nama om visnu-padaya krsna-presthaya bhu-tale
srimate bhaktivedanta-svamin iti namine
namas te sarasvate deve gaura-vani-pracarine
nirvisesa-sunyavadi-pascatya-desa-tarine

My most dear Srila Prabhupada, you are my life. Your orders and your mission are the only meaning to my life. Despite my chronic dismay and trepidation at the condition of your movement, I also feel increasing enthusiasm in service to your mission.

My apologies for the extended delay in completing my current most important service to your mission-writing a book about it. I am working steadily and by your grace it will manifest before very long, for your pleasure, so that I can focus on expanding my service to you on several fronts. I do not want to inordinately postpone turning those plans into reality, or at least making a good start in doing so. Please bless me.

I can expect your blessings to the extent that I recognize myself to be entirely dependent upon them. Your Divine Grace can take a crowlike excuse for a Vaisnava and make him dance like a peacock. All these years I have been living on your mercy, feeling it strongly guiding my life, and now, by your mercy, I feel growing enthusiasm to go forward and up, both in developing my own spiritual aspirations and by increasing my service to your mission.

The prospects are bright and the possibilities unlimited, but the lures of maya are as dangerous as ever. Many greater men than I succumbed to maya even after performing phenomenal service which I can hardly imagine emulating. Srila Prabhupada, you are my only protector. Save me from the dangers I am constantly harassed by, and make me an instrument in your mission of saving others. I fall at your lotus feet.

Taking inspiration from the author of Hari-bhakti-kalpa-latika, I submit that despite being an unqualified fool, struggling under the illusion of false ego and a false sense of ownership, I am trying to engage in your service. Even in writing this offering, surely I have committed offenses to you. O Srila Prabhupada, O ocean of mercy, certainly I am very wretched and worthy to be punished. I beg pardon for my offenses.

O Srila Prabhupada, O unlimited ocean of mercy, I have commited many sinful activities, disrespected many great souls, and whimsically neglected your instructions. Despite making a show of being your disciple, factually I have not even a small drop of devotion for you. O Srila Prabhupada, only by your mercy may I be purified of these offenses.

O Srila Prabhupada, I have no taste for hearing your glories, worshiping your lotus feet, or meditating on your eternal form and pastimes. I am envious of your glories and of your servants. I am most shameless. Please forgive me when I say, “O master, please be merciful.”

O Srila Prabhupada, while pretending to serve your lotus feet with my body, mind, and words, I simply engage in the unceasing service of my senses. At heart I am only interested in my own misconceived self-interest. In this way I cheat everyone. I am an ignorant rascal who thinks himself very learned. O Srila Prabhupada, O ocean of mercy, please rescue me from this madness. O Srila Prabhupada, due to my past misdeeds, I am incessantly tortured by the distresses of material existence. I am a big loudmouthed idiot. My mind oscillates between bewilderment, agitation, and disappointment. But you are a great ocean of transcendental bliss, you remove the sufferings of the distressed, and you are the protector, father, and maintainer of your disciples. Although you are mercifully delivering me, I am unable to properly serve you at any time or in any way.

I have nothing better to say than, “Another year gone, I am still here.” Your merciful message of sanity continues to reverberate in my heart, subduing the egoism and foolishness therein, sustaining the conviction that I must remain at your lotus feet or I am doomed.

ami tomara nitya-dasa tai kori eta asa
tumi bina anya gati nai

Desiring to at last become your worthy servant, the miscreant Bhakti Vikasa Swami