Today we had decided to go to the wonderful samadhis of Lokanatha Goswami, Narottama Das Thakur, Vishvanatha Chakravarti, Baladeva Vidhyabhusan, Ganga Narayan, and others. This is definitely one of our favorite places in Vrindavan. It is so quiet there, so peaceful, and actually very private, hardly anyone else is there whenever we visit. It is also one of the nicest places to pray at because of all the exalted Vaisnavas there. Of course the deities there are incredible too.
We left around 9:30 again, with about the same group of people, our little riksha procession through Vrindavan. When we got to the samadhis, we spent a few minutes praying and then set up right in front of Lokanatha Goswami's samadhi. Before we started with the Saranagati songs, we decided to sing the Guru Puja kirtan which was written by Narottama Das Thakur for his spiritual master, Lokanatha Goswami. When we sang that bhajan there it felt like something completely different, something completely new. Every line took on a whole new meaning, and the whole bhajan felt so sweet to sing. It is such a wonderful feeling to be singing these songs to the very people that they were written for, the songs never feel the same again. I am so grateful to have had these opportunities to sing these beautiful prayers to these Vaisnavas. Most of the time I am so spaced out, I can hardly focus my mind to really understand and appreciate where I am, what to speak of trying to form my own prayers. But when I am given the chance to sing these amazing prayers by other Acharyas, I can actually put my heart into it, and pray with some feeling. The prayers are so beautiful and heart-felt, that even when someone as spaced out as me sings them, their heart is moved and they are allowed to pray with a little more sincerity. So I am very very grateful to have been able to do this. I can't even imagine how much I would have been missing out on, how much I would have been wasting my (perhaps only) chance to be in the association of such Vaisnavas.
After the Guru Puja kirtan, we sang the Sad-goswami-astakam and that was another wonderful experience. In Vrindavan you can feel the influence and presence of the six goswamis so strongly, it really feels like Vrindavan is their town and they are the heroes of it. Most of the main temples are the temples of the six goswamis, the Vaisnava Research Institute still has a lot of their writings, and everyone knows about them. And so it felt so perfect to be singing that song there, in Vrindavan. I was dying to sing it ever since the Govardhan Retreat when Bhurijana Prabhu quoted one line from it, and it was stuck in my head for weeks, practically the whole time I was in Vrindavan, so finally I could sing it! Oh, it felt so good! I wanted to sing it again and again, I wish I knew it by heart. It is definitely one of my favorite bhajans ever. We decided to sing our Saranagati bhajans inside the temple, because as we were singing those two songs, a temple devotee was burning some brush very close by and all the smoke was blowing into us making it very difficult to sing.
We got inside the temple and asked the pujari if we could do kirtan there, he was practically ecstatic. So we started singing our bhajans, and they were fantastic too. The pujari's wife came with some kartals and started playing and singing with us. I don't think she could read the English but she sang the Hare Krsna at the end. During our session the pujari started the noon artik, and so his wife rang the bell and played the gong at the same time, and sang with us! It was quite an amazing sight! It was a little too loud to actually sing the bhajans so we just sang Hare Krsna and then the names of the deities. It was also another incredible feeling to be singing the names of the deities to the actual original dieties, and we were singing in front of the Lord Caitanya diety that Narottama Thakur worshiped, and in front of the Govardhan Sila that Lord Caitanya worshiped and gave to Ragunatha Das Goswami! It was so much fun. Finally after the artik finished, we finished and went back to MVT.
After lunch, Kar and I decided to walk over to Sanatan Goswami's samadhi to chant some japa. It isn't too far away from the Iskcon temple so it was a very nice and easy walk, plus we really liked Sanatana Goswami's samadhi. We chanted there for about an hour, and since it was mid-afternoon there was practically no one there but us. I can't even describe how nice it is to be there, even when the doors are closed and no one is there. Just when we decided to head back, the pujari came and opened the doors so we could pay our obesciances to Sanatan Goswami, then the pujari gave us a banana leaf cup full of sweet rice. I was a little anxious about eating it because I was just getting over being sick, so I was going to just take it with me then give it to someone else. But the pujari wouldn't let us out of the screened area unless we finished it because he said the monkeys would attack! So we had to accept the maha-prasadam sweet rice from Sanatana Goswami, and it was the best sweet rice I have ever eaten! I would have eaten it over and over again even if it made me sick as anything. It was the most perfect sweet rice ever.
When we got back Neem told us that there wasn't going to be any kirtan that evening at Yamuna's and Dina's because they were both feeling a sick. So we just stayed at our place and relaxed and read for a little bit before going to bed. After a day like that I just felt so fortunate and grateful.
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