My dear devotees,
Please accept my humble obeisances.
All glories to His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada!
All glories to HG Aindra Prabhu!
My assistant called me from India, when I was on the way to the airport in Burma, and asked whether I heard about Aindra Prabhu. With the kind of tone in which he enquired, I thought of the worst, and it was true. Aindra had left us behind. I was shaken, shattered and shocked. I thought of flying to Vrndavan, but the arrangements could not be made in time.
Unfortunately I couldn’t be there today also with you all who have assembled in front of Krsna Balaram to remember and glorify HG Aindra Prabhu. So, yesterday I appealed to HG Panca Gauda Prabhu to share my offering with you. After hearing the news of Aindra Prabhu’s untimely departure, I just took shelter of his kirtans – I immediately put on my ipod, and throughout the flight I listened to his kirtans and talks, and while doing so, I felt his presence.
I was with him more than ever before as I was hearing his voice – his body language, lip movements etc were there – although audio, it was visual as well for me. One talk I heard was in Vrndavan, on the appearance day of Srimati Lalitha Sakhi. It was a long talk, and he ended the talk by 10.15 that morning. He was really relishing talking, and I would like to share short excerpts from that talk about 2 traits of his personality – one is the Kirtan and the other one is his internal private bhajan. He shared how both of these came to him as instructions from Srila Prabhupada through the medium of dreams. He was sharing that in the beginning he had been a Srila Prabhupada book distributor for 8 yrs in New York and then he had a desire to organise Harinaam Festival there. He had come to India to get instruments and other paraphernalia.
While he was residing at one life members’ home in New Delhi, he dreamt of Srila Prabhupada and shared it with the devotees present during the appearance day celebrations. The dream prepared him for the Harinaam Festival in New York for a while and subsequently for nearly a quarter of a century of service doing the 24 hour kirtan in the Krsna Balaram temple. “The reason why I’m bringing this up is because that night I slept outside in the courtyard and I had a dream where Prabhupada comes to me in a dream and he says, “Aindra, what are you doing?” Because it’s the first time that I ever slept off of the legitimate ISKCON controlled property – even in America we would pay rent to the motels or whatever so in that sense because we were paying rent and establishing a temple as such in a motel room and doing our morning program etc in a motel room – so it is legitimate. But this time I was like, the first time in 8-9 or 10 years or so that I had slept off of Prabhupada’s legitimate, you know, properties. So Prabhupada came to me in a dream and he said, “What are you doing?” And then I began to enthusiastically describe to him how I was making a Harinaam Sankirtan festival program, and as I was saying that, suddenly it dawned on me that I had given up my book distribution. In the presence of Prabhupada, when he was saying like that and then I started enthusiastically explaining about my project – it just kind of like overwhelmingly dawned on me that I had given up, you know, my most important number one priority service to Srila Prabhupada – kind off assisting him in the doubling and redoubling of his book distribution as we had done in previous years. So I immediately broke down and started crying and crying. And Srila Prabhupada, he took my head on his shoulder – because this is just a dream, right? (Ha ha ha) – but it was real for me (ha ha ha). Lots of you had such dreams; but he took my head on his shoulders and he was patting me on the head and was telling me – it’s ok, you do it very nicely – so he was encouraging me to do my Harinaam festival program and that I should do it very nicely because he knew my intentions – my intentions were to at least make some kind of small humble attempt to rebuild, revitalise Harinaam Sankirtan which had been so terribly neglected in our society for so many years. You, know, so still I’m trying to do something in that regard in a humble way – I don’t know how effective it is. Srila Prabhupada also told me in another dream, “Our real business – this will also blow some people away – our real business is to become bhajananandi” I’m sitting in front of Srila Prabhupada and in front of the Deities so I’m not making it up and its not something which is just a figment of my imagination, you know, manifesting like, u know, sky flowers or banana hairs or horse eggs or something like that” “Reading and distribution of Srila Prabhupada’s books facilitates one to become bhajananandi. Jiva Gosvami defines ghostianandi as a bhajananandi who likes to share the realisations amongst the family members. Goshti means family, one who experiences ananda, on the anandamoy platform, relishes the spiritual substance, association with the spiritual substance. When we say goshtianandi R Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur says the best gosthianandi is the bhajananandi who preaches” So, Aindra Prabhu was bhajananandi and goshtianandi.
I would say also Naamanandi. The kirtans which he performed and relished in front of Krsna Balaram are resounding all over the planet. His sound travels all over. His kirtans are everywhere, and in many places they play his kirtans during Aartis also, as I have personally witnessed during my travels all over the world. When there is no one to lead kirtan, they put on his tapes. So many try to learn by imitating his unique style of kirtan. His fans and followers are everywhere, so in sound, a Vaishnava never dies, and he remains in his sound resounding – Bhakti Vinode Thakur states that he reasons ill who thinks that a Vaishnava dies, as he is always present in his sound vibrations. That certainly applies to Aindra prabhu, whose sound vibrations would perpetuate for all time to come. Aindra and his kirtans have become household words. He has disappeared from our vision but he has not left Vrndavan, and he will continue to stay in Vrndavan singing the glories of Radha Shyam. Another special dimension to his personality that we all remember him for is his love for dressing Radha Shyamsundar, in which he would put all his heart and in which he would express all his love and strength and artistic talents. I am going to dearly miss him.
We shared platform together as we were team members, during kirtans during Kartick in Vrndavan and in front of Pancatattva in Mayapur during Gaura Purnima festival. He used to always be next to me inspiring me and backing me up. He was also one of my spiritual heroes. My dear Aindra, the best tribute we could pay to you is to pray for spiritual strength to carry on your high octane kirtan spirit with all the missionary spirit you exhibited. I offer my obeisances at your spiritual lotus feet and beg for forgiveness for any offences committed. I hope to imbibe your spirit for at least a little while till I’m here in this body, and hopefully we will meet again somewhere, and hopefully I will join you wherever you are and we will do kirtan together.
Your servant,
Lokanath Swami
