from Sri Rama Das – United Kingdom, Milton Keynes

Dearest Srila Gurudeva,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. All glories to your Divine Grace.

As I am chanting, I am contemplating, as much as I can, how to glorify you. I find it the most difficult thing to do, plus we have to do it in a very short space of time this year as well! While doing so, what I realised was Krsna Consciousness is so beautifully designed that simply thinking of and glorifying the spiritual master you will be automatically thinking of and glorifying Krsna.

I remember when I first came in contact with Krsna Consciousness by reading Srila Prabhupada’s “Science of Self Realization.” I was completely sold to the facts about being the soul and not the body, chanting Hare Krsna is non- different from Krsna Himself, and about going back home back to Godhead. I was fired up: “Yes, I want to chant Hare Krsna, I want to be with Krsna again!” There were some moments during the early days of me taking up chanting where I was feeling separation from Radha Gokulananda by seeing Their photo, while chanting in front of a Radha Krsna painting, I felt like the picture was coming to life. These moments never came back. Perhaps, these were just moments to fully convince myself that, what Srila Prabhupada is teaching us, is definitely real.

Now I realise how difficult it is to maintain your Krsna consciousness. It is not as easy as you just chant and everything will be revealed to you. Now I realise why Krsna in the Bhagavad Gita [4.34] says: “Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master”. While writing this my heart is saying that the first word in this verse “just” is significant, and is emphasising: do not do anything else except learn from a spiritual master. Do not try to sit in front of Radha Krsna and chant forcing those feelings to come back, JUST learn from your spiritual master. Prior to that verse Krsna shares with Arjuna a lot of transcendental knowledge, but is also teaching us the importance of a spiritual master, and that we only need to inquire from our spiritual master with submission and service.

One thing I know for sure is that this is all — Krsna’s love. He has made me realise that I only need to establish a relationship with you. He has invested all His love, energy and power into the bona fide spiritual master, that only the spiritual master can make us realise Krsna (and everything connected to Krsna), and take us back home back to Godhead. It is your love, that I am so grateful to the Lord Himself for, now more than ever. You have made it one of your life’s missions to take all your disciples back home back to Godhead. I feel so blessed to have met you and I am so glad that I made it firm to myself that I want to be your disciple, to serve you and to always keep that loving gentle smile on your face. Your smile is the best, it always shines on me like the sun. You are famous in my life for being so compassionate, so kind, so merciful, and for having such a wonderful, loving, charismatic personality.

I was certainly so pleased when you replied back to a video and message, I shared with you on Messenger about Mantra Yoga that we are doing here in Milton Keynes. Trying to share the good fortune of the Holy Names is hard work in Milton Keynes, people like to tuck themselves away and not be seen at times. But we keep trying, and with being in lockdown we’ve been doing online weekly sessions on Zoom and it’s not working as we want it to: some weeks are good, other weeks — not so good. Over the year or so we have had a good number of new people joining our kirtans and realising the benefits, so we are just trying to keep the fire going while being in lockdown.

One highlight was that during the Christmas book marathon 2019, I arranged for a Mantra Yoga session at my home. Only two new people came but they were so grateful for the chanting, discussing some philosophy, and on top of it they loved the prasadam! The lady, that came, said that I was glowing while I tried to lead some mellow “Madhava” style kirtan. But you see, this is simply your mercy. You are my source, the only reason for my existence. I only want to try and please you. Plus, I gave them both Srila Prabhupada’s book “Chant and Be Happy”, which is all I was aiming for. I am not doing as much preaching as I should be, compared to others, however, I hope you will be pleased with whatever small attempts I am making.

Life is certainly full of surprises, and meeting you and becoming your disciple is the best surprise of my life. If I did not take up Krsna consciousness, I just do not know what I would be doing with my life. I never imagined in my life I would meet such a wonderful soul as you. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for being my spiritual master and glancing my way and smiling at me. Thank you so much for having a wonderful impact on us as a family. Sidhil very much likes to play on the harmonium, sometimes he will sing “Gopal” when swinging Gopal Raj. He recognises you from seeing your photos and also recognises Srila Prabhupada. If I show him some kirtan videos of you singing he says: “Oh it’s Prabhupada!”. Most certainly you are a reflection of Srila Prabhupada. You set such a great example of being dear to your spiritual master that we pray, that we can also be dear to you. In the same way the glories of Srila Prabhupada can be seen in you, we hope that your glories can be seen in us.

I finish with a quote from Srila Prabhupada: “This is the business of the disciple, how to glorify the spiritual master, parampara. I glorify my spiritual master, you glorify your spiritual master. If we simply do that, glorify, then Krsna is glorified.” [Srila Prabhupada, Lecture on Srimad Bhagavatam, 1.5.23, Vrindavan, August 4, 1974].

Your servants,
Sri Rama Das and family