20200815 Zoom Address on 76th Vyāsā-pūjā Festival of Śrīla Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāj

The following is a zoom address given on the 76th Vyasa Puja festival of His Holiness Śrīla Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami Mahārāja by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on August 15th, 2020 in Śrī Dhāma Māyāpur, India.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānandaṁ mādhavaṁ śrī caitanya iśvaram

vāñchā-kalpatarubhyaś ca kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca
patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namaḥ

I would like to offer my śraddhāñjali to the lotus feet of His Holiness Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, on the auspicious occasion of His Vyāsa-pūjā. I have been blessed by his association, since 1968. At that time, I went to Montreal to meet Śrīla Prabhupāda. And then, I don’t know if he was initiated yet, or he was still a bhakta. But he was working at that time as an executive for a multinational company. I think, he was a gṛhastha. He would go every morning in the temple before work wearing a suit and tie and in front of each picture, he would bow down and say his praṇāma. Then he would chant one round before each picture. I was sent out from the temple because I chanted too loud. So, I got banished to the park. But I saw he was very dear to Śrīla Prabhupāda. Then, he came to India, he was sannyāsī then.

And being in Māyāpur, Vṛndāvana, the holy places, Prabhupāda would personally, when he was there, find out any defect. He wanted us to be trained up. So, I knew this rasa, two or three days, one or two days Prabhupāda would be very nice, then he would start finding faults. So when I am going to Vṛndāvana to see Prabhupāda, then I walked along with Prabhupāda, and he was asking His Holiness Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, “Is everything alright?” And at that time, we were sitting in that room, in the back corner of the Kṛṣṇa Balarāma temple. And then, he said, “Yes Prabhupāda! Everything is okay!” But then a piece of straw fell on Prabhupāda’s head, he looked up. He saw a bird was building its nest in the lamp.  I knew this, Prabhupāda would do this, because he knew that the person; he is doing it to is very surrendered. And Prabhupāda was trying to lift the management to a higher level.

So, His Holiness Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja was a GBC first, also he was the trustee of the BBT, still he is. And, at that time we wanted to publish books in Māyāpur for Bengali, etc. So Śrīla Prabhupāda agreed. And gave us some capital; but anyway, I could see that he was very dear to Śrīla Prabhupāda! He was very dedicated, at that time there was a little competition. But over the years I have grown to love him very much. And he is our chairman in India for ISKCON Bureau. He cares about ISKCON Worldwide and used his influence to get the Indian Government to help ISKCON. He does so much service that I can’t begin to say.

During this time of Covid-19 Pandemic, I was telling him, “Please don’t travel! Be careful!” Because he was telling “I went to Vṛndāvana!” But it is dangerous to travel, in Vṛndāvana now, they found many positive cases. But he is very much dedicated to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Prabhupāda told us in Kolkata, “We should have ten temples!” But he defeated us! He already has 12 or 13 so temples in greater Delhi region. All the devotees are very blessed to have the association and guidance of His Holiness Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami Mahārāja.