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by Govinda dasi ACBSP |
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Letter to devotees: March 1, 1999 Dear devotees, Please accept my humble obeisances. These stories are largely unedited and flow in a stream of consciousness style from my early morning meditations on Srila Prabhupada. Please excuse the rough story style. Srila Prabhupada always encouraged us to "do something for Krsna immediately, not to wait until our situation or service was perfect." He also would point out that our life is very short, at any moment we may die, so we should immediately do service. Never mind, it may be imperfect or lacking in training or skills; his mood was not one of the perfectionist or the procrastinator, as mine tends to be. In an effort to overcome these tendencies in myself I am printing this material that I know is in need of editing, polishing and proofing but I hope it will spur me on to improvement and at least my work is begun. I also feel the need to keep intact the way these events were remembered as I want these memoirs to be untampered by contemporary thought, politics or social conventions, even my own. I want them to be "as it was". Though this may be unsettling to some, I feel the need for overall honesty is more important. Please forgive me if anything disturbs anyone or anyone's modern day belief structures. This is not my intention. My only wish is to share my experiences of living with and traveling with my beloved spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada for the benefit of devotees now and in the future. His glories are unlimited, yet my abilities are very limited. Please excuse my frailties as a writer and as a devotee as I sincerely attempt to portray my gurudeva, Srila Prabhupada, my relationship with him as his servant and secretary and the wonderful adventures of an era when things were incredibly simple. That special time of 1967, '68 and early '69 could be liked to a plump rose bed, swollen with splendor but not yet in full bloom. After 1969 and 1970, Srila Prabhupada's ISKCON movement began to "take off" in many directions. The year I spent more with Srila Prabhupada from late 1967, all of 1968, and the early part of 1969 was the year on the launching pad; the wonderful things were in the making and the not so wonderful things, such as politics, ambition and greed had yet to surface. It was a special time and I want to share it with everyone. For several years I have searched for a suitable format. Only recently was I inspired with ideas as to how to present this material. I wanted to somehow incorporate the hundreds of photos by Srila Prabhupada, mostly never before seen, and many of them homey type shots, and yet the cost of publishing such a work is not within my scope. So my plan is to present the memoirs as a series of short stories accompanied by photos. Doing this on a Web-site will enable me to share these treasures more immediately with everyone without the limitation of printing cost and perhaps in future the possibility of printing a book from them but the possibility of printing will also emerge. Thank you for your time and consideration. I am open to suggestions from everyone. I especially hope to hear from my godbrothers and godsisters who shared this special era as I feel we have a bond of understanding and love that becomes more special as we grow old and face the realities as taught us by Srila Prabhupada: the realities of old age, disease, and death. Indeed, I believe we each have some special memories of Srila Prabhupada to share with the world and with all posterity and it is our duty to do so before our time is up, I encourage everyone to write such memories and if you so desire to put them on this Web-site, please do so. Our aim here is to remember Srila Prabhupada in at least 1008 ways. I beg to remain your servant at the lotus feet of Srila Prabhupada. Yours in seva,
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