{"id":2558,"date":"2016-05-30T13:58:10","date_gmt":"2016-05-30T08:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/?p=2558"},"modified":"2016-05-30T13:58:10","modified_gmt":"2016-05-30T08:28:10","slug":"nitai-gaurasundar-steals-sahadev-dasas-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/padayatra-new\/nitai-gaurasundar-steals-sahadev-dasas-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"Nitai Gaurasundar Steals Sahadev Dasa\u2019s Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Acarya Dasa<\/p>\n<p>Since the end of February this year our <em>padayatra <\/em>party enlisted a new member, Sahadev Dasa, a Russian devotee. We met him during our stay in Navadvipa where we spoke to him about the \u2018All India Padayatra\u2019. He was very interested and wanted to serve Sri Sri Nitai Gaurasundar and ever since then he has become one of us \u2013a <em>padayatri<\/em>. This is his first time travelling around India and he is a perfect example of the mercy of Lord Caitanya. First, the Lord gave Sahadev Dasa His divine <em>darsana<\/em> in Mayapur and then slowly but surely He began pulling Him closer towards this mission. He has been with us now for three months and although he does speak a little English,he does not speak Hindi or Tamil. I am often asked how we communicate with this devotee and my response is, \u201cWell, he does a lot of book distribution, how is that possible?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We have realized that the people of Chennai do not respond when we address them in Hindi.\u00a0 So we have now begun to ask aTamil devotee to do all the announcements. This Tamil devotee actually taught Sahadev Dasa a few words in Tamil which he uses when he distributes books. This proves that a difference in language does not bar one from preaching the message of the Lord. We have seen how inspired people are by hearing a foreigner speak about the message of God. They may not listen to us but they are attracted to him. Whenever we ask Sahadev Dasa about how he does it, he responds by saying, \u201cI just meditate on the lotus feet of Gaura Nitai and say, <em>Oh merciful Lord please bless these souls<\/em>.\u00a0 It works and people take a Bhagavad-gita.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Anyone who walks on <em>padayatra <\/em>just once gets the unlimited mercy of Sri Sri Nitai Gaurasundar. They are also blessed with many realizations which assists in creating a good foundation for spiritual advancement. When asked how he felt about his experience on <em>padayatra <\/em>thus far Sahadev Dasa said, \u201cI feel my first tour to India is successful and I feel I am walking back to Godhead.\u201d Sahadev Dasa always does whatever is asked of him and he is also a very good photographer.\u00a0 We therefore enjoy having him on <em>padayatra.<\/em> Whenever I think about communicating with Sahadev Dasa, I remember what my Gurudev, Lokanath Swami always says, \u201cUnity of purpose and unity of vision.\u201d It is because we are on the same mission that we can understand what\u2019s going on in each other\u2019s minds. My Guru Maharaj also described it with a nice Marathi phrase \u201ceka hrdaya\u201d. We all have the same purpose in our heart so things become easy.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone should join in on this walk (<em>padayatra<\/em>) as Sahadev Dasa said \u201cback to Godhead.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nitai Gaurasundar ki! Jai!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-2558 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/padayatra-new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Hg_Sahadev_Prabhu_doing_sankirtan-ed.jpg' title=\"\" data-rl_title=\"\" class=\"rl-gallery-link\" data-rl_caption=\"\" data-rel=\"lightbox-gallery-1\"><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/padayatra-new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Hg_Sahadev_Prabhu_doing_sankirtan-ed-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-2559\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-2559'>\n\t\t\t\tSahadev Dasa on sankirtana\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/padayatra-new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Hg_Sahadev_Prabhu_Russain_devotee_in_Padayatra-ed.jpg' title=\"\" data-rl_title=\"\" class=\"rl-gallery-link\" data-rl_caption=\"\" data-rel=\"lightbox-gallery-1\"><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/padayatra-new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Hg_Sahadev_Prabhu_Russain_devotee_in_Padayatra-ed-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-2560\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-2560'>\n\t\t\t\tSahadev Dasa distributing books\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Acarya Dasa Since the end of February this year our padayatra party enlisted a new member, Sahadev Dasa, a Russian devotee. We met him during our stay in Navadvipa where we spoke to him about the \u2018All India Padayatra\u2019. He was very interested and wanted to serve Sri Sri Nitai Gaurasundar and ever since [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2559,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/padayatra-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/padayatra-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/padayatra-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/padayatra-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/padayatra-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/padayatra-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/padayatra-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/padayatra-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/padayatra-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.padayatra.com\/padayatra-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}