19810610 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.26.20

The following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on June 10, 1981 in St. Louis. The class begins with a reading from the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, Canto 3, Chapter 26, Text 20.

Translation: Thus, after manifesting variegatedness, the effulgent mahat-tattva, which contains all the universes within itself, which is the root of all cosmic manifestations and which is not destroyed at the time of annihilation, swallows the darkness that covered the effulgence at the time of dissolution.

Translation: Purport: Since the Supreme Personality of Godhead is ever existing, all-blissful and full of knowledge, His different energies are also ever existing in the dormant stage. Thus when the mahat-tattva was created, it manifested the material ego and swallowed up the darkness which covered the cosmic manifestation at the time of dissolution. This idea can be further explained. A person at night remains inactive, covered by the darkness of night, but when he is awakened in the morning, the covering of night, or the forgetfulness of the sleeping state, disappears. Similarly, when the mahat-tattva appears after the night of dissolution, the effulgence is manifested to exhibit the variegatedness of this material world.

Thus end the Purport, Bhaktivedānta Purport of Text 20, Chapter 26, Canto 3 of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, in the matter of Fundamental Principles of Material Nature.

Jayapatākā Swami: So here it says how the mahat-tattva either dormant or manifest is always existing. The effulgent mahat-tattva is what the Buddhists realize when they dismantle their complete body, mind and ego and then they go into the mahat-tattva. They never realize the self. You don’t go beyond the Virajā to the brahma-jyoti. That is why they think that everything is over. They didn’t realize the self and they dismantled everything else, and they think past, “Finished. Bliss.” Actually, for the Vaiṣṇavas, either this type of nirvāṇa that they consider the materialistic nirvāṇa or even the brahma stage of realizing the brahma-jyoti is completely undesirable, you see.

Of course, every living entity is eternal and has got pure spiritual knowledge, bliss, eternally as their nature. But when we’re in the material world, we forget our natural, blissful state. Because by the false ego, we identify with this body. We identify with this body, mind, intelligence and thus we are forced to suffer, enjoy through the senses and through the mind. And the process of yoga to transcend this illusory identification and come to our, again our original state of consciousness.

Now, only Kṛṣṇa consciousness and the process of bhakti-yoga takes one up to the full potential of the living entity. Other processes of self-realization, yoga, Buddhism, they take one different levels, but never up to the complete potential of the living entity; either up to the mahat-tattva or up to the brahma-jyoti or even realizing Paramātmā - the Supersoul, in some of mystic yoga process. But to actually go to the spiritual planets of Kṛṣṇa and to regain one’s original spiritual form, one’s siddha-upalabdhi and one’s siddha-deha, the sac-cid-ānanda form of eternity, knowledge and bliss, this is only possible by the practice of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, bhakti-yoga.

And amongst all the different types of bhakti-yoga or different paramparās, actually Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu has combined all of them. He has taken the essence from the four different sampradāyas. You know that there is Śiva-sampradāya, Lakṣmī-sampradāya, Kumāra-sampradāya and Lord Brahma-sampradāya. Of course, we are following in the Lord Brahmā technically speaking. But to differentiate Lord Caitanya, followers call this Brahma-Madhva-Gauḍīya-sampradāya. Because Lord Caitanya is Kṛṣṇa Himself, when He appeared in the Brahma-sampradāya, who was the first created being of the universe and a pure devotee, the father of Lord Śiva, etc., and the father of the Kumāras. So, He however didn’t simply conform strictly but what Lord Caitanya did was not only did He take the essence of the Brahma-sampradāya, but He took the essential factors from the other three sampradāyas as well.

He took two from Brahmā, two from Śiva’s/Rudra’s, two from Lakṣmī’s and two from Kumāras. And thus, it is predicted in the Padma Purana that the four bona fide Vaiṣṇava-sampradāyas, which are mentioned as Śrī, Rudra, Brahma and Kumāra, they will all be combined in the Kali-yuga, you see. And this is due to the special mercy of Lord Caitanya that all the Kṛṣṇa conscious bhakti movements, bona fide movements worshipping the Supreme Personality of Godhead have been combined in the movement of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu. And as we preach in India we see more and more that the different sampradāyas, they are coming to join Lord Caitanya movement seeing that this actually contains the essence of all, and this is the perfect unity to give shelter to the whole world in the highest principle of pure devotional service, which is emulated or which is glorified by all of the different Vaiṣṇava ācāryas and great spiritual masters. So, in this way different paths of self-realization are aiming at different goals. But the devotee is very, very uh, disgusted, afraid of having anything to do with some impersonal realization.

You see, one-time Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura in his meditation, he was walking through Navadvīpa-dhāma and when he got to Rudradvīpa there he saw a beautiful woman who was wearing white cloth, who was crying. And she… Her hair was little bit disheveled and she looked distraught and she started heading toward Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura and she was saying, “Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura” you know or whatever she was saying, “Oh, I am so unfortunate, Oh I am so unfortunate. Lord Caitanya has come and delivered all the fallen souls, what about me? What about me? Everyone has left me. Even the great sages…” and she named some great sages like uh, not Maitreya… “Mārkaṇḍeya and others. They have all left me. Mārkaṇḍeya and everyone, they all left me. And now I am all alone. O Lord Caitanya! Have mercy on me!” Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura thought who is this, who is this person? Then she said, “I am sāyujya-mukti.” That is the mukti of merging in the light. “Everyone has left me now. Lord Caitanya has completely cleared me out! Everyone now is going for pure bhakti. Will He not have mercy on me?”

As soon as Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura heard the words sāyujya-mukti he got scared and ran. He didn’t want anything to do with merging. She has to take it up directly with the Lord, we can’t get involved. As the devotees, we don’t want to take any chances, you see. The devotees don’t want anything to do with merging.

In fact, Sanātana Gosvāmi was also describing how one devotee who had eternal relationship with Kṛṣṇa as a cowherd boy, on the way going back to Godhead, was crossing through the different levels of existence, going through Satyaloka and so on, going Śivaloka. As he was going towards the Vaikuṇṭhaloka through the brahma-jyoti he was just going a little bit too slow and so all of a sudden, he started to merge, started to, started to lose his identity, started to just like… and he was almost half way! “Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa” (laughter) went up to the Vaikuṇṭhaloka, so.

Be very careful that we’re very fixed in the personal conception of life. You can just understand that how when we are passing through, if we see anything we like when we are going through the different heavenly planets, “Oh, look at this siddhaloka, wow! Look at how they are flying around and producing things with mystic power. They have all these mystic powers, this is nice.” Past. Before you know, you will be there!

Remember in the Bhāgavatam how it describes Pṛthu Mahāraja. When Pṛthu Mahārāja got on his airplane and when he followed by his wife, the denizens of the heavenly planets, they saw them go and go and go right by them and go completely up and up, out of sight. They were heading straight back to the spiritual planets. They weren’t going and seeing the different material planets. You go Urvaśīs past Siddhaloka, then you got Indraloka, there he’s got so many of these dancing Urvaśīs, dancing Apsarās, heavenly society girls, everyone is enjoying, strolling around the parks, wonderful arrangements for sense gratification, there in the heavenly planets.

But the Christians and the Muslims they very concentrate on these heavenly delights. So, they don’t seem to have a clear conception of a spiritual world. But what their idea is heavenly planets are to enjoy wonderful material life. And that you get in these heavenly planets. You go up there, live off your material pious activities and then just like people pay, just like people pay to go on a vacation and they live it up and they come back then they have to work again. 499 dollars TWA or 3 days 4 nights European tour you know; they go there, live it up for four days and come back and start working again.

You are working here so many births and finally you accumulate some pious activity, go up to the heavenly planets, live it up for a little while. ā-brahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ… ā-brahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ punar āvartino ‘rjuna - That even you go to the Brahmaloka, again you have to come down, you see. This is the thing. So, when you are going back to Godhead, naturally person can be passing all these places, he sees, “Oh, here is a very nice garden and so many nice women, so many handsome men, oh let us just, this looks like a pretty nice place.”, then you won’t go further!

You have to be fixed, ekeha kuru-nandana – fixed on going back to home, fixed on serving Kṛṣṇa, fixed on just serving Kṛṣṇa and that service to Kṛṣṇa, that desire to serve the Lord that will take you to the, to His association either in another universe in the material world or otherwise directly back where Lord Kṛṣṇa is, or directly back to the spiritual world. But it will take you to Kṛṣṇa’s association. But as soon as you see anything in the material world which attracts, “Oh, let me just see this…” You see, all these desires for seeing the material world, they should become completely eradicated. One should take out that desire for sense gratification altogether for enjoying the material world and simply by cultivation, uncover the pure, real service attitude, which is our spiritual birthright, which is what will carry us, just like a transcendental airplane, back to the spiritual, eternal service of the Lord.

So, to also become one with that spiritual energy which are, all these energies are eternal. We see that these energies are also not destroyed. That desire of just being peaceful, “Oṁ śānti śānti oṁ śāntiḥ.” People, “Oh, peace.” You see, the Vaiṣṇavas, “Agh!” They don’t want that type of peace! They don’t want that type of calmness.

Mother Śacī, Yaśodā Māyī, they were not manifesting that type of calmness. Mother Yaśodā was going here and there, “Where is Kṛṣṇa? Where is Kṛṣṇa? Bring His butter, bring His uh…. We have to heat up the milk for Him. Oh, where is Kṛṣṇa now?” She was always active. Vaiṣṇavas, they do not want this type of deathlike calmness, this type of uh, impersonal peace. They want that the… they want to serve Kṛṣṇa in ecstatic loving devotion, you see. That is actually real tran… that is the higher level of peace. You see. Peace, unity in diversity rather than unity in oblivion, you see. Devotees, they don’t want that type of peace, you see.

Those who are fed up with the material world and just want to end it all, that type of like almost suicidal tendency, they are attracted, “Oh, yes.” And they are afraid when they see, “Oh there is a personal relationship with God, and these transcendental activities and everything.” In the Bhagavad-gītā Prabhupāda explains, they get afraid. They get afraid to commit themselves to a personal relationship. Because they think, just like someone who has had so many, so many lovers and everyone always let them down, somehow everything is ended up on the bad side, they think, “Well if I also give my love to Kṛṣṇa, then He may also let me down.” you see.

This is the difference is Kṛṣṇa is perfect. He is perfect, Siddheśvāra - He is the Master of all perfection, Yogeśvāra - He is the Supreme Lord of all mystic power. In every respect, He is actually a perfect person, you see. Parama-puruṣa; He doesn’t let anyone down. He is a perfect. And you can see from His pastime. He was the perfect husband in Dvārakā, He was the perfect son, He is the perfect friend of Arjuna, Uddhava, the perfect Master of Dāruka and others. You see. In every relationship, Kṛṣṇa is perfect, you see.

So, in this way, we should not have any fears about our relationship with Kṛṣṇa; we should give up all these types of fears, you see, about these personal relationships in spiritual life. They are far, far beyond even the impersonal realization, they are the highest level. They are filled with sac-cid-ānanda, eternal, blissful knowledge. There is no material inebrieties and one never has to come back. nāpnuvanti mahātmānaḥ saṁsiddhiṁ paramāṁ gatāḥ. (Bg 8.15) This is the… all perfection is achieved from whence one never has to come back. This way, devotees should be determined to reach the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa and shouldn’t have any fear, anger or illusion about it. We should be fixed in that devotional service.

So practically speaking how we do that, is that we maintain our personal relationship through the spiritual master. He has given us personal instructions. Sometimes people, they want to serve without a spiritual master. Why? Because the spiritual master is a person and he is giving personal likes and dislikes and personal advices and instructions how to serve Kṛṣṇa.

[Aside: Be careful the garland is touching the floor. Skimpy on the sides of the cloth I guess.]

Then, you see, because in this way, we get a whole practice, we have a whole training, where Kṛṣṇa trains us through the spiritual master, because the spiritual master can tell us what Kṛṣṇa wants. If we, if we practice with the spiritual master following his instruction, in this way, we will also be able to follow the instructions of Kṛṣṇa. Otherwise in one’s mind anyone can contact… can concoct some idea about serving Kṛṣṇa, “Yes, I’ll do this, I’ll do that.” And then… In this way actually, there is no real surrender of one’s false ego, there is no real service, one is just doing whatever one likes and then calling that Kṛṣṇa consciousness, you see.

So, one needs the spiritual master both to know what Kṛṣṇa wants and what one doesn’t want and also to train, to be trained into practice serving in a personal relationship. And therefore, the spiritual master is described as sākṣād-dharitvena, that he is directly the svarupa of Kṛṣṇa, that he is Kṛṣṇa’s mercy expansion for training the disciples, for training the devotees.

Today we were reading in that song how, śrī guru vaiṣṇava-pada-padme majhaiya mana - That we simply want to absorb our mind in the lotus feet of the guru, of the Vaiṣṇavas, śrī, śrī, they are auspicious, they are filled with opulence because they contain the special quality of mercy and benediction of Kṛṣṇa, you see.

Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura, he had, he respected Śrīnivāsācārya as the elder god brother. You see that. ha ha prabhu śrīnivāsa, Doya koro Śrīnivāsa ācārya Ṭhākura in the other song, he says like that. Actually, Śrīnivāsācārya is the disciple of Hṛdayānanda, who is the disciple of Gaurīdāsa Paṇḍita. And Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura is a disciple of Lokanātha Gosvāmī. No. excuse me. I am very wrong. Śrīnivāsācārya is a disciple of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī and–who was that? Śyāmānanda Paṇḍita was the disciple of Hṛdayānanda dāsa. Excuse me. So, in that way, Śrīnivāsācārya and Narottama in terms of their, both of them are the direct associates and of Lord Caitanya. Both Gopāla Bhaṭṭa and Lokanātha, they were directly ordered by Lord Caitanya to go to Vṛndavana. They both were directly serving Lord Caitanya.

You can say on that regard, they are on the same level, but Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura, he respected Śrīnivāsa as a senior Vaiṣṇava. That was just a particular relation as a senior godbrother. Why? I don’t know all the details, but that we find in his songs and in the pastimes that he highly respected him as a senior Vaiṣṇava although Śrīnivāsa would treat him as an equal, but Narottama would offer some extra respect, even more than he would offer to others. And actually, Narottama became very, very close friends with Rāmacandra, who was a disciple of Śrīnivāsa, rāmacandra saṅga māge. But Rāmacandra was the most advanced preacher. And so, he would be travelling and preaching and sometimes he would go on preaching with Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura.

But because he was, although he was… In this way we have in the that of second generation after Lord Caitanya, we have a very similar situation as Prabhupāda has created in ISKCON. Because there we have senior Vaiṣṇavas and all of them would go to, to Narahari who was a direct associate of Lord Caitanya and he would give them instructions and guidance, although he wasn’t their guru in terms of initiation, but he was an associate of Lord Caitanya. He was associate who did personal service, narahari cāmara ḍhulāya to the Lord.

So, in that way, they would go to him and he would bless them, and he would give them instruction how they could advance in Kṛṣṇa consciousness and they would accept that, you see as a very… even though their spiritual masters were also present in Vrndavana, but they didn’t say, Well, “You are not my guru. You are just an advanced Vaiṣṇava.” It wasn’t that type of mood. If some senior Vaiṣṇava gave an instruction which they could see was a transparent instruction, they accepted that, and they respected those advanced Vaiṣṇavas. So, in the same way now we have in ISKCON these types of, we have the direct associates of Śrīla Prabhupāda and we have different godbrothers, disciples of Śrīla Prabhupāda and we have different spiritual masters and their different disciples, some of them are more senior and some of them are more neophyte. We have all the different levels.

Somehow it doesn’t have to be like a whole rigid type of formal situation where everyone pulls out the exact date of their initiation and holds onto seniority. Which actually is what happened today practically in the Gauḍīya, in the other Gauḍīya Maṭha. They became little bit too stuck on various sādhana principles. I went to one temple when I first was sent to India and they had worked out exactly, you couldn’t take prasāda without going for, you have to title the exact date you were initiated as a brahmacārī. Of course, if you were a sannyāsī you just automatically went upstairs, you are elevated above this. But the brahmacārīs and the gṛhasthas, they had it worked out exactly what day and accordingly they had a… one after another, they sat down. In other words, if you were two days before then you were here and then there. That was nice in one sense, but I mean every day you know if you actually accidentally sat, two devotees above the other, then you past, you got pulled down, and put back the other place, you know, “Don’t like it puffed up.”

So, what happened was, it became so much a thing. Anyway, it is bit nice in one sense to respect senior Vaiṣṇavas. I am not saying it is a completely bad system. But they… it became so much so that even if there might be you know, someone a godbrother who was ten days younger or something like that, but who was actually very responsible, doing a lot of service, they could not recognize that person at all, unless he took sannyāsa. And then among the sannyāsīs, they had the same system.

So, in that way when it came to respecting Śrīla Prabhupāda the first time he came, then some of his god brothers just because he was a gṛhastha longer and took sannyāsa later, they did not want to offer their respect, even though he had done the greatest service of preaching all over the world. So, their whole God brotherly love and Vaiṣṇava relationship was a… was a, obstructed by this type of artificial understanding. That is why a lot of people from the Gauḍīya Maṭha, they have come over to ISKCON or they went… because here was a natural… although they have the same philosophy basically, but somehow the whole mood of preaching, the mood of book distribution, the mood of Vaiṣṇava, of course we can learn a lot more about respecting Vaiṣṇavas.

Prabhupāda that was the one thing he felt that, “We should learn more and more is to respect and serve Vaiṣṇavas.” He was repeatedly saying that, “In ISKCON you have to, all the devotees should learn to love and respect, love and trust the other Vaiṣṇavas and to respect them and not to offend any Vaiṣṇava, to avoid offense.” He was repeatedly advising. Although we become so familiar on the other side that then we don’t respect anyone. You see. At least I get the one extreme or the other. Of course, where I would say, Prabhupāda had the greatest desire for us to actually reach the perfection. So, we always have to be working at the proper combination of respect, at the same time of actual love, not that it just becomes a formality, but it is due to śrī guru vaiṣṇava pade majaiya mana. We actually from our heart, we really feel appreciation for all the Vaiṣṇavas.

That is why one of my goals in this next Māyāpur festival, of course maybe none of you may be able to see it. (laughter) But one of my goals is to actually show appreciation to all of the Vaiṣṇavas and we are going to initiate, we are trying to initiate a special awards ceremony which enjoin darśanas of all the sannyāsīs and gurus and GBCs during the festival in the evenings. And then we have a special awards ceremony, one night for all the saṅkīrtana awards of the year.

They have this in New Māyāpur at the festival which is very wonderful where… What they would do is not just, you know, not something like the life membership trust awards where they just, you know, call out and give you some useless abstract trophy. Where they glorify first of all for 5-6 minutes the different devotee, or the different temple involved, how they’ve struggled for Kṛṣṇa consciousness or how they have excelled in the particular service that they were doing.

Then they wouldn’t mention the name, you know, until first they get glorified. Then they would create a little suspense who would and then they would call the name of the person and it was very wonderful. Because as you are going on hour after hour, first you thought, “Well, What is going on here?” But then after a while, you started realizing it was so nice, because you continue to hear, “Bhakta program leaders and gurukula teachers and saṅkīrtana devotees and so on and so forth.” They are glorifying which ones have done a great sacrifice, which ones have done some special service for Prabhupāda and the movement.

And this also helped to focus everybody, what is real Kṛṣṇa consciousness, what is our goal, what are, what are our activities? In this way it really put everything very much in focus, what things we should be aspiring for, what things we should be trying to excel in? By glorifying even for short time, the different devotees who in that particular zone, we witnessed that they were excelling.

So, in the same way we would like to try to introduce some of these things in the Māyāpur festival. And one night would be the saṅkīrtana awards. And in other nights, things like different ministries, and committee like BBT, for publishing and things like that and for different ministries like in public affairs who have done some excellent service for public affairs or for farming and for other things like that. Also, in the future we would like to give out Sanskrit titles. Prabhupāda suggested this for devotees who have dedicated themselves to a particular service, and who have reached a certain level of steadiness and a certain level of expertise, that uh, they are an example that others could follow and learn from. Not that you just give a person a title that he becomes falsely proud or something. But it is a responsibility.

Just like sannyāsa is a responsibility in one aspect, so, this should be a responsibility say, the cooks who have become excellent cooks, then they get a certain title as a cook. And once they reach a certain level of excellence and then in the whole society, maybe half a dozen or something or whatever how many depends how many qualify, of that level of cook. And then naturally people will go to them and it would be part of their responsibilities as brāhmaṇas to train other people, how to reach that standard of excellence in cooking and pūjā, and in or deity worship and other factors. So Prabhupāda, he didn’t want that devotees would feel some dissatisfaction in doing different kinds of services, but rather we need expert cooks, expert pūjārīs, expert gurukula teachers, not that after five years a person, “Well, I got to become a temple president otherwise I am not going to go back to Godhead.” or something. It is not like that. Every service is very and most important and it requires that certain devotees should excel in different services, so others can be trained. Not that everybody has to do one service.

Of course, naturally already the focus is on saṅkīrtana and other services. But we also want even the saṅkīrtana preachers, we need to see the beautiful Deities when we come back, nicely decorated, to purify our mind and to help us to meditate on Kṛṣṇa so that, we go out there and preach we have the purity to give us more and more force. So, we are trying to arrange a program at the Māyāpur festival that this may be encouraged at least, we hope. We hope that Nitāi-Gaura and Prabhupāda, Bhaktisiddhānta will give us some mercy for being able to do that.

But this basic idea of respecting Vaiṣṇavas, of respecting the spiritual master, of serving Kṛṣṇa, these are the most important things. In fact, serving guru and Vaiṣṇava and taking their association is most important for us in the conditional state, for everyone, anyone in the conditional stage, anyone who wants to advance in the pure devotional service. Even we find that the four Kumāras, when they also came and met Pṛthu Mahārāja and Pṛthu asked them questions, they said that, “You have asked such a nice question that we feel benefitted by this. Now we will have a chance to become more purified by being able to answer such nice questions.”

So even for very advanced preachers like the four Kumāras, who can be more advanced than they are? They are sampradāya-ācāryas, the beginner of a sampradāya, even they were glorifying the association just of a qualified Vaiṣṇava devotee who could even ask good questions. Because it gave them a chance to glorify the Lord and to explain pure bhakti, which purifies even the preachers, you see. We go on with our purification even when one is pure still one becomes more and more elevated in devotional service simply by serving.

So, in this way the devotees are always anxious for association with other Vaiṣṇavas to give them the opportunity to advance more and more in the service of Kṛṣṇa. So, we can understand these things by studying the songs and the writings of our previous ācāryas and even by understanding their pastimes how, during… after Lord Caitanya, these different ācāryas, they would have their intimate relationships and how they’ve cooperated with each other for preaching the movement of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

So Prabhupāda is so kind that he has created uh, an identical type of circumstance in the International Society for Krishna consciousness where everyone works together in a very cooperative spirit and where although we follow the social etiquette and formalities as are necessary, at the same time that love, the faith and the appreciation of other services take predominance. This type of a very fluid, wonderful situation and we can of course only perfect that more and more by following in the footsteps of our previous ācāryas. Thus, we can relish the association of Kṛṣṇa, Lord Caitanya through the association of the Vaiṣṇavas, through the association of the spiritual master, through our service, through the classes of Bhāgavatam and through worshipping the Deity and performing saṅkīrtana, we can continually relish these different associations.

And thus, time goes by very quickly. We gradually come into eternal time where the, the passing of days or weeks no longer becomes the same. One is actually already on the transcendental platform and very soon even though we say, “Well we have to wait so long, sixty years we have to live.” But sixty years goes by in just a short time for us especially in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, because there is never a dull moment, there is never a material moment, it is always on the transcendental time schedule which makes every moment, every second very enjoyable, very transcendentally empowered to bring us closer and closer to Kṛṣṇa. So, the time goes very quickly, before we know, we will be ready to go back to Kṛṣṇa, we just have to make sure that we don’t allow any gaps. Ahaituky apratihatā. Apratihatā – there shouldn’t be any gaps, no spaces. We should keep the continuous service going to our spiritual master, without any separation, you see.

In that way Śrīla Prabhupāda showed continuously his service to Bhaktisiddhānta. Of course, how can we analyze his service? Actually, we can understand if we can even hold up a candle to his service, that if we could just follow to some degree the intensity of the schedule that he would follow, the intensity of the preaching that he would do, you see, we will be assured success.

Actually, Śrīla Prabhupāda is also an ācārya, a sampradāya ācārya, he has established a sampradāya within a sampradāya. And he wants that we continue with his, with his family tree and that this will be the main branch of Lord Caitanya’s tree that can accommodate and unite and bring all the different branches of the Gauḍīya-sampradāya together and thus bring all the different branches of all the sampradāyas together.

So that requires that now we have to completely absorb ourselves in pure devotional service so intensely, get rid of all the different types of weeds and distractions so perfectly that naturally we will be drawing in all the sincere diversant elements and we will be getting the full mercy of Lord Caitanya for actually delivering the whole world. It is Lord Caitanya’s prediction that the whole world will be delivered. It’s just a question of who will get that mercy.

Now Prabhupāda has already done half the work. We cannot rest on laurels that, “Well Prabhupāda did half the work so we automatically should do the other half.” That we have to earn it like Prabhupāda earned it. He took, he endeavored, he took sacrifice, he went through various ordeals or various tests by Kṛṣṇa and he passed. He always chose to serve the order of his spiritual master over any other idea.

And Prabhupāda said, “As long as we are more attached to Lord Caitanya’s lotus feet, as long as we are more attached to the order of the spiritual master, which are the representative of Lord Caitanya’s lotus feet, then māyā’s idea will not hold any attraction for us.” you see. This is the secret, we have to step by step simply refine our desires to simply desire to do whatever will please Kṛṣṇa, whatever will please Caitanya Mahāprabhu through the spiritual master. Thus, we will be able to get that special mercy by Lord Caitanya’s benediction to actually deliver the whole rest of the world, whatever is still left in Śrīla Prabhupāda’s mission. And that is of course for us will be the greatest opportunity to be instruments in the hands of Kṛṣṇa.

We should surrender to become instruments, we cannot do it on our own, it is not our personal power, any individual’s power that can do, it is only the mercy of Kṛṣṇa, Caitanya Mahāprabhu coming down. We have to become via media, transparent media, we have to surrender our false ego to the lotus feet of Lord Caitanya and act as His instruments, all of us together in different ways and thus ISKCON will get the special empowerment, which it is already getting, no doubt. It is already doing that work and it will continue to grow and do the same as long as we work on this particular aspect of following very strictly in the footsteps of our previous ācāryas. By their mercy we will get this mercy of Lord Caitanya which is going to benedict the whole world.

jāya śrī-kṛṣṇa caitanya prabhu nityānanda 
śrī advaita gadādhara śrīvasādi gaura bhakta vṛnda.

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa
Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare 
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma
Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

Devotee: Śrīla Ācāryapāda kī

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapatākā Swami: Is there time for questions? Yes?

Question: How should one deal with senior devotees if one has… sees the devotee has some problem or has some suggestion to make to a senior devotee, say a godbrother, senior godbrother, how does one go about it… (inaudible) attractive way?

Jayapatākā Swami: It is a situation that I wouldn’t envy. Actually, one should avoid giving advice to senior Vaiṣṇavas as far as possible. But of course, sometimes if a situation comes up, generally we consider that we are not really in a position to offer someone advice unless we are at an equal or greater level of service. You see.

At least, I couldn’t off hand just imagine, what type of situation might come up, where the person was in an inferior position of service and wanted to offer advice. But without going into all these ramifications, if somehow or other one finds one’s self in the position of giving some kind of instruction to a senior Vaiṣṇava, then one would have to offer that in the most humble way, and you know, very apologetic that there is like some doubt, you see something which is agitating your mind or which is making you feel that possibly it is not correct. And so just to alleviate the doubt as a senior Vaiṣṇava you are requesting that he would please explain, whether his activities actually bona fide Kṛṣṇa consciousness, because you are looking up to him for example, and it’s creating a doubt in your mind, because from what you have been taught, it doesn’t seem to be correct.

In this way in some indirect polite way if one could ask like that, then it is very hard for a senior Vaiṣṇava to really feel offended. But if you just come and say, “Well listen, you appear to be in māyā, you are doing this…” Of course, your life will get smashed. But if you ask in that way, of course then, maintaining your relationship, that you are seeing him as a senior Vaiṣṇava but you are not seeing his activities to be exemplary of that, and it’s creating… then naturally he will more than likely to be, to feel… if he is in fact wrongly situated, then he will feel somewhat responsible to show a good example and will see that you are not saying out of some kind of enviousness, but that you are actually more concerned for your own spiritual life and for his spiritual life as well. It is a type of a sticky situation.

Lord Caitanya would maintain this type of formal relationship with different Vaiṣṇavas. Sometimes… of course He was ultimately the Supreme Lord, so sometimes He would do other things too. But generally, He would try to maintain that type of activity. In that way sometimes, you would find like with Dāmodara Paṇḍita, He would say, “Well, Dāmodara is My senior, I can’t say anything with Him.” and this and that. Of course, sometimes indirectly it was like a criticism because although he was a senior Vaiṣṇava, of course Lord Caitanya was the guru of everyone. So that requires a lot of intelligence to be able to present something in a palatable way, when the subject matter is unpalatable for someone. No one wants to hear, how they are in māyā. Of course, the spiritual master, he directly just tells the disciple in many different ways, how they are need to be corrected. But when you are dealing with equals or with even superiors, sometimes a junior devotee is put as responsible for senior devotees, but actually the person is more, more responsible maybe. So, it requires a lot of Vaiṣṇava vision to actually be able to see that.

The Gauḍīya mission in many ways, they lost that type of perspective. So, what happened was like the disciple of Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, Bhakti-Pradīpa Tīrtha, he is different than Bhakti-Vilāsa Tirtha. He was Bhakti-Pradīpa Tīrtha disciple of Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura. But he could accept, he could understand that actually my grand disciple Bhaktisiddhānta, my nephew Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura is actually completely empowered, pure devotee. And so, he accepted Bhaktisiddhānta either as a sannyāsa-guru or as a śikṣa-guru, I forget exactly. But he respected him like a spiritual master. Even though there may be some formal thing, but he was actually a junior. But because he had exhibited so many exalted Vaiṣṇava qualities, he wanted his spiritual association on that level. This may happen in the future.

Of course, now, nothing like that is exactly happened where disciples of the present-day guru have really shown that much advancement yet. But say in subsequent generations one great ācārya may appear as someone’s disciple. And then Prabhupāda said like that the cream will rise to the top. And if they actually become so dynamic in preaching then even if someone may be senior by years or by relationship but if someone shows such a great quality of devotional service, that may come that there will be a test whether they can recognize that person by quality or just by other external aspects.

So, Bhakti-Pradīpa Tīrtha, he accepted Bhaktisiddhānta in that way but after Bhaktisiddhānta Prabhupāda left, actually the most qualified person was Bhakti-Pradīpa Tīrtha. But then some of the disciples of Bhaktisiddhānta were saying that, “He is not technically our god brother.” Even though he was much more senior and much more learned, they tried to do a little politics. So, Bhakti-Pradīpa Tīrtha saw that, “Well, if it’s like that…you know.” He just went off and did his own devotional service and did not want to get involved in politic politics. So, this happens in Vaiṣṇava, the whole material world is Kali-yuga and we have to be careful that we avoid this type of mistake. Prabhupāda would explain these things to us, so we would not do that thing.

Of course, by having a GBC body, this one way we get protected, because we work under committee and not under individual. Because there is always a tendency to resent one person, there may be some personality differences, but to work under this committee, this was started by Bhaktivinoda in his Nāmahaṭṭa. He had a ten-man pañcāyat and then Bhaktisiddhānta said to do it. They started but they did not really carry it forward. So Prabhupāda was always commenting that, “They never followed Bhaktisiddhānta’s order. He never said to have one ācārya, he always said to have a Governing Body Commission. You manage everything by Governing Body Commission.” you see.

One person may even be misled or one person may have difficulty, the unity of the movement has to be preserved by working under the system of Governing Body Commission. So that way in the Governing Body Commission you have different type of devotees, but they are all there because somehow or other they have done some personal service for Śrīla Prabhupāda, they know Prabhupāda’s desires, or they have excelled in some preaching field. So, in this way they have a understanding of responsibility for the society. Even there may be other, very advanced in or equally advanced devotees outside, still in principle that they are, know what Prabhupāda wanted. We follow under this basic system that the previous ācāryas wanted rather than a single ācārya system, which is more vulnerable. This helps us to take that humble attitude in a society wide basis.

Hare Kṛṣṇa!

Srila Jayapataka Swami Ki Jaya !