A visit to Vishnupaduka.

-By Pradeep Bhandari.

Program concluded with ' Unexpected ! ' remarks. It was above expectation. Unexpected in the sense that it was over flooded with laughter from beginning to end and was twice or thrice longer than our actual journey which was arranged to be. It happened because of three reasons. First one is that it was our spiritual picnic and a visit to spiritual place Vishnupaduka, the spot from where water comes out of Lord Vishnu's lotus feet. Secondly, every member was pure (except me) devotees and was funny as well. Third and last one is that none of us had gone there before. So we were unable to find out our exact destination. That means we were lost in the forest and made a long research journey. Here is the glimpse of our visit.

We were supposed to be present at our departure point ( Sri Sri Radha Govinda Temple, Budhanilkantha) sharply at 10 am. But, as usually happens only few devotees were able to flow time. Especially I and His Grace Dinbandhu Janardan Prabhu were following our Nepali time and reach there by 11 am. We came to know that three devotees : His Grace Bishwojeet Brajesh Prabhu , His Grace Jayahari Prabhu and His Grace Bishnupaduka Gauranga Prabhu were there by 10 am.
I had thought that it was just Grihasta program ( especially Bhakti Vriksha member) but I was amazed to see two Brahmachari devotees : His Grace Sundar Shyam prabhu and His Grace Raju (?) Prabhu and one student devotee Kasam Prabhu joining us.
I was happy to know that His Grace Rupeswor Gaur Prabhu was joining us already but doubted that if he can join us . When I saw him ready to go with us my happiness was confirmed because I got practical inspiration in happy mood from his presence.
I had no imformation that His Grace Buddhimanta prabhu was joining us. I knew it only when I saw him guiding our group.
I thought that His Grace Vrindavan Gopinath prabhu was participating at Kumbha mela at Allahabad India as I had seen his Kumba mela's photos at facebook but he was also joining us.
I have bought a small camera recently. I had brought it with me in order to take the photos of our picnic but was thinking myself that who will take my photos then? I will be busy to catch other devotees in photos and I will be missed from those photos. Now anyone can imagine how much I was happy to see our photographer prabhu His Grace Sanjeev prabhu joining us with his big Nikon ( ? ) Camera.
Program was arranged especially by His Grace Bishwojit Brajesh Prabhu. It was arranged by him. It was self evidence that program was going to be over flooded with happiness.
Long coat of His Grace Dinbandhu Janardan prabhu had become the starting point of our laughter. His devotional mood may not be understood even by other highly advanced devotees what to talk of me ( especially on offering obeisances).

Now our journey began one and half hour later ( at 11:30 am) than scheduled. We started climbing the hills of Budhanilkantha and headed toward Bishnupaduka. Within 15 minutes our journey Bishwojit Brajesh prabhu and Vrindavan Gopinath prabhu were tired. I mean they were last in our queue. Rupeshwor prabhu was making fun of it. At the same time Bishwojit prabhu was making fun of Sundar Shyam prabhu because he was chanting Hare Krishna Mahamantra non-stop in Babaji style. Slowly and slowly we climbed up the hill. Sanjeev prabhu was capturing our photos from different angles[]. Jayahari prabhu was pulling the devotees up in difficult places. Kasam prabhu was amazed to see this. After about 45 minutes we reached near a water tank , sat there and had corn prasadam. Luckly I got Mahaprasad of devotees as well.

By then our main attraction of the day ' His Grace Madhva prabhu' also joined us. How was he able to follow our path was out of the thinking limitation of our mind ( at least mine). You will see how he was main attraction of the day later on.

It is said that devotees are ready to become tree rather than merging in Brahmajyoti expecting that they will get association of the devotees in some time and they can serve devotees with shade in the sunshine at least. This was my first transcendental realization of the day because devotees were walking in the shades of the tree and were amused with color of rhododendron ( LALI GURANS). They were also eating it.

As we were heading up we got bewildered to find out the actual path. With our guess ( Anuman pramana) we started our research to find out Bishnupaduka. Later you will see how we will come to wrong conclusion with Anumana pramana (guess).

We continued our journey. We were in the middle of dense forest by then. ( It is said that forest is famous for leopards). Discontinuous mobile network , lack of directional information and darkness of the forest were challenging us to find out our destination but we catched the river (small one) and walked it it and shore. I say this was an amazing experience for all of us. Devotees were getting natural refreshment with natural swings , ropes , roots and other forest products. Devotees were going wild. I mean they were playing with nature in that dense forest. We were uncertain about our destination now because we were lost. Since we were on the shore of the stream we had still hoped to find out its source : Bishnupaduka. Climbing up the hill had become the heart of our adventure. Another thing what touched my heart is the clean water available there. In Kathmandu we are obliged to drink contaminated water.

As we were tired we sat and eat prasadam. It was sponsored by Vrindavan Gopinath prabhu (mainly) and Jayahari prabhu. It was also nice experience. By then we had already walked more than four hours. After having prasadam we again continued our journey. We were lost more and more inside that dense forest. Still, we were not giving up the hope to reach Bishnupaduka.

After about half an hour we saw two persons in that dense forest. It was unexpected. When I saw them I thought they were some bad guys sitting there for some bad purposes. We approached them and asked how far was Bishnupaduka. They replied that we were far ahead than Vishnupaduka. They suggested that we have to return back in order to reach Bishnupaduka. What to do? And , What can be done in such circumstances. We returned back. They guided us upto Bishnupaduka ( Bishnudwara).

We realized that our guess was unable to bring us to Bishnupaduka. As we were determined to get the darsan (look ) of Bishnupaduka Krishna sent those two guys to help us. Everyone of us realized that we can not reach our spiritual destination without having spiritual master to guide us. We have to surrender ourself to bonafide spiritual master. Otherwise there is no hope for us to go back to Godhead, Goloka Vrindavan.

Finally we took the darsan of Bishnupaduka. We came to know that Lord Vishnu kicked a rock and water started coming from there. It was the water coming from his lotus feet. We drank it. It was wonderful. Our life was blessed ! Finally we returned back !