Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura’s Appearance Day

Giriraj Swami: To begin, I will read Srila Prabhupada’s own description of his first meeting with Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, during which he received the momentous instruction to preach Krishna consciousness in the English language in the Western world.

Srila Prabhupada says, “We may call to memory the time when I was fortunate enough to meet His Divine Grace Śrīla Prabhupāda.”

Again, our Srila Prabhupada is referring to his Guru Maharaja here as Śrīla Prabhupāda.

“Śrīla Prabhupāda had come to Calcutta from Śrīdhama Māyāpur to start the missionary activities of the Gauḍīya Maṭha. He was sitting in a house at Ulta Danga when through the inducement of an intimate friend, the late Śrīman Narendranātha Mallika, I had the opportunity to meet His Divine Grace for the first time. I do not remember the actual date of the meeting, but at that time I was one of the managers of Dr. Bose’s laboratory in Calcutta. I was a newly married young man, addicted to Gandhi’s movement and dressed in khadi. Fortunately, even at our first meeting, His Divine Grace advised me to preach the cult of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu in English in the Western countries. Because at that time I was a complete nationalist, a follower of Mahātma Gandhi, I submitted to His Divine Grace that unless our country were freed from foreign subjugation, no one would hear the message of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu seriously. Of course, we had some argument on this subject, but at last I was defeated and convinced that Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s message is the only panacea for suffering humanity. I was also convinced that the message of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was then in the hands of a very expert devotee and that surely the message of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu would spread all over the world. I could not, however, immediately take up his instruction to preach, but I took his words very seriously and was always thinking of how to execute his order, although I was quite unfit to do so.”

So, this is an instruction for us that we may receive an order from the spiritual master, but due to circumstances may not be able to execute it immediately. But we should always keep that order within our heart and look for the opportunity to execute it or pray for the opportunity to execute it. And Srila Prabhupada continues,

“In this way I passed my life as a householder until 1950, when I retired from family life as vānaprastha. With no companion, I loitered here and there until 1958, when I took sannyāsa. Then I was completely ready to discharge the order of my spiritual master. Previously, in 1936, just before His Divine Grace passed away, I wrote him a letter asking what I could do to serve him. In reply, he wrote me a letter, dated 13th December 1936, ordering me, in the same way, to preach in English the cult of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu as I had heard it from him. 

After he passed away, I started the fortnightly magazine Back to Godhead sometime in 1944 and tried to spread the cult of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu through this magazine. After I took sannyāsa, a well-wishing friend suggested that I write books instead of magazines. Magazines, he said, might be thrown away, but books remain perpetually. Then I attempted to write Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Before that, when I was a householder, I had written on Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā and had completed about 1100 pages, but somehow or other the manuscript was stolen. In any case, when I had published Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, First Canto, in three volumes in India, I thought of going to the U.S.A. By the mercy of His Divine Grace, I was able to come to New York on September 17, 1965. Since then, I have translated many books, including Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, The Teachings of Lord Caitanya (a summary) and many others. And then Sri Caitanya-caritāmṛta.”

And then Srila Prabhupada speaks about how he receives guidance from his guru maharaja.

“I think that His Divine Grace Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura is always seeing my activities and guiding me within my heart by his words. As it is said in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, tene brahma hṛdā ya ādi-kavaye. Spiritual inspiration comes from within the heart, wherein the Supreme Personality of Godhead, in His Paramātmā feature, is always sitting along with all His devotees and associates. It is to be admitted that whatever translation work I have done is through the inspiration of my spiritual master because personally I am most insignificant and incompetent to do this materially impossible work. I do not think myself a very learned scholar, but I have full faith in the service of my spiritual master, His Divine Grace Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhakura. If there is any credit to my activities of translating, it is all due to His Divine Grace. Certainly if His Divine Grace were first personally physically present at this time, it would have been a great occasion for jubilation, but even though he is not physically present, I am confident that he is very much pleased by this work of translation. He was very fond of seeing many books published to spread the Krishna consciousness movement. Therefore our society, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, has been formed to execute the order of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and His Divine Grace Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhakura.”

So, that meeting between Srila Prabhupada and His Divine Grace Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura took place a hundred years ago. And so, it is very significant. And as some of you may know, that house where Srila Prabhupada met Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura has been restored, and just today or yesterday, depending on your time zone, that restored building was opened.

So, February 21 is the 148th birth anniversary of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Gosvami Maharaja, and this is the 100th year since our dear Srila Prabhupada met his guru maharaja on the rooftop of the building at #1 Ultadanga Junction Road. The Gaudiya Matha was there for twelve years, beginning in 1918. And it is from there, joined by his sannyasi disciples, that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati preached. Only three people lived there with him. I think Bhakti Pradip Tirtha Maharaja and Kunjabihari (later Bhakti Vilasa Tirtha Maharaja) and one other. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati’s bhajana-kutira, where he lived, was on the rooftop, and everybody else lived on the ground floor—that’s all there was. Because the house was so small, he would give his main lectures on the rooftop, and that is where our Srila Prabhupada first met him and got the order to preach in English to the Western world, and that order changed the whole world, and it is the seed of our movement.

The Gaudiya Matha then moved to Bagbazar (the building on Ultadanga Junction Road was taken over by four or five families), but Srila Bhaktisiddhanta stayed at Bagbazar for only four years, and he regretted what transpired during that time. He said, “When we were living in a rented house if we could collect two or three hundred rupees, we were living very nicely at Ultadanga. We were happier then. But since we have been given this marble palace in Bagbazar, there is friction among our men. Who will occupy this room? Who will occupy that room? Who will be the proprietor of this room? Everyone is planning in different ways. It would be better to take the marble from the walls and secure money. If I could do this and print books, that would be better.”

In a room conversation on July 26, 1976, in London, our Srila Prabhupada said, “My guru maharaja was lamenting that ‘These men did not publish any number of books. They are simply after the stone and bricks.’ He condemned. He was very, very sorry. So, I thought that I must take a risk. And he is pleased. I never stressed on temples. I was engaged in publishing Back to Godhead. Whatever I could do, I did it, because I took it very seriously that he was very sorry that these things were not done. He said that ‘There will be fire in this Gaudiya Math.’ Aguna jvalabe, he said. Amari iccha chila kichu bai kare jaoya: ‘If I can, I shall sell the marbles of this temple and convert them into books.’ That was his ambition. He started a very nice press.”

So, a year and a half ago, we got possession of the whole building on Ultadanga Junction Road. We had to seal parts of it, but we got possession, and last year we started renovation. Devotees got as many photos as they could, interviewed people, and worked to make the building exactly the way it was when Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati lived there. It was an effort, because the building was totally dilapidated. But now it really is exactly the same as it was originally, and devotees will be able to sit in the very place on the rooftop where Srila Prabhupada sat when he was only twenty-five years old and met his guru maharaja, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura for the first time.

So, it is a very significant occasion, a very, very significant year, one hundred years exactly since our Srila Prabhupada first met his guru maharaja Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. And we are all experiencing the benefit.

The first time I celebrated Srila Bhaktisiddhanta appearance day, I was a new devotee in the Boston temple in early 1970, and Srila Prabhupada instructed us how to observe the appearance day of the spiritual master in the ceremony called Vyasa-puja. Up until then, there had never been any observance of the Vyasa-puja in ISKCON. 

Apart from the actual ceremony on that day, when we offered bhoga and puṣpāñjali and guru-puja, Srila Prabhupada instructed us to write appreciations or homages for his guru maharaja, which we would collect and publish. I was new in Krishna consciousness, and I didn’t know much about His Divine Grace Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, but I thought about him deeply and had two realizations, two thoughts. First, he must have been a most wonderful personality, because someone as great as our Srila Prabhupada surrendered to him. And second, it was by his mercy that we came in touch with Srila Prabhupada and Krishna consciousness. He gave Srila Prabhupada the instruction to preach Krishna consciousness in the English language in the Western world, and in accordance with his divine instructions, Srila Prabhupada came to America to deliver us all. So, I felt great appreciation for His Divine Grace Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura and gratitude to him.

Today is also the disappearance day of Srila Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja, who left on Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura’s appearance day in Mayapur. Is there a Spanish word for ‘in’?

Translator: En.

Giriraj Swami: So, I will speak a little about Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja. On the auspicious occasion of Sri Nityananda-trayodasi, Srila Prabhupada laid the cornerstone for the temple in Bhubaneswar. Srila Prabhupada also completed an important phase of his own writing in Bhubaneswar, maybe the Ninth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. In any case, after Srila Prabhupada departed, Gour Govinda Maharaja was ready to execute another important instruction from Srila Prabhupada to him, that he should travel and help Prabhupada’s devotees. So, he began to travel overseas and preach. Seeing the needs of the society and the needs of the devotees, he evolved his mission in pursuance of Srila Prabhupada’s instructions to him. His mission in his own words were:

(1) To show that everything is in Srila Prabhupada’s books,

(2) To show that you can get everything within ISKCON, and

(3) To encourage the devotees and protect them so that they don’t fall down, go away.

Gour Govinda Maharaja said that Srila Prabhupada’s books are like an ocean filled with gems but that in order to get those gems, you must go very deep. In a similar way, he showed that you can get everything within ISKCON, and he himself gave much to the society of devotees in ISKCON in terms of his kṛṣṇa-kathā and his realization of Krishna consciousness.

In 1996, in Mayapur, on the morning of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura’s appearance day, I met Gour Govinda Maharaja, and fortunately I offered him my obeisances. I placed my head on his feet, and out of his mercy and kindness he affectionately rubbed my back and head.

Then I left to go to Calcutta to catch a flight to America because I had some urgent work there. Later on the day of what was Maharaja’s departure, two senior devotees had gone to meet him in his room and inquired why Lord Chaitanya chose Jagannatha Puri as the place to perform His final pastimes. Maharaja began to narrate the pastimes of Krishna and how Krishna in the mood of separation from Radharani and His other friends in Vrindavan assumed the form of Jagannatha. It was a very ecstatic description, and because of Maharaja’s advanced stage of Krishna consciousness, he felt transcendental ecstasy remembering the pastime. He became overwhelmed and excused himself from continuing the narration. He laid down flat on his bed and, in a very deep state of Krishna consciousness, he left this world.

Now, there is a specific connection in service between Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. Of course, there is a general connection in terms of the general mission. Srila Prabhupada explained that preaching means distributing books, establishing temples, and making devotees. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura did all three, and Srila Prabhupada also did all three, and he wanted ISKCON to do all three. But Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja served Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura in a more specific way as well. And that relates to the Deity and temple of Allalanatha outside Jagannatha Puri.

When Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was residing in Puri for the last eighteen years of His manifest pastimes, He would daily go to the temple of Lord Jagannatha for darshan, and He would see Jagannatha not in the form that we see Him, but as Krishna Himself, Shyamasundara. But every year, Lord Jagannatha is bathed in the Snana-yatra ceremony, and it is said that thereafter, He catches a cold and is taken into seclusion for two weeks. And for those two weeks, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and all the devotees would be deprived of Jagannatha’s darshan. So, feeling separation from Lord Jagannatha, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu would walk fourteen miles to Brahmagiri to the temple of Allalanatha. The Allalanatha Deity is a four-handed Vishnu form of the Lord that was installed by Lord Brahma many ages ago, and thus that area is called Brahmagiri.

Translator: Can you repeat? [speaks in Spanish]

Giriraj Swami: Yes. That area where Lord Brahma installed that deity is called Brahmagiri.

Translator: My connection is not so good and I couldn’t understand now suddenly. If someone can translate that? Gracias.

Giriraj Swami: So, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu would spend the fourteen days when Lord Jagannatha was in seclusion (anasara) at Allalanatha, and He would daily take darshan of the Deity Allalanatha.

As it happened over the course of time, the temple grew old and was in need of repair and renovations. When Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura came to Allalanatha in 1927, he took up the project of renovating the temple and was so keen on the work being done expeditiously that he would personally roll bidis (cigarettes) for the workers so that they wouldn’t take time away from their work on the temple renovation to roll their own. That’s how sincere and intent he was in his purpose. In the course of a previous excavation, workers came upon the utsava Deity of Lord Allalanatha. In all major temples where there are large Deities, there are also smaller Deities called utsava Deities, which are used for festivals. The large Deities are never moved, but the small utsava Deities may be handled conveniently and brought forward for abhiseka, taken on a procession, and put on swings and other things that the large Deities, which cannot move, cannot do. So, the pujari put the utsava Deity of Allalanatha on the altar, but that night the Deity came to him in his dream and told him, “My very dear devotee is staying nearby, and I want to go to him, I want to be in his care, I want him to worship Me.”

The next morning, the pujari, obeying the order of the Deity in the dream, searched the area for the saintly person, and eventually found Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura and gave the Deity to him. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta constructed a beautiful temple for the utsava Deity of Allalanatha on the land just next to the Allalanatha temple compound.

Srila Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja took up service at Brahmagiri for Lord Allalanatha. For the Srila Prabhupada Centennial, he built a kirtan hall within the Allalanatha temple compound, which was much needed. It opened in the Srila Prabhupada Centennial year in 1996, and thus Srila Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja continued this specific line of service of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura to Allalanatha.

So, on this sacred occasion we pray to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura and to Srila Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja for their mercy, that we may actually relish the internal moods of Krishna consciousness, and fulfill their desire to bring others to Krishna consciousness—by their grace. Hare Krishna.

So, now, my dear devotees, if there is time, we can take the questions and comments. I see there is already a hand up.

Host: And there is a hand up by Priya Tirupati.. You can unmute and speak.

Devotee: Daṇḍavat praṇāma, greetings from Melbourne. Thank you very much for the nice class. Maharaja, first of all, I really like the points that you read at Boston that we met our Prabhupada by the grace of Bhaktisiddhanta Thakura. I mean, I didn’t think about it that way. And if our Prabhupada is great, then his Prabhupada must be really great that Prabhupada surrendered to him, and that’s really nice. So, I was just wondering, Maharaja, did Prabhupada have anything to say when you read that?

Giriraj Swami: He was pleased, but I don’t recall him saying anything specific about it, but he was pleased.

Devotee: Okay. I imagine he must be very pleased by what all the disciples would have to say about Bhaktisiddhanta Thakura, right? So, yes. If anything he said about any… anyone else?

Giriraj Swami: Yes. I mean, I don’t recall him saying anything. Yes. Hare Krishna. Priya Kishori Radha dasi?

Devotee: Hare Krishna, Guru Maharaja. Please accept my humble obeisances. Thank you for a very nice class, Guru Maharaja. I appreciated what you mentioned about distributing books, making temples, and making devotees.

Giriraj Swami: Yes.

Devotee: And you mentioned how Srila Bhaktisiddhanta and Srila Prabhupada both did that and Srila Gour Govinda Swami as well, and I appreciate that about you as well. So, thank you for being our north star. Guru Maharaja, my question was, you mentioned something about spiritual inspiration, and I paraphrase, you said something about Supersoul is sitting in the heart along with devotees and associates?

Giriraj Swami: Yes.

Devotee: And so, I guess my question is two part. The first part is how do you understand that the super soul is there along with the devotees and the associates? And the second part is that, is the super soul to be petitioned through these devotees, and does the super soul respond through these devotees?

Giriraj Swami: Yes, so, yes, this is a very important point. Srila Prabhupada wrote, “Spiritual inspiration comes from within the heart, wherein the Supreme Personality of Godhead, in His Paramātmā feature, is always sitting with all His devotees and associates.” Before that, Srila Prabhupada had written, “I think that His Divine Grace Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura is always seeing my activities and guiding me within my heart by his words.” So, we do get spiritual inspiration from within the heart, from the Paramātmā. But again, the Paramātmā is not alone, He is there with all His devotees and associates. And so, that spiritual inspiration from within the heart can also be coming from those devotees. As far as appealing to the Paramātmā through those devotees, whatever prayers we offer, we do, under the guidance of and with the blessings of and by the mercy of the Lord’s associates. So, does that answer your question?

Devotee: Yes, thank you, Guru Maharaja.

Giriraj Swami: Good. Hare Krishna. Well, if there are no more questions or comments, we. . . Yes, Ganga?

Ganga: Yes, Guru Maharaja, I don’t understand when you said that Srila Prabhupada didn’t put so much emphasis in the temples, just in the books, like Bhaktisiddhanta Thakura because we see that, yes, Prabhupada made also many temples. So, what really means this?

Giriraj Swami: Well, first priority was books, and second priority was temples. But he did both, certainly he did both. But the first priority was books. But we also need temples to train devotees, and then those devotees can distribute books. So, they all go together, books and temples and devotees, but first comes books. Books make devotees, and then the devotees make centers. Yes, books are the basis.

Devotee: Maharaja, regarding this concept, you said that the Ultadanga building has been restored, and now it is open since yesterday. So, it is, like, open to public? Everyone can go and visit?

Giriraj Swami: Yes, yes.

Devotee: And is it in proper Calcutta?

Giriraj Swami: Yes.

Devotee: Okay, okay.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, it is a great service the devotees did. Wonderful contribution.

Devotee: Thank you, Maharaja. So, now, if there are no more comments or questions, then I suggest we conclude with Vaishnava praṇāma.

Let us offer our respectful obeisances unto all the Vaishnava devotees of the Lord, who are just like desire trees who can fulfill the desires of everyone, and are full of compassion for the fallen conditioned souls.

vāñchā-kalpa-tarubhyaś ca kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca
patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namaḥ

Anant koti Vaishnava vrinda ki jaya!

Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura Maharaja ki jaya!