Syamarani didi - Gangamata Goswamini, Sri Baladeva Vidyabhusana --- Los Angeles, May 2012

om ajnana timirandhasya jnananjana salakaya
caksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri gurave namah
"O Gurudeva, you are so merciful. I offer my humble pranama unto you and am praying from the core of my heart that, with the torchlight of divine knowledge, you open my eyes which have been blinded by the darkness of ignorance."

 

Class by Syamarani didi; my shorthand notes -

Gangamata Goswamini
Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana
LA, May 2012

"All of us ladies should follow Gangamata Goswamini. [Gurudeva said we should be like her, I remember.]

Gangamata Goswamini was a princess around the time of Srila Rupa Goswami. She wanted to marry only Krsna. She arrived in Vrndavana after Rupa, Sanatana had already left, when Ragunatha Goswami was still present. She was initiated by a Haridas Prabhu (not Haridas Thakura).

[Prabhupada spoke on the asta satvika bhavas during Syamarani didi's harinama initiation, saying they are our goal in chanting.]

"Haridas put Gangamata Goswamini - Sacidevi - at age 16, under the care of another lady disciple of his, who was 50 years old. He told her would supply her with nothing material. Sacidevi took only what she needed to maintain her life. She was very chaste. She recorded things from her Gurudeva in her heart.

"At age 50 she was told to go to Radha Kund. Her guardian lady passed on, so she went to her guru and asked him what she should do. He told her he would soon leave, and instructed her to go Puri to find the place of Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya and do bhajan.

"Many years later, after the Ganga flowed to her lotus feet, after a king and his associates took initiation from her, Gangamata Goswamini had them built a temple at the place of Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya. Just see how guru and Krsna arrange all for us if we simply chant, preach, and do bhajan.

Srimati Gangamata Goswamini

"Sri Baladeva Vidyabhusana was born in Orissa by Chilka Lane. This is where Krsna and Balarama - Jagannath and Baladev - bought milk from an old lady on their way to fight for the king of Puri, and gave her Their rings [said to show them to the king who would come by later with his army; when the king discovered that, as he had prayed, Jagannath and Baladev would help him win the fight, he gave the old lady a palace.]

"Sri Baladeva Vidyabhusana was expert at vyakarana - Sanksrit grammar. He studied all Vedanta in Udupi. He went to Puri and there met Radha Damodara Prabhu, who came after Syamananda Prabhu and took initiation from him. Then he went to Vrndavana and took shelter of his siksa guru, Srila Vishvanatha Cakravarti Thakura.

"He read all of Srila Jiva Goswami's Sandarbhas. He defeated many. Gurudeva wants us to be scholars.

"Gaudiya are in the Madhva line because Laxmi Tirtha gave diksa to Lord Nityananda and Madhavendra Puri.

"How can we practice defeating people [in spiritual debate] and giving classes? - give classes at colleges and events, repeat what you have heard in harikatha."

 Srila Vishvanath Cakravarti Thakura