By Giriraj Swami
My dear Madhudvisa Prabhu,
I am feeling your separation so much right now. My mind is flooded with memories of our service to Srila Prabhupada together, not the least of which was our meeting in the last months and remembering his glorious qualities and activities.
All the circumstances surrounding your departure were auspicious. As was your desire, you lived through Ratha-yatra in Los Angeles and sang before all three carts. Then, just two days later, while your caregiver chanted Hare Krishna by your side, you departedâwith a smile on your face. You were a great pioneer and champion of Ratha-yatra. During last yearâs procession we discussed the importance of following Srila Prabhupadaâs instructions in regard to Ratha-yatras, and in our last meeting in your room at New Dvaraka, six weeks ago, you told me how Srila Prabhupada sent you from Juhu to Australia and you introduced Ratha-yatra there:
âI thought, âAustralia sounds like a pretty good place.â So I went down there, and it was great. Immediately I decided that we had to have a Ratha-yatra. One leader said, âNo, no. Weâve got all these books. We have to sell these books. We have a whole warehouse of books here.â But I said, âYes, we will sell all those booksâdonât worry. Weâll hold a Ratha-yatra and weâll make devotees and all these devotees will sell all the books we can get.â
âThen I said, âWe are going to make the whole country into one temple. The whole country is going to cooperate, and weâre going to have this Ratha-yatra, and then we are going to sell books.â
âSo we started organizing a Ratha-yatra. âYou need money for Ratha-yatra,â I told the devotees, âa lot of money, so weâll collect a lot of money and use it for building the Ratha-yatra cart and for publicity and for everything like that.â So we started collecting money like crazy.
âWe built a big, beautiful Ratha-yatra cart, and meanwhile we were saving money, too, because we were looking for a temple. They didnât have any temples down thereâjust two small centersâand we needed a big temple, a big establishment. âBut we canât afford two,â I realized. âWe can get one, so letâs get one.â So I started collecting money for a temple. I didnât care if it was in Sydney or Melbourne; they were equally good. But we decided to have the Ratha-yatra in Melbourne. So, we collected money and built a Ratha cart. Melbourne was, and still is, an intellectual kind of place, with several universities. And there is a lot of interest in Krishna consciousnessâthey embrace Krishna consciousness.
âAnyway, Prabhupada decided for me to go to Australiaâthat it would be a good ideaâso I went, and that was great.â
When you left Juhu, it was a loss for us. But I can see, in retrospect, that you went on to do even bigger and better things in Australia.
Now I am deeply lamenting your loss, but I know that you have gone to do greater service. And I hope that just as we met in New Dvaraka, after your serving in Australia and my serving in Bombay, and were reunited in service to Srila Prabhupada and the holy name, we will be reunited again, in service to Srila Prabhupada and sankirtana, and that again, as brothers, we will relish devotional service under Srila Prabhupadaâs guidance and shelter.
In separation,
Your eternal servant,
Giriraj Swami
His Grace Madhudvisa das was one of the first bhaktas to join Srila Prabhupad’s mission in the West. He once related that as a new devotee, he was the temple president in LA. He was honest and admitted how little he knew of Krishna consciousness at the time, but he served in his own infectiously happy mood. He and I spoke rather honestly and openly about our own frailties in life. He never tried to portray himself as a “big, big” self-important person. Rather, he was a salt of the earth kind of person. Very simple hearted. His place in the history of sankirtan is very well established by his own peculiar style of sankirtan chanting of the Holy Names. He was the first to chant the Holy Names very rapidly in a style that became more common throughout the world with the passage of time. I witnessed in Melbourne when I accompanied Srila Prabhupad there that during 1976 that some of those kirtans, Srila Prabhupad would smile gently and pleasingly. After all, there are no hard and fast rules for chanting the Holy Names, and Madhudvisa Prabhu was to chanting as Sudama Prabhu was to dancing in the temples during sankirtan. His expressive style was unique and refreshing, and he will be remembered by all who knew him.
Srila Prabhupad used to say that his spiritual master, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupad, sent the early devotees to help him in fulfilling his own desire that the Sankirtan Movement would be spread to every town and village in the world. Srila Prabhupad gave personal attention to these devotee-disciples. He encouraged them when they were strongly engaged with the favorable breezes of Lord Chaitanya’s grace, and he supported them when any challenge would come to disrupt the flow of devotional service. Most of all, Srila Prabhupad had full faith that devotional service when it is inspired by that Lord, Sri Krishna, Who is beyond our material senses, is causeless and cannot be broken by anything. Always give encouragement to others whether they are strong in their devotional service, and even more so if they might stumble. That is a lesson that Srila Prabhupad displayed in his guidance of Madhudvisa Prabhu, and one that we can all benefit from in this brief life. We will meet again prabhu, I will recognize you by that unique style of kirtan that came from the depths of your joyous heart.
Pusta Krishna das
Thank you for your insightful comment, Pusta Krishna Prabhu. Srila Prabhupada called Madhudvisa Prabhu the “Emperor of Kirtan” with reason. At Madhudvisa Prabhu’s memorial program in Los Angeles, his youngest son, Chai Gosai, told us, âMy father was always very loving to all of us. He was always our well-wisher. Whatever we did, he was there to support us. Whenever we came he would want to have a kirtan. It didnât matter if it was just for five minutes. He would just do it real quick. It didnât matter what was going on in our lives. Even if we were broken down on the side of the road, he would say, âLetâs have a kirtan. Itâs all right, letâs have a kirtan right now.â I think I will hold that the strongest in my heartâbecause of him I will never stop chanting.â We all were deeply moved.
Giriraj Swami