By Shyamasundara Dasa

I first met Padmalocana Prabhu in February 1978 when he visited the Hyderabad temple where I was the head cook. Even though it was very hot to work in the kitchen with the many coal fire stoves every ekadasi I would observe nirjala ekadasi. On the evening of one such nirjala ekadasi just as I was finishing the daily maha clean up of the kitchen, at around 9 PM Padmalocana Prabhu came to the kitchen. Soon after our conversation began he suddenly asked me if I would like him to read my palm. I had never had my palm read so I said okay. He told me that he actually didn’t know how to read palms at least not in the traditional way, but rather he would look at the lines, especially what is called the “heart line” and that pictures would come to him of the person’s past, present and future and this is what he would be telling me, what he saw in those pictures.

He began telling me about my previous lives, then about this life- time. He frightened me when he said in my middle age I would become crippled and required to be carried. Up to this time I was giving him the benefit of the doubt but when he said I would become a world famous astrologer I kind of rolled my eyes because I thought it impossible. Though I had been study astrology since July 1977 I had given it up in November at the insistence of the temple management and I had no thought of continuing so how could such a prediction ever come true. Padmalocana made several other predictions about my future life but I was very skeptical that anything he said about the past lives or my future were true. I went to bed and thought nothing of it. But I was in for a surprise. The next month in March I went to the Mayapura festival prepared to join the newly formed Mayapura Radha- Damodhara traveling party as a full time book distributor. But while I was there Bahusira Prabhu my old friend from the library party introduced me to members of the Bhaktivedanta Institute and to make a long story short they invited me to join the BI with the specific duty of studying Astrology because they said that Srila Prabhupada wanted that the BI do research in that field. Since then it has been my fulltime service. I was astonished that it seemed that Padmalocana’s prediction was somehow starting to come true and now after 33 years it is unmistakably true as I am considered one of the very top Vedic astrologers in the world not only in ISKCON but outside as well.

Later in 1981 and 1986 I had readings from the Brghu Samhita, Suka Nadi and Kala Candra Nadi all of which confirmed what Padmalocana had said about my previous lives just from looking and my palm. Since that time many of the things that he had predicted have all come true or are in the process of coming true. Even the part about being crippled and having to be carried came true in the form of my near fatal car accident of 2007 which caused me to be carried in a stretcher to my room, I was basically helpless and needed constant care and had to relearn how to walk several months later.

Padmalocana Prabhu was a very enigmatic person with the unusual gift of accurately seeing a person’s past and future lives. This is way beyond the abilities of most in the esoteric field. Many cheaters speak all kind of rubbish about your past lives knowing that you will not be able to confirm if it is true or false. But Padamalocana’s statements were confirmed in three Nadi granthas; texts that were composed by Rishis. Who would have guessed that before he became a devotee he was a member of the UK chapter of the “Hell’s Angeles” motorcycle gang! I once took Padmalocana Prabhu to see a traditional palmist who admitted to us that he had never seen such a hand before. Padmalocana Prabhu had a large, plainly visible, trisula (trident) on his palm and at the end of each trisula was another trisula. It was clearly evident that Padmalocana was not of this world and it gave some explanation of his uncanny gifts. In January 2003 he told me that he had seen a vision of Srila Prabhupada taking Tamal Krsna Gosvami by the hand that occurred at the time that Tamal Krsna Gosvami was killed in a car accident some 50 miles away.

Despite having these mystical gifts Padmalocana was a very serious devotee and more interested in practicing bhakti yoga and rightly so. He spent virtually all of his life in the Holy Dhams, first in Vraja and then in Mayapura. In 2006 he told me that he had stopped doing such mystical readings and was just interested in absorbing himself in spiritual life. Padmalocana would always be one of the first persons to arrive at the morning program and often had all of his rounds chanted BEFORE Mangala arotika. I recall that he was sometimes like a rose and sometimes like a thunderbolt and you could never be sure which you were going to get as he was a bit of an avadhuta.

Doubtless Padmalocana Prabhu was not an ordinary soul, he was definitely not of this earth but had descended from a higher region to fulfill the tasks assigned to him by the Lord and finish up his worldly existence. We pray that he is now safely in the embrace of Sri- Sri Panca-tattva, and Sri Sri Radha-Madhava and serving at the lotus feet of Srila Prabhupada.

Your humble servant

Shyamasundara Dasa

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