8th Oct 2021 Friday
Fond Memories of Srila Gurudev
Distinguished Speaker: Srimati Bhadra Didi, New Zealand
Bhadra Didi has lived as a brahmacarini in temples in Melbourne, Sydney and Murwillumbah. She was one of the initial early pioneers of the New Govardhana community at Murwillumbah, and got married there in 1977. In the same year she got diksa-mantras from Srila Prabhupada. She also pioneered the New Varshana farming community north of Auckland, New Zealand, so have spent a lot of her life living very simply with what today may be considered extreme conditions; no electricity, no proper bathroom, etc. She has three lovely children, Gadadhara, Dhruva and Vrinda, who are all sincere devotees. Over those years, apart from rearing the family, her services were cooking and sewing for the temple Deities. Around the late eighties, she distanced herself from the management and authorities and moved away from the temple community, got her own home, and began a prasadam distribution business. She was the founder and manager of it, and managed it for 10 years. Following Srila Prabhupada’s directive to get land and simplify living, in 1994 they acquired an acreage in the foothills of a mountain range in New Zealand, moving onto it in 2000 and beginning to develop and cultivate it. The community now comprises three families of Gurudeva’s devotees, one of them being her son Dhruva and his wife Bela and their three children. After hearing Gurudeva for many years and aspiring to hear from him, she finally met him in 2002. Her heart was stolen on meeting and her whole sadhana and spiritual life rejuvenated. All of them apart from her eldest son Gadadhara (who had already joined the sanga of Srila Sridhara-dev Gosvami Maharaja, Sri Caitanya Sarasvat Matha), took shelter of Srila Gurudeva. Thus she was with Srila Gurudeva for the last decade of his manifestation, and spent as much time with him as she could, in India, Australia, and New Zealand. Nowadays, apart from sadhana she is investing her time in studying the sastras and serving her Gaura Nitai Thakurji (given pran-pratistha by Gurudeva) and outreach to others, her main interests are studying Sanskrit grammar and language, and Vedic psychology.
