From Rasa Murti Dasi – Belarus, Minsk

Dear Srila Gurudeva,

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

A year has passed since your anniversary Vyasa Puja in St. Petersburg. These were three days of a loving exchange between you and your disciples: I remember sweet kirtans, exciting classes, presents, creative performances and going to the cinema together with you to watch your “Journey to Kailash”. These memories fill my heart with joy. We all felt like children having a loving father.

A year has passed. And again we are waiting for your Vyasa Puja. But we cannot come to you, and you cannot come to us. And we will not meet at the Polish tour, and even at Woodstock… And no one knows how long this lockdown will last and when we meet again for a congregational chanting, at a festival, or a parikrama…This is the appropriate time for our realizations and focusing on our experience. Of course, we now have a chance to associate with you and to get your spiritual realizations from regular online classes, which gives one a completely new experience and taste in relations with you. But still, memories
of personal association with you are becoming even more valuable now.
Dear Srila Gurudeva, for the last twenty years I used every chance to get your association, to serve next to you and to observe your example of a brave preacher and pure Vaisnava. Over the years I became convinced that you are a real guru, a real servant and a real Vaisnava! Moreover, you are a Vaisnava of the highest level, because you are able to change the hearts of people around you and encourage them to become devotees of Krishna!

Your diaries have so many amazing stories describing the fortunate souls that had your association and chose the way of returning to God. Also, a lot of stories that are not described anywhere are witnessed by all your disciples participating in the Polish tour. These stories are even more intimate, since they occur before everyone’s eyes and there are many of them. However, the most intimate things are those happening to oneself, in one’s own life and in the lives of his most important people. And to my great luck, I have obtained that kind of mercy, you have intervened into my life and radically changed it…

I am grateful to you, dear Srila Gurudeva, for the holy name and gayatri mantra, for the opportunity to serve the Deities, for faith in the spiritual path, for the desire to visit the holy dhamas, for the spiritual family and for your love and care for us! I wish you inexhaustible energy in the service to the Lord and Srila Prabhupada! May every jiva who meets you on his way become a faithful servant of the Lord!

Your servant, Rasa Murti Dasi