Homages from ISKCON Centers

Homages from ISKCON Centers
Our love for you is the basis for the co-operation needed to overcome conflict. As our love for you
deepens, we will be able to cooperate more effectively and hence become better servants. This will be
the meaningful realization of “unity in diversity.” We pray that you kindly shower us with your mercy
and allow us to come closer to your lotus feet.
Ye prasäde püre sarva äçä.
Your servants at the ISKCON temple in Cape Town, South Africa.
(written by Gokuleça Däsa)
Chandigarh
nama oà viñëu-pädäya kåñëa-preñöhäya bhü-tale
çrémate bhaktivedänta-sväminn iti nämine
namas te särasvate deve gaura-väëé-pracäriëe
nirviçeña-çünyavädi-päçcätya-deça-täriëe
Respected Çréla Prabhupäda,
Please accept our respectful and most humble obeisances unto your lotus feet. All glories unto you,
the foremost servitor of your spiritual master, Çréla Bhaktisiddhänta Sarasvaté Öhäkura!
As we advance spiritually and see through the light of your teachings, we can easily see how you
have saved suffering humanity. In this regard we would humbly like to describe just one facet of your
personality—your commitment to your disciples.
In the 1960s America was in turmoil: the younger generation was losing faith in the advancement of
civilization, and in their own way the youth were trying to repose their love and faith in sense gratification,
i.e., sex and drugs. One of their guiding principles was “Don’t trust anyone over thirty.” Into that scene
you entered and dared to stay among them—at the advanced age of seventy! Not only did you stay among
the youth, but you guided them and enlisted them in a major revolution no one could have imagined:
the worldwide preaching of pure devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead around.
Since you were guided by the instructions of your spiritual master, you had no selfish motives.
Selflessly, in the spirit of serving your spiritual master, you served these confused youngsters by guiding
them in the process of Kåñëa consciousness. Your selfless service, seeking nothing in return, rather
giving the highest gift of God consciousness, touched their hearts. They found a place to repose their
love and faith—in you.
When you lived at the servant quarters in John Lennon’s estate in the UK, he was amazed to see
the your disciples’ enthusiasm when they renovated a room for you to stay. “How did you make your
disciples so committed unto you?” he asked. The answer is that your commitment to delivering your
followers and your love for them attracted them all to commit themselves to your service wholeheartedly.
His Holiness Bér Kåñëa Mahäräja related how when His Holiness Tamäl Kåñëa Mahäräja had a hernia
operation in Bombay, you waited for many hours in the hospital waiting room until the operation was
over, and you were the first person Tamäl Kåñëa Mahäräja saw when he awoke after the operation.
In an article in BTG magazine, Her Grace Mälaté Mätäjé told the story of how once, when she cooked
lunch for you and your godbrothers, you told them, “Yes, she cooks for me . . . and I criticize her. But
she would slit her throat for me, and I would do the same for her.”
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