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EDITORIAL June 10, 1999 VNN4071 Comment on this story Siddha Sri Jayakrishna Das Babaji BY JAGADANANDA DAS EDITORIAL, Jun 10 (VNN) — Before I found out that O.B.L. Kapoor had himself translated his Hindi book Braj ke Bhakat into English, I had started translating it myself. So I have some of this stuff on my computer and have decided to share, in view of the interest in Sriman Jijaji's posting of Tin Kori Gosvami's biography. Please excuse the mediocre translation, I never really did a good revision. A devotee does not have to seek the Lord. The Lord himself keeps an eye on his devotee. However much the devotee desires to see the Lord, the Lord is always more eager to see him. However much the devotee is eager to serve him with his mind and heart, the Lord is even more deeply desirous of accepting his service. The Lord cannot find the happiness he gets from the loving service of the devotee, even in his own heaven of Vaikuntha. In order to receive such service, he appears in this world in the form of the Sri Vigraha. However, even after so coming into the world, he does not lose his tendency to separate from a devotee after meeting with him, and again meeting with him after separating. From all eternity, he has enjoyed to play the game of hide and seek. Other than the devotees and Krishna himself, who else knows what happens to them in the course of this game? When he meets his devotee, he comes suddenly, naturally; he comes even without being called. When he separates, he leaves suddenly, without giving notice, without any show of mercy, without giving any opportunity for entreaties or beseechments, nor even the chance to discuss the matter. For him, however, the loss or gain in this game of hide and seek are equal, for as he abandons one devotee, he meets with another. But that devotee whom he abandons loses all that is important to him. In this story, he plays the game of hide and seek in his own independent fashion with two of his devotees. He meets with one of them and painfully separates himself from the other. In order to meet one of them he makes the long journey from Bengal to Braj, and when there he sends the other one back to Bengal. He abandons the service of one, while impatient to accept that of the other. The one he leaves is a member of the Nityananda family, the son of Dhaka's Lakshmikanta Prabhu, Naval Kishor Gosvami. The one he joins is Jayakrishna Das Babaji of Kamyavan. Naval Kishor Gosvami came on pilgrimage to Braj with his deities Sri Radha Madan Mohan. After staying for a few days in the bhajan Kutir of Jayakrishna Das Baba, he left without his deity, for the previous night in a dream, Radha Madan Mohan had given him the following order: "I am pleased with your service, but from now on I shall take the service of this Babaji. I shall not leave this place." As Naval Kishor bid them goodbye, tears fell from his eyes because he was losing his beloved lord, while Jaya Krishna Das cried because he could not hold back the joy of having obtained their service without even asking for it. Radha Madan Mohan silently observed this extraordinary scene, so overwhelmed was he by it. Radha Madan Mohan and his servant Jayakrishna Das now began to live together joyfully in Kamyavan. A few days later, by the wish of Radha Madan Mohan, a young renunciate also came there to live with them and started to help the Babaji to serve the deity. The Babaji was so content on seeing the young man's meek behaviour and his devoted service to Radha Madan Mohan that he decided to teach him the method of raganuga worship. He asked him, 'What is your spiritual line (guru-pranali)?' The young Babaji said, 'I don't know what a guru-pranali is. I never asked my guru anything about it.'Jaya Krishna Das explained to him, 'The guru on the path of raganuga devotion always gives the guru-pranali to his disciple. The entire line of disciplic succesion is found on it - the names of the guru, parama-guru, paratpara-guru and so on. With the disciplic succession, the guru also gives the siddha-pranali. In the siddha-pranali, the guru gives the identities of the disciple and all the line of gurus' spiritual bodies - their colour, age, ornamentation, favoured type of service, etc. Serving Radha and Krishna in the siddha manjari body given by the mercy of the perfected guru under his guidance, is called raganuga worship. This kind of worship is the only means by which one can attain to the loving service of Radha and Krishna. I want to teach you this. You will have to return home to get this information about your disciplic succession from your guru.' In even these few days, the younger Babaji had become so enchanted by affectionate behaviour and pleasant company of Jayakrishna Dasji that he became filled with anxiety at the prospect of leaving him to go to his homeland, even after the desire for raganuga worship had been awakened in him. He began to cry. Jayakrishna Das Baba repeatedly described the beauties of Radha and Krishna's activities and of the worship on the raganuga path and by so doing managed to calm him down and finally make him agree to go to Bengal to seek his guru pranali. At that time there was no railway line through Mathura. In order to go to Bengal one had to take the train through Hatharas. One morning Jayakrishna Das Baba said goodbye in great pain to the young Babaji. The younger baba started to walk away, crying. He had to go to Hatharas to catch a night train. He knew that as soon as he sat on the train the bird of his life would fly away. If he got on the train, he would die; at the same time, if he did not get on, the same fate awaited him for having disobeyed the order of the Babaji. Feeling that death was inevitable no matter what he did, he began to cry out to Radharani and Vrinda Devi, 'Oh Queen Radha! Oh Vrinda! You surely know what situation I am in. But why are you pushing this helpless, poverty-stricken servant away after he has taken shelter of you. Oh compassionate one! Be merciful to me so that I can die before I get on the train.' Radharani heard the cries of the young Babaji. He never had to board the train. He missed the train and determined to return to Kamyavan. Meanwhile, during the night, Jayakrishna Das Baba was being chastised by Vrinda Devi in the course of a dream. She said to him, 'Why did you send him out of Braj when his guru-pranali is on the deity's throne?' Jayakrishna Das Babaji's sleep broke and he began to cry and ask Vrinda Devi for her forgiveness. He quickly bathed and went into the temple. When he saw the guru-pranali placed on the throne, he was overcome with emotion. He picked it up and placed it repeatedly over his heart. Thinking of the compassion of Vrinda Devi he lost external consciousness. When he regained a normal state, he went to the temple of Govindaji. There he took darshan of Vrinda Devi and prayed repeatedly to her to return the young Babaji to him. When he returned to his own cottage, he resumed the performance of his daily duties, all the while thinking about the young baba. He thought, 'He must have caught the train last night. By now it must have travelled quite a long distance. He was crying so piteously as he left here. What a great offence I committed by forcing him to leave Braj like that.' He kept on thinking thoughts like these, wiping the tears from his face. The entire day was lost in remorse; he neither ate nor drank anything.Just before the sun went down, he saw the young Babaji arrive and was overwhelmed with joy and surprise. The young baba was exhausted from lack of food and drink, the fatigue of the long walk from Hatharas, as well as feeling trepidation for having disobeyed Jayakrishna Dasji. With tears in his eyes, he fell at Jayakrishna Dasji's feet. Jayakrishna Dasji picked him and pressed him to his chest and bathed him with his tears. He asked, 'How did you come back?' The young baba told him everything that he had been thinking and begged him emotionally for forgiveness for the offence of having disobeyed his orders. Jayakrishna Das calmed him by telling him all about Vrinda Devi's act of compassion. Upon hearing this, the young baba became overwhelmed by emotion and started to cry tears of joy. After this event, Jayakrishna Das became known throughout Braj as Siddha Baba. When did he arrive in Braj and where did he come from? Who was his spiritual master? No definite information can be given about this. It can only be said with certainty that he was initiated in the line of Ganga Mata Gosvamini. On the order of Vrinda Devi he took up residence on the banks of Bimala Kund in Kamyavan. A few days after arriving there, the local cowherd boys began to harrass him. He started to debate with himself about going somewhere else to engage in his worship (bhajan). When the local residents saw this they built him a hut. Jayakrishna took up residence there and remained constantly absorbed in his bhajan. He only went into the village in order to beg for his daily meal (madhukari). He chanted the Holy Name day and night; he did not sleep for even a minute, whether the reader believes it or not. In spite of this, there is nothing particularly unbelievable about this. It is the nature of the body to sleep or to be awake. All night long Baba would cry tears of love for Radha and Krishna as he concentrated on them, he would cry out and call for them, he would engage in the worship of the image with emotional prayers that were full of humility and anxiety; on occasion he would let out an ecstatic cry in a mood of loving absorption that the directions would shake. It is well known that on one occasion the roof of his cottage split when he let out such a cry. This can be seen even today. Siddha Baba Jayakrishna Das possessed a magnetic attraction that people were pulled to him from far and wide. If a person came into contact with him even a single time, it was impossible for him to leave him. We have already gotten some evidence of this attractive power in the story of his relations with Sri Radha Madan Mohan and the young Babaji. And we do not know how many such incidences took place with other people. On one occasion Sri Bhagavan Das, the abbot from Ramdiya village in Faridpur district, the monastic guru of Sri Jagadish Das Pandit Baba of Radha Kund, came to pay him a visit in order to gain the merit of his company for a few days. Such a bond of affection grew between them that each time Bhagavan Das spoke of leaving the two of them would faint at the prospect. It was only after a full month that Bhagavan Das was able to painfully drag himself away.At that time, Kamyavan was under the political control of the king of Bharatpur. The king wanted to have the darsan of the Siddha Baba. Even after much effort he was not able to fulfill this desire for the Siddha Baba would not allow materialistic persons to come near him. Then on one occasion, the king changed his dress and came and sat beside his cottage in poor and humble attire. At that time, Jayakrishna Das was in the village on his begging rounds. When he was halfway back to his cottage, he turned around and returned to the village. When he got there he began to shout, 'Friends! My cottage is on fire! Go and put it out, then I will come there myself.' He then sat down and remained in the village while the village people ran toward his cottage. There they saw that there was no fire, but that the king was there in disguise. Then they could understand what the Babaji intended. They explained everything to the king, 'The obstinacy of a yogi is much greater than that of a king.' The king, frightened and disappointed, returned home. Only then did the Babaji return and wash the place where the king had been sitting with water and cowdung in order to purify it. Then he sat down and resumed his bhajan. The king engaged in charitable acts towards Vaishnavas, therefore he did not really consider him to be a bad man. In fact, Babaji's treatment of him actually caused humility and indifference to the world to arise in him, so that in fact he was indirectly being kind to him. Once at midday, an event took place in Siddha Baba's intimate service of Krishna which caused him to feel a deep sense of separation from him. At that time countless cows and cowherds had come to Bimala Kund and were standing all around it. The cowherd boys called from outside his hut, 'Baba, we're thirsty. Give us some water!' Siddha Baba had been disturbed on previous occasions by the young cowherds, so he just remained seated in his hut without making a sound. But since when are boys ready to accept anything. They started to make various kinds of disturbances. They came by the door of the cottage and said, 'Hey Bengali Baba! We know you're doing your bhajan. A Babaji who is unkind is the same as a butcher! Come on out and give us something to drink. We're really thirsty.' Siddha Baba became angry and came outside with a stick in his hand. There he saw the countless cows and cowherd boys - each more beautiful than the next, each more wonderful than the next. Looking at them, his anger cooled down immediately. He asked, 'Child, which village do you come from?' The boy answered, 'From Nandagram.' He asked another boy, 'What's your name?' 'Kanhaiya.' 'And you, boy, what's your name.' He asked another of the boys. 'Bal Dau.' Then the boys said, 'Look Baba, first give us something to drink and then we can talk.' Baba was overcome with affection and poured them some water from his clay pot. One boy said, 'Look Baba, we always cover a great distance each day. We always leave thirsty. You please keep some water and a snack for us every day.' 'No sir. Don't harangue me every day,' said Baba, and he returned inside his room. Once inside, he began to think, 'I have never seen a cowherd boy of such beauty before, nor such wonderful cows. I never heard such wonderful speech before either. Were these children of this world or from some other world?' Upon thinking these thoughts, he decided to go back outside and have another look, but there he saw neither boys nor cattle! In sorrow and remorse, he started to contemplate his misfortune and his last words to the cowherd boys. While in this state, Krishna appeared before him and calmed him, saying, 'Don't be sad, Baba. I will come here again tomorrow.' With that, Baba came out of his trance and regained his composure. On the next day, an old Brijbasi woman came with a little statue of Gopal. She said, 'Baba, I can no longer take care of Gopal. You take him.' 'How will I take care of him? Where will I get all the paraphernalia that I will need,' said Baba. 'I will come daily with everything you need,' said the old woman who then left. Baba was enchanted by the beauty of the Gopal figurine. That night the old lady appeared to him again in the form of Vrinda Devi. Gopal has a topsy turvy way of doing things. Sometimes someone calls him but he does not come. Sometimes someone does not call him, but he goes to him anyway even after having ignored him. The seers, sages and monks call him and call him, but are ultimately without success; he never appears, even on the surface of his mind. On the other hand, even though his devotees might not call him he follows them dedicatedly anyway. Baba had considered the coming of the cowherd boys to be a disturbance and he had told them not to come again and again. For this very reason he had come to stay with him in such a way that there was no possibility whatsoever that he should leave again. After a few days of serving Gopal with love, Siddha Baba left his earthly body on the twelfth day of the waxing moon in the moth of Caitra, taking his transcendental body to enter into the eternal lila. Sometimes he would hear the sound of someone playing the flute and would put on women's clothing and go out to meet the lover. His last words were, 'Where is my petticoat? Where is my skirt? Where is my bodice?' Gopal! I would like to ask you one question. Will you answer? Like a bumblebee you came all the way from Bengal in the form of Madan Mohan in order to taste the honey of Baba's loving service. After tasting this honey for a long time, you were still not satisfied and so you came in another form to his cottage. If you considered Baba's powers of service to be unlimited, you could have taken an unlimited number of forms to be served, and still not have been satiated. What is the reason that you became so interested in an old man who wears nothing more than a rag for a loincloth? Comment on this story | Contact VNN about this story | Send this story to a friend
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