19800316 Remembering Pisimā (Śrīla Prabhupāda's Sister)

The following is a homage to Pisimā (Śrīla Prabhupāda's sister) on her disappearance by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on March 16, 1980 in Śrī Māyāpur dhāma, India.

[…] So it is a victorious moment, yet at the same time it is a matter of separation of a Vaiṣṇava. So of course, I just have a few things to say. You will find more details on how attached Pisimā was always assisting Śrīla Prabhupāda in her childhood. From Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami’s biography. I just remember that Śrīla Prabhupāda said that she always used to follow him around when they were children. Of course, when Śrīla Prabhupāda sent me to India in 1970 from Toronto, Canada after a brief stop in Chicago with Śrīla Bhagavān Goswami and in Los Angeles, and in London on the way. When I arrived to Calcutta, I only had Acyutananda Swami as association. Although there are many other people, but there was no real association. So I remember the first time he took me, he said that you should meet Śrīla Prabhupāda’s sister. She has invited us for prasāda and we went to her house and there she showed us little Deities of Śrīla Prabhupāda, which he was worshipping. Śrīla Prabhupāda had given his childhood Deities to his younger sister to worship. Now we don’t worship… I mean to say we are not speaking mainly because Śrīla Prabhupāda material sister is Pisimā. Actually, she is his godsister. She accepted initiation from Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura for the Harināma and I will speak about that later. So actually, in a real sense godsister. We went to her house and seeing the Deity, she was performing the worship very nicely decorating with flowers. She offered up the prasāda to the Deity and she sat us down to take prasāda. And she proceeded to do her best to bust us over our capacity with so many preparations of śukta and śāk, vegetable. She knew how to make special mashed potato with mustard oil and fried things and pure ghee. And just like one hardly ever even finds one’s own mother, she served us very nicely with Rādhā Govinda’s prasāda. So later we found out that she was famous in the whole sampradāya of Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura for feeding the sannyāsīs. In fact, even Śrīdhara Swami and so many godbrothers of Śrīla Prabhupāda on different occasions they all admit that they have taken the prasāda prepared by Pisimā. She is known as Madanera Mā, because her youngest son Madana was dying and she continuously chanted and simply depended on the Lord and this way he was saved. And so she became famous as Madanera Mā, I don’t know the full details of that story, but she is well known within the Gauḍīya sampradāya at Māyāpur. Although her one sadness in life was that after becoming married, she could not make any of her children to be full devotees, fully dedicated devotees, although several of her sons have become life patron members that none of them would fully accept all of Vaiṣṇava principles. This was a source of anxiety to her and therefore she always wanted to live at the holy dhāma, where Śrīla Prabhupāda did not want initially her to… because she was so imposing on wanting to serve him that it became almost an imposition that he would always say that, “No, you can just stay with your son.” And finally, he agreed on her insistence, and she was allowed to stay at Māyāpur, where she continuously chanted. She would always like to sit on the veranda and hear the kīrtana in the temple. I remember from before she had taken second initiation from Bhakti Sāraṅga Goswami. And although when she was living in Calcutta, she used to come out to observe the ceremonies of Bhakti Sāraṅga Goswami, one of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s godbrothers, she had only taken the first initiation from Bhaktisiddhānta. This gave me a good insight in how she simultaneously had her great faith for Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura as well as her mantra-guru, seeing him as the representative of Bhaktisiddhānta. She would always attend these functions with great faith and devotion. It’s a very good sign. Although someone who is able to fully engage in the saṅkīrtana movement is no doubt, the most glorious. Although her style was very simple, simply serving the Vaiṣṇavas and associating with the Vaiṣṇavas. We can see that by her special faith in Vaiṣṇavas and her association with Śrīla Prabhupāda being born in a Vaiṣṇava family, that how she was always attached to this association. And this has given her this greatest opportunity of spending her last years and her last moment in the holy dhāma and in the association of devotees chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. What more can anyone desire in leaving this body? Actually, the last two years, of course, Śrīla Viṣṇupāda, he has been taking care of her as in a very affectionate way. I noticed that every time he would go in the room, though Pisimā would always be requesting, “You please bless me that I can have pure devotional service.” She was always eager to get Śrīla Bhavānanda Goswami’s mercy so that she could get more taste for chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. She being very simple, she accepts it. Those who were the receptacles of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s mercy with great faith. And she wanted always to get Śrīla Viṣṇupāda’s mercy is very moving. Especially she liked to see all the devotees coming for the yearly festival. And that seemed to be her one high point. However, since Śrīla Prabhupāda association has been taken from her, we saw a steadily decline in her desire to remain in this world. It seemed that her life had become simply empty. And in so many ways she expressed that she was feeling very lonely without that spiritual association. Of course, her association was mainly from hearing. And even when she heard the tapes, in the end she became very enlivened. So we can see that actually this Vaiṣṇava philosophy is so sublime, culture is so deep that everyone does not matter whether one is a great scholar or whether one is not a great scholar, whether one is a man, whether one is a woman in a woman’s body, whether one is of any particular background, that somehow or another, if one gets attached to the lotus seat of Kṛṣṇa, then by serving the Vaiṣṇavas by that association reach the highest perfection. So, what to speak of someone born in a great family with a great association, we see that although leading a very simple life, simply by this constant association of Vaiṣṇavas, one is completely protected. One is completely protected. Somehow or other, we have to remain very attached to the association of Vaiṣṇavas. We have to remain very much fixed up in serving Vaiṣṇavas. We have to remain very eager to get a taste for chanting the holy name, in this case, and actually at every moment we are protected; and ultimately fixing our mind on Kṛṣṇa becomes very easy. So that we see that Śrīla Prabhupāda’s godsister, our Aunt, Pisimā means aunt, maternal aunt, that she has given us an insight into this kind of spiritual desire. And therefore, we are very glorified to speak for a few minutes on her transcendental qualities and on this glorious moment, feeling the separation from her spiritual association, but knowing that she is now go on back to Goloka Vṛndāvana from the holy dhāma of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.