(3/8) Service Alertness

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Disappearance festival of Srila Govinda Maharaj
Siliguri, 24 April 2021, part 3
Translated from Bengali

Every time Gurudev started out from Kolkata to Nabadwip, he would call me – he did not tell anyone that he was coming to Nabadwip, but he would call me and say that he was coming. He would instruct me, ‘I am coming to Nabadwip, do not tell anybody,’ and I told only one–two persons secretly so that they could clean Gurudev’s room a little bit. Then, when Gurudev was in Krishnanagar (he always used that road because there was no road through Kalna at that time), he would call me again and say, ‘I am in Krishnanagar.’ By then we would be ready to start kirtan and give Gurudev a welcome, do some sankirtan. When Gurudev arrived, we would go up to Gurudev’s room, offer him arati, and so on.

I knew what Gurudev liked to eat, and I would go to the market the day before his arrival, buy everything and keep it in his kitchen. I knew that when Gurudev came, his servant would start cooking for him. Gurudev always left Kolkata early in the morning and arrive in Nabadwip at about nine o’clock (in the morning). So, I would go to the market the day before and keep everything ready in Gurudev’s room.

Gurudev liked chamarmani (chamurmoni) rice. It is a very nice kind of rice. He could not eat atop chal rice [unpolished rice] because it caused a problem in his stomach, but he liked chamarmani parboiled rice. He also ate begun bhaja (fried aubergine, but aubergine had to be without seeds). He also liked very hot aloo siddho (mashed potato mixed with two–four fried chillis and salt). Sometimes, he also took split chickpea dal or moong dal and some subji. He did not like to have many items at a time. You know that he had high blood sugar, but he would still sometimes ask for some ice-cream. He liked ThumbsUp, and he also liked mango. Mango has a lot of sugar, but he did not care – even if his sugar was high, he still ate mango. Later, he stopped eating potato so much, but he liked aloo posto [potato subji with ground white poppy seeds] a lot.

I have always been alert towards Gurudev – I know everything, what he likes, what he eats, etc.

You can see the Deities here in Siliguri. These Deities were chosen by Gurudev himself. One day, Gurudev told me, ‘Come, let us go out.’ We went to the man who makes Deities. Gurudev showed me these Deities and said that he had had them made a long time ago. There was a flood in 2000, but the Deities were not damaged, so Gurudev said They were of very good quality. He asked me, ‘Do you like these Deities?’ I said, ‘Yes, I do.’ And Gurudev told me to take Them. We fixed the order (the Deities only had to be painted), and the man who made the Deities said that he would send Them to the temple within a few days. Initially, Gurudev said that he wanted to send them to Malaysia, but it did not happen, and then a temple was made here in Siliguri, so I installed these Deities here. So, Gurudev personally liked and chose these Deities of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharva Govindasundar. Gurudev named the Deities himself.

This temple here in Siliguri was started when Gurudev was abroad, in America. I came here for a festival arranged by Devananda Gaudiya Math, and when I saw the devotees, I liked it a lot here, so I called Gurudev and asked if I could make a temple here. Gurudev said that he was very sick and was going for an operation, but if I wanted to make a temple in Siliguri, I could do it. He gave me permission. Later, he saw the domes of the temple. Gurudev asked me at that time if the foundation of the building was strong enough, and by the mercy of the Lord there has been no problem to this day. Gurudev could not come here himself because of one man, you know it. He wanted to come here when it was very hot in Kolkata, but one man, although he was Gurudev’s disciple, betrayed him. Gurudev was very upset. He said, ‘If somebody takes initiation from me and behaves like this after that, I will not go there.’ He was angry and did not come. How is it possible for a disciple to cheat his guru like this? It is unimaginable. That is why Gurudev called him a blood-sucking mosquito. Gurudev said, ‘My disciple sucks my blood just the way a mosquito sucks human blood.’ I often remember these hard words of Gurudev. When somebody loses gurudev’s mercy, they become great offenders. You have heard Ramachandra Puri’s story – he first made an offence to Vaishnavs, then he made an offence to his guru, and in the end, he made an offence at the lotus feet of Mahaprabhu. After that, he was forced to leave Jagannath Puri, and nobody even knows where he went or what happened to him.

Gurudev always liked trees and cows. He never allowed to cut any trees. One time, some foreign worker lady gathered dry leaves and was burning them at the bottom of a tree. Gurudev saw it and said to her, ‘What are you doing? The tree feels pain from the heat! You are making the tree suffer so much – the Lord will give you the same suffering for this.’ He also never allowed to sell a single cow from the goshala. Gurudev said, ‘If you sell a cow, some Muslim man will buy and eat it, and you will suffer the reaction for this. Do not do this.’ He also did not allow to sell fish from the pond. Now that we had to leave Nabadwip, they have sold all cows, they have sold all fish, and they have cut so many trees and sold them. This is what happens when one becomes an offender. When I was doing the construction, I made it very well (using strong, very dry bricks), so you cannot take a single brick out of the walls – otherwise, they would take bricks out and sell them, too. They sold beds, fans, fridges; they sold Gurudev’s television. This is what is going on there. And this is all not my problem – they are doing this, and they are the ones who are getting into trouble for this…

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Size: 31 Mb
Length: 67 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Gurudev's Disappearance
2) "Everything Plunged Into Darkness"
3) Service Alertness
4) Service Milestones
5) Service Challenges
6) Gurudev's Insight
7) Gurudev's Loving Affection
8) Nurturing Gurudev's Mission