Every Interaction With Him Contains Instructions

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In 2002, Srila Gurudev would arrive to Slovenia by car from Italy directly for the hall program in capital city Ljubljana and after the program He would move to one village for his residence. The hall program was to start at 6 pm and Srila Gurudev would arrive at noon or so from Italy and we planned that Gurudev would be taking rest before the program in the small apartment in Ljubljana where Bosudha Dasi (His disciple) was staying at that time. Gurudev arrived at abour 2 or 3 pm from Italy and I took Him and Anantaram prabhu with car to this apartment. In the car Gurudev told me that it is not good for a Matha-vasi brahmacari to secretly intimately associate with lady devotee and they (Matha-vasis) should not marry without first taking permission from Guru. He was speaking about one of His disciples and He showed His omniscience that He knows everything about him.

When we reached apartment, before entering Srila Gurudev humbly asked me whether He has to take off His shoes (in trinad api sunicena mood, without any pride that "I'm Guru, Acharya, Sadhu guest etc".) I told Him respectfully that He may do as He likes. So Gurudev entered with his shoes on, but when He entered into the room where He was supposed to take rest, He suddenly saw that on closet there were the photos of Srila Param Gurudev and Srila Prabhupad that Bosudha had placed there that were given to her at the time of her Harinam diksa. With great awe and reverence He exclaimed: "Oh! Gurudev is here!" and also with worry, because His shoes were on. It was not like He was seeing the "photo" but I felt He was directly seeing His Gurudev and spoke as such, saying, "Gurudev is here!" Then He immediately went out of the room, took off the sandals and came back and gave full prostrated obeisance to Param Gurudev and Prabhupad. Then I showed Him the bed on which He was supposed to rest and He was first checking whether the height of the bed was lower or higher than the position of photos. And it was about the same height, we could not clearly determine. So Gurudev didn't want to take any risk so He told me if I can first cover the photos with some cloth. I was searching (Bosudha was not there at that time, only us three) but could not find appropriate cloth. Gurudev saw me and then He said: "Ok, then you turn Them around". I did that and then Gurudev peacefully sat on the bed.

Then immediately He asked me: "Where do devotees meet here (in Slovenia)" I replied that we are not meeting, as devotees are doing their Harinam in their homes on japa-malas. Gurudev said: "This is not good. Only if Gurudev gives permission to some, they can do in seclusion, but that is for highly elevated devotees, not for all. Mahaprabhu is very happy if devotees gather together and congregationally worship Krishna. You should do this, you should meet at least once in a week". I said ok. And by His grace from that time on, we could do this (before we tried but we were not successful).

Then Gurudev took one apple prasad. Then I told Him with some regret or apology mood that maybe today not so many people will come to the program. I was thinking that Gurudev should not be disappointed that He has to travel here with so much difficulty and then not so many people will be there. Gurudev replied with full peace: "Why you are worried? Those who have sukriti will come. You should not worry about this. Sukadev Goswami came for only one person, Pariksit Maharaj". I realised that Gurudev is really only doing service to Krishna, not having any other target (for name and fame or for collecting many followers, etc.). If Krishna sends Him to any place for only one person with sukriti, Gurudev is eagerly ready and happy to do that service, no matter what difficulties may be involved.

Then He was reading something and then at about 5 pm He was thinking to do sandhya vandana but then He first asked me, "When is the sunset here?" I replied it will be around 8.15 pm (as it was Summer time). And He already knew we would also need about 20 min to reach to the hall and program has to start at 6 pm, so He said: "Oh, ok, then I will do it after the program. It is not good to do it hastily. Nothing we should do hastily". Then I smiled (as I understood this teaching is for me) and Gurudev also smiled. After that we slowly went to the hall.

—Madan Gopal Das, Slovenia





















Comments

  1. Revati dasiMay 18, 2020 at 3:55 AM

    Jai Gurudev! So very wonderful! Thank you very much for sharing this beautiful pastime full of instructions.

    ReplyDelete

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