Requiem for a Saint

Writing a eulogy for a friend is not an easy task. In some ways the loss of a friend is greater than the loss of a parent or even of a brother. We have no choice in the manner of our parents. And since, they are older than we are, it seems only natural that they should depart this world before we do.

We mourn the death of our parents as a rite of passage into adulthood. Even more shocking is the loss of a brother or sister, since they accompany us in our life’s journey, know our secrets, and engage with us as family throughout our lifetime.

Friends are different. We may not choose our parents, but we choose our friends. They are our soulmates. We expect them to be there when we need them, even when we haven’t seen them for a long time.

And yet, our life hangs by a thread. Our flesh and bones are far more fragile than we imagine. While we think of ourselves as Superman, invulnerable to the slings and arrows of fortune, a rupture of the tiniest artery means instant death. The human heart begins to pump blood even before our birth and yet continues without rest 70 times a minute for 80 years or so. If we’re lucky.

I lost a friend last week.

John Hedrick, Yudhamanyu, “Vikrama-Seva,” the Big “Y” was beloved by an international community of friends and family. He had dedicated his life, since the 1970s, to the mission of Krishna Consciousness, the Hare Krishna movement. He found peace, joy, meaning and love in the Hare Krishna mantra and in the devotees who did their best to practice those teachings. His journey to surrender would take him from Portland, Oregon to Nabadwip, India, from San Jose, California to Thailand and China.

I am shocked. I hadn’t seen him in years. But recently I was thinking of him. It’s not easy for me to reach out sometimes, but now that we can connect so easily with each other, using the internet I felt that I would be in contact with him shortly. We had lost contact for many years. He had gone to China. I had moved to Mexico. I saw his picture in a couple of group shots of the devotees of China recently, and thought about trying to find him. But he has been taken from me before I had the chance.

I first met Yudhamanyu in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was there on business, fundraising for a temple in India. A disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami, founder of the Hare Krishna movement, he had taken an interest in supporting the mission of Shridhar Maharaja, Bhaktivedanta Swami’s Godbrother and friend. Both the Swami and Shridhar Maharaja had worked together in the mission of their own guru, Saraswati Thakura. Bhaktivedanta Swami had gone to the west. His “Hare Krishna” movement had been a big success. Shridhar Maharaja had retired to the banks of the Ganges. Through a mutual friend, I was fortunate enough to visit his ashram in 1981. Fortune and circumstance sent me to South Africa to raise support for the Chaitanya Saraswat Math, Shridhar Maharaja’s mission. It was there that I first crossed paths with Yudhamanyu.

He had also heard of Shridhar Maharaja. In those days we were mourning the loss of Bhaktivedanta Swami. We were looking for solace and shelter. Our teacher had passed away, but we needed further guidance. In his 90s, Shridhar Maharaja was uninterested in fame, money, and disciples. While some of our friends and godbrothers had stepped in to continue the mission of Bhaktivedanta Swami, they were often young and inexperienced. None of them had the depth of Shridhar Maharaja.

In those days we had no internet. A telephone call to India took days to schedule. But we had a stack of audio cassette recordings where Shridhar Maharaja had answered questions relating to the spiritual life of those on the path to bhakti, the devotional principle of love of God, Krishna. We would get up early in the morning and play the cassettes with some friends and listen carefully to the message.

Shridhar Maharaja’s discourse was different from what we had heard before. Others would explain bhakti in terms of the rules to be followed. It was a process, with a result. “Follow the process and get the result,” we were told. But Shridhar Maharaja emphasized surrender as its own end. Bhakti was not a “means toward an end,” but an end in itself. The goal of divine love is divine love, he explained. What was importance was substance over form, quality over quantity, God consciousness over society consciousness, and “Die to Live.” He spoke of Hegelian dialectic and Bhaktivinod Thakur’s Krishna Samhita. We had struck gold.

After Bhaktivedanta Swami’s departure there was some controversy about the succession. We wondered, “Which of his disciples would carry the mission forward?” But after listening to the discourse of Shridhar Maharaja, we wanted only to serve his mission. At that time, the Caitanya Saraswat Math was quite humble. There was the temple with a meeting hall or “nath-mandir” a building with living quarters for a few brahmacharis, a kitchen and a go-shala area for cows. Shridhar Maharaja would give an informal talk to the 5 or 6 people who visited on a daily basis. There was much to do to promote his mission.

For my part, I felt it was indispensable to see to it that the lectures he was giving were transformed into published books. My brain was on fire with this idea. Fortunately, Bhakti Sudhir Goswami, who was called Dheer Krishna Swami at the time, accepted my voluntary service. From Johannesburg, South Africa I would fly to San Jose, California and get to work under his guidance.

But in the meantime, certain elements in South Africa tried to prevent us from moving forward. I can’t get into the details here, but a number of fanatics from a rival yoga group actually threatened us with violence. We had been staying at a yoga ashram in Johannesburg and discussing the teachings of Shridhar Maharaja. The fanatics planned an assault with automatic weapons. I’m not sure how he did it, but Yudhamanyu Prabhu negotiated a settlement and we were safe for a time. I soon flew to California, leaving him behind. He continued meeting people and having conversations, later enlisted a young man, Bhakta Lou, who would become Akinchana Maharaja.

In California, Dheer Krishna Swami had gathered a small group that was to be the nucleus of our mission there. We incorporated as a 501 c3 non-profit religious organization called the Krishna Consciousness Movement. He had acquired a building that would serve as temple, ashram, and press at 61 South 13th Street. Our first major acquisition of technology was an IBM Selectric typewriter. It had a tiny corrective tape on an orange spool, so that if you made a mistake you could go back and correct up to 15 characters. The few brahmacharis, Kshama-Buddhi, Vidagdha Madhava, and Ramai Prabhu that stayed with us slept on the floor. We got up early in the morning and celebrated aroti. After chanting 16 rounds of japa we all went about our duties. Mine was to begin the task of transcribing the taped lectures of Shridhar Maharaja and turning them into books.

After a time, we managed to get a dictation-playback machine with a foot-pedal. This was great, because you could insert the cassette and listen, but if you wanted to repeat something, you hit the foot-pedal and the cassette would return ten or fifteen seconds. You could hear the tape again. Shridhar Maharaja’s English intonation was especially difficult to understand. He had a bit of a Scottish accent to his Bengali, since he was educated at schools run by Scottish Jesuits. So his English accent was somewhere between Scottish and Bengali-Indian. Also there was a lot of ambient noise on the tapes: you could hear the exotic birds of Bengal, the jingling bicycle bells of the rickshaw-wallas, the hammer-blows of the men working on the temple. There were conversations in Bengali that would fade in and out, the gong announcing prasadam, and the drum and kartals of the kirtan in the hall below. All this made transcription a task. I would swear that Shridhar Maharaja would say, “So, he is to arrive by tooth or nail,” and someone, (Govinda Maharaja?) would reply, “Yes, by tooth or nail,” only to discover that he was saying “Touffant Mail,” the name of the train. In this way I spent many mornings, going over tape after tape, listening again and again to the magic of Shridhar Maharaja’s voice. Soon we had a pile of transcripts.

After a few months, we heard from Yudhamanyu. His business had a big success in Johannesburg, but he was ready to make a move. He called us in San Jose and said he was determined to come. He would bring his wife Jivana Devi Dasi and a friend of hers and join us in San Jose. We were elated. Yudhamanyu would be a big help. Our little ashram was sputtering along with very little income. We had barely enough to keep the mission going. We discovered that the same rival yoga groups that had harassed us in South Africa were also in California. They had somehow decided that they didn’t like our organization and were determined to stop the publication of Shridhar Maharaja’s books, by force if necessary. We knew that Yudhamanyu would help us with organization and fundraising. He had already negotiated with dangerous people in South Africa. He would be a great asset. We waited eagerly for his arrival.

Madhumati DD remembers, “He came with Jivana and Prabula in a white flatbed truck from Seattle late one night. I believe within a week they were all out collecting.I remember money was pretty tight and they really helped. Maybe even saved the temple from going under. Kshamabuddhi, Brahma Prabhu and Bhakta Priya were already there. Jivana and I cooked several times a week and made milk sweets. Yuddhamyu was fired up .He had long, loud discussions with Goswami Maharaj. It was a shock to hear that he left, I know that he had high blood pressure and had just flown from America to China just 2 days before. It is a boon for him to go on--but a loss here on this plane. His sense and mood of dedication is a rare thing in this world. They went out a lot collecting so your early memories are not faulty they weren’t there a lot and they would eat sleep and get up early and go collecting. I consider because of Goswami, you and the people collecting Srila Guru Maharaja's books were published and brought to the Western world, how to calculate that service? It is not possible. He was a blessed man.”

Yudhamanyu was one of the disciples of Śrila Prabhupāda who whole-heartedly accepted Śrīdhara Mahārāja as soon as he came into contact with his teachings. Śrīdhara Mahārāja’s mission was, at that time, quite humble. Yudhamanyu dedicated himself to organizing different enterprises that would help support that mission. Whatever was wanting, Yudhamanyu found a way to provide.

The name “Yudhamanyu” was given him by Śrīla Prabhupāda. It is found in the first chapter of Bhagavad-Gita which enumerates the names of the great warriors at the Battle of Kurukśetra: yudhamanyus ca vikranta... “The Mighty Yudhamanyu...”

We used to joke with him and call him “The Mighty Yudhamanyu,” until one day Śrīdhara Mahārāja took it upon himself to give him a special title, following in the footsteps of Bhaktisiddhānta Saraswati who often gave titles to his most intimate followers. Śrīdhara Mahārāja called him Vikram-Seva: “Mighty Servant,” or “One who gives powerful service.” In the years following this, Yudhamanyu proved true to his name, doing service not only in India and the United States, but later in Thailand and China, where he helped found the mission there.

He was a tireless supporter of the mission who gave everything, spent everything, and put all his energy into the service of Shridhar Maharaja, Govinda Maharaja, and the Chaitanya Saraswat Math.

Yudhamanyu Seva Vikrama was also a great teacher. He was not proud. He had little attitude as a “big devotee.” He had a great sense of humor. I had been a devotee for many years, doing my best to practice, when I realized that I had very few true friends among the devotees. We would work side to side and believed in the same things, but frankly I had very few true heart to heart connections with other followers. Yudhamanyu was different. I knew I could trust him with my life. I can’t tell all the stories of the old times; it would be needless nostalgia few people would understand. But he was a great teacher in that he taught by example.

Great masters are not always great teachers. Often their dominance intimidates. A student sees the mastery of a great violin virtuoso and puts down the instrument never to play again. Virtuosity can be soul-crushing. A good teacher can empower the student. He demonstrates facility and makes the student feel, “If he can do it, I can do it.” Yudhamanyu’s easy-going style made many neophytes feel, “I can do it.” He helped many begin their journey on the road to surrender.

All those in the Caitanya Saraswat Math, from acharyas, to gurus, to swamis, to just regular folks owe Yudhamanyu a debt. Without his mighty service temples would not have been built, books would have gone unprinted and unpublished, sannyasis would not have had the means to travel and preach. He was a great and unsung hero.

And yes, he was a saint.

Neophytes pore over books trying to find the qualities of a saint written there. We compare and contrast real life candidates for saint-hood and find them riddled with faults. Saraswati Thakur himself said, “I am honeycombed with faults.” It’s easy to find faults with monks and martyrs and those who would pass for saints. But it was Christ who said “Ye will know them by their fruits,” when asked who the saints were. I believe saints exist. They walk among us, often unrecognized. Shri Chaitanya Himself was warned by the orthodox not to speak with Ramananda Roy, a simple dance teacher. After all, he often touched the women who danced in his class, to adjust their posture. How could such a man know anything about the divine? Hari Das Thakura was apparently a muslim. The acolytes of the Jagannatha temple would not let him pass. He was, after all, not a Hindu. Real saints often do not seem so.

It does us good to know that apart from the Vaishnava virtuosos ordinary men who know how to live and laugh may also be saints. It gives us heart to know that monks and mystics may walk among us disguised as ordinary men. Now that Yudhamanyu, Seva Vikrama, no longer walks with us we may think that he is continuing his work as an advance man.

Yudhamanyu knew how to set up a mission and do all the advance work ahead of the “big preachers.” In China he was the tip of the spear. Now he has moved on.

But in moving on, I’d like to think that he is continuing his advance work, setting up all that is necessary so that we can join him in the greater kirtan.

I have faith that the divine sound of the holy name will deliver us. Today is the divine appearance day of Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who appeared as the Golden Volcano of Divine Love, the golden avatar to ensure that we all participate in the dance of kirtan. The dance of Sri Krishna in Vrindavan is confidential. But everyone is invited to participate in the kirtan of the holy name, Hare Krishna.

Yudhamanyu Prabhu dedicated his life to promulgated the kirtan of the holy name and invited all to participate. Now that his ashes have been committed to the heart of the Ganges river by the Gauranga Setu bridge near the aparadha-bhanjan by the Chaitanya Saraswat Matha of Bhakti Rakshaka Shridhar Dev Goswami, I am sure that his immortal soul is dancing in the eternal kirtan. He has gone to prepare us a place in the kirtan, assuring that there are mridanga and kartals for everyone and fresh banana leaves for the feast. He is dancing with Shruta Shrava Prabhu, Vaishnava Maharaja, Chidananda Prabhu, Siddhanti Maharaja, and with our superior gurus and the great Vaishnavas among whom we may someday see again Govinda Maharaja, Shridhar Maharaja, and Śrila Prabhupada.

pujala ragapath gaurava bange matala harijana kirtana range.