September 3, 2002

Finally all the excitement from Janmastami is over…. The sad thing is that Gurudeva left for Fiji and Europe and won’t be back until in the middle of October.

The devotees in new Goloka have been extremely blessed to have Gurudeva’s association for a couple months and we have also been feeling very happy he has gotten some rest.

Janmastami went well. You can also check out Janmastami pictures . Despite the pouring rain, many people came, and stayed the entire night. We had bhajans, Bharata natyam Dance, music by the local gurukuli youth, a class by Srila Gurudeva and bathing of Their Lordships Chota RadhaGolokananda!

The next day Srila Prabhupada’s appearance day celebration started at 2pm. The program started was led by Garuda prabhu and it started with Srila Gurudeva reading his offering to Srila Prabhupada. Gurudeva’s offering was all about Srila Tamal Krishna Maharaja and his feelings of the departure of Prabhupada’s dear servant. When he started to read the offering, he was unable to continue and Garuda Prabhu had to read it for him. We were all very touched by Srila Gurudeva’s deep words. Later on someone told Srila Gurudeva how touched they were of his showing emotions and crying, and he said ” it was just some allergies”, with a smile on his face…

Then the next morning after Vyasa-puja Gurudeva headed towards LA and then Fiji in couple days. He left the temple at 5am and left all of us feeling his separation.