Tag: Diary

Last night we managed to put Guru Maharaja to sleep by 10pm, for sufficient
rest. He woke up at 4.30am and as soon as he woke up, he revealed his
parikrama plan for today. His schedule was to first meet the International
and Bengali party at Suvarna Vihar. We planned to leave by 6.30am but we got
delayed and left Iskcon Mayapur only at 7.25am.

We reached Suvarna Vihar at 8am and met the International party who were
listening to the nectarine pastimes from different maharajas. As
the last speaker Guru Maharaja shared the pastimes of Suvarna Vihar and
mentioned that, “we need to have ghee like heart and as soon as we hear the
name of Gauranga, it should melt instantly.” Then everyone chanted
Gaurangaaaaaaaa!!!!”.”He continued,”We should cry for Krsna and
Gauranga!!!!…. Mahaprabhu’s mercy is flowing freely in Navadvip Dham and
one should take this mercy from here and distribute it to the other part of
the world. Every step that one takes here, should chant the name of Nitai!
Nitai! ” Crowd chanted Nitaaaaaai! Nitaaaaaai!!

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.

GM woke up in the morning around 5.15am.I did my morning seva for
GuruMaharaj and then took shower by 6.30am.Today is the parikrama Adivasa
day. Around 5000 devotees are taking part in parikrama this year.
The 7-day pilgrimage to the Navadvipa Mandala and the pastime places of Sri
Caitanya Mahaprabhu by walk, in the association of Vaisnavas is a
spiritually enriching experience. Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur initiated the
Parikrama, Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Sarawati Thakur developed it and Srila
Prabhupad made this vision of acharyas into a reality. The devotees
participating in the parikrama are constantly increasing every year. Four
parikrama parties, an international group, a Bengali group, Russian Group
and Hindi group of devotees go in Parikrama and on the last day of the
parikrama, there will be a Mahamilan of all the four parties at the Yogapith
with ecstatic kirtan .All the four groups walked to Yoga Pitha in a kirtan
procession led by HH Lokanath Swami, Maha Vishnu Swami and others around 6am
and GuruMaharaj reached there at 8 am. As soon as Guru Maharaj made his
appearance on the stage, HH Lokanath Swami said “Here comes the
spirit of the parikrama. If He (Jayapataka Swami) can go on parikrama, then
we all should go and no excuse should be given. Maharaj, you are an
inspiration and your presence alone is enough.” GuruMaharaj took darshan of
all deities.

Dear Devotees,

Hare Krsna. Please accept my most humble obeisances. All glories to Srila
Prabhupada. All glories to Srila Gurudeva.

Guru Maharaja is right now in Coimbatore, India. He arrived couple of days
ago from Australia.

At present he is taking leech treatment. It is a six day treatment. Five
leeches are placed on Guru Maharaja and the leeches would suck only the bad
blood from the body.  When we asked Guru Maharaja if it is very painful, he
replied saying, “Not so much.” He said it is a vedic treatment. Dhanvantari
holds leech in one of His hands. One of his wounds seem to heal faster with
this treatment. Bhakti Vinod Maharaja jokingly commented, “Guru Maharaja
already has so many (devotee) leeches around and now he has to tolerate more
of them.”

After many years, almost 30, here I was driving again with the most
precious possession of my life,  my spiritual guide and Master , friend and
confidant, the one who turned my life around in 1979! Jaya Pataka
Swami!

Driving a new red Toyota from Mayapur to Haridaspur, Benapole border to
Bangladesh, we started at around 11 am, following us is the Temple traveler,
were many devotees, the luggage, wheelchair etc. We reached Haridaspur at 1
pm where our temple is situated, 2 Km from the border.  A crowd of about 200
devotees received us with kirtan, flower throwing and ululating ladies etc.
“Our hero has come back home!” The feeling of love could be sensed in the
air, some ladies were crying, overcome with emotion upon looking at the face
of our beloved Gurudeva HH Jayapataka Swami. I controlled myself as we
unloaded the wheelchair, our car could only go so far, in fact on the last
portion of the road approaching the temple, the chassis of the car scraped
the mud floor!

Dear Devotees,

Hare Krsna. Please accept my most humble obeisances. All glories to Srila
Prabhupada. All glories to Srila Gurudeva.

Guru Maharaja came to Mumbai on the 18th of October from Chennai. Guru
Maharaja had appointment on 20th with doctors regarding his eye surgery.
Nothing has been decided yet by Guru Maharaja regarding this surgery. He is
still contemplating on it. After this appointment Guru Maharaja went to
Chowpatti ISKCON temple to give an evening class inaugurating the Damodar
month program. On 21st was the Indian Bureau meeting and starting from 22nd
was the RGB Meetings. HH Bhakti Caru Maharaja, HH Gopal Krsna Goswami
Maharaja, HH Bhakti Purushottam Maharaja, HH Bhakti Vinod Maharaja, Temple
Presidents and Zonal secretaries all over India have come to attend this
meetings.

Dear Devotees,

Hare Krsna. Please accept our most humble obeisances. All glories to Srila
Prabhupada. All glories to Srila Gurudeva.

Guru Maharaja was invited for a Vaisnava feast at Sulabh Bhojanalaya (Big
Kitchen by one of our Godsister Janani Radha Mataji. She is an elderly lady
and a very simple devotee. She always carries Laddu Gopal Deity with her.
She is very devoted to Guru Maharaja. She has been collecting donation for
two years since the stroke to arrange a feast to all the Mayapur vasis in
regards to the full recovery of Guru Maharaja’s health. She wanted Guru
Maharaja also to take prasad along with other devotees. Since Guru Maharaja
has a different diet, eats slowly and the time of his prasad is also early
he said he would just visit the devotees.

There was gurupuja in Gada building today morning. After gurupuja, Guru
Maharaja did vidyaramba ceremony to two kids. One small boy and one little
girl. The boy was crying so much and didn’t want to hold the chalk. But the
girl was little grown up and so she was cooperating while Guru Maharaja held
her hand with a small stick and made her to write Hare Krsna mantra
imprinted in the turmeric powder on a plate. Haribol!