Tamala Krishna Goswami's diss

[Guest guest]

Camp: ISKCON Sri Mayapur Dham 5 April 2002

 

Dear Pandu Vijaya Prabhu and all disciples of His Holiness Tamal Krishna

Goswami:

 

Please accept my humble obeisances. All Glories to Srila Prabhupada.

 

I noted your posting referring to the "horrific event of Tamala Krishna

Goswami's leaving his body" and I offer my deepest sympathy for your

feelings at this time.

 

However, I don't agree with the idea that this was a "horrific event." Why?

 

Primarily, at the time we heard of the crash and didn't know whether Goswami

Maharaj was fatally injured or not, he came to me, much in the same way my

daughter did when she left he body, and my father and my mother.

 

He was totally at peace. He said, "Everything is all right. I am with

Prabhupada and Krishna. I am already dead, but it's all right." He also

intimated that "After you die you expand. Now I can be with all of the

devotees all the time, much more than I could before." At this I fell down

on the floor and cried offering prostrated obeisances and I knew he was

gone.

 

The rest of the day I shall describe in detail later. But I want you all to

know that this was not an accident. This is the holy dham of Sri Mayapur. We

witness daily how Krishna directs things here more so than it seems visible

outside.

 

Here in Mayapur it was an intensely spiritual experience. Although sad, it

brought a sense of great honour for Goswami Maharaj and Vrindavaneshvari,

and huge, jubilant kirtan in the temple the day after (before the

glorification ceremony). Hearing devotees speak in that ceremony was another

unique Krishna conscious experience. We were drenched in sadness,

bereavement, and ecstatic kirtan before Sri Sri Radha Madhava. Honoring the

devotees bodies, and hearing select realizations and dear words of

glorification from many advanced devotees (some of whom we rarely hear

speak), brought many realizations.

 

We are all faced with the prominent vision that any of us could go at any

moment of any day. Goswami Maharaj taught us this in his life, and also in

his apparent death. When we are more conscious of death, we can be more

conscious of Krishna. We are REALLY not the body, but servants of the

servants of Srila Prabhupada's servants.

 

Goswami Maharaj spent his last weeks here in intense bhajan kirtan with HH

Shivaram Maharaj, HH BB Govinda Maharaj and many other devotees he loved.

These kirtans went on each night for hours and were highly unusual. Devotees

were talking about them every day and asking me if I had been there as if I

was missing something highly unusual.

 

He departed in an instantaneous and painless way at Phulia, where the

Namacharya Haridas Thakur chanted 300 thousand names of Krishna daily.

 

He left this world after being aborbed in intense kirtan rasa with beloved

devotees, in not just a holy place, but SRI MAYAPUR DHAM. He was attended to

by throngs of loving devotees, who took his flower-covered body before Srila

Prabhupada, Lord Caitanya, Sri Sri Radha Madhava and the eight Sakhis, and

Lord Nrisimhadev amidst great kirtan. What can be horrible or inauspicious

about this way of dying?

 

Car crashes seem horrible and violent, but that is only an observation. If

Krishna can use cars to convey his devotees for preaching, why can't He use

cars to transport them back to Godhead? Many years ago people didn't have

such cars, but in the scriptures we find that the disappearance of the Yadus

seems very harsh, and Krishna's wives were attacked and even Arjuna couldn't

protect them. So we don't see death as Krishna sees death. It is only the

destruction of the body.

 

We might prefer that Gurudev leaves peacefully during kirtan, but how and

when we go is up to Krishna. Do we think Goswami Maharaj was not thinking of

Krishna because he was in a car? Not likely.

 

Please rest assured that, as painful as it may be for us, Goswami Maharaj is

with Srila Prabhupada and Krishna, and all of us. His departure was by their

Divine will.

 

"I know you must be feeling (his) loss very profoundly. What do we do when

this happens? When Srila Prabhupada left what could we do? We can only go on

living and honouring our memories of the great souls who pass before us by

dedicating our lives to serve the principles they lived by." -- HH Sridhar

Swami.

 

your servant, Amogha das.

 

 

 

(your posting:)

 

> Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

> Since the horrific event of Tamala Krishna Goswami's leaving his

> body-there has been an outpouring of verbal remembrances etc.- but no one

> except Rt Swami has stepped in and come to houston and associate with us ,

> give us comfort , answer questions etc. All in all the entire ISKCON

> family has let us all-about 80 devotees-fend for ourselves. Very

> disappointing-we are alone. Just an unpleasant observance.

> Your servant,

>

> Pandava vijaya dasa