Posts Tagged ‘giriraj swami letter’

By HH Giriraj Swami

October 8, 2006 Carpinteria, CA USA

My dear Maharaja,

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

We are missing you terribly today, after your sudden departure from this realm of mortality to the service of Srila Prabhupada in eternity.

My thoughts turn to my earliest association with you. I had been suffering from a relapse of jaundice in Bombay, and Srila Prabhupada said that as long as I remained there I would be unable to recover. So I returned to the United States for treatment, and after spending about five days in Chicago, proceeded to Los Angeles.

There, you were continuing your association with the devotees and going on your famous morning walks with Srila Prabhupada, discussing the principle of “life comes from life” and the importance of scientific preaching. As I gradually recovered from my illness, I was able to accompany you and Srila Prabhupada on some of the walks and to be in Srila Prabhupada’s room when you and sometimes Dr. Wolf-Rottkay came to meet him. Hearing your discussions, I was struck by your humility and simplicity–and by your open and intimate relationship with Srila Prabhupada. He had so much love for you and put so much trust in you–and surely, his great hopes for you were not disappointed. Your patent sincerity, combined with your intellectual prowess, were strong qualifications for understanding Srila Prabhupada and his teachings and mission–and the specific mission he gave to you. You took all of his words to heart and were so enthusiastic to take up his call. Obviously, you were a very pure devotee from your birth, from your culture, and in Srila Prabhupada’s association your natural devotion was encouraged and manifested. It was like a jewel that Srila Prabhupada mined and cut and polished–and then held out to sparkle for the world, for all the world’s the benefit.

Earlier in 1973, a scientist had come to the university and given a lecture on how life had arisen from a combination of four primordial elements: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. With so many technical words and diagrams and formulas, he tried to establish that life had come from these material elements. At the end of the presentation you had stood and inquired, “If I give you these ingredients, will you be able to produce life?” And the scientist had replied, “That I do not know.” Srila Prabhupada was so pleased and proud of you that he spoke of the incident in his lectures and conversations–how “our Svarupa Damodara” had challenged the scientist and defeated the notion that life comes from matter.

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