GGS, 1978, Bhubaneswara
near-last book section; ....So with Bhagavata Prabhu gone, and Gour Govinda Swami Maharajah absorbed in his samadhi of book translation, that left me as secretary treasurer with a responsibility.
I had earned a few thousand Canadian carving candles back in Montreal before i came over, and had deposited about 27, 000 rupees in the Commercial Bank, which had just opened down the road Highway No 5 national, the one outside our ashrama. Exchange rates were roughly seven to one in those years. We needed a few things; more on this later...
One day, we had an engagment in Nilamadhava Mandira on the bank of the Mahanadi. The mosquitoes that night were fierce, and Gour Govinda Maharajah was to sleep in a dark room with so many of them hovering. So, realizing that it was best to protect him, the older sannyasi, I took my net, went to his room, and with him sleeping, set the net up around him safely. Then, i took my sleeping bag and walked a slight rise up to a low hillock's top, and there camped out. The slight breeze hardly seemed enough, but it was enough to keep the mosquito hordes at bay, and by GGS's mercy, i also slept a peaceful sleep that evening.
We fed the local villagers after a brief lecture and kirtana, and one of the local young men shaved up on the banks of the holy river to join us that day. He remained, and has a son in the farm project at Jagannatha Puri.
Preaching was the heart of the matter, so we started door to door book distribution in Bhubaneswara. The first time out, we borrowed Maharajah's danda !, so we could look austere and all, they respect the danda, and went door to door, to some apartments, and some houses. One had chickens in the yard, and was apparently a Muslim's home. Of the many we visited, he was the most happy that we treated him as an equal, worthy of respect and friendship, and even he was happy that we deigned to bring a pure sankirtana party to his home. He was delighted ato hear us. He donated, and took a Bhagavat Darshan magazine. Many took a magazine and were invited to visit.
Now acting president by dint of there beiong no one else to do it, I had the property fenced off, and the boys arranged for a plowman. A wonderful garden was eventually planted, with several varieties of fruits and veggies. Also, no more would stray goats come foraging on Tulsi devi's beds, to be chased off. We had to restring an extra lower strand of wire under the new fence to keep the animals from squeezing underneath.
A few weeks earlier, some shady types had been coming about suggesting our land boundaries were wrong, etc, and so we had the fencing placed just exactly where the boundaries belonged, to keep out such speculators and grafters. These same government-type cheats and agents later plowed under part of GGS's samadhi! But that is another tale...
Vaisnava dasa grew papayas, chilis, bananas, peppers, squash. Lagudi Prabhu "Baba" had also tried, and despite watering and working the soil, etc, no fruits appeared. Vaisanava dasa laughed in his country way, and showed him how, with the next season, which followed immediately. It was a trick of watering , I think? We used cow dung of course, dissolved in buckets of water, so all was quite pesticide-free. Everything grown there was organic and healthy. We even grew some hot green chilis, which Bhagavata Prabhu had not liked, as they made him ill, but with him away, we used some, and those bushes had a constant garland of red when ripe and green when new chilis. I never did any of the work on this, not my scene. Our farmer neighbors plowed for us, as we expanded the farmed land, and Vaisnava dasa and Maharajah dealt with it mostly.
By Krishna's grace, I designed and had a "huge" metal and wood sign erected, proclaiming our ISKCON Sri Sri Krsna BalaramaTemple, Founder-Acarya H.D.G. A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada, with symbols of Lord Vishnu painted nicely in the four corners. It was a tin sign, painted blue and white mostly, clearly visible from Hwy 5, and ostentatious and attention gathering. Three telephone size pole were used as the main frame to hold the structure cemented into the ground against a hurricane or monsoon.
I got a small reading desk, small floor style, for myself, and a fan to sit also on the floor, for our small room, wherein Gour Govinda Swami and I stayed. We sat around it for hours, the ashrama residents, this simple electric fan, in the extreme heat of up to 140 degrees farenheit. We had a clay bottle for holding water, and it got the water colder the hotter is was outside to speed evaporation through the porous material of the jug. Krsna's simple perfect arrangement! We often filled it with water from the nearby holy wells, Kunda giri, sweet healing waters. We shared one metal cup, placed atop, and sometimes laughed at each other in fun, everything was so simple there, as we spilled and attempted to pour nicely from a height without touching the cup to our lips .
We sat around that fan , three at a time , in the hot season. One might say that 145 farenheit for a few days is a tad hot ! Mad dogs and Englishmen, as Kipling said. That fan was a life saver. It was too hot to eat, maybe at night. Parts of your body would swell up, hopefully not your heart. Maharajah would say something like, "Very hot today. Best to sit and chant, Tamohara."
I arranged for daily milk and milk sweets at the temple, and improved the cooking for the Sunday program. Day by day, the milk got thinner, as thew supplier gradually watered it down hoping we wouldn't notice, until i would complain. Maharajah would laugh and say "Just see how they cheat! They all do it. We shall say something to him next time. Hare Krishna." then the milk would be sweet for a few days, then again with the thinner thinner thinner until it was half water already ! Again, we'd say something etc etc ; the cycles of poverty in rural India.
Every week I would go into town to the yogurt store and purchase one Bedekars channa dahl spice and one Kitchen King Sambhara dahl spice. Each Sunday, the brahmas would cook enough for up to one hundred fifty, and until now, neither ghee nor spices except a little chilli and cumin or dhania were used. This extra made the dhalma a littlespicey and nice for a Sunday special festivity. I also would cook a few samosas just for the temple devotees. I felt guilty about cooking and eating these samosas seperately from the guests sometimes, so we dropped that after a while.
I cooked daily dahlma and rice and chapatis, and liked to put a little goor into the mix. Maharajah did not, and eventually told me so. I later found out he was diabetic? Is that correct? Anyway, i thought i could still sneek a little bit in and he would no notice, but instead a biggish glob fell in to the hot mixture. GGS refused his food after tasting it, and fasted for that whole day. We ate but once a day, at noon, and that was it, maybe some maha at night, or milk. So he fasted instead, did not complain or anything. As you can imagine, i learned a lesson there, one i share with you; You can't cheat Krsna, nor His pure devotees.
One Sunday, i hired a photographer to come take pictures to send to the New York Temple and for the Food Relief Program advertising. One of them is below. He took many shots. About thirty were actually usable. Of these, only the one remains, the one as you have seen in this work on other pages. This is the only photo for that time period of about three or four years, such a delightful Vrndavana-like atmosphere of bhakti, simplicity and purity, austerity, happiness, and scholarship also.
We also tried to contact government ministers and invite them to our site. These things I also did with my own savings of Krishna's money, not the temple's. I did not make such distinctions so much, frankly, and was happy to use whatever I had to serve the Vaisnavas. I was totally surrendered to the Bhubaneswara and Orissa projects. We also arranged for two new stone buildings to be contructed, this utilizing our temple bank resources. The Temple was being designed by an architect at that time.
As treasurer, it was my duty to go into Calcutta once a month or so to present accounts. It was my habit to carry a chain inside my steel suitcase, and wrap this chain around the steel grating of the steel railing on the main floor balcony of Calcutta Temple, Albert Rd. Once Satadhanya Swami saw this, and laughing, pointed it out to Jayapataka Swami, who said, "No, this what you HAVE to do when you come to Calcutta ."
I visited there maybe once every couple months or so to bring the recipts and so-called simple books i kept as untrained temple treasurer. They showed me a simple system which i still use, and which was apparently Srila Prabhupada's. I was not good at it, but adequate.
Back in Bhubaneswara, i received a telegram form Jayapataka GBC to transfer immediately, by getting a bank draft, and to bring a million rupees, clearing out our account mostly, to him in Mayapura. I delayed transfer of one million rupees, all our accounts, to Mayapura. Finally, after a few days, i was told by telegram again to quit stalling and bring the money personaly asap. The bank teller and manager were distraught, but had to do it. I took the draft in an envelope, and boarded the necessary trains for Sri dhama Mayapura. Arriving at Jayapataka Swamis' little house on top of the guest house roof, i delivered the cheque. It was sunny but breezy. We sat, he always treated me very nicely with respect and consideration, like a sincere concerned older brother. Vegomite and ginseng could be seen among other things on his shelves, books of course, incense, simple things. I loved him as a great Godbrother back then, but i am in despair about what has taken place and been revealed since those days.
Calcutta; I was hanging out chanting japa, and was invited to visit the nearby apartment where the brahmacaries satyed. But these were not ordinary brahmacaries; these were jet-set Maharathas of book distribution. I sat quietly on the floor and chanted japa, while they compared gold Rolexes, and drank fruit milk shakes. They kindly offered me some, it was very good.
Now, Jayapatka and Bhavananda , Bhagavata Prabhu, and I all had business in Delhi. Boarding the Kalki MAIL, Express, or something of that order, our journey was uneventful. We ate only fruits or peanuts when travelling in India, ever and always. Otherwise, sickness and karma were ingested with the spices.
( Coming in from Vrndavana via the southern railroad a couple of years ago, the same group, we had been forced to bar the doors and amass our weapons, as train robbers had stopped the train temporarily, having apparently robbed it the last three nights in a row! The Wild West, Eastern India! Jayapataka borrowed my knife in case it was needed. )
Anyway, in Delhi, we visited Asutosh Ojha, the world-renowned astrologer, onew of Srila Prabhupada's astrologers. Afterwards, we acquired the appropriate stones to wear to counteract malevolent influences. Bhavananda got moonstones, Jayapataka something else, and I bought a peacock-throat blue sapphire in Jaipura a week or so later, and had it set in a ring of 100% pure gold. I dont think Bhavanada got the right stones either.
100% pure gold, 24 carat , is unusual. It is rarely over 22, as anything less is too soft for practical uses. This I discovered upon playing the mrdanga. Sleeping with the stone under my pillow, i had bad dreams. I later sold this stone in London on the way out of India, and the gold I sold in Calcutta. The old man goldsmith laughed, as he had almost never seen a true 24 carat ring before! No one but a young man and Englishman would be that dumb.
Thus my anty-lila, so to speak, the portents turned ill, and the end for now with the Bhubaneswara yatra began.
One hot dry day, Bhagavata Brahmacary Prabhu, having just returned from USA, tells me that they want to speak to me about something serious but cannot tell me what. We will go to Calcutta. I did not know, until almost a week later in Calcutta, what they were intending at all. We travelled at that time with one Puri Maharajah of Orissa, Vaisnava sannyasi. The Allen Rd building had an elevator as a feature. Puri Swami Ji had never been in such a device before. He was at first surprised at how small was the room we entered, then the door closed ! Thne the room started moving! He was shocked and delighted and laughed like a litttle child! We all grinned widely and enjoyed his child-like surprise and delight. He said, "Imagine that! In Calcutta, the rooms move for you!"
Now I am called before Bhagavata, Gour Govinda, Satadhanya, Bhavananada, and Jayapataka Swamis. We were all told, I for the first time, that some petty clerk at the Commercial Bank, where I kept my personal account, still have the passbook actually, had sent a message to Gour Govinda Swami that I was keeping 27,000 rupees in a bank account. I was asked to present to them then an accounting of my expenditures, and source of the money. Jayapataka defended me. He said that his sankirtana men bring many thousands of dollars with them when they come to India. They reviewed my accounting, and realizing I had spent most of it on things for Bhubaneswara, they immediately agreed that it was a bogus charge, that i was innocent. I offered my obesiances to all, and departed their company.
Back in Bhubaneswara, sitting on a wooden bench with a small box of milk sweets at the rail station, sarod music playing in the background station arbres, broken hearted, age 25, I cried in a mood of desolation and betrayal, felt like a caste away, my home was suddenly turned totally on its head, first time in life to feel so abused . It changed and hardened my heart, I was never quite the same again afterwards. After all I had tried to do, had given my 100% with no reservations, no duplicity, i had handled millions of rupees, and now based upon some clerk schnook, they treat me like a possible thief and keep me in the dark for weeks, never letting on, all over nonsense maya. All that time thinking I may be stealing and letting on nothing, like con men.
I sold 1/2 the ghee I had acquired by the ten kilo cans from the Canadian Food Relief in Delhi, tried to take one of the two new Balarama mrdangas I had donated to the temple, ( but not before one of the devotees switched my intact drum for the one with the broken head behind my back just as I was leaving ! ) and I left for association with Lokanatha Maharajah and the lads in Delhi.
I sold the inauspicious blue stone in London, the false gold in Calcutta...
continued....
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