sri sri guru gauranga jayatah!
Issue 21, Monthly Centennial Edition
Posted: 21 July 2021
In honour of the centennial appearance year of
nitya-līlā-praviṣṭa oṁ viṣṇupāda
Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Vāmana Gosvāmī Māhārāja
Dedicated to and Inspired by
nitya-līlā-praviṣṭa oṁ viṣṇupāda
Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Māhārāja
"There is no way I can imagine
a separate institution"
by Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Vāmana Gosvāmī Māhārāja
Appearing in English for the first time
I had the opportune fortune of coming to jagad-guru Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Prabhupāda’s place of bhajana in Śrī Māyāpura at Śrī Caitanya Maṭha in March of the English year of 1931. At the para-vidyā-pīṭha (centre for spiritual learning) he established, I was taught under the guidance of tridaṇḍi-gosvāmī Śrīla Bhakti Pradīpa Tīrtha Gosvāmī Mahārāja and Śrīmat Bhakti Kevala Auḍulomi Mahārāja in the same institution of spiritual education. My two śikṣā-gurus were, respectively, rector and headmaster of the same college. It was never observed that they thought of establishing a separate school. In that single Gauḍīya hospital, many impoverished individuals like myself had the opportunity to receive treatment for the disease of material existence, but never could they have imagined a separate institution. Many preaching centres of the Gauḍīya Maṭha have been established today in the East and West, yet I consider all of them to be a single indivisible unit. I know those who have been favoured by jagad-guru Śrīla Sarasvatī Prabhupāda and those who are his disciples and grand-disciples to be my own people, and I convey my obeisance to them, knowing them to be Gauḍīyas. I know every Vaiṣṇava who is bathed in the current of śrī gaura-vāṇī-vinoda (the delight of Śrī Gaura’s message) to be my supreme well-wishing friend and most intimate relative, but there is no way I can imagine a separate institution.
7/9/1983 (Letter 65)
Translated by the Rays of The Harmonist team
