The Great Disciple Sri Madhob Pagla-II

Once Sri Madhob Pagla went to meet Sri Sri Thakur.  At that time Sri Sri Thakur was giving some spiritual discourse amongst many other devotees, suddenly He turned towards Madhob Pagla and said you should do Mahotsav (Sri Sri Satyanarayan festival in a big scale)!! And then as usual started talking to others. Sri Madhob Pagla thought inside that how can I do such a big festival when I have no money. Actually that was the truth also because during those days his financial condition was very pathetic and didn’t had sufficient money even to fulfil his daily meal or needs (this was  before his appointment as a pujari in the Radha Govind Temple).  Slowly everybody left and Madhob Pagla was still there thinking inside his incapability to fulfil the orders given by our holy Gurudev!! Guruji who is antaryami came to know about his dilemma and said festival should not be of lentils and rice or vegetables etc. instead it should be of ten indriyas (organs of senses) and the eleventh one manas (inner self)!!! It means Sri Krishna bhakti through all the indriyas which refers to as Mahotsav by our holy Gurudev!! Now I am going to describe a very divine experience which this great devotee had with the grace of his holy  Guru Sri Sri Ram Thakur!! Once sitting at his home he thought  that is his Lord Madhav listening to all his prayers?? Does He know about him amongst his crores of devotees?? Is it ever be possible for him to have his darshan?? And then suddenly a feeling came inside him that it is not possible for him to have the darshan of his Lord until and unless he himself wants it !! After sometime suddenly something divine happened to him and he lay in an half unconscious state (means except the capability of watching & thinking all other capabilities stopped) on the ground saw that Sri Sri Thakur similing & holding Lord Sri Krishna with His left hand  entered his small room!! Here the author had given a very detailed description of the beauty of the Lord which I don’t remember much only what I remember is that the Lord was very beautifully decorated with various ornaments and was very beautiful which is very different and incomparable to the pictures what we generally see!! He was wearing a dhoti which was worn in a very beautiful and typical way which is not found or seen generally in this world!! It seemed that to Sri Madhob Pagla by the body language & the look of the Lord that He didn’t wanted to come there to give him darshan and He just came due to the personal request of Sri Sri Thakur only!!! Both of them came,  saw and smiled and then after sometime slowly walked away and merged into the portrait of Sri Sri Thakur at the puja altar of Sri Madhob Pagla!! Lord Sri Krishna before finally going away just gave an innocent look at him and went away!! Madhob Pagla slowly regained his consciousness and became astonished to this divine darshan of his and then understood one thing that the Lord didn’t wanted to came, He just came to see him because of Sri Sri Thakur only and thus he is indebted to his Gurudev!! He thought that from now on I would be very careful and would do every such thing which would please my Lord and Guru!! Jai Ram!!

The Great Disciple Sri Madhob Pagla-I

This post is in continuation with the earlier one.  As I have told in my earlier post that the deity Lord Sri Govinda used to converse with this great devotee regularly and his relationship with Him was of Vatsalya bhav means like affectionate love with a child. Once it so happened that as usual after the night puja was over, Sri Madhob Pagla took the deity inside the rest room of the Lord to put Him to sleep and when he was about to leave just at that moment the Lord suddenly spoke and asked him to press his holy feet and to fan him for a while!! He got irritated a little bit at this since large number of devotees were waiting outside for the prasadam as per daily practice and he had lot of other chores also to be done. He said to Lord what is this request at this moment?? You know I have other works also to do, I am sorry I cannot fulfil your demand now!! Let me complete the pending work then I will certainly come and serve you!! But the Lord was adamant!! But as Sri Madhob Pagla tried to move from there, to his utter surprise he couldn’t move an inch!!! The people outside were shouting and calling him as what had happened?? Why you are taking so much of time??etc. He tried to answer them but that was also not possible since he couldn’t talk also!! So the condition has become very critical for him, he couldn’t move or talk and had become totally paralysed by the holy Lord!! Sri Madhob Pagla very well understood as why it is happening. He prayed to Lord Sri Govinda for his holy mercy and slowly regained very little energy just only to fulfil the demands of the Lord!! Therefore, he pressed His feet for a while and also fanned the Lord for a while and then kissed Him on His forehead and asked for His permission to leave to which the Lord accepted and then slowly Sri Madhob Pagla regained all his powers to move and talk!! He came out and didn’t revealed it to anybody inspite of people blaming  to be so late as nobody would believe and understand it!! But inside his heard there were huge waves of affectionate love & divine happiness dancing and playing for the Lord !! Jai Ram!!

The Great Disciple Sri Madhob Pagla

India has always been blessed by so many great devotees that if we start to count them the list would be endless!! Today I would like to tell you all my dearest Guru brothers/sisters about one such disciple of our Gurudev about whom many of you would not be knowing!! His actual name was Sri Gopal Chandra Mukherjee apparently came to be known as Madhob Pagla!!  Madhob Pagla was a Saint of an highly spiritual divine status & a very close disciple of Sri Sri Ram Thakur and by his ardent devotion and sadhana came to know about his previous birth that he was a priest in a Madhav mandir in Bihar's Chappra district and due to his immense devotion became totally merged with God and was in divine possession always.  He used to roam the streets here and there always wearing a torn blanket and would chant always as "My Madhav is very good" , "My Madhav is very good" because of which people used to call him by this very name, kids taking him to be a lunatic fellow used to throw stones & mud on him. Then in this birth he was in Kashi, Varanasi and took diksha from Sri Sri Thakur and became a priest in a Radha-Govind Mandir. Many divine past times took place here between him and his beloved God Lord Sri Krishna!! Here the deity always used to talk with him telling about the naivedyams offered to it, like there is no salt in the dal or the food offered to it is uchchista (half-eaten) as the cook himself used to eat those eatables before offering to the deity, etc. like that many incidents!! Sometimes the deity used to demand from him certain etables like mango or sweets etc. The secret facts disclosed to him by the deity which were hard to believe by the other people of the temple at the first instance but subsequently which were proved to be true established his intimate closeness and divine relationship with the Lord. This temple is still there in Varanasi and I had the opportunity to have darshan of the deity. He attained sadhana by sitting on pancha-mundi asana in shiv-shakti temple known as Shav-Shiva Mandir which is still there in Varanasi. Sri Sri Thakur used to enter his body and played many many divine leelas. Must read the book about this great saint who infact saw Lord Sri Krishna also by the grace of his Guru Sri Sri Ram Thakur!!  If we search the history there would be very few devotees in the modern age India where we can find any records of the devotees having able to see their respective Lords and Madhob Pagla is one of them!! This very birth when he was in a dilemma as to call his beloved Lord Sri Krishna by which name as his Lord is having so many names, he heard a voice calling & audible only to him in the busy street of Varanasi as to call him by the name Sri Madhav as then Lord would be very much pleased on him!! This was really very divine and mind boggling experience for him but it was just only the beginning of these incidents!!  Keep an eye on the blog.. there is more to come on this Great  Saint & Disciple of our Gurudev!! Jai Ram!

The Fanaticism of Gaudiya Vaishnavites

Each one of us sometime or other would have came in touch with fanatics which may be from various beliefs or faiths of different religions. The major problem with them is that they only believe in their respective religions and think that all other faiths prevalent in the society are wrong or baseless.  This type of attitude make them very narrow minded and a hardcore fanatic! Normally these fanatics are present in many religions but it seems they are mostly existing in the modern societies of Vaishnavites or more specifically the Gaudiya Vaishnavites!!  Our Holy Gurudev have always instructed us to give proper and due respect to all the holy saints from all other religions and this post is not meant to offend them in any way!! This is just to discuss about the attitude or thinking of fanatics from all beliefs and subsequently dealing with them in accordance with the teachings given by our Holy Gurudev!! The major problem with most of the followers of Gaudiya Vaishnavism is that they think that the devotion of Lord Sri Krishna has become wholly and solely their copyright only and it is only they who can show to the world about the correct & authentic way of doing bhakti/sadhna of Lord Sri Krishna!!  Here I would like to draw all yours attention is that Lord Sri Krishna came to our planet earth some 6000 years back and Gaudiya Vaishnavism existence has started some 60-50 years back only!! How can they claim their authenticity?? And moreover, Krishna bhakti is not anybody’s copyright!! If we look back in our history of some of the great saints of Lord Sri Krishna & Lord Sri Ram like Meera, Surdas, Kabir, Tulsidas, Ravidas, Tukaram, Namdev etc. the list is endless most of them who even had darshan of their respective Lord’s and they used to converse with their deities also, did they all were under the initiation of Gaudiya Vaishnavism??  Did they all followed all the strict guidelines as laid by the Vaishnavites?? Moreover, I doubt whether these modern age vaishnavites can ever reach to that state of devotion of those devotees of our history.  Another problem with the Gaudiya Vaishnavism is their various strict rules and regulations being followed in their daily life style!! Sri Sri Ramthakur used to say that God is beyond such all types of  rules and regulations of Vedas and is unachievable through those means instead God can only achieved through the innocence of a child!! Further, if anybody enrols in their community, the vaishnavites very often scare them by informing them about various types of sins!! Sometimes I wonder that these modern day vaishnavites would be knowing more about different variety of sins instead of virtues!! If you don’t follow their prescribed guidelines then you may commit various sins from which no court of law can save you!! Recently, I happened to visit the ISKCON temple at New Delhi and while coming out of the main sanctum I found that they were offering the holy charanamrit of the Lord. There it was written on the wall that if anybody takes one drop of this holy charanamrit his endless sins would vanish but if by mistake if you drop this charanamrit on the ground then eight types of different sins would attract you!! See the height!! Already due to too much of modernisation of our daily lives people are not very much inclined towards spiritualism and if you keep on scaring people like this tell me who will take interest in spiritualism??  If you talk with them about their beliefs and rules they will tell you about different types of sins which you are committing by not being their member/follower and here goes the list of sins!!  Further, it has been also found manyatimes that these Gaudiya Vaishnavites while claiming their authenticity about Krishna Consciousness continue to blame & show disrespect to other communities and even spread many negative ideas about other religions which is very much contradictory to their spiritual mission!!  It feels very painful when you see a modern day saint saying ill words and even using abusive language against a holy saint from our history whose devotion is known worldwide!! This is called arrogance at its peak & this cannot be called Krishna Consciousness!!  You are abusive, scaring people by your rules, nullifying other dieties and beliefs, claiming your copyright, shouting on others and yet you claim to be a Saint or a Vaishnavite???  Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had once clarified as to how to identify a true Vaishnavite which is that to whom immediately upon seeing, you remember Lord Sri Krishna or whose presence helps you in remembering the Lord is a true Vaishnavite!!  Dear Guru brothers/sisters! Now the question comes how to tackle or deal with them!! I would tell you about my experience. Years back from 2001 to 2008 for some 7 years, I was in Chennai and there one Gaudiya Vaishnavite would regularly visit my residence. I would pay my respects as afterall he was a holy figure and because of him I used to get many prasadams from various pilgrimage places like Sri Mayapur, Sri Jagganath Dham, Sri Vrindavan Dham etc. He would always told me to take diksha from their Gurudev to which I would just smile and say nothing yes or no! Many times due to his preaching some mild confusions also came into the minds of my family members.  Once it so happened that I was not at home and this Vaishnavite came to my home and started talking with my mother. My mother always regards all the saints with very high respect and suddenly she asked him to see our Puja room which I always used to avoid to show him. But that day he went into our Puja room.  I must tell here that my mother always keep Sri Sri Kaivalyanath portrait on the altar alongwith a small portrait of Goddess Lakshmi.  The Vaishnavite immediately enquired about our Gurudev and asked my mother to remove the portrait of Goddess Lakshmi as she cannot be with Guru etc.. When I reached home I came to know about the dilemma of my mother and asked her to not to worry and explained that what the Vaishanvite had understood is correct and what we are doing is also absolutely fine. He understood our Gurudev only to be a Guru but he doesn’t know that He is also Sri Sri Satyanarayan and so Goddess Lakshmi has to be with Lord Narayan!! Another incident once happened is that this Vaishanvite came and as usual was pestering us to be strictly vegetarian and I would also just as usual would smile and say nothing!! But that day he started asking me are you eating vegetables? Are you eating vegetables? I said yes! We are!! When he left my wife asked why did you lied to him? You know we are not vegetarian, we eat fish also, then? I smiled and said what I said is correct as he was asking are you eating vegetables? And I replied him yes because that is also correct because apart from eating fish we also eat vegetables and so I confirmed that only!! Now this was the time of my wife smiling at me!! My policy is this as there is not point in arguing with them and moreover, I would strictly follow the instructions given by my Gurudev only!! Now after 7 years suddenly I received an order for transfer to New Delhi and one day when this Vaishnavite happened to visit my home I informed him also about my transfer. He asked to keep in touch with the delhi branch of their ashram and to take diksha from their Gurudev with sure before leaving Chennai. That day I don’t know what happened to me I revealed before him the actual truth of my Holy Gurudev Sri Sri Ramthakur which I never did in these 7 long years!! That fellow became totally quiet and was dumb struck and slowly left my home!! My Gurudev have given one very great teaching in Vedvani and which I always believe and follow which goes like this Dekhbe Sunbe Koibe Na, Shaar Bostu Charibe Na!! (See or Listen to everybody, don’t say or argue about anything with anybody,  inside know the actual truth and stick to it firmly). I think this mantra given by our Gurudev is the best one to deal with the fanatics of modern day society!! Jai Ram!!