Praṇamāmi Guru Tīrtha Padaṁ

The word susnigdha is very beautiful. Susnigdha means a heart as soft as butter for every living entity. His nature towards his godbrothers was among the most important things which I observed in his life. Some godbrothers are very favorable towards Gurudev, and some others have other sevās and do not have much attachment with Gurudev.  But for them, Gurudev is always like an umbrella who felt everything should come on himself and his god-brothers should stay peacefully. When our godbrothers were seeing that the actions of guru-varga are not favorable in our Gurudev's service or preaching activities, they become angry, but Gurudev always takes their anger onto himself.   He would say, "You should say what you need to say to me, don't say anything to my godbrothers. I don't want to hear any complaints about my godbrothers." When some of Gurudev's godbrothers had some issues, our god-brothers lost self-control and spoke to Gurudev about it. Then Gurudev told t

guru, vaiṣṇava, bhagavān, — tinera smaraṇa tinera smaraṇe haya vighna-vināśana anāyāse haya nija vāñchita-pūraṇa ( Caitanya-caritāmṛta , Ādi 1.20-21) How did a person like me get the fortune of attaining the shelter of the lotus feet of our Gurujī, a pure Vaiṣṇava? No one in our village nor our family has attained the shelter of a pure vaiṣṇava like I did. I had no strength of piety, knowledge, or austerities; it was only by Gurujī's causeless mercy that I attained his shelter. There are many sādhus (gosāis) in Assam who give mantras but lack good conduct.  My elder brother was living in the railway quarters in Guwahati and during my holidays, I went from Medhnipur to Guwahati. I had not studied much up until that point. As I was wandering around, I came across our Sree Caitanya Gauḍīya Maṭha which is near my brother's quarters. I entered slowly and found vaiṣṇavas performing arāti-kirtan . I had only heard about the Ramakṛṣṇa Mission and Bharat-sevā saṁhiti but had not seen G

Many of Gurudeva's godbrothers and Guru-varga did not support him and backed out when he was attending many court cases and meeting many Government officials during the re-claiming of Prabhupāda's birthplace in Śrī Jagannath Puri. They felt it is not devotional to get into controversies and litigations with opposing parties. But Gurudeva's reply was that "I do not know what is bhajana and what is not. But this is my Gurudeva's innermost desire that we establish a maṭha on the birthplace of Prabhupāda and I am just serving my Gurudeva's wish." And when the case was won the same people came in to congratulate him and expressed their great pleasure at the success of his efforts. Illness is just one of the innumerable pastimes of Gurudeva. He is performing this to give his mercy and sevā opportunities to all his disciples, close sevāks and associates, and also to doctors and nursing staff at the hospital. What sevā ? Śrāvaṇa , kirtan , and smaraṇa of Guru

Once In Gokul, quite a few maṭhavasis and others left. My job was to do the cooking in the morning and later clean the pots and pans. After maṅgala arāti one day, I saw there was a statue of Ambedkar in front of our temple. He had formed the constitution of India and had come from a lower caste and people of those castes considered him godly and almost worshiped him. They installed the statue of Ambedkar pointing his finger in the direction of the temple. They encroached on the maṭha property when they did this.  Politicians would play their politics and later blame it on somebody else, but they also instigated them. They had planned to disfigure the deities of our temple. They had a meeting in Matura and then another in Gokul. One day when I finished the sevā of washing vessels, I went to take bath. Sādhu Mahārāja and two brahmacārīs were doing kirtan and we found a crowd outside the temple making noise.  I woke up Rādhāpriya Prabhu (Bhakti Svarūpa  Akiñcana Mahārāja, Param

Hearing and singing of the glories of Gurudeva are the most auspicious activities for the devotees and should be performed by all whether eligible or ineligible, first praying for the grace of Gurudeva. Seeing our efforts, Guru imparts us the power to sing their glories in kirtans and kathas . Śrāvaṇa-kirtan of Gurudeva's glories is the backbone of our devotional life. The strength of our relation with Bhagavān is directly proportional to the strength of our deep bond with our Guru, because He is our connecting link to Bhagavān. He is so merciful he accepts us as we are (the most ineligible), prepares us by imparting saṃbandh jñāna and making us eligible for bhāgavat sevā . Without saṃbandh-jñāna , we cannot enter into the field of abhidheya , the practice of devotion. Sākṣād-dharitvena samasta-śāstraiḥ : All scriptures sing that the Guru is Sākṣād Hari, non-different from Bhagavān. So Guru possesses all the unlimited qualities like Bhagavān of which there are sixty-four main q