Disappearance Day of Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Goswami Maharaja

bhaktyā vihīnā aparādha-lakṣaiḥ
kṣiptās ca kāmādi-taraṅga-madhye
kṛpā-mayi! tvaṁ śaraṇaṁ prapannā
vṛnde! namas te caraṇāravindam

Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Prabhu Nityānanda
Śrī Advaita Gadādhara Śrīvāsādi Gaura Bhakta Vṛnda

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare

First of all, I pay my humble obeisances unto the lotus feet of my Paramārādhya-pāda Guru Padapadma Oṁ Viṣṇupāda Paramahaṁsa Parivrājakācārya Aṣṭottara-śata Śrī Śrīmad Bhakti Vedānta Śrīla Vāmana Gosvāmī Mahārāja.

[I also offer my obeisances to] Oṁ Viṣṇupāda Paramahaṁsa Parivrājakācārya Aṣṭottara-śata Śrī Śrīmad Bhakti Vedānta Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja, Śrīla Trivikrama Gosvāmī Mahārāja, and the associates of Prabhupāda Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, especially to my Param Gurudeva Śrīla Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja, Śrīla Bhakti Vedānta Svāmī Mahārāja, and the entire Guru vargas. I convey my daṇḍavat praṇāms to the lotus feet of the Vaiṣṇavas and Vaiṣṇavīs assembled here, who are encouraging me to speak some Hari-kathā, headed by my spiritual aunties.

Why are we assembled here in this place? What do you call this area? What is this area?

Devotees: Watford.

What is the meaning of Watford? My English knowledge is very poor. So, I don’t know much English because my mother tongue, father tongue, and brother tongue are not English. What I understood, I want to present. How do we spell Watford?

Devotee: W A T F O R D

Are you agreeing with him?

W is for Wonderful Pastime going on of my spiritual grand-sire, Śrīla Bhakti Vedānta Svāmī Mahārāja, because he’s been preaching quite a lot. So, a wonderful pastime is going on all over England, all over the world. W for wonderful pastimes. When he came, at that time the Western world was “eat, drink, and be merry,” nothing else. What did he do?

Then A stands for Ātma Jñāna. We are not this physical body, nor the subtle body; we are spirit souls and we are part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. Our occupational duty is to do bhakti for Kṛṣṇa; he taught us this Ātma Jñāna. W for wonderful pastime going on all over the world of my spiritual grand-sire Bhakti Vedānta Svāmī Mahārāja. A for Ātma Jñāna he gave us; otherwise, the Western world was only “eat, drink, and be merry,” only hippies and hippies.

What does T stand for? There were only hippies and hippies; what did he do? T for Trained them. How to do bhakti for Kṛṣṇa. T for trained them. How? F for Forced them to chant Harināma. Then they will be Free from anxiety. This world is full of anxiety, anxiety, anxiety.

F for forced them, the hippies, to chant the Holy Name, for what? To be free from anxiety, free from anxiety.

O is for Ongoing Harikathā. It is still going on. How come? Ongoing Harikathā. It is still going on. He departed from this world, but his Vāṇī (teachings) will always be there, just like the moon and sun; this planet will be there, and his Vāṇī will always be growing and growing. So, “O” means Ongoing Harikathā is happening all over the planet.

R – Those who are following him become Relaxed. How do they become relaxed?

D – Dedicated to Kṛṣṇa—not directly, but dedicated to their Guru, and then dedicated to Kṛṣṇa. When Swamiji was in Calcutta, one of his friends told him, “Hey, let’s go, one sādhu has come.” He replied, “I don’t care for sādhus because my father used to call sādhus. They are smoking and doing kīrtan. What kind of sādhu? They are smoking cigarettes, etc. I don’t like it.”
Then his friend told him, “No, he is not like that sādhu. He is very strict and speaks in English.”
He was shocked and asked, “What! He speaks in English?” And told his friend, “Then I must go because he is educated in the English medium.” When Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja saw his Guru, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda, for the first time, Śrīla Prabhupāda told him, “You have to preach the mission of Śrīman Mahāprabhu in the English language in the Western countries.”

This was the first thing Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda said to Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja. Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja became very surprised that a sādhu could speak English so nicely. Prabhupāda Sarasvatī Ṭhākura had a very good grip on both English and Bengali languages. When there was a court case against ISKCON in Bombay, Gurudev (Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja) had to go to give testimony. I also used to go with him every three to four months. So, Tāmāl Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, who is famous in ISKCON as TKG, told Gurudev (Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja), “I have a false belief that I am an intellectual giant. When I started to read Brahma-saṁhitā, I couldn’t understand the English. I had to take the Oxford dictionary and still couldn’t understand. You taught once, I read again. Then you taught twice. Now, my understanding is something. Now I understand how much of an intellectual giant Śrīla Prabhupāda Sarasvatī Ṭhākura was! Compared to him, I am very insignificant. Being a Bengali, his English was so high-class that I couldn’t understand.”

So, Prabhupāda Sarasvatī Ṭhākura instructed him, ordered him, “You have to preach the mission of Śrīman Mahāprabhu in the English language in the Western world.” After Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja got initiation from Prabhupāda Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, he met his Guru Prabhupāda maybe two or three times only. After that, what happened? He started translating Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Once, he was not at home. His wife went to the grocery shop, took the manuscript, and sold the manuscript to buy tea. When Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja, who was Śrī Abhaya Caraṇa Prabhu at that time, came back to his residence and asked, “Where is the manuscript?”
His wife answered, “I sold it.”
Swamiji asked, “For what purpose?”
His wife replied, “To buy tea.”
He asked his wife, “Choose between tea and me.”
His wife’s answer was, “Tea, tea, tea. I don’t want you.”
He became very upset. He went to the grocery shop and brought his manuscript back. Then he thought, “I will not stay at home anymore; this is not proper for me to stay here.”

In the beginning, he had one very big medical shop in Allāhābād (Prayāgrāj). Gurudev (Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī), my Guru Mahārāja (Śrīla Vāmana Gosvāmī Mahārāja), and Śrīla Trivikrama Gosvāmī Mahārāja went preaching with Param Gurudev, Śrīla Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja, and Abhaya Caraṇa Prabhu hosted them. And it was so big and famous that even the family of the former Prime Ministers of India, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, used to come and purchase medicines from there. So, they were so famous, but that became a failure. Then he came back to Kolkatā. In Kolkatā, there was a very big company named Bengal Chemical—it is still there today. He became GM (General Manager) of that company. After that, the incident “choose between tea and me” happened there. Then he thought, “No more, no more.” Even his children told him, “You are not making money, we don’t need you.” He came out from there. Where did he go?

vaikuṇṭhāj janito varā madhu-purī tatrāpi rāsotsavād
vṛndāraṇyam udāra-pāṇi-ramaṇāt tatrāpi govardhanaḥ
rādhā-kuṇḍam ihāpi gokula-pateḥ premāmṛtā
plāvanāt kuryād asya virājato giri-taṭe sevāṁ vivekī na kaḥ:

The holy place known as Mathurā is spiritually superior to Vaikuṇṭha, the transcendental world, because the Lord appeared there. Superior to Mathurā-Purī is the transcendental forest of Vṛndāvana because of Kṛṣṇa’s rāsa-līlā pastimes. And superior to the forest of Vṛndāvana is Govardhana Hill, for it was raised by the divine hand of Śrī Kṛṣṇa and was the site of His various loving pastimes. And, above all, the superexcellent Śrī Rādhā-kuṇḍa stands supreme, for it is overflooded with the ambrosial nectarean prema of the Lord of Gokula, Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Where, then, is that intelligent person who is unwilling to serve this divine Rādhā-kuṇḍa, which is situated at the foot of Govardhana Hill? (Nectar of Instruction – 9)

He was not going back to Prayāgrāj, nowhere else, but he came to Mathurā. Being in Mathurā, he was making some medicines for ailments such as roundworm (which makes the skin very itchy), ringworm, and others. He knew all these formulas, having been in Bengal Chemical. He was making these medicines and distributing them to medical shops. Gurudev, Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja, used to wake up very early morning and do Harināma, and then translate Jaiva Dharma and other books. He would attend Maṅgala Ārati. After Maṅgala Ārati, he would come to his room and chant his Gāyatrī mantra and some Harināma, and he would go to take ācamana in the Yamunā river before breakfast. This was his everyday routine. Coming back, he would take breakfast. So one day, by the arrangement of Nityānanda Prabhu, Mahāprabhu, and the Divine Couple, when he went to take ācamana at Bengali Ghat, he met his uncle, Abhaya Caraṇa Prabhu. They did praṇāms to each other because Abhaya Caraṇa Prabhu was Gurudev’s uncle. On the other hand, Gurudev was a Sannyāsī. It is mentioned in the scripture:

vaiṣṇab dekhiyā je nā nowāy muṇḍa
sei muṇḍa poḍe giye narakera kuṇḍa.

Seeing a Sannyāsī, if someone is not offering praṇām, he is bound to go to the hell without any fail. (Śrī Caitanya Bhāgavata)

Even it is mentioned in the scripture that if a son takes sannyāsa, the renounced order, his parents will do praṇāms to him. So, they both did praṇāms and they embraced each other. Gurudev told, “Prabhu! What are you doing here? Let’s go to the Maṭha.”
Abhaya Caraṇa Prabhu told, “I will not go to the Maṭha, I’m doing some business.”
“What business?”
“I am making medicines like ringworm and other things and distributing to the medical shops. I am happy here.”
Gurudev told that, “Mahāprabhu, Nityānanda Prabhu, and the Divine Couple did not bring you to this world to distribute these medicines. Why are you selling these medicines? You have to distribute such medicine that people will be free from the endless cycle of birth and death. You have to make that medicine and distribute it. Let’s go to the Maṭha.”
Abhaya Caraṇa Prabhu said, “Forget it! I will not go to the Maṭha.”
Gurudev did not argue with him. Gurudev asked him, “Where are you staying?”
Abhaya Caraṇa Prabhu said, “Rādhe Śyām Āśrama.”
There is one Dharmaśālā called Rādhe Śyām Āśrama; it is still there today. Gurudev asked, “What is your room number?”
“Room number 49.”
“Okay.”
Gurudev (Śrīla B.V. Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja) did not say anything but came back. Gurudev was from a police background. Gurudev had another Godbrother who came from a military background. Gurudev (Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Mahārāja) quit his background and came to Param Gurudev (Śrīla Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja). And Gurudev’s Godbrother Kuñjabihārī Prabhu also retired, quit his job when he was young, and came to Param Gurudev (Śrīla Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja).
Gurudev told, “Kuñjabihārī, let’s go.”
Kuñjabihārī Prabhu asked, “Where?”
Gurudev said, “Some business is there!”
”Okay!”
He came back with Kuñjabihārī Prabhu to take him by force. Now a question may arise: my spiritual grand-sire, because this is the era of computer science, especially artificial intelligence, so today, tomorrow, or any other day, the next generation will ask you: Is Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja not doing Bhajan of Kṛṣṇa?

teṣāṁ satata-yuktānāṁ
bhajatāṁ prīti-pūrvakam
dadāmi buddhi-yogaṁ taṁ
yena mām upayānti te
(Bg. 10.10)

“To those who are constantly devoted and worship Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me.” Did Kṛṣṇa only give intelligence to Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja but not to Śrīla Svāmī Gosvāmī Mahārāja? It’s a natural question. When Bhagavān wants to achieve some objective through someone, then he gives intelligence to him, and at that time, he becomes very clever. So, by force, Gurudev (Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja) brought him to Mathurā Maṭha. Gurudev keeping Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja there, sometimes they discussed about bhakti. Both Gurudev and Śrīla Svāmī Gosvāmī Mahārāja and others in the Maṭha became very happy. One day Gurudev (Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja) told to Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja, “Prabhu, your Gurudeva, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda, ordered you to preach to the Western world. So, you should take the renounced order and preach.”
Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja told, “Forget it! Sannyāsa? Renounced order? Never!”
Gurudev asked, “Why not? In this world, householders are doing job and business for what purpose? To maintain their family, specially to please their wife. But your wife sold your manuscript in exchange for tea, and you had to bring it back again. Your wife doesn’t like you and kicked you out, and also your children kicked you out. Now, for what purpose do you maintain your life? You must preach!”
Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja asked, “So, without Sannyāsa, preaching will not work?”
Gurudev (Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja) told, “No! Unless you take the renounced order, not so much influence for preaching will come. The sannyāsī cloth is saffron cloth, and saffron cloth is the symbolic representation of a sādhu. And for sannyāsa, there will be no attachment for the previous family and others.”
Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja said, “No! I’ll not take it.”
Gurudev (Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja) and Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja had so much intimacy. So, Gurudev asked, “What harm if you take sannyāsa? What is the reason behind your denying again and again?”
Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja told, “I have read in scriptures and heard from my Gurudev Prabhupāda Sarasvatī Ṭhākura that –

yasyāham anugṛhṇāmi
hariṣye tad-dhanaṁ śanaiḥ
tato ‘dhanaṁ tyajanty asya
sva-janā duḥkha-duḥkhitam

‘If I especially favor someone, I gradually deprive him of his wealth. Then the relatives and friends of such a poverty-stricken man abandon him. In this way he suffers one distress after another.’ Moreover, upon whom I bestow my mercy, I make them a street beggar.” (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.88.8)

Then Gurudev (Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja) began to laugh.
Abhaya Caraṇa Prabhu asked, “Why are you laughing, Mahārāja?”
Gurudev (Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja) told, “Well, hearing your siddhānta.”
Abhaya Caraṇa Prabhu asked, “Is it not true?”
Gurudev replied, ”Yes, this is true. Well, what is remaining? Kṛṣṇa stole all of your wealth. Are you the owner of your medical shop? How much money do you have? Where is that money? After that, you became General Manager of Bengal Chemical Company in Kolkatā. Where is that money gone?”
This means that Kṛṣṇa has stolen, so Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja could not deny.
Then Gurudev was telling, “Kṛṣṇa says that to whom I bestow my mercy I make them a street beggar, no home, nothing. Do you have anything left? So, you are now a beggar.”
Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja was telling, “Yes…this is also true.”
So, now Gurudev was telling, “Listen, one day Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira told, ‘Oh Kṛṣṇa, I want some benediction.’
Kṛṣṇa asked surprisingly, “Elder brother! You need a benediction?”
Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja, “Yes.”
Pāṇḍava’s mother Kuntīdevī and Dvārakādhīśa Kṛṣṇa’s father Vasudeva Mahārāja are brother and sister, so a blood relation is there between Yudhiṣṭhira and Dvārakādhīśa Kṛṣṇa.”
So, Kṛṣṇa was asking, “What benediction do you want?”
Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja told, “If you promise that you’ll give me benediction, give me, give me, give me—Yes, Yes, Yes—three times, then I will ask, otherwise not.”
Kṛṣṇa said, “Okay, what do you want to ask? I shall give. I shall give. I shall give.”
Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja told, “I want to be the richest person on the planet, where no one will be so wealthy like myself. No one in the future and no one in the past would have been wealthier than me.”
Kṛṣṇa said, “This is a very strange thing! So be it.”
Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja continued, “Not only that…my treasure will be so vast that even someone trying to distribute it with both hands still can never finish it.”
Kṛṣṇa said, “So be it! Anything else?”
Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja said, ”Yes! I want that I never get defeated in the battlefield.”
“Granted! Anything else?”
”Yes, my wife will be much more beautiful than Miss Universe and completely under control by me. Whatever I shall tell her to do this or do that, she will do. But not like modern women or not like the mundane world where the wife is controlling the husband. Not like this.”
”So be it. Anything else?”
”No, that’s enough. I will never ask anything in the future.”
Then Kṛṣṇa told, “Oh, my elder brother, may I ask you something?”
Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja replied, “Yes, why not?”
Kṛṣṇa asked, “Why did you ask for these benedictions? For what purpose?”
Then Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja was smiling and told, “Kṛṣṇa, these are not for me. I ask for you!”
Kṛṣṇa surprised, “For me you were asking the benediction?”
”Yes! Of course! You know. How people think that if someone does your bhajan, then he will be a street beggar. Seeing this, people don’t do your bhajan. And you also said – yasyāham anugṛhṇāmi hariṣye tad-dhanaṁ śanaiḥ (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.88.8) – ‘If I especially favor someone, I gradually deprive him of his wealth.’ So, people don’t do your bhajan. So, when people will see my high post, then people will think: Yudhiṣṭhira Mahārāja did Kṛṣṇa’s bhajan and he is so wealthy! Everything is favorable to him, his wife is completely controlled by him but extremely beautiful, all brothers are extremely qualified but under control, and also I never get defeated in the battlefield. Then, people will be bound to do your bhajan! So, for this reason, I ask you this benediction. Because, if you promise versus your devotee’s promise, then you always keep your devotee’s promise. So, I asked these benedictions so that people will do your bhajan.” So, devotees are so intelligent.
So, how much my spiritual grand-sire has preached! Look at BBT (Bhaktivedanta Book Trust) has so much money, uncountable. How much is the cost of all the temples all over the world? Look, how wealthy Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja became!

Then Abhaya Caraṇa Prabhu sometimes said yes, sometimes no, to taking sannyāsa. Then, my Param Gurudev, Śrīla Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja, one day came to Śrī Keśava Jī Gauḍīya Maṭha, Mathurā. You can come to Śrī Keśava Jī Gauḍīya Maṭha, Mathurā; this is the sannyāsa place of Śrīla Bhaktivedānta Svāmī Mahārāja, my spiritual grand-sire. It has been completely demolished and now has a new form. It is very beautiful, very nice. You cannot imagine how beautiful it has become. So, please come and visit. Every year we are performing Vrajamaṇḍala parikramā. This year it will be from 7th October to 5th November. If you cannot come this year, you can come next time. Please come and visit; then you can charge your spiritual battery.

So, back to what I was saying. Param Gurudev (Śrīla Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja) came. Then Gurudev told, “O Gurudev, will you ask Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja to take sannyās and preach? Because Prabhupād Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī ordered by his first glance, ‘You have to preach in the English language in the Western world.’”
Param Gurudev said, “Yes, what Śrīla Bhaktivedānta Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja is speaking is true. Why are you not taking sannyāsa?”
“No.”
Then Gurudev told, “I preach that upon whom Kṛṣṇa bestows mercy, He will make him a street beggar, make him homeless, and will steal their wealth. I told everything.”
Param Gurudev told, “Yes. This is correct!”
Then still like a pendulum—yes, no.
There was Śrī Sanātana Prabhu at that time; his age was 90, and he was a disciple of Prabhupāda Sarasvatī Ṭhākura. Then Sanātana Prabhu said, “O Abhaya Prabhu! I am senior to you. I am so much aged also. I came to Prabhupād Sarasvatī Ṭhākura before you. If you take sannyās, I promise that I, at the age of 90, will take the renounced order also.”
Then Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja became inspired and he said, “Okay.”

Then they took sannyās on Viśvarūpa Pūrṇimā. Now the 8th or 9th of Aug will be the full moon. After that, Viśvarūpa Mahotsava will come. That day, they took the renounced order. My Param Gurudev, Śrīla Bhakti Prajñāna Gosvāmī Mahārāja, took the renounced order on Viśvarūpa Mahotsava, and Śrīla Bhaktivedānta Svāmī Mahārāja and Sanātana Prabhu also took sannyāsa on the same tithi. Then Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja took the renounced order and started preaching, going here and there, and he went to Jhānsi, one place in U.P. (Uttar Pradesh), India—maybe four hours train journey from Mathurā, four and a half hours. And people gave him some land, everything. Then he also ordered the Śrīman Mahāprabhu Deity and went there. The local people betrayed him. He came back to Mathurā after some time and he told Param Gurudev, “Oh Keśava Mahārāja! they have cheated me! So I have to come back.” Some brahmacārī was also with him from Mathurā Maṭha, and all of them came back. And he donated Śrīman Mahāprabhu to Param Gurudev and said, “I will preach now in Western countries. Mahāprabhu wants that I first preach in the Western countries and not preach in India. I have to go to Western countries. What my Gurudev Prabhupāda Sarasvatī Ṭhākura told, so I have to go to Western countries.”
Śrīla Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja told, “Yes!”
Then he donated Mahāprabhu. That same Mahāprabhu is taking service in Śrī Keśava Jī Gauḍīya Maṭha, still nowadays. As long as the sun and moon remain on this planet, Śrīman Mahāprabhu will be served by the Mathurā Maṭhavāsīs.

Now a question may arise: when Param Gurudev installed the temple and deity, was there no Mahāprabhu present already in Śrī Keśava Jī Gauḍīya Maṭha? In a Gauḍīya Maṭha, Mahāprabhu must be there. This question may arise. I told earlier this is the age of artificial intelligence, so today, tomorrow, or any other day people will ask. Yes! Mahāprabhu was there. We have three sections in Mathurā Maṭha. In the middle section was Śrī Rādhā Vinoda Bihārī, towards Śrī Rādhā Vinoda Bihārī, the right side was Girirāj Govardhan, and the left side was Śrī Gaura Viṣṇu Priyā. So, three sections. So, Mahāprabhu was there with Viṣṇu Priyā Devī. So, no need to install again with Rādhā Vinoda Bihārī. Now, again a question may arise: where has the Deity of Śrī Gaura Viṣṇu Priyā gone? These Deities are in Śrī Daujī Gauḍīya Maṭha. They are taking service there. When Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja donated, then again they installed Mahāprabhu and kept Him with Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa. And Mahāprabhu one section, another section Gaura Viṣṇu Priyā, another section Girirāj Govardhan. So, that Deity went to Daujī Gauḍīya Maṭha. When Śrī Daujī Gauḍīya Maṭha was established, there was no Deity, so Gurudev (Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja) donated Śrī Gaura Viṣṇu Priyā Devī there. So now there are still three sections. In the middle section, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu donated by my spiritual grand-sire Śrīla Bhaktivedānta Svāmī Mahārāja—a very beautiful Deity! And Rādhā Vinoda Bihārī to the right side of Mahāprabhu, Girirāj Govardhan, to the left side Śrīmatī Rādhikā, our Param Gurudev Śrīla Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī, below that Guru-paramparā and the Deities of my Guru Mahārāja and Gurudev: Śrīla Vāmana Gosvāmī Mahārāja and Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja. Very beautiful!

So, then Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja went for preaching and told Gurudev (Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja), “I will go. I will allow them to take everything. If they want meat, beef, wine, everything, I will allow, but one condition: they have to chant the Holy Name. I will not force them to chant the Holy Name. Free from anxiety, they should chant because I have full faith in the Holy Name. In the beginning, they will not give up this beef, pork, and this wine, but I have full faith in Harināma. When they start chanting, by the influence of the Holy Name, they will give up everything.”
[36:45-41:05 – Rāghunātha Dāsa]

When he was performing Kīrtan, everyone danced joyfully. Even hippies would join, dancing to the rhythm and tune of the Kīrtan. These hippies often carried alcohol, cigarettes, and lighters. After Kīrtan, when he opened his eyes, only a few hippies would remain. They would gift him their alcohol bottles, cigarettes, and other belongings before leaving. He performed Kīrtan at Tompkins Square Park, where we had also visited with Gurudeva and performed Kīrtan. Initially, his preaching efforts were not successful, leading him to think, “It’s better to go to India.”

He then began searching for a ship to return to India. He noticed a billboard that read, “Unalloyed Steel.” This phrase resonated with him, and he realized, “Oh! Unalloyed Steel means I must perform unalloyed bhakti to Kṛṣṇa.” He then returned and resumed his preaching, eventually achieving success. It took a year for anything to happen, illustrating the immense effort he put in.

When Śrīla B.V. Svāmī Gosvāmī Mahārāja first returned to India, Gurudev (Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja) was the sole person to greet him at the airport. No one else came. In contrast, today, when we arrive, many people come to greet us, and during Gurudev’s (Śrīla B.V. Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja) time, many would come to greet him. So, Gurudev (Śrīla B.V. Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja) came to greet him and take him to Mathurā. However, no one would sit with Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja’s disciple to honor prasādam, saying, “He is coming from a mleccha country; we will not take prasādam with him.”
Śrīla Svāmī Gosvāmī Mahārāja’s disciple was Ācāryānanda. Gurudev (Śrīla B.V. Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja), being from a high-class Brāhmaṇa family, rejected this notion, stating, “No! Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja is a great sādhu, a bona fide Guru, and an Ācārya. He has initiated these hippies, so they are Vaiṣṇavas, not hippies. Therefore, why should we not take prasādam with them?”
Gurudeva (Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja) was the first person in all of India to honor prasādam alongside the disciples of Śrīla Svāmī Gosvāmī Mahārāja. No one could object to Gurudev (Śrīla Nārāyaṇa Mahārāja) because he would have chastised them and refuted their arguments. Witness the wonderful, fantastic, marvelous preaching performed by my spiritual grand-sire.
I am very happy and proud that Śrīla Svāmī Gosvāmī Mahārāja is my spiritual grand-sire. Therefore, whoever has [joined his mission]—I joined in 1973, then Gurudev told me, “No, you have to complete your university,” so I could not meet him—but when I did his Deity installation in Vṛndāvana, I did his abhiṣek, offered garlands, and everything, in Śrī Vṛndāvana, Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma Temple.

So, whoever has come in this line of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu is eternally indebted to him. We are also indebted, not only Western devotees. First, we at Mathurā Maṭha are eternally indebted because he took sannyāsa at Śrī Keśava Jī Gauḍīya Maṭha, Mathurā, where I stay. He is my spiritual grand-sire before the Western devotees. So, I am more proud. I am praying to my Gurudev (Śrīla Bhaktivedānta Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja), my Guru Mahārāja (Śrīla Bhaktivedānta Vāmana Gosvāmī Mahārāja), and Śrīla Bhaktivedānta Svāmī Gosvāmī Mahārāja to bestow your mercy on me and all of you. What type of Bhajan they came to this world to give, they may also have mercy so that we can also do the same type of bhajan.

Hare Kṛṣṇa

23 July, 2025
Watford, UK