I offer my respectful obeisances unto all the Vaisnava devotees of the Lord.
They are just like desire trees who can fulfil the desires of everyone, and they are full of compassion for the fallen conditioned souls.

Today I am thinking about my beloved diksa-guru, His Divine Grace Srila A.C.Bhaktivedanta Svami Srila Prabhupada, the great messiah of Krishna-consciousness in the west. I remember how he came, via his divine potencies, right up into the hills of the Coromandel Peninsula [New Zealand]. There he had me pondering how God was not just a bright white light or a void, or a force or energy permeating nature as I had assumed, but a sentient being, who thought, felt and willed, as I did. God, Srila Prabhupada explained, is a being with a personality and a form, but not just any personality or form. He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, with an exquisitely alluring and enchanting form, the most beautiful of all. With the hue of a fresh dark raincloud, His lightning yellow dhoti, His lotus eyes, three-fold bending form and captivating flute-playing, God is the heart-throb of every living being in His creation. “For so long”, Srila Prabhupada said, “we have wondered who God is. Now we understand that He is Krishna”.

I was born to atheistic parents; I was taught to write notes to Santa Clause and told there was no such thing as God. When I was fourteen, I began to wonder about things. How did the sun and moon rise and set with such accurate regularity ? How did a big tree grow from a tiny seed ? Why are flowers fragrant ? What makes the pull of gravity ? Why do people look like one or both of their parents? and many other things. My father was a scientist and had scientific explanations for all these things, but those answers didn’t hit the spot for me. They were dry and stale.

One night in 1966, just before I turned fifteen, I was inspired to pray to God.

“God,” I prayed, with every ounce of sincerity in me, and a hint of despair, “if You exist, You must know me. You must know that I am here. So if You exist, please make me know it. Please somehow make me aware of Your existence.”

Soon after that, lust kicked in forcefully, and I started to go out with boys and do all the things teenagers did in those days - which wasn’t as arrant as what they do these days - and I forgot about my prayer.

After a few highly unsatisfying and tormenting years of trying to enjoy, I again became introspective. It was the early seventies, and the flower-power generation was in full force … ‘the generation with the new explanation’. I was twenty-one. A strong feeling welled up, causing me to perceive and appreciate that there had to be more to life than met the eye … a purpose or meaning behind our being ... something more to existence than was revealed or taught. And I knew that no one I had ever met or seen had any answers or explanations. The flower-power philosophies of love and peace, rejecting mainstream society, living close to nature and becoming one with God sounded all very nice, but at the end of the day, no matter how hard I tried to practise them, I was still left with the same old dry, empty, lonely feeling.

Yes, there must be a higher truth. And, despite the fact that I was possessed of all the usual passions of a young woman, desire for a man and children, I felt certain that I was going to find it.

Then Srila Prabhupada came into my life. Throughout the years when I had first prayed, and then again later begun to deepen, he had been spreading the sankirtana movement of Mahaprabhu all over the world. By his unique kindness, he came to me in the form of the teachings he carried. He was a God man. He had all the answers to all the questions I had, and he taught me things that I would never have imagined, or dreamed of asking about. The people of the world are caught in an illusion, maya. We think we are our bodies, and that this bodily life has some importance. We are like a fish out of water, who can never be happy no matter what comforts you give him. Krishna’s world, Vrndavana, the world of spiritual form, is the real, original world, our true home … back home, back to Godhead … the world of no anxiety. But we can only go there when we have developed pure unalloyed love and devotion. Pure unalloyed love and devotion for Krishna, God.

And it’s not just wofty-lofty either. Hare Krishna is not your ordinary religion; it is serious spiritual discipline. There is a process, a disciplinary process, for removing oneself from this temporary illusory existence, to the blissful eternal existence. One has to accept and take guidance from a genuine, pure guru, not a counterfeit guru … because when your hands are tied behind your back, [a metaphor for our capture in the great illusion of this world], then only one who is untied, whose hands are free, can successfully untie you. Approach a pure guru, but be very careful to learn to recognise what a pure guru is, because there are many counterfeits around, and if you [subconsciously] want to be cheated, then you’ll be cheated. A true guru is always eager to hear, speak and chant about the pastimes of Radha and Krishna and Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. He knows the Vedic and Gaudiya Vaisnava [Hare Krishna] scriptures like the back of his hand. He is meek and mild and humble [though he can also be like a thunderbolt] because he has no false ego. He has never been under the spell of maya, and never does he fall under it. He has no vices in his heart or mind. And he can very easily induce one to take up the chanting of the holy name of Krishna. Just by seeing him, one wants to do so.

The first instruction guru gives is: bring the regular chanting of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra into your life.

HARE KRISHNA HARE KRISHNA
KRISHNA KRISHNA HARE HARE
HARE RAMA HARE RAMA
RAMA RAMA HARE HARE

This mantra contains and bestows not just all the spiritual benefits that one can get from following any spiritual process at any time, but the extremely unique and astounding gift given by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Mahaprabhu is Krishna who appeared [took birth] in this world five hundred years ago as a devotee of Himself, to bring to the people of this age a gift which is only given once in a day of Brahma, [an amount of time inconceivable by human reckoning] in the age called Dhanya-kali. This present age, Kali, is a wretched age, [as we can see by following the news] but Dhanya-kali is that rare Kali-age which is fortunate. The gift of Mahaprabhu in Dhanya-kali, opens the gates of the heart of the sincere chanter of Hare Krishna, to an extremely intimate and all-encompassing relationship with the most beautiful relisher of all relationships, Krishna. Such intimacy with God is not available or attainable by any other method, nor at any other time. It’s a secret, because most of the world doesn’t want to know about it, being caught up in the illusory energy, maya. People ignore this message and find excuses to avoid it. But it’s an open secret. If you want it, Krishna, the beautiful, supreme loving God, is here, ready and waiting to welcome, embrace and enfold you. It is real.

This was the gift and information that our Srila Prabhupada brought to us - the gift of Mahaprabhu. It was so spiritually scientific - so spiritually scientifically referenced, that one could hardly doubt it. Srila Prabhupada gave vast evidence from the ancient Vedic scriptures, and promised that all this was true. “It’s not mythology,” he emphasised. “it’s fact.” He instilled faith in me that I had come to the Absolute Truth … or at least to a process by which I could attain it.

I remember the whole New Zealand and Australian yatra, eighty strong, meeting him at the Melbourne airport. I experienced this three times, in 1974, 75 and 76. I remember the spiritual thrill, excitement and anticipation in our kirtana. I remember our togetherness … our Prabhupada, our saviour, the star of our lives, was coming. I remember his universe-warming smile as he came through the door of customs, and his loving look at each and every devotee, his boys and girls. I remember his aristocratic air as he walked towards the waiting car, a big colourful festive umbrella being held over him.

I remember when one disciple asked him in class, how we could believe that Lord Brahma rides on a swan. It seemed a bit far-fetched.

“What do you know with your teeny experience?” Srila Prabhupada reprimanded.

And when someone asked why it was that only young people were coming to Krishna-consciousness, he laughingly said, “Old fools!”

Inspired to serve the mission of Mahaprabhu under our Srila Prabhupada, we abandoned everything that was normal to us. We left our families, our jobs, our studies, our futures … just threw it all in, and instead went out dancing and chanting in the streets. We slept on the floor, without even a mattress, in communal rooms [one for boys, one for girls], and rose at 3.30 - 4am to chant Hare Krishna and attend the early morning prayer gathering, mangal-arti. Not one of us ever missed it. What an auspicious way to live ! We would have a cold shower before mangal-arti as well. Either there was no hot water left after the first three or four showers, with thirty-odd devotees drawing on the one domestic cylinder, or, at another temple, someone had sawn off the handle of the hot tap, to force us to be austere.

As I sang the early morning prayers I used to imagine Srila Prabhupada as I knew him, an effulgent saint in saffron robes, assisting the gopis, to serve Radha and Krishna in the groves of Vrndavana. I did not know that he has another form in that world. I used to ponder my fortune to have such a spiritual master, wishing that I could appreciate him more, and be more dedicated to him, instead of being allured, as I knew my heart was, by the ordinary mundane world.

Attending discourses twice a day, we became familiar with Srimad Bhagavatam and Bhagavad-gita.

Our days were filled with service. To cleanse our hearts and dovetail all our natural propensities in Krishna’s service, Srila Prabhupada gave us more service than there was time for in a day. Serving the temple deities, sewing clothes for Them, making jewellery for Them, making daily flower garlands for Them, cooking for Them, polishing Their brass and silver, washing Their towels, looking after all Their paraphernalia, making ghee-wicks for Their worship, making the milk-sweets, cooking for the devotees, cleaning the kitchen, doing the laundry, cleaning the temple and the devotees’ living quarters, doing the shopping, taking care of guests who visited the temple, going out daily together on harinama sankirtana, preparing for and participating in the many wonderful annual devotional festivals, reading and studying Srila Prabhupada’s books, learning slokas from them, and distributing those books to others … we gave our all to this, and we were immersed …

… but not quite. Although we did not allow them much expression, old passions lived on. I was ‘in love’ with Narayana dasa. We had begun chanting the Hare Krishna maha-mantra together, there in the hills of the Coromandel Peninsula, and joined the movement together in Melbourne when Srila Prabhupada was visiting there in 1974. When I had met Narayana dasa, I had felt that he was my life-partner. Srila Prabhupada had told his followers ‘we must not live together as friends; we must get ourselves married.’ So I wanted to marry Narayana. But he was going through a stage of wanting to be a brahmacari, a celibate monk. He wore the saffron robes of one in that order. I was not to know this would only be temporary, and I lamented, thinking that he may never marry me.

I remember crying over this at night as I lay in my sleeping bag on the floor, in a room with twelve other girls. I would cuddle a picture of Srila Prabhupada, and play a cassette tape of him singing bhajanas and playing harmonium. His soulful, soothing, comforting voice and his mystical harmonium playing, penetrated deeply into my being and gave me solace as I drifted off to sleep.

I was living at ISKCON’s Murwillumbah farming community, New Govardhana, [in Northern NSW, Australia] where Narayana and I got married. We were among the first devotees to ever live there, and it was super-austere … unthinkable by today’s standards. I lived in a little tent in an over-grown paddock, and because there was no electricity and no proper bathroom, I used to have my pre-dawn bath from a bucket of water which I carried out to my tent when I retired the evening before. In the winter months there was a thin layer of ice on the water in the mornings. There were no heaters, and the body remained very cold until 9am when the day warmed up. Austerity was good for our spiritual growth; we were pushing on the movement of Mahaprabhu under the guidance of the great Srila Prabhupada, and we were determined that such things would not be an obstacle. We took them in our stride.

It was November 1977. I had been initiated less than three years, and was three months pregnant with my first baby, when the shock news came that Srila Prabhupada had ‘left his body’. We had been aware that his health was not good, but, despite the fact that he was eighty-three, we did not suspect that the end of his manifest presence was near. I don’t even remember knowing that his condition was critical. I don’t know what devotees around the world knew, but the masses of us downunder in Australia and New Zealand were unaware that Srila Prabhupada was about to go. So it came as a shock. Everyone in the little country farmhouse temple sobbed as we sat around together that evening. We didn’t know what it meant now that Srila Prabhupada, the captain of our ship, was gone.

But there was a ray of solace. Over the next few days, our temple president was repeatedly on the phone to Vrndavana, in India, where Srila Prabhupada’s vigraha [transcendental body] lay. We were all eager to hear what was going on, how the devotees there were coping, and what sort of a service was to be held for Srila Prabhupada. The temple president would give us updates every few hours, after his latest phone call. We heard about Srila Prabhupada’s last few hours, about how his transcendental body was taken, as had been his wish, on a bullock cart around Krishna’s pastime places in Vrndavana. And one comforting message came through loud and clear: the devotees were feeling well protected and supported; the putting of Srila Prabhupada into samadhi was being lovingly and expertly guided and handled by a very kind, capable, beneficent, senior Vaisnava. This Vaisnava, from ISKCON’s cousin fellowship, the Gaudiya Matha [founded in India in the early 1900s], was Srila Narayana Maharaja. Our devotees, being still undeveloped in many cultural aspects of Vaisnavism, were deeply grateful for the guidance and care of that magnanimous Vaisnava, and the big-heartedness that they experienced was so potent that it came through the phone lines, and was felt by us as we listened to the reports. At least it was felt by me. It was a comfort to hear, and I remember clear-as-day, feeling that there was after all some hope, some comfort, some guiding light, even although Srila Prabhupada was gone. I felt some gratitude and affection in my heart for that Vaisnava, for so lovingly caring for the devotees, and my Srila Prabhupada.

The ISKCON communities adjusted to life without Srila Prabhupada’s manifest presence, and in his wake, the movement continued to boom in the eighties, with many new devotees coming. Some of Srila Prabhupada’s senior disciples initiated newcomers into the process of chanting, but I knew the newcomers were not experiencing in their gurus what we had experienced in Srila Prabhupada. Sincere though they may have been, no latter-day guru came near to Srila Prabhupada, with his pure love, spiritual power and potency. No longer were we to see his universe-warming smile made of pure unalloyed love and devotion for Krishna. No more were we to taste that special indescribable mellow of spiritually surcharged kirtana in his uttama presence, nor our reverent wrapt attention as we listened to him speak; and gone was the cohesion and togetherness experienced when all had the one spiritual master.

Months turned into years. Narayana and I pioneered again, at the ISKCON Auckland farming community, New Varshana, being once again among the very first devotees to live there, in its very raw state. We built the foundations of that community, as we had done the few years prior at New Govardhana in Murwillumbah. None of us had any personal incomes. We were dedicated. At New Varshana, we lived in caravans plonked on uneven ground in paddocks which turned to oceans of mud in winter. There was one shower in the cowshed, shared by men and women. The one washing machine, also in the cowshed, was used by the whole community. It was to this home that I brought my second and third babies from hospital.

Meanwhile, the pre-dawn mangal-arti and service to the beautiful temple deities, Sri Sri Radha-Giridhari Bhagavan, continued, in yet another farm-house temple. We young mothers used to breast-feed each other’s babies, taking turns in freeing each other up to attend Srimad Bhagavatam class and to do service. Those were the days, the strength-giving days. We were the followers of the magnanimous Mahaprabhu, developing His humanity-saving movement under the guidance of the pre-eminent acarya Srila Prabhupada. For this great honour, we chose to live here and be the pioneers for the movement, and it was hardly any problem.

Just as the longer the atmosphere goes without the sun the colder it gets, so as years went by without Srila Prabhupada’s direct presence and pure guidance, troubles arose. There is no need to go into details. Suffice to say we were all conditioned souls [meaning that our psyches were programmed by many lifetimes of living under the illusions of this imitation world], with active enjoying, controlling and criticising propensities. Trusted leaders and teachers fell. Those from whom devotees had taken initiation fell. Hearts were disappointed. Faith was cracked, and in some instances, shattered. There was no powerful uttama around, to teach us to recognise our anarthas [non-conducive - often unconscious – thought-patterns, habits, attitudes and attachments] and instil in us a sense of right from wrong in the subtleties of progress to our next level of bhakti, loving devotion to Krishna.

Breaking out of material existence, out of the tentacles of illusion, maya, is like nothing else in the world. No one can understand what is going on except those similarly seriously engaged. And even then, anarthas rising up from the pits of the conditioned heart, cause disagreements and communication breakdowns.

Though a taste for gratifying my senses in the world remained, I never stopped my daily meditation of chanting sixteen rounds of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra which I had vowed to Srila Prabhupada at my initiation that I would always do. Srila Prabhupada had a powerful sway on me. I always remembered the immensely loving look he gave me during my initiation when he gave me my name, “Bhadra dasi”. The memory would temper me whenever I thought of loosening myself from the disciplinary process he inspired me to adopt.

I knew that Krishna-consciousness was the absolute truth, and it was of paramount importance to me that my children also learn to take it seriously by adopting the regular chanting of the maha-mantra, and living the Vaisnava life-style.

Srila Prabhupada had taught me to work hard. I was well-trained in being fully engaged. Home-schooling the three children [we did not want them to be exposed to irreligious elements and ugra-karma, the grossnesses of the modern age] and providing income for the family by making and selling prasadam, were my fuller-than-fulltime labours of love for many years.

Despite all, after twenty years, I felt I’d plateaued spiritually.

When was I going to get some tangible, inner spiritual growth – growth that I could really feel in my soul? When was I going to glimpse the taste for which I was so anxious? When was I going to properly understand and realise that I was not this body, and be free from the pullings of the mind and senses?

I found no senior within the devotee community who could offer deep, genuine, substantial and effective guidance and extension in these areas. No senior preacher or leader in ISKCON, as much as I liked and respected many of them, could recapture for me the feeling of those sweet and blissful days when Srila Prabhupada was visiting. Quite to the contrary, some of the elders, struggling conditioned souls themselves, gave the distinct impression that they had no real care or interest in me. Though I searched and tried to reach out to certain elders, there was no one who could offer comfort or deep spiritual extension to a devotee of twenty years.

Extension, that’s what I longed for … spiritual extension. Not just words and mental impressions, but authentic, internal spiritual extension.

I used to pray in anguish, “Srila Prabhupada, please come back! Please come back!”

These sorts of frustrations were, and still are, very wide-spread. In the mid-nineties, I remember hearing that many of our ISKCON devotees, including many leaders and seniors, were turning to Srila Narayana Maharaja. It was told to me as a negative thing. But that name rang a bell. Srila Narayana Maharaja … yes … he was the kind and loving Vaisnava whose dedicated assistance had been so deeply welcomed and appreciated at Srila Prabhupada’s samadhi, sixteen or seventeen years ago. In the absence of an uttama guru in our ISKCON, with leaders falling and many devotees unable to keep their initiation vows and returning to ordinary material life, how could turning to a senior Vaisnava for spiritual guidance be negative thing? Mahaprabhu’s movement is, by definition, non-sectarian. I was not going to accept that taking spiritual guidance from another great Vaisnava was a bad thing just because some were saying so. I didn’t believe it. In fact, I aspired to hear from Srila Narayana Maharaja myself. Maybe he could tweak me and make me more internally in tune with what my Srila Prabhupada was saying. After all, he was the well-wisher and servant of my Srila Prabhupada, and he was a revered and senior Vaisnava.

Had I known how true my intuitive feelings were, I would have made my way to his lotus feet years earlier. But somehow I thought I couldn’t afford to travel, to India, or anywhere.

In the year of 2002, Srila Narayana Maharaja came to Auckland, New Zealand to get me. He had come for the first time the year before, but missing me that year, he came back the following year. The pure devotee is like Krishna – he achieves many missions with one move, and to pick me up was one of the reasons he came back to New Zealand in 2002. The first thing he said to me when I came face to face with him was, “I want to help Srila Prabhupada’s disciples.”

There in his eyes was the look of deep, authentic compassion, fathomless wisdom and fathomless love that I had not seen in anyone else except Srila Prabhupada. Here was another uttama Vaisnava … without a shred of a doubt. I listened to his discourses for three days, and I could almost see Krishna’s pastimes as he spoke them. It was as if they were injected into my heart in a genuine, living way, complete with all the emotions the Vrajavasis feel in their interactions with Krishna.

When he was leaving after three days, I was standing in the kirtana, and completely spontaneously my arms were shooting up into the air and I was gasping and laughing and crying at the same time. Here was my master ! Here was the person I’d been waiting, longing, thirsting for, for twenty-five long years! Srila Prabhupada had answered my prayer: he had come back … in the form of Srila Narayana Maharaja.

Ever since then I have spent several months of each year with him. Somehow I now find the money to go to India twice a year.

A guru can only elevate a disciple to the level he himself is at. How can a sadhaka receive the gift of Mahaprabhu without taking shelter of a maha-bhagavata who is in possession of that gift? How will that gift be bestowed on him or her? This is a very personal process. It is not automatic. There has to be a personal connection between guru and disciple; that’s what diksa- and siksa-gurus are for. This is clearly pointed out to us by many examples in the scriptures.

These two maha-bhagavatas, my diksa- and siksa-gurus, are serving in direct and distinct unison and co-ordination with each other. It is not that I have left one to serve the other. My internal dedication, my determination to throw myself into the process that Srila Prabhupada introduced me to, to study his books and become learned in the Gaudiya Vaisnava philosophy, to reach out to others with the same, and to generally be the person Srila Prabhupada wanted me to be, has increased manifold since I have been under the guidance of Sri Srimad Bhaktivedanta Narayana Gosvami Maharaja Gurudeva.

Srila Prabhupada and Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja were very close friends, sharing an intimate relationship. Every devotee who has been to the earthly Vrndavana in Uttar Pradesh, India, has seen the little rooms at Sri Radha-Damodara temple where our Srila Prabhupada lived before coming to the west to start ISKCON, the rooms where he planned his worldwide preaching mission. Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja used to come to visit him in those rooms, and they would discuss Srimad Bhagavatam together. There they sat on the floor, two simple sadhus, and Srila Prabhupada would roll out chapatis with a rolling pin, and Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja would puff them up on a flame. Togetherness.

Srila Prabhupada called Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja to his bedside only hours before he went into samadhi. Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja was the last person to whom our Srila Prabhupada spoke before he disappeared, and Srila Prabhupada asked him to take care of and extend his disciples, and to put him into samadhi.

Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja is of the same spiritual family as our Srila Prabhupada. Not only is his guru our Srila Prabhupada’s god-brother and sannyasa-guru, but Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja himself is actually a siksa-disciple of Srila Prabhupada’s. So it cannot be claimed that Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja is of a different line. We are all a very close-knit family. My two gurus share the same grand-father gurus, and they carry an identical message, the message of Mahaprabhu.

Srila Prabhupada always emphasised that he had no message of his own. He was just a pion, he said. The message of Mahaprabhu is the message of Mahaprabhu. There is no question that there are two different messages of Mahaprabhu. Srila Prabhupada presented this message expertly for the world social milieu in the sixties and seventies. And Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja, in a complementary way, is presenting it expertly for the present social circumstance, thirty-forty years later. That’s why, generation after generation, maha-bhagavatas emerge, so that the message doesn’t get changed or misinterpreted in the flow of the changing times. This is the parampara system, an eternal guru-disciple chain. The acaryas are not in competiton with each other.

Viewed from a distance, Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja’s way of presenting the teachings may make the teachings appear to be different teachings from what our Srila Prabhupada presented. Indeed some have tried, and still vainly try, to ‘prove’ a difference by distorting some statements of Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja and taking them out of context. Those who care to look for the similarities between the teachings of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja make rich discoveries. But those who try to search out differences, obtain a frustratingly worthless finding. Those with a non-biased, discerning eye, and those who have an intimate heart-connection with both gurus, know well that there is no essential difference in their teachings.

So devotees who choose to further their spiritual development under the guidance of Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja are not being disloyal to Srila Prabhupada and going against his movement. Rather, they are deepening their relationship with Srila Prabhupada and strengthening his movement, which after all is the movement of Mahaprabhu.

Unfortunately, some people with biases in their hearts, don’t see this. Even although Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja is hugely successful at changing people’s hearts and causing them to chant Hare Krishna and strengthen their sadhana, etc, [including many of the children of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples and followers, our kids, who before meeting him were wallowing in the world like ordinary sense-enjoyers], some people, looking through screens of fear and jealousy lurking stealthily in their hearts, only see threats and opposition, and create sects and boundries, which is completely opposed to the transcendental, non-sectarian movement of Mahaprabhu.

Those who criticise maha-bhagavatas invariably end up criticising Srila Prabhupada, as all Gaudiya Vaisnava maha-bhagavatas are members of the same team. Some persons, in the name of being faithful to Srila Prabhupada, relegate him to the position of an ordinary jealous person who has material attachment for his disciples and demands mundane loyalty from them. Some people think that Srila Prabhupada wants to claim the spiritual movement of Mahaprabhu as his own; they think that Prabhupada has desire for profit, distinction and adoration, and wants all the credit for spreading the movement of Mahaprabhu. Because of this kind of concoction and mundane reckoning by some, the ISKCON society has become sectarian when it is meant to be non-sectarian. Some apparently do not consider that it is loyalty to the teachings of Mahaprabhu, to the process of Krishna-consciousness, that Srila Prabhupada wants. Srila Prabhupada wants us to accept whatever is favourable for devotional service to Krishna and reject whatever is unfavourable. “Wherever bhakti is available, one must purchase it without delay.”[CC Madhya-lila 8.70] The International Society for Krishna-consciousness does not have boundries like some ordinary club or organisation. It is a society of consciousness … Krishna-consciousness. That is the unique beauty of it. It has the potential to accommodate the whole world. Whoever is Krishna-conscious, or who is developing Krishna-consciousness, is a member of that society. Srila Prabhupada gave us wings, and he wants us to fly. He wants his disciples and followers to become strong, characterful devotees, not first and foremost members of some club or organisation. He does not feel any mundane possessiveness of his followers.

Nor does Srila Prabhupada expect that in the name of loyalty to him, we shun elevated association. If by elevated association our Krishna-consciousness moves forward and we become happy and fulfilled in spiritual life, Srila Prabhupada is happy. This is what he wants.

“When all the sinful, miserable living entities become happy, the Vaisnava’s desire is fulfilled.” [Srila Prabhupada’s own song, ‘Prayer to Krishna’s Lotus Feet’ verse 3]

The same mentality that imposes mundanity on Srila Prabhupada, naturally does the same on Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja. Instead of seeing a maha-bhagavata, an emissary of Mahaprabhu who is full of compassion for the fallen conditioned souls, who is assisting Srila Prabhupada and Mahaprabhu with his dedication to propagating the chanting of the holy name of Krishna, they see a power-hungry person wanting to snatch and mislead Srila Prabhupada’s followers and mission.

It is all a matter of vision. And what causes our vision to be so tainted? Our heart condition -- anarthas in our heart. Generally we view others and the world as being the same way we are … atmanam manyate jagat: as I am, so others are.

Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja [Srila Gurudeva] visited New Zealand again in January 08. It was a very special visit for his followers in New Zealand as we thought he would not come here again. We organised a wonderful ‘Festival of Love’, a festival the likes of which there had not been in New Zealand since 1976, when Srila Prabhupada was last here.

In the course of my prasadam distribution business, I contact a large number of people, and during 2007, in the lead-up to Srila Gurudeva’s visit to New Zealand, I distributed many flyers and attempted to spread the word about Srila Gurudeva’s forthcoming visit, inviting people to come and hear him. Sometimes, in following people up, I found their response to be somewhat cold, because since receiving the flyer with the picture of Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja on it, they had found out that I was ‘not from ISKCON.’ They gave the impression that they thought I was some kind of masquerading imposter, only because, since last seeing me, they had been told by someone in a defaming way, that my guru and I were ‘not ISKCON.’

I never left Srila Prabhupada or his teachings, and in fact am following him and them more deeply and zealously than ever before. But some people, looking with very shallow vision, have decided that, because I am taking instruction from Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja, I am being disloyal to Srila Prabhupada and his teachings. They think I am from some new upstart mission which is in competition with, and in opposition to, ISKCON. Worse than this, they have misgivings in their hearts about a pure devotee, a friend and associate and well-wisher of Srila Prabhupada, who has dedicated his life to the propagation of the holy name of the Lord, and who is full of compassion for the fallen conditioned souls. Worse than this, they dare to speak bold lies and defamations about him to others.

Of course, I am a fallen conditioned soul with a heart full of dirty things like kapata and kutinati [covert, inconspicuous (and often not so inconspicuous) deceit and hypocrisy] and unlimited other anarthas. But taking guidance from Srila Gurudeva, I am becoming aware of these things, whereas before I was not. [This is just one little aspect of the spiritual deepening I was longing for before I met him]. However, these people do not judge me and my fellow followers of Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja on our anarthas. They judge us and our guru on misinformation and false pretexts.

In Vrndavana in Kartika 2003, Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja was awarded the most honourable title of Yuga Acarya, the spiritual master of the age, due to his immense contribution, both in India and abroad, to the spread of Vedic and Vaisnava dharma. Being a genuine humble Vaisnava, Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja was highly reluctant to accept this award, feeling unqualified, and saying that Srila Rupa Gosvami or Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura or our Srila Prabhupada should get it. But the World Council of Religions in Delhi, the panditas and brahmanas of Vrndavana and Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja’s multitudes of Indian and international followers, insisted that he accept it.

yugacarya prabhum vande
sri narayana karuna mayam
sri radha dhatve yogam datva
tarayate bhuvana trayet

Those who want to be blind to this or ignore it, are of course free to do so. But they should not, out of jealousy, insecurity or some other indisposition, put false fears and prejudices into the minds of others, by defaming the impeccable character of Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja, and speaking or spreading distortions or untruths about him. He is a bona fide follower of Mahaprabhu and a spiritually powerful, pure preacher in the Hare Krishna movement.

And what about the fact that Srila Prabhupada told us not to associate with his god-brothers? Well Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja is not a god-brother of Srila Prabhupada for a start. Srila Prabhupada loved us and wanted to protect us from any possible bewilderments or confusions from hearing the philosophy presented in different ways while we were yet so young and spiritually tender. Parents say to children, “Don’t talk to strangers.” But it is not that the parent believes all strangers are necessarily bad; and he/she ceases to give the instruction as the child grows up and becomes adult.

It is an undisputable fact that Srila Prabhupada wanted his followers, for the purpose of their spiritual extension, to associate with other pure devotees. His purports are abundant with such advice and instruction. Just look at a small few references from only one book, the first volume of first canto of Srimad Bhagavatam.

As the river flows on till she reaches the sea, similarly, pure devotional service flows by the association of pure devotees till it reaches the ultimate goal, namely, transcendental love of God.[Purport to 5.28.]

The summary is that one has to, first of all, seek the association of pure devotees who are not only learned in the Vedanta but are self-realised souls and unalloyed devotees of Lord Sri Krishna, the Personality of Godhead. In that association, the neophyte devotees must render loving service physically and mentally without reservation … Such is the gradual development by association of pure devotees. [Purport to 5.34.]

The first initial stage is called sraddha, or a liking for the Supreme Lord, and in order to increase that liking, one has to associate with pure devotees of the Lord. [Purport to 6.16.]

Within the heart of every living being the Lord Himself as the Supersoul (Paramatma) becomes the spiritual master, and from without He becomes the spiritual master in the shape of scriptures, saints and the initiator spiritual master.[Purport to 7.5]

And what about the first verse of Suddha-bhakata, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura’s song which Srila Prabhupada taught us to sing:

Dust from the lotus feet of pure devotees is conducive to devotional service, while service to the Vaisnavas is itself the supreme perfection, and the root of the tender creeper of divine love.

There can be no doubt that Srila Prabhupada intended and instructed us to associate with elevated Vaisnavas. It is the backbone of the whole process.

In the person of Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja are all the symptoms of a pure Vaisnava. The first and most obvious evidence is the things he says and talks about. His words indicate that he is always focused on Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Sri Sri Radha-Krishna, and loving devotion to Them. He is always drawing people’s attention to these.

The spiritual master is always eager to hear and chant about the unlimited conjugal pastimes of Radhika and Madhava, and Their qualities, names and forms. The spiritual master aspires to relish these at every moment. [Sri Gurv-astaka 5]

Those who know our Gurudeva know that this is him to a tee.

Secondly, he knows the Vedas. He is thoroughly conversant with all the scriptures of the Vaisnava acaryas in the line from Mahaprabhu, and he lives according to their authorised message. He has been strictly practising the process of bhakti-yoga for over sixty years, and he has never had any deviation.

The offence of criticising or blaspheming a pure Vaisnava is called the ‘mad elephant offence,’ and it is most heinous and dangerous. When a male elephant gets into the mood for mating, he goes completely mad and wild. With his trunk flailing, his huge powerful body crushes and tramples anything in his path. Male elephants in this condition have even been known to kill their trainer-masters, with whom they have, at all other times, an obedient, respectful relationship.

The spiritual devotion developing in the heart of the aspiring, practising devotee is likened to a creeper, the bhakti-lata. When the mad elephant of blasphemy of a Vaisnava takes place though, that creeper is ripped up at the roots and torn to shreds. All the lifetimes of accumulated sukrti [pious credits] which enabled one the rare fortune of coming into contact with the great maha-bhagavata Srila Prabhupada in the first place, the results of all the service and chanting and fasting and tapasya one has done for years, are all annihilated. Whilst our progress in Krishna-consciousness is the one thing we can take with us at death, blasphemy of a Vaisnava is the one thing that will completely destroy it.

When a creeper or a tree is cut down, it stays green and crisp for some time, and still looks like it is alive. But in time it wilts, dries up and rots into the earth.

This is the fate of the devotional creeper of those who criticise and find fault with Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja.

Srila Prabhupada taught us all these things. He said that a devotee is like a honey-bee who only seeks out nectar, pollen and honey, never stool or unclean things. Srila Prabhupada wants us to cultivate seeing the good in all others, what to speak of great Vaisnavas like Srila Narayana Gosvami Maharaja, who are of the same calibre as Narottama das Thakura, Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, and our Srila Prabhupada.

If you hear someone denigrating him, don’t listen. Don’t be malleable by groupthink. Resolve to make your own mind up. Make an effort to gain his darsana. There’s still time – it’s not too late. He is in the holy-dhamas during Gaurapurnima and Kartika, and he visits America and Europe each year, as well as other places. Come along with a light, non-prejudiced heart, and hear and meet the great Vaisnava when he is at a place nearest you. Don’t settle for anything less.

Again we will taste the mellow of spiritually surcharged kirtana in the company of an uttama Vaisnava. Again we will be heartened by his universe-warming smile, and receive his merciful loving glance.

‘As the vast mercy of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu conquers all directions, a flood of transcendental ecstasy will certainly cover the land!’ [Srila Prabhupada’s song ‘Prayer to Krishna’s Lotus Feet’ verse 3]

Bhadra dasi [from New Zealand]

bhadradd@gmail.com