iMonk | July 2004

Calcutta, India — Saturday, July 17th

Guru Maharaj's disappearance

Today is the disappearance day of His Divine Grace Srila Bhakti Rakshak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj: the anniversary of the passing of our beloved Srila Guru Maharaj.

On this holy amavasya (new, or dark moon) day of the Vaishnava month of Sridhar (which fell on August 12th in 1988) Srila Guru Maharaj disappeared from our view on this physical plane, and entered into samadhi — a deep state of profound meditation — at his beloved place of bhajan at the Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math in Nabadwip Dham.

While Srila Gurudeva's health is as well as can be expected, he was not feeling well enough to make the arduous 120-kilometer journey by car to Nabadwip to celebrate the disappearance festival at Srila Guru Maharaj's samadhi at the Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, especially now that the normally bumpy and potholed roads have been made even worse with the recent heavy monsoon rains.

So a little after ten, with a light rain falling, Srila Gurudeva comes down to the nat mandir (kirtan hall) in front of the deities at the temple here in Calcutta, and talks at length about the disappearance of his beloved gurudeva: the earthquake that presaged his passing away three days before his disappearance sixteen years ago, the time of his passing away, the sadness of all the devotees, the big mango tree that left its body on the same day, the help and inspiration that he (Srila Gurudeva) received with the samadhi mandir...

Sripad Goswami Maharaj then addresses the many devotees and guests in English, and Sripad Tirtha Maharaj addresses them in Bengali, before we all participate in a guru puja for Srila Guru Maharaj.

After the guru puja and arati, a splendid prasadam feast is served in Srila Guru Maharaj's honor. Some of the many preparations that the one hundred devotees and guests are served include: curd and three other subjis, dahl, mango chutney, rice, pushpana rice, and sweet rice.

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