From Gaura Premanandi Karini Dasi

Dear Srila Gurudeva,

Please, accept my humble obeisances at the dust of Your lotus feet! All glories to You, my dear spiritual master, to Your service to Srila Prabhupada!

This year when Caklesvara Prabhu told me that I had to read my offering, Ireplied: “Six times in a row I was in the lists, but each time during the ceremony, when it was my turn, there was a shortage of time.” Caklesvara Prabhu said that he would personally ensure that this time they would not run out of time and I will have opportunity. He always takes care of everyone! This demonstrates how, by the mercy of the Guru, we get god-brothers and sisters, and by the mercy of the spiritual family we get an opportunity to serve the Guru. I worship all of Your disciples in the same way I worship You, as they are the ocean of mercy which enables us to become closer to You and learn to serve You properly and all Guru-parampara. By the mercy of our dear Caklesvara Prabhu, Mahavan Prabhu, Govinda Priya Mataji, Ragamarg Mataji, main organizers of Your worldwide tours — Nandini Mataji and Jayatam Prabhu,
Ramai Pandit Prabhu, Dhanistha Mataji, I am having opportunities to service You, and thanks to their blessings nothing can stop this service.

There is one simple example. After graduating from the Bhakti Sastri Course in Vrindavan I was about to leave, but the news of Your sudden forthcoming arrival to Vrindavan and Your Vyasa Puja was haunting me. Dhanishta Mataji, who has been cooking for You for so many years as well as walking barefoot during everyday 12 km morning parikramas around Vrindavan, regardless whether it is summer or winter, whether the ground is hot as a frying pan or cold as ice… She advised me to catch this opportunity to serve the Guru and go to Nepal to extend my visa. She instructed me how to do it. Moreover, she gave me her blessings as well as service in the preparations for the festival.

In Nepal, I learned that the Indian Airlines went out of use, and my return ticket, which cost three thousand rupees, went to waste, and other airlines’ flight prices suddenly skyrocketed due to the growing demand, and my flight would cost the same as two tickets to America: forty seven thousand rupees! I was standing on the street of Kathmandu, all alone, dressed in saree, in a foreign country, with neither money nor friends. I called Dhanistha Mataji and Ramai Pandit Prabhu, and they started praying to Radha Rasika Rai and Giriraja. After these prayers, all of a sudden, complete strangers came up to me and asked why I was crying. I had been telling them for three hours about

Hare Krsna and that I was in a hurry to help my god-brothers and sisters in the preparation for the Vyasa Puja of Srila Indradyumna Swami, and I had to explain what the Vyasa Puja itself was, and that my god-family was very dear to me and I could be late and fail to help them. And one of those strangers, who happened to be tourists, booked that expensive flight for me, although it was a large sum of money for him, and he even gave three thousand rupees extra as a donation for Your Vyasa Puja! And I gave him the Bhagavad Gita as a gift. In many years of my sankirtana, I had never distributed a Bhagavad Gita for fifty thousand rupees!

If Your disciples’ prayers can do such wonders, then what can be said about Your prayers for Your disciples? They really change lives. My life has been changed. Your books and classes have changed everything.

Dear Pita Maharaj, You are the real father to us! Even when Your disciple makes huge mistakes, You say: “He is my child, I will never neglect him”.

To me, You are an inspiring example of a preacher in Your service to Srila Prabhupada! On the Polish Tour, even 20-year-old disciples are exhausted after five hours of harinama, but You keep on dancing, driven by some spiritual energy, and encouraging everyone!

The greatest happiness for me was when I could together with devotees preach and share the nectar of the Holy Names and this priceless knowledge with people. There was no material happiness, no fame in any professional activities,
no other travels that could make me happier than I was in the dusty streets of Poland blessed by Your harinamas, Your lotus feet and combined efforts of
Your disciples in the service! There was no greater joy than to bring vacationists to harinama dances and seeing how blissful You were witnessing the faces of children and adults lit up with ecstasy caused by the exposure to the mercy of the Holy Names.

A tree is measured by the quality of its fruit, and when I see how Your disciples sincerely serving You together, I can feel that auspicious, healthy and strong tree that feeds on the Guru-parampara! Vrajamrita Mataji, Saradiya Rasa Mataji, Varsana Rani Mataji, Nandini Mataji are always looking for service and it inspires me to serve more and more. The example of Mataji Nandini’s dedication is just amazing! Having got into a car accident, waiting for two hours for her husband Jayatam Prabhu, she could barely breathe and move, and due to a broken bone under the lungs she could not even speak(!), but she continued organizing the Tour! Sitting in a broken car, she wrote Premananda Kirtan Prabhu to discuss the Ukrainian Tour! Her dedication to You and to organizing Your pastimes is awesome! So many nights at the Polish Tour I saw her not sleeping, doing her service!

Not just Nandini Mataji, but all of us are dreaming of the Polish Tour to become a worldwide tour! Today circumstances seem to be an obstacle: we are in physical separation, and there will be no Syama Vallabhi’s cake which is famous in all the three worlds… But in fact, this situation can come in handy and be very helpful. “The one who disturbs us, will help us!” We have the Internet!

If there will be no Polish Tour this year, I am determined to help Mahavan Prabhu and Ananta Vrindavan Prabhu to distribute Your videos all over the Internet, so that each and everyone would get a chance to get to the Polish Tour online! Especially now, in the light of today realities, by sharing Your videos we can do exactly what Srila Prabhupada wanted us to do — to preach and cooperate with each other. And as Srila Prabhupada said: “If You love someone, You want to spread his glories all over the world. If You love Krsna, You will want to spread His glory everywhere”. We have got a chance to show our love to the representative of Krsna, our Guru, through that. So we should spread it together, and I hope all the disciples will join this marathon! While serving, we will not feel separation and in spirit we will be together! And there are no excuses for not doing that. For example, Tatyana Dobrotskaya Mataji, despite of being busy with her small child (!), always finds time to help in it!

You said that a Guru and a disciple are connected through service. But I had not realized that until Ananta Vrindavan Prabhu told me a few years ago: “What is the point of crowding near Srila Gurudeva? You should not stand hanging out with him. You just need to serve him more and more. The service will please Srila Gurudeva.”
And now is the time when we cannot crowd all around You, but we still have the opportunity to serve You. Indefatigable Ananta Vrindavan Prabhu stays
up all nights so that he could spread the glories of Your activities all over the world through his videos and inspires us to work as a team and do seva together. Thanks to You, I got to know him and thanks to his example I am getting to know what service to You really is, and what it means to truly love You — to help You in Your service to Srila Prabhupada to spread the message far and wide!

Trying to become Your servant and servant of Your servants, Gaura Premanandi Karini Dasi