Guru Mahārāja [Śrīla Bhakti Dayita Mādhava Gosvāmī Mahārāja] did not leave us with his intentions written only in his heart. Already during his manifest pastimes, even two years before his disappearance, he declared and broadcast everywhere: “If I die, or if for some reason any other difficulty occurs, Bhakti Ballabha Tirtha Mahārāja shall sit in my position. I am seating him as my successor. No one can have any objection to this.” As Guru Mahārāja is antaryāmī (inward-knower), having received Prabhupāda's mercy, he also foresaw that in his absence, Śrīla Tirtha Mahārāja would have no difficulty running the maṭha. For this reason, Guru Mahārāja declared Śrīla Tirtha Mahārāja as the next Ācārya before his own departure. When our Gurudeva disappeared, dark clouds in the form of adversities or misunderstanding were cast over the maṭha, but the way that Śrīla Tirtha Mahārāja has preserved Śrīla Guru Mahārāja’s vani (instructions) is beyond words. We have been with him and witnessed t...
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...
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 ...
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