By Damodharlila Dasa (Maharashtra Padayatra leader)
After his foreign tour Acarya Prabhu visited our padayatra when we were at Jamkhed in Ahilyanagar District. His presence infused us with encouragement. He gave Srimad-Bhagavatam class in the morning and guided each one of us. He said the number of padayatris should increase for the service of Their Lordships and asked us to pray to Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar to live together in harmony. We were very uplifted by his words of wisdom.
It had been four to five years since Acarya had visited us, this time staying for two to three days. He attended all our programmes with us and seeing his devotion all the padayatris were inspired, even those who never attended mangala arati started coming.
We did house programmes in Jamkhed at the property of a grihasta disciple of Radhanath Maharaja whose name was also Acarya. He stayed with padayatra for fifteen months and has been regularly serving since. He also keeps in contact with us. We also did a programme at Rajarishi Prabhu’s house where they welcomed us nicely.
We recently went on Gaura-mandal parikrama and on our way back Mokshada Ekadashi Mataji saw us at the Jamkhed bus stand. She had a strong desire that padayatra and the devotees should come to her house so when we were in Beed, I went to her place in Jamkhed with an advance party. When we told her that the padayatra was coming to her village she was shocked, saying “How can this happen, I desired and the Lord is coming.”
We had planned to stay in Beed for two days; however, we couldn’t get a place in the city so we tried staying in a colony outside the city but there was no water or toilet, so we moved ahead to Jamkhed. There was an empty plot in front of Mataji’s house and we stayed there. She was very happy and requested that we stay for at least one day, but we stayed for eight days!
Mataji was delighted that the Lord heard her prayer.
Sri Sri Nitai-Gaurasundar ki jai.
