(6) Austere Beginnings

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Hapaniya Dham, Vyasa Puja Mahotsav
22 October 2019, morning, part 6
Translated from Bengali

...After Srila Prabhupad left this world, as you know, some disturbance happened at Sri Chaitanya Math, so Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj left the temple and went to Vrindavan. There, he stayed at Pavan Sarovar, Srila Sanatan Goswami's bhajan-sthali (place of worship). Sometimes, he would also come to visit Kadam-khandi.

If you go there today, you can still see that small house. We always come there to offer our obeisances, and also to take prasad at noon. When we go to Varshana and Nandagram in Vrindavan, we first come to offer our obeisances to Raja Vrisabhanu and Sri Nanda Maharaj, and after that we go to Kadam-khandi to pay our respects to the bhajan-kutir of Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj. We usually take prasad in that area.

When Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj was staying at Kadam-khandi, one day he heard a divine message from the sky – Srila Prabhupad, or we can say Srimati Radharani, told him, 'What have you come here for? Are you that selfish? Do you want to stay alone? Do you want to practise on your own and go to the Lord alone? And who will rescue all the people in this world?' So, he came back from Vrindavan. It was 1940.

At first, he began to live at Sri Devananda Gaudiya Math founded by Srila Bhakti Prajnan Keshav Maharaj. But he did not stay there for a long time. In 1941, he left and went to stay separately, in Kolerganj (Koladwip). He first rented a thatched house. He comes from a house of big landowners, but there he was staying in the simplest mud room without even a bed. His bed was some straw, and his pillow was a brick covered with a sack. He covered himself with, perhaps, a sack, too. This is how he lived.

One time, somebody approached him and said, 'Maharaj, there are many big snakes in this place, especially during the rainy season...' Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj replied, 'So what? They do not disturb me. If I do not disturb them, they will not disturb me.' He stayed even amidst snakes... There was no bathroom – he made some sort of a platform with a few bricks and some wood, and that served as a toilet for passing stool. He did not even have money to make a fence around that place. He tried to borrow half a rupee but could not get even that. In those days, a piece of plastic to make some fence cost one rupee. His godbrothers came from Mayapur to see him, and they would say, 'Maharaj, we love listening to your Hari-katha, but it is very hard for us to come because there is not even a bathroom...' Then, Srila Sridhar Maharaj thought to buy some black plastic to make a fence around the place where he passed stool. But that plastic cost one rupee, and he had only half a rupee. Where was he to get another half of rupee? He tried to loan it, but nobody in Nabadwip wanted to lent it to him. Later, some devotee gave that money, and he managed to buy it.

A little later, Sakhi Charan Ray Bhakti Vijay (Sakhi Babu) started to give him ten rupees a month to run the temple. After that, our Gurudev eventually came to the temple, and with his assistance Srila Sridhar Maharaj started preaching. Also, Srila Sridhar Maharaj's godbrothers started coming to the temple and staying there from time to time. Srila Bhakti Kamal Madhusudan Maharaj, Sripad Bhakti Vivriti Puri Maharaj (Nrisinghananda Brahmachari), Sripad Bhakti Saudha Ashram Maharaj (Bhutavrit Prabhu) and many others stayed at the temple in the beginning and helped Srila Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj to preach.

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