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Pilgrim's Diary: Travels, Fossils, and TKG
by Vipramukhya Swami

The following article contains links that will take the reader to websites other than this one.

Bhaktivedanta Manor, England (April 25, 2002): I'm getting ready to "hit the road" again after spending a few productive weeks here at Bhaktivedanta Manor.

The things I have been working on have included a lot of time editing my book, and working on a drama soundtrack for the Bhaktivedanta Players about the death of Abhimanyu, son of Arjuna and father of Maharaja Pariksit, to whom Sukadeva Goswami spoke the Srimad-Bhagavatam. I also established a webcam connected to my computer, which will unfortunately be mostly functional only when I have a permanent Internet connection, and which is mainly when I am here at Bhaktivedanta Manor. I don't know if I will be able to get a high-speed Internet connection when I'm at ISKCON Vancouver, where I plan to spend the summer this year.

The day after tomorrow, Saturday, 27 March, I will fly to America, returning to the UK on April 30. Then I will do a one week tour of Swindon and Wales in the UK, returning to the airport by May 9th to fly to New Vrindavan for a week, returning to England on May 14th. I will be staying again at Bhaktivedanta Manor for about 2 weeks before departing with the Bhaktivedanta Players on May 31 for New York.

After spending time in the Brooklyn temple, I will fly to visit ISKCON North Carolina in the Piedmont area of North Carolina, close to major interstates and two airports-Raleigh Durham International, and Greensboro Airport.

On June 24 I will fly from North Carolina to New York to catch a flight to ISKCON Vancouver and hopefully head up a Padayatra there beginning on July 4.

I am also bemused by the goings back and forth on the "fossil issue" on Chakra, in which Bhaktavatsala dasa has tried to refute my claim that the Salagram is a "spiritual fossil." I have received much email on this topic, including two articles favorable and unfavorable (in which the author seems to have felt so awkward as to avoid signing his or her article - wonder why). In the so-called critical article, entitled "Fossils: What Goes Around Comes Around," the author stated: "I'm just saying that if Maharaj is going to get upset and angry over terminology without consideration of time, place, and circumstance, then he should perhaps apply the same rules to himself."

Perhaps that would be an appropriate comment if I actually was upset with Bhaktavatsala Prabhu, but I am not. I have known him for many years, and consider myself his friend and well-wisher despite email I have received in my defense, somewhat critical of his history in New Zealand. As far as I'm concerned, he can say whatever he likes about me, I don't mind. Yet, Salagram Silas are called stones, and that's okay, so why is it not okay to call them a "spiritual fossil?" 

The word "Sila" translates as "Stone." So if Prabhupada can call them stones, I guess that's okay.

Prabhupada writes: "It is said that if he offered obeisances to any stone other than a salagrama-sila, it would immediately fracture." (Referring to Abhirama Thakura, from CC Adi 11.13, purport). "Among the followers of the Vedic way, the salagrama-sila, the vigraha of Narayana, is worshiped in the form of a stone ball." (CC Madhya 15.204, purport). "Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura writes in his Anubhasya that in the opinion of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, the govardhana-sila, the stone from Govardhana Hill, was directly the form of Krsna, the son of Maharaja Nanda. The Lord used the stone for three years, and then in the heart of Raghunatha dasa the Lord awakened devotional service to the stone. " (CC Antya 6.294, purport)

I made a subtitle of today's Pilgrim Diary, "Another Look at Tamal Krishna Goswami." As you know, Tamal Krishna Goswami recently passed away in an unfortunate automobile accident in India. I wrote an article describing how sinful critics rejoiced over this, meant to defend Tamal Krishna Goswami in the spirit of "Know thine enemy," as well as published a recent photograph which I rediscovered. Although I can't be counted as one of the confidential servants of Tamal Krishna Goswami (I never had much of his association, though I often spoke to him while acting as temple president of Bhaktivedanta Manor), still I recognize, along with so many other devotees, the great significance of his passing.

I knew that time would have to pass for me to see the event more clearly. Thus I was very happy to read a recent article on CHAKRA entitled "Dying in Navadvipa" by Ramiya dasa, who has helped me understand the greatness of Tamal Krishna Goswami's passing. It turns out that Tamal Krishna Goswami, though he had left ISKCON Mayapur an hour earlier, was still within Navadvipa, the nine island area surrounding Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu's birthplace. Ramiya Prabhu quotes the Pramana Khanda, Chapter Four of Bhaktivinoda Thakura's Navadvip-Dhama-Mahatmya, in which it is stated:

"There is no consideration of fitness for hearing the glories of Navadvipa. Dying in other tirthas gives either material enjoyment or liberation, but dying in Navadvipa gives pure devotion to the Lord.

"In Navadvipa there is no consideration of a faulty death—at an inauspicious time, in pain, in the house, or by accident.

"Death at other tirthas while practicing yoga or death in Kasi while absorbed in impersonal meditation become insignificant when compared to death in Navadvipa."

I thank Ramiya Prabhu for this quotation, which has helped me to understand that anyone who leaves their body in Navadvip will enable one to attain pure bhakti of Krishna, and that there can be no question of a faulty death there caused by accident. Indeed, it appears from this quotation that, although sudden and deeply shocking to those of us who are living still, Tamal Krishna Goswami was taken by Krishna Himself.

 © CHAKRA 28 April 2002