He Read My Heart and Spoke to Me Without Words

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I am from South Africa and I did not know anything about Śrīla Gurudev until I met Him with some god-parents who are disciples of Śrīla Bhakti Pramod Puri Gosvāmī Mahārāj. By some good fortune, I was able to meet Śrīla Gurudev in Delhi. 

I have been in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness from a young age in the ISKCON Gurukul in Mayapur, but I had not met anyone who touched my heart. But when I met Śrīla Gurudev, he was beyond my comprehension of how sweet and how merciful someone could be. I was like a young kid sitting beside my aunts who were speaking with him while I just listened, but Guru Mahārāj kept looking at me and smiling. His smile and his look shook something in my heart and I became entranced sitting in front of Him. 

Gurudev kept on talking to me.  He was asking me what I am doing here and I said, “I am just passing through.”  And He said, “On a spiritual journey, it is always good to have a guide.” And at that moment I felt that Gurudev was offering me his hand and his guidance. This conversation went on for a while.  

I was feeling embarrassed because he was not paying so much attention to my god-parents who were asking him something. He was just talking to me. I kept looking away from Guru Mahārāj though I could not stop looking into his face at the same time. There were some tears coming and my heart was melting; I did not know what was really taking place.  

But at the end of this meeting, my aunt said, "If there is anything you would like to ask, now is the time. And when I spoke I realized this whole conversation I had with Guru Mahārāj was not spoken with words; He was reading my heart. He was speaking both externally and internally and I was responding without words. And he continued to speak to me like this.  This was my first meeting with Gurudev and I became totally captivated.  

When I left my darśan with Gurudev my heart melted. My ego was thinking what is going on? How I am connecting with this personality? I felt it was on a much deeper level that my spirit soul was being embraced by Guru Mahārāj. I knew that at this opportunity, I could not let it pass and I asked Gurudev that same day if he would consider giving me initiation. I took initiation in 2008.

I went to Guwahati when Guru Mahārāj was performing his sickness pastimes. At that time Guru Mahārāj was no longer talking. But it was quite difficult for me to feel like I was there but I couldn't really talk with Guru Mahārāj physically. But Guru Mahārāj was always guiding me, always so sweet, even when he was performing illness pastimes. His energy and guidance came by just a glance then, but just a glance gave everything; that was food for my bhakti.

—Kṛṣṇa Govinda Das

transcribed from Vyasa puja offerings, 25th April 2021 in the Honor of 97th appearance day of Śrīla Gurudev


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