Hot Work

Turning up the heat

Bhakti Kanan Giri Maharaj arrived this morning from our Srila Sridhar Swami Sevashram in Dasbisa, Govardhan. He has been in Govardhan for just over two months, since the last week of March.

I don't know how he stayed in Govardhan for so long (I have been to Russia and back since then) because the temperature in Delhi is consistently higher than the temperature in Kolkata by about 6-8°C (10-15°F) — and Govardhan is hotter than Delhi!

Giri Maharaj says that Govardhan is so hot that at night, when you turn your head on the pillow, it feels as though the pillowcase has just been ironed!

What has Giri Maharaj been doing in Govardhan all this time? He has been installing heaters in the ashram.

"Heaters?!" you say.

If you think that's like carrying coal to Newcastle, then you're probably not aware that although Govardhan is like a furnace now, in the winter the fire dies out and the furnace becomes a freezer (you'll be glad to have the coal then).

When Srila Gurudev asked how he could tolerate the heat, Giri Maharaj replied, "The thought of Your Divine Grace suffering unnecessarily in the winter is a greater discomfort to me than the discomfort of the heat."