A Further Prayer to Prabhupada

Our heartfelt prayers to Prabhupada should be guided by śruti smṛti purāṇādi-pañcarātra vidhiṁ vinā.  I am praying to Prabhupada to please direct me in the best way for my spiritual life.  In one sense, we are waiting for an immediate response from Prabhupada, although we must also understand that prayer is itself a process.  It is an ongoing meditation, rather than an isolated event with a set result.

Dear Srila Prabhupada, today I asked a devotee how to pray to you.  The answer I got was that we should speak in prayers composed by the previous acaryas.  I thought one of the most obvious prayers is the pranama  mantra, which you yourself gave to us.  “I offer my obeisances to His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who is very dear to Krishna on this earth, having taken shelter at the lotus feet of the transcendental Lord.”  And sometimes we pray to you spontaneously in our own words, “Prabhupada, please help me,” “Prabhupada, thank you for allowing me to serve and function as your assistant.”

Prabhupada, please let me go forward in Krishna consciousness, please let me serve you, please let me remember you, please guide me.  I want to especially concentrate on that prayer – please guide me.  You yourself were so confidential, private, and grave that you didn’t even tell us about it.  You knew that preaching to us meant stressing the Bhagavad-gita and convincing us that God exists.  But you also gave the postgraduate study, Srimad-Bhagavatam, and beyond that, Caitanya-caritamrta.  You gave us the truth that Krishna came to taste Radha’s love in the form of Lord Caitanya.  You explained to us that Lord Caitanya wanted to distribute that love, the love of the gopis, to the whole world.  You introduced us to the Six Gosvamis.  But you were also careful.  You didn’t want to confuse us.  You wanted to protect us. 

Now we are trying to pray that you give us the mercy of your association eternally.  We have to realize our eternal relationship with you in the spiritual world.  It is difficult, Prabhupada, because I don’t want to be pretentious.  Yet we must do this.  Please guide me, Srila Prabhupada, to serve you in your sadhaka form as the Founder-Acarya of ISKCON, as the dear person who was so kind to me in this life, who gave me so much association, and who sustains me now.   But also guide me to worship you in your eternal, spiritual form.  I appear to be quite experienced in ISKCON, but when I think of my relationship with you in your eternal, spiritual form and rasa with Krishna, then I realize I am completely inexperienced.  I am a baby, a neophyte.  That is one of the reasons I hesitate to inquire into it, because I don’t want to give up my prestigious position as a teller of Prabhupada stories and an old devotee.  But I am willing to do that also.  I am willing to go ahead and admit that I know very little.  I don’t know the Sanskrit terms for all the stages of rasa, I don’t know your name in the spiritual world, I don’t know anything.  But I aspire to be with you and serve you.  However, I have to prove myself by continual, solid service to you in your sadhaka form and in your ISKCON movement.  As you write in so many purports, by preaching we attract the attention of Krishna.  Let me preach and please you in that way.  Then you will reveal to me the higher truths.  Please protect me. 

Prabhupada, please bless us to be ready for higher Krishna consciousness.  Let us pursue love of God and enhance our faithfulness to you.  Let us become better servants in your mission by becoming touchstones, or the moons you wish you had in your star-filled sky.  That is our whole purpose, dear Srila Prabhupada.