2006 Disappearance Festival: Remembrance Excerpts

Sri Damodar Giri and the kirtaniyas from Gadeigiri

The following are a few lightly edited excerpts from the talks:

Sri Srimad Bhaktisvarup Damodar Maharaja: My association with Gour Govinda Maharaja was primarily in 1977 when I was with Srila Prabhupada in Bhubaneswar for laying the foundation stone of the temple. I saw Maharaja staying in the hut, which is still there. He was serving Srila Prabhupada by doing translation work. He was humility personified. I always liked him, but our responsibilities were in different fields. So we didn’t get to often meet. But in the GBC meetings we always sat together.

When Maharaja came to South France we had dinner together and I asked him, “It seems like you have some difficulty with your body. You cannot walk freely. Doesn’t this journey give you some problem?”

He replied, “So long as I can preach; I can speak on Srimad Bhagavatam, it gives me unlimited pleasure, unlimited happiness.”

I told him that he had been given some special blessings by Srila Prabhupada. I admire your courage and your determination in order to carry out Prabhupada’s order in order to please him. Our exchanges were very informal.

One can say many things about Maharaja. He was a greatly advanced soul. One of the most qualities that I remember of Maharaja was his humility and his great attachment and determination to execute the orders Srila Prabhupada gave him. Following Prabhupada’s instruction he was continuously translating his books from English into Oriya. Because of his work, most of Prabhupada’s books are available in Oriya. These books are a very big source of inspiration for the Oriya devotees. When I’m traveling around the world today it’s very wonderful to find so many devotees reading the books, beautiful printed magazines, and email magazines that the devotees at Gopal Jiu Publications have been producing based on Maharaja’s lectures. These are an important source of inspiration for many, even for those who never met Maharaja. Just by reading these books they get inspired. Maharaja’s disciples who are carrying out his desire to make these lectures available are giving a very important contribution to our Krishna consciousness movement.

Sri Devakinanandan Prabhu: I first met Gour Govinda Maharaja sometime in the late 1970s. We were on a traveling party with Bhava-bhuti Prabhu. From Calcutta we went to Bhubaneswar. Maharaja was always very Krishna conscious, always thinking of Krishna. He wanted to talk about Krishna and he would do so very forcefully. In his talks, so many times the name of Krishna would appear. He used to repeat, “Krishna, Krishna”, many times. That is the symptom of his attachment to Krishna. He was very jubilant, very friendly. Maharaja was a great vaiñëava. He was always Krishna conscious, and he wanted to give everybody Krishna.

Sri Srimad Jayadvaita Swami: Seeing the video of Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja. I was remembering how he had given up his connection with material life and was searching for a spiritual master. He himself had become a sadhu, giving up his family life and was wondering place to place and came to Vrindavan. Naturally he must have come in touch with so many gurus, so many swamis, so many sadhus. But he rejected them. “This person is a cheater. That person is a Mayavadi. They are not pure devotees of Krishna.” So he was rejecting, he wasn’t finding what he was looking for. Then he came to Vrindavan and by the arrangement of Krishna he came in touch with Srila Prabhupada. There he saw, “Yes this is what I’m looking for.” And he surrendered to Srila Prabhupada and became engaged in Prabhupada’s service. It means that his whole program of life was Krishna consciousness. Of course he appeared in a Krishna conscious environment -- with kirtan, with Bhagavatam -- he grew up with all of these things. Then he came in touch with Prabhupada, then he was really serving Bhagavatam by that translation work by preaching and by service up to the end.

Sri Rajendra Prabhu: Srila Prabhupada has a wonderful disciple in His Divine Grace Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja. He was a great inspiration for me in my life. He accepted the order of his spiritual master as his life and soul and didn’t consider anything else. I never saw in anybody other than Srila Prabhupada such surrendered devotional service as I did with Gour Govinda Maharaja.

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