The Disappearance of an Effulgent Sun from the Śrī Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava World
Translated from Śrī Gauḍīya Patrikā, Year 29 (1977–78), Issue 10, page 361–368:
It is with deep pangs of separation that I inform readers that this past 19th of Dāmodara, 28th of Kārtika (14th November, 1977), a Monday, the lunar day of śuklā-caturthi-tithi, at 7:35 in the evening, the founder of the world-renowned Āntarjātika Kṛṣṇa-bhāvanāmṛta Saṅgha (International Soceity for Krishna Consciousness), Parivrājakācārya Tridaṇḍisvāmī Aṣṭottara-śata-śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Svāmī Mahārāja, at the age of 81, surrounded by his disciples who were performing loud saṅkīrtana, and remembering the lotus feet of Śrī Śrī Guru-Gaurāṅga Rādha Govinda, attained the sacred dust of Vraja at his Śrī Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma Mandira in Śrīdhāma Vṛndāvana.
When the influence of Kali had grown excessive, the associate of Bhagavān, Jagad-guru Oṁ Viṣṇupāda Śrī Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Prabhupāda, appeared in this world to shower the pure current of bhakti upon the Kali-afflicted living entities who were gripped by ignorance. Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Svāmī Mahārāja was one of the exalted personalities who appeared on this earthly plane to serve Jagad-guru Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Prabhupāda’s cherished desire to preach pure devotion throughout the whole world. Through him, Śrī Śrī Gaurasundara has mercifully spread the current of pure devotion all over the world, fulfilling His prophecy: “pṛthivīte āche jata nagarādi grāma | sarvatra pracāra haibe mora nāma ||”
In addition to this, the Seventh Gosvāmī, Śrī Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, who restored to this world the powerful flow of the bhakti-bhagīrathī (the Gaṅgā of devotion), which had almost disappeared from the face of the Earth, had prophesized that many thousands of young men and women from Western countries would soon congregate, calling out “Hā Śacīnandana! Hā Rādhe! Hā Kṛṣṇa!” and throwing their arms in the air, dancing, and loudly performing śrī harināma-saṅkīrtana. This great personality, Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Svāmī Mahārāja, has fulfilled this prophecy as well. We are now seeing, as a result of Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Svāmī Mahārāja’s preaching of Śrī Gaura’s message far and wide by the causeless grace and inspiration of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, that many thousands and thousands of Western men and women are giving up liquor, meat, illicit sex and other wicked urges and donning the humble and simple dress befitting Śrī Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas, partaking of bhagavad-prasāda, wearing tulasī-mālās on their necks, clutching śrī harināma japa-mālikās in their hands, adorning their bodies in twelve places with urdhva-puṇḍra tilaka, adopting various other aspects of Vaiṣṇava conduct, paying no heed to the objection or attention of the general public, always chanting the mahā-mantra (hare kṛṣṇa hare kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa hare hare, hare rāma hare rāma rāma rāma hare hare), dancing to mṛdaṅga and karatālas while performing saṅkīrtana, studying devotional scriptures, and rendering arcana-pūjana worship to the deities as per scriptural injunctions. This is all a matter of great delight and wonder.
Brief Life History
Pūjyapāda Śrī Śrīmat Svāmī Mahārāja was born in the month of Bhādra in the Christian year of 1896, on the sacred day of Śrī Nandotsava at his maternal uncle’s home in Tollygunge, in the city of Calcutta. His childhood name was Śrī Abhaya-caraṇa. His father, Śrī Gaura-mohana De, and his mother were extremely devoted Śrī Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas. His ancestors had long since been Vaiṣṇavas under the shelter of Śrī Gaura-Nityānanda. From childhood, the boy Abhaya had a taste for bhakti. At the age of twelve, as per his father’s wishes, he was initiated by the family guru, Śrī Mahendranātha Svāmī, and began following proper Vaiṣṇava conduct. Every day he would assist his illustrious father in the service and worship of Bhagavān. He would observe Janmāṣṭamī, Dola-yātrā, Jhulana-yātrā and other festivals with his friends and family. If a sādhu or vaiṣṇava came to his home, his pitā-ṭhākura (father) would request them to bless his son to obtain the causeless mercy of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī.
Young Abhaya graduated from the Calcutta Scottish Church College in 1920 with a B.A. (Hons) in philosophy. At that time, Mahātmā Gāndhī’s independence movement had begun. The young Abhaya halted his studies and joined the independence movement. He had gotten married in 1918 to a girl named Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī. In 1921, his close friend, Dr. Kārtikacandra Basu (the managing director of Bengal Chemicals) hired this bright young man as his assistant manager. After some time, he left this position and established his own laboratory, “Chemical Works,” in Allahabad, producing various medicines.
Audience with Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Prabhupāda and receiving dīkṣā
In 1922, at the Śrī Gauḍīya Maṭha at Ultadanga, he had the fortune of obtaining his first darśana of Śrī Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura. During this very first meeting, Śrīla Prabhupāda extended the faithful and well educated youth, Abhaya-caraṇa, his causeless mercy and, for up to two hours, instructed him in the teachings of pure devotion, the immaculate dharma of the soul, as practiced and taught by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. And it was right then that Śrīla Prabhupāda [Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura] gave him the inspiration to preach all these topics throughout India and across the Western countries in such a powerful manner. The young Abhaya-caraṇa was deeply impacted by this first meeting with Prabhupāda Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura and whenever he had the opportunity, he would come to his lotus feet to hear hari-kathā. Gradually, he came to understand that it was impossible to progress on the spiritual platform without taking shelter at the feet of a bona fide guru who was totally disinterested in material enjoyment and adept in both śabda-brahma and Parabrahma. Therefore, though he was already initiated by his family guru, a Jāti Gosvāmī, he received śrī harināma and dīkṣā from Śrī Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Ṭhākura in 1933, in Allahabad. His initiated name became: Śrī Abhaya-caraṇāravinda Dāsādhikārī, Bhaktivedānta. Abhaya-caraṇa refers to Śrī Nanda-nandana Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Hence, Śrī Nanda-nandana’s servants are “Abhaya-caraṇāravinda-dāsa.”
Many ill-informed people think that nirviśeṣa-brahma (the impersonal aspect of God) or abheda-brahma-jñāna (the knowledge of the soul’s oneness with God) is the subject of Vedānta. This, however, is an utterly mistaken conception. There is no mention of jñāna or nirviśeṣa-brahma anywhere in Vedānta. Only Parabrahma Śrī Govinda, the possessor of all potencies, and His worship has been promoted in Vedānta. It was to communicate this to the general masses that Śrī Abhaya-caraṇāravinda Dāsādhikārī was given the title Bhaktivedānta. As per Prabhupāda’s wishes, he began contributing regular articles to the monthly English journal, the Harmonist, which Prabhupāda had established. And Prabhupāda expressed great delight upon seeing his articles.
Accepting Sannyāsa
Some time after Jagad-guru Śrīla Prabhupāda enacted his disappearance pastime, Pūjyapāda Śrī Bhaktivedānta Prabhu was present when his dear friend and confidante, my śrī guru-pādapadma Oṁ Viṣṇupāda Aṣṭottara-śata-śrī Śrīmad Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja, established Śrī Gauḍīya Vedānta Samiti in Calcutta, in Baghbazar (Bosapara Lane). These two exalted godbrothers had a profound connection and friendship. Pūjyapāda Śrī Bhaktivedānta Prabhu would contribute regular articles to the Śrī Gauḍīya Patrikā (Bengali) and Śrī Bhāgavata Patrikā (Hindi), the two monthly magazines published by Paramārādhya Śrī Guru-pādapadma. In fact, Pūjyapāda Śrī Bhaktivedānta Prabhu was so involved in the publication of these magazines that he was the chairman of the associate editors’ board for a very long time.
In 1944, Pūjyapāda Śrī Bhaktivedānta Prabhu started publishing his own monthly English magazine named Back to Godhead. In 1959, he left his gṛhastha-āśrama entirely and came to live in Śrī Keśavajī Gauḍīya Maṭha, which was run by Śrī Gauḍīya Vedānta Samiti in Mathurā. Here he started his English translations of the sacred texts of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā. After almost two and a half years, on the 17th of September 1959, a Thursday, in Śrī Keśavajī Gauḍīya Maṭha, at the age of sixty-three, he accepted sannyāsa from Nitya-līlā-praviṣṭa Oṁ Viṣṇupāda Śrī Śrīla Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja. His sannyāsa name was Tridaṇḍisvāmī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Svāmī Mahārāja. From then onwards, he started preaching the message of pure devotion in Agra, Kanpur, Jhansi, Delhi, and various other places. Towards the end of 1959, he began performing bhajana at Śrīdhāma Vṛndāvana’s famous temple of Śrī Rādhā Dāmodara, near the bhajana-kuṭīra and śrī samādhi of Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī, and translating Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā, Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, and other authoritative texts.
Preaching in the West
In 1965, at the age of seventy, in a perfectly possessionless state, with just a few copies of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā, Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, and some other books, plus a pair of karatālas, he journeyed to the West with the help of the Birla Shipping Company and eventually arrived in the city of New York. There he began going to parks, the seaside, and other public places. With extremely powerful spiritual sentiment, he would perform saṅkīrtana of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahāmantra and Pañca-tattva mantra, singing at the top of his voice and playing karatālas. He also began giving lectures on the teachings and philosophical conclusions of pure devotion practiced and taught by Śrīman Mahāprabhu as he had received them from Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura. Hearing his heart-touching instructions, which were filled with compelling reasonings, and his deeply moving hari-saṅkīrtana, the well educated and simplehearted young men and women of the West were drawn to him. Group after group of them began flocking to him, hearing his hari-kathā with faith and loudly singing kīrtana of harināma. Within a very short time (in 1966), he established the Āntarjātika Kṛṣṇa-bhāvanāmṛta Saṅgha (ISKCON) there. And from that time onwards, hundreds and hundreds of educated young men and women from well-to-do families began giving up all evil habits like consuming liquor and meat and engaging in illicit sex and gambling. Adopting proper Vaiṣṇava conduct, they became his disciples. In groups they spread across U.S.A.’s New York, Boston, etc., Europe’s London, Paris, Berlin, Rome and other major cities, roaming the roads and pathways in bare feet, their heads shaven, necks adorned with tulasī beads, and hands clutching japa-mālikās. They performed kīrtana of this Kali-yuga’s mahā-mantra, singing “Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa” loudly to the accompaniment of mṛdaṅga, karatālas without concern for what people thought. They began propagating simple explanations of Pūjyapāda Śrī Bhaktivedānta Svāmī Mahārāja’s instructions and philosophical conclusions in the languages of those countries and distributing the books written and translated by Svāmījī.
In this way, in the short span of barely twelve years, Pūjyapāda Śrī Bhaktivedānta Svāmī Mahārāja opened more than a hundred preaching centers of the Āntarjātika Kṛṣṇa-bhāvanāmṛta Saṅgha (Iskcon) in all the major countries of the world. In such a short time, he translated Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā, Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Śrī Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, Īśopaniṣad and other authoritative books and wrote other foundational texts. These books have been translated into almost twenty different languages of the world. Across the globe, thousands and thousands of copies of them have been and are being distributed. His books have also garnered profuse regard in the world’s academic community. Many of his books have been collected by many of the world’s universities as textbooks.
By his powerful preaching efforts, huge temples of Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, and Śrī Jagannātha-Baladeva-Subhadrājī, as well as gurukulas to teach bhakti, bṛhad-mṛdaṅga printing presses to publish devotional literature, gośālās for raising and caring for cows, and beautiful guesthouses to accommodate faithful pilgrims have been established in Śrīdhāma Māyāpura, Śrīdhāma Vṛndāvana, Bombay, Hyderabad, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Paris, Tokyo, Honolulu, and other major cities across the Earth.
His teachings and instructions
Through the medium of his books, articles and lectures, Pūjyapāda Śrīla Svāmījī Mahārāja has on one hand propounded the conclusions of pure devotion via scriptural evidence and irrefutable reasoning, and on the other hand, he has rent asunder nirviśeṣa-advaita-vāda (impersonal monism) and the many faces of its atheistic doctrines, as well as adaiva-varṇāśrama, jāti-gosvāmī-vāda, sahajiyā and modern bhogavāda (sensualism), and other forms of materialism with his thunderbolt-like scriptural deliberations and impenetrable arguments. He has fearlessly preached the conceptions of Śrīla Prabhupāda, which are in brief: “The jīva can never be brahma, or Bhagavān. All dharmas are not the same. Bhāgavad-dharma, or Sanātana-vaiṣṇava-dharma, in the form of service to Bhagavān is the only constitutional dharma of the jīva. All other worldly dharmas are but perversions, or in some cases semblances, of that dharma of the soul. Dharmas that are propagated as semblances or branches of the real dharma are worthy of honor in their early stages, but there is no possibility of ultimate auspicious via perverted forms of dharma. I am not this body; the soul is by nature a servant of God. Only by performing hari-saṅkīrtana can the jīva become situated in his spiritual identity and attain the service of Bhagavān. There is no consideration of race, family, high birth or low, or any sort of duality in the performance of kṛṣṇa-bhajana. All jīvas are candidates for bhagavad-bhakti. Kirāṭa, Huṇa, Andhra, Pulīnda, Pukkaśa, Yavana, and members of other degraded human civilizations can obtain supreme sanctity by taking to the chanting of śrī harināma. To judge a devotee by his race or previous sinful deeds amounts to Vaiṣṇava aparādha and is the cause for descent into hell.”
Some of his final wishes
Pūjyapāda Śrī Svāmījī Mahārāja had been somewhat unwell for the past year. Despite his condition, he travelled in India and abroad to his various preaching centers, encouraging the devotees there in their preaching activities. Only some time recently did he fall particularly ill in London and return to Śrīdhāma Vṛndāvana from there. He showed great affection even to people like myself who are devoid of bhakti and very fallen. When he was living at Śrī Keśavajī Gauḍīya Maṭha for two and a half years and when he was in Śrī Vṛndāvana, at Śrī Rādhā-Dāmodara Mandira, or in Delhi, he would keep me in his association from time to time and give me the opportunity to assist him in his preaching service. For some time before his disappearance up until right before his departure, he repeatedly summoned me and affectionately confided several heartfelt matters to me. Some of the final wishes he revealed were as follows: “In the course of preaching, I may have said some things, knowingly or unknowingly, that I should not have and that I regret. You and my godbrothers should kindly forgive me for these remarks. Convey these final sentiments of mine to my godbrothers. And my Western disciples have not yet been able to become fully established in Vaiṣṇava etiquette. They may make some mistakes. You should all forgive them these errors. Please cooperate with them to preach the cherished mission of Śrīla Prabhupāda with more and more enthusiasm throughout the whole world. The other important thing is that after my disappearance, you should show my disciples how to arrange for my samādhi and memorial festival. Please arrange for proper donations to be made to the Śrī Gauḍīya Maṭhas and various prominent temples of Śrīdhāma Vṛndāvana.” I have tried my best to see that these wishes of his were properly fulfilled.
Śrī Samādhi and Virahotsava
The morning after Śrīla Svāmī Mahārāja’s disappearance (15/11/77), his divine form was placed upon a beautifully decorated palanquin and taken on śrī harināma-saṅkīrtana procession to the seven famous temples of Śrīdhāma Vṛndāvana. The Gosvāmīs of every temple offered him prasādi garlands and candana, showing him due respect as befitting a Vaiṣṇava. After that, he was given samādhi at his Śrī Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma temple in Ramaṇa-reti.
On the date of 27/11/77, a Sunday, in the courtyard of Śrī Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma Mandira, near the site of his samādhi, with Paramapūjyapāda Parivrājakācārya Tridaṇḍisvāmī Śrī Śrīmad Bhakti Hṛdaya Vana Mahārāja (founder of the Institute of Oriental Philosophy, Vrindaban) acting as chairman, a grand memorial assembly was held. In attendance were Pūjyapāda Śrīla Vana Mahārāja, Śrīmad Kiśorī Dāsa Bābājī Mahārāja (chief guest), Pūjyapāda Śrīmad Bhakti Vicāra Yāyāvara Mahārāja, the Catuḥ-sampradāya-ācārya Śrī Rāma-dāsa Śāstrī, Śrī Rādhā-ramaṇa’s Śrī Viśvambhara Gosvāmī, Śrī Nṛsiṁha-vallabha Gosvāmī, Śrī Gaura-kṛṣṇa Gosvāmī, myself, Delhi’s Tridaṇḍisvāmī Śrīmad Bhakti Kamala Parvata Mahārāja, Śrī Maṅgala-nilaya Brahmacārī of Śrī Caitanya Gauḍīya Maṭha in Vṛndāvana, and Parama-pūjya Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Svāmī Mahārāja’s prominent disciples like Śrī Brahmānanda Svāmī, Śrī Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Svāmī, Śrī Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Dāsādhikārī, Śrī Akṣayānanda Svāmī, and other speakers, who all offered their respects via speeches recounting Svāmījī's life and character and the essence of his teachings. Afterwards, from 1:00 in the afternoon till 10:00 at night, many Vaiṣṇavas and thousands and thousands of pious souls were served mahāprasāda.
To conclude, I am praying at the lotus feet of Prapūjya-caraṇa Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Svāmī Mahārāja that he shower his mercy from the eternal abode upon this bhakti-deprived wretch, whereby I may serve the innermost desires of Śrī Hari, Guru, and Vaiṣṇavas and progress on the path of pure devotion.