iMonk | August 2005

Saint Petersburg, Russia — Friday, August 5th

Union in separation

Today is the anniversary Srila Sridhar Maharaj's disappearance from this mortal plane of our mundane vision. Sripad Avadhut Maharaj, Vasudeva Prabhu (our Smolensk leader) and I take the early morning train to Saint Petersburg to participate in the festival there; Sripad Siddhanti Maharaj and Bharati Maharaj will conduct the program at the temple in Moscow.

We leave Moscow just before 2:00 a.m. and arrive in Saint Petersburg a little over eight hours later, at 10:14. We are met by the temple president, Vijay Raman Prabhu, who drives us to the beautiful temple in Lakhta, on the shore of the Baltic Sea.

Later in the evening about thirty devotees gather in the temple to sing some of Srila Guru Maharaj's favorite songs and reminisce about some of His Divine Grace's immortal pastimes.

It is not a nostalgic or sentimental ceremony: Vasudeva Prabhu and I talk about Srila Guru Maharaj's unprecedented, indelible contribution to the Gaudiya sampradaya, and Avadhut Maharaj talks about the principle of "union in separation" and how we can please Srila Guru Maharaj by serving his dear-most servitor, Srila Gurudeva.

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