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Malaysia - April 21-23, 2004
[Although now 84 years old, since 1996, his divine grace Srila
Narayana Maharaja has been doing two whorl-wind world preaching tours
each year, and for the last few years he has been taking a
month-long writing retreat in Hawaii before each tour. This
year, he spent the first week of that month (from April 21-28) in
Penang, an island in Malaysia, at the end of April he will give
discourses at a 3-day festival in Sydney, Australia, from May 2-15
he will be in Hawaii, and on May 16 he will be in LA. Because of
his recent operation in India, in Penang he was mainly
resting and recuperating. Of course the pure devotee does not
really rest, as we do, for he is engaged 24 hours daily in service
to their lordships Sri Sri Radha-Krsna and always engaged in
delivering the suffering souls of the world by his pure love of God;
and in his human-like pastimes (naravata-lila), part of that
procedure is giving fortunate souls an opportunity to serve him in
a very personal way. The following is a short account of his rest
on Penang, written by Vijaya-krsna dasa:]
April 21, 2004
Srila Gurudeva left Kuala
Lumpur at 6 am for Penang Island. He spent most of the time in
the car chanting, and occasionally asked me questions about the
country, the green mountains, the caves and so on. At about 8
am we stopped at a quiet spot for some breakfast, and this was so
nice. We all sat on a wooden platform, the mountains surrounding us,
and we disciples cut and prepared Srila Gurudeva's breakfast. We
arrived in Penang at 9:30 am. Dr. Param (Paramesvari dasa) and
family, Vrnda dasi and Bala dasa were there to greet Srila
Gurudeva. We performed a foot bathing ceremony and small
guru-puja. April 22:
On the next morning, after
chanting, he went for a walk on the ocean shore to the sea. He
liked it there, as the soil in the beach was very firm and good
for the legs. I told him the other corner of the ocean is
Jagannatha Puri, and then he looked towards the direction of the
other side of the ocean and offered prayers. We sat around him and he
told us Penang Island is a good place and that he likes the
bungalow. April 23: Today he seems to be much stronger. On the first day he looked tired, and now he looks much better. At 6:45 am he went for his morning walk, at 8 am he took breakfast, and after that he rested. At 12 pm he took his massage, at 12.30 pm he swam in the sea, at 1:30 pm he took lunch and then he rested again. At 4:30 he sat outside on the balcony overlooking sea, chanting, and at 6 pm he informally met with the Penang devotees. One of the guests asked him why it is that so many devotees have left the mission of Srila Prabhupada Bhaktivedanta Svami Maharaja. He answered that they did not have enough spiritual sukrti (spiritual pious credits accumulated by prior devotional activities performed in this or previous lives) to understand the real value of the message brought by Srila Prabhupada, and that is why the bhakti-lata (seed of the creeper of devotion) of so many of his followers could not develop properly. More sadhu-sanga, association with pure devotees, and vaisnava-seva, service to those devotees, will automatically increase the transcendental sukrti and one will become qualified to realize the unprecedented gift of pure devotion to Lord Krsna that was brought to the Western world by Srila Prabhupada and now again by himself. The guests wanted to make so many pictures of themselves sitting with him, and they all became very happy when he arranged for that. Four or five of them at once requested to be initiated. Always aspiring to serve Sri Guru and the Vaisnavas, Vijaya Krsna dasa |
Rest in Penang
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