20230221 His Holiness Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami Disappearance Day Address

Jayapatākā Swami: Jaya Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami Mahārāja kī jaya!

We were having a meeting of the Māyāpur Executive Board, but I snuck out to participate in this program. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami was always connected to the Māyāpur project. And he was such a person, when Śrīla Prabhupāda had a difficult work, he would entrust it to His Holiness. So, Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted to buy land in Māyāpur and at that time, the price was Rs.11,000 a bighā. Now, it is 10 to 20, 30 or 35 lakh rupees per kāṭhā. And 20 kāṭhās is a bighā. So, he gave the money to buy, I don’t know how many bighās exactly, but Rs.11,000 per bighā. He gave the money to Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami, he wanted to make sure that he fulfilled Śrīla Prabhupāda’s request. So, since there were only 100-rupee notes at that time, he wrote the serial number of each note in the transfer deed, the sale deed. Normally, nobody writes the serial numbers of the bills, but he wanted to be very sure that he was carrying out Śrīla Prabhupāda’s order, he was extra careful.

And when we were building the Lotus Building, we brought steel, cement from Calcutta. And I remember riding in the truck with Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami. And the truck driver stopped at one Punjabi-dhaba and said, “You should please take some nice hot milk.” We were drinking the hot milk, and someone told us they are stealing your steel and throwing it in the ditch. So when we ran out and sure enough we saw that they had thrown some of the iron rods in the ditch. So he was ready to take great austerities, riding on the lorries, buying the properties. He did everything to please Śrīla Prabhupāda. That selfless service continued to his last breath.

In 1980’s, he started Harināma kīrtana amongst the GBC members. Now we have the Kīrtana-melā and you all enjoy, but that was originally started by Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami with all the GBCs. And he would also read the Caitanya-caritāmṛta and different sacred books. That was a kind of higher spiritual association. We heard that there are different levels of disciples. A dumb disciple does not follow the guru. A kaniṣṭha disciple follows but not very good. A madhyama-adhikārī he follows strictly. The uttama disciple even without the guru telling him, he understands the guru’s desire. I personally witnessed in Vṛndāvana, Śrīla Prabhupāda would just raise his hand and Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami opened the window. He knew exactly what Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted even though he did not say anything. So, he was a very unique devotee and I am missing his association a lot. Just wanted to speak a few words. He was my first GBC when I was a temple president. And I could not really satisfy him. But nonetheless I think he was a very wonderful devotee.

Hare Kṛṣṇa!