(5/5) Devotees' Pastimes

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Puri Dham parikrama, 1 July 2019, part 5
Translated from Bengali

Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya became Mahaprabhu's faithful devotee, and even all the disciples of Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya accepted Mahaprabhu as their exclusive Master.

Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya had a wife, Sati, and a daughter, Shathi. His wife often cooked for Mahaprabhu. They loved Mahaprabhu very much, so they would prepare very nice dishes for Him. One day, Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya's son-in-law Amogh decided to see what his in-laws were giving Him. He saw so many dishes placed in front of Mahaprabhu that he exclaimed, 'Sadhus eat so much!' Do you know what Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya did? He picked up a stick and was going to hit his son-in-law. He was so angry that he said, 'May Shathi become a widow!' He wished for his son-in-law to die. He was such a great devotee of Mahaprabhu that he could not tolerate any criticism of Mahaprabhu.

Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya arranged for Mahaprabhu to stay at Kashi Misra's house, and when Mahaprabhu was going to go to South India, he told the Lord, 'You are going to South India – there is another great devotee like You living there. His name is Ray Ramananda. You can meet with him there.'

And there was one more pastime. There was a lady, Ganga Mata Goswamini, who served the Deities at Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya's house. Her original name is Sachi Devi (she is not Mahaprabhu's mother; this is another Sachi Devi). She was a very beautiful girl, a royal princess. One day, she went to Vrindavan in search of a guru. When she approached a guru, he told her, 'You are so beautiful – will you be able to keep your vows?

[Distracted by somebody] What 'auntie'?? Everybody here is devotees of Mahaprabhu – there are no 'aunties' here! Everybody is 'Didi'.

So, the guru told Sachi Devi, 'If you want to take initiation from me, you must practise austerities for one year. You must live by begging and make your body fit for spiritual life.' So, she started living like that. Sometimes she ate, sometimes she fasted. A year later she came back to that guru in Vrindavan and took initiation from him. She listend to much Hari-katha from him, and eventually she ended up coming here, to Sri Puri Dham.

The devotees in Puri often travelled to the Ganges to bath in the holy river. One time, when Sachi Devi prayed to Lord Jagannath, Lord Jagannath actually brought the Ganges here for her. This is how it happened. One night the guards had locked Lord Jagannath's temple, but then at night, they suddenly heard a lot of noise of splashing water and a strong river current coming from the inside the temple. They quickly unlocked the temple and saw a beautiful girl standing in the middle of it! Everybody thought that she had broken into the temple to steal Lord Jagannath's gold jewellery, so they arrested her as a thief. Later that night, Lord Jagannath appeared to the king in a dream and said, 'You have arrested My great devotee! I will not eat until you bring her back atop a ceremonial elephant, with full honour!' The king awoke and hurried to release the girl. This is how she later got her name, Ganga Mata Goswamini.

She served Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya's Deities. She also took many disciples and she gave very good lectures on Srimad Bhagavatam. Even the king became her disciple, too.

These are the pastimes that took place here, at Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya's house. Let us go now to the temple of Lord Jagannath to offer our obeisances to the Lord...

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