Praṇamāmi Guru Tīrtha Padaṁ

Once Bindu Madhav Prabhu from France asked Srila Gurudev a question and he told me about it later because he said he was so glad that he asked because of the answer that he got. It is particularly pertinent to foreign devotees. The question was (I'm paraphrasing): "In the future, the Holy Name will be sung in every town and village. So for future devotees, it will be much easier to practice Krsna consciousness. There will be many temples and maths, devotees can have prasad easily and participate in kirtan. Isn't that unfair? Because for us now it is often very difficult. Many times we are all alone amongst materialistic people, we are struggling alone and sometimes can't even have prasad." Srila Gurumaharaj answered: "Don't worry. Mahaprabhu will take care of you." —Urmila Dasi

Srila Gurudev would travel to various places from Kolkata for preaching. During that time my service was to clean Srila Gurudev’s room once he left Kolkata Math and also when he would come back to Kolkata after completing his preaching tour. Additionally, when Srila Gurudev stayed in Kolkata, I would come to the math during weekends in the morning, and sometimes I would get the opportunity of cleaning Srila Gurudev’s room.  So One day I got the opportunity for that service. The sevak who asked me said, “You must do everything very quickly because Gurumaharaj can come out any time." In my mind, I was tremendously happy that while cleaning I will get the chance of touching his used things. I happily entered the room and started looking for the things which were on the bed of Srila Gurudev- his clothes, his towels, his blanket, his slippers on the floor, his pen and books on the desk, etc. For that moment it was like a treasure trove for me. I just started touching his used t

Once Gurudeva was going for some work to the court on Param Gurudeva's instructions but was held back by Keshav Prabhu [his guru varga]  who told him to have prasadam since the court matter may take a long time and he didn't want him to feel hunger. Param Gurudeva happened to come and saw him taking prasadam, and only said:  Oh, Krishna Ballabh.. you are still here? Srila Gurudeva immediately stood up leaving eating. His head was bowed down and he was seen to have tear-filled eyes.  Without giving any reason or explanations, he told: Gurudeva, I am leaving right now. He walked out quickly. For him, it was as though an earthquake had happened. Through this, Gurudeva is teaching how one has to balance between following Gurudeva and Guruvarga's instructions. Without surrender, any limb of devotion is not devotion, it is karma.  We pray we get such surrender as our Gurudeva has for Param Gurudeva. —Srila Bhakti Kushal Padmanabha Maharaj