Lord Śiva is Welcoming You

A lwAys E mbr A c E d by K åñë A

there. There was another mud hut there, which belonged to a gentleman from Cuttack. It was a longer house. He was keeping one paid servant there to look after that land. He had brought some stone blocks for building houses, but that servant sold some of the stone blocks, so the owner became very angry and sacked him. Then he had to find someone else to stay there. So, he went to the Nayapalli village where he met Digambar Pattanaik (Dikpati däsa), the village chief. Dikpati däsa told him, “A Vaiñëava Mahäräja has come, so you please allow him to stay there.” There was one room and a kitchen there. So, I stayed there until this hut [on the Bhubaneswar land] here was built.

Once, while having kértana with Digambar Pattanaik at the mango grove, a large black snake crawled on to Çréla Gour Govinda Swami’s lap. Without stopping the kértana, Gurudeva threw the snake from his lap while still holding on to the karatälas, and continued to chant Hare Kåñëa, and that black snake slithered off into the jungle. Çréla Gurudeva was a fearless personality; otherwise, he could not have stayed in that area. It was such an out-of-the-way and dangerous place.

Çacinandana däsa: One incident that comes to my mind. Mr. Vasudeva Das, who assisted in the building of the hut on the Bhubaneswar land for our beloved Gurudeva, explained to me that while he was returning from his house to the ISKCON land, where he was looking after the construction of the hut, he came across a black cobra, a very poisonous snake. The cobra was about to attack him, and he was very much afraid, but he just remembered the Lord and Çréla Gurudeva, and he said, “You have assigned me the responsibility of building the hut on the property, so you please protect me.” Immediately the snake changed its course and took off in a different direction. That helped to strengthen the faith of Vasudeva Das. Thereafter he was more devoted and the construction of the hut went twice as fast, until its completion.