From Gandharvika Prema Dasi – Hungary, Budapest 

Dear Srila Gurudeva,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. All glories to you.

It is always such an exciting adventure to wait and to prepare for your Vyasa Puja every year. To write the offering, to prepare delicious bhoga offerings, to decorate the temple room and to see all the disciples gathering for the event. And then to offer flower petals to your lotus feet, to sing the Gurvastakam prayers and worship you with arati, to listen to your lecture about guru-disciple relationship, to hear the disciples’ offerings that describe your unlimited glories from so many different angles, and to dance in the kirtan along with all our beloved godsisters and godbrothers. And to have a huge feast that closes the celebration while sharing so many stories and memories about you with each other. This year it feels so strange that all this experience might remain a dream due to the pandemic. I will miss you and I will miss my whole spiritual family who all help me remember you.

Last year brought a sad challenge for you: cancer again. You set a perfect example how a devotee should handle such a situation. Each and every message you sent us was to pacify us, you tried your best to show us that you were fine and we had nothing to worry about, but Srila Gurudeva, I guess that the reality was not as you made it look like. In your diary you revealed how much you suffered from pain, and whatever you told us about those times uncovered that you prayed a lot and you were in anxiety. Just like we were all in anxiety and felt helpless. I felt terrible being aware of the fact that the suffering of the spiritual master is only caused by the disciples’ karmic reactions. You bore all the pain like Jesus Christ did, with so much self-sacrifice, as if it was your duty to suffer for our sake. I felt so sorry for you. To hell with my foolish sins and material desires. Please, forgive me for them, Srila Gurudeva, I would never want you to suffer. I thank you from the depth of my heart for staying with us for longer.

The last two years, I was fortunate enough to attend your Kartik parikrama, and I felt so grateful to you for allowing me to do so, for many reasons. First of all, I want to spend as much time with you as possible because years are passing by so quickly. No matter how much sacrifice it takes to get to the parikramā, I feel I need to do my best to be there. Secondly your parikrama changed my life, Srila Gurudeva. Being in Vrindavan with you, listening to the pastimes from your mouth on the sacred places, seeing Vrindāvan through your eyes smeared with transcendental love, wandering around in Vrindavan with you, singing, dancing, eating, chanting, walking, traveling with you all over Vrindavan is such a spiritual blessing and an uplifting experience. You tied my heart to that place with your sweet narrations and with your own example of feeling so much at home there. Whenever you speak about Vrindavan, I just drink all your words ever since then and my heart breaks that I’m so far away from there.

I feel like I’ve been just bumbling in spiritual life for so many years, but I wish one day in the distant future I could become eligible for your mercy to be able to always remember Vrindavan and to become a resident of that wonderful sacred place, where I could learn to purely chant the Holy Name I received from you. Though I know I have a lot to learn, I wish I had the same attachment as you have, to have similar spiritual eyes and pure heart, so that I can taste the transcendental ecstasy hidden in every speck of dust of that special sweet abode. Please, Srila Gurudeva, let me thank you for planting the seed of this desire in my heart and let me thank you for every single little drop of your nectarean ocean of love that you constantly shower on me. I cherish these all in my heart.

nāma-śreṣṭhaṁ manum api śacī-putram atra svarūpaṁ rūpaṁ tasyāgrajam uru-purīṁ māthurīṁ goṣṭhavāṭīm
rādha-kuṇḍaṁ giri-varam aho rādhikā-mādhavāśāṁ prāpto yasya prathita-kṛpayā śrī-guruṁ taṁ nato ‘smi

“I bow down to the beautiful lotus feet of my spiritual master, by whose causeless
mercy I have obtained the supreme holy name, the divine mantra, the service of the son of Śacī-mātā, the association of Srila Svarūpa Dāmodara, Rūpa Gosvāmī, and his older brother Sanātana Gosvāmī, the supreme abode of Mathurā, the blissful abode of Vrindāvana, divine Rādhā-kuṇḍa and Govardhana Hill, and the desire within my heart for the loving service of Śrī Rādhikā and Mādhava in Vrindāvana.” [Sri Mukta-carita, Invocation, Raghunatha Das Goswami].

I remember you told me on my initiation that when you saw me on the Euro Woodstock in 1995, you prayed to Krsna so that I can become a devotee. It means it’s only your causeless mercy that I’m made of. You are the one, who gave me life, you gave me a goal, you gave me Krsna, you are the one, who knows, what real love is. You save me again and again, and you are my only good fortune and hope. I bow down to your lotus feet and beg you to please keep praying for me and engage me according to your wish in your service to your dearest master.

Srila Gurudeva, I found that you are truly an amazing spiritual master, a very glorious master. The world has to undergo a uniquely difficult situation right now, people lose their jobs and beloved ones, become depressed and lonely, feel useless and terribly bored at home, but your disciples are the most fortunate among all humans. You take care of us so kindly and nicely, sometimes I feel you give so much that I’m not able to hold all of it. You often quote the saying “a friend in need is a friend indeed”. You perfectly show us again and again how you are the well-wisher and caring father of all your disciples, how much you are concerned about us and try to give us the transcendental vision, knowledge and example by which we can go through this hard time. You bathe us in the ocean of your soothing wisdom every second day. Sometimes your words are like scissors that cut the millions of strong ropes of our worldly desires that tie us to this material existence. You cut them one by one. And we all feel that “Gurudeva is talking to me”. We feel that you are present in each and every one of your disciple’s life, just as every gopi feels that Krsna is dancing only with her on the rasa dance. What is it if not a transcendental miracle that you are doing?

Now I feel I could write so much more about you. I start to feel like Ananta Sesa whose thousand heads are not enough to glorify the Lord. If I had a thousand mouths, it wouldn’t be enough to tell about all your glories. But to make it short: I am very grateful to you for everything you are giving us, thank you for the privilege to be your disciple, thank you for the opportunity to get the Holy name from you, and for your personal attention and care. Thank you for always remembering my humble self. Please never let me leave you.

I wish you many many more happy birthdays with us! Jaya Srila Gurudeva!

Your servant, Gandharvika Prema Dasi