Praṇamāmi Guru Tīrtha Padaṁ

A group of us went by car to Goalpara for the opening ceremony of the Goalpara Maṭha. When we reached Goalpara, I got down quickly and tried to make the path clear so that Gurujī would have no obstructions while he walked up the hill. There were a lot of shoes around and I tried to clear them with my feet. Guru Mahārāja touched me on my shoulder and said, “These are vaiṣṇavas’ shoes. Never use your feet to push away their shoes.”  I did not know what to do. I was naive, I did not know anything about it those days. And I said, “Sorry, Mahārāja.” Then I tried to push them away with my hand. Then Mahārāja said, “No, you have got kāntimālā on your neck, so you can’t do that either.” Again, I told Mahārāja I was sorry. Guru Mahārāja was going up the hill and everybody was surrounding him. When he reached the top, he entered a room where he sat down and spoke with Gupta Prabhu. He explained that this is the mountain (pahad) where there used to be leopards and many Hanuman monkeys a...

I live in Boston, which is a drive of about three and a half hours from New York. Every year on the second Saturday in June, there is Rathayātrā in Manhattan. So we go down from 45th Street on Fifth Avenue all the way down to Washington Square Park. This is where Fifth Avenue ends. And then there is a festival in the park. So every time when I drive to New York, I recall when I drove Gurudeva when he came here in 2002. When he came here, he stayed four days in our house where we had programs. At that time we did not live in Boston, we lived outside of Boston. I took Gurudeva to the pier where AC Bhaktivedānta Svāmī arrived in 1965 when he first arrived in the ship called ‘Jaladuta’ to Boston and the next day he went to New York. We also had a couple of days of singing bhajanas in the park and in the Boston Common and I also took Mahārāja to the ISKCON temple. He really liked it over here.  I had rented a van (something like a small bus) to accommodate all the devotees coming with ...

I remember an unfortunate incident that happened in Kolkata maṭha . Due to a p ūjārī 's negligence, there was apparently damage to Śrīmati Rādhārāṇī's vigraha .  When the news reached Gurudeva, he displayed a mood that due to his offence, the deity has left us. He never told the  pūjārī  that you should not have done like this or that.   As I recall, at that time Śrīla Padmanabha Mahārāja was there and he asked Guru Mahārāja to please explain what could be the offense that caused this. Then Guru Mahārāja pointed out that where devotees throw   uchishta   plates after eating prasādam . It could be seen that in the very place were Ṭhākurjī's prasādam remnants like flower garlands and  tulasī were  discarded.  He explained that Rādhārāṇī thought that Tulasijī is disrespected here, so she will not stay in this place. "Tulasījī is part and parcel of Śrīmati Rādhārāṇī and if you start throwing them there, how long will  Tulasījī  t...