Tuesday, March 25th, 2003
Srila Sridhar Swami Seva Ashram, Dasbisa, Govardhan, India.

Return To Govardhan
A chance to do some personal seva

It's 5:00 a.m., and I'm out on the tiny balcony of our hotel room, chanting my japa, when I notice this procession of coolie laborers hard at work in the street below me, carrying bricks and sand in baskets on their heads, to a construction site around the corner. Five o'clock! I guess there are no unions in Delhi. I contemplate the hard struggle for existence...

In the alley, I see a cow standing alone and forlorn in the early light of the dawn. I compose this haiku verse:

   cow in the city
   ruminating in squalor
   dreaming of green hills

At ten o'clock Avadhut Maharaj and I go to the Delhi train station to meet ten Russian devotees who have arrived on the overnight train from Kolkata, along with Mukunda Prabhu and Pitambar Prabhu. We all pile in to three taxis and drive some 120 kilometers to the Srila Sridhar Swami Seva Ashram in Dasbisa, Govardhan.

When we arrive in Govardhan, I immediately begin cleaning Srila Gurudeva's quarters. We do not have the key to his room, so I do what I can, cleaning and dusting the veranda, and I am sweeping the stairs when he arrives with Janardan Maharaj and Siddhanti Maharaj.

After we all pay our obeisances, Srila Gurudeva sits on his veranda where it is cool, and Siddhanti Maharaj and I quickly sweep, dust, and clean his room.

This is the first chance that I have ever had to do some personal seva for Srila Gurudeva, and it feels good.

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