A Letter to Bhakti-tirtha Swami

A Letter to Bhakti-tirtha Swami

Kyoto, Japan
August 2006

Dear Bhakti-tirtha Maharaj,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. All glories to Your Holiness.

I’ve been thinking of you a lot here, Maharaj, and so I decided to write. I’m at the World Assembly of Religions for Peace, being held in Kyoto, Japan. It is going well so far, but I admit that I am still very new to this type of preaching and am praying to be engaged properly.

I wish you were here. I believe that you would have been a perfect choice to represent Srila Prabhupada and our faith tradition at events such as these. You exhibited such a clear vision of taking the teachings of Krishna and Lord Caitanya far and wide, and were so bold in doing it. You risked it all – raising some eyebrows along the way – to show everyone that Krishna consciousness is not meant to be placed on some dusty shelf and locked up in our own temples, but it is meant to be relevant and alive and engaged in the world.

I imagine you here, walking with your head held high, looking regal in some “outrageous” outfit or another. I can see you holding your walking cane, the lion’s head on it making you look even more powerful. Would you wear one of those wild headdresses or turbans? I can see you, even as I type this, warmly embracing your African brothers – Muslims, Christians, and tribal – and being accepted by them. I can imagine the Hindu delegates, simultaneously bewildered by you and proud of you as an example of Srila Prabhupada's success; to them, a white Vaisnava is fascinating, but a black devotee is simply mind-blowing. I like to think of you answering questions strongly and charming people with your wit and sharp intellect. I know that you would have lit fires here, inspiring people to become stronger in their own faith and more committed to spiritually-centered activism.

But Krishna had other plans for you, and these are only day-dreams now. Still, a part of me cannot accept it so easily. Who else can carry on with the kind of amazing, sometimes inconceivable service you did? Was Krishna in such a hurry to have you back that He couldn’t even give us enough time to find your replacement?

I have to confess that there were times when, because I couldn’t understand things you did or said, I kept my distance from you. I didn’t allow my heart to open to you fully, and I sometimes allowed myself to become influenced by the voices of fault-finders and mud-slingers. I justified that in sharing silently in these critiques, I was not really being offensive. But I see now that it was sadhu-ninda. Please forgive me. Perhaps I’ve already been suffering the reactions of my offense in my inability to have had your personal association and instruction.

Anuttama Prabhu told me that he had spoken with you when I first signed on with ISKCON communications. He said that you were very happy to hear about it and gave your blessings. Thank you.

I miss you so much. I look around me now at this conference, and I realize just how much our Society, and the whole world, needs you today more than ever. You should be here, Maharaj. Your departure has left a void in ISKCON. And the truth is that, even if Krishna had allowed us all the time in the world, we could never find anyone else to fill that void.

With Love and Respect,
Begging to Remain Your Servant,
Vyenkata Bhatta dasa
(a fallen disciple of your maha-friend, Radhanath Swami)