His Joy in Serving the Servants of the Servants

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Our Param Gurudev's quality was satirtha priti saddharma: his mood and conduct were to see his godbrothers, disciples, or whoever be it—though they are disrespecting me, they have served my Śrīla Prabhupāda and have pleased him immensely, so they are all worshipable to me.  Among those who are seniors and advanced, Param Gurudev respected them in a different way, and to all other godbrothers, he has shown such affection which is wonderful and heart-warming. 

Even to his god-brother who has put forth his best efforts to send him out of Śrī Caitanya Maṭha, he served him when he fell ill and brought him back to health, deputing his disciples who were otherwise busy with other sevās. This same conduct of Param Gurudev was seen in our Guru Mahārāja.  

So, seeing Gurudev simply means seeing Param Gurudev. Some of Gurudev's godbrothers had difficulty seeing and accepting their Gurudev's qualities as being fully present in their godbrother, but our Guru Mahārāja was always ready and so very caring and was the first to come forward to serve them whenever the need arose in their difficult times. He never conveyed such a mood to his disciples and discourage them from service to any of his godbrothers who did not have such a good relationship with him. He saw the disciples of his guru-varga in the mood that they are my guru. 

My friend Pūjyapāda Bhakti Bāndhava Tapasvi Mahārāja who is a disciple of Param Pūjyapāda Nityalīlā Praviṣṭa Śrīla Bhakti Kumud Sant Gosvāmī Mahārāja is quite young, now his age maybe around forty years. In 2005 he was about twenty-five years of age and with the permission of his Guru Mahārāja, he came for Vraja-maṇḍala parikramā that was led by our Gurudev. 

When he arrived, he offered his praṇams to our Gurudev and prayed, "I have come on the orders of my Gurudev, please accommodate me and give me some service, too." But Guru Mahārāja said to his sevāks, "This is Śrīla Sant Mahārāja's disciple, so you have to serve him nicely. You are not to take any service from him." When he told Gurudev that none of his sevāks are allowing him to do any sevā, Guru Mahārāja told him, "You are here to participate in parikramā on your Gurudev's orders." 

Guru Mahārāja was honoring the orders of Śrīla Sant Gosvāmī Mahārāja and seeing his disciple gave him a feeling of joy that he was serving Śrīla Sant Mahārāja himself. This is a very special characteristic of a great vaiṣṇava— to feel the joy of serving the master while serving the sevāk. 

Śrīla Bhakti Kamal Madusudhan Mahārāja's disciples, Śrīla Bhakti Kumud Sant Gosvāmī Mahārāja's disciples, Śrīla Bhakti Pramod Puri Gosvāmī Mahārāja's disciples, and disciples of Ācāryas of various maṭhas all attended parikramā under our Sree Caitanya Gauḍīya Maṭha because of our Gurudev's one-pointed devotion and surrender to his Gurudev and guru-varga. Our Gurudev has never done any such activity which may cause dissatisfaction to Param Gurudev; he only did activities that pleased his Gurudev.  

—Sri Bhakti Kinkar Damodar Mahārāj

Translated from Hindi to English. Excerpted from a talk on April 17, 2020, Srila Gurudev's 3rd disappearance anniversary. Source is here.



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