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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In humility, appreciation and awe for Sri Nathji Prabhu.
\nRasaraja dasa: I am truly saddened to hear of the sudden departure of Sri Nathji Prabhu. He was a stalwart devotee and an example for all devotees on many fronts. A most respectable grihastha Vaishnava, a tireless preacher, not only in the temple but even in his own professional circles, where he made many working persons coming in touch with him for business reasons into devotees. <\/p>\n
His services to Sri-Sri Radha Rasabihari Mandir, and later the Sri-Sri Radha Gopinath Mandi and all allied projects is legendary. There is no doubt his Destination is most glorious. <\/p>\n
He had a lot of association with Srila Prabhupada and was always fond of reliving those occasions. <\/p>\n
It is known that initially he was following a mayavadi guru (he shall remain nameless) and used to refer to Srila Prabhupada whatever the mayavadi guru would say, Srila Prabhupada would counter those arguments, and he would then take those counters back to that guru. He always found that that guru couldn\u2019t counter Srila Prabhupada\u2019s counters. Once he told me, he got a particular argument from that Guru which he took to Srila Prabhupada. As soon as he set out the argument, Srila Prabhupada spontaneously asked, \u201cwhich rascal told you that?\u201d. :) Sri Nathji said he was nonplussed, but he told me, he realized how high was Srila Prabhupada\u2019s position.<\/p>\n
Sri Nathji was a founding trustee of Bhaktivedanta Institute in Worli. He had a Ph.D. in electrical engineering (besides an MBA) from the University of Penn. He was with me all the way for the 1986 conference on science and religion, and I came to know him very well. He told me that the conference was the best program by which he could get his brother-in-law involved in ISKCON. Radha Krishna Prabhu and many, many others also came to ISKCON via that conference and B.I. <\/p>\n
Very early in the organization of the conference, he became the head of our patrons committee. He told me, I will arrange talks for you in different houses of important people, you simply give the talks and tell about the conference. You don\u2019t ask for any lakshmi. I will arrange all the funds you need. I gave the talks and he did the rest! The conference\u2019s cost in those days was 18 lakhs, which in today\u2019s terms, would be many crores. He helped in all other aspects of the conference organization too. <\/p>\n
Once he took up a project, he would take care of ALL the aspects of the project and the people involved, in a meticulous manner. A thorough gentleman. <\/p>\n
I came in touch with him many years before the 1986 Mumbai Conference in Chennai, first. It was I think 1981 or 1982, and as a Brahmachari devotee, I had come to visit the Chennai temple from Detroit temple (where I had joined). I was in the temple room one morning for 7.15 AM arotika, and one gentleman in a suit walked in. All Chennai devotees greeted him very happily and deferentially. After the arotika, he was asked to give the SB class. He was in a suit, as he had come to Chennai on business, and visited directly from the airport, first the temple. I didn\u2019t know who he was at that time. So, I was surprised he gave the class in a suit but he gave a very good class!<\/p>\n
In the class, he also spoke about the trials and tribulations devotees were undergoing in USSR, how he was getting the Bhagavad Gita As It Is printed in Russian, and getting it secretly into the USSR. So, he was a major force to contribute to the development of preaching in USSR in those early days. A very great soul who did mega service on many, many fronts. Toward the very end of the class, he produced a pocket BG As It Is in RUSSIAN, and said this is the FIRST pocket edition BG in Russian. \u201cI am giving it as a gift to Chennai temple\u201d he said, and gave it to the temple president. The TP, I believe, was Paradhyeya Prabhu from the UK. <\/p>\n
A very, very interesting incident happened that day as a follow-up, that perhaps I can narrate here. That very day worldwide and especially in India, all temples in major cities were asked by the GBC body to peacefully march with as many temple and congregation devotees as possible and present a common letter asking the soviet govt to stop harassing the devotees, that KC is a mainstream religion in India and Hinduism etc. The Chennai temple had organized about 100 devotees including many congregation Life Members and had obtained police permission to go and give the petition at the USSR consulate in Chennai. The temple had very few Tamil devotees, and I had arrived from Detroit just a couple days ago. So, the TP was quite happy that a local, Tamil devotee in saffron was there, and said that when we reach the consulate, I will go inside and give the petition. I said, OK. We reached the USSR consulate walking from the temple doing HarinAM, a distance of a few good miles. By the time we arrived, the police were there, and they stopped us outside the consulate. The consulate building was the last one in a cul de sac, a very high-end neighborhood, and had just one front door that was closed, practically no windows as I recall! After some time, I was asked to go in, and at that last moment, Paradhyeya prabhu handed me that pocket Russian BG As It Is, and whispered to me, \u201cyou never know, if you get a chance, distribute it, please do\u201d!! What preaching mood Srila Prabhupada\u2019s followers have!<\/p>\n
He further advised me to keep the pocket edition inside my kurta, and not carry it openly, which I promptly did. Next minute, the front door opened, and I was taken in, sat on a sofa. After some time, a huge Russian came to me and asked, \u201cAre you here to give the petition from the Hare Krishnas?\u201d I nodded my head and said, Yes. He shook my hands, then said \u201cfollow me\u201d. I followed him through winding passageways, and at the end he entered a room marked consul general. I followed him inside, and he closed the door behind. By that time I was quite afraid, and wanted to get out of that place as soon as possible! :) He said, \u201cI am the consul general, please give me the petition\u201d. I gave it to him. He said sternly, \u201clook here, I will pass it on to Moscow, but don\u2019t think anything will happen. Nothing will come of it.\u201d He then furtively looked here and there and whispered, \u201cBut there is something I want to ask you. This is my last day here. For three years I have been trying to get a Bhagavad Gita, and the KGB man was constantly with me and I couldn\u2019t. Last night, I was praying to God, please somehow get me a Bhagavad Gita before I leave India. Tonight is my flight out. Do you have a BG to give to me?\u201d!!!!<\/p>\n
I was completely non-plussed and amazed. I didn\u2019t know whether this was a trap or what. But he sounded so sincere and distraught. He must be really wanting the Bhagavad Gita. After a few seconds, I pulled out the pocket edition that Nathji Prabhu had left behind and gave it to him. It was his turn to be amazed to see the BG in Russian! He let out a huge grin, shook my hand up and down so vigorously that I thought it would come off its socket (I was a little bitty young man then). Then he said something like \u201cI knew God will never let me down. Thank you very much. I will read this very closely.\u201d He unceremoniously threw me out of the door (probably before the KGB man at the station came in).<\/p>\n
By now, he might have gone back to Godhead! He was I think in his late 50 or 60s then.<\/p>\n
When I came out, I remember thinking how Lord Chaitanya acts wonderfully, and how Sri Nathji Prabhu\u2019s service was so arranged by the Lord that it served His Purpose so nicely. He is a greatly fortunate person. As I said, and all of us know, Sri Nathji did many such wonderful services on many such fronts.<\/p>\n
Despite his great family credentials, considerable wealth, leadership position in industry and all other nice qualities, he was always very humble, friendly to ALL devotees. He is a wonderful devotee, I can recount a lot more incidents. He will be truly missed. The only consolation is that Srila Prabhupada and Lord Krishna Chaitanya have taken him into Their Pastimes eternally.<\/p>\n
In humility, appreciation and awe<\/p>\n
Rasaraja dasa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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<\/p>\n
In humility, appreciation and awe for Sri Nathji Prabhu.
\nRasaraja dasa: I am truly saddened to hear of the sudden departure of Sri Nathji Prabhu. He was a stalwart devotee and an example for all devotees on many fronts. A most respectable grihastha Vaishnava, a tireless preacher, not only in the temple but even in his own professional circles, where he made many working persons coming in touch with him for business reasons into devotees. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10650,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recent-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32513","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\/10650"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32513"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37058,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32513\/revisions\/37058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}