To my disciples:

Please accept my blessings. Jaya Srila Prabhupada. I’m sorry I have not written sooner, but here is the news.

Lord Krishna has blessed me to recover my health, and that is no longer a problem. Or perhaps I should that my challenge now is to keep my health so that I can serve my glorious spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada, in the best way possible.

I am still in Los Angeles, experiencing the happiness of a simple life. As always, our first duty is to chant Lord Krishna’s Holy Names with real devotion, without offenses. Lord Caitanya, praying on our behalf, expressed what we all experience: even though we know that Lord Krishna has mercifully invested all His personal potency in His Name, and although we recognize this as Krishna’s extraordinary mercy upon us, still we do not have a steady attraction to that Name.

Lord Caitanya also teaches us that we must become humble and tolerant in order to chant Lord Krishna’s Name constantly. Embracing spiritual humility is a challenge for us. On the one hand, our emotional health, our personal integrity, and our common sense all require us to establish and maintain boundaries in our relations with other persons. We also require some sense of accomplishment in order to continue with our service. And last but not least, we are still conditioned souls with plenty of pride and vanity in our hearts. Somehow in the face of all these challenges, we must sincerely cultivate humility and tolerance. We must do this because without genuine humility, how can we chant Krishna’s name constantly and devotedly? And without Krishna’s Name, as Bhaktivinoda Thakura points out, there is nothing in the universe that will ultimately save and enlighten us.

Of course, in all our devotional activities, devotee association is essential. Just by writing this letter to so many worthy devotees, I feel myself purified by your association. Let us continue to encourage each other, as Lord Krishna states in the Bhagavad-gita 10.9:

“Their minds fixed in Me, their very lives given to me, enlightening one another, always talking about me, My Devotees are happy and satisfied.”

It is most significant that in the very next verse, Lord Krishna says that He personally gives to devotees who are thus always engaged, the spiritual knowledge “by which they come to Me.”

The conclusion is that constant engagement in Krishna consciousness, in the company of other devotees, with whom we enlighten each other and always talk about Krishna, is the real way to achieve Krishna’s mercy, and our own liberation.

I hope this letter finds you all happy, healthy and determined in your service to Srila Prabhupada’s mission.

With best wishes,
Hridayananda das Goswami
May 11, 2011