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Gaura Purnima at Bhaktivedanta ManorParasuram das: Gaura Purnima Festival at Bhaktivedanta Manor included a stage program. This year the Gurukulis organised the festival themselves. They performed two wonderful devotional dramas. "Lord Caitanya meets Chand kasi" and "Nimai's young adventures". • Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments •  •WSN January 2010 - World Sankirtan NewsletterBy Vijaya das Many devotees are now returning from India after their pilgrimage to the holy dhama. Srila Prabhupada wanted the sankirtan devotees to go to India to get inspiration and then go back to their countries with greater strength to spread the sankirtan movement of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. • Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • •Glenn Beck Attacks Dandavats.com Prabhu’sJaya Madhava Das: Your friend Jaya Madhava Das sent you the following video from CNNBC: "Glenn Beck Attacks Dandavats.com Prabhu's." • Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • •Reminder for those who would like to participateBy Kaisori Devi Dasi We are looking for expressive, meditative, or intriguing photos taken by talented photographers that explicitly or implicitly depict the theme(s) above and bring out aesthetic or intellectual elements both of Krsna consciousness itself and of the photographer's own spirituality and quest for self-realization. • Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • •Padmanabha Prabhu’s New England Remembrances1,388 Views / EMail This Post / Print This Post / Home » Padmanabha Prabhu's New England Remembrances
I cannot possibly put into words the loss I feel with the passing of Padmanbha Prabhu. Before he moved to Germany at the end of 1983, he lived on this side of the Atlantic, in a place called New England. Some 27 years after his move, his departure from this world has sent shock waves to everyone who knew and loved him. And make no mistake about it- to know him was to love him- and there are many devotees here who dearly miss him. My remembrances are just one small account, and not from the very beginning of his Around the time I joined the temple, he used to cook the feast by himself in the Providence temple. He was made the temple president by default because all the other senior devotees had moved to other temples. Although not a managerial type, he had all the other qualifications to run a preaching center- he could cook, perform bhajans and preach very well. He was a bit messy in those days but his feasts were spectacularly big and delicious. So much bigger than what most temples serve out today. Oh my god were they ever delectable. Pakoras, curded sabjis galore, savories, fancy rice pulaos, chutneys, puris and sweet rice were generally the bare minimum. My brother, Kesisudana and I worked in the kitchen full-time just washing the dirty pots he created. It was hard to keep up with him. He would add the ingredients with his signature horn sounds “ba-doo-boo-boo” (he was a When we cleaned up after the feasts, he would put the leftover prasadam in transfer containers. He made sweet rice so delicious that I still dream of it today. Whatever leftover sweet rice that didn’t fit in the container, he would personally eat that night. The next day, Monday, he would always do a This was around 1983. He pretty much taught me to cook. He was about 37 at the time, I was 19 and my brother was 18. Sometimes, we would chant bhajans for three or four hours at a time. He knew all of Bhaktivinode Thakur’s songs on the harmonium. I would close my eyes and be transported into another world. After stopping, he would pause with his eyes closed also- then slowly open them with a smile on his face, look around the room and just say “Awwww Krishna.” As one devotee put it, “He was always one of the good guys.” He put bhakti above all considerations. For me, those days in his association will always be precious. The first time I ever visited a temple was in Hartford and he was there. First my brother and I talked to the temple president Pyari, and then Padmanabha appeared. He had cooked the feast. “I want to go to India this year,” he said “But I can’t.” “Just go in your mind then,” Pyari said jokingly. “Okay,” Padmanabha said in his happy-go-lucky fashion. Since it was my first time, I thought he was serious and speculated they were talking about astral travel. I thought he must be a mystic yogi or something. It turned out he was even better. I remember once, he, my brother and I all went to Boston to help cook for the Ratha-yatra and the Whole Life Expo, which went on at the same time that year. In addition, I think Janmastami and Vyasa-puja were all about the same time as well. It was madness. We served thousands and thousands of plates of prasadam and were working in the kitchen for 16-hours a day for about four days. Padmanabha burned his feet straining a gigantic pot of boiling potatoes in the back parking lot but just kept on cooking with blistered feet, unfettered. When we got back to Providence we were totally dead for the rest of the week. We would rise and Padbanabha would lead kirtan in a very hoarse voice for about 20 minutes and then we would all crash in our various rooms upstairs. Sometimes we would wake up, look at each other, say nothing and then just go back to sleep. Other times, we would come out and chant a few rounds and then just go back in our rooms and crash again. This went on for days until we finally recovered. We were bramacharis when I knew him. He was older and had read all of Prabhupada’s books before he finally joined the temple in his mid-30s. He was very mature compared to the young passionate bucks running around the temple in those days. After he moved to Germany, he married and had a son.Hanuman. It just dawned on me that it was he who got me saying “Hanuman Ki jaya!” anytime I had to lift something heavy. He was in the military before he was a devotee and was especially attracted to Lord Rama’s pastimes. I recently contacted a friend who had left the movement after living with Padmanabha for several months. He was deprogrammed when he was only 19-years old but he never forgot his older friend. Upon hearing the news, now 44, he wrote, “Is that the devotee the I lived with in Providence ? If so, it is very sad he passed away. He was like a father figure and a great Man.” I wondered about Padmanabha’s next destination as I checked out of my hotel room after hearing the news the night before. As I left, I did the once-over, checking inside the nightstand. To my surprise, there I found Prabhupada’s Gita right next to Gidgeon’s Bible in the drawer. I picked it up with one hand and the book opened to 12.6 -7. To my delight, I read the following- “For one who worships Me, giving up all his activities unto Me and being devoted to Me without deviation, engaged in devotional service and always meditating upon Me, who has fixed his mind upon Me, O son of Pritha, for him I am the swift deliverer from the ocean of birth and death.” He left us in New England suddenly at the end of 1983. My brother and I went out for the Christmas marathon and he went to his guru’s Vyasa Puja in Germany. He was requested to be president at one of the temples and he stayed there for good. Now he has also left this world suddenly, after a brief illness. I guess that’s his style- short and sweet. I also guess 1  Thank you very much for this lively and very inspiring narration about this great soul… Great souls display symptoms of their spiritual advancement by displaying this unflinching attachement at the lotus feet of Guru and Krishna, as well as for the service of the Holy Name and above all by their selfless dedication to the service of uplifting others and engaging their in service, be it by honoring prasad and prasadam sevaya… This great story reminds me of Jayananda, who was simple, in the noble sense, as “vaishnavism means simplicity” and always ready to sacrifice for the service of others, making arrangements to put them in contact with his beloved Lord Jagannath… It also reminds me of that story when Srila Prabhupada said a devotee had gone back to Godhead… Some devotees expressed their suprise, as he was not a big guy, or a big leader (so to speak), but Srila Prabhupada just said that he was very dear to Krishna… This exemplifies the fact, that we do not always know who is the closest to Krishna… Maybe, he or she is a pot washer, a cook, a mataji making garlands for Radha-Krishna… As a
Comment posted by Puskaraksa das on March 12th, 2010 2  Well said, Puskaraksa Prabhu, and you’re welcome. Krishna knows the love a devotee has for Him in his or her heart. Padmanabha was filled with bhakti. He was a great inspiration for me and my friends when we first started visited the temple. I live in the Alachua, Florida area and there are many devotees here from New England who fondly remember him. Many of them are senior to me and I wanted to interview them and others who knew him, who are now scattered around the world, in order to get a glimpse of when Padmanabha first started coming around to associate with the devotees. It was moving too slowly, so I just put out my personal remembrances in order to have it posted in a timely fashion. Although my description doesn’t do him justice, I thought it might give some small glimpse of his glorious activities
Comment posted by gargamuni on March 14th, 2010 3 Dear Gargamuni Prabhu Thank you for your valuable contribution. As a matter of fact, it is never untimely to glorify a devotee ! Beyond, being able to glorify a genuine devotee requires one to have the set of qualities we are always hankering for, as a bonafide and valuable association, i.e. “nirmatsaranam satam”: one has to be “non envious and honest”. As a matter of fact, along with the mercy of the person Bhagavata, these same qualities are also known as a prerequisite to have access to the understanding of Grantha-raja Srimad Bhagavatam, who will not unveil His Siddantha, unless one is endowed with these attributes. Nevertheless, whatever be our personal qualifications and capacity to glorify a devotee of Krishna, let’s rest assured that, as Sri Ramananda Raya depicted it, he who is the most famous, is the devotee of Krishna…! Sometimes, one may wonder how this can be so, but we just have to realize, that beyond the narrow sphere of conditionned souls inhabiting the intermediate and lower planetary systems within the In conclusion, whatever be the fate of Padmanabha Prabhu, let us pray that he may be blessed with the only boon one may be hankering for, which to say, the eternal service of a sat Guru’s lotus feet, such as Jagat Guru Srila Prabhupada Patita Pavana, or his bonafide representative, be it in the material world or in the spiritual world… janme janme Prabhu sei… ! Gaura bhakta Vrinda ki jaya !
Comment posted by Puskaraksa das on March 23rd, 2010 Padmanabha Prabhu’s New England Remembrances
I cannot possibly put into words the loss I feel with the passing of Padmanbha Prabhu. Before he moved to Germany at the end of 1983, he lived on this side of the Atlantic, in a place called New England. Some 27 years after his move, his departure from this world has sent shock waves to everyone who knew and loved him. • Email to a friend • Article Search • Related • View comments • Track comments • •More Recent Articles |
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