Pranamami Guru Tirtha Padam

The Present Acharya of All India Sree Chaitanya Gaudiya Math (Registered) Pujyapad Tridandiswami Srimad Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Goswami Maharaj’s Life History in brief

Respected Maharaj,

In 1924 C.E. on the day of Rama Navami with the help of father Sri Dhirendra Kumar Guhu Ray and mother Srimati Sudhanshubala Devi in the Goalpara district of Assam, you had performed your appearance past-time.

"Vaisnava kabhu janma mrityu nai. Sange aisen sange jayen thatai" —Vaishnavas do not have birth and death. They come and go.

Among all the sons of your father, you were the dearest. As per the wish of your father, you completed secondary, higher secondary, college, and at the university level, you completed M.A. in philosophy with distinction marks. The money that you had acquired from teaching for a short span was completely offered to your father, which made your father’s affection towards you grow even more. Since your childhood days, your devotion towards your parents, good qualitie…

Our biggest misfortune is we do not see Gurudeva as Guru, we see him mortal, human. This is the greatest obstacle in the path of bhajan. If we do not see him Guru, how we will serve him? Despite serving Gurudeva, in spite of being very near to him, one may fall down. Why? We see him as a mortal, by this, we go to hell. So first we need to know who is Guru, (Guru tattva).

The way we worship Supreme Lord, in the same way, we have to worship Gurudeva. We are fortunate to have Guru non-different from Supreme Lord, we have to follow his instructions, imbibe his teachings.

Srimad Bhakti Pramod Puri Goswami Maharaj had said when Tirtha Maharaj does kirtan, I feel as though Gaur Nitai dance in that kirtan. Also had said whom you see as Tirtha Maharaj I see him as Madhav Goswami Maharaj.

He also said that our Gurudeva is tape recorder of Param Gurudeva. Why a tape recorder? Because he would note down and repeat the very words of his Gurudeva, even examples, illustrations and would not p…

Firstly, I offer flowers at his lotus-feet and humbly pray to show mercy and accept the flowers offered to him by this fallen one. Just as the appearance day of the Lord himself is extremely holy, similarly his devotee’s appearance day is equally holy. Today is the appearance day of supreme human Lord Sri Ramachandra, and as today is also the appearance day of our revered Maharaj it definitely bears some kind of significance.

The Lord appears on the face of this earth in order to save the living world, in this respect our revered Vaishnava crown-jeweled Maharaj for the welfare of the living being of this world as per the wishes of the Bhagawatam and appeared on the face of this earth. God himself has said that more than my worship the worship of my devotee is great. Hence all of us will assemble together and offer our worships unto his lotus-feet. With that he will be extremely satisfied and happy with us and will shower us with his merciful blessings.

The most respected Maharaj- eng…

One devotee came to me and asked if I knew any pure devotee. I said with Srila Tirtha Maharaj, you cannot go wrong. Dandavat pranams. Please bless us to become a worthy servant of our siksa Guru.

The grace of his divine grace cannot be imagined. Arriving in Mayapur, I met him as he came out from the samadhi of Srila Bhakti Dayita Madhava Maharaj.

Seeing him gave my heart a jolt of home-feeling. But then he recognized my presence and came over to me to give me a hug. I felt in the arms of divinity itself. No proper words can describe it —a  hug from above for a fallen soul. I could only feel that tears were pressing on my eyes. We remember many moments like this where we felt his deep love and concern for all.

Srila Tirtha Maharaj is a leader in his own style—one- pointed devotion to dedicated service for the one and only Lord of love and his surrendered servitor. I also remember his eloquence and style to pronounce the prayers and to give pranams after the kirtan.

He is unique. Love …

I had the good fortune to have the association of Srila Bhakti Ballabha Tirtha Maharaja. His spiritual master, His Divine Grace Srila Bhakti Dayita Madhava Maharaja was kind enough to allow me to stay in his ashram in Kolkata. He personally 
put me in the care of His Divine Grace Srila Bhakti Ballabha Tirtha Maharaja while I was there.

Later, His Divine Grace Bhakti Dayita Madhava Maharaja was made a trustee of AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Charity Trust. After his departure to the spiritual world, His Divine Grace Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Maharaja was kind enough to continue the role of being a trustee of the AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Trust.

It was customary that he would speak some Harikatha on the occasion of our meeting of those meetings He would speak so that we would all be reminded of our primary purpose of Krishna Consciousness to serve the Pancha Tattva with words, thoughts, and deeds.

From then on, year after year, I met with him to work out strategies on how to preserve the holy places o…

His Holiness Srila Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Goswami Maharaja, 

I bow my head and prostrate my body at your lotus feet. 

Upon being invited to share my heart on the holy occasion of your Vyasa Puja, I am grateful.
 

I am remembering the precious times that we spent together, sometimes in the hills of Sri Brajabhumi or at other times in the hills of Marin County, California. Wherever in the world you are, you are ever absorbed in dispelling materialistic and impersonal misconceptions while sharing your heart's love for the divine service of Sri Guru and Sri Gauranga.

We have all been blessed by your heartfelt humility, deep wisdom of the Bhakti Sastras, and profound compassion to all beings. 

Your lifetime of loving service is a brilliant light that reveals, for people in this world of darkness, the infinite flow of grace that is forever descending from the hearts of Sri Sri Radha Gopinath and floods the world through the merciful Acaryas of our Gaudiya Parampara. On this sacred day of your…

Today is the appearance day Lord Sri Ramachandra and Sripad Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Maharaj, Acharya of All India Sree Chaitanya Gaudiya Math.  Appearance Day of both the Lord and Devotee has arisen together today.  Singing glories of Vaishnavas is most beneficial for us.  It liberates the jivas.

Sripad Maharaj did not become Acharya himself.  He accepted the position of Acharya on the instructions of and to fulfill the desire of his Gurudev.  A long time ago when I was at Goalpara Math in Assam along with Pujyapad Madhava Maharaj, one of our god-sister asked Pujyapad Madhava Maharaj, “You are not keeping well. After you who will perform the duties of Acharya?   Have you made any arrangements for this?”

Pujyapad Madhava Maharaj smiled and told her, “Yes, I know. I will make perfect arrangements before I go. God-sister asked who will you appoint? Maharaj replied, “I will not mention his name now, but the one whom I nominate will be even better than me.”

I was also hearing this conversat…

Srila Bhakti Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Maharaj appeared on the day of Ramnavami on the appearance day of Lord Ramchandra. Ramchandra is Maryada Purushottam, an incarnation of the principle of honoring established order. I have seen in his entire character how he gives due respect and honor to everyone like Lord Ram did. Ramchandra's nature and Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Goswami Maharaj's nature are the same.

I have seen how he was always respectful towards his god brothers and how he taught this also to his disciples— this is really an exemplary teaching to give due respect to everyone. It is also my personal feeling that his teachings are really valuable for the Vaishnava community, especially amongst our societies as well as all Chaitanya Mahaprabhu's Mission.

Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur gave the instructions to us that in order to chant happily, we have to keep due respect to all Vaishnavas, and Srila Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Goswami Maharaj is an embodiment of that example. He was …

Like a real acharya, he would walk bare foot in Dham parikramas whether in water, mud, or dirt.  He would say by the association of devotees, devotion will come, as if speaking of himself as ordinary. He would go by walk village to village and sit down in poor huts and take prasadam there, not on a chair.  He did not go to make prachar or make any devotees, he went everywhere so that he become a devotee. With that thought he went.
Gurudeva is Tirtha Himself. pilgrimage place, dham himself.  Tirtham kurvanti tirthani..  He is an embodiment of tirtha, all pilgrimage places are in his heart and converts all places he visits into tirthas. 
—Sri Krishna Sharan Das, Hyderabad

The main thing about my whole experience of Parikrama with Guru Maharaj was the very high intensity of Gurudeva while loudly chanting Sankirtan and the way he would explain everything in very simplified terms.

All sorts of people used to come in Parikrama – people from North India, Mumbai, Bengal, Assam, South India; there were people who were well educated and qualified, people who were from rural village backgrounds, and old ladies. All kinds of people were there, but I felt all were feeling spontaneous attraction for Gurudeva equally, irrespective of their bodies and backgrounds.

Guru Maharaj always said, "You are acting as a Guru because you are sitting in front of me, and that is forcing me to think about Mahaprabhu and speak. That is what my Guru Maharaj ordered, and you are facilitating that – this is Guru Karya. Guru Karya means the work of Guru which you are doing.”

I also have heard on Ramnavami day that Guru Maharaj would say, "Shishyas also act as Guru, because th…

Our first parikrama of Sri Navadvip dham was beyond our imagination in essence and magnitude. Even without knowing the glories of Sri Dham, we had been blessed with the chance to be part of such great fortune only by the grace of our beloved Gurudeva! That year was also the occasion commemorating the Golden 50th Sannyas year of our beloved Gurudeva, and thousands of devotees performed aratika of our Gurudeva during that great event that took place on the 14th of March, 2011.


On that blessed evening, I was one among many volunteers and we readied ghee lamps for all devotees to perform aratika of our Gurudev. We were instructed to stand at different places in the huge pandal with water filled buckets so that after arotika, devotees could douse the lamps in the water so as to avoid any untoward accidental fire.


Gurudeva had adorned the stage with acharyas from various maths, and keeping some hundreds of sannyasi disciples of Gurudeva in the front, thousands of devotees were on their t…

Mahabhagavats will come, and they will show us the path and will encourage us. That is our only goal. We belonged here from before a time we can remember. You see, Guru Maharaj joined the Mission in 1947 and up to the time our Math was established by Srila Param Gurudeva, Guru Maharaj was staying at Chaitanya Math with Param Gurudeva. Guru Maharaj said we are also originally belonging to Chaitanya Math.

Our sankirtan party used to sit and take prasad in the open under so many trees. From there we used to go Srivas Angan. It would very difficult to go till the time we would reach Kazi Samadhi. 

Guru Maharaj was worried when it was going to become dark as there were many people that could be lost along the way.  I remember from Kazi Samadhi than every one was tired. After prostrating, many were feeling like catching a rickshaw since we had been going on foot the whole day.

Then I remember Guru Maharaj getting up with his Tridanda in hand. He started singing Haro Bol Bolo Bhai, Haro Bol Bo…

Once during Navadwip dham parikrama, we were going to Narsimha Pali holding a big umbrella over Guruji and were literally running, as our feet were blazing. But Guru Maharaj was very calm and unaffected.

He was singing and dancing in kirtan and was going towards Narsimha Pali. Guruji often used to say in hari-katha, “Vande Navdeepam Parama Sukhadam," I offer my obeisance to Navadwip dham which is greatly blissful. He used to say that there is no dham like it, but we did not understand it then.

So, in that mood he would perform kirtan for one hour, “Jai Dau Jai Dau Nrsimha dever Jai Dau Jai Dau!” Then he would do Harikatha on the glories of that place. After that he would take prasad and proceed, further singing kirtans. He would enchant everyone that they would dance in ecstasy.

—Srila Bhakti Vilas Tridandi Maharaj

Once during the month of Kartik, we were at Syama kunda of Sree Chaitanya Gaudiya math in Mayapur sitting at the lotus feet of most dear Srila Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Goswami Maharaj. All devotees were in ananda by taking the darsan of his sweet and smiling lotus face and merciful glances. Kirtan was going on. I was sitting just next to his lotus feet. Then I start to pray to him internally, looking at him:


Guru Maharaj, what will I do? I see that Srila Bhaktisidhanta Saraswati Thakur made this Gaudiya maths only to give shelter to male devotees. They can live in the math peacefully engaged in them seva and bhajan. They don’t need to worry anymore about them own maintenance since Math will provide them anything they need. In this way, they have your shelter, but what about someone like me, a woman devotee? There is no shelter for me in the Gaudiya maths. And I want to also just engage my life in Hari bhajan and service to Vaisnavas...


In this way, I was just lamenting and looking t…