Offering to Pankajanghri Prabhu – A pivotal leader, a personal guide

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
The departure of Pankajangri Prabhu is a heart-breaking event for the devotee community all over the world and for me personally, although my interactions with Him were not many but whenever I interacted with Him, they were very deep illuminating and inspiring.
I had been doing this monk’s podcast regularly and I had wanted to invite Him but somehow the logistics never worked out and now I have lost that opportunity forever. So the glimpses of the kind of interactions that I had with Him, I had hoped to share through the monk’s podcast with everyone. Krishna reveals His attractiveness through different devotees to different devotees in different ways.
Consider Krishna is here, the devotees are here, especially those devotees who are more advanced than us or more inspiring for us and then we are here. We are also a large community of devotees. The devotees who inspire also is a significant number.
So Krishna reveals His attractiveness through different devotees to different devotees in different ways. So while Pankajangri Prabhu is known and celebrated as being a stalwart servitor of their lordships Radhamadhava and Panchatattva in Mayapur, for me personally He was a guide who in whom I could see the practicality of bhakti as well as the otherworldliness of bhakti as well. Both being blended in a dynamic and realistic way.
Sometimes we have a feeling that there is an irreducible bridge or irreducible gap rather with no bridge between the way we are practicing at our present level and what is expected from us or what we aspire for. The levels of absorption in Krishna, the levels of dedication to the service of Krishna. So we feel that it’s almost impossible to bridge those gaps.
But it is possible. And while different devotees inspire us in different ways, some devotees inspire us by embodying how exalted levels of devotion are here at the top. Some devotees guide us how we can step forward from here.
But to embody both the practical and the transcendental in one person is remarkable and remarkably rare. So whenever I had the opportunity to visit Mayapur, one of the most cherished activities for me in Mayapur was meeting Pankajangri Prabhu and Jannivas Prabhu, sometimes together, sometimes with them individually. And when I was in Kolkata, I got to meet and talk with them.
One time when I was doing traveling preaching in Orissa and Bengal, youth outreach, at that time also, at a railway station we met and we had discussions. So at various places, it was with Pankajangri Prabhu individually or collectively with Jannivas Prabhu. So what struck me the most was this observation that while he was so devoted to deity worship, he was also very insightful, not necessarily in terms of quoting esoteric scriptures, although he knew a vast variety of scriptures, but very insightful in terms of addressing questions which could either perplex one spiritually, philosophically, or paralyze one practically.
And even when he would answer questions, his prayerful contemplative mood while answering those questions would be, would for me be a model. I live much more in my head than in my heart in the sense that for me, philosophy and sharing philosophy is significantly a matter of analysis. And the way to the heart is primarily through the head for me.
But many times in my question answers and in my presentations, things stay, used to stay largely in the head. And it was through my interactions with him that I could see that while there is a devoted heart and there is analytical head and how both can be synergized together. So sometimes when the same question would be asked to him in a class and a few hours later, I would ask him the same question.
He would give different answers because he would go significantly deeper in his answers, become more specific, quote more from diverse sources, even from his own personal experiences. And what was clear was that he cared not just about the subject that he was speaking to, it’s about, but he also cared about the person to whom he was speaking. And the multidimensionality of devotees was what struck me during my interactions with him that while he celebrated for one particular service wherein he had extraordinary dedication.
Mayapur is our movement’s international headquarters and actually Prabhupada made the, if we consider centrality of Prabhupada’s mission in India was building magnificent temples, having marvellous deities and institutionalizing or instituting majestic as well as intimate standards of deity worship. So all this was if we consider, was Prabhupada’s primary legacy in India. Magnificent temples, marvellous deities and majestic and intimate forms of standards of worship of the deities.
So all this which was the primary legacy of Prabhupada through his outreach in India was manifested in an extraordinary way in Mayapur. We have beautiful deities in all our temples and during Prabhupada’s times there were several temples which were established and they were further developed after his departure. But Prabhupada’s legacy in Mayapur, it’s not just a temple but it’s a temple which is the heart of a vibrant community centered around the temple.
And to carry on Prabhupada’s legacy through preaching and doing programs and distributing books and doing various kinds of outreach is vital. That’s what will bring more and more people to Krishna’s lotus feet. But then where do they come? They come to the temple and there they have darshan of the deities.
There are so many upcoming devotees whose hearts were inspired and transformed by the beauty and the majesty of the worship of the deities in Mayapur. And while there is a large team of devotees which have worked for making the temple and the centrality of the centrally the deities worship happen, Padma Jangri Prabhu is foundational among those devotees. His role is like pivotal.
So some of my strongest spiritual experiences, devotional experiences have been while beholding Panchadattva Narsimha Dev, Radha Madhav and I would know that it is not just because the Lord is present there but because the Lord is present there due to He being worshipped so wonderfully by galaxy of illustrious devotees led by Pankajangri Prabhu and Jannivas Prabhu. So this was His defining service and that is what He is known for and celebrated for. But along with that defining service, the side with which I connected the most was this side of being a contemplative, caring and deeply personal guide.
So the questions that we have as we grow spiritually change. Initially it is more about the philosophy and how to make sense of the philosophy but as we grow some of those questions may still remain but then we have questions about how the philosophy is to be applied in our real life and in that I found Pankajangri Prabhu’s answers and association as invaluable. So while many devotees will be sharing their personal experiences and realizations of Pankajangri Prabhu’s contributions I found I would like to share this one aspect of His contribution not only did He play a pivotal role in continuing and expanding Prabhupada’s central legacy of temple and deity worship in India but He also acted as a personal guide for many many devotees across the world and I was one fortunate soul to be blessed by His kindness.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says after the departure of Haridas Thakur that Krishna gave us His association by His inconceivable mercy and now by His inconceivable will Krishna has taken away that association. Krishna has taken away Haridas Thakur. So we, the entire devotee community the first, second, third generations in our movement were blessed to have the association of illustrious soul like Pankajangri Prabhu and we can pray for pray for Krishna we don’t have to pray for Him He is in the shelter of Srila Prabhupada and in the shelter of Krishna, of Lord Chaitanya as a service we can offer our prayers and we can seek His blessings I personally seek His blessings so that a small particle of dedication and devotion that He has manifested in His services that I may get a small particle and I can do some small service in the movement that He so gloriously treasured, expanded and even pervaded.
Pankajangri Prabhu ki Jai Srila Prabhupada ki Jai Hare Krishna