Dear Devotees,
Hare Krsna. Please accept my most humble obeisances. All glories to Srila
Prabhupada. All glories to Srila Gurudeva.
On 14th August, there was a wedding of a couple in Jagannath Mandir,
Rajapur. Bridegroom was Guru Maharaja’s disciple and bride was Bhakti Caru
Maharaja’s disciple. The couple had come earlier to invite Guru Maharaja for
the wedding and to get his blessings. At that time, Guru Maharaja mentioned
to the Bridegroom, now that he is marrying the disciple of Bhakti Caru
Maharaja, he should give respect to him and consider him as his siksa guru.
Sometimes he could come and serve Guru Maharaja and sometimes he should
serve Bhakti Caru Maharaja.
Wedding happened in the evening and Bhakti Caru Maharaja called Guru
Maharaja and said if it would be possible for Guru Maharaja then he could
come to Jagannath Mandir to bless the couple and give some speech about
grihasta ashram. So Guru Maharaja went to the wedding and blessed the couple
and delivered a small speech.
To our surprise, Guru Maharaja went again the next day on 15th August in the
evening to Jagannath Mandir as one of his disciple was getting married to
Niranjana Maharaja’s disciple. Bridegroom was Guru Maharaja’s disciple and
bride was Niranjana Maharaja’s disciple. Bridegroom was a Bengali and bride
was Ukrainian.
A couple had come from Bangalore to get blessings from Guru Maharaja. Mataji
is an aspiring disciple of Guru Maharaja and is married to a Christian
recently in June. The husband is supportive and favorable and seemed to be a
nice gentleman. Mataji has deities at home and cooks only vegatarian food
and offers to her deities. We had suggested them to accompany with us to
Jagannath Mandir for the wedding.
Guru Maharaja had darshan of Jagannath Baladeva Subhadra Devi and
Sudharshan. He offered lamps and circumumbalated the deities and gave
blessings to the couple who were getting married. He gave a small speech on
the importance of grihasta ashram.
Guru Maharaja mentioned how it is only possible in ISKCON to get married of
couples from different nations. Although the Sannayasis are renounced Srila
Prabhupada had encouraged sannyasis to inspire the other devotees who are
not able to lead a renounced life to get married so that they don’t live
together without marriage. Not every one could become sannyasi. Therefore it
is better for them to get married and lead a Krsna conscious centered
religious life. The duties of grihastas is to engage in charity (dana),
austerity (tapas) and sacrifice (yajna). The wife is the better half of the
husband and they should remain as a team and serve cooperatively and go back
home back to Godhead at the end of life.
Today 16th August, Guru Maharaja gave a morning Srimad Bhagavatam class
after which he went for his therapy. At 1.30 pm he returned to his quarters
to have his lunch. Just before the lunch Guru Maharaja spoke for few minutes
to the couple from Bangalore as he had asked them to come. He mentioned how
chanting the holy names of God has been emphasised in all scriptures such as
Bible, Quran and Vedic literatures. In Bible it says about chanting the holy
names with the cymbals which we do even now but the Christians are not
following anymore. He gave blessings to the couple for their advancement in
spiritual life. Both of them seemed to be very happy to have Guru Maharaja’s
darshan and blessings.
Patita Pavana Guru Maharaja Ki Jai!
Your humble servant,
Ratnavali dd