His Loving Nature Towards Every Entity

An extremely beautiful aspect of Śrīla Gurudev's nature is that he is very loving towards every entity. Other guru-varga have indicated that if a mosquito bites them they will beat him, but Gurudev never even beat a small mosquito ever—I have personally seen this many times in his life. If any mosquito will sit on my hand, I will strike it and finish his life. This is my nature.  But what is Gurudev's nature is jiveshu koti matravatseshu: Gurudev gives the love of crores of mothers to jīvas.

There was one occasion in Chandigarh that I saw that there were so many mosquitos in Śrīla Gurudev's room. Even while Gurudev was distributing prasādam, so many mosquitoes were buzzing around and disturbing him. Our god-brother Śrī Kuldeep Prabhu brought a mosquito coil, the type that burns, making smoke to drive mosquitos away, although some of them may die also. Kuldeep Prabhu showed it to Gurudev and said this is very effective. 

When he lit the coil, Gurudev asked what it was and then asked for its packaging. When he read what was printed on the package, it said it contains 0.01 percent poison. When he brought out attention to the fact that there was poison in it, one devotee said, No, Gurudev. For human beings this is nothing." Then Gurudev said, "Humans may be able to digest it but these are very small entities; they will die."  

Unfortunately, we then saw that one small mosquito who seemed intoxicated by the poisonous smoke landed on Guru Mahārāj's cloth and was struggling for life. Gurudev said, "Take it out, don't let it burn here."  

Then we became very much disturbed about the mosquitos thinking about how can we give some kind of safe place for Gurudev here. After about two months we went to another place where they brought a fragrant oil diffuser that is used to drive away and kill mosquitoes. Gurudev asked again what it was. They showed him the package which had a picture of a small baby sleeping on the moon. They said, "See Gurudev, even a small baby can sleep, there is no harm."

Then Gurudev read its contents and said, See? There is poison; these mosquitoes will die. Take it away." We saw him in that mood.  

Once I did a very wrong thing.  While I was sitting in front of him, I saw one mosquito biting Gurudev on his forehead and that little mosquito became big. I was eyeing the mosquito and Gurudeva was looking into my eyes.  He asked what happened and then I stood up and tried to shoo the mosquito away with my fingers. But the mosquito could not fly well as it was heavy after drinking so much blood. When it was trying to fly I beat him with my two hands in front of Gurudev. When Gurudev saw blood on my hand, then he was very disappointed. He asked, "What have you done?" His expression was such that I committed a big offense. 

He said, "This you should not do. They don't know what they should eat. Their food is only this, that is why they are biting. You killed him; this is not good.  Never do this again."

Then I said, "Gurudev I am brahman, I am brahmacārī and I beat him in front of you. I killed him in front of you; he is rescued."

Then Gurudev's seriousness increased and he became more annoyed. He shook his head in great disappointment as if he was conveying oh, these are my disciples and how cruel they are. Then I said, "Guru Mahārāj, I cannot survive, I have this kind of problem" and I started beating myself. He was very serious and did not laugh and encourage me in that way.  

I recall another instance in Kolkata. Not just me, many devotees have seen that. Two pigeons were waiting for Gurudev to come and see them. Only after that, they would fly away. They used to wait on the top of the temple tower for some two to three hours only for Gurudev. Then when Gurudev returned from tulasī parikramā, he took the support of a boundary wall to bend and look up to see those birds. The two birds sat above without any movement at all, not even wings flapping or anything. They would only turn and bend their heads to see Gurudev. It was a very beautiful scene, I think we have some pictures. After one or two minutes Gurudev would wave both his hands to them and say, "Hari bol, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hari bol, Hare Kṛṣṇa!" and they responded by swinging their bodies. 

Seeing them Gurudev became happy and he would go back to his room and then the birds would fly away and eat.  How did those birds understand that Gurudev returned to Kolkata maṭh?  When Gurudev is not there in the maṭh, they were not waiting there for him; they just came and went. I do not understand how they know when Gurudev came back to the maṭh.  These are some of the incidents that highlight the depth of those words jiveshu koti matravatsesu snigdha hradaye ca... which glorify his qualities. 

There were other instances also when small mice often disturbed him. When these small mice bit his books wherein he wrote his Gurudev's words, he was very much disappointed. He expressed to his sevāks, "Oh these books are my very life and the mice are eating that." So the sevāks were very angry and said, "Gurudev, we will catch them and throw them out. "How do you catch them?" Gurudev asked. They brought a mouse trap and the next morning Gurudev saw mice in the cage he was very happy. Oh no, you are in the cage and you will be punished.  Then he called the sevāk and told him to take them and free them in the park where they can get food.  "You should not free them on the road, otherwise they will die," he explained. And this became a routine: every day they caught some mice and took them out. 

One early morning a small mouse's tail became trapped in the shutter. Gurudev heard the mouse making noise.  When he put on the light and saw the mouse's tail trapped, he immediately called the sevāk and told him to free him immediately without taking the time to leave the room. They did that and then Gurudev was pacified. And after that Gurudev did not allow the sevāks to keep the trap in his room.  Can you imagine this kind of loving nature for every entity?  

Gurudev has hardly given his direct remnants to any of his devotees, maybe only very few persons had the fortune to get it directly from Gurudev's hands. But Gurudev's sevāk Śrī Rādhākānta Prabhu saw that while taking his food, Gurudev would reserve some rice on the side of his plate and when he went into the bathroom he took it with him. He observed that Gurudev had put that rice in the corner of the bathroom. So he asked Gurudev if he could clean the rice from there. Gurudev told him, "No, no, no— they will come." Who will come to the bathroom to take that? Śrī Rādhākānta Prabhu was wondering. After some time he went to check there and found so many ants coming to receive the prasādam. Seeing that, he felt so blissful and told me, "See our Gurudev's beautiful nature. He loves small ants, mice, pigeons, doves, and everyone. One mother can love her one son, and a cow can love only two or ten persons, but Gurudev is loving every entity.  This is his beautiful nature.

—Śrī Bhakti Prasun Madhusūdana Mahārāj

Spoken in English, excerpted from BhaktiZoom Seva Team, Guru Purnima 2021 (5)