Mother Kirtida

Giriraj Swami: On this point of opening the heart I could give many examples, but because we are approaching Mother Kirtida’s disappearance day tomorrow the example relates to her. Mother Kirtida was a disciple of Tamal Krishna Goswami and she was very strong in her devotion to her spiritual master and also in her service to other devotees, and in her service to the Deities. This was true in Dallas, it was true in Vrindavan—those are the two main places where she spent time.

She had cancer. It was terminal. She was getting ready to leave her body and at that time Kesava Bharati dasa Goswami was staying with me at my place in Santa Barbara. I was phoning her almost every day or two. She was really living, in a sense she was living to reach Tamal Krishna Goswami’s Vyasa-puja, and then after that she stopped eating and drinking.

It is hard to explain, but speaking to her on the phone—it wasn’t even just on the phone with her—but somehow this tremendous love was flowing from my heart towards her. It was like she was the dearest person on earth and we didn’t want her to leave. Kesava Bharati Maharaja felt the same way and he was saying, “She promised me that she wouldn’t leave until I got back to Dallas,” which was going to be in two more weeks.

We discussed amongst ourselves and we decided we’ll phone her and tell her this is how we feel which we did. So then maybe a few hours or a day later we get a phone call from Tamal Krishna Goswami saying that he doesn’t recommend that we try to hold her back. He said, “She is determined to go. And even if the traffic light is red, she is is going to run the light [laughter]. She is going to go through the traffic light anyway. She is determined.” He said, “She is a nurse and she knows very well what happens at the time of death and she knows that if she stays in the body too much longer, various symptoms are going to set in that will make it hard for her to think of Krishna. So she wants to leave now. She has decided to leave now. She is not going to eat or drink. But you have your own relationships with her. You are free to speak with her.”

So that was the discussion. Kesava Bharati Maharaja and I conferred, “What’s really going on behind the scenes there? Is Srila Gurudeva presenting his own perspective on it which might not be exactly the same as hers? How do we deal with this?” [laughter] But we both decided—Kesava Bharati Maharaja and I—that we are not going to act immediately. We are going to take some time and chant and do some introspection and then decide.

So I went out to walk and chant and he stayed back. Both of us independently came to the same conclusion that we should let her go, not even that we really had any choice [laughter]. It is like, govindāya namo namaḥ, they have the saying in India, you are carrying some puffed rice and the wind blows it off, but before it hits the ground, govindāya namo namaḥ, you offer it to Krishna, get the credit. From one point of view she was gone anyway so we might as well. . . But it was more than that. We each had our own internal realizations and then we phoned and we encouraged her to proceed on the course she had chosen.

So this was the point that in this conversation with Tamal Krishna Goswami, he mentioned the idea that she had opened up our heart chakras—not just us, but many devotees—and therefore there was this strong flow of love and confidence. Confidence meaning feeling you could speak to her in confidence and she was like a mother, very strongly in the mood that she was a mother.

I heard it. I didn’t think too much about it. And then in the last, my previous visit to Dallas, I met with various devotees, some of them I chanted with. Many of them commented—many means a large proportion; it wasn’t that many—that it was some of the best japa they ever chanted. I was chanting with them and I was thinking, I don’t think this is due to my spiritual advancement. I don’t think I am very spiritually advanced and I don’t think I am a very good chanter of japa. So I was thinking what could be the explanation. And then I thought maybe their heart chakras are opening up, and that’s why they are able to chant like that.