Samadhi Jayananda Thakur

Jayananda Thakura: ISKCON’s first Saint

My Dear Jayananda,
Please accept my blessings.
I am feeling very intensely your separation. In 1967 you joined me in San Francisco. You were driving my car and chanting Hare Krsna. You were the first man to give me some contribution ($5000) for printing my Bhagavad-gita. After that, you have rendered very favorable service to Krsna in different ways. I so hope at the time of your death you were remembering Krsna and as such, you have been promoted to the eternal association of Krsna. If not, if you had any tinge of material desire, you have gone to the celestial kingdom to live with the demigods for many thousands of years and enjoy the most opulent life of material existence. From there you can promote yourself to the spiritual world. But even if one fails to promote himself to the spiritual world, at that time he comes down again on the surface of this globe and takes birth in a big family like a yogis’ or a brahmanas’ or an aristocratic family, where there is again chance of reviving Krsna Consciousness. But as you were hearing Krsna-kirtana, I am sure that you were directly promoted to Krsna-loka.
janma karma ca me divyam evam yo vetti tattvatah
tyaktva deham punar janma naiti man eti so’ rjuna
(BG 4.9)
Krsna has done a great favor to you, not to continue your diseased body, and has given you a suitable place for your service. Thank you very much.
Your ever well-wisher,
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
(770505 – Letter to Jayananda written from Bombay)

Jayananda’s death is glorious. It is very good that he had stated, what is the use of such a useless body, better to give it up. He has left his body very wonderfully, and he has been transferred to Vaikuntha. I have already sent a condolence letter for publication in Back To Godhead. Everyone should follow the example of Jayananda. I am very proud that I had such a nice disciple. If possible Jayananda’s picture should be hung in the Ratha of Lord Jagannatha, and in all of our temples a day may be set aside for holding a festival in his honor, just as we do on the disappearance day of the other great Vaisnavas.
(770511 – Letter to Ramesvara written from Delhi)

Information – Sriman Jayananda Thakura left his body in full glory during the auspicious time of brahma-muhurta on May 1, 1977, listening to a tape of his beloved spiritual master chanting in his ear, and with a maha garland from Lord Jagannatha cradling his neck and resting on his chest. Srila Prabhupada remarked that “Jayananda’s death is glorious,” and instructed all the devotees from all over the world to commemorate the auspicious disappearance day of Jayananda Thakura as we do for the other great Vaishnava saints in our Gaudiya Vaishnava sampradaya. He also instructed that Jayananda Thakura’s picture be placed in the Ratha-yatra cart of Lord Jagannatha, and to this day, a picture of this Vaishnava saint is always seen on Lord Jagannatha’s cart.