Guru Maharaja woke up at 5am today. As usual the first thing we do as soon
as he gets up is cleaning of his eyes. while I was cleaning his eyes the
first thing he talked today was about his parikrama plan for today. He was
piling up all the places he is desiring to visit. I wasn’t able to keep up
with him so I told Him “Guru Maharaja you have all this in your mind but I
need to write it down.” At that time we heard over the radio, HH Lokanath
Maharaj was making an announcement for all the devotees in the temple hall
after the mangala arati, “We have so many walkers for the parikrama but less
talkers. We need more of my godbrothers and godsisters to come with us to
share the pastimes of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu”. He continued saying that
Jayapataka Swami is going to go on parikrama visiting all the 4 parties
everyday. Immediately there was a loud chanting of hariiiii bol!!!!!!
Maharaj said if Jayapataka Swami can go then none of us should have any
excuse. We have minimum 5000 devotees joining the parikrama this year. After
HH Lokanath Swami, His Holiness Bhakti Purusottama Swami spoke and he said
that Bhaktivinode Thakur has said there are 3 ways to serve Mayapur dham.
1)Developing nama hatta, 2)Doing book distribution 3) Developing Nawadhip
Mandala Parikrama. By 6.30 am all the 4 groups of parikrama
devotees started walking out of mayapur compound with kirtan parties leading
them all. All 4 groups started from different locations. The whole of Iskcon
Mayapur air was filled with rocking kirtan. It was very ecstatic and we felt
the inspiration of just leave everything behind and go for parikrama right
away.
Guru Maharaja was ready by 7am. He had his quick darshan of Sri Sri Radha
Madhava and then we had a quick look of the new ambulance purchased by
Iskcon Mayapur. Right after that we got commenced our journey for the
parikrama. For 36 years GM is been attending the parikrama. He said the
first foot path parikrama started around 1975 and he is been walking passing
through all the nine Island of Nawadhip Dham since then. This is the first
time since he had stroke he is going to go on car parikrama. He wants to try
going for all four parties. This is the first time and the first day, so let
see how it goes….
Our first group to be visited today is Hindi group and we suppose to meet
them at Gauranga Bridge. Unfortunately, on the way we got stuck with traffic
on the main highway. Of course this is not new. We were held up for almost
30 mins. Then His Holiness Bhakti Purusottama Swami arranged a police
vehicle to escort us. He made the way and we were able to pass through the
traffic and all the small lanes of remote villages without any hassles. At
9.30am we were at Gauranga Bridge. While the parikrama party was taking
shelter of the Gauranga Bridge a nice cooling breeze blowing from Ganga
energized the devotees. About 700 Hindi speaking devotees were there from
all around India. This place is known as Panchaveni. Guru Maharaja spoke in
Hindi on the significance of this place, confluence of the five holy rivers
at this location. He spoke about nine islands and the significance of each
Island too. When the Hindi group started their breakfast Guru Maharaja left
to Gauradaha to meet the Russian group. After 20 mins drive through the
beautiful villages we reached the Russian group. They just finished their
breakfast. Super delicious kitcheri, bel juice,grape fruits and pakora. Guru
Maharaja gave 20 minutes class for 700 Russian devotees.He spoke on the
pastimes of Gauranga Mahaprabhu and the parrot who chanted Gaura! Gaura !
(Caitanya Mahaprabhu and jagadananda pandita goes near Alakananda River.
there they see one parrot, and Mahaprabhu says to the parrot ‘Chant the
names of Radha and Krishna’ and the Parrot started chanting Gaura!
Gaura!Gaura!Gaura! and Mahaprabhu closed His ears and told “this is
Vrindavan.,you should chant the glories of Radha and Krsna”. But the parrot
keep on chanting Gaura! Gaura!)
Just before winding up his speech Guru Maharaja told the Russian devotees
that he will try to join the group everyday. As soon as he said that the
devotees welcomed and thanked him with three times of loud hari bol. While
we were with Russian devotees, we noticed that they are so organized in many
ways. Matajis and prabhus were sitting separately, devotees taking turn and
serving the prasadam, they cleaned up the whole place after having their
breakfast leaving no plastic on the ground and by dumping all the leaf
plates and cups at one corner. Some said the place was cleaner than it was
before. At 12noon Guru Maharaja was driven from Russian party to
international party. They are now at Nrshima Palli.
At 12.40pm we reached Nrshimapalli. There were 700 devotees and senior
devotees like HH Lokanath Swami Maharaj,HH Gopala Krishna Maharaj,HH Bhakti
Vaibhava Maharaj, HH Maha Vishnu Maharaj, HH Kavichandra Swami, HH Bhakti
Vigna Vinasana Nrshima Maharaj, His Holiness Bhakti Purusottama Swami and
others sitting under the cooling shed of Tamala tree. Some devotees
performed drama on the lila of Nrshimadev while Guru Maharaja was having the
darshan of lord Nrshimadev. Guru Maharaja mentioned in his class that every
step we take in the Nawadhip dham is equivalent to performing an Ashvamedha
yajna. Guru Maharaja also mentioned how the Russian parikrama party is well
organised. Lokanath Swami said even the English parikrama party is on go
green (zero plastic campaign) parikrama. The class ended with loud and
repeated chanting of Gauranga! Nityananda! by everyone. Then HH Lokanath
Swami requested everyone to pray to Lord Nrshimadeva for the protection of
Iskcon Movement and all the devotees all over the world and especially for
the speedy recovery of Guru Maharaja. He further said we all should pray
that HH Jayapataka Swami should recover fast and dance along with us by next
year parikrama. At 1.40pm we left the international party to Bengali party
who are camping at Sri Jagannath mandir. Guru Maharaja had his lunch on the
way to Sri Jaganath Mandir at Rajapur. This year Bengali group consist of
2500 devotees and they are expecting more to join. Upon reaching Jaganath
Mandir we noticed all the Bengali devotees were sitting in rows to honour
their lunch.Guru Maharaja took this opportunity to address the devotees for
15 minutes. He spoke about glories of taking Jagannath Prasad and also some
pastimes of Jagannath. Then at 3.15pm we left Jagannath Mandir to Iskcon
Mayapur.
Nawadhip mandala parikrama ki jai!!!!!!
Your Humble servant,
Maha Varaha das