from Sundari Gopika Dasi – India, Jagannatha Puri

Om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
caksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah

nama om vishnu-padaya krishna-preshthaya bhu-tale
srimate indradyumna-swamin iti namine
namah prabhupada-priya dasaya jagannatha-yatrananda murtaye
bhakta-sukhaya krishnot-kirtanena narasimhena rakshitaya namah

Dear Srila Gurudeva,
Please accept my humble obeisances in the dust of your lotus feet. Today is your 71st appearance day and I would like to congratulate
you! And wish you to always have good health, lots of inspiration and enthusiasm. Let your disciples always please you with their spiritual achievements!

Last year on Kartik you mercifully initiated me. I am very thankful for that! You gave a chance to such a fallen soul like me to serve you, other Vaisnavas and Lord Krishna and changed my life into correct direction.

I admire your strength and preaching style. You can defeat any aspects of ignorance and you have a proper good word for every living entity which enters the very heart of it. I am trying to be a devotee but still I have many qualities which are not suitable for a Vaisnava. For example, I’m sometimes very rude. And after having said something rude I think, “How would my Gurudev talk in this situation?” And I feel so ashamed because I know you are never rude to anybody even when you are angry at your disciples for some mistake. Every your word is a medicine for a wounded soul. Please bless me to have at least small drop of this quality!

Srila Gurudeva, you always say that our society is a preaching one. So I would like to tell you about my modest preaching activity. I am married to His Holiness Gour Govinda Maharaja’s disciple and our beloved temple is his temple in Bhubaneswar. This is our home. We participate in different preaching programs, mostly in two padayatras: at Kartik and before Gaura Purnima. We are doing harinams, beautiful evening programs with classes, drama, bhajans and kirtans and of course beautiful prasadam! Sometimes we go to schools, colleges and even to jails. I am always happy there. I’m responsible for classes but I’m not talking on sastras, I am not qualified for this. I tell how I came to Krishna Consciousness, how Srila Prabhupada made Russian people devotees in a very difficult political situation just in five days while visiting Moscow. These things are very inspiring for Indian people as they have good and open hearts. Sometimes I talk about four regulative principles. It is very easy to preach in Bharat because people here are looking for spiritual knowledge and listening carefully to the white elephants as Srila Prabhupada named the European devotees. But you preach in very different conditions, different people, in different situations that may be even dangerous for your life and health. I would like to be as brave and determined as you! Every time before my speech I pray to you and Srila Prabhupada to make me an instrument in your hands as you are one of the best preachers ever! And I feel that the ideas I’m talking about are not mine, I am just transmitting what you want to tell these people. Thank you very much for this opportunity!

I must tell a few words about my 1.5 years old son whom you named Syam Bihari. He already knows that you are his guru! He’s travelling and preaching with us since he’s four months old. That age he played a role of a small Haridas in the “Haridas Thakur” drama that time. He walks with us on harinam for 2–4 hours a day on padayatra. Please bless him to keep the same or even more enthusiasm for spiritual programs as he has now!

When I am shy to talk to some people, my husband says: “Come on! You are Indradyumna Swami’s disciple, best preacher of present time! You shall preach!” Dear Gurudeva, I promise, I will do everything to satisfy you!

Your eternal servant, Sundari Gopika Dasi