Dear Srila Prabhupada,
Please accept my humble obeisances at the dust of your lotus feet.
A few months ago, I had the great fortune of visiting 26 Second Avenue, the place where it all began, in the 60th year of ISKCON. It was my first visit to New York City, and I was overwhelmed by the extent of delusion and the heavy waves of sense gratification that seemed to surround that place.
Standing outside 26 Second Avenue, I was left wondering: How could you have started the movement at such a difficult place? By all material calculations, this should not have been the place where it all began. And yet, it was.
Mukunda Goswami has written the beautiful book Miracle on Second Avenue. The more I reflect upon it, the more I feel that what happened there was one of the greatest miracles the world has ever witnessed. A lone devotee arrives in New York with almost nothing, enters a neighborhood immersed in materialism, begins chanting the holy name, and somehow a movement emerges that would eventually spread all over the world. What could explain such a thing except the mercy of Krishna and the extraordinary empowerment of His pure devotee?
This year, I came to America—the larger place where it all began. The place where you first sowed the seeds of bhakti, where you first planted the seed of devotion, only to see it spread across the entire globe. It continues to amaze me: how could you do all this? You literally negated all material possibilities to arrive in America, and then, in a place where hardly anyone had even heard of Krishna, you planted the seed of bhakti.
And then came your return to India, with your dancing white elephants, as you expanded Krishna consciousness in the very land where the sankirtana movement had begun.
In one sense, India was the place where it all began. It was the land where Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu inaugurated the sankirtana movement and held daily sankirtanas. It was the land where Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura envisioned the worldwide propagation of the holy name, and where Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura established the Gaudiya Mathas. India was the place where the flame of bhakti had originally been kindled. And yet, by the time you arrived, that flame had become covered and diminished. You came and reignited the spark.
Srila Prabhupada, my heart is like New York City—driven by intense waves of sense gratification, intoxicated by pride, anger, lust, greed and so many other material desires. 26 Second Avenue was the place where it all began. But my heart is still empty. Will you please place your lotus feet there?
The gopis pray to Krishna:
āhuś ca te nalina-nābha padāravindaṁ
yogeśvarair hṛdi vicintyam agādha-bodhaiḥ
saṁsāra-kūpa-patitottaraṇāvalambaṁ
gehaṁ juṣām api manasy udiyāt sadā naḥ
“Dear Lord, whose navel is just like a lotus flower, Your lotus feet are the only shelter for those who have fallen into the deep well of material existence. Your feet are worshiped and meditated upon by great mystic yogīs and highly learned philosophers. We wish that these lotus feet may also be awakened within our hearts, although we are only ordinary persons engaged in household affairs.” (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.82.48)
That is my prayer too. Please let Your lotus feet be awakened within my heart.
Recently, I had also been to New Vrindavan. While there, I was reminded of a real story that took place there: when things were not going properly, you inspired a newcomer lady to take your shoes, and when things began coming back into place, you again appeared in her dream and told her to return your shoes.
There is something so significant about this story. Your presence in our hearts can only truly remain when we follow your teachings. We may feel that you have left us when we become careless in following your instructions, but when we sincerely resolve to follow again, you mercifully return. Your presence becomes real again. You come back into our lives.
On this appearance day, I beg at your lotus feet: please let my heart become a place where I can say that something has begun. Let something begin within me. Let bhakti begin. Let sincere chanting, genuine service and remembrance of Krishna begin.
But I know that this can happen only if you place your lotus feet there.
Just as New York was, in so many ways, an unlikely place for a spiritual movement to begin, my heart seems like an even more unlikely place for bhakti to flourish. It is a dark graveyard filled with the carcasses of material desires. So many desires have been buried there, and yet they continue to rise again. There is so much noise, so much darkness, so much restlessness.
I have no hope in myself. But I have unlimited hope in your causeless mercy.
eibar bujha ja’be karuna tomar
jadi e pamara-jane koribe uddhar
Now I will really understand the extent of Your compassion only if You are able to deliver this most sinful person.
You have planted bhakti in places where, by all material calculations, it should never have grown. You walked into 26 Second Avenue – the place where it all began. You began a lot of things in the entire America, then India and subsequently the whole world.
Srila Prabhupada, please come to the Second Avenue of my heart and place your lotus feet there. I am a beggar, waiting for that miracle to happen – A Miracle on the Second Avenue of my Heart.
