(5) Mahaprabhu's Exclusive Mercy

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Puri Dham, 3 July 2019, part 5
Translated from Bengali

Genuine devotees are very humble and they always serve Vaishnavs... There are many pastimes that happened here, in Sri Puri Dham. One other pastime I can tell you about is about Gopinath Pattanayak, Sri Ray Ramananda's brother. 'Nayak' is a title of landowners.

One time, Gopinath Pattanayak had been framed and quarrelled with Raja Prataparudra's son. As the result of that fight, King Prataparudra's son had Gopinath Pattanayak arrested and sentenced to impaling. He was to receive severe punishment for some false charges. All the devotees came to Mahaprabhu and asked Him, 'Prabhu, Gopinath Pattanayak is Your dear devotee, he is very devoted to Lord Krishna, but he is thrown into prison because of some false charges.' Mahaprabhu did not like to get involved in any fighting, so He remained calm, saying, 'I do not know anything, I will not interfere in these material politics.' So, the day and time were announced for Gopinath Pattanayak's execution. All the devotees were devastated – they cried to Mahaprabhu. They told Him, 'Prabhu, you know, we all cry and feel so bad, but Gopinath is not disturbed – he did not steal anything, so he is calm. He says, "If I am to die, I will die." He is not scared of death.' Finally, Mahaprabhu said, 'What am I to do? Go and pray to Lord Jagannath!' Then, everybody went to Lord Jagannath and prayed to Him. In the meantime, King Prataparudra got the news that his son had done such a thing. He was amazed, 'What?! I did not know anything! How can my son mete out this punishment to a decent man working for the government??' Then, he looked into the matter and proved that Gopinath Pattanayak was innocent. Then, Gopinath Pattanayak was released and the king doubled his salary.

We can understand from this pastime that sannyasis and sadhus should not interfere with external world's affairs. Remember this.

You can see also how humble King Prataparudra is. He said, 'The Lord gives His darshan to those who are not worthy of being seen, to those who are of the lowest caste, but He refuses to give His darshan to me. It seem that He has appeared in this world promising that He would rescue every jiva soul except me.'

When we went to Ray Ramananda's house and spoke there, I did not mention this to you. Guru Maharaj said, ‘When Mahaprabhu left, the devotees in the whole world, especially Puri Dham, became extremely distressed. At that time, many of them left their bodies, and Svarup Damodar also left after Mahaprabhu, but Ramananda Ray stayed. He managed the whole situation and gave full nourishment to the devotees. Owing to him, everything again became peaceful in Puri Dham. We do not know if Mahaprabhu had ordered it to him or not, but we see that if Ramananda Ray had not been there, the whole situation would have been very painful and pitiful.’ This is what Guru Maharaj said.

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