This is Bhakti Visrambha Madhava Maharaja’s class at the Sannyasa Initiation Ceremony of Bhakti Nrsinga Maharaja at the Durban Rathayatra, on April 25th.
“Prana ke jar se hetu pracar”
Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupada said,
“One who has got life can preach. A dead man cannot preach.”
So I like to thank Bhakti Bhrnga Govinda Maharaja and Bhakti Caitanya Maharaja for speaking so eloquently about the duties and mood of a person of the renounced order. Bhakti Bhrnga Govinda Maharaja nicely mentioned how the life is one of giving body, mind and words totally for the service of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, exclusively. And the forth line of the danda is the atma, the spirit soul. So it is a bhava, because bhava brahir janardana. Janardana takes the bhava or the mood, and the mood is one of dedication. So it is this wonderful thing of dedication itself, it is the dedication to preaching, but it is also dedication to bhava. To developing the mood. The mood of bhava, of the renounced order of life, as glorified in the sannyasa mantra, is one of devotion to atma nistha, to the paramatma. “Paramatma nistha” – to the
faith that I am the servant of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, that I will be fearless, that I can go anywhere, because the Supreme Personality of Godhead will give me protection, in any case and in any situation at all. That the Supreme Personality of Godhead is in my heart and I will serve him, following the previous acaryas, and I have no fear, whatsoever.
So our Prabhu has shown that by his laksanas and he has achieved the grace of the spiritual master and all the wonderful devotees. It is such a beautiful thing that he has chosen to preach and serve in such a wonderful and substantial way. It is a service role, it is a service opportunity to share Krsna consciousness with other personalities. He is preaching nicely in Swaziland and in South Africa, in many ways, and all of you know how dear he is to you. And now by his bhava, by his love for the Lord, he will share and enthuse your own heart by his bhava, by his atma nistha, so that he can help you in your Krsna consciousness to a small degree, as a service to Giriraja Maharaja and Srila Prabhupada and to all the people in South Africa and in Swaziland and other places whose hearts he will touch.
I remember one statement that Bhakti Tirtha Maharaja made to me a month before He left. This life is difficult – traveling, preaching, andencouraging people. It is a very public role, where you don’t have muchtime for yourself. A very public role. So I asked him once about balance after his last lecture in America, on May 30, 2005. I was there with five
sannyasis and I asked him about balance. I say this because Jagat Guru was very dear to Bhakti Tirtha Maharaja and he gave Jagat Guru a lot of instructions. I am mentioning Bhakti Tirtha Maharaja’s name tonight to all of you also. I asked Maharaja, “So tell us about balance. Tell us about balance in this renounced order.”
And he said, out of his great humility, Bhakti Tirtha Maharaja said, “You’re looking at the most unbalanced of all of them.”
A vaisnava never considers himself to be exalted even if he was as exalted as Bhakti Tirtha Maharaja genuinely was.
So I said, “Where’s the justice? Where’s the balance?”
He said to me wonderfully, it was brilliant. It took me a year and a half to get his exact words in a ten minute darshana.
He said, “I was traveling, thinking that I would cheat the travel agent and get more stops on my around-the-world ticket. But who was I cheating? I was cheating my body. I was in West Africa preaching, and then I was in America. Then before my time clock had got used to the America time zone, I was already in Australia. Talk about bewilderment!”
And I said, “Yes Maharaja, yes Maharaja, that’s what I want to know. How do I balance?”
“YOU MAY NEVER GET IT RIGHT! YOU MAY NEVER GET IT RIGHT!”
“Then where’s the justice, Maharaja?”
He said, “You try to make an impact on the hearts of whoever you meet. You make a concrete impact, an indelible concrete impact on whoever you meet, and Gauranga and Krishna will cover the bases. They will see your success.”
That’s what Bhakti Tirtha Maharaja said. Brilliantly. Just less than one month before he gave up this world. That was such an invigorating thing. I thought it made my whole trip to USA. This is called lava matra sadhu sanga sarva siddhi hoya. Lava matra – when you associate with sadhus, that are vaisnavas with substance, it is lava matra, it actually tangibly changes your heart. And so this Prabhu has tangibly changed so many devotees in South Africa, and he will change, tangibly, many devotees in the future, in Swaziland and everywhere else in the globe, whoever gets his association. So we pray on this day to Srila Prabhupada, to Giriraja Maharaja, to Bhakti Caitanya Swami, to Bhakti Bhrnga Govinda Maharaja, to Partha Sarathi Goswami, to Kadamba Kanana Swami and to all the devotees to kindly shower your blessings on this one, that his vratas will be so inspiring in sound that he will make anyone who comes in contact with him a Vaisnava and Vaisnavi of substance.
Srila Prabhupada ki Jai!