. Though the phenomenon was invisible, the change in mood was obvious. Now your concentration focused entirely upon your Guru Maharaja. As the landscape around suddenly shifted, everything became as still as an early morning on a late autumn day. For a moment frozen in time I watched you and wondered. Very slowly and deliberately, you lifted that book of the revelations of Lord Brahma, the leader of the sampradaya, to your forehead in an offering of obeisances as your ocean-like devotion funneled all at once into the portrait of your spiritual master.
For me that was the ultimate lesson of lessons. What words could be necessary? I realized that whatever you had accomplished and would accomplish in the all-too-brief dozen years of your manifest presence with us—the re-establishing of the world’s rightful heritage of Krishna consciousness—all that appeared to be placed on hold for the moment. As Your Divine Grace demonstrated the meaning of pure and simple devotional service, you also showed me the way to perfection in that instant’s gesture.
This unbreakable system of disciplic succession is open and available only to that disciple—or disciple of the disciple—who understands that real success lies not in becoming lord and master, but in voluntarily submitting himself or herself as the obedient servant of the bona fide representative of the parampara. Only when we are surrendered, by the divine grace of Shri Guru, can we your insignificant followers hope to please Lord Shri Krishna unto Who all great sages pray with melodious hymns. For as Your Divine Grace sets the example of serving your spiritual master at every moment, so you have made this once-in-a-billion years’ opportunity available to the most fallen fools like this patita who sits helplessly and uselessly before you. But if I have learned anything from your Bhaktivedanta Purports, it is that perfection for the servant is attained only through the pleasure of the spiritual master. The benefits of serving your lotus feet—you who are the divine representative of the Supreme Absolute Truth Personified—are countless. You are the world’s link to the transcendental realm of eternal bliss in direct association of Shri Shri Radha-Krishna. For by giving up our thoughts, words and deeds unto your divine service, and becoming your humble instruments, even unfortunate mlecchas as our worthless selves, might have a prayer of becoming linked to the great Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya sampradaya. By your grace alone we can hope to go back to home back to Godhead at the end of this short life. The grains of sand are running rapidly through the hourglass of time and soon for each one of us—your remaining disciples—we must come face to face with the good, the bad and the ugly of what we will leave behind us. Only that which we have performed for your pleasure will follow us and save us.
Your Divine Grace never did answer the question as to whether or not I should bind that Shri Brahma Samhita for you, as I had so many other volumes of yours. In your usual detached manner, you simply handed the sacred text back to me, very carefully and without speaking. But the silent reply that I received answered any question I should ever have whether in the past, the present or the future. For as you have taught us by your example and your books (Shri Chaitanya Charitamrita, Madhya 19.51):
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brahmananda bhramite kona bhagyavan jiva guru-krishna-prasade paya bhakti-lata-bija |
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“According to their karma, all living entities are wandering throughout the entire universe. Some of them are being elevated to the upper planetary systems, and some are going down into the lower planetary systems. Out of many millions of wandering living entities, one who is very fortunate gets an opportunity to associate with a bona fide spiritual master by the grace of Kṛṣṇa. By the mercy of both Kṛṣṇa and the spiritual master, such a person receives the seed of the creeper of devotional service.” |
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I beg to become,
Humble servant of your servants’ servants,
Patit Pavana das Adhikary (Patita Uddharana das)
12 October 2013, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
Letter from the Spiritual Master
My Dear Patita Uddharana,
Please accept my blessings. I beg to thank you for the six volumes of our BTG magazines which you have bound up and sent to me. You have done it very nicely, and I am keeping them installed in my bookshelf for convenient reference.
I do not think it is necessary to make any slip-cases as you have kindly offered. But in future, the magazines may be bound up by the full year and you may enclose in the binding also an index for the year’s articles. Soon our BTG will also be printed in other languages, and it will be nice if you can also bind these in similar sets as the English BTGs.
I am very glad to know that your pen is inspired to create, because we are in need of many intelligent writers who can express our Krishna consciousness philosophy nicely just following exactly the transcendental words and purports of our vast Vedic scriptures according to the previous Acaryas of our Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya. And if you continue to work in this writing and publishing of our literatures with steady enthusiasm and sincerity, your success in Krishna Consciousness is certain. Therefore to keep your spiritual strength, always observe the regulative principles strictly and chant at least sixteen rounds of beads daily without fail. This is essential for understanding our philosophy practically to advance in Krishna Consciousness. And we should always avoid mental speculations.
Hope this will meet you in good health.
Your ever well-wisher,
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
19 March 1970, Los Angeles