Praṇamāmi Guru Tīrtha Padaṁ

Guru Maharaj made everything so easy. Everything was beginning from the heart; it was all about the heart. Within the first two years during almost every darshan that I had of Guru Maharaj, He said the same thing to me: "It's so easy to please Krishna. It is so easy. Why? Because He is the nearest and dearest. Nobody is nearer to us than Krishna." My background made me so complicated but Guru Maharaj made it so easy. With so much love he would say to me: "It's so easy to please Krishna." So I was thinking even when I feel very close to someone, that is nothing compared to how close the Lord is. Naturally, it's easy. If you try to please the Lord from the heart, he is pleased. It's so easy. He kept telling me this again and again, probably because I have a complicated mind. Many times I heard Srila Gurumaharaj say, "The panacea for all problems is sharanagati. If we surrender, things will fall into place."  That was the impression I got from

Guru Maharaj flew from Delhi to London. I joined them in London airport and waited along with them to catch a flight to New York. I was seated next to Guru Maharaj on the plane and I noticed with interest that he was reading the book "Perfect Questions Perfect Answers" by Srila Swami Maharaj, a very well-known book for beginners in Krishna consciousness. I saw Guru Maharaj reading that book with a lot of concentration. I wondered why he was reading that book because he knows everything. Even though I didn’t ask him, I found the answer myself: because he has perfect attitude of following Guruvarga, he wanted to follow the scripture of Srila Swami Maharaj as he was an authorized disciple and had been given the order by Srila Prabhupada to go and preach outside. Guru Maharaj was very cautious to never go beyond what Swami Maharaj had given. His attitude was never like he knows more or can give more in the West than what Swami Maharaj had. So he was reading the book to see what

Gurudeva would spend time writing lectures of Param Gurudeva and keep himself busy with that service all day. Sometime around nine in the morning, he would take some rest. On one particular occasion, Param Gurudeva called for one brahmacārī at that time, but the brahmacārī was sleeping. Later when asked for an explanation he said, "Tirtha Mahārāj also sleeps at that time." Param Gurudeva did not say a thing to him, but later in hari-kathā , he said, "A surrendered devotee's any activity is sevā , even sleeping also is sevā . But our following should not be an imitation." He had so much love for Gurudeva and that day in the whole  hari-kathā  he spoke on his beloved disciple—our Gurudeva. When doing kirtans , our Gurudeva goes to a different plane altogether, he would be so engrossed in the kirtan that he would not have any awareness of his clothes or anything else around him. He is  avadhūta —completely unbound by this world. Once in kirtan , his dhoti f