His Pastimes with Lord Jagannath (2010)

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Excerpted from a report dated July 19, 2010:

Our Most Revered Srila Gurudev Om Vishnupad 108 Sri Srimad Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Goswami Maharaj attended the Annual Ratha Yatra Festival of Lord Baladev, Subhadra and Jagannath in Sri Kshetra Puri Dham for the first time in 5 years.

While in Puri Dham, Srila Gurudev initiated 46 devotees in to Harinam and 12 devotees took diksha on the day of Rath Yatra. Later in the afternoon, he had seen devotees pulling the carts of Baladev, Subhadra and Jagannath with devotion. We observed tears rolling down His cheeks on a few occasions.

The next day, His Divine Grace went to Gundicha Mandir to have darsan of the Deities on the carts. One Brahmin named Sri Ram Panda took Srila Gurudev close to the Rath and cleared the crowd in front of Sri Jagannath. Devotees shouted "Hari Bol, Jai Jagannath" after getting His Darsan.

A day after that, Srila Gurudev went to the seashore to take darsan. He offered His respects to the ocean, sprinkled some water on his head and said, "I had come here several times when I was young. Even now I remember. This ocean is Divine. We should not come here with a tendency to enjoy. We should offer our obeisances and also not put our feet in the waters. Mahaprabhu used to come here." From there we drove Him to Chakratirtha, and later he was taken to Sri Jagannath temple before reaching our Math.

Srila Gurudev also attended the Chandan Yatra, Snan Yatra, and Ratha Yatra of Sri Jagannathdev consecutively in this same year.

In May this year he also went to Agartala for Chandan Yatra. In June he was at Chakdah for Snan Yatra.





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