By Gaurangi dasi
A few disciples of Guru Maharaja drove together from New Mayapur and its surrounding villages to Radhadesh to attend the annual Summer Festival taking place over the week-end. They also wanted to join the local disciples for the vyasa-puja celebration that would take place on Monday. We all packed up in Sundar Gopal’s large car : Sundar Gopal and his wife, Sumitra (both disciples of Guru Maharaja) and their two children ; Giri Govardhana (also a disciple) and his wife Rama Vijaya, and myself. We all enjoyed the festival, although it was more a « Krishna’s Water Pastimes » festival, as Kadamba Kanana Maharaja described it : it rained most of the time !
Needless to say, the devotees from Radhadesh had worked very hard to organize this festival and only wanted to take it easy the next day, especially Malati dasi, vice-president of Radhadesh and also our godsister. Happily Surya Kanya, always full of energy and enthusiasm, despite having to take care of her three young children, helped a lot with the practical arrangements for the vyasa-puja ceremony. At 9.30 we gathered in the Srila Prabhupada’s museum upstairs for the simple program : listening to a short video class of Guru Maharaja, reading some excerpts from his book ‘My Prabhupada », reading or making our personal offerings, and having a guru-puja arati.
Sundar Gopal, Giri Govardhana and their wives then went in the kitchen to cook some extra Ekadasi preparations for the 100 devotees who would take lunch that day under the large outside tent. Our newly initiated disciple, Chakradara Gaura had come from Paris with some friends to join our celebration, and he was quickly recruited in the kitchen. The cooks did an excellent job with the creamy, paneer filled Gauranga potatoes and the ekadasi sweets : carrot halavah and a sandesh enriched with nuts and dry fruits. Nothing was left in the buckets ! After quickly packing the car we embarked on the seven hour drive back to our residences, happy we got the opportunity to have a simple and sweet celebration for Guru Maharaja’s vyasa-puja.
A few comments from disciples:
Surya Kanya dd : Thank you everybody for making such nice prasadam for Gurumaharaja, it was so tasty and everybody was really happy. My husband liked very much the Gauranga potatoes and the delicious sweets made by Sumitra Mataji and Sundar Gopal. They looked so amazing. Again thanks for your association and making this day a day of unity, in glorifying Guru Maharaja.It was so nice to be together with you on this day.
Sundar Gopal das : It was really sweet to all be together on that very special day. the way things went on (puja, kitchen and all) I felt there was definitely some blessing from Guru Maharaj pouring on all the devotees that day.
