Bombay

BOMBAY

Dear Srila Prabhupada,

Please accept my prostrated obeisances at your feet. All glories to Your Divine Grace.

Much has happened since I last wrote. The most significant event has been your passing from this world. Now as I sit before your photo, I realize that you are still with us, as always. But at the time of your disappearance I was completely griefstricken, and could hardly contain myself, feeling separation from such a divine personality.

kaḥ panḍitas tvad aparam saranam samiyad
bhakta-priya rta-giraḥ suhrdaḥ krta-jnat
sarvan dadati suhrdo bhajato 'bhikaman
atmanam apy upacayapacayau na yasya
(Bhag. 10.48.26)

"Who can surrender to anyone other than Yourself? Who is as dear, truthful, friendly, and grateful as You? You are so perfect and complete that even though You give Yourself to Your devotee, You are still full and perfect. You can satisfy all the desires of Your devotee and even deliver Yourself unto him."

The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Krsna, is the most beloved personality. You are just like Him, and we love you as the dearest personality, the life of our soul.

You came from the spiritual world to tell us of our real life with God, and to show us the kindness of God you passed so many days with us in this miserable world. You are a divine personality. You are not of this world, and you were never of this world. You came to show us God. Everything about you was perfect, and your sublime presence demonstrated perfection in every respect. Your beautiful body, your sympathetic face, your compassionate glance, your sweet words, your joyful smile, your relishful eating, your profound voice, your peaceful resting, your ecstatic dancing-all were perfect, all from another world. You were everything to us. You were our mother, father, friend, companion, guide, master, child, and life itself. How could we bear being separated from you? How could we tolerate such a loss?

Now you have left us here to carry on your mission, waiting for the day when we will again be with you, again to have the chance to serve you personally. We are suffering in this material world away from you, and we find that there is no cause for living. This world is deadly without Your Divine Grace; without you we have nothing to live for.

"You are the life and soul of the inhabitants of Vrndavana. So because You have left Vrndavana, all the servitors of Your lotus feet there are suffering. It is as if the lake filled with lotus flowers dried up from the scorching heat of separation from You." (The Nectar of Devotion)

Now you have given us a grave responsibility-to carry on this movement in separation. You have invested us with your mercy to continue this great work, and we only pray that we will be able to accept your divine grace properly. The whole world is feeling your absence, praying for your mercy, and you have left a very insufficient vessel to carry your mercy, but still we pray that you will make us fit to carry your divine grace.

You were with us for so few years. We hardly had a chance to appreciate you. Your every moment with us was full of life, but we were so dull we could not appreciate you, and suddenly you were gone. One devotee said that your appearance was like a flash. You came of your own sweet will to deliver us, and of your own accord you left; but future generations will note how your brief presence changed the entire course of history. I am not elevated enough to think of humanity. Mainly I think only of myself. But I also felt that your appearance and disappearance were like a flash, so brief, but that it completely altered my life.

Actually, you were just like Krsna. Krsna's complexion is compared to a cloud, His yellow dhoti to lightning, and His merciful pastimes to rainfall. Similarly, you too appeared with your swarthy complexion, your saffron dhoti, and you loving exchanges, just to enliven our transcendental senses, to remind us of Krsna in your form of the Supreme Personality of Servitor Godhead.

When lightning flashes across the sky, the whole world is lighted in all directions. The dark night is illuminated, and we see the entire landscape of fields, trees, houses, roads, persons-everything. In this way your divine presence enlightened an entire spiritual realm, giving us a vision of our real life, our real home-a transcendental world with kalpa-vrksa trees, cintamani stones, surabhi cows, and liberated personalities like yourself, all engaged in pastimes of love with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Your electric presence sent a shock through our hearts and we will never be the same again.

When lightning strikes, only a few persons may see it, but soon thereafter deep sounds of thunder rumble through the sky, and everyone hears those vibrations. Although only a few may have been fortunate enough to perceive you directly, everyone is hearing the thunderous roar of your message-your books, your vani, the big mrdahga, the printing press, rolling on, vibrating everywhere. "If you go on distributing my books, I'll never die. I will live for centuries." A sleeping person will miss a flash of lightning, but the sound of thunder will awaken him from his slumber. Similarly, although we were so engrossed in nescience we could hardly realize who you are and what you showed us, but the thunderous vibration of your message of love is reverberating, resounding in our hearts.

After the deep vibrations of thunders, the sky opens up and pours down rain. Similarly, your rainfall of mercy is showering down upon the fallen souls. You opened our eyes with light and implanted the seeds of bhakti with transcendental sound. Now your rainfall of mercy is showering down upon us, giving water to the devotional creeper and helping it to grow up to your lotus feet.

nama om visnu-padaya krsna-presthaya bhū-tale
srimate bhaktivedanta-svamin iti namine

"I offer my respectful obeisances unto His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who is very dear to Lord Krsna, having taken shelter at His lotus feet."

The instructions of the acarya are always accompanied by his mercy, his helping hand. When you were thinking of leaving us in May, you commented, "The trouble is, you are all like children." When we countered, "If the father leaves the children, is that very good?" you replied, "The children will be provided for." Now we are experiencing practically how you are arranging our care and maintenance in every way, although not visible to our eyes. "I may be going, but Guru Maharaja and Bhaktivinoda Thakura are there. I have asked them to kindly take care of all of you, my transcendental children. The grandfather always takes care of the children much better than the father. Do not fear."

Actually, even when you were with us, we were always afraid that you would leave us. This transcendental anxiety increased our attachment for you even more. Even while meeting you we feared the threat of separation.

My dear Lord, when we are away from You we become so anxious to see You again, and there is great misery in our lives. But then, when we do see You, there immediately comes the fear of separation. Under the circumstances, both when we see You and when we do not see You, we are subjected to different kinds of tribulation. (N.O.D. 38: Indifference and Separation)

You made us so attached to you that we cannot imagine living without you. Now we have to follow you back to Krsna. You gave us a taste of nectar, and now you have taken it away. What is there for us to do? We can only chase after your footsteps, shouting "Krsna! Krsna!" Otherwise what attraction did we have for Krsna? You came to free us, and now also you have left us to lead us back to Godhead.

As the swan loves to dive into the water amongst the lily flowers and would die if he were taken from the water, so we only wish to be with You. Our limbs are being shrunken and faded because You have been taken away from us.

When the rain falls, persons collect the rain in pots, so they can later drink and distribute the water to others. In the same way, you have made receptacles for your mercy, so that others may also drink. You have created Vaisnavas, sannyasis, brahmanas, gurus, all for the sake of distributing your mercy. Actually, simply by your desire the entire universe is liberated.

Whatever a pure devotee wants from his master, Lord Krsna doubtlessly grants because He has no duty other than to fulfill the desire of His devotee. If you desire the deliverance of all living entities within the universe, then all of them can be delivered even without your undergoing the tribulations of sinful activity …. Whosever welfare you desire immediately becomes a Vaisnava, and Krsna delivers all Vaisnavas from the reactions of their past sinful activities. (Sri Caitanya-caritamrta)

The rainfall of your mercy is inundating the entire universe. What is the value of our pots? Only to enliven us in devotional service, to free us from the material absorption, you have given us so much responsibility for spreading this movement. Just as a father can easily accomplish great feats but arranges so that his son appears to be doing the work, so even now you are continuing to spread this movement all over the world, but arranging for us to get the credit, just as a loving father takes more pleasure in his son's credit than in his own. "I think this is what Krsna desires. I have come to you, but now in this old age I may be going to Vrndavana, and you will be coming there to me, and be trained up, and we will spread this movement all over the world."

Thank you, Srila Prabhupada. We are eternally yours.

Your eternal servants,

Tamala Krsna Goswami / Giriraja Svami / Sridhara Svami / Bhaktiprema Svami / Gopala Krsna dasa adhikari / Abhayasraya dasa brahmacari / Abhinandana dasa brahmacari / Amoghalila dasa brahmacari / Arthada dasa brahmacari / Atulananda dasa brahmacari / Bahusira dasa brahmacari / Bhima dasa brahmacari / Caitanya Svarūpa dasa brahmacari / Citrakara dasa brahmacari / Gaurahga dasa brahmacari / Gaura-sakti dasa brahmacari / Hamsagati dasa brahmacari / Hari dasa brahmacari / Janardana dasa brahmacari / Jayadvaja dasa brahmacari / Jaya dasa brahmacari / Kama Bhatta dasa brahmacari / Kavicandra dasa vanacari / Kesava Bharati dasa vanacari / Kunḍali dasa brahmacari / Katyayana dasa brahmacari / Madhava dasa brahmacari / Mahabuddhi dasa brahmacari / Manasatita dasa brahmacari / Minaketana Ramadasa dasa brahmacari / Nrsimha Caitanya dasa brahmacari / Patita-pavana dasa brahmacari / Pippalai dasa brahmacari / Prasannatma dasa brahmacari / Prema-padaya dasa brahmacari / Punḍarika dasa brahmacari / Puri dasa brahmacari / Pūrna-brama dasa brahmacari / Puskara dasa brahmacari / Radha-Gopala dasa brahmacari / Rama-carana dasa brahmacari / Ramananda dasa brahmacari / Rama-tulasi dasa brahmacari / Rohini-tanaya dasa brahmacari / Ruci-sevana dasa brahmacari / Satya-narayana dasa brahmacari / Sahkha dasa brahmacari / Syamsundara dasa brahmacari (no. 1) / Syamsundara dasa brahmacari (no. 2) / Stutya dasa brahmacari / Subala dasa brahmacari / Sulocana dasa brahmacari / Svatantra dasa brahmacari / Vedvyasa dasa brahmacari / Yajna dasa brahmacari / Bhakta Angshujit / Bhakta Anil / Bhakta Chandra Gupta / Bhakta Dr. Agarwal / Bhakta Dr. Goel / Bhakta Hari Dasa / Bhakta Kisson / Bhakta Mohan / Bhakta Nataraj / Bhakta Parthasarathi / Bhakta Paulo / Bhakta Sunil / Bhakta Tony / Dvaipayana dasa adhikari / Jagat-purusa dasa adhikari / Kalacanda dasa adhikari / Mithiladhisa dasa adhikari / Narottamananda dasa adhikari / Nistraigunya dasa adhikari / Upendra dasa adhikari / Upendra Muni dasa adhikari / Vijeta dasa adhikari / Anavadyahgi-devi dasi / Arya-devi dasi / Atri-devi dasi / Damodara-priya-devi dasi / Ganḍiva-devi dasi / Jagannathesvari-devi dasi / Krsna-vesa-devi dasi / Parvati-devi dasi / Visva-devi dasi / Bhaktin Karen / Bhaktin Tara / Aditya-devi dasi

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