(3/7) Rectifying Lost Temples

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Tarakeswar, evening, 27 September 2019, part 3
Translated from Bengali

Devotee: Where is Chaitanya Doba, the place that Mahaprabhu visited, located?

It is in Naihati. I have been there, and I have seen that now the local people go there for fishing – they catch and eat fish from this pond... When Mahaprabhu came there, He told all the devotees (His followers), 'This is My Gurudev's place,' so everybody started to take the dust from there. This is how a whole pond appeared there. The area of that pond is called Halisahar. There is also a temple there, but it is run by sahajiyas.

I saw that the Dum Dum Park temple had eventually become what is called a 'sraddha bari' (শ্রদ্ধা বাড়ি). Gurudev told many times about this, and I remember what he said. Chaitanya Math does business, Baghbazar does business, Srila Madhav Maharaj's temples now also do business: whenever old people (outside people, not devotees) die, they make festival ceremonies for them at the temple. Gurudev never wanted that to happen at our temples, but they have turned our temples into sraddha baris...

A 'sraddha bari' ('death ceremony house') means when outside people's fathers or mothers die, they pay somebody to hold a homage ceremony for the deceased. This is Kolkata, so people do not have big houses. If they invite two hundred people, how will they accommodate and feed everybody? Even if they rent a place and arrange everything themselves, it still requires a lot of money. Instead, what people do is they give a little money (a much lesser sum than if they were to do it themselves) to the temple, and they get a place where everything is taken care of for them (the fire sacrifice, etc.). This is how the temple gets business.

You know, when you hold a sraddha ceremony, you must pay a brahman and give him a lot of things like a pillow, a mosquito net, a bedsheet, a cot, and so on. What do they do at the temple? They collect a lot of things and money, and you can imagine how much reaction they get for what they do. Why did Gurudev not want to do this? Because when somebody dies and a temple makes a sraddha ceremony for the deceased, they do a fire sacrifice using the same things every time. Remember this. If you were to buy everything for the ceremony, you would need to spend about ten thousand rupees, but at the temple, they just say, 'All right, you do not have to buy anything yourself. Just give us ten thousand rupees, and we will get everything that is required.' They take these ten thousand rupees from people, but how many times do they need to buy all the things? Only one time. So, they keep all the necessary things in the storeroom, and every time when they hold a sraddha ceremony, they just take those things out and use the same things for each ceremony. This brings a reaction.

When I saw that Dum Dum Park had become such a sraddha ceremony house, I made this temple here in Tarakeshwar, and, by Gurudev's mercy, Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Radha Madan-mohan (the same Radha-Madan-mohan who stayed in Dum Dum Park, Kolkata) came here. Then, I also saw that the same thing was happening in Kaikhali. I thought, 'In Gurudev's time I got a place in Bankura, I can make a temple there.' Bankura is near Srila Goswami Maharaj's birthplace. Srila Sridhar Maharaj went there to bring Srila Goswami Maharaj back. When Srila Prabhupad left his body, Srila Bhakti Saranga Goswami Maharaj left his brahmachari life and got married, but then Srila Sridhar Maharaj came to him and brought him back, saying, 'You must leave your grihastha life and take sannyas.' I got a land there and made a temple. The Deities' name there is Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Radha-Raman (the same as in Kaikhali).

These are the two special temples I have made. There are also many other temples that have appeared over the past several years. This here, in Tarakeswar, is one of those two particular temples. I have been coming here since Gurudev's time, for perhaps twenty-two or twenty-five years. At first, I started coming here for potato collection, and eventually we have got many devotees and well-wishers in this area who help us with their service. So, this is a very important place for us.

Actually, I do not get time to come here very often. I was here last on Janmastami. We made the Janmastami festival here, then I went to Siliguri for Radhastami. When this festival was coming, I told the devotees that I would come here because I understood that many wanted to come at this time. Last year I was at the Dum Dum Park temple for my birthday, and this year I said that I would stay in Tarakeswar, at Madan-mohan's place...

Jay Srila Guru Maharaj ki jay.

Let us chant some kirtan now.

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READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Tarakeswar: Turning Point
2) Jewel Devotees
3) Rectifying Stray Temples
4) Disciple's Determination
5) The Meaning of Kirtan
6) Guru-Disciple Sambandha
7) Service Attracts More Service