Only a Great Vaiṣṇava

A lwAys E mbr A c E d by K åñë A

planning to leave. That was me! Çréla Prabhupäda said, ‘Why must he leave! Bring him here!’ Then I went to see Çréla Prabhupäda. Satsvarupa Mahäräja introduced me to Çréla Prabhupäda and said, ‘Çréla Prabhupäda, this is Devadharma däsa; he wants to leave and go to Bombay because he doesn’t think he’ll be able to get along with Bhägavata.’ Çréla Prabhupäda looked as if he had been shot in the heart. He put one hand to his brow, gestured with the other and said, ‘This is the whole problem. He cannot get along with Bhägavata and Bhägavata cannot get along with Gargamuni, and what are we supposed to do?’ Needless to say, I felt like the lowest dog on the planet and I just had to agree to stay.

The cornerstone laying ceremony for the future temple, was on the appearance day of Lord Nityänanda, 2 February 1977. Çréla Prabhupäda left Bhubaneswar after he had performed the customary rituals for this. He also made Orissa a separate zone: Çréla Gour Govinda Mahäräja could now deal directly with Çréla Prabhupäda concerning all matters. Thus, Çréla Prabhupäda, inadvertently became the GBC for Orissa.

When he departed from Bhubaneswar so did most of the devotees, which left Çréla Gour Govinda Swami by himself again, with one or two other devotees, to push on. That place which was a jungle but would become the centre of the city, and the temple which would become one of the best temples in ISKCON. Çréla Prabhupäda gave Çréla Gour Govinda Swami a further instruction, which now made three very important instructions: 1. to develop the land and build a magnificent temple there, 2. to translate Çréla Prabhupäda’s English translations of the ancient Sanskrit Vedic scriptures into Oriya, and 3. to make his own disciples, to help him with the spreading of the mission