HDG Bhaktisiddhanta Prabhupada...and Prabhupada's men

[Guest guest]

Dear prabhus,

Hare Krsna! Please accept my humble obeisance. All glories to Srila

Prabhupada.

 

In 1974, the first really large international celebration was held in Sri

Mayapura dhama. It was the most wonderful and perhaps most culturally

shocking event for most who attended, since many of us had never left our

birth countries. After Gaura Purnima we travelled to Sri Brndabana dhama

where the temple and Srila Prabhupada's quarters were in the process of

being built. We all stayed in the Fogal Asrama at that time.

 

Later Srila Prabhupada asked some of us who, because of our status as

commonwealth citizens, were able to remain in India without visas, to go

to Bombay. Some envious people were causing trouble there and Srila

Prabhupada wanted us to perform sankirtana around the neighborhood to

help quell the agitation.

 

In Bombay at that time there was one Canadian brahmacari who had been

there for some time, working hard in whatever capacity he could. He

specifically caught my attention because he also had the enviable

position of being Srila Prabhupada's driver. Every evening after sandhya

arati, Srila Prabhupada would lecture and then personally distribute the

maha-prasad from his own hand. I clearly remember that he would

forcefully push that prasad into peoples hands, as if he was forcing us

to take Krsna's mercy...which obviously he was. This humble brahmacari

had the task of driving Srila Prabhupada from his quarters in the back of

the Juhu land to the lecture each night, in an old four-wheel drive jeep

and then driving him back again. I wondered how this person had acquired

so much spiritual sukriti that he got to personally sit with the nitya

siddha and help serve him.

 

Later I found out that the brahmacari's name was Sridhara dasa, who had

joined in San Francisco and was formally initiated by Srila Prabhupada in

1970 in Los Angeles. Later still, he became famous in the Iskcon world as

Sridhara Svami.

 

Many of you devotees have had the wonderful opportunity to get Sridhara

Maharaja's personal sanga and I am sure that like me, some of you have

even had the opportunity of serving him. Perhaps the greatest compliment

that can be paid to His Holiness Sridhara Maharaja is that he is one of

those rare (and getting rarer) persons who knows nothing else than Srila

Prabhupada's lotus feet. In other words, he is what the old guard refer

to as a, 'Prabhupada man'.

 

Sridhara Maharaja has worked tirelessly from his youth simply to do Srila

Prabhupada's bidding and has given not only the best years of his life,

but the majority of it also, trying to fulfil Srila Prabhupada's desires.

What an enviable position to be in! Here is a person who has never missed

chanting his rounds in more than 33 years and whose body (and mind) is

made of prasadam.

 

I just spoke with that 'Prabhupada man'. I told him that I could not feel

sorry for him in any way, because he is being given the great gift of

timely preparation to leave this present body, just as Pariksit Maharaja

was. Again in an enviable position! Because of his life's dedication to

Srila Prabhupada's lotus feet, he gets the benediction of going to the

dhama (Mahaprabhu) to be surrounded by devotees and Krsna kirtana. Having

spent his life serving Mahaprabhu and Srila Prabhupada, his next place of

worship will only be better.

 

He told me that his only desire is to again be with Prabhupada, because

like so many of us, he really cannot tolerate Prabhupada's physical

separation. He goes on serving, knowing that by doing so, he will again

get the personal sanga of his dearmost Srila Prabhupada. And that is

Krsna's promise.

 

Today is Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Prabhupada's avirbhava anniversary.

Wherever there is Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Prabhupada, there also is our

Srila Prabhupada. And wherever our Srila Prabhupada is, his men will also

be there...sooner or later. It appears that His Holiness Sridhara

Maharaja will be one of the 'sooners'...and rightly so. Again, the

enviable position!

 

Maharaja, please, forgive our very real offenses. And if you will, please

bless us all that we may follow in your footsteps and achieve that

greatest of all positions...becoming a Prabhupada man.

 

ysGd

 

 

 

 

"I am a servant of Sri Caitanya, a servant of Sri Caitanya. I am a

servant of Sri Caitanya, and a servant of His servants". Sri Krsnadasa

Kaviraja.

"Alas! Alas! The entire world has been flooded in love of Godhead, but I

have not been touched by even a drop!" Sri Prabhodananda Sarasvati.

 

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"I am a servant of Sri Caitanya, a servant of Sri Caitanya. I am a

servant of Sri Caitanya, and a servant of His servants". Sri Krsnadasa

Kaviraja

"Alas! Alas! The entire world has been flooded in love of Godhead, but I

have not been touched by even a drop!" Sri Prabhodananda Sarasvati.