Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda,

Please accept our humble obeisances in the dust of your beautiful lotus feet. 

Thank you for allowing us to have your darśan at yet another most prominent location here in Māyāpur, your Pushpa Samādhi Mandir.

In your bamboo-and-straw bhajan-kuṭir near the main gates—your first residence in Māyāpur when there were only rice fields—you gave the living example of your motto for spiritual life: “simple living and high thinking.” Where your disciples could see open fields and little else, you saw where a great spiritual city would rise, manifesting the vision of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura.

We bow down to you in your humble residence and pray for your blessings. May we imbibe your ways of perfect simplicity and pure thought, eagerly working to implement the glorious vision of the previous ācāryas.

Between two wide verandas on the second floor of the Lotus Building, as the Vaikuṇṭha breezes, as you called them, blow, you sit on a white āsana in your room behind your desk, illuminating the statements of śāstra with your Bhaktivedanta purports. It is here that you nourish disciples and guests with nectar from your lips and make transcendentally revolutionary plans for the world, beginning with plans for this holiest of dhāmas.

Let us prostrate ourselves on the white-sheeted mat before you and thank you for being so accessible to us in your conversations, lectures, and books. May we accept your words—both the soft, encouraging words and the hard, correcting words—as our very life and soul, again and again and again.

At the back of the temple room, you sit on your vyāsāsana, gazing intently at Śrī Śrī Rādhā Mādhava, who gaze smilingly back at you and your followers. “There is no question of separation,” you once said. And there is no question of separation between you and Kṛṣṇa, even as you seem to be some 30 meters away from the altar.

In your presence it becomes clear that Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. As you expand the eternal truths of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in your sublime, straightforward lectures, you cut through all possible misconceptions, making bright and clear the real path of perfection.

Let us offer our worship to you daily in guru-pūjā, with ārati, flowers, kīrtan, and heartfelt praṇāms, remembering always how you opened our darkened eyes to the dazzling splendor of spiritual existence, knowledge, and bliss. May we be blessed by you to properly see and serve Their Lordships Śrī Nṛsiṁhadeva, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, Śrī Śrī Rādhā Mādhava, and the sakhīs.

And now, also in your imposing yet graceful Pushpa Samādhi Mandir, you sit regally in a vaulted chamber of marble and gold, larger than life, with a kind but determined countenance, tirelessly receiving the throngs coming for your darśan and blessings. Although this is not a place where you sat during your manifest pastimes, we perceive your active presence here as commander of a great world mission, as you sit facing your commanders—Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura at his samādhi and Lord Caitanya at His birthplace to the north.

It seems to be especially here that you supervise the grand projects of your movement, reminding us that “impossible” is a word in a fool’s dictionary and that there must be work now, samādhi later.

Here you are indeed present in samādhi, in full absorption in the transcendental activities of the Lord, in His mood as the perfect devotee of the Lord. Let us prostrate ourselves before you here, offering flowers of surrender to you in your Pushpa Samādhi, and then let us stand with folded hands, awaiting your orders.

May we always hear your directions clearly and carry them out with simplicity and determination, with no motivation except to please you. In the awesome atmosphere of your Pushpa Samādhi we are humbled. You are indeed drawing the whole world’s attention to your lotus feet, and we, your servants, find ourselves in the limelight of the glowing effulgence of your transcendental fame and glory.

Please let us, shedding all pettiness, selfishness, and fear, live up to the legacy of your greatness. Please allow us to do the needful to make the Māyāpur project a truly spiritual city from which the whole world will take inspiration, and to which the whole world can come for an eternal festival of nāma-saṅkīrtan.

You wrote in a Bhāgavatam purport:

“The Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement has established its center in Māyāpur, the birth site of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, to give men the great opportunity to go there and perform a constant festival of saṅkīrtan-yajña, as recommended herein, and to distribute prasāda to millions of hungry people hankering for spiritual emancipation. This is the mission of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.”

From your chamber here in your Pushpa Samādhi, you are exhibiting the factual activities of samādhi, conducting the eternal saṅkīrtan of Lord Caitanya. Let everyone come and receive your blessings here in your Pushpa Samādhi Mandir, and then let us humbly help you engage all in the constant festival of saṅkīrtan-yajña.

Offering you heaps of flowers of surrender, we beg you again and again to please let us become steadily more qualified to serve and assist you in your super-excellent service to Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and Śrī Śrī Rādhā Mādhava.

Begging to be your humble servants,
the Residents of the Māyāpur Project and Kṛṣṇa-kṣetra dāsa.