Monday 12 September 2011

Going Back to Godhead!

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Finland, 2011)


Vibhu Caitanya, became the cook in the Krishna Balarama Mandir, shortly after the opening. He was Bengali and would just cook everything. He would cook all of the offerings, and it was a big temple! He cooked all the offerings… ….mangal aarti sweets and everything….and that’s a lot of cooking – seven offerings. He did that for eighteen years, and then he became old and ill. His feet were swelling up and he couldn’t do it anymore.
He was really upset because he couldn’t do that service. When he became ill, I was the temple president. So at that time I said:
“Well right now may be you should sit down and just distribute carnamrta”.
He didn’t want to do it. He said:
“No I want to cook”.
But he couldn’t so after a few days he surrendered to it, and then he got into it…… into distributing the carnamrta. He was sitting there and made sure that everyone got a tulsi leaf. He had special tulsi leaves here and special cups for the V.I.P. He made a huge arrangement of giving out carnamrta. Everyone got the maximum mercy, and in this way he served.
In his last days he couldn’t even do that, since he was just in his room, but then he had a loud speaker from the temple to his room, so that he could still hear the kirtan and the aartis – so that he felt that he was still with the deities. He had pictures of the deities in his room.
Vibhu Caitanya never went outside of the walls….never once. He never went out. He always stayed in the walls of the Krishna Balarama Mandir. He would walk from him room to the kitchen…and from the kitchen back to him room – and that was all. He had no other interest. He didn’t want to enjoy Vrindavan since he only wanted to serve. That’s how we go back to Godhead!

- HH Kadamba Kanana Swami

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