I n a very nice and beautiful morning the devotees left the campsite at Hari Hara Ksetra and headed to Gauradaha.
Gauradaha is a very special place and the pastime which took place there is described by Jagadananda Pandita in his book Prema Vivarta. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Nityananda prabhu, Jagadananda Pandita and other associates of the Lord were peforming Harinama sankirtan in this place, where there is a lake. Daha means lake. In this lake a crocodile was living and it was delivered by Gauranga Mahaprabhu. The crocodile had been cursed by Durvasa Muni to live as a crocodile in that lake for 4 yugas. Anyone who hears this pastime becomes free from brahma-sapa, the curse of a Brahmana.
HH Jayapataka Swami joined International group also in Gaura daha, his speech made everybody chant the name of Gauranga many times and very loudly, we see in the face of the devotees that they were begging for Gauranga’s mercy.
HH Bhakti Dhira Damodara Maharaja was explaining how it is important to chant japa without any distraction, he said “Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura affirmed that those who chant japa without full attention like talking, checking emails, having meetings, managing etc are influenced by pramada, or madness”. Maharaj said “We are known as the Hare Krsnas, because we chant Hare Krsna, but the day has 24 hours and how many hours are we supposed to chant? Only 2 hours and the rest of the time what do we do?”. The devotees were listening to him with full attention. We are very fortunate to have HH Bhakti Dhira Damodar Maharaj on Parikram because he always sets a very serious and deep mood for chanting in the devotees minds, and everybody becomes happy when he is present, everybody becomes powerful, with the mind under control.
After an ecstatic gurupuja and a delicious breakfast we continued walking towards Surabhi Kunja, the first namahatta in Bengal, inaugurated by “Koda Nitai” the magnanimous Nitai. We had drama, Katha, and bhajan sang by HG Sulocana prabhu, our kitan party leader.
Not so far from Surabhi Kunja is the house of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur and another ISKCON Jagannath Temple, very well taken care by Srila Prabhupada’s nephew Sankarshan prabhu.
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