Vyasa-puja offering to Srila Prabhupada 2009

(view 2009 offerings by disciples)

Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,
Please accept my prostrated obeisances at your lotus feet.

Near the beginning of the ISKCON years, a devotee wrote asking if you would have to return to this world to rescue wayward disciples, in their future births. Replying yes, you cautioned that a sincere disciple wouldn’t want the guru to have to do this; therefore we should “finish up our business in this lifetime.”

A few years later, another devotee, having heard his fellows assert that you would return to reclaim the lapsed, wrote you seeking confirmation. This time you replied, “I’m still thinking about it.”

Our rebirth due to spiritual negligence or laziness is one possibility; rebirth due to loving devotional service is another. Even in the ordinary world, we find cases of persons who longed to offer more than just the life they had in some kind of service, though mundane. For example, in the 18th century a famous American patriot, caught spying by the British army, recited as his last words, before the hangman’s noose snapped his neck: “I only regret that I have but one life to give my country.”

Recently, in the ISKCON world, a gṛhastha godbrother friend told me that after twenty years of a sometimes uphill marriage, his wife—peaceful and satisfied—paid him the ultimate compliment: “I wouldn’t mind being your wife again in my next life.”

Cakhu-dān dilo jei, janme janme prabhu sei. Śrīla Prabhupāda, how we would jump to take you again as our lord and master. Certainly we wouldn’t want that you return for laboring again to retrieve us from material illusion. But if you thought it best purely for Kṛṣṇa’s service, then who would hesitate to take birth again—just to be with you wherever you might choose to descend? Allow me to submit my rīsumī. Instead of starting off as a greenhorn, this time I could assist your divine mission from my earliest years as a seasoned ISKCON veteran.

You, Śrīla Prabhupāda, are such a paramount devotee of Kṛṣṇa and you care so intensely for your disciples and granddisciples; consequently, we all long to be your humble servitors life after life.

As the decades roll by, I’m amazed at the lessons of spiritual character and spiritual practicality your service instills. Yes, foresight is a precious commodity, whereas hindsight is quite cheap. Nevertheless, allow me to declare that if only I knew in my younger years what I know now, how much better my service to you could have been. And to think, still the horizon of bhakti looms ahead unlimitedly!

In the corporate world, they say, “Life begins at fifty” and “Weighty responsibility always gravitates to those with graying hairs.” If only I could have offered you, in this lifetime, youth coupled with wisdom. Why first one, and then the other? The younger years bubble with boundless enthusiasm and energy; the senior phase of life bestows maturity and insight. Oh, to give you the best of both youth and elderliness—at the same time! How wonderful it would have been, in a youthful body, to serve you with the sagacity of old age.

Outreach in the prison house of māyā can be so demanding of the present moment. The often thankless task consumes all—both the young and the old, the green and the tested. But the taste of service at your lotus feet and the radiance of your care are so magnificent that indeed I must say, “My only regret is that I had just one period of youth in this lifetime to expend for your global mission.”

Trying to be a real disciple,
Devāmrita Swami