20230615 JSSS: Mahā Varāha Dāsa and Ekanātha Gaura dāsa

The following are talks given by Maha Varaha Prabhu and Ekanatha Gaura Prabhu on June 15th, 2023 in Bhaktivedanta Manor, London, England. The talk was given at the JSSS meeting.

Mahā Varāha dāsa: They told us that transplantation is like trading a bigger evil with a small evil, which means you can be still alive if you go for transplantation, but you will be still having some health issues, minor health issues. The reason is every single patient who has gone through transplantation, be it kidney liver, post-transplantation the patient will be put on immune-suppresant drugs for life. It will artificially suppress your immunity level. Therefore, they are prone to get different, other diseases. You will still be alive but you have to put up with these small, small health issues that may come by coming in contact with people, change of weather, different, different ways. So therefore, he is supposed, if the transplant had not taken place, he would have left his body in 2018 itself. But by Kṛṣṇa’s mercy, he is still with us and despite all these health issues he is still continuing doing whatever services that he has been doing all these years – for five decades – for Śrīla Prabhupāda!

The recent one was the skin cancer. For people those who are on immune-suppresant drugs, they cannot be exposed to the sun for long time and somehow, he got this skin cancer on his forehead, head, nose. So we found out that in the USA they had a different method of treating these skin cancers, some advanced treatment. So we took him to the US with the information that it would last for two weeks but it landed up for two months, because it was 20 sittings and spread over to two months. As usual, that was one of the reasons. Otherwise, this is the period when Guru Mahārāja travels from India via UK or Europe, mostly UK to the US for the Pānihāṭi festival, and to visit different other temples and festivals. So this year, right after his Vyāsa-pūjā, he left for the US via Dubai, and in the US from the first week of April to the end of May or first week of June, so two months,he was there. He went to Los Angeles and came to Dallas. Dallas is the place where he stayed longer and the treatment took place in Dallas, and from Dallas every weekend he travelled to different, different cities for preaching. So he went to Austin, McAllen, Houston, New Orleans, Detroit, Minneapolis, Atlanta, every weekend. And the treatment was on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The weekend he travels out and comes back to Dallas. On Monday morning he goes to the treatment center, from the treatment center to the airport fly out from Dallas to another city. On Friday morning he goes to the treatment center, and then on Monday morning he flies back to Dallas, from the airport straight to the treatment center. And then stays Monday to Friday in Dallas and in between some other programs and every night he was giving Caitanya class on the book that he is working on. So more or less, that is how he spent the last two months in Dallas, over the whole of the US. Everywhere there were big festivals and especially this year, for the first time he went to the Sādhu-saṅga festival which was held in Dallas. We had many stalwart devotees like His Holiness Rādhānātha Swami Mahārāja, His Holiness Śacīnandana Swami Mahārāja, His Holiness Indradyumna Mahārāja, His Holiness Girirāja Swami Mahārāja. So it was a nice loving exchange between the godbrothers and the devotees. And in the Sādhu-saṅga most of you would have watched the small video clip, Guru Mahārāja gave Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam class on the 28th I think of May and during the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam class, towards the end of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, there was not much time for question and answer, so His Holiness Śacīnandana Mahārāja came up on the stage and he announced that Mahārāja, I am sure that the devotees, the audience down there, they are very eager to ask you, some questions but unfortunately time is our enemy and we don’t have time for questions. But I have one question he said. He asked Guru Mahārāja, “How are you Mahārāja?” Guru Mahārāja answered that I am somewhat a wreck! You know what a wreck means. Like a wrecked ship. He said somewhat my body is a wreck, I had a stroke, I cannot speak properly, I went for a kidney and liver transplantation. And now I am having skin cancer, but I am happy! So this is the statement he made. When he made such a statement, literally every devotee sitting there had tears in their eyes! Because you see he is like a living example of how by practicing Kṛṣṇa consciousness seriously, one can actually, stay aloof without getting affected by all the problems in our life. Because most of the time like it says in the Bhagavad-gītā (2.14), mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ āgamāpāyino ’nityās tāṁs titikṣasva bhārata. The non-permanent appearance of happiness and distress and their disappearance is just like the appearance and disappearance of the summer and winter season. And they arise from sense perception, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed. So we have many kinds of devotees – when we face some problems in our life, in our devotional life, and we practice, all of us face varieties of problems, challenges in our life, material life and sometimes some of us who are not spiritually strong, when we face a small problem, we become very disturbed about it. And our mind always meditates on that and that small problem becomes bigger and much bigger, simply by keeping on thinking about it. And there are some devotees, when they face some problem, they tolerate the problem, but they are still disturbed, they are not happy within, but they are able to tolerate, but they are still disturbed but they are not happy. There is another level of devotees, when they face problem, they tolerate, but they are happy. They are not at all disturbed by all these challenges and problems in their life. And that is Guru Mahārāja, which we have seen in him. I don’t know, we can describe later if we have the time, how much austerity he has to go through to actually lead his day-to-day life. The kind of austerities he goes through while travelling, meeting devotees, eating, bathing, everything, it is a big austere life. And the kind of health challenges that he has. But despite all this, he made a genuine statement that despite all this I am happy, because he is connected to Kṛṣṇa within. Because he is deeply rooted in devotional service and that is what is making him to be not at all disturbed by all these external challenges and disturbances. So this is a perfect, real time example of how we devotees can actually overcome all our challenges if we deeply establish ourselves in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. It is a perfect example. It is life, like in a class because that is people want, that is all what we all want. The other day me and Ekanātha Gaura dāsa were discussing that material life is like sitting on a cactus. No matter where you sit, which angle you sit, you turn the cactus around, it is still going to hurt you. So, no matter how we adjust ourselves within this material world still it will hurt us. So there is no way of escaping from this material world. Unless we connect ourselves deeply in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then despite all these programs, no matter what problems we face, simply by establishing ourselves deeply in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, definitely Kṛṣṇa will protect us and Kṛṣṇa will make us sail through all these challenges and problems very smoothly. So that is the perfect example of how Guru Mahārāja is leading his life. Hare Kṛṣṇa! 

Ekanātha Gaura dāsa: So I am very happy to be here in the UK in the association of all my godbrothers and godsisters. So first of all in this trip, I don’t know if you noticed, new devotees came, did you notice? So three devotees came from Malaysia because in Malaysia they have a special tree, very difficult to find, only in Malaysia. Prabhu has been there. One tree, you see the beans in the Haveli, from one tree you can cut it. Like that, came Śiva Caitanya dāsa, Kṛpā-sindhu dāsa, Gokula, Mahā Varāha dāsa, all cut from the same tree. We are very happy to have them because they are very dedicated, sincere devotees, very old devotees, they have been serving, they have been collecting they open temples, farms, Food for Life, book distribution, preaching, Ratha-yātrā all over Malaysia and now they are travelling a little bit around the world. So when they heard that mahā-prasāda needed help in the US, then the Malaysian devotees sponsored their tickets to go and help Guru Mahārāja. Although they are temple presidents, still they managed to come. They are very focused. When they serve Guru Mahārāja, they are just, you know they make things very focused in serving. How many of you speak Tamil? They are good Tamil preachers, so you can invite them to come to preach in the future. And how many of you know Viśvambhara? Viśvambhara has been coming from the US from a very young age. He was serving Guru Mahārāja, since, a very young age in the US and then he came to Māyāpur, he is a very expert chiropractor. So he was treating Guru Mahārāja, he was taking care of Guru Mahārāja’s medicines. He is very like focused on what medicines they give or not. He is serving Guru Mahārāja for at least ten to fifteen years, I don’t remember!

We have Rādhā Jīvana Prabhu at the back. Also, he is coming from the US, lives in Michigan in the farm. He is very expert in training how to do farming with the bulls. And how to make houses with mud.

Mahā Varāha dāsa: Many people come to learn how to cuddle the cows. That person Rādhā Jīvana is there, you can learn from him!

Ekanātha Gaura dāsa: He is very expert also. So they came serving Guru Mahārāja very nicely. So please take their association.

And then you know Gaurāṅga, from Italy? He started travelling with Guru Mahārāja all over India, since COVID his service has been fixed. So he also came very young. This is the new group, very dedicated in serving Guru Mahārāja. So let us give them a big, big, HARIBOL!

We need young blood, but they are serving very nicely. So I am very happy to be in their association. In Italy, they asked me what is your realization travelling with Guru Mahārāja? Today I was taking a shower and was thinking about realization, and something came into my mind. That, you know we have somehow or other, we have some character, in this material world, little something we have, right? But yet, even though we are conditioned by our anarthas, from the illusory energy and from this material world, being bombarded every time. Yet, there is one person who is bringing, even though we have all these things, inspiring us to bring the best out of us. Yes or no? Who agrees? Haribol! I have seen, Guru Mahārāja, even though we are not qualified, we have so many anarthas, ego, this and that, still when we do service, when the devotees connect with the spiritual energy, then they bring the best. They do tons of preaching, they bring so many devotees. If we disconnect, then anarthas come! But yet when we connect, it brings out the best of all the devotees. And I was thinking that Guru Mahārāja has this quality, to bring the best out of us when we connect through that mood and mission of Śrīla Prabhupāda. Do you agree with that or not? We see, we see the devotees when I travel we see, I discussed with Mahā many times, look at this that, yet I am seeing that devotees even though they may be facing some challenges, some problems, yet when they serve and connect with Śrīla Prabhupāda they bring the best, they do such a nice service. So I was thinking that how Guru Mahārāja has that.

And in the Temple of Vedic Planetarium that Guru Mahārāja is doing the part of the museum, the exhibits part. We are trying to explain the seven planetary systems and then the spiritual world. One of the discussions is that through different states of consciousness, you have access to different places in the universe and when your mind is transcendental and transcends, when you are situated in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then you are in the spiritual world. So, this shows when we connect with Kṛṣṇa, when Guru Mahārāja inspires us to connect with Kṛṣṇa, then we are in the spiritual world. Śrīla Prabhupāda says that in a letter, whoever reads the letters of Śrīla Prabhupāda, in the Kṛṣṇa conscious state you are not fallen. The moment we leave your Kṛṣṇa conscious state, we fall down. And we can see, as I was talking about the inspiration when we connect with that spiritual energy, we are in a different state of consciousness and we can tap that energy, to Kṛṣṇa’s energy and then be able to do miracles. Like what Śyāma-sundara Prabhu was sharing with Guru Mahārāja in the park the other day. They used to be fearless, he said we used to be fearless for Kṛṣṇa, and the more fearless you are, the more challenge you take in life, the more difficult the challenge, the more you can see Kṛṣṇa! And you can see all of you in your preaching, in your service, there may be many challenges, you see how Kṛṣṇa intervenes. Yes or no? So I was thinking I would share with you that how Guru Mahārāja connects us through that spiritual energy.

So now Guru Mahārāja is coming and we will receive him with a big Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga! Jaya Nitāi-Gaurāṅga! Nitāi-Gaurāṅga! Nitāi-Gaurāṅga!