Never Alone 

When one departs, we want to think not so much about loneliness but about being alone. Being alone, and also letting ourselves be alone. Of course, we are never alone – Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja would insist on this point – because the Lord is always with us, whether we like it or not. It is not necessary to always be in the crowd. It is sometimes necessary to be alone, because alone we learn the most about ourselves. When we are confronted with ourselves, we spend a lot of time “converting” this matter of facing ourselves. And it was in Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja’s spirit, asking devotees: “Look at yourself.”

Thinking of the occasion, which is the tirobhāva-tithi of His Divine Grace Srila Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja, I was struck by a comment of Srila Prabhupada in a talk he gave on the disappearance day of his Gurumaharaja, Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur. He said: “The appearance and the disappearance of a devotee are the same: they are both glorious.” And then he compared the appearance and the disappearance to the rising and the setting of the sun. And then he said something which really surprised me: “They are both beautiful. The sunrise is beautiful. The sunset is beautiful.”

The disappearance of Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja was a total shock for all of us. It was heartbreaking for all of us, but in retrospect, I see that it was beautiful. It was so elegant how he disappeared, how he departed. Without suffering, without preparation, all of a sudden. Following Srila Prabhupada, we can say: “It was beautiful.” It was perfect in a way. It was in a perfect time, on a perfect day, like in Michelangelo’s “The Agony and the Ecstasy”. It makes me think of the well-known verse by Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur, spoken with reference to nāmācārya Srila Haridas Thakur:

He reasons ill who says that Vaiṣṇavas die,
When thou art living still in sound!
The Vaiṣṇavas die to live, and living try
To spread the holy name around.

—From the address by HH Krishna Kshetra Swami at the gathering in memory of Sri Srimad Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja, organized by HG Madhavananda Das on 17.2.2025 in Sri Mayapur Dham

Finding One’s Relational Self

The issue of dharma’s place in guiding human right living is related, in the Mahabharata, with a debate on the position of dharma as one of four broad spheres of human aspiration (purusha arthas). Which one of the four spheres is foundational to the others, namely kama—the pursuit of bodily sense satisfaction; artha—the pursuit of wealth, possessions, and self-centered well-being; and moksha—the pursuit of freedom from all forms of bondage, ultimately from the cycle of death and rebirth? Depending on which one of these four is accepted as foundational to the others, radically different ethical approaches unfold. Arguably, the Mahabharata favors the conclusion that dharma holds the foundational position in relation to the other three human aims, which is to say that it considers dharma as an intrinsic value, essential for the realization of any other aims. But when dharma is pursued only instrumentally for worldly pleasure and gain, to realize kama and artha, rather than as an end in itself and to the neglect of moksha (including the affirmation and protection of others’ freedom and dignity), dharma’s purpose and power as a process of ethical deliberation become obscured. Recognizing this danger, the Mahabharata famously asserts that the true path of dharma, while involving deliberation, also calls for guidance from “great persons” (mahajana). With such enlightened guidance, dharma can be appro- priately re-visioned and applied in response to changing circumstances (Dalmiya 2016, p. 49). 

A fitting example of re-visioned dharma comes in a narrative near the end of the Mahabharata. As King Yudhisthira (son of Yama, considered personified Dharma) prepares for death during his Himalaya ascent accompanied by a dog, Indra, chief of the celestials, invites the king to take his place in heaven. Yudhisthira is pleased to oblige, but not without his faithful and dependent dog. Indra’s insistence that no dogs can reside in heaven confronts Yudhisthira’s firm resolve not to leave his canine companion behind. The impasse dissolves when the dog reveals himself to be the celestial personification of Dharma. As Vrinda Dalmiya notes, this story shows Yudhisthira “finding his relational self ” (Dalmiya 2016, p. 63), suggesting that dharma’s deeper purpose, beyond regulative normativity, is self-transformation. This idea leads to the second major conceptualization of dharma, namely as cultivation of virtue or as virtue-nourishing practice. 

—From the book Cow Care in Hindu Animal Ethics by Kennth R. Valpey (HH Krishna Kshetra Swami), published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2020. The legal open access download version is available at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-28408-4