(5/9) Sri Raghunandan Thakur

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Vasanta Panchami, Tarakeshwar,
10 February 2019, evening, part 5
Translated from Bengali

When Srila Raghunandan Thakur was a very small boy (perhaps, eight years old), his father, Mukunda, and his mother needed to go to the market one day. In those days, the markets were not always nearby, so they had to walk quite far to get there (there were no bicycles, no buses to get there fast). They lived in Sri Khanda, and the market must have been in Katwa (it is about a two-hour walk). So, Mukunda's wife (Raghunandan's mother) finished cooking everything and then told her son, 'Raghunandan, offer the bhog to the Lord. I have got everything ready, but you need to feed Gopal today.' (They had a Deity of Gopal or Radha-Krishna at home.) Raghunandan replied, 'All right, mom. I will feed Gopal. You can go to the market, do not worry about anything.' And Mukunda and his wife left for the market.

When the time came to offer bhog, Raghunandan came to the Deity's room with the preparations his mother had made and offered them to the Deity, but he saw that the Lord was not eating.

'Hey, Lord! Eat! I am telling You – eat!' Raghunandan said. Then, taking the stick used for beating the gong, he said, 'Eat, otherwise I will hit You! My mother feeds You every day, and You eat, but when I come, You are not eating. So, if a small boy comes to feed You, You do not like it?'

'OK, OK, I am eating!' the Lord replied quickly and began to eat.

'Eat up!'

'Yes, yes, I am eating up!'

The Lord finished everything, and Raghunandan took the empty plate back to the kitchen, closing the door of the Deity's room.

After a while, his parents came back from the market.

'Raghu, where is our prasad?' they asked their son.

'What prasad?' Raghunandan asked. 'The Lord has eaten everything.'

'What?!

'The Lord has eaten everything. You must have cooked less this time. I did not do anything.'

'What are you saying? I do not believe you. You must have eaten everything yourself.'

'No, mom! Please believe me! I have not eaten it!'

Later, in the afternoon, when it was time to offer bhog again, Mukunda's wife told her son, 'Raghu, come here. Go and give this to the Lord. Let us see how He eats it.'

So, Raghunandan came to the Lord and said, 'Eat! Mother does not believe me – she says I have eaten everything. Eat, eat! You ate everything at noon, so eat now, too!'

Raghunandan's mother thought, 'That boy went into the room alone, who is he talking to there?' She came to the Deity's room and peeped into a hole in the door: there, she saw that the Deity had eaten half of a sweet and was holding the other half in His hand. She fainted to see it.

To this day, they are offering halves of sweets to the Deity at Sri Khanda (the Deity is now served at Sri Narihari-pat).

Today is the appearance day of this Sri Raghunandan Thakur.

On the left: Gopinath's Deity of Raghunandan Thakur's parents.
On the right: Mahaprabhu's Deity installed by Sri Narahari Thakur.

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Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Conquering the Conquerer
2) Two Phenomenal Personalities
3) Srila Raghunath Das Goswami's Pastimes
4) Mukunda's Faith
5) Sri Raghunandan Thakur
6) Remembering Lord's Associates
7) Devotees' Wealth
8) Do As You Please
9) Remember Great Souls