Hansadutta: In the Gurudeva prayer we sing, “Your mercy is all that I am made of,” and that is our factual experience. When we were in India, Kirtanananda was preaching in Gorakhpur but he did not like India. He wanted to go back and he wrote a letter to Prabhupada complaining and asking for permission to go. I related the contents of the letter to Prabhupada and Prabhupada said, “Write him an encouraging letter. Encourage him.” I wasn’t fond of Kirtanananda and I would have liked him to go back to America, but since I was Prabhupada’s secretary, it was my duty to carry out Prabhupada’s order. I went to my room, sat, and thought, “What would Prabhupada say? How would he use words to enthuse and encourage his disciple, Kirtanananda, so that he would feel determined to stay?” Meditating like that, I finally wrote the letter. We sent it, and within a week or two we heard that Kirtanananda was completely transformed. He was totally enlivened because of the letter he had received from Srila Prabhupada. From that I could understand that we were being trained to think and speak and act with Srila Prabhupada’s spirit. This is how disciples are an extension of the mercy of the spiritual master, just as Bhaktivinode Thakur’s song says, “Your mercy is all that I am made of.” Now we have cell phone technology so when we speak something here, it goes from one relay station to another, relay, relay, relay. In fact, you can call anyone in any part of the world because the relays are set up so perfectly, so transparently. That is how the Krishna consciousness movement expands. Prabhupada has transmitted the original transcendental message and it has been received and then relayed by his disciples. And in that process we are purified, trained, and formed. We are all following in Srila Prabhupada’s footsteps, although at the same time every one of us is an individual person with unique characteristics and qualifications and a unique relationship with Srila Prabhupada. It’s not that we’re mindless followers. Writing that letter was a deep lesson for me.
Reference: Remembrances by Sidhanta Das- Folio Vedabase
