Jagat

On January 25, 2017 I visited Hit Kinkar Sewak Sharanji at his ashram. Unfortunately the accounts of my many visits to Sewak Sharan have been pretty much lost since the Vrindavan Today archive was lost. Though I could probably find them on the wayback machine archive. Maybe later.

As has already been stated, Bhaktivinoda Thakur's Jīvanī was addressed to Lalita Prasad Thakur. Naturally Bhaktivinoda gave some priority to matters related to the person to whom he wrote the book. He says that there were special circumstances surrounding this child’s birth: a sadhu whom he recognized as Narada Muni, came and glorified the baby and said he would become a great mahā-puruṣa . "You were born in Ranaghat on the 15th of Ashwin 1880. I saw auspicious signs on your body that indicated that you would grow up to be particularly religious. ... You were born on the day of Sri Ekadasi. In a dream I saw an ugly monkey which came to me and said, 'This child is very wicked and will not live.' Immediately afterward, Sri Narada appeared in the dream and said, 'That monkey was Kali. Do not heed his words. This boy is born on Harivasara [ekadasi]. He will be initiated into the pure Vaishnava religion and will preach that dharma. No one will be able to kill him...

Sunset on the Ganga at Gadai Gauranga Kunj, Ishodyan, Mayapur Previous posts in this series. 1: Guru Nishtha 2: Raganuga Sadhana following Bhaktivinoda Thakur's Manjari Parampara 3: Svarasiki Bhajan 4: Attaining Siddhi 5: Learning about Siddha Krishnadas Baba's Gutika 6: The Gutika's Contents 7: Bhaktivinoda’s nistha to the Vamsivadana Guru Parampara 8: The Author’s svārasikī sthiti Sri Guru-pūjā As we previously mentioned, bhaktas generally only have one parivara in the transcendental abode of Golok Nabadwip, which is formed by the members of their Guru-paramparā. Though in our case we have two. Apart from our Guru-parivāra, we have a family tie with Gadadhar Pandit also since my father is his uncle. So before our family leaves this morning to perform Guru-pūjā, I want to visit Gadadhar first to secure his blessings. This won’t take long since he lives almost next door. The beautiful abode of Madhava Mishra and Ratnavati Devi, Gadadhar’s pare...

The origins of the śikṣā-sampradāya idea ISKCON's disciplic line, which we have here called a śikṣā-sampradāya , (30) is traced through Bhaktivedanta Swami to Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati, then to Gaura Kishor Das Babaji and then to Bhaktivinoda Thakur. Bhaktivinoda (which is the title given to Kedarnath Datta, d. 1914) was the natural father of Bhaktisiddhanta, whose original name was Bimala Prasad Datt. In the disciplic line which was proned by Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati, Bhaktivinoda Thakur's spiritual master was Jagannath Das Babaji. It is known from Bhaktivinoda's own writings,(31) however, that he was initiated by Bipin Bihari Goswami, a descendant of Ramacandra, the adopted son of Jahnava and founder of a dynasty of initiating gurus based in Baghna Para, a village about 20 kilometers southwest of Nabadwip.(32) One of Bhaktivinoda's eight sons, Lalita Prasad, took initiation from him and preserved the disciplic line which Bipin Bihari Goswami passed on to Bhaktivi...

I was accused of Vaishnava nindā for my response to an excerpt from a Narayan Maharaj conversation. For the record I am presenting that excerpt [May 23, 2009 darshan] along with which I shall make some remarks. This conversation took place around 11-08-2017. I was a little confrontational so I have mostly edited my remarks. Bear in mind that those who objected and accused me of committing offense to Narayan Maharaj paid no attention whatsoever to my remarks and simply condemned me for disagreeing with their authorities. I have spoken on that elsewhere on Facebook, but have gathered those remarks and shall post everything to my blog for reference. I have already responded to many of the things Narayana Maharaj said in a blog post addressed to Rocana Dasa a few years ago as he was saying pretty much the same stuff, but with a bit less of the combativeness that Narayan Maharaj shows here. Bhaktivinoda Thakur's meat-eating and Lalita Prasad Thakur. The numbers are annotations ...

We continue with Gadadhar Pran Das's new book, the 20 chapters of which will be published here in instalments. Chapter One . Chapter Two: Raganuga Sadhana following Bhaktivinoda Thakur's Manjari Parampara The first time I got Lalita Prasad Thakur's darshan it was unexpected, because I had made no plans to see him. That was back in 1974, when Srila Prabhupada was inaugurating his first Mayapur-Nabadwip Dham Parikrama in which I was taking part. During the festival, one day I had to go to Calcutta. On the train I met a Bengali gentleman who was himself just returning from Mayapur after visiting Srila Prabhupada. We started talking about many things, but when the train stopped at Birnagar he said to me, "Would you like to meet my Prabhupada?" "Your Prabhupada?" I asked in surprise. "He is Bhaktivinoda Thakur's son, Lalita Prasad Thakur," he replied. The invitation aroused my curiosity so I decided to follow him. When...