Praṇamāmi Guru Tīrtha Padaṁ

One sunny day I took Guru Maharaj and his sevak team for a morning walk on the beach. Singapore beach is usually sunny. On that walk, there was some discussion about Raganuga-bhakti. There was another great Vaishnav there who was particularly speaking to Russian devotees while emphasizing that topic. It was Hrishikesh Maharaj, an American disciple, who introduced this topic with a question related to how all of us should go to Raganuga-bhakti. The discussion went on for a while and Guru Maharaj was very patient while listening. At the end of the conversation, I told him directly that I do not have a good background and I don't come from a favorable part of the world. I continued to explain that my Guru Maharaj, [Srila Bhaktivedanta] Swami Maharaj instructed me to do sadhana bhakti and I am not qualified to do Raganuga-bhakti because of my background. Guru Maharaj replied while simply folding his hands in pranam and said, "This Maharaj who is speaking is a great Vaishnava, I a

I remember I spoke with one lady who was Buddhist since her childhood but she had started going to ISKCON. She felt this was another practice for liberation, but more colorful. She became friends with devotees that invited her to that same program [previously mentioned.] She liked Gurudev’s Harikatha and recorded an interview with him for radio. She had many questions for Gurudev and he was replying. I don't know the details of the interview, but after it, she asked Gurudev for a blessing and Gurudev told me that she should take Harinam and she agreed. At that time, she told me that she was also attracted to Gurudev because he was checking the almanac for travel dates. This was because she was an astrologer so this was like a bonus for her to see that Gurudev was checking that. She agreed that yes, she would take Harinam. She told my mother (Srimati Tungavidya Devi Dasi), as they were friends, that Gurudev told her to take Harinam and she will take it the next day and she wanted my