From bhaktin Viktoria Krul

ear Srila Gurudeva,

Please accept my humble obeisance in a dust of Your lotus feet. All glories to the sacred day of Your Vyasa Puja. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

yasya deve parā bhaktir yathā deve tathā gurau
tasyaite kathitā hy arthāḥ prakāśante mahātmanaḥ

“Only unto those great souls who have implicit faith in both the Lord and the spiritual master are all the imports of Vedic knowledge automatically revealed.” [Shvetashvatara Upanishad, 6.23].

Dear Srila Gurudeva, please allow me to praise You on that great day.

You often tell in Your lectures about faith in Lord Krishna and spiritual master. We can confirm as Your disciples that You have such unwavering faith and that all essence of Vedic knowledge is revealed to You. How can I prove it? I
have been listening to Your lectures every day for five years. I felt that due to that process I can understand the message of scriptures more and more deeply. When I am listening to Srila Prabhupada’s lectures and lectures of Vaisnavas as well, I feel that I can understand their meaning because You gave me the ability to understand it by Your mercy through Your lectures. Before I accepted You as a spiritual teacher and started to regularly listen to Your lectures I didn’t have such an experience. I am grateful to You for giving me the proper understanding of the message of Vedic Scriptures.

I also want to praise Your determination to continue Your service and endure all trials persistently. Here I mean Your disease and the difficulties connected with it You had endured. I was inspired with Your positive mood and Your determination doing sport activities for Your health improving. Thank You for such an example how to overcome difficulties. Because of that I got an understanding of how to benefit from this bad deal. I also understood that there is no need to be afraid of difficulties or to think that they will pass me. Instead I have to be ready for them and continue my devotional service.

Dear Spiritual Master! By Your mercy I could manage to be useful for Lord Chaitanya’s mission last year. That happened because of Your inspiration, which You share with Your disciples.

I have my favorite service: take care of Tulasi plants in our Minsk temple. I also help in the department of children’s care.

In 2019 in summer I participated in a preaching program in a small Ukrainian town. It happened just before my trip to Woodstock. Previously we lived in the Ukraine, but later due to the war my husband, my son and I moved to Belarus. Now every summer we are attending motherland.

I also managed to come to Woodstock for the first time. Since 2013 I dreamed of it, but I got the opportunity in 2019 only. At Woodstock, my main service was the cleaning on the distribution of prasadam and one time a day I was allowed to distribute prasadam. I liked this service so much!

I was inspired also by distributing invitations. During harinamas and kirtans I was joining matajies who were making a “train” and invite guests to the festival to join in kirtan and dance. It was my main service. With which impression I left Woodstock? I felt that I want to participate in Woodstock again and again.

I was inspired by Your example so much. I saw how much service You perform there during the day. First You were visiting a prasadam distribution, then sang and danced at Ratha Yatra, then there was a kirtan. During the day You were busy with service as well. All the time around you are in service. Nobody among ordinary people can do so. You are from a spiritual world, Srila Gurudeva! Thank You for Your example!

I felt very comfortable from the moment I left home and till the moment I
returned back. I was surprised, because I was abroad for the first time and the conditions were rather ascetic and I didn’t know anybody. Our bus broke and we had to spend the night in a sleeping bag by the side of the road. Then we were waiting long hours at customs. There were challenges also during Woodstock. But it all came smooth for me. Later on I got the answer: this is because You, Srila Gurudeva, were praying for all of us so we could manage to perform service peacefully. I am grateful to You for that care and opportunity to participate in that great yagya.

There was a preaching program Goloka Fest in Minsk in February 2020. At this event I helped organizing the children’s program. It was an unbelievable experience.

I love participating in harinamas. I participate in it whenever I have an opportunity. Also Im trying to preach to some of my friends. I talk with them about spiritual topics. Also Im trying to preach, in Instagram and Facebook.

Due to lockdown I got another service: to help devotees in organization of meetings in Skype and Viber.

Also I’m trying to support and help Your disciple Premadhana mataji who I consider now to be my grandmother. She is more than seventy and she lives in a small city next to Minsk. While she had no smartphone I was sharing with her news about You, uploading your lectures in her laptop and movies from Ananta Vrindavan prabhu. Just before quarantine started she was given an old smartphone, which didn’t work the best way. But she finally got the internet. Recently because of the help social committee she got another modern smartphone for temporary use thanks to one devotee response. I helped Premadhana mataji to start using it and install Youtube, Skype and other programs. It wasn’t easy for her as she started learning how to use smartphone in her age. But by Your and Lord’s mercy everything went successful. Now she is watching Your lectures online, participating in Srimad Bhagavatam discussion on Skype! It was her dream. And I am very glad that I was able to become a tool in Your hands and help this dream come true.

I was trying to work on improving my qualities and character. It wasn’t easy but I have achieved a lot. My heart became more soft and more compassionate. My relationships with the son significantly improved. I became more patient and attentive to other people. There were a lot of various difficulties in my life which I could manage to overcome. It was Your merit. I got Your support from the lectures about Dhruva Maharaja, which You gave on Polish Tour. Thank You very much for Your wise instructions which are given in that lecture. Thanks to them I got a strong inspiration to accept all these difficulties and not to postpone the solution of my problems for later. The result is that I overcame these difficulties and my faith in You, Srila Prabhupada, Lord and Holy names became stronger.
Dear Srila Gurudeva! The fruits of my efforts belong to You, not to me. Please, accept them all. If I achieved anything then all this is by Your grace. Your instructions, lectures, books, kirtans, Your example — this is my main source of inspiration in my determination to continue my path to Godhead.

Dear Srila Gurudeva! It’s hard for me to get up early and go to bed not too late. And I am struggling with my mind, concentrating on japa, which is rather difficult. I want to ask Your blessings for attentive chanting Holy names and following the proper routine of the day. I know that these two gaps in spiritual life are the cause of my present difficulties. I want to be like You in service to the movement of Srila Prabhupada, to get the same spiritual purity and maturity.

Current 2020 year turned very difficult for You — You had to cancel so many important events. I am praying to the Lord that He would engage You in service and preaching in any condition and that after lockdown You would get more opportunities for large-scale preaching. May Lord Nrsimhadev protect You from all problems of the material world.

Your servant,
bhaktin Viktoria Krul