Devala Rsi dasa and Sri Pati devi dasi
New Talavana Mandira, in Carriere, MS, USA

last updated 24th June 2007

The Altar

My name is Sri Pati devi dasi and when I was in india in 2005 a beautiful black rock showed up in my bead bag. My family and I were on Safari with Jaya Pataka Maharaj. Bhakti Siddhanta Maharaj along with other devotees told us that this black rock was a Matsya Sila. So now we take care of Him. Last year for Kartik I was in Vrindavan and two Govardhan Sila's were given to my family. I would like to make a profile for Them on your site, but I don't know how, I heard from some devotees that you can help me with this. I will send you some pictues of our beautiful Lords.  I will also send more pictures, but for now this is all I have.

 Your Servant,
  Sri Pati d.d

(More below)

Radhe Shyam Govardhan silas

Shyam

Radhe

Dear Prabhu,
Paoho.  AgtSA, SP, and all the nectarean, sincere followers who love to share the nectar they have so kindly been given.  Thank you so much for fixing up the site for the pleasure of Their Lordships, and for your incredible service.  You enable the devotees to receive such wonderful nectar.  It's so marvelous, I can barely get my work done, I could just sit here all day and look at the beautiful pics and read all the stories.

So... our story is.... My husband and I are both disciples of HH Hridayananda Maharaja.  We are based at New Talavana Mandira, in Carriere, MS~the home of the beautiful and merciful Sri Sri Gaura~Nitai, and Sri Sri Radha~Radha Kanta.  We are a small community, trying to follow SP's instructions to live simply and preach.  We have about 120 cows, 1400acres of gentle hills, a garden, fruit trees, and a small school.  We have a Food for Life program that is successful, and different nice preaching opportunities in surrounding areas.  The pic of our Sila's on the table was from Jazz Fest, a huge 2 weekend concert in New Orleans.  We distribute thousands of plates of prasad, SP's books, and we have a really nice cultural program mostly with our talented youth.

I don't know why Sila's have always fascinated me.  Even though I was a bit nervous around Them, feeling a lot of power coming from Them, I still wanted to know everything about Them.  Before Katrina hit us (we lost our home due to a raging fire after the storm) I would sit for hours at your site, in ecstasy, reading these amazing stories about how the Lord interacts with the devotees and so much appreciating your site.  My friend has a Giriraj, and although I was scared to be around Him (thinking I am too offensive to be in His presence), I became so happy around Him.  I would always bring Him nice fruits b/c I wanted Him to smile at me.  I loved His happy smile!

Now, we fast foward to 2005.  It was April and we were in Hrshikesh with hundreds of devotees on Safari.  We were staying in an ashram, and for about a week or two, I kept having a strong feeling to clean the maha flowers out of my beadbag.  I was also quite sick, and kept forgetting to do it.  One day, the feeling was very strong, so I sat outside and cleaned the flowers out.  I also felt 2 small rocks in there, so I was looking at the rocks, thinking how in the heck these rocks had gotten in my beadbag.   To this day, it's still a mystery.   Immediately, I was really liking this small black, fish shaped rock~(we are a rock collecting family, everywhere we go, we find rocks and bring them home).  I was thinking what an awesome, smooth, beautiful black rock this is.  The other rock was just a cool, yet ordinary rock.  I was showing some devotees this beautiful black rock, and they were saying, "M. Sri, this looks like it could be a Salagram Sila!! " So we asked some devotees who worship Silas, and they said sure enough, it is a Sila!!  We were excited, nervous, but mostly very happy.  I didn't have the slightest idea how to care for Him, but immediately gave the Lord water and a rose asana.  When my husband and I brought Him to HH Bhaktisiddhanta Maharaja, he talked with us and said the Sila looks like a Matsya Sila.  He said to take Him to Padmanabh Maharaja when we go to Vrndavan and get his input.  Before we left that ashram, 2 more Sila's came to us, but I got overwhelmed b/c I didn't know anything about caring for Them, and my husband had to leave before we did and he couldn't advise me what to do so I gave Them to a devotee who worships Silas.  Now, I feel sad about that, and I will never do that again~ if Krsna comes, we will take care of Him.  When we got to Vrndavana a couple of months later, we did go see PM at Radha Raman, and he also confirmed this is Matsya.  How amazing that Matsya just came along to us to save us from the ocean of nescience!   When we came back to New Talavana, our friends here all fell in love with Matsya, indeed, everyone who sees Him is so attracted to Him.  Our friend Candra Banu calls Him the little rock star!

I apologised to Kana (our nickname for our sweet Vrndavan Boy) for giving the other Sila's away, and mentioned to Him if He ever wanted some friends to come and stay with Him, that is fine.  A year later, my daughter, Marisha, and I were in Vrndavan for Kartik with our dear friends Bhaktidhana and her 3 kids.  We were in Govardhana, at the Iskcon mandir, Bhakti and I had stopped at a pile of Silas there and Bhakti said a little prayer about how nice it would be one day (she was thinking maybe 10 or so years) if Giriraja could come to their family and they could care for Him, and thereby be in Vrndavan consciousness all the time.  Two days later, on the auspicious day of Dipavali, our girls went to a bhajan at a gurukuli's home.  The girls came home later that evening, so excited.  We have a present for you, look at this wonderful present!!  Marisha had a Govardhana Sila in each hand and Bhakti's daughter Nalina also had a beautiful golden Sila in her hand as well.

One devotee who had been on Safari with us was at that bhajan, and gave the girls the Sila's for us to worship.  HH Bhaktisiddhanta Maharaja was also in Vrndavan for Kartik, so we went with the kids to see him and find out what to do.  He said that our Syam, the larger Sila is a Yugala Kisore, Radha and Krsna combined, as there is a large golden streak across the right side of Syam's face, and he said the small golden Sila is very special, all the lila's are present.  There is a small cow head and face with horns on the back of this sweet Sila Whom we worship as Radhe.    I think Maharaja said Bhakti's Sila is also a Yugala  Sila.  BSM said to go to Uddhava Kunda and talk to Giriraja Maharaja there to get permission to take the Lords out of Vrndavan.  We did, and we had a very wonderful exchange with Maharaja.  He was so kind to us, patting us on the head and saying, you take care of Krsna and be happy, now you will be happy.  He is like a loving grandpa.   He said we have to bring the Deities back to Govardhana for visits.  What better excuse could we have to go to Vrndavana?

We are just simply enchanted by these most wonderful Lords of our hearts, how They are so very merciful to leave Vrndavan and Govardhana (and Hrsikesh where the most exquistie Mahadeva I have ever seen sits at the bank of the Ganga in devout meditation) to come live with us, to take care of us, and help us to give up all materialistic mentalities, so we can develop pure love for Them.  Our spiritual master gave us permission to worship Them, and our lives have become permanently changed for the better since They came.  We consider all this to be simply the causeless mercy of our sp. master and our SSGN and SSRRK.  They know how much we love Mayapura and Vrndavana, so They make these arrangements for us.  We simply pray for the continued mercy and blessing of the Lords dear devotees so we can eternally continue in devotional service.  We feel unqualified for this service, but if we can somehow please the devotees and the Lord in some small (or big) way, than our lives are a success.  We also pray to our prana, our Kana, and our dearie Giri to never leave us.

One interesting thing that has happened since our return back to NT is that our Radhe of  Radhe Syam has completely changed Her complexion.  She is the smaller Sila, and as Her complexion was so golden She could only be Radha.  Since November of 2006, Her complexion is now darker than Syams'.  When I bathe Her,  before the bath and after the bath  I give fragrant oil massage, but I haven't been putting on Her face, as I want the gopi dots and tilak to show up so I know the complexion change is not from the oil massage.  Somehow, She is taking on Syam's complexion.  What other wonderful things will happen in the future?  We will be happy to see what evolves as They mystically reveal what They want.

Prabhu(s), I'm sorry for all the details, I just wanted to share with you the nice story of how the Lord came to stay with us.  Please feel free to edit anything.  I will tell my friend Bhakti about how easy it is to get a profile on your site, I know she wants her dearie Giri to become famous too!  These are the real rock stars, the ones in America are not even paltry imitations, we have to help them appreciate that Radika Kanai are the real stars!  I will send this letter now, and when my tech support (Marisha) comes home from dance class, we will send along some nice pics to you.  Thank you so much for your site, and the prompt response.   All glories to your service, and to the lotus eyed Lord(s) Who eternally enact divine pastimes everywhere in the world, and Who is so kind to allow us to be a part of it all!

Your servant,
Sri Pati dd
 

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