Timeline of His Holiness Jayapataka Swami's Life - 2011-2020

Navadvip Mandala Parikrama-day 6 (13th March 2011) 
 
Today is the 6th day of our parikrama.Since the last 5 days many devotees in Mayapur have been hearing how ecstatic it is visiting all the 4 parikrama parties everyday.This morning we had about forty devotees following Guru Maharaja on his car parikrama. We had devotees from Sweden, Ecuador, Russia, Switzerland and Spain following Guru Maharaja in six vehicles. Looks like Guru Maharaja's party had become the fifth parikrama party! Though ours was the smallest,yet it was the fastest Parikrama party!  Our first party to be visited for this morning was the International party at Simantini. This was the same place where we met the Russian party yesterday morning.

While we were getting Guru Maharaja out from the car at the entrance of Simantini ground, we heard His Holiness Lokanath Maharaja sharing some of the struggles and hard work Guru Maharaja went through during the early years of parikrama. As soon as he saw Guru Maharaja coming out of the car he said," We were just talking about Jayapataka Maharaja and he is here. (With mild laughter) he said, Jatapataka Maharaja and his name is non different. Jayapataka Swami Ki Jai!!!! ". Crowd applauded loudly. His Holiness Bhakti Purusottama Swami then shared his realizations and appreciated His Holiness Lokanath Maharaja and Guru Maharaja for their endless contribution in developing this parikrama. He continued saying how each time when he (Bhakti Purusottama Swami) informed Guru Maharaja about the new development they have done for the parikrama, Guru Maharaja gave more and more ideas to make it better. He cited- continuous spraying of water on the dusty roads, right in the front of the parikrama party while the devotees are walking was one of the ideas given by Guru Maharaja in taking care of parikrama devotees. Before winding up his speech, he announced that there will be a parikrama realisation session today evening which will be held at the Jaganath Temple. This  parikrama realisation session takes place every year on the 6th day of the parikrama. After Bhakti Purusottam Maharaja’s speech Guru Maharaja started the class by invoking the auspicious mantras. He spoke on the pastime of Parvati Devi who had darshan of Lord Caitanya.

In between the class, He went on chanting Gaurangaaaaa! Gaurangaaaaa!!!! Gaurangaaaaaa!!!!!!! With both his hands on the air. Within ten seconds the entire devotees joined Him in chanting Gauranga! Gauranga! And this went on for almost another two minutes. Then Guru Maharaja pointed His hand to the  left and then to the right. When he pointed to the right, devotees on His right side chanted, Gauranga! And when He pointed to his left, devotees on the left side chanted, Gauranga! While chanting they were moving their body to left and then to the right. The body movement were very well synchronized with the chanting of Gauranga. The tsunami of Gauranga pulled in everyone into the chanting including the senior devotees. His Holiness Lokanath Maharaja who was sitting next to Guru Maharaja, stood up, and with his left hand rubbing Guru Maharaja’s shoulder and right hand holding the microphone said,” I missed this feeling of “Gauranga” for the last few years. Today I felt it again in the parikrama. Again a loud chanting of  Gaurangaaaaaaaa!!!... broke out and went on and on and on until Lokanath Maharaj had to stop it due to time constraint.
 
At 9 am Guru Maharaja left Simantini to meet the Bengali group in Pratap Nagar.We fed Him breakfast on the way and after 45 minutes of driving we reached Pratap Nagar. There the devotees were still having their breakfast. While waiting for the devotees, Guru Maharaja had a short nap and then answered few emails using His blackberry.
This morning Bhakti Purusottama Swami announced that the land owner of Naimisaranya expressed his desire to sell the land where Naimisaranya is exactly located. And the price he quoted was 6.6 million Indian rupees. The land owner also told Maharaja that either buy now or bye bye forever because many are waiting to buy it!! When Maharaja announced this, all the presidents of Thirty six temples in Bangladesh pledged to collect three million rupees for this land. In between the class Guru Maharaja said," I heard Bangladesh Nama Hattis pledged three million rupees, what about the West Bengal Nama Hattis???” Then many devotees came forward and pledged a good sum for the land. But let me tell you all, though many Bangladeshi devotees are quite poor, they are the most generous devotees.
At 12.20 noon we headed towards Nrshimapalli to meet the Russian Party. Today was the hottest parikrama day we ever had. Still some of the devotees from the Russian Party were doing resounding kirtan in the scorching heat. Today we had His Grace Dina Bandhu Prabhu from Vrindavan as a second speaker after Guru Maharaja.At 2.20pm we left from Nrshimapalli to Bhaktivedanta Arogya Ashram (BAA) at Godrumadwip to meet the last party of the day, the Hindi party. GurMaharaja spoke for a short while before they served the lunch prasadam for all.
 
Guru Maharaja had His shower and lunch in Baktivedanta arogya aashram (BAA). After lunch we were supposed to travel back to Iskcon Mayapur but Guru Maharaja had some other hidden plans which he revealed later. He said He wants to visit Avadhuta Maharaja at Surabhi Kunj and then attend the realization session at Rajapur Jaganath Temple. Surabhi Kunj is one of the famous places in Godrumdvip. Our parikrama party stops here, do hours of ecstatic kirtan, devotees roll on the ground and smear dust all over their body. Godrumdvip is located just across the Jalangi River from Iskcon Mayapur. It takes about 15 minutes if we travel by boat and more than an hour if we travel by road. So we told Guru Maharaja to take atleast one hour rest before going to Surabhi Kunj and Jaganath Temple. He said He will take rest in the car. But we managed to convince Him to sleep in BAA itself for about half an hour before visiting the other places. Finally He agreed and went straight to bed. We woke Him up after one hour. We left BAA at 6.30pm,stopped for 15 minutes in Surabhi Kunj and then headed towards Jaganath Temple. Guru Maharaja had the darshan of Their Lordship Jagannath Baladev Subhadra and then shared their glorious pastimes with the devotees.

There were about 300 devotees from the international groups who attended this realization session along with His Holiness Bhakti Purusottama Swami, His Holiness BVV Nrshinga Maharaj, His Holiness Maha Vishnu Swami, His Holiness Bhaktisiddhanta Swami and others. His Holiness Bhakti Purusottama Swami said that the parikrama devotees are missing something special from Guru Maharaja for the last three years- His special care for the parikrama devotees. During the whole parikrama before He honours His prasadam, He visits all the devotees in the prasadam tent, walking row by row to show His concern for them. He also puts up His night along with parikrama devotees at the camp site and before He goes to bed He visits the prabhus’s tent to see if they are well accommodated. Sometimes He personally supplies His personal sun block cream to some western devotees! But due to His health condition now these aspect of His caring are missed by the parikrama devotees. This really  shows how compassionate and merciful our dear Guru Maharaja is. We returnedto Iskcon Mayapur at 9.30pm.
Navadwip Mandala parikrama ki jai!!!!!

Your humble servant,
Maha Varaha D