Guru Maharaj in Washington - July 2003

(by Nrsimhananda Prabhu)

GM visit to Washington – 07-11-03 to 07-15-03

GM arrived in Washington DC at 4:45 PM on 07-11-03 and left for New York by car around 11 am on 07-15-03.

Since August 8 (32 days to July 11th when he arrived in Washington) he traveled through 23 cities. GM is quite happy with the disciples in Washington. His only problem this time, he was saying, was that they were not enough preaching.

As usual his day was made of 5 main elements: deity worship, walking, preaching, management meeting and devotee meeting. And as Amiya Vilas Swami who was in Washington at that time also said: You never stop preaching Maharaja, I can not understand (meaning he could not conceived how GM could go on non-stop).

During those 5 days he performed his regular daily temple arati, personal deity worship, 1 hour walk, 3 classes a day, meeting with management, meeting at least 2 families a day in their home an numerous meeting with devotees who flop at his doorstep.

In the morning GM got up to do the arati of Sri Madan Mohan. He would get up by 4:10 and would tell me around 4.25, tell the pujari I am coming. A few years ago, GM speaking with Virabahu Prabhu telling him that he does one arati a day on the temple altar , Virabahu Prabhu amazed said: It is good standard. GM is master of time. He manages to do many things in short span of time, as if he can bend time. Those who served him closely can understand, those who did not become very nervous when confronted by GM way of handling time. It seems that GM tries to do too many things, which it seem will not turn out due to a lack of time, but as an expert mystic GM manages to do it all and even more.

After Arati GM came to do the Tulasi Arati, tell Janardhana or ask someone to tell Janardhana to prepare the paraphernalia for his puja, chant some rounds and do his famous long gayatris. When I was with GM as his secretary GM had only his Prabhupada. But now his has his army of deities. Whenever he leaves them, he always tries to leave someone to guard them. He says they are very rare, I can not take a chance. GM standard of cleanliness is very strong, SP wanted us to be every clean in Deity worship, so GM shows the example. But for people who are not use to it, it may make them uncomfortable. I remember in Montreal many years ago, I was scheduled to perform arati, 5 minutes before arati I came to his room, so some of his clothes were on the floor (ready for wash), I pushed them aside with my left hand. He looked at me and said: Please take a shower and change your clothes. I told him that I used my left hand, would purify it before going on the altar and that I only had 5 minutes left. He said please Prabhu it is the Deities you are serving. So I quickly took shower and wore clean cloth. GM added an additional touch to cleanliness that I was not aware off: if he goes out between his puja to his deities he tries not to use his nor mal shoes. He explained that in India he uses 2 pairs of shoes, one clean pair used if he needs to go out between the puja of his deities, and the other for normal times. On Saturday during his puja, he made me call India to make sure that a devotee from Turkey, one of the first devotee made over there would be well received, as it was her first time to India and she knew no one over there. GM thinks of everyone and glances his mercy on all.

Guru Maharaja after Puja always attends Guru Puja; he likes to sing it. He always wants his disciples to attend SP Guru Puja. As he told one of his servants once who was not going for GP, he said if you cannot go to my Guru’s Guru Puja then I do not want you to serve me.

During his personal deity puja he would have me do some calls and read form the SB on the topic spoken in the SB class.

The morning classes were on the pastimes of Vritasura when the Demigods pray to the supersoul for help against the demons. One verse especially he liked was a verse describing Krsna’s qualities. He told me that he loves those verses describing point by po int the qualities. He also loves topics when devotees surrender to the Lord for shelter as the Demigods did to get protection from the demon Vritasura.

The night classes were supposed to be on the nectar of devotion, but as he told me, better they hear on the BG that is the ABC. To a devotee asking him, while driving to a program, if he should read Krsna Bhagavatamrita, he said it is too advance for you, read BG. In a class he said, Srila Prabhupada wrote 100 books, more that we can read in our lifetime, so we should concentrate on his books. So Guru Maharaja spoke on BG chapter 1 to 6. As he told me at least they can have basic understanding of the phil osophy. One may say but some of those devotees have been devotees for quite some time, they should know BG. But GM knows that many devotees, all around the world, do not really take time to read the books. Once in the plane he told me that for a person to remain brahmacari he must have a regimented sadhana. But we can undersand that in general to make advancement one must have a regimented sadhana. The same way that he himself does to show the example.

For walks and chanting, the first day we went to a park close to the temple, the other days we went to a park that Prabhupada walked when he was visiting Washington. GM is to he minute. He has to walk at least an hour, and can not stop..as he says if I st op then I loose the benefit. So he would walk and then regularly would ask for how much time we have walked. Coming back to the parking lot where the car was waiting, he told the car to follow him as he had another few minutes to walk. He then asked the t ime when entering the car, it was 58 minutes, he said or I missed 2 minutes. In the park that Prabhupada walked in, we saw a deer, GM always thinking spiritually remembered Jada Bharata. Once in Toronto in the beginning 80’s GM told me that SP favorite pa rt of the SB was the teaching of King Rishabadeva because of the teaching of living a life of austerity. He then told me your GM favorite part is the story of Jada Bharat. The place was beautiful; GM wanted pictures to be taken. So the next day a camera was brought. We also took group pictures. GM is so thoughtful, the devotee taking the pictures was a very nice bhakta from Russia, when taking the group pictures he told me to take one picture so that the bhakta would also be part o f the picture. He did not want this devotee to be left out. GM always sees the spiritual aspect in people, he does not think this is a bhakta, or this is a woman or this is a less advance devotee, although he follows etiquette he respects every one as a s pirit soul. Therefore many times we hear GM address even very young devotees in KC with the word prabhu. During this trip GM demonstrated that in a strong way while speaking to one of his old disciples that was gradually coming back to the process of DS. I was sitting at the back of the car, got the devotee on the phone, passed the phone to GM, the devotee must of offered his obeissances, and then GM says please accept my obeissances. He demonstrated his internal mood of respecting

 every living entity.

He did not have too much management meeting this time. Maybe two or three.

GM as usual does not take appointments, you can go and see him and if you wait a little he will meet you immediately. This is one of his trademarks. Devotee form Ghana met him the first night showing picture of the new temple they build and inviting him t o preach in Ghana. Later on Sunday, GM, requested by the TP, presented the Ghana project and requested devotees to help their project. Actually he is happy when devotees come to see him as they can have darshan of his deities. He met with some disciples a nd non-disciples doctors checking about his health. In mid 90 in India, GM read a letter from Bhaktisidhanta Sarasvati telling one of his disciples that to take care of your body so you can serve Krsna was not maya. Therefore Krsna makes sure his body is fit to serve the Lord.

We had a nice visit to Madhu Prabhu’s house. It was surprise Guru Puja. Some of the disciples had come up asking me if we could do a Guru Puja. It is an extremely rare thing to do these days and to get GM to accept this, especially foot bathing is not alw ays easy. So they planned that after the noon program, devotee would rush to Madhu’s house at the same time GM was going. GM was becoming suspicious, when he saw devotees as this visit was suppose to be a private visit to simply meet Madhu and his family. I explained that disciples had asked to do the GP and I told them it was ok. He looked at me; got a little upset and said there is no time to do that right now, you should off checked with me. I replied I did not check because you would have refused, and it is nice for disciple to do that once in while. So he sat on the sofa. I told everyone to start preparing quickly and I started chanting. The foot bathing started and the arati began. As usual GM has this face of anguish or suffering when his being worshipped, he really does not like that. He takes his beads and chants getting absorbed in Krsna’s name. The devotees at the end drank the nectar his feet and GM told them that he was taken by surprise. When we went to Syama Krs na’s house, it took 2:30 minutes, he had left the house without eating so he ate a little in the car. There was a lot of traffic so we could not stop for him to wash his hands, so we had bottle water, he refused he said I can not use water that cost money to wash my hands. He further spoke a topic that he used in his classes, that in America water is becoming more expensive then gas.