He Gives His Heart Completely in Service

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I understand that Guru Mahārāj started to write the Kārtik Handbook in 2002 out of compassion for foreign devotees who were coming to observe Kārtik-vratā as they had no guide to understand what was being spoken. For the benefit of all those devotees who could not understand Bengali or Hindi, Guru Mahārāj took a very special effort to translate specially selected portions from Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākur's Bhajan Rahasya.
During the time when he was compiling the Kārtik Handbook, Guru Mahārāj's extreme amount of care and affection was astounding. As I was listening to these pastimes being recounted, I could feel what genuine compassion Guru Mahārāj had for all those persons requiring translation. Day in and day out, he was contemplating the very best words to use. While eating, sleeping, and taking bath, while doing any activity—he was only concentrating on that service.

I had the experience of sometimes feeling the need to interrupt Guru Mahārāj's service in order to help him attend to his practical needs. Sometimes we would push Guru Mahārāj to the bathroom and say, ''Guru Mahārāj, take bath, take bath,'' and we would forcefully give him a gamsha in his hand and say, ''Just wear this." He would then often go all the way to the bathroom door and then not enter and come back and start writing again. Why? Because he just cannot stop. He had something that he wants to finish and then he will do it with full dedication. Whatever service he performed, he gave his heart completely.

Sometimes when Guru Mahārāj was exhibiting the pastime of forgetfulness he might seem stuck in one place without finding the appropriate word to write. I would prompt him with one word and he wouldn't accept that, and I'd offer another and another, but still, he was not satisfied. When I could not give any more synonyms, Guru Mahārāj asked me to take that book, take this book, refer to this book, refer to that book, and ultimately, he would come up with such a word that we have not even thought about that was so accurate and perfect! I would think, "Oh wow! How did I miss this word? So simple!" It is our mentality that whatever we do, we want to just quickly finish it off, but Guru Mahārāj is never like that.

He told me several times on different occasions, ''You should write in such a way that there is no misunderstanding possible there because every word can carry different meanings. Now you have to understand from the perspective of a reader and try to give the meaning properly so there is no ambiguity left.''

I have heard that among the glories of Śrīla Siddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākur's writing, one of the greatest aspects was that his words could not be interpreted this way or that way—there is only one single meaning that will come out of Prabhupād's words. Śrīla Prabhupāda's writing is so crystal clear and perfect. Our Gurudev was also like that.

—Śrī Bhakti Suhrid Paramadvati Mahārāj

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