Dear Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja,
Please accept my dandavat pranams at your joyful, loyal lotus feet and at the feet of your sincere disciples and well wishers, to Sri Guru parampara, Sriman Sacinandana Gaurahari, Sri Radhika and Sri Gopala-deva your istadevas and Sri Sri Laksmi Nrsimha the destroyer of obstacles.
Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja, you have spoken that a condition soul cannot properly glorify a Vaisnava. I pray for your mercy that whatever I say about you now and in the future (if I get the good fortune of doing it again) may be pleasing to you, for you have also said that by glorifying a Vaisnava you get their mercy.
Why should I try to get your mercy? I understand that I have given unhappiness to Krsna and His dear associates by turning away from them and by coming to this material world for the purpose of exploiting it and it’s inhabitants for my own meager, paultry sense gratification. I have created unlimited misfortune and misery for myself by doing so. I have also mislead and hurt many others in my determined effort to fulfil my material desires in this lifetime and I would say in every of the other trillions and trillions of lifetimes also.
So I have some faith that you are one of Sri Sri Gaura Krsna’s own dear associates who has come to this world to pardon, guide and encourage wayward souls like me. Unfortunately I am always looking for ways to satisfy my selfish desires while also seeking forgiveness. I am a weak, deceitful hypocrite and may remain so unless I can show sincereity in sadhana and get mercy from the members of the eternal disciplic succession like Your Divine Grace.
Ultimately it is not by my own strength that I will be successful. You have kindly and patiently communicated this to me. Although you have the power to give an experience of real love (krsna priti) to even a non sadhaka, you are attracted to the service spirit of the sadhakas and bestow your mercy on them as you see fit. This puts them on the path of eternal auspiciousness, the path of Krsna bhakti.
The path of Krsna bhakti is great because on that path love is never wasted. The glorious mahajana Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur writes in ‘Saragrahi Vaisnava’, “the women, wine and flesh of beasts, no love on thee bestow.” Why not bestow love on these things? Because they are not worthy of being loved. Why not worthy? Because they will never love us back the way we need to be loved.
Love for Krsna is accepted and returned at a higher rate than it was even given. Love for women, wine and meat simply goes down the drain and we are simply cheated, confused, hurt and mislead by the experience. The only way this bad experience can be turned into a positive learning experience is by hearing from Your Divine Grace and following your advice to put our love into Krsna bhakti, the service of Gaura, Guru and Vaisnava. Please put me firmly on this path and forgive my constant offences.
Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja, you are always so happy, you never get angry, you love being questioned on topics of bhakti, and as a friend of mine recently said, you are overflowing with loving ecstacy and therefore spontaneously want to share it with others. Through you I get a glimpse into the character of Akrodha Paramananda Nityananda Prabhu and that is the most valuable thing I can ever hope to get.
Who would want to accept the material energy as a master when one can have a master like you who is overflowing with real love? Please let me be your committed servant. Let this moment be a new day in my long sojourn towards reality the beautiful. Let us all stand strong and reap the results of sincere endeavour in service to the Absolute Truth, the Truth that you so naturally represent.
aspiring servant of your servants,
Jayadeva dasa