Praṇamāmi Guru Tīrtha Padaṁ

Suvarna Vihar in Navadvip is a remote, uninhabited place with no villages nearby. If anyone needs to collect alms, they need to go far. Param Gurudeva instructed Gurudeva to stay there when he was a brahmacārī . He was all alone. That place was full of snakes, so no other brahmacārī was willing to stay there. This showed his titikṣava (tolerance). I have personally heard our Śrīla Gurudeva narrate these incidents. At this time our Param Guru Mahārāja was in Śrī Caitanya Maṭh. Suvarna Vihar was, at that time, an almost deserted forest. Gurujī would walk several miles to fetch some rice as alms. In his absence, thieves would come and steal vessels, etc. There was also no availability of firewood for cooking. Gurujī would burn dry banana leaves and somehow prepare kitchari for offering. It is not an easy job to burn banana leaves and Gurujī did not have any prior experience. Whenever he would blow air to burn the fire, all the ash would fly on to his face. When he would sit ...

Once I went to Dhanbad along with Mahārāj for preaching. There was a person there named Yasamanta who used to donate coal to the maṭha thrice a year. They invited Guru Mahārāj to stay in their house; it was a good accommodation with air-conditioned rooms. But that particular year, we went to live in the house of a householder devotee in Herapuri who was a disciple of Param  Pūjyapāda  Om  Viṣṇupada  Śrīmad Bhakti Vilas Tirtha Gosvāmī Mahārāj. Narasiṃha Mahārāj, Deva Prasād Prabhu, and  Viṣṇudaivata  Mahārāj (who was a brahmacārī at that time) were also present. There was hari-kathā and kīrtan in the house of Yasamanta, and Mahārāj would go there. I was cooking and washing clothes for Tirtha Mahārāj. Narasingha Mahārāj, who was Achintya Govinda  brahmacārī  then, gave advice to Tirtha Mahārāj. “Mahārāj, please clean your clothes. You are going to the house of a distinguished person.” Mahārāj replied, “They are already clean.” Achintya ...

In the 1980s, during Vraja-maṇḍala parikramā in Kāmyavana, Śrīla Guru Mahārāja's stay was arranged on the first floor of Śrī Jagannātha Mandir in a small corner room. It had a low roof with no fan and also no windows or any ventilation for the breeze to enter in.  Early in the morning, I went to his room to offer him praṇām and I found him sitting and using a hand fan. I learned from him that he had been awake the whole night like that, sitting and using the hand fan. He is the highest authority of so many big maṭhs but still, he is enduring this sort of discomfort, yet there was no sign of anxiety on his face. A patient smile adorned his lotus face. There are many such instances where Śrīla Guru Mahārāja patiently bore all the physical and mental discomforts. Whether in Simla on the bed full of bed bugs or in Dehradun in a cot full of mosquitoes, he remained undisturbed.  I have seen him walk barefoot undisturbed even while he had a fever and blisters on his feet. Even when ...

tat te anukampam susamikshamana : most noble, peaceful— even those who act like enemies to him,  to them he is very friendly. Under any circumstance, Srila Gurudeva is always seen peaceful and smiling, which is an exemplary character of a pure devotee as explained in the verse,  tat te anukampam susamikshamana (Brahma Stava 10.14.8) Once there was a delay of 5-6 hours when Gurudeva and the prachar party reached Bhatinda from New Delhi, reaching around 1 o'clock in the middle of the night instead of the scheduled time 6 in the evening. Many of the devotees who arrived with Gurudeva were so tired that when they got rooms, they simply retired without even waiting to have prasadam. But when Gurudeva was to be offered food, Gurudeva's sevak found to his surprise that all the edibles prepared by devotees with love were all Punjabi foods— fried things like puris and spicy curries, and not a single item other than plain rice suitable for Gurudeva's offering. There was no ...

There is no doubt that our Most Merciful Srila Gurudev is an embodiment of patience, but we had the real experience of it when there was once a General Meeting held in Kolkata. There I happened to read the false accusations made upon Srila Gurudev by two Vaishnavas who had filed them in the court.  I  was surprised to see the serious and baseless accusations that so extremely attacked  His character.  Reading those accusations, I had felt great anger and also was surprised as to with what thoughts and intentions such senior Vaishnavas did this. In the assembly, all household Vaishnavas expressing their minds let out their anger and pacified themselves. Srila Gurudev did not consider it appropriate to speak anything against anyone and only said that whatever Guruji and Supreme Lord does is all-good. I was astonished seeing this extreme forbearance. —Sri Vishvambhar Das (B. L. Chotani), Manasa  Translated from Sri Krishna Chaitanya Sandesh July-Oc...

Once Srila Guru Maharaj addressed one brahmachari by name and asked him to sing a particular kirtan, but surprisingly that brahmachari sat quietly without doing what he asked. So I thought he did not hear Guruji’s instructions.   I took his name and told him, “Prabhuji Guru Maharaj is asking you to sing this particular kirtan.”    He murmured in anger that Maharaj does not think which kirtan to be sung in which place.   He started a kirtan of his own choice.   Then I told him, “Prabhuji, Maharaj has asked you to sing this particular kirtan.”   Then in great anger he said take this mike and you sing the kirtan.   I was dumb-struck and did not know what to do.    After some time, the same kirtan which he had not started, he sang.   Srila Guru Maharaj, in spite of seeing the whole happening, acted as though he did not hear or see anything and as if nothing has happened. He got immersed in singing the kirtan.   It came to my mind...

Astonishingly, it so happens that His Divine Grace Srila Bhakti Ballabha Tirtha Goswami Maharaj’s appearance day and disappearance day both occurred on the same Navami Tithi, namely the ninth day of lunar cycle. Srila Maharaj appeared exactly on Ram-Navami and the day of his disappearance occurred on Navami day, 6th of Vaishakh 1424 Bangavda (Thursday, April 20, 2017 at 10.15pm). Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita (SCC) is considered the most valuable scripture of the Gaudiya Vaishnava community and was written bySrila Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami, who is Kasturi Manjari in Goloka Vrindavan, serving Sri Sri Radha-Krishna, the Divine couple in their divine esoteric pastimes. In Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita, Srila Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami alludes to the auspiciousness and importance of the appearance and disappearance of the Lord and the Vaishnavas in the following verse: iswarerjanma-tithiye henapavitra vaisnaverajanma-tithirseimatacharitra The divinity and purity attributed to the appear...

Many devotees spoke the glories of Gurudeva. Guru Mahārāja is not an ordinary person.  Whatever qualities are told in the scriptures, all of them are manifest in Guru Mahārāja. I am too young to realize who or what a sādhu is, but in spite of that, Guru Mahārāja gave me some mercy to see some of those qualities in him. I heard one particular incident of Guru Mahārāja that resonated with me. Guru Mahārāja was in court, and so many discussions were going on, so many people were abusing Guru Mahārāja. But Guru Mahārāja answered very softly no matter what they yelled at him. Guru Mahārāja came back and it was time for prasād. He said that some more devotees are coming, so please reserve some prasād for them. These were the persons who were abusing Guru Mahārāja in the court. I realized that even for those persons who were abusing him, he had so much love and affection for them that he reserved prasād for them. He is Ajātaśatru, one who has no enemies.  —Rukmiṇī Dāsi

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...

Once some persons spoke ill about Guru Mahārāja, and at that time Parama-gurujī was sitting in his room and he could hear the ill words some persons were addressing to Gurudeva. Parama-gurudeva saw from a distance that our Gurudeva was standing there. He thought, " why are they speaking ill about him ?"  He called Gurudev's name, but Gurudev was doing some service and he didn't hear him. Then Parama-gurudeva sent one brahmachārī to get Gurudeva. He asked, "Why are those persons shouting at you?" Gurudeva said, "Who is shouting at me?" Parama-gurudeva said, "Those persons who were fetching water, were they not shouting at you?" Gurudeva said, "I did not hear." Parama-gurudeva said, "They were shouting so loudly, I could hear from my room, and you did not hear?” Parama-gurudeva said, "He is so absorbed that they were shouting at him and he did not even hear. I am not worried about Kṛṣṇa Ballabha Bra...