Jagannath Darshan

On 14th August, there was a wedding of a couple in Jagannath Mandir, Rajapur. Bridegroom was Guru Maharaja's disciple and bride was Bhakti Caru Maharaja's disciple. The couple had come earlier to invite Guru Maharaja for the wedding and to get his blessings. At that time, Guru Maharaja mentioned to the Bridegroom, now that he is marrying the disciple of Bhakti Caru Maharaja, he should give respect to him and consider him as his siksa guru. Sometimes he could come and serve Guru Maharaja and sometimes he should serve Bhakti Caru Maharaja.

Wedding happened in the evening and Bhakti Caru Maharaja called Guru Maharaja and said if it would be possible for Guru Maharaja then he could come to Jagannath Mandir to bless the couple and give some speech about grihasta ashram. So Guru Maharaja went to the wedding and blessed the couple and delivered a small speech.

To our surprise, Guru Maharaja went again the next day on 15th August in the evening to Jagannath Mandir as one of his disciple was getting married to Niranjana Maharaja's disciple. Bridegroom was Guru Maharaja's disciple and bride was Niranjana Maharaja's disciple. Bridegroom was a Bengali and bride was Ukrainian.

A couple had come from Bangalore to get blessings from Guru Maharaja. Mataji is an aspiring disciple of Guru Maharaja and is married to a Christian recently in June. The husband is supportive and favorable and seemed to be a nice gentleman. Mataji has deities at home and cooks only vegatarian food and offers to her deities. We had suggested them to accompany with us to Jagannath Mandir for the wedding.

Guru Maharaja had darshan of Jagannath Baladeva Subhadra Devi and Sudharshan. He offered lamps and circumumbalated the deities and gave blessings to the couple who were getting married. He gave a small speech on the importance of grihasta ashram.

Guru Maharaja mentioned how it is only possible in ISKCON to get married of couples from different nations. Although the Sannayasis are renounced Srila Prabhupada had encouraged sannyasis to inspire the other devotees who are not able to lead a renounced life to get married so that they don't live together without marriage. Not every one could become sannyasi. Therefore it is better for them to get married and lead a Krsna conscious centered religious life. The duties of grihastas is to engage in charity (dana), austerity (tapas) and sacrifice (yajna). The wife is the better half of the husband and they should remain as a team and serve cooperatively and go back home back to Godhead at the end of life.

Today 16th August, Guru Maharaja gave a morning Srimad Bhagavatam class after which he went for his therapy. At 1.30 pm he returned to his quarters to have his lunch. Just before the lunch Guru Maharaja spoke for few minutes to the couple from Bangalore as he had asked them to come. He mentioned how chanting the holy names of God has been emphasised in all scriptures such as Bible, Quran and Vedic literatures. In Bible it says about chanting the holy names with the cymbals which we do even now but the Christians are not following anymore. He gave blessings to the couple for their advancement in spiritual life. Both of them seemed to be very happy to have Guru Maharaja's darshan and blessings.

Patita Pavana Guru Maharaja Ki Jai!

Your humble servant,

Ratnavali dd