His Eternal Presence

By
I remember the Vraja-maṇḍala parikramā that was performed in 1987. During the last days of the parikramā in Sree Chaitanya Gaudiya Math, Gokul-Mahavan, our Most Revered Śrīla Guru Mahārāja, His Divine Grace Śrīla Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Mahārāja, raised a question to himself in order to instruct us: “As we increase our endeavor for devotion, our attachment to this world increases rather than our attachment to the Supreme Lord. Why is this so?”
 
While Śrīla Guru Mahārāja was delivering a transcendental discourse from his lotus mouth, I recorded the divine and sublime words of Guru Mahārāja. To purify my heart and to please the devotees who have affection for Śrī Guru, I am making a small attempt to present the same transcendental words as they are:

"Here I have done my self-examination. So many days have been spent doing parikramā, following vaiṣṇavas, and chanting the Lord’s name loudly. You might be thinking that I am doing a lot of kīrtana, and dancing. But what is the result? The heart is still as polluted as before. Śaraṇāgati must be missing. There is some fault in our surrender. Nāma-aparādha and dhāma-aparādha is going on. That is why we are not getting the desired results. To bestow mercy on us, our Gurujī, who is the dear most of the Supreme Lord, gave us shelter and installed his object of worship at different places in this holy dhāma for our eternal benefit. Gurujī is always present here. Just as the Lord is always present everywhere, Gurujī (His manifestation) is also eternally present. Therefore, we pray at the lotus feet of Gurujī to have mercy on our miserable condition."

—Śrī Kṛṣṇananda Das 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"She Has Gone to Goloka-dhāma "

By
Image
Guru Mahārāja is not an ordinary person; he is sent by the Supreme Lord to rescue all of us. In the office, if we are working in one place, we may be deputed to another place to do some work. Similarly, Gurudeva has been deputed from Goloka-dhāma to help us. Guru Mahārāja has come here to fulfill the desire of Hari-Guru-Vaishnavas. In 1997, I received harināma in Gokula-Mahāvana along with my  dharmapatnī , my wife. Guru Mahārāja asked my wife, "If something bad has happened to you, how do you take this? As if Gurudeva is at fault, or as if other persons are at fault?” My wife replied, “Whatever happens, I think it is good for me, by your arrangement.” In 2013, my wife was detected with breast cancer, and later left this world. Some devotees came to the maṭha and gave the news to Gurudeva. Gurudeva replied, "She has gone to Goloka-dhāma." In the hospital, I remember when my wife was in the ICU, and the doctor came and told me, "Your wife is in the fina
Read more

He Accepts Every Circumstance With Utmost Humility

By
Image
I heard something very deep and nice from a devotee that I met in Switzerland. He told me about how he had been staying at a temple there while Guru Mahārāja was visiting.  He said that the maṭha-in-charge expressed his desire that Gurudeva speak about Bhāgavatam. But then an order came that he was not allowed to speak there. In the room where the Bhāgavatam reading was, there was a young boy,. He was maybe only three months in the maṭha and recently came out of a completely material life, eating meat, smoking, etc. Anyway, he was the only one who had permission to speak about Bhāgavatam. And what did Guru Mahārāja do? He entered the room, bowed down to this boy and he sat in front of this boy and listened to his Bhāgavatam reading. This is his humbleness. This is always the way; they teach by example, not by punishing or whatever. When this maṭha-in-charge saw this whole situation, he decided in one moment to leave this institution forever. Although he left that organization, he did
Read more

Capture It in Your Heart

By
Image
In 2005, I decided to visit Jagannāth Puri for Ratha-yātrā. It was my first visit to any maṭha after harināma . The first thing I did was to equip myself with a film SLR camera anticipating interesting moments and visuals. Every year from then on, the camera always accompanied me, so much so that most of the time, I used to take snapshots more than actually participating. In 2010 or maybe 2011, I was staying in Mumbai. A few devotees wanted to purchase a camera for the maṭha-sevā , and, supposing I knew a bit about cameras, I accompanied them along for the purchase. Some research was done, and we picked up a Canon SLR and a couple of lenses. Soon after that, we went off to Jagannāth Puri. We were excited about the visit. It was during Ratha-yātrā, and Śrī Gurudeva was there for some days. A special darśan was organized for the Mumbai devotees. We walked in and offered praṇāms . As usual, I was holding the camera and shooting from many angles. At some point, I went closer to join the
Read more