the miraculous. 59
Pandemonium broke out. This time everyone saw the bhramara and began
shouting and pushing to come closer. Transforming the bedlam into celebration,
Maharaj-ji led the chanting devotees in several circumambulations of the platform.
Throughout all this, a brahmin sat quietly a few yards from the platform, continu-
ing to read the chapters of the Bhagavata Purana. After things had quieted down,
the consecration ceremony continued, and throughout that evening and the next day
there grew among the devotees an appreciation of the significance of the bhramara’s
perfectly timed appearance and precisely appropriate behavior. Maharaj-ji an-
nounced that he was now determined to restore the riverfront to its original glory,
as described in the Govindalilamrtam and planned and built by Raja Jai Singh. He
also vowed never again to go outside the boundaries of Vrindaban, and that the
reading of the Bhagavata Purana would continue for perpetuity.
The bhramara made a third appearance two nights later. This was the night in the
ritual calendar when the gods are awakened from a four-month sleep, and the aus-
picious season begins for marriages and other rituals. Evening pujas were held in the
temple and the Goswami household, and for the first time since its consecration the
new shrine was used as a ritual site. This time there was no image on the platform—
the site itself was the sacred object of worship. Puja was performed: oblations of
milk, honey, yogurt, ghee, and sugar were poured into the sand of the platform dur-
ing the chanting of mantras. Then as devotional songs were being sung, the bhra-
mara flew in. This time it stayed behind the small gathering, landing on the rug and
rising repeatedly to dance and swoop in the air, with every appearance of pure hap-
piness. There was little commotion this time—the miracle had been accepted, the
manifestation of divinity was acknowledged.
A sacred space is a place where two worlds intersect. At Jaisingh Ghera, time
measured in centuries (Krishna’s boyhood, Caitanya’s ecstatic discoveries, Jai
Singh’s building) came together under Maharaj-ji’s direction with time measured in
hours and minutes (depictions of the daily activities of Krishna, regular recitation
of sacred text, and the offerings of music and song that defined and filled the space).
In the moment when these two came together, the concentrated devotion of a holy
man and those who looked to him for teaching had evoked the manifestation of di-
vinity. Time and space had danced together like the flight of the bhramara. What
had been and what eternally is came together to create a new beginning.