Tamal Krishna Goswami’s Vyasa-puja

Giriraj Swami: As we were waiting to greet the Deities, Sri Sri Radha-Kalachandji, some of my godbrothers pushed me forward to be the first in line. I suppose this was correct according to etiquette, from their point of view, but I felt that something was wrong—His Holiness Tamal Krishna Goswami Maharaja should have been there, first in the line, as he had been so many other times when I had stood to greet the Deities here, and in Houston, Bombay, Vrindavan, and other places. Reflecting on that sentiment, I thought of my relationship with him and my relationship with Srila Prabhupada in relation to him, and I would say that clearly, he helped me in my relationship with Srila Prabhupada. So I thought to discuss that idea, because I feel that it is a principle that applies to all of us here, whether we are godbrothers and godsisters or disciples, whether he was acting as an older brother helping us in our service to our spiritual father, Srila Prabhupada, or as a spiritual father bringing his spiritual children to their spiritual grandfather. As the founder-acharya, Srila Prabhupada is more than just a spiritual grandfather, but he is a spiritual grandfather nonetheless. In all our cases, Tamal Krishna Goswami Maharaja is helping us in our relationship with Srila Prabhupada. 

I first met His Holiness Tamal Krishna Goswami in Boston in 1969. Goswami Maharaja was already a legend, and we had heard much about him even before he came. Brahmananda Prabhu was also in Boston at this time. He was the biggest leader on the East Coast, and Goswami Maharaja managed the West Coast. The two of them met and spent almost all their time together, and practically the whole time they were talking about Srila Prabhupada. That really struck me. They would talk for hours and hours about Srila Prabhupada. One evening, a few of us were standing together after prasāda, and Brahmananda Prabhu suddenly said, “Everyone wants love. So the simple solution is that we should love each other, we should just give each other a lot of love,” which was a striking statement. Our understanding then was that we should just love Krishna, just focus on Krishna. And that is true, of course. We direct our love to Krishna, and by loving Krishna we automatically love all living entities. But the idea of making a conscious effort to love each other seemed different from our understanding at the time. 

Anyway, Tamal Krishna Goswami continued his travels. He went to Europe, and the next time I met him was in Bombay in 1970. He was my authority then, the GBC for India. And during the first Bombay pandal program at Cross Maidan he was my immediate authority. I was like the temple commander for the pandal, and he was like the temple president. Working with him was very instructive. Then, after the success of the Bombay pandal, Srila Prabhupada sent the two of us to Calcutta to organize the first pandal there, and on the way we spoke on the train. That was when Goswami Maharaja first really opened up to me. But it was what I learned from him one night in Calcutta that became my guiding principle in Krishna consciousness. 

I was a new devotee and had heard about the importance of chanting. I had heard about the importance of studying scripture. I had heard about the importance of Deity worship. And to me, everything was important. I didn’t distinguish between one process and another. They all were important, and I was meant to do all of them. So, one night—it must have been after nine o’clock, because everyone else was already asleep—the two of us, somehow, were still up, standing alongside each other on the balcony of the Calcutta temple on Albert Road.

Suddenly Goswami Maharaja started speaking to me confidentially about his relationship with Srila Prabhupada. He said that Srila Prabhupada had a few disciples who were quite intimate with him and that he was one of them. This was a revelation to me because at that stage in my spiritual development I did not distinguish. I saw them all as senior devotees whom Prabhupada loved, and I did not make such distinctions. Then Goswami Maharaja started to glorify Shyamasundara Prabhu, saying that he was one of the biggest preachers in ISKCON. In fact, Shyamasundara Prabhu was the one who had conceived of the Bombay pandal and organized us all in its execution. Further, Shyamasundara Prabhu was very instrumental in developing the life membership program. He designed the life membership form and wrote an appeal that was very well done; even today I doubt there is an appeal that surpasses the one he wrote then. But the whole time I was working with him he had never given a class. So I asked Goswami Maharaja, “What do you mean ‘one of the biggest preachers’? I don’t think I have ever heard him give class.” And Maharaja replied, “Preaching does not just mean speaking about Krishna. Preaching ultimately means engaging people in Krishna’s service.” By developing the life membership program, by staging the first pandal program, and through so many other programs, Shyamasundara Prabhu had engaged so many people in Krishna consciousness—this too was preaching. That, for me, was an important instruction.

Then Goswami Maharaja came back to himself and his relationship with Srila Prabhupada. He told me about the incident in 1970 when Srila Prabhupada felt that there was an attempt by some of his disciples to wrest control of the movement from him, how Srila Prabhupada had called Maharaja to Los Angeles and confided in him. One of the problems at the time was that some of the leaders were very preoccupied with collecting money and engaging the devotees to collect money. So the spiritual lives of the devotees were being hampered. I remember that in Boston we had to go out early in the morning and just stay out all day and come back late at night. I was the type that if I did not chant my rounds in the morning, at least twelve rounds, I would feel uneasy during the day. And the way things were going then, day after day I was falling behind on my rounds. So one morning I decided, “I am just going to sit in the temple room and chant my rounds; that’s it.” I had not chanted more than two or three rounds when one of the leaders came in and said, “Come on, you can’t just sit here and chant. You have to go out.” So it was a difficult period.

Srila Prabhupada had become aware of what was happening, and he confided in Tamal Krishna and discussed with him what to do. Soon thereafter, back in Boston, we received the word: “Srila Prabhupada wants us to do this and this and this and not that and that.” But now, on that special night in Calcutta, Tamal Krishna Goswami was explaining to me that Srila Prabhupada had asked him, “What do we do?” And Goswami Maharaja had suggested many of the measures that Srila Prabhupada ultimately implemented. The measures were that the devotees should come back at five o’clock in the evening, attend the program in the temple, take rest early, get up early, and attend maṅgala-ārati and the morning program. And on saṅkīrtana we should just give people the magazine. At that time we basically distributed only Back to Godhead magazines, BTGs. “Just give them the magazine and ask for a donation,” Srila Prabhupada had said. “Any gentleman will give a quarter.” A quarter was a pretty good amount in those days, and the cost of BTG at the time was maybe ten or twelve cents. So a quarter was good enough, more than good enough. But the idea was to make us more regulated, to have us spend enough time in the morning and evening programs, to have us do enough hearing and chanting and worshiping and associating with devotees in the temple, and then on saṅkīrtana to be more detached, not too greedy or aggressive, and just give people the literature and depend on Krishna. 

So I was struck. I had not realized that Goswami Maharaja had played such an important role in these events. I had thought that everything just issued forth from Srila Prabhupada without any discussion, coming straight from Krishna. And I am sure that in an ultimate sense it all was coming from Krishna, but in practical terms Srila Prabhupada consulted with trusted disciples. 

Then Goswami Maharaja told me (and this is really the basic point), “The essence of spiritual life is service to the spiritual master.” That was the part that really struck me and entered deep. There was chanting the holy names, reading the scriptures, worshiping the Deities, and doing service—that much I knew. But he said, “The essence of spiritual life is service to the spiritual master.” And I had never thought of that. Like I said, the process was all there, and I knew that we had to do all of it, but I did not see how the different practices related to each other. And Tamal Krishna Goswami’s realization, which I accepted at the time and still do now, was that service to the spiritual master is the essence.

From then on, my approach to devotional service—even chanting—changed. I liked to chant, and I still do, but I began to chant more in the mood of service to the spiritual master. When we were in Calcutta, Goswami Maharaja used to get annoyed because I wouldn’t want to go out until I had finished at least my twelve rounds. He used to say, “Oh, you just want to avoid work. That’s why you are standing in front of the Deities and chanting.” [laughter] Still, he let me. Sometimes he would get more annoyed than other times, but ultimately he let me, because I needed that. But my mood had become a little different. Yes, I was chanting, and I enjoy chanting, but I was also thinking, “I need to chant to do my various duties for Srila Prabhupada. If I chant, my consciousness will be purified. Krishna will guide me what to do and when. And I will be better able to deal with people. I will be able to preach better if I chant and purify my consciousness.”

From then on we were close friends. I did not really have. . . In a way I had friends, but not like that. Our friendship was deeper, because we had the common focus of service to Srila Prabhupada. 

The first Calcutta pandal was a great success. More people came than even to the first Bombay pandal. Goswami Maharaja had said, “You collect the money and I will spend it.” [laughter] I was fine with that. I knew I could not manage the way he could, but I could convince people to give. So that worked well. 

Of course, we had so many experiences together, but I’d like to speak a little about our service in Bombay and again, the idea of cooperation. During that period in Bombay we were struggling to get the Juhu land, so we could not really collect much for the Juhu project; it just wasn’t the right time. But the Vrindavan temple construction needed funds, so Goswami Maharaja and I formed a team to collect for it. One devotee suggested that it would be most effective if two preachers went together, one heavy and the other soft. I don’t know which one I was. [laughter] Anyway, we went along with the idea. And there were two instances in particular when it really worked well. In the first case we went to meet Natvarlal Jivanlal Gandhi in the spice market. The spice market was in the old section of Bombay—Bombay-2, Bombay-3, Bombay-9—the cloth market, the spice and grain market, and the iron market. That time of the year was especially hot and humid, and Old Bombay was really congested. You had all these people pulling these carts, long platforms on wheels, loaded with big bags of grains and spices and sugar. The streets were so narrow and crowded with carts and cars and people that you could hardly move. Goswami Maharaja had been a bit annoyed from the beginning that I had made an appointment down there. On the way, he said, “You know I don’t like appointments down here.” He wanted the appointments to be in places like Churchgate and Flora Fountain, the newer and, you know, more congenial parts of town. [laughter] 

Anyway, we found the address, climbed up the rickety wood stairs in the old frame building, and found a big bare room, and at one end, to one side, sitting at a desk, a simple man in white khadi cloth. And this simple man, we discovered, was Mr. Gandhi. The large room was not air conditioned, and Mr. Gandhi didn’t even have his own private office. It was very basic. Goswami Maharaja murmured, “Oh God, why did you bring me here?” [laughter] So, we sat down, but I had hardly opened up my briefcase before Goswami Maharaja turned to me again and said, “We are just wasting our time. Let’s get out of here!” [laughter] “We have come all this way,” I suggested. “Let’s just take a chance. We are already here. It won’t take much longer.”

So, we sat down at the gentleman’s desk and began our appeal. We took out our book of photos and showed the pictures of our preaching around the world. And then we started to talk about Vrindavan—how due to Srila Prabhupada’s preaching, devotees from all over the world now wanted to come to Vrindavan but how there was no proper place to receive them. I told the story of my parents, how they came to visit me in Vrindavan and how there was no place we could go even to eat. There were two or three eating-places, but they were all dirty, with flies everywhere. So then we decided, “Okay, let’s try Mathura.” But even in Mathura there was nothing. Finally we went to Agra, and there we found some decent hotels. So, we told Mr. Gandhi, as we had told others, “There is no proper place for Westerners in Vrindavan. Therefore Srila Prabhupada wants to build a temple with a guesthouse and restaurant to international standards.” That was a very strong argument. Then Goswami Maharaja said, “We could have been like you. We could have gone into business and made lots of money, but then who would preach this message? We need preachers. So we have dedicated our lives to preach, and you, in your position, can help by giving money.” And that also made perfect sense. It was a strong presentation. 

In the end, Mr. Gandhi really surprised us. He donated for the biggest room. People would sponsor rooms in the guesthouse, and he took the biggest. It was twenty-nine thousand rupees or so, really a lot then. And that was a big surprise. So it was good, that there was that cooperation.

Another vivid example of how well our cooperation worked was when we went to see Bhogilal Patel. Seth Bhogilal was the most devotional man. He was highly cultured and aristocratic, and so pious and softhearted. The first devotee to meet him was Gargamuni. When Gargamuni started to tell him how Srila Prabhupada was spreading Krishna consciousness all over the world and how people all over the world were chanting Hare Krishna, Bhogilal began to weep. He literally shed tears. 

He had become a life member, and we made an appointment to see him. At that point, we were collecting for Juhu. We made our presentation, and Bhogilal said that he would really like to give much more but that his son had taken charge of the business and was not so devotionally inclined, so all he could give was x amount. Goswami Maharaja, sitting next to me, poked me in the side and whispered, “That’s not enough; that’s not enough—he can give much more!” [laughter] I just did not have the heart to ask for more. But Goswami insisted: “You have to. You have to do it. It’s not enough. He is a rich man.” So, I don’t remember if I was the one who finally did it or if in the end he took over, but based on his determination we said it: “You have to give more than that. We need funds, and you have to give more.” And Seth Bhogilal doubled the figure. So it was definitely Goswami Maharaja’s insistence that brought about that increased service. And that is the idea: cooperation—“You make the money and I will spend it.”

Over the years, our friendship deepened. And the basis, of course, was service to Srila Prabhupada, though it was not that our service to Srila Prabhupada was always the explicit topic of discussion or focus of every interaction. At the same time, there was so much affection between us.

In November of 1977, shortly before he ultimately left this material world, Srila Prabhupada wanted to form the Bhaktivedanta Swami Charity Trust to give grants to support projects in Gauda-mandala-bhumi that could not be completed without financial assistance—those of his godbrothers and even those undertaken by devotees not in the line of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati.

It was hot—although it was November, it was very hot—and Goswami Maharaja sent me to Mathura with Bhagatji to get the document typed up and registered. It was a big challenge for me, and I was quite bewildered. I didn’t know Mathura at all, and I had never worked with Bhagatji, who was an older, local devotee and a friend of Srila Prabhupada’s. But I tried my best. We took a bus to Mathura, found some typist outside the courthouse, got him to type up the document, fought through the chaos inside, and finally got it registered. It was all quite an endeavor. Then we rode back to Vrindavan, handed the document over, and as it was pretty late and I was tired, I took rest. About twenty minutes after I turned out the lights, I was awakened by loud banging on the door—repeated loud banging. So I opened the door and there was Goswami Maharaja. He was fuming. He was furious. He told me that Srila Prabhupada had seen the document and was very upset, because instead of “Bhaktivedanta Swami Charity Trust” we had put “Bhaktivedanta Charitable Trust,” and “Bhaktivedanta”—there could be so many “Bhaktivedāntas”; it had to be “Bhaktivedanta Swami.” Then Goswami said, with great intensity, “You blew it!” [laughter] 

Actually, however, as a result of that interaction with Goswami Maharaja I felt very elated. I felt elated because Srila Prabhupada really was the center of our relationship. It was not a mundane friendship. Goswami Maharaja was not going to compromise on Srila Prabhupada’s service for the sake of so-called friendship or keeping our relationship congenial in a mundane way. So that was very enlivening, very encouraging. No matter what, Srila Prabhupada’s service comes first, and that was the basis of everything: our friendship, our good times together—everything.

So, we miss him, though at the same time, in such wonderful association with devotees who also appreciate him and love him, by thinking of him and speaking about him and trying to execute his will and serve in his mood—the mood of surrendered service to the spiritual master—we do experience his presence and guidance. 

And we should know, as well, that along with so much practical service, Tamal Krishna Goswami was also very intent on his internal spiritual development. Not everyone had the opportunity to witness this directly, but we did. There were periods when he would get up very early. He would chant, offer prayers, read shastra. He was very intent on his spiritual practice. And I think that is also very important to note, along with that mood of selfless service to the spiritual master in the field of practical activity. 

Here I call to mind our dear godbrother His Holiness Bhakti Tirtha Swami. After a long discussion with Bhakti Tirtha Maharaja over the phone, some months ago now, I wrote him and asked if he had any other instructions, any final instruction for me. As you may know, he was very concerned about the welfare of the devotees, and he was already pleased that we had taken up the project for senior ladies in Vrindavan, kirtan ashram, and were working to create a hospice for devotees, also in Vrindavan. So, I wrote and asked if he had any further instructions. He encouraged me to continue along the same lines but added: “We need simultaneously to go deeper in our consciousness. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura says that inoffensive chanting naturally brings forth the compassion in a sadhu and that this compassion should manifest externally in ways to protect the devotional service of as many devotees as possible, through tangible projects. So these two parallel activities must go on: our own diving into deeper, richer, internal devotional consciousness, and, inspired by this effort, our work on greater projects and arrangements.”

That was an important instruction, and I think it exemplifies His Holiness Tamal Krishna Goswami’s method of devotional service—that along with our practical service we should dive deeply into our internal practice of Krishna consciousness. By going deeply we will develop the mood of compassion, and that compassion will be expressed in projects that will protect and nurture the devotional service of others. So, that is something we all have to balance. Sometimes the circumstances are such that we have more facility to chant and hear and remember, and sometimes the circumstances are such that we have to be more engaged in external activities. But overall, we want to do both. And although the external results of Tamal Krishna Goswami’s service are more visible, we know that he was also very serious about his internal cultivation of Krishna consciousness, and that is something we all should try to emulate. 

Thank you. Hare Krishna. 

Srila Tamal Krishna Goswami Maharaja ki jaya! 
Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!