By Jayabhadra dd (Padayatra coordinator)
On June 8th, 2023 Srila Gurudev, His Holiness Lokanath Maharaja had personal meeting with the Utkala Banga devotees in Bhubaneswar. This is perfection of the lives of the padayatris. They serve hard throughout the year tolerating the hot sun, the rainy season and the cold winter, just to get a Kripa Kataksha of Srila Gurudev. Maharaja also came for darsana of Sri Sri Nitai Gaurasundar and blessed all the padayatris.
“sri guru charane rati yei se uttam gati”
This is the formula they follow in their lives, so we can see they are always enthusiastic. Their sakirtana is so powerful it melts the hearts. They are preaching Lord”s message wherever they go.
I called Dhiranayak Dasa to ask about the meeting with Maharaja and here are his words.
Dhiranayak Dasa: When Guru Maharaja heard about our arrival in Bhuvaneshwar temple , he was very happy. We were called to meet him. As we went we were all blessed by his divine darsana. . On the very next day, as per our planning, we had to return but Guru Maharaja wanted us to stay and return after attending the whole programme in temple. He called us after prasadam again in the morning. Then we visited Guru Maharaja around 11 o’clock. His first question was whether we were leaving? I said we are staying. answered that we were not but staying for two more days. We told Guru Maharaj about the details of padayatra and the preaching programs. We told him that we are taking follow up of the people who have started chanting nd arrange Sunday online classes for them. And in this way, there is good preaching, and people get connected via padayatra. There will be a team of devotees connected through padayatra. There is a Mataji who became a devotee because of Padayatra and took shelter at the feet, and there are a few more Mataji. When we informed Guru Maharaj about this, he got very much happy.
Guru Maharaj shared his realizations about his visit to Odisha in 1985 and he had stayed for 2 months. He told us about how preaching by Gauru Govind Swami Maharaja and Guru Maharaja in villages about their Pravachanas.
Guru Maharaja personally interacted with every padayatra and asked where they were coming from. A devotee asked Guru Maharaja how he could I serve him. Guru Maharaja quickly replied “It was padayatra, be in padayatra and perform service. That was service to me”.
There was another devotee who wasn’t much qualified. He asked Guru Maharaja what to do as he could not study. Guru Maharaja instructed him to start studying by that day only. Guru Maharaja told the devotee that he was 50 when he started learning Bengali and now I am fluent in it and I can read, write and speak Bengali. If I could do that at the age of 50, you are still young to learn.
Guru Maharaja blessed each of us 15 devotees, and I got even more blessings from him. There was a disciple gathering of God-brothers and God-sisters, and I was given a chance to perform Charan abhishek, and I was blessed. In this way, we got our Guru Maharaj’s special mercy. “
So since few days they are in direct association of Srila Gurudev, that’s an Ananda Utsava for them. Lets pray for their well-being. Soon we will have their darsana on Vyasa puja. Their source of inspiration is our beloved Gurudev.
Srila Gurudev ki jai
