In2-MeC

ISKCON Juhu, Mumbai
19 April, 2003

This is the text of a letter I wrote to a devotee named Ananda Mohana dasa who came to see me here at Juhu. The letter explains itself. Readers of In2-MeC readers might appreciate it.

"Audio - listen to Suhotra Maharaja reading this letter about Nandarani HERE."

My dear Ananda Mohana Prabhu,

Please accept my humble and heartful obeisances. All glories to His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada. All glories to your spiritual master and my Godbrother, Sripad Gopal Krsna Maharaja.

This is the letter of comment I promised I would write you after I read the book you offered me, Remembering Nandarani, dedicated to your daughter who was taken from this world by Lord Krsna at age thirteen. Prabhu, you may be surprised that I am putting this letter in your hand just one day after you visited me. After all, I did tell you yesterday--which was the first day you and I had ever in our lives spoken to one another--that "I'll have to read the book first," "I am leaving Mumbai day after tomorrow and I'll be traveling for days, so it will take me time," "I did not know your daughter before, so I'll have to give this event of her passing some consideration," and so on.

But two things impelled me to go through the book cover to cover last night, and to write this letter this morning. The first thing was your emotional state as you recounted both the glories of your little girl and the tragedy of her sudden departure. And the second is the charming photo of her gopi-like face on the cover of the book, which, whenever I glance at it, tugs at my heart.

About your emotional state during our talk yesterday, I cannot characterize it merely as the grief of a father who has lost a beloved child. There was a much deeper element to it. I think it may be expressed in this quotation from a saintly person of the ancient Middle East: "Not until a person detaches himself from the creation will he be joined with the Creator. "

Now, this is a major theme of our Bhagavata philosophy. We find it, for example, in Srimad-Bhagavatam 6. 17. 31. Lord Siva is speaking to Goddess Parvati about the glories of Maharaja Citraketu. As you well know, Citraketu lost a most beloved son. That tragedy became the impetus for his detaching himself from the creation and taking up the path back home, Back to Godhead. So in this verse Mahadeva tells his consort that the devotees of Lord Vasudeva have perfect knowledge and perfect detachment from this world. Therefore they are not interested in so-called happiness and distress.

In that way, your emotional state was as Siva says, na hi kascid vyapasrayah, not sheltered in something material. By the grace of your unique daugher Nandarani Devi Dasi, you are detached from creation, detached from the parental conception of "I am the creator of this child" which is typical of the rajo-guna. And so now, as a result of this knowledge of the real nature of your relationship to your beloved Nandarani, Sri Krsna Himself has joined you. Aho dine'nathe nihita-carano niscitam idam, states this line attributed to Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu Himself--"Alas, this is certain: Lord Jagannatha bestows His lotus feet upon those who feel themselves fallen and have no shelter in this world but Him. "

Prabhu, I have to now reveal my mind to you in a way that may surprise you. As we sat together yesterday, I began to think to myself, "How I wish I myself was in the position of this Ananda Mohana Prabhu. This would be for me the greatest mercy that Lord Jagannatha could bestow. " (My personal Deity is Sri Sri Jagannatha-Sudarshana, and to Him daily I chant the Jagannathastakam from which the line I just quoted comes. )
Your heart, your very life force, has been invaded by Sri Krsna in the form of the mood of separation from one who is beloved to Him. You may know that in Srila Prabhupada's final pastimes, when my senior Godbrothers were emotionally overcome, anguishing at their spiritual master's withered health, Prabhupada told them, "This is my business. " Meaning that His Divine Grace's final lila was to bind their hearts to him forever, so as to bind them to Krsna. Similarly the hearts of you and your good wife Mother Vrndavandesvari Devi Dasi have been bound to Krsna by the lila of your daughter's passing from this world.

What a preacher Nandarani was! She knew by heart many slokas from various sastras. I went carefully through the handwritten notes of her Vaisnava studies that you reproduced in the book. Amazing! For example, I was struck by her refutation of the smarta conception of purusartha (dharma, artha, karma, moksa) on page 45. For a girl of 13 to have such a grasp of Vedanta-darsana is extraordinary. Was she Gargi returned, the female Vedic sage of ancient times who baffled the great smarta Yajnavalkya Muni by her penetrating inquiry into Who is the foundation of sacrifice? (Gargi is glorified as a Vaisnavi Vedantist by Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana in his Govinda-bhasya).

But Nandarani's mission was not to grow up and preach to the whole world. Her mission was stay just long enough to preach to you and your wife. Naturally, her association deeply affected so many other devotees, as we see from the published realizations of sannyasis and other devotees. But Nandarani especially blessed you two by being your daughter, by living with you both every day of her life.

I am a sannyasi. What do I know of the emotional bond between parent and child? Indeed, this is a thing that through my whole life I wanted to avoid. As we all well know from the sastras, such emotional bonds in their material version constitute hrdaya-grantha, the hard knot of attachment that drags the poor soul back to the womb again and again. But meeting you, and reading this wonderful book, opened my eyes to the spiritual version of emotional bondage which is glorified in the sastras, for example in this famous verse:

prasangam ajaram pasam
atmanah kavayo viduh
sa eva sadhusu krto
moksa-dvaram apavrtam

Every learned man knows very well that attachment for the material is the greatest entanglement of the spirit soul. But that same attachment, when applied to the self-realized devotees, opens the doorof liberation. [Bhag. 3. 25. 20]

It is significant that this verse is spoken by Lord Kapiladeva to Devahuti, from whose womb He appeared in this world. Need I elaborate? It is clear to me that Nandarani's brief soujourn in this world was to impress this same lesson into the hearts of her father and mother. I do sincerely believe that Sripad Jayapataka Maharaja has revealed the whole truth of this in his statement on page 87 of Remembering Nandarani:

Both Ananda Mohana Dasa and Vrndavanesvari Devi Dasi were devotees in their previous lives and their guru had come as their daughter just to bring them back to the path and after getting them firmly fixed up she has gone back to Godhead.

Similarly the palmist-devotee quoted in Chapter Ten of Remembering Nandarani instructed you:

Normally, when one loses their child it is a case of grief. However, in this case I would say it is an occasion to rejoice. She has directly gone to Krsna. Now she is giving power, ideas and guidance to both of you and will make you pure devotees.

This house is so purified and therefore I repeat, you should never think of disposing this house. No doubt, money is required by everyone. Nevertheless, you should never dispose of this house. It is not a house now. It is a temple. . . You should consider yourselves as the most fortunate parents in the world to have had a child like Nandarani as your daughter.

Again revealing my mind to you, I consider myself most unfortunate because I never met Nandarani. You told me, and the book confirms, that she was dear to all sannyasis who knew her. That means these Maharajas were blessed by her innocence, her devotion, her purity. But I, the unluckly one (luck=Laksmi, and Nandarani was a little Laksmi) missed her blessings.

In comparision to you, my devotional attraction to Krsna is feeble because it is mainly intellectual. I glimpse the Lord through the words of the sastra and through the lofty philosophical concepts therein. I try to develop attachment to Lord Jagannatha by rituals of daily puja. As a sannyasi I am careful about getting involved in mundane entanglements, so generally I don't associate closely with others. In fact I don't mind being alone for long periods of time. Now, in my asrama, that nature is perhaps advantageous--but only in some jnana-misra-bhakti sense. Real bhakti is purely personal. It is awash in oceanic transcendental emotions. I have to admit to you that I am far away from that.

But you and your wife, the fortunate parents of this extraordinary soul Nandarani Devi Dasi, have been caught up in a pure personal relationship with a devotee who is beloved by Krsna and His associates. Remember I told you yesterday that there is an English saying, "Whom God loves most He takes soonest from this world. " And Sripad Radhanatha Swami said as much on the tape you played to me of his realization.

Krsna loves your daughter. As we see from her offering to her Spiritual Master Sripad Gopal Krsna Maharaja, your daughter loves guru and Krsna. And that is why Krsna took her back, because there was so much love flowing between them that He wanted her to be with Him in His pastimes again.

I think before she was conceived she asked Krsna for "time out" from her part in His nitya-lila so that she could come down here to get you and your wife deeply attached to her. After thirteen years of her absence, the Lord became impatient and abruptly took her back to Him. But Nandarani did not actually leave Krsna to come here; she brought Him with her. And she did not actually leave you to return to Him; she entered your hearts in a bhava-rupa.

I witnessed myself how, when you to me spoke about her, tears flooded your eyes and your voice broke. That is her! That is your dearest daughter, still present! And that is Krsna, from whom she is never apart.

Aho dine 'nathe nihita-carano niscitam idam, "Alas, this is certain: Lord Jagannatha bestows His lotus feet upon those who feel themselves fallen and have no shelter in this world but Him. " I ritualistically repeat this line daily to my Jagannatha-Sudharsana silas, but yesterday I met a devotee who exemplifies those beautiful words. And that devotee is you, my dear Ananda Mohana Dasa. So at last I, a dry renunciate, became a little lucky. I was able to meet your little Laksmi of a daughter, Nandarani, by tasting a drop of the rasa that you share with her. Rasa vai sah, says the Upanisad: "Rasa is He (Krsna Himself). "

Even the way she departed this world, which from material vision seems so brutal, was a shaft of viraha (emotion of separation) aimed by Krsna at the deepest core of your heart. I recall, years ago, watching a stage play performed in Bhaktivedanta Manor of Ramayana. The devotee-actress who played Sita was so heart-wrenching in her performance of the scene in which Sita is seized by Ravana that many in the audience started weeping openly. "This is my business," Srila Prabhupada said of his own pathos-inducing final pastimes.

To use an American expression, it is this particular type of pastime-mercy that "separates the men from the boys. " I suppose even some members of this ISKCON movement, what to speak of members of worldly religions, will have a difficult time seeing God's purpose in His taking a saintly young daughter from her pious parents. Nandarani was celebrated by the hundreds who knew her as a pure, learned, blissful Vaisnavi, a special soul from birth. She was so blessed that in her brief life she visited all important holy places of pilgrimage in the holy land of India. Yet a demon in human form choked her to death. So often this sort of "ungodly" event is the subject of theodical doubts. "How could some bad man get the chance to throttle an innocent devotee-child? Why would Krsna let her die at the hands of a demon?"

But in a lecture Srila Prabhupada explained, "Because he has got enemy, therefore it is not that he is Krsna-bhakta. He is Krsna-bhakta, even having his enemies, just like Krsna, despite having enemies, is Krsna. " And in a Srimad-Bhagavatam purport he writes,

A devotee's conclusion is that no one is directly responsible for being a benefactor or mischief-monger without the sanction of the Lord; therefore he does not consider anyone to be directly responsible for such action. But in both the cases he takes it for granted that either benefit or loss is God-sent, and thus it is His grace. In case of benefit, no one will deny that it is God-sent, but in case of loss or reverses one becomes doubtful about how the Lord could be so unkind to His devotee as to put him in great difficulty. Jesus Christ was seemingly put into such great difficulty, being crucified by the ignorant, but he was never angry at the mischief-mongers. That is the way of accepting a thing, either favorable or unfavorable. . . By God's grace, the devotee tolerates all reverses. . . In other words, a devotee has no suffering at all because so-called suffering is also God's grace for a devotee who sees God in everything.

Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura sings:

tomara sevaya dukha hoya jato
seo to' parama sukha
seva-sukha-duhka parama sampad
nasaye avidya-dukha

Troubles encountered in your service shall be the cause of great happiness, for in Your devotional service joy and sorrow are equally great riches. Both destroy the misery of ignorance. [Atma-nivedana 8. 4]

The misery of our ignorance is destroyed when we understand the truth behind Sita's abduction, or Christ's crucifixion, or the bull Dharma's being tormented by the personality of Kali, or Haridasa Thakura's being whipped by the Kazi's men, or Sripad Tamala Krsna Maharaja's leaving the world in a car accident. The truth of the passing of Nandarani destroys the ultimate misery of your life. Your ultimate misery is not, "Alas, our daughter was murdered. " All our relationships in this temporary world are lost as a matter of course, whether to disease, old age, mishap or murder. The ultimate misery is that we have forgotten Krsna. So Krsna may come even in the form of "a mischief-monger", to use Srila Prabhupada's expression, to pull us out of that ultimate misery. It is just His mercy when He forces us to remember Him. That type of mercy is reserved only for His strongest devotees. Therefore it "separates the men from the boys. " In the face of such special mercy, immature devotees may lose their faith. They may lament, "If there is a God, why did He not save our family from this tragedy?" I witnessed yesterday that you are made of sterner stuff. My obeisances to you again and again.

Dear Ananda Mohana Prabhu, your daughter Nanarani Devi Dasi wants you to remember what Lord Krsna told Uddhava:

yo yo mayi pare dharmah
kalpyate nisphalaya cet
tad-ayaso nirarthah syad
bhayader iva sattama

O Uddhava, greatest of saints, in a dangerous situation an ordinary person cries, becomes fearful and laments, although such useless emotions do not change the situation. But activities offered to Me without personal motivation, even if they are externally useless, amount to the actual process of religion. [Bhag. 11. 29. 21]

She wants you to absorb your emotions completely in devotional service to the Lord, not to waste them in useless lamentation. But wonder of wonders, mercy of mercies, she herself is inseparable from Krsna. So if, as is natural for a father who has lost his child, you sometimes break down in remembrance of your little girl--and isn't it, when daughters reach about age 13, the gopi age, that they most captivate the heart of the parent?--then that lamentation will bring forth remembrance of Krsna in the most piercingly sweet mood of viraha, transcendental separation.

I cannot fathom the intimate depth of this mercy Lord Krsna has showered upon you. I am only able to appeciate it from the remove of philosophical insight. In this way I know without a doubt you are most fortunate. I wish I had even a fraction of that fortune. To be so bound to the lotus feet of the Lord by such a strong emotional tie!

Your daughter, Nandarani Devi Dasi, is the light of your life back home, Back to Godhead. Just let that light lead you always. It is so easy, it is so natural, because we human beings are above all creatures of emotion. And so I must say it again: how very, very fortunate you are that Krsna has forced His way into the core of your heart via your kinship to a soul He personally sent into this world and personally called back to His lotus feet.

My heart overfloods with the best of wishes for you and your good wife, Vrndavanesvari Devi Dasi.

Your servant,

Suhotra Swami

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