Transcendental Market Place

On Monday we took our boys shastra class to the island of Godrumadwipa. All of the boys had bikes so we rode them to Hulor Ghata and took the old wooden boat across the Jalangi river. As soon as we got off the boats our brahmachar friend Bipin Bihari Prabhu showed us the way to several of the Holy places. It is very nice having him along with us as he was born and raised in Godrumadwipa. Once when we were visiting CHand Kazi’s Samadhi we happened to meet him there and he described to us the glory of that place. He comes with us every week now when we take the boys out.





First we went to the house of Bhaktivinode Thakur. We chanted the Mangalacharanam (invocation prayers to Lord and the acaryas).We then discussed the life of Bhaktivinode THakur Previously when Bhaktinode Thakura was younger the Gaudiya Vaisnava philosophy and lifestyle was mostly misunderstood as a sentimental and even licentious doctrine. Bhaktivinode was instrumental in presenting Gaudiya Vaishnavism philosophy as pure and substantial path spiritual life. He also wrote in simple Bengali language many of the devotional songs that we regularly sing (Gaura Aratika is my favorite) We were then able to take a tour through the house and see some of his personal belongings. Here is a copy of the schedule that he used to follow:\
7:30 8:00 PM take rest
10:00 PM rise, light oil lamp, write
4:00 AM take rest
4:30 rise, wash hands and face, chant japa
7:00 write letters
7:30 read
8:30 receive guests, or continue to read
9:30 9:45 take rest
9:45 morning bath, breakfast of half quart milk, couple chapatis, fruit
9:55 go to court in carriage
10:00 court began.
1:00 PM court finished. He'd come home and bathe and refresh.
2:00 PM return to office.
5:00 PM translate works from Sanskrit to Bengali
Then take evening bath and meal of rice, couple of chapatis, half quart of milk.




After visiting Bhaktivinode Thakur’s house we went down the street to Surabhi Kunja. Bhaktivinode wrote a song about this place as the “market for the Holy name of Lord Krishna” Nityananda is selling the spiritually potent names of Lord Krishna and the only price is one’s faith. We sat down here and told the story of Surabhi and then chanted some bhajans together. As it is customary to roll around in the dust of this place we instructed the boys to find some spot with lots of dust and roll around! At first they though I was joking when I asked them to roll around in the dust but when they saw that my request was sincere they immediately jumped to the ground and rolled. Some of the resident devotees there gave us some prasadam and invited us to come back at anytime .

We then boarded the boat back to Mayapur and made it back just in time for Math class!