ISKCON—San Francisco

Dearest Srila Prabhupada,

Srila Prabhupada: You have come just to guide all the fallen conditioned souls back to home, back to the supreme abode, Godhead. You are the pure example following cent per cent your Guru Maharaja. All Glories to Vyas Pūja, this most blessed event, on which you, as the mercy incarnation of the Supreme Lord's will, come to guide us in sublime devotional service everywhere. Please accept this humble appreciation at your lotus feet.

By the mercy of the spiritual master we get Krsna. The most important day in the lives of everyone on this planet is the appearance day of Your Divine Grace. Now there is hope. You are here to give new life to a lost and fallen world. Without You, Srila Prabhupada, there is no imagining the hell we would have to experience death after death, for eternity.

Thank you, Srila Prabhupada, for this transcendental regulated temple life. We can see practically how regulated spiritual life is helping us remember the Supreme Lord, and so we are happy and advancing in Krsna consciousness. Due to your causeless mercy, New Jagannatha Puri is efficiently and enthusiastically regulated to Your Divine Grace's recommended schedule. You are pulling us all out of animal life and teaching us to live like human beings.

These inhabitants of Kali-Yuga do not come to Krsna's temples, so, Srila Prabhupada, by your unlimited divine love we bring the temple's Krsna consciousness to the streets in the form of transcendental sahkirtana. The association of the holy name and the pure devotee brings the fallen souls their long awaited chance to come back to Godhead. So many have come to your lotus feet, being attracted by the mercy of blissful sahkirtana (chanting the holy names of the Lord in public). This sublime yajna can be performed anywhere, anytime. This process is so easy, Srila Prabhupada. Devotees of your lotus feet will do anything to distribute your sahkirtana mercy. Lord Krsna is so kind upon us. May all sahkirtana parties like our party at Powell and Market in San Francisco endeavor to be more attractive, effective and always enthusiastic to distribute this Krsna consciousness.

Before the famous "Rathayatra" parade, a nice festival in Golden Gate Park was held for the spiritual development and happiness of all our lost godbrothers and godsisters. Your golden literatures were distributed all over the parkland, and so many tasted this sublime philosophy by devouring prasadam and hearing our Lord's pastimes. By your infinite goodness all the temples participating were in ecstasy. Kirtanas ran all day, and the prasadam was first class.

Thousands are benedicted by participating in the annual Rathayatra festival. Only you, Srila Prabhupada, could bring together the most fallen of souls and engage them in this transcendental parade. You graced everyone with several addresses. You are always teaching these glories of pure servitorship wherever you go. Lord Jagannatha's carts were so glorious, and all your disciples were in ecstasy on account of divine association. So much serious devotion went into preparing this festival, only because of the love and teachings you have given all so freely.

I can see how you want it to be a community of devotees offering everything to thee. What more could I want? What more could I find? Working for you is so divine! It doesn't matter what I can do as long as I offer the results unto you. Engaging our talents in service to you, Srila Prabhupada, is nondifferent from serving Lord Sri Krsna. These mundane occupations and duties become ecstatic when performed for your transcendental pleasure. Be it a businessman, an actor, a politician, if it is isavasyam (God-centered), it is sublime and successful. The important thing is that you have shown us we are all part of the Lord, an infinitesimal part, and not God Himself, so it is only logical to serve Him who is so great.

You, dear Prabhupada, have taught us the importance and method of pleasing Lord Krsna's transcendental appetite. So we offer these foodstuffs that Krsna relishes. The more we devote ourselves in love for this duty, the more blissful we become. We offer them to you, the spiritual master, who offers them to the most munificent Lord Chaitanya, who offers them to Lord Krsna. Then Radha-Krsna eats, Lord Jagganatha, Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu eats, and you become satisfied upon seeing us taste your remnants. Prasadam, spiritual foodstuff, is so pure, and the devotees in New Jagannatha Puri are crazy over this benediction.

As for us who have been so long trying to squeeze some nectar from novels, physics lectures and nonsense philosophy, Your Divine Grace has mercifully appeared as person Bhagavatam. You are in your writings, perfectly teaching the science of God. By distributing your transcendental literature, many fallen souls can personally associate with a pure devotee.

Many of your devotees, although never meeting you in body, have engaged in personal service in separation because of your causeless benediction. Your potency is in your books, and you are awakening our dormant love of God. So as each case of these masterpieces, Krsna Books, Bhagavad-gita and Teachings of Lord Caitanya's are distributed to libraries and bookstores in every town and village, we can see as the sun freely gives sunlight, your mercy is also freely given to all who will simply receive it!

So many Krsna conscious programs are reaching the fallen conditioned souls via the mass media. In the San Francisco area, radio stations announced Rathayatra, and the newspapers publicized the events of the festival preparations and parade. All across North America the new Radha-Krsna album is being offered over the radio. T.V. interviews and newsreel flashes are spreading this process of going "Back to Godhead" to every heart and ear. Whatever the vehicle, you are bringing all out of the darkness of mundane sense gratification and into the nectar of glorification of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Sri Krsna.

We can even become transcendental businessmen and distribute incense made by devotees just for spreading your glories everywhere. Just by this incense distribution alone so many more souls are becoming aware of this Krsna consciousness movement. All this mercy is just to make the world conscious that Krsna is the best and only worshipable object and that everyone should engaged in His service. This is all for your pleasure, Srila Prabhupada.

Sunday feast is so blissful. The cooks begin Lord Jagannatha's preparations Saturday evening and engage into the night. By your unlimited causeless mercy we arise for another Sunday feast anticipating the day's program. Krsna's floors are waxed and walls scrubbed. Srila Prabhupada, all these temples should be the most opulent places of worship. Please help us always to do the needful in keeping Krsna's temples spotless. Dotis are fresh, and heads are always shaved, except on Ekadasi. As soon as guests arrive they receive full greetings and are engaged in hearing Krsna's pastimes, viewing these sublime literatures and cleaning, painting or helping serve the feast. All attend ecstatic feast aratrika. Our lecture program is followed by a transcendental play or slide show. Plays done for your pleasure are always so nice. Always there are nice varieties of prasadam for Lord Jagannatha. After the feast relished in bliss, many continue listening to the devotees, some explore Krsna Books and Bhagavatams, and the rest attend an aratrika some Sundays going for two hours. All glories to your inconceivable mercy. Godbrothers are always after feast relishing so much this Krsna consciousness, and when there is more prasadam than is taken it is offered to surrounding communes which now relish the devotees' Sunday visits. This Sunday feast is such an exciting vehicle for spreading this ocean of mercy, and it would be so nice to expand this program.

Offering flowers in love and devotion for the pleasure of Their Lordships Jagannatha, Subhadra, Balarama and Govinda is such a nice engagement. It is so exciting making you a flower garland, Srila Prabhupada. All these devotional services are cleansing our wretched hearts and minds. Cleaning the most blessed Vyasasana and touching a pure devotee's pillow seat is purifying to the heart.

One Sunday in June, San Quentin Prison, where murderers are put to death, and where society's hardest core criminals are sent, was blessed by the divine appearance of Srila Prabhupada's potency, manifested by Lord Chaitanya's sahkirtana party. We found them totally receptive to your message, and they very eagerly received your literatures and a copy of the Radha-Krsna album to play over the prison radio station. They all took part in the unlimited mercy of Your Divine Grace by chanting the Mahamantra. Sanatana Gosvami, while in prison, told the prisoners they were fortunate not being associated with worldly life. We are all prisoners in this material world, and Your Divine Grace holds the key which frees us from lust, greed, anger, birth, old age and disease. The key is this Hare Krsna mantra. We are always praying for your unlimited mercy.

It is the natural desire of the soul to serve the Deity. The Deity is Krsna, the only enjoyer and the only object of love. The Supreme Lord, out of His special love for His pure devotee, allows Himself to be served by everyone by incarnating Himself in the form of the arca-vigraha. But even in the liberated state the spirit soul never forgets the spiritual master. All service rendered to the Supreme Lord is rendered to the spiritual master eternally. All glories to our eternal spiritual father, for it only is by your complete love of God that we are enabled to render any devotional service, and only by your accepting our offensive acts of devotion are they made acceptable to Krsna.

Srila Prabhupada, all glories to the highest recipient of Krsna's nectarean ocean of love. The most kind and welcoming doorkeeper of Krsna's eternal abode, Srila Prabhupada, who is always beckoning, with an immeasurable smile, us, helpless and wretched wanderers, caught up in the spokes of the wheels of samsara to enter. You are begging with a humble heart that we forsake all false claims of enjoyment and proprietorship at the threshold and simply surrender unto the lotus feet of Vasudeva. Our previous masters (of lust, anger and greed) for crores of years may demand some service, for one who seeks shelter in Krsna's house, the others become likened to the jackals in the forest.

By your causeless mercy you have forced open our eyes, which were clouded by ignorance, and by your mercy we can surrender our self, mind and body at your lotus feet. When one becomes initiated as your disciple it is understood that he will become unflinching in his devotion to your lotus feet. If I could just develop a drop of appreciation for your kindness and tolerance for me, my heart would be in pain 24 hours a day. No one can ever leave your lotus feet after you have accepted him as your disciple because he is bound by love.

Srila Prabhupada! How Jagannatha Puri Loves You! Please accept all our obeisances, although they are most worthless, on this most auspicious day in the three worlds.

From Your Eternal Disciples,

ISKCON-San Francisco