Surrendering to the Divine Professor

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I came to Śrīla Gurudeva Bhakti Ballabha Tīrtha Gosvāmī Mahārāja after becoming his first non-endian full-time disciple. I was initiated in 1995 at Śrīdhāma Vṛndāvana on Baladeva Pūrṇimā at the end of the Rādhā-Govinda Jhulan-yātrā festival of Sree Caitanya Gauḍīya Maṭha.

On my second trip to India in 1996, I approached him with the idea to study Sanskrit. Gurudeva replied, "You did not come to me, you came to learn something."

It meant I came with the desire not to serve the Guru but to learn something for myself. I clearly understood that Gurudeva gave me a choice to become an independent scholar in Sanskrit or to be his fully dedicated disciple. 

I still insisted on my studies anyway. Gurudeva agreed with my desire and allowed me to live in Kolkata maṭha while I was attending Kolkata Sanskrit College, the same college where Śrīla Prabhupāda Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura studied one hundred years before. A professor of Sanskrit there asked me, “What do you want to learn? We spent a lifetime in such studies, but have never reached the goal. You already dedicated yourself as a devotee of Śrī Kṛṣṇa and lived in the maṭha; this means you knew something more than we do.” 

When I heard this, I came to Gurudeva and told him that now that my worldly education was over, I would serve guru and vaiṣṇavas as they liked, and not the way I wanted. After that, I started accompanying Gurudeva all over India as his first personal secretary, typing his letters and English articles and books in preparation for his first foreign preaching tours in 1997. 

—Vṛndāvana Dāsa, Ukraine



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