Gainesville

Dear Srila Prabhupada,

Please accept our worthless obeisances from beneath the dust of your lotus feet. Although this is the most auspicious of all occasions-the appearance day of the current acarya in the parampara system of disciplic succession-we are still greatly pained by our total lack of ability to express our feelings on this day. This, however, is not due to any academic or intellectual deficiency (indeed, in the material world we were expert at mental speculation and word jugglery), but rather must be attributed to our severe lack of sincerity and general demoniac disposition. Yet, as Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura notes in his poem Gopinatha, "many demons have attained your lotus feet." Therefore, in spite of these great defects, Krsna has been so kind as to give us a slight glimpse of your transcendental qualities, and we would therefore like to offer a few inadequate words of submission, respects, and appreciation on your appearance day.

In assessing the magnitude of your transcendental qualities, however, we concluded that it would take virtually hundreds of volumes of books to properly describe your transcendental symptoms. What's more is the fact that we are so fallen that we could not even detect such symptoms in the first place. What we would like to do, therefore, is simply list a few of the major qualities which we are able to perceive from within the darkness of our false egos, and hope that you will bestow your causeless mercy upon us in the future, so that we may develop firmer and firmer faith in your lotus feet.

In this connection, we would like to cite a recent incident that best illustrates the quality of your firm dedication to the instructions of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and your own Guru Maharaja, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. A few weeks ago one of our devotees was doing some shopping in a local store when he met a man who said he knew you when you first came to New York City in 1966. Upon seeing the devotee, the man asked, "Oh, how's Bhaktivedanta Swami these days?" "Oh, he's writing a lot of books," the devotee replied, not knowing what else to say. "Yes," the man said, almost expecting the answer, "he always did a lot of that."

So from this incident, we can understand your transcendental position as the "person Bhagavatam." We did not even know you when this incident originally took place, yet we can see by your actions that you are nondifferent from the instructions which you are giving us right up until the present day. Similarly, sometimes we obtain a copy of some of your older publications, ones published even before you came to America, and in these also, we see that you have been saying the same thing for years and years and years and years, and the message is still exactly verbatim, except perhaps for the technical editing. So this encourages us very greatly, especially since our own propensity is to speculate and twist the real thing, until we have gathered it and molded it to our own perverted desires for sense gratification. So this is perhaps your greatest qualification, as you yourself have said, that you "have not changed even one word of the original message."

Another transcendental quality that is also somewhat illustrated by this incident is your constant emphasis on book distribution. As you may know, at the present time the karmi press and media have gone on a "crusade" against Eastern movements in general, and our movement in particular. According to their perception, the leaders of these movements are making a lot of money for their sense gratification, and members in general have been brainwashed and tricked into serving such fallen leaders. As your servants and disciples, we emphatically deny this, and say that it is only their own envy that makes them think like this. Nothing could be further from the truth. The purpose of book distribution is not to make money, but is to spread the knowledge by which the suffering masses can be freed from the miseries of birth, death, disease and old age. Therefore your instructions are to distribute as many books as possible, because simply by reading the knowledge contained in the books, we can actually go home, back to Godhead. Therefore, book distribution is actually the mercy of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu upon the conditioned souls, and you, as His unalloyed devotee and advocate, are hailed at patita-pavana, or the deliverer of many, many fallen souls.

And finally, we must, as your disciples, admit that in spite of so much mercy and good instruction from Your Divine Grace, we are still suffering. Suffering because the knot of false pride and material attachment is so strong that we think that it is actually our real self that we are giving up, instead of our false self, or identification with this material body. In spite of so many offenses, however, you patiently tolerate our nonsense, and continue to drag us back to Krsna. Without you we have no position. It the Age of Kali, the only means for spiritual deliverance is the sahkirtana movement. Nobody is qualified to perform ritualistic sacrifices, or mystic yoga, or austerities and penances-the only means is to receive the name of Govinda from the lips of a pure devotee. It is by your mercy only that we even have the little desire that we do. Therefore, you are known as karuna-sindhu, or an ocean of mercy. We fall at your lotus feet and beg your forgiveness for our past offenses, and pray for a pinch of desire to execute your instructions. Without that, this Vyasa-Pūja is simply another exercise in fancy rhetoric, without any practical application. Therefore, please fill our request, and force us to surrender.

Your worthless servants,