Portland

To our dearly beloved spiritual master,

We, your sons and daughters of Portland Temple, beg to join together with all your other wonderful spiritual children in offering our utterly worthless obeisances and futilely inadequate prayers in glorification of your divine lotus feet. Your lotus feet hover just above this abysmal material world to bring to our crippled and depraved selves the cooling moonlight of our Lord Caitanya's divine command: Chant Hare Krsna!

Material existence is often compared with a blazing forest fire. In the forest, fire takes place without being set or desired by anyone. In the same way, the pangs of the material atmosphere attack us without our wanting such tribulations. We make our feeble attempts to foil these troubles in the shape of personal sense gratification and so-called advancement of material science only to be defeated by maya and her endless torrent of tricks. Similarly, we may dream of stopping the material miseries, but they are actually the nature of this world.

The indications of the Vedic wisdom is that to solve the perplexing problems of life we must surrender ourselves wholeheartedly at the lotus feet of Sri Gurudeva, the wise and bona fide spiritual master. The instruction of the guru is not to make some plan of temporary enjoyment. It is to take us beyond this flickering duality of pleasure, pain, birth and death to our eternal repose at the lotus feet of Sri Krsna, the all-beautiful Personality of Godhead, where we can endlessly engage in His transcendental loving service. When we are being chased by a tiger in a dream the real solution lies not in searching for safety in the dreaming state but to simply wake up. Similarly, by his forceful words of instruction, the acaryadeva is trying to wake us up from the sleep of material illusion and bring us to the understanding that we are pure spirit and belong to Krsna. Thus we are offering this homage unto you, O Srila Prabhupada, and begging for your mercy. May we follow the injunctions of all revealed scriptures, the footsteps of all the great authorities and your own personal example. With whole hearted attention and enthusiasm, may we hear and serve your divine instruction.

Eons of years ago, at the dawn of creation, the Lord imparted the knowledge of the Vedas unto the heart of Brahma, the first living creature. Brahma then imparted the same knowledge to his sons and disciples to spread this glorious science of God throughout the creation. They in turn delivered the same message to their disciples. Even now, Brahma's most famous son, Narada, is broadcasting the same message throughout the universe. That is the Vedic process of descending knowledge or receiving knowledge from higher authorities. After all, how can we ascend to such knowledge? Due to our imperfect senses, cheating tendency, mistakes and illusions, we must fall short in our attempts and become obliterated on the rocks of voidism and impersonalism. Thus, in the revealed scriptures it is imperatively enjoined that one must receive knowledge through disciplic succession. The Lord Himself has explained this in Bhagavad-gita with the words "evam parampara praptam…" [Bg 4.2]

Therefore, it is not out of frail sentiment but with real knowledge and full faith that we pay this humble tribute to Your Divine Grace as our spiritual master. You are the embodiment of all saintly qualities such as humility, peacefulness, self-control and mercy. And most importantly, you are delivering to us the same knowledge imparted to Brahma in ages gone by: that the transcendental sports of Sri Krsna, the Personality of Godhead, as exhibited in Vrndavana, constitute the highest peak, the acme of transcendental realization. We have no doubts that you are a perfectly qualified bona fide spiritual master and we submit our wretched selves before you, begging by your unflinching mercy to become qualified disciples of your goodself. We have full faith that if somehow or other we can cling to your instructions, after many crores of births and deaths within this filthy material world we may someday be able to render some insignificant service to repay the priceless gift you have bestowed upon our undeserving selves. Maybe then we will actually understand the purport of the verse by the great Acaryadeva Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura: "The spiritual master is receiving benediction from the ocean of mercy. Just as the cloud pours water on the forest fire to extinguish it, the spiritual master extinguishes the blazing fire of material existence."

All Glories to you Srila Prabhupada!!

Your servants in Portland,