When I would come to Mayapur because I was made a GBC, when I would come for the meeting and for the festival, Bhakti Charu Swami Maharaj so affectionately would always invite me to stay in his room with him and I remember the first year. I was right in his room and we would sleep next to each other at night and we would bathe in the same little bathroom and it was just the two of us in the room but I remember something that affected me so deeply and still does. At around midnight, we would take rest around 9:00 or 10:00 and at around midnight every night, I would hear Bhakti Charu Maharaj in his little office translating Srila Prabhupada’s books in Bengali. This was 1994, 1995, 1996 he would be translating from midnight till about 4:00 in the morning and seven days a week. Such a devotion, when did he sleep? I couldn't understand but I remember every night when I would just wake up in the middle of the night and I knew for sure that he would not be sleeping in his little cot next to me but rather he would be in his little office just behind, with his Dictaphone offering Srila Prabhupada’s divine words into the Ganga of the of the Bengali language. He took Prabhupada’s instruction to him as his life and soul. vyavasāyātmikā buddhir ekeha kuru-nandana. Srila Prabhupada would quote Visvanath Chakravati Thakur that the path of devotional service really is to take the order of the spiritual master as one's life and soul, to be resolute and purpose with one aim. I could see that. I could feel that. I could hear that. It was very transforming experience.
