When we would stay at Govardhana Hill during Kārtik every year, he would come on parikramā with thousands and thousands of devotees. The Govardhana āshram is a quiet place, and during the festival season, sometimes during the day, a yātrā will come in and swarm the place for half an hour, an hour, and then go away. Mahārāja was so personal that he would stop in to see any of his godbrothers, whatever room they were in. And I can remember many times when he would just burst in the room, and then the room would be flooded because devotees would come in with him. Sometimes I'd be sitting doing a pūjā or getting ready for something, and all of a sudden the door would fling open, and Mahārāja would come in with his devotees, and we'd offer obeisances. He would grab my hand, and he'd always have some encouraging words to say. He would say something personal, and it was 99.9% of the time about book distribution, that we have to distribute more, we have to double it. He would say encouraging things, and he would stop in and see other godbrothers, and then he would go on his way.

When he came here to ISV, we invariably asked him to make a video for us. Luckily, we have those and we have the pictures of them. One of the times I remember, he sat outside there in front of the hedge in a chair, and we had all he camera set up, and he had the microphone, and it was a blissful time that we had to sit around him and feel that here's one of the senior most leaders in our movement, and he's a book distributor, and he's for us. He would take the time to sit down and go through the rigors of making a video. "Did that go through? Did that take? Fix the microphone, move a little to the left." He didn't mind because he knew the influence he would have by advocating for book distribution, so he would take the time to do that, and we would sit with him and listen to him speak, and it did have a huge effect on people all over the world, as it still is now.

Last year, because the devotees were dedicating their activities in distributing books to Mahārāja, and they were especially inspired, which is also the mode of the devotees after their spiritual master leaves the world—where to take shelter? The tirobhāva means when the light of the spiritual master's personal presence goes out, then what light does one follow? One must follow the order of the spiritual master, and one must reconstitute everything one's heard and seen in one's guru to understand how to conduct one's own life. How did my guru speak? How would he make a decision about a particular issue that's going on? We all of you who are his disciples and all of us who are his loving godbrothers and anyone else have a catalog of all he said and the way he said it and the way he reacted to circumstances that we can remember and bring out as we go through the maze which is the material world and trying to find our way through darkness and conduct our services. A heartfelt moment I had with Mahārāja was after...

(excerpt from the talk, 24 Apr 2025, ISV)

Link to full programe: https://youtube.com/live/2IRzqMpeQ7U?feature=share

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To connect with His Grace Vaiśeṣika Dāsa, please visit https://www.fanthespark.com/next-steps/ask-vaisesika-dasa/

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Add to your wisdom literature collection:

https://iskconsv.com/book-store/

https://www.bbtacademic.com/books/

https://thefourquestionsbook.com/

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