Praṇamāmi Guru Tīrtha Padaṁ

With a few words, I want to describe what I have learned from Gurudev. When I came to the maṭha , I had a desire to live in Vṛndāvana.  In 2003 I did kārtika-vrat in Delhi with Guru Mahārāja. In 2004 I attended kārtika-vrat in Bathinda. In 2006 I was coming from Vṛndāvana to Kolkata, Gurudev was in Delhi at that time. Gurudev called me and told me that I should go to Māyāpur where Śrī Nārāyaṇa Mahārāja was in charge of Māyāpur at that time and I was to assist him. I had no desire to leave Vṛndāvana and go there, though I had no understanding of the tattva of Vṛndāvana.  Gurudev said so lovingly to me that I could not say no to him. I had heard that Gauḍīya-maṭha is like a spiritual school and we are the students, and the Guru and Vaiṣṇavas are like professors. So I came to Māyāpur on ekādaśī day. I had some biscuits given to me by a devotee and I gave it to a dog in the maṭha . At that time I did not know that grain should not be offered to anybody on ekādaśī . And when I ga...

I heard the voice of Śrīla Tirtha Mahārāj in my dream; he was asking me to go to Goalpara. I said, “I have an intense desire.” Then he said, “You go there.” When I awoke, I was contemplating how to go. I took a bath and I came for arāti , but I was constantly thinking about this dream. After arāti , I asked everyone to please allow me to go to Goalpara. I then revealed to them that Tirtha Mahārāj had asked me to go there in my dream. They said, “You have no ticket.” I left Gokul and went to Delhi. I asked a devotee there if he could get a tatkal or general ticket for me.  He booked general tickets for both of us.  Another devotee said, “How will you travel in general class?”  I said, “I can go, no problem.” There was another devotee of Śrīla Prabhupad, Mr.Bharadwaj. On the way, we met and he asked where I was going. He said, “Actually I have two spare tickets, would you like to avail them to travel?” The other devotee went and returned the general...

Āśraya loiyā bhaje kṛṣṇa tāre nāhi tyāje [One who executes devotional service, taking shelter of bona fide spiritual master, Kṛṣṇa will never give him up. He will accept him.] —Śrī Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura One should perform devotional practices by taking complete shelter of the lotus feet of sad-guru . Complete means in all respects, not just by taking dīkṣā .  As one guru and  śiṣya story goes: Gurudeva likes one disciple more than anyone else, talks to him more, only calls him for work, help, etc., and others question their Gurudeva as to why this is. Gurudeva says, "Fine!  We will hold a discussion about this tomorrow.” Gurudeva gives everyone one coconut each and asks them to cut it where no one can see them and then bring it back to him. All come with the cut coconuts but the priya-śiṣya does not come and other disciples become curious as to why he did not turn up.  He comes in the evening.  Seeing him Gurudeva scolds him, “Why are you so late, all other...

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 h...

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 an...

During his antya-līlā Guru Mahārāj engaged all of us in the kirtan sevā . Even in Guwahati while in the ICU, Guru Mahārāj engaged all the devotees in kirtans . By the causeless mercy of Guru Mahārāj, maybe we have developed a small measure of love for Guru Mahārāj. But in the hospital, the nurses, ward boys, doctors, and other persons who were serving there were attracted to Guru Mahārāj. It was practically impossible for even a family's closest person to visit a patient in ICU, but Guru Mahārāj was so merciful that he had a separate room in ICU and there was a long queue to have darśan of Guru Mahārāj and all would get his darśan .   We heard from Gurudev's sevāks that the doctors and the attendant staff of the hospital would first offer praṇāms to Guru Mahārāj before proceeding to check his health status. Even though he was not speaking, he was a true Ācārya because he showed through his perfect conduct ( ācaraṇa ) how the life of a devotee is. Everything that he preache...

By the mercy of Kṛṣṇa, my parents and I got the shelter of our Guru Mahārāj on January 13, 1999.  I was in school then. Previously we had been visiting ISKCON and probably were not aware of taking shelter of guru . Our god-brother Devakīnandan Prabhu came to Mumbai on pracār and took the lead to get us initiation. We saw Guru Mahārāj for the very first time on our initiation day. We never knew about Guru Mahārāj before that, nor had we heard about Sree Caitanya Gauḍīya Maṭh. Since that day we have been seeing the mercy of Guru Mahārāj flowing in different ways; the unfortunate part is that we do not realize it immediately.  I have seen and experienced the affection, love, and care of Guru Mahārāj in a parental mood.   When we visited Jagannāth Puri for Rathayātrā in 2012, Devotees would stand in a queue for darśan of Guru Mahārāj. That year I had met with an accident and hence had to miss the Gaura-pūrṇimā festival.  We had not spoken about this to anyone in the ma...