Waves of Devotion

Dhanurdhara Swami September 7th, 2023

Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,

 

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to your Divine Grace.

 

I owe my life to you.

 

A remembrance came to me today. It was the commemoration of your disappearance two or three years after you passed from this world. Several of your contemporaries were still alive, and an old Vaiṣṇava – I don’t remember his name – made a eulogy beginning with a rhetorical question:

 

“If Śrīla Haridas Ṭhākura, Śrīla Rūpa Goswami, and Śrīla Prabhupāda were in the same room and Śrī Caitanya walked in, who would He go to first?”

 

I was a bit startled by his answer:

 

“I say Śrīla Prabhupāda, because who could be more attached to the holy name than the person who spread the holy name around the world?”

 

Now, someone could object that in a eulogy one has a license to exaggerate, especially for an old, learned Vaiṣṇava who is often more concerned with the rasa or mood of a statement than its literal meaning, but no one can doubt what Śrīla Prabhupāda accomplished. Does he not, therefore, have a right to be mentioned in the same breath as them and thus belong in the pantheon of the all-time luminaries of Śrī Caitanya’s lineage.

 

As far as I am concerned, there is no limit to your glories, but for me your greatest glory, and one that I think about every day, is that despite who I am and the mistakes I have made, my taste for the holy name continues to increase by your mercy.

 

Begging to remain your servant,

 

Dhanurdhara Swami

 

• Srila Prabhupada , Vyasa-puja
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