I had the greatest respect for Gour Govinda Swami right away. One could see his transcendental spirit. He was non- assuming, joyful, glowing, self controlled, simple, personable, pure, unfetterred by illusion. He was always friendly, though sometimes his scholarly side would be more apparent, such as when giving Sunday class, or by dint of the simple fact that he worked so hard on translating Srila Prabhupada's books into English for many hours each day. He would work in total absorbtion for hours, days, and hardly say so much as a single word.
GGS looked rather to me like a slightly heavier version of a Gour Nitai deity, if you can picture. Smooth ageless appearance; was he ancient or a small child? His brown skin shone from natural health, and his maha size tilak was very sadhu-like. He had almost no possessions, as did none of us there. He did not even have a mosquito net, nor a desk, nor a chair. He sat on the floor, on a small straw mat, before a steel trunk , in which he kept his books away from the ants. His lota sat on the floor behind him, and here was also the home of a fat bullfrog or possibly a toad. Every evening, the creature would hop out in search of his daily meal. Then, around about sunrise, before day got hot, he was again in his shady corner, sleeping peacefully behind Maharajah's lota. .
A mole used to come visit me during the night. I don't know why he never bothered Maharajaha or Bhagavata Prabhu, but this little creature would burrow beneath my sleeping bag in cold weather, sometimes waking me up. It was startling, believe me, to feel something suddenly wriggling you awake! It could be a snake or anything! One day, I saw him during the daylight hours, and picked up a broom to smack him one, and he ran around the wall perimeter and out his hole, and he didn't come back again after that. The ants ate anything within a matter of time. Books included. In mosquito season , monsoon times, hoards of mosquitos would humm like death personified in gray clouds, but in a lacsadaisical lazy manner, would take ages to bother to land on you, so unlike our aggressive man-eating Canadian versions. They could carry malaria or filaria, though. GG said not to eat after five in India, and chew a nim leaf or three every day, and one would not get sick. Soon enough, the next season would come, and the singing pests were much reduced. Bhubaneswara has 6 seasons.
The routine was very simple. We were all resting by nine or ten, then up promptly at about 3AM. Maharajah was generally up a half hour before us all. Rounds were great, and we could often see the stars and the moon at the brahma muhurta hours, then watch the sun rise and chant gayatri facing north as the chariot of Aruna broke free of the night's darkness, pulling Soorya brightly through the horizon's palms.
For Mangala arotika, there was Lagudi Prabhu, a renounced Yugoslavian brahmacari devotee, with a very friendly and avadhuta-like county-raised character. He was austere and jolly, and distributed books single-handedly each day by doing kirtana and by sitting and chanting and talking, with a blanket decorated by books, in front of various business and government buldings. He would do kirtana almost daily in the market, soliciting donations of the day's vegetables. Although we had a million plus rupees in the bank, as it turned out, we spent very little. We would call Lagudi; Lagudi Baba. He didn't care for that, and joked, but it very much suited him, actually. Every one in town knew him as Lagudi baba. He was the pujari of our small altar, which held Gour Nitai; beautiful long-armed sweetly smiling merciful golden small-medium sized Deities. Lord Jagannatha, Baladeva Maharajah, and Subhadra devi were there, with Their colorful nicely chaddared smiling forms.
Vaisnava dasa prabhu was there, usually playing mrdanga, unless Dikpati Prabhu arrived to play. Vaisnava dasa was an Ooriya lad, who had been faithfuly serving GGS, and refused to take initiation form anyone else, though Maharajah was not giving yet at that period. He was always engaged in services, and although he knew hardly a word of English, I tried to teach him some, and he showed me some Oriya, also. He was a very good natured and serious Vaisnava, both at the same time. Everyone there was good natured, happy, and yet serious all at once, actually. I suppose we were much like Gour Govinda, come to think about it now. It was the simplest and happiest period of my life. Vaisnava dasa and I shared the cooking. He years later took sannyasa from another camp at a still young age, and I saw him again in 1997, some fifteen years later, but cannot recall his sannyasa name. There was some hard feeling which had arisen between he and the Iskcon gurus of that time. I will not attempt to elaborate here, and do not know the details.
Bhagavata, now Maharajah by sannyasa initiation of HH Narayana Maharajah Swami, and preaching world-wide, is a well known devotee by all . I belieive he is fom New York or Boston or some larger US city? We frankly did not discuss our material pasts at all. Somewhat on the physically heavy side, and sometimes using a cane, he always had a friendly and jolly attitude. He also knew the Gita backwards and sideways, as we say in my native country, meaning he knew it very well, indeed, and could recite every sloka. He was always an engaging preacher, and very renounced. He treated me like a younger brother. He was often going to Calcutta to meet Jayapataka et al, or otherwise went to Puri or Vrndavana or Delhi or Bombay also, sometimes to further the preaching, take darsana, do temple business, and arrange passports etc. The local police used to hastle him over passport issues.
Nila madhava prabhu joined us later. He came from the town of Nilamadhava, where we once held a program, and he shaved up beside the Mahanadi river with GGS there. He also spoke limited English, though a little more than Vaisnava dasa. A strongly built farming lad, he was intelligent and simple hearted and happy. He usually served with Vaisnava dasa, and very much appreciated the door to door sankirtana party which I initiated there after a while. We were good friends. He also refused any initiations other than those given by GGS. He later married and had a son, and is associated with the ISKCON Puri gurukula. I saw him last in 1997.
Urukrama Prabhu and two or three travelling sankirtana men from England, and five or so nice Indian devotee inmates of Iskcon Bhadraka temple were sometimes visiting, but mostly away. There was also a nice householder couple preaching strongly in Cuttack, about 50 kilometers down the road. That was the Oriya yatra.
Many local Vaisnava grhastas also would visit our little ashrama, and helped in countless ways. They would sit patiently for as much as two hours as Maharajah gave the Sunday lecture. I could follow the slokas, and otherwise, his preaching style was abosorbing. He made his points strongly, sometimes saying in English, " So, Krsna says this thing in the Bhagavada Gita ! " and tapping the sastra heavily. There was no doubt in any of our minds that what Sri Krsna says in the Gita is certainly true and must be followed ! We knew we were mostly animal-like fools. Towards the end, he would start to tie up his sastras in a protective cloth cover, but this process was done in increments, with ten minutes extra lecture thrown in between this fold and that tie! It was a mesmerizing ritual ! Then we all, about 50 people, sat in rows, and took simple prasad together, on banana leaf plates.
Sanat and Sooji Kumara usually attended managala arotika. They were lovely little Vaisnava children from across National Hwy 5 ,which runs directly in front of our land. He was about ten-ish, and she only about four years old, but bright faced and cute as a Baby Gopal deity. Between the two of them, they had maybe a total heigth of five 1/2 feet! Sanat regularly banged the gong, nicely, and was very enthusiastic for devotional service and kirtana. He spoke quickly and was clearly an intelligent young lad.
Maharajah generally led kirtana. Same tune pretty much always. I loved it. The kirtan is much like Bengali style of course. Very Very Iskcon. Just between you and I, almost invariably he would have tears in his eyes before the kirtana ended.
Oriya devotees pronounce Krishna as Krooshna. And amrita as amroot, etc. So I often exaggerated the sound just to make Vaisnava dasa laugh. He found my imitations of Oriya dialect quite hilarious. This was another daily function at mangala arotika. We chanted Bahma sutra also, and believe me, it has one or two "roo's' in it! We were thinking ahead, alright, here it comes, ... amroota ! (Snicker snicker), Krooshna , etc.
Maharajah just ignored we idiots.
Afterwards, we would wrap our chaddars and wander about the land, or sit and chant japa. Maharajah alwasy chanted his gayatri before arotik. In later years, I now find that chanting 16 rounds before the morning program starts , or twelve anyway, puts one in the absorbed trance state necesasary for me to get the most from the morning program. As well, Gour Govinda Swami used to drink a glass of water before going to bed. He said that this would wake us up early, so that we could get up and chant our rounds. On that sleeping topic, often we heard him call out, "Govinda!" in his sleep late at night.
GGS did not give classes to the Western devotees at that time. He actually considerd us his gurus, and although he was a true renounced scholarly Vaisnava sannyasi and paramahamsa, he treated us as his superiors in this regards, which caused us no end of thought on that matter. In fact, by a prolonged program of persuasion, we eventually managed to get Maharajah to accept the fact that he should preach in English to the Western Godbrothers, as well. But usually, especially at the Bhubanewara ashrama, he did not.
He woudn't even sit on a cushion to give Sunday class. I had to have a special pillow, with nice flowers on it, sewn in town, without telling him, of course. He refused to sit on it. I insisted, saying that it was for preaching. We had spent some money, and it was for the sake of the audience that they will show some respect for the Vaisnava teacher and the sampradaya more, therefore he must accept it for the sake of preaching. On this grounds, he second Sunday accepted it to facilitate the sankirtana. Otherwise, no way he would accept even this simple honor, until by force of our love and sense of duty, we made him do it, by his grace. Of course, in our own minds, this was out and out respect and worship of Sri Guru.
Maharajah was definitely the diamond under the hay stack. We who lived with him and the devotees of the Bengal and Orissa temples knew of his advanced status. Others in Iskcon thought him just some simple country Vaisnava gentleman, but didn't know his name even. When we went to Mayapura for Gour Purnima, they didn't even schedule him to give a single class! So I sat in the room with him and chanted a lot, mostly not going to the classes, either. This arrangement changed after I left the country, but for three Gour Purnimas in a row, that was the pattern. GGS was atually qualified to take disciples from all over the world. He was qualified spiritually to lead us after Srila Prabhupada had left. He was the most advanced and realized of all the devotees of Iskcon, to our best knowledge, but he was neglected by them at the time.
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