প্রথম মিলন Pratham Milan - Silver jubilee

brahmāṇḍa bhramite kon bhāgyavān jīva;

guru kṛṣṇa prasāde pāy bhakti latā bīja

(Caitanya Caritamrita Madhya 19.151):

"Some soul wandering through the material world may be so fortunate to, by the grace of Guru and Kṛṣṇa, receive the seed of the creeper of devotion."

After searching for long, that moment came for me, 25 years ago today, in Vṛndāvana, as I first met my eternal Guru. I made these notes on it in my Indian diary - Vṛndāvana, Friday, September 10, 1982:

(In the preceding days my friend, compatriot and neighbor Rādhā Raman Dās, tried to help me find a Guru, so he had introduced me to some of the prominent Mahātmās of Vṛndāvana of the day, like Rohiṇīndranāth Mitra and Tinkuri Bābā. After introducing me to Tinkuri Gosvāmī, Rādhā Ramaṇa tells me there is another Gosvāmī in town, from Navadvīpa, who is a direct descendant of Advaita Prabhu. He had met him with Asurāri and Madhusūdan when he was in Navadvīpa last July and is named Nikuñja Gopāl Gosvāmī).

September 10, 1982 — Rādhā Raman brings me for the first darśana of Nikuñja Gopāl Gosvāmī as a candidate-guru, in a small house next to the bhajanāśrama, named "Śyāma Vinodini Kuñja". It is the same house where I met Govinda Gopāl Gosvāmī three months earlier; he turns out to be his elder brother. Bābā is corpulent and short, but very effulgent. He has a long beard, long jaṭās (dreadlocks) and huge Tulasī-beads around his neck. He is very happy to meet us. He calls out "Jay Rādhe! Jay Rādhe!" to greet us. It is love at first sight. We don’t stay long, since we don’t really know what to say (Rādhā Raman knows only little Bengali, I don't know anything yet at this point). Back outside I tell Rādhā Raman  "Wow, he's really amazing!" "I told you so!", Rādhā Raman says.

(It would take another 10 precious days before I met Bābā again, because I came down with dysenteria in between).


I found Bābā pretty much the in way he looks on the picture here.