![](\"http:\/\/dandavats.com\/wp-content\/uploads2\/332013-03-26-14-1333.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
By Sankarsana das<\/strong><\/p>\n The recent passing of a great soul Siddhavidya prabhu has left an emptiness in many hearts of devotees who knew him only briefly or for decades. When he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease five or so years ago I visited him in Miami and after initial greetings and obeisances he started singing a song we were both familiar with by TK (Titiksava Karunika) called Simply Surrender (derived from Bhaktivinode Thakur’s Saranagati) as follows: “With age I am humbled, deprived of success, I weep as my hollow life leads me to death”. In this way he shared a touching moment with me as an old friend. Of course Siddhavidya’s life was far from hollow since he devoted it to spreading the holy name, but in the face of pending death he was forthcoming that his time was limited, plus the fact that the world carries on nonchalantly without us. Although from that point on Siddhavidya was as diligent with his health regimens as he was with his sadhana and seemed to be faring well, it seems Krishna has plucked him from our association for his next transcendental engagement.<\/p>\n I was grateful to read the article by Bhusaya prabhu on Dandavats which described some “adi lila” pastimes of Siddhavidya prabhu. Since I knew Siddhavidya later on I would like to contribute some of his “madhya” and “antya” lila pastimes. He was well known for never missing any part of the morning program as well as the evening program. I questioned him about it once and he simply said, “I just want to become purified”. He also never abandoned the cold morning shower for as long as I knew even though it left him all bundled up for mangal arati even when it wasn’t so cold. He detested the thought of taking a warm shower at least on rising in the morning as if it was nonsense.<\/p>\n I can attest that Siddhavidya prabhu was an avadhuta as Bhusaya prabhu explained. He simply had no interest in many ordinary functions even though he could be ridiculed for it by spiritually uneducated people. This in part could be attributed to being raised in an extremely wealthy family where not much was required of him. He told me one summer as a youth his father got him employed sacking groceries just to see how the other half lived. But the overriding factor for his simplicity was his one pointed focus on spiritual life. He always wore the same style sleeveless white kurtas with a dhotie and he didn’t experiment with vaisnava fashions. I asked him about it once and part of his answer was about comfort and he also said dressing up for him would be like “putting ear rings on a pig”. He just had no vanity in him. The one material interest he had was in sports but that was also restricted. He didn’t watch sporting events until playoff times, and if a devotional program was happening at the same time he would not skip out to watch the game even if it was the Superbowl – the topmost sport event in America. Once Danavir Swami was giving a class in Miami and he was saying how devotees should have no interest in material affairs and we should not inquire into such things as “Who won the Rose Bowl?” While Maharaja was elaborating on the point Siddhavidya turned around to look at me(also a guilty sports fan) a few times with astonishment and a smile. Later he joked he was “wrecked” by Maharaja’s comment.<\/p>\n Every temple likes to have an empowered kirtan leader and Siddhavidya was certainly that for the Miami temple. He gracefully and expertly built up the suspense in kirtan until it was time to bring the house down and transform everyone present in maddened ecstasy. This was expected every Sunday feast kirtan and especially his festival kirtans were off the charts. Even when the Parkinson’s disease had set in and Siddhavidya could no longer play the kartals his kirtans were still just as empowered and memorable. A kirtan of his I’ll always remember was the first time I saw him when he was visiting the Washington D.C. (Potomac) temple in 1985 for a ratha-yatra festival. He led a roaring mangal arati kirtan from the first stanza which is generally not expected.<\/p>\n Although it’s been reported that Siddhavidya did Harinama every day for 30 or 40 years that was not true except for perhaps his early devotional career and for the time period around the mid 90’s up until when the Parkinson’s disease limited him five years ago. He was a grhastha who had to maintain family expenditures for some duration of time until his multi millionaire father decided to abandon hope his son would leave Krishna consciousness and help him out instead. That was to his father’s eternal benefit freeing Siddhavidya for daily Harinama. I recall during the early 90’s Siddhavidya had to divide his time between collecting to maintain his household and going on Harinama. He would simply go to traffic lights and straight beg like a homeless person with a bucket. He didn’t employ flim flam techniques devotees have been known to use.<\/p>\n A lasting memory I’ll have of Siddhavidya prabhu is in December 2010 we together drove a few hours from Miami to visit a dying devotee and old Miami Harinama associate in a hospice. Our friend Prahlad Nrsimha had skin cancer and was a couple of days before his death and he could not speak or open his eyes and seemed semi conscious. After introducing ourselves we started a kirtan while fighting off our tears and choked voices. For hours we alternately did kirtan and read to Prahlad Nrsimha from the Krsna book. In the sober environment our chanting and hearing seemed elevated in purity. After some time a few Christians came to visit Prahlad Nrsimha. He was attending a local church since there was no temple near him. When the Christians disrespected us and disobeyed some arrangements in place for Pralad Nrsimha I called them out for their arrogance. Siddhavidya later said what I did was good and coming from him I felt assured my actions were appropriate. Last year when I visited Miami Siddhavidya recalled our experience and was grateful for it and that was treasureable to me.<\/p>\n As is apparent in other devotees recollections of Siddhavidya prabhu I am also very grateful that Lord Krishna steered my life into the friendship and association of such a unique empowered blessed soul. His association will remain a highlight of my life and an inspiration for me to go on Harinama regardless of circumstances. The following is a description of my Harinama experiences with Siddhavidya prabhu previously published as a comment to another Dandavats article:<\/p>\n During the 90\u2019s I spent my winters in Miami and regularly went on walking Harinama with Siddhavidya prabhu, and he also would join me for a stationary Harinama I did in downtown Miami. His knack of interacting with people on Harinama was a pleasure to see, and it created a sense of strength in other devotees present. He would acknowledge every passerby and induce them to join in the spirit of kirtan. Often he would enter shops and play the kartals over his head and chant and smile at customers and workers and get them in the spirit of Harinama. Since he was such a regular on routes he took some shops anticipated his arrival and the workers would grab spoons and pots and play along in time with the kirtan. In the many experiences I saw of him entering places I rarely saw anyone becoming irritated by his presence. After a few minutes sometimes an employer would kindly let him know it was enough, but usually he could decide when it was time to move on. Even people eating at sidewalk cafes picked up on his transcendental spirit and got into the kirtan or showed some sign of appreciation. At times a large group of people got in the spirit of Harinama and danced or clapped along with the kirtan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As is apparent in other devotees recollections of Siddhavidya prabhu I am also very grateful that Lord Krishna steered my life into the friendship and association of such a unique empowered blessed soul<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-memoriam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"http:\/\/dandavats.com\/wp-content\/uploads2\/342013-03-26-14-1434.jpg\"\/)
By Sankarsana das<\/strong><\/p>\n