One of the many offerings

Dear Srila Prabhupada!

Please accept my dandavats at your lotus feet.
All glory to you, who taught us the meaning of life and exposed the illusion we are living in.

You gave us a glimpse of spiritual reality while tolerating in the most magnanimous way our still-prevailing material conditioning. In your presence, the spiritual world and the Supreme Lord manifested as the final reality and the only worshipable object.
You regulated our lives and purified them by your presence.

For those who are chaste and faithful to your mission, even after your departure, nothing changes. Your voice, illuminating the path, removes the darkness, and the perverted way maya tries to alure us into darkness.

Yes, false preachers are plentiful in days of Kali, and those who illuminate the path are few. It is the notoric nature of the conditioned soul, even after being initially enlightened and enthused by the presence of a pure devotee, to polute the pure message he left behind again with its material concepts centered around the body. Holy Name becomes a way to become socially prominent for those victimized by their sentimentality and desire for fame. The path back home back to Godhead becomes obstructed by those who again point to the material body and the world we are living in. Surely, it is all Krsnas creation, the illusion as well, but you set the priority, demolishing the mayavada of oneness preached everywhere, and you inspired us to develop the desire to leave this world and never come back.

While living here, you gave us the most satisfying state of dignity, again and again training us to understand that we are Krsnas servants and nobody elses.
In uncompromising fashion, you, along with our ability to follow, tightened the ropes, keeping our lust down, and increased our eagerness to again assume our constitutional position as eternal servants of the Lord.

Maya tries to make the unimportant important and the important unimportant.
You again and again established the priorities of our existence and taught us how to tolerate the less important. So many came and tried to change again what you gave, but those who are chaste never allow them to enter their hearts and minds.

One word from your lotus mouth can remove our illusion forever. So pure is your message that demons flee on all sides and the godly ones take shelter. Indeed, the path is narrow, a walk on razors edge, and it requires daily determination to follow it. But you made it so easy for those who are faithful to your words. Tolerating our shortcomings but oposing our arogance and the desire to establish oneself on basis of your preaching as the master and not as a servant, you corrected and you eliminated our pride.

Indeed, those who see the shamelessness with which your mission is abused and attacked only take a more firm grip of your lotus feet, which can provide shelter for all those who are sincere. So many came, and so many went again. Let them come, abuse, and steal what you gave; the real treasures you left behind they cannot take.

Dear Srila Prabhupada, if ever you find me to compromise what you have given, please use your stick coming down on my head, as then only my head becomes sober again.
I don't see any other reason to spend the rest of my life in any other way than to travel and chant your glories. I have no hope to ever get a glimpse of spiritual reality as by hearing you. As you so wonderfully answered the question addressing the difference between remembering you when dying and Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead: “Same result.” And so I proudly chant your glories in full confidence that, in terms of message and misson you are non-different from the Supreme Lord.
Being his formost servant, the presence of the Supreme Master becomes evident, and so the memory of you instantly brings about the memory of Krsna and His transcendetal abode.

I feel less and less qualified to see anything above Krsna Lotos feet. Others may jump into His lotus face; I am staying in front of the door, avoiding their association. But to see your lotus feet daily placed in my heart is easy. I proudly chant the glories of my spiritual master wherever I go. You are the most documented acharya in our sampradaya, and so finding quotes illustrating your transcendently genious nature is easy.
Whatever I seek to find in a perfect human being, whatever spiritual inspiration one hopes to find in a devotee, it is all manifested in you for those who want to see.

You gave me everything, and I don't need anything else. Hearing you and chanting your glories wherever I go makes me the happiest man on this planet.
Counting my blessings while operating daily from my seventy-one-year-old body, I treasure every day I can move on, meeting those who are chaste in heart, desiring to see you and the Supreme Lord as they really are and not as many may imagine them to be.

Reality is defined by you; anything else is an illusion. Some may call me a fanatical follower. but I take their criticism as confirmation I am moving in the right direction.
Indeed, I am very proud to have the best spiritual master who gave me the best of everything. Even being a very fallen disciple, I am proud to be your disciple nevertheless. What a wonderful guru I got!

Thank you, Srila Prabhupada, for entering my life in 1972 and never leaving it again.
To see the world through your eyes is inspiring. To see it in any other way is confusing and discouraging. So many trees that one cannot see the forest.
But you cut a clear path through this forest of material existence to lead us out of it and bring us to the free open range of Krsna's beautiful landscape. Being restricted by you, one becomes free. Forgetting you, the shackles of material existence are tightened again regarding how one may think oneself to be liberated. There are so many proudly demostrating their pseudo-spiritual status while never leaving the realm of their mind.
You so mercifully and magnamiously offered me the life of a devotee, and only through you can it find its validity.

Regarding the age of my body, seeing your greatness, I am still a child.
Thank you, Srila Prabhupada, for holding my hand, protecting me, nourishing me, and correcting me in times of need by empowering others to be your spokesmen.
Indeed, you can use anybody to keep me on the right path. Finally, with your leading voice resounding, how can one go wrong? With the movement of your left foot, you can kick away what others may consider insurmountable. To be your eternal servant eliminates the temporarity of things we face every day. Life after life to bow down to your lotos feet is a wonderful prospect, making this present existence in this gradualy dwindling body a short walk. To walk with you means to enjoy ones eternal nature as your eternal servant, life after life.

Thank you Srila Prabhupada for everything. Indeed, you gave me everything, and you are my everything.

Your grateful servant, Manidhara das.