His Perfect Demonstration of Vaiṣṇavata

Sometime around 2005 when I was in Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Mission Mandir in Vienna, Austria, Śrīmad Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Gosvāmī Mahārāj phoned me with the help of his sevāk and was asking, "Where are you? Why have you not come to meet me?" I was abroad and Mahārāj was thinking I was in Kolkata. 

He called to speak to me from Kolkata and my heart melted thinking when I'm abroad I never get calls from anyone from India. Mahārāj personally called me and said, "Nothing in particular, just called to speak to you." My heart was filled with emotions and my eyes were filled with tears thinking that there are people in this world who still love me. 

In 2001 when the World Trade Center disaster occurred I was in San Jose, Costa Rica. Tamal Prabhu sent me an e-mail saying Mahārāj wants to speak to you, where are you? Then I called Mahārāj over the phone and he said, "You come back immediately. It is a very difficult situation." I thought that if a world war occurs, it would first be between India and Pakistan, so I am safe in Europe, so why should I return? 

Even though I would have wished to honor Mahārāj’s words, I thought, what can I do? My ticket was to San Francisco and so I could not return to India immediately. The situation at that time was such that Asians were being killed simply on the basis of their being Asian. For example, as I recall some Punjabi persons were shot in Miami.

The point I'm trying to make is that although he has so many disciples, he showered such love and affection since my childhood and even now I still felt it. That made him tell me to get back to India immediately. Seeing Mahārāj’s concern for me my heart melted. 

On another occasion, I was chanting on the upper floor of Sree Chaitanya Gauḍīya Maṭha in Kolkata one evening when a phone call came for me. The phone was near Mahārāj's room in the big library when I was upstairs. 

He came upstairs and in a soft voice said, "Mahārāj, your phone." I am younger, junior, but in Bangla, he said, "apna phone." Here the word apna is addressed to very senior, elderly persons. When one is of the same age then he is addressed tui, and if one is a little older then he is addressed as tumi. Here Mahārāj used apni, apna. which is very high, great. He is such a great Vaiṣṇava!

When he left the world it is like a big void in the vaiṣṇavata of the vaiṣṇava-dharma

—Śrīla Bhakti Vibudha Bodhāyana Mahārāj

Transcribed and excerpted from a translation of Hindi harikathā
Streamed live on 1 Apr 2019 by Vishwambhar Das

(reposted)


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