Mukunda Maharaja tells us that one day, during a meeting with you, you became deeply absorbed in remembrance of your own spiritual master, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, and tears flowed down your cheeks.
“My spiritual master,” you said, and your voice, he says, choked to gravel. “My spiritual master,” you repeated, “he was no ordinary spiritual master.” You paused again, and then whispered falteringly, “He saved me.”
I have sometimes reflected on this astonishing transcendental moment and wondered exactly what you meant when you said, “He saved me.” You were born into a family of devotees, and your father was a pure devotee. What, then, was there to be saved from? But this is how you felt—and we honour that. It is another deep expression of yours that we relish and deeply appreciate.
On the other hand, someone like me was definitely saved.
Sometimes people speak of a fate worse than death. They feel that death is the end and that there is nothing beyond it—everything is simply finished. To them, this is the greatest disaster imaginable. But we know there is a fate worse than death: to be sent to the hellish planets and suffer untold miseries for the innumerable sinful activities we have performed. That was certainly the case for me, and you literally saved me from it.
I remember sitting in front of the large photo of you seated on a vyasasana in your lounge at the Bury Place temple in Central London. It was January 1973, and I had recently moved into the temple. I was gradually beginning to realise—more vividly than ever—how you had saved me from a hellish existence.
That realisation overwhelmed me. Tears came to my eyes. I could not understand why you had done that for someone as degraded as me, and the feeling of having received your causeless mercy swept me into another realm.
But this is who you are. You are a saviour, and all of us owe you an incalculable debt. You were no ordinary spiritual master, and you saved us from fates worse than death.