Bijoy Krishna Goswami Sat Guru Sanga part 2

Excerpt from Kuladananda brahmacari’s sat guru sanga, a biography of Vijay Krishna Goswami.

Sometimes Sādhu bābā is proclaimed to be a reincarnation of Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī, but I do not agree. There were many similarities but also many differences between the two famous descendants of Advaita Acarya. Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī practiced and preached Homa, Gāyatri Japa, prāṇāyāma nāma (chanting the holy name combined with breath-regulation, which Bābā occasionally preached too) and Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī‘s favorite books were Mahābhārat and Guru Granth Sahib. In this also my Bābā was very different. Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī showed no inclination towards rāgānugā bhakti, while Sādhu Bābā practiced and preached this. Sādhu Bābā was less ecumenical too. Nonetheless Bābā admired Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī and often spoke about him. This is from Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī’s disciple Kuladānanda Brahmacārī’s original Bengali Sat-guru Sanga-books. Though not all stories from the books are equally interesting or agreeable to me, still there are some extraordinary stories which I would like to quote here-

Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī spoke of contaminated food from śrāddha ceremonies, how even pure devotees became thieves by eating śrāddha-grains offered by thieves. He said that it is inauspicious even to share a seat with a person in tamo-guna or if such a person sees the food you eat.

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Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī taught that compassion can sometimes be disastrous for sādhana. A renunciant promised a dying Gurubhāi that he would take care of his wife and children, and as soon as the man died he had to collect a lot of money for their maintenance, worry about the children’s education and future and was badly beaten up by robbers who thought he had a lot of money in his hut because of his collection activities. He also suffered severe loss of reputation because he lived in solitude with the woman and her children. 

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Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī taught: “If there is no violence in your heart even the most violent creatures won’t hurt you. Once there was an Englishman named Anderson who went hunting in the forest. He was chased by a tiger who wanted to kill him but when he took shelter of a naked sannyāsī the sādhu saved him by stopping the tiger, who peacefully went away. You cannot control people with mantra-tantra, only with love.” The Englishman gratefully took shelter of the sannyāsī, took dīkṣā from him and adopted a vegetarian diet only prepared by Brahmins.”

The link between non-violence inviting a non-violent response reminds me of how Sādhu Bābā could take the red monkey Rām to his chest and on his lap while normally red monkeys are ultra-violent.

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Kuladānanda sometimes heard the sounds of kīrtan in Shāntipura but somehow the kīrtan-party never arrived at the house at Babla. When he asked Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī he said ‘I heard this kīrtan many times when I lived here in my childhood. You are very fortunate because that is the transcendental kīrtan of Śrīman Mahāprabhu Himself.”

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Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī - The mentality and physique of any cook will be infused within the inner self of the eater of those food-grains. The eyes of ordinary people cannot see that but this is very true and is a big problem.” Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī made the point that not every dish which is placed before the deity becomes prasāda (see Viśvanātha Cakravarti’s commentary on Bhagavad Gītā 9.26). He knew one sādhu named Śyāmākṣepā, who would visit devotees’ houses unannounced to take prasāda there, but he would refuse food if he judged it not to be accepted by the deity due to some anācāra by the ladies who had cooked it. Goswāmījī said: “Prasād is not just the remnants of the Lord’s food – it means a satisfied feeling. Prasāda is a feeling. Mercy is prasāda, compassion is prasāda. By carefully following the regulative principles the Guru has stipulated for our sādhana, Guru’s prasāda is attainable.”

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Navina Candra Sen asked Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī if he had seen Mahaprabhu in Vrindavan. Goswāmījī replied: “Yes I saw him and it made me speechless. I fell at His feet and wept, begging Him to descend once more here. He replied: “If I appeared again now, who would now believe Me and have faith in Me? That time has passed.”

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Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī was so immaculately pure that he would get sick with fever sometimes simply because others touched him. Like Sādhu Bābā, Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī also refused to accept Tulsi-leaves on his feet but said they should be placed on his head. If that was done so he would enter into Samādhi and could not be lifted from his āsan.

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Dr. Harakānta Bandhopādhyāya was a famous doctor throughout northern India. He had been waiting for dīkṣā for a long time and when Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī finally gave it to him, his Gurubhāis asked him if he had had any special experience. The doctor said he could see Goswāmījī as Mahādeva (Shiva) and that Mahādeva permeated his whole body like electricity while Goswāmījī held his arms with his hands. After that he lost memory and felt sleepy. 

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When asked why India lived in poverty, Goswāmījī replied: “A country in which women are not honored will not be the abode of Laxmi (it will not prosper). Until now the crime committed against Draupadī (the attempt to publicly disrobe her, 5,000 years earlier) has still not been expiated." (It is often said that this crime saw the beginning of the age of Kali)

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Kuladānanda Brahmacārī witnessed many miracles when Goswāmījī gave dīkṣā – many devotees were coming to Goswāmījī and they received dīkṣā within 2 to 5 days. Though many devotees got dīkṣā at the same time they all showed different symptoms afterwards – they had different types of realizations and visions. Everyone had other ecstasies and trances. Deceased souls and saints appeared at the same time and offered various known and unknown prayers. Some introduced themselves and prayed for dīkṣā in a plaintive manner, telling him about their distress. Goswāmījī reciprocated by praising some of the deceased souls and rebuking others. Some had no realizations at all after receiving dīkṣā, others experienced bhāvāveśa after receiving mantra and merely doing prāṇāyāma four times, whereas others lost all external awareness for 2 or 3 hours simply when the holy name entered into their earholes. About the redemption of ghosts Goswāmijī said: “Ghosts at the bank of the Yamunā came to me and said “We are suffering like anything, as if 100 scorpions are stinging us! Please save us with dīkṣā!” Goswāmijī replied: “What can I do? I can’t do anything without the order of my Gurudeva!” They said: “Take a bath in Yamunā”, so I did that and the ghosts licked up the drops that fell off my body. I then saw their bodies becoming jyotirmaya and being picked up by divine chariots.”

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At the time of Mahāprabhu’s final pastimes, when His divine body was quite emaciated, the Badshah of Delhi heard about His glories and sent some expert artists to Puri to make a picture of Him. When they arrived there they saw the Lord engaging in Sankirtan while tears squirted from His eyes as if from syringes. His arms reached down to His knees, His chest was broad and He was very tall, yet you could count His bones, He was so emaciated. The painters made a picture of Him and showed it to the Badshah. Later Delhi was besieged and it fell into the hands of the Maharaja of Bharatpur. One time this Maharaja was staying in Vrindavan and had darshan of Gurudas bābājī in the Kunja of Lālā-bābu. The bābājī spoke about Mahāprabhu’s pastimes to the Mahāraja, who told him: “Sadhu! I have a painting of such a person in my palace!” The bābājī was very eager to see the picture so the Maharaja had it brought to him. When the bābājī saw the painting he fainted in ecstasy and later had an artist paint a copy of it. The picture of Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī is that copy. Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī again had a photo made of that copied painting so that the image would not be lost. This photo is still in Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī’s Samādhi.

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Vol. 1, p.72 - In Vikrampura a boy who went to school at the Jagannath School passed by everyone in the house and sat straight on the right side of Goswāmījī, who visited that household, holding a picture of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa in his hand. He rolled at Goswāmījī’s feet again and again, keeping the image of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa in front of Goswāmījī, crying again and again ‘Gosāi! Tell me, tell me how can I attain them! Ahā, They are so beautiful! I don’t want anything else! Tell me how I can attain them!” Goswāmījī told him again and again “Be calm, be calm’, but he could not calm the boy down in any way, he became only more agitated. Goswāmījī then chastised him – “Indeed, what slyness is shown here! You don’t want anything else? Think about it – don’t you want to meet a young girl in solitude in Nawab Bagan? Are you cheating?” As soon as the boy heard Goswāmījī’s words his ecstasy at once dried up. He was quiet for a while and then drooped off with a sad face.

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Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī —One should not publicize any diminution in the intensity of any of the passions. If it is made known to others, the state will not continue but is lost. Wrath is more dangerous than sexual lust. For lust takes into consideration the suitability of the place, the object and one’s physical condition but nothing matters to wrath - it manifests itself violently irrespective of the place and the object. For this reason, wrath has been called Caṇḍāla (an uncultured, vulgar fellow). The sādhaka suffers a fall as soon as anger appears in his mind. Try to subjugate anger completely. You need not brother about greed—that will be set right. You cannot achieve everything all at once. Go on following the prescribed rules of conduct—everything will be set right slowly in due course."

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Question - There are some female ‘Gurus' who also give initiation. It is said that they have attained Siddhi. Is that true?

Bijoy Kṛṣṇa Goswāmī - "Let them do it. But even if a woman has attained Siddhi or be favoured with a realisation of God, she is not physically competent to be an ācārya'. The body of the Guru is always pure—the disciple is purified by serving and touching his body. The authors of śāstra have affirmed that the body of a woman is impure, owing to some natural causes."