|
Flood of Mercy @ Dalhousie
In
January 2010, our beloved spiritual master H H Mahavishnu Goswami, out of
his causeless mercy accepted me as his disciple and named me as Sumedha
Krishna das and since then, he has been constantly guiding us and taking
care of us, inspite of his apparent physical absence from the world. Since
I serve the Indian army, I get posted to various places. In December 2010 I
got posted at Dalhousie located in Himachal Pradesh. It is one of the
famous tourist places in India.
In army, we can hardly meet devotees. So we (my wife Vinaysheel devi dasi
and I) were suffering from a disease called 'No Devotee Association'. It is
a disease which a devotee does not want to even think of in dreams.
Reminded of Maharaj's instructions, we made sincere endeavours to chant our
rounds, read Bhagavad Gita and Bhagavatam and perform daily mangala-arati
very sincerely. We prayed to Maharaj, Srila Prabhupada and Krishna to help us and by Their mercy I was able to
tell people under my command about the four regulative principles –
no meat eating, no intoxication, no gambling, no illicit sex. It was easier
for most of them to accept last two items but not the first two. In army,
meat and liquor are given free of cost which brings maximum people in that
category. Most of them understood why they should follow these principles.
After four months of starting Krishna
conscious programs, the number of meat eaters reduced from 60% to 5%.
Bereaved of the devotee association, we went to South in the month of May
to meet few of our God-brothers and God-sisters who inspired us a lot in
practising devotional service. Boosted by their association, we decided to
conduct house programs. In reality, we are not capable of preaching to
anybody, but by Maharaj's mercy we were able to start Sunday Feast and
Wednesday Rukmini Sabha classes. In Sunday Feast around 25-30 jawans
started coming and in Rukmini Sabha conducted by Vinaysheel devi dasi 20-22
wives of jawans with children were coming. It all started on 19th June
2011. There is a very beautiful verse in Bhakti Rasamrita Sindhu verse
1.2.234.
atah sri-krsna-naamaadi / na bhaved graahyam indriyaih
sevonmukhe hi jihvaadau / svayam eva sphuraty adah
"Therefore
material senses cannot appreciate Krishna's
holy name, form, qualities and pastimes. When a conditioned soul is
awakened to Krishna consciousness and
renders service by using his tongue to chant the Lord's holy name and taste
the remnants of the Lord’s food, the tongue is purified, and one
gradually comes to understand who Krsna really is."
Our beloved Maharaj always says, "Do
unalloyed, unmotivational, unintentional, fully dedicated seva to Krishna and after that He reveals you in no time. He
is always there with you. Just do seva to become devotee."
Slowly and slowly, just by hearing and chanting and eating prasadam, jawans
and their families became very much devoted. They started bringing
prasadams from their houses. Around 60 Bhagavat Gitas were distributed
amongst them in all the different regional languages. I could personally
see the drastic changes in many of them. One person who just could not live
without meat (pure non-vegetarian) started hearing and singing Hare Krishna
song whole day on mobile by his ear phones. He started taking prasadam and
eventually gave up eating meat to everyone's astonishment. One of them said
that his child never used to listen to him, but after taking the name of Krishna, he is completely changed now. One of the
jawan was suffering from diabetes for many years. He got so much frustrated
that he had stopped taking diabetic medicine also which was supposed to be
taken everyday. He started eating prasadam at his house after attending the
Sunday feast programmes. After four months when he got himself checked, he
had no sugar at all. All glories to Sri Krishna Maha Prasadam! One of the
families even left eating onion, garlic and got Laddu gopal Deity at their
home and started worshipping Him properly. Most of them have started
chanting one round daily and some of them are chanting 16 rounds. HDG Srila
Prabhupada always says, "Krishna Consciousness is dormant in everyone’s
heart, you just need to awaken it." We could realize this
practically because without any past experience or our own endeavors, all
these souls have taken to bhakti process so naturally.
Two months of continuous Sunday feasts and Rukmini sabha continued. Now was
the turn to give our gift to Lord Krishna. We all decided to celebrate
Krishna Maha Janmashtami in a grand manner but the space was less. We had a
very small temple in the company (a sub unit in army). Somehow (by the
transcendental energy of Supreme Lord) I was ordered to shift temple from
that place. It was difficult to choose a new place in Dalhousie as the
place is very congested, being a mountainous area, so we had no choice but
to shift our company items from one of the fully packed garage to another
place and convert the same into a temple. Janmashtami was only 10 days
away. The main problem was finance and nobody was ready to help us as they
had other things in priority. Then there was flood in Dalhousie, the flood
of mercy of Lord Sri Krishna, HDG Srila Prabhupada and HH Mahavishnu
Goswami Maharaj. The people of Himachal are very fortunate to have this
flood. By Krishna's mercy, one of the
contractor who was doing construction in one of the buildings nearby was
ready to build the place. We started with making stage for the altar, then
the tiles, ceiling of the garage, painting of the temple etc. All this got
completed in around 7 days. Indeed as Srila Prabhupada says in purport to
verse 3.31.18 - "By the
transcendental energy of the Lord EVERYTHING is possible."
One of them suggested that we should have big altar and deity for the
temple from Rajasthan. The same person volunteered and went to Jaipur,
Rajasthan and brought Sri Sri Radha Krishna deities for the temple. We
could realize that if Krishna wants to
come, no one can stop Him. Now we were thinking how to celebrate
Janamashtami. Everybody decided to donate Lakshmi for the Lord. We were
only 40 people in the company at that time and the total collection went
upto Rs 25000. The Deities came on 20th August and Deity Installation was
done on 21st August will full josh. We
felt as if Maharaj is actually present in Dalhousie and getting it all done.
We were thinking of naming this temple. We thought a lot and then with the
help of one of the senior devotee we named Their Lordships as "Sri Sri
Radha Govinda ji" and the temple was complete in all respects now
named as "Sri Sri Radha Govinda ji Mandir". This temple is our
humble dedication at the lotus feet of our spiritual master H H Mahavishnu
Goswami Maharaj and His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada.
On 22nd August 2011 morning, Janmashtami day, mangala arati was done which
was attended by more than 60 people. Thereafter we all were busy in decorating
the temple, deities, preparing prasadam and we felt so good. The
Janmashtami programme started with reading of Bhagavad Gita from 6:30 pm
until 9:00 pm followed by abhishek of deities, kirtan, discussion on the
appearance of Lord Krishna and arati till 11:59 pm. Hare Krishna mahamantra
was very loudly and very beautifully sung by the devotees. The environment
was completely Krishna conscious and
everybody was very happy. Then Lord Krishna appeared at 00:00 hrs and Sri
Sri Radha Govinda ji gave Their gorgeous darshan to everybody. Everybody
had prasadam thereafter and the programme continued till 02:30 am.
We pray to all the vaishnavas to please bless us and also pray for us so
that we continue to serve Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Govinda ji, Srila
Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev in a manner pleasing to Them.
|
