19811215 Evening Darśana with Life members

The following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on December 15th 1981 in Bombay, India. 

Jayapatākā Swami: So, a lot of people take the opportunity to go out for some tour.

Devotee: Yeah.

Jayapatākā Swami: So you could organize in the future considering that. But I was very pleased to hear that tonight that there was a meeting so they asked me to come. On one occasion in the past I was able to come, that was just before the Aim of All Faiths meeting. At that time there was the organization of meetings for that program and that was also a very successful program. And then, thereafter we were graced by Ambarīṣa Dāsa, Alfred Ford and that was also appreciated by the newspapers and all the members, everyone.

Actually you are the most fortunate of all the members of ISKCON because… some members are fortunate to have contributed and become part of our life member family, but they have not taken into their habit the daily sādhanā of chanting or participating in this special mercy of Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Actually everyone is doing some dharma, there is no one who is not doing some dharma, hardly. Maybe a few, but in India generally everyone is doing something. But our Bhāgavata has advised us that we should test our dharma to see whether it is fulfilling the requirement. That śloka is

dharmaḥ svanuṣṭhitaḥ puṁsāṁ
viṣvaksena-kathāsu yaḥ
notpādayed yadi ratiṁ
śrama eva hi kevalam
(ŚB.1.2.8) 

dharmaḥ svanuṣṭhitaḥ puṁsāṁ viṣvaksena-kathāsu yaḥ. We perform our dharma towards the spiritual objective, whether our dharma is being successful or not will be how much we are attracted to the kathā regarding our Supreme Personal… the Supreme Personality of Godhead, our Lord of our life. To what extent are we becoming eager to hear those messages? That is called rati. Rati means ruci or the taste, the bhāva, the ecstatic love. Rati means actual, spiritual happiness.

Everyone gets happiness when he eats good food, unless he is sick. People get happiness when they have nice company, when there is some nice function like this, people are getting some kind of happiness. But that happiness is not very rare. It is available. Even then it is lasting for only a small amount of time, and mainly we have to struggle and work to make our living, to make our ends meet, and then at the end sometimes we are having little bit of happiness through friendship, through family, through money, through some entertainment, like this.

So, people are generally very eager for that type of entertainment, that type of happiness. But in general, Indian people are very religious so if there is some vacation, they will think about going to some holy place, going to some religious function because that is the natural piety inborn within the Indian people, because this is the holy land where Kṛṣṇa, where Rāma, where Buddha, where Lord Caitanya where all so many avatāras have appeared. Therefore this is known as Bhārata-varṣa. It is famous even in other planets as being the most holy place.

So as much as one is attracted by spiritual matters, especially hearing about the glories of the Lord from the mouth of pure devotees, that is considered to be the test whether one is becoming advanced. If one has not developed any attraction for serving or hearing or remembering the Lord, even though he is practicing some type of religious principle, whatever that may be, then the Bhāgavata śloka says, śrama eva hi kevalam. That means that it is simply an expenditure energy for show or for nothing. There is no real benefit.

So that is the problem, that in this particular age the various types of dharma, yajña, which were available in previous ages like meditation, homa-yajña, temple pūjā, are very difficult to properly perform. Kalau tad dhari-kīrtanāt (ŚB. 12.3.52). In this Kali-yuga, the recommended process is Harināma-saṅkīrtana, Hari-kīrtana. In Dvāpara-yuga, dvāpare-paricaryāyāṁ it was temple pūjā. tretāyāṁ yajato makhaḥ: Tretā-yuga was homa-yajña. Tretāyāṁ, yajato viṣṇoḥ and in Satya-yuga it was dhyāna. In this Kali-yuga, kalau tad dhari-kīrtanāt. The recommended process is Harināma. Why? Because by chanting the name of Kṛṣṇa one very quickly becomes attracted to hearing more about Kṛṣṇa to serving Kṛṣṇa, to hearing about Rāma, serving Rāma, in this way one becomes actually advanced in spiritual life. Whether a gṛhastha, whether a student, or whether a renounced person, that is the goal of religion.

At the time we leave this body, whatever we think of, that is where we go. What we will think of is what we are attracted to. If we are attracted to Kṛṣṇa then we will go to Kṛṣṇa, we will go to God, back to home, back to Godhead. If we are not attracted by the Supreme Personality, how can we go there? So that attraction that rati, that type of love, bhālobāśā (bengali for love), or prema, prīti, that is a very rare thing. So that is awakened by actually chanting, by performing this process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

If another person, if anyone is not getting that attachment to Kṛṣṇa, that means something is wrong. Something must be rectified in one’s spiritual practices. It is not that dharma should simply be anuṣṭhāna or a formality that we do like a ritual, without any result.  There must also be a result.

It is said that, just like when a healthy man and a healthy woman, husband and wife, combine then they produce a child. Similarly, if there is a bona fide guru and a bona fide listener or disciple, if there is a bona fide pāṭhaka and a bona fide śrota, speaker and hearer, then there will be an effect that will be spiritual jñāna, that will be spiritual unnatī or spiritual advancement.  Therefore the scripture advises one should not hear about the glories of Kṛṣṇa or Hari from the lips of non-devotees.

avaiṣṇava-mukhodgīrṇaṁ
pūtaṁ hari-kathāmṛtam
śravaṇaṁ naiva kartavyaṁ
sarpocchiṣṭaṁ yathā payaḥ
(Padma Purāṇa) 

They’re avaiṣṇava. One who is not a devotee, if we hear from his lips Hari-kathāmṛtam, this is bad. Why? It says it’s just like sarpa-ucchiṣṭa. sarpa means snake like a cobra, ucchiṣṭa means what the snake has eaten. If we have milk which is touched by the lips of a serpent, that milk itself is viśākta (poisoned). So therefore to hear the glories of Kṛṣṇa from someone who is not a devotee, that means he doesn’t believe in Kṛṣṇa.

Sometimes very famous gurus, spiritual masters, sannyāsīs, who are not actually devotees of Kṛṣṇa, they sometimes try to glorify Kṛṣṇa. But if any pure devotee is present during that glorification, that glorification for him is like a sword in the heart. Just like the guru of Rāmānujācārya told him from the śloka that Kṛṣṇa’s beauty is like the beauty of the ass or the monkey, like that very rosy cheek, like… Some examples he gave. This caused Rāmānujācārya to cry. But the… that sannyāsi thought he was giving a very nice description of God, but he was using such unthinkable words that it was simply causing pain.

Sometimes great… so called great leaders in this spiritual field, you will hear them say, yes, Kṛṣṇa was a great man. He was a very great man, He did so many things that were very wonderful. But if a devotee hears someone say that Kṛṣṇa is a man, for him that is no compliment, that is no compliment, because Kṛṣṇa is not a man. Kṛṣṇa Himself is Bhagavān-svayam, Kṛṣṇas tu bhagavān svayam (ŚB. 1.3.28).

A man means we are born. We die. Kṛṣṇa told Durgā Devī, Yoga-māyā that “You go. You take birth in Yaśodā-māyī's garbhe, you arrange like this. I am going to take birth in Devaki’s womb, in the kārāgṛha, in the prison house of Kamsa.” He planned everything out. Man doesn’t plan like that. “He will be my mother, he will be my father, I will take birth here.” No, we do not plan like that. We are forced. God is not forced. He comes on his own sweet will. So that is why we should be careful about who we hear religious talks from.

If someone is not actually a devotee of the Lord, he may be a great speaker, he may be a great orator but that also… you will find many scientists, many philosophers, many politicians, they are wonderful orators. If they also turn religionists, they also will be great orators, quoting from the Vedas. The real test? Do they believe in Kṛṣṇa, are they actually a devotee. Are they a Vaiṣṇava? Have they surrendered to the Lord? If not, they have no jurisdiction to speak on anything about (inaudible), and whatever they speak, that will be poison. That will be… some way or other that will be a discredit because they have no access to know who is Kṛṣṇa, who is Rāma, who is Viṣṇu. Just as it says in Gītā, na me bhakta vinaśyati.

So first thing is to be a devotee. How to be a devotee? That has made very easy in this Kali-yuga by simply chanting

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

Of course in Bangladesh most of the people do not follow any particular rules about eating and so on due to the situation they are in, more or less irregulated in different ways. Few people are following some system amongst the Hindus. Amongst the Muslims there is no question. But we are requesting everyone that at least they should chant Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Maha-Mantra. 108 times every day, that is our request. And we were very happy to find that thousands of people came forward to pledge that they would chant every day, taking up the order of Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

Of course more advanced than that is when one not only chants, but also eats Kṛṣṇa-prasāda. So like that we are requesting people to first of all chant, second of all to try to take the prasāda offered to Kṛṣṇa, that prasāda can be made in the house, it is not very difficult. We are eating every day. If we simply prepare it in a pure manner… Our Subhaga and others can give the mantras that are there before a picture or before a Deity, the prasāda is placed and one bows down and offers that bhoga to the Lord in a humble manner or even chants Hare Kṛṣṇa and then takes. Is that very difficult? So if one is like that taking prasāda, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa and sometimes coming together like this and hearing Hari-kathā from devotees only, not from some famous speakers or some other people who may not be devotee because they will give some very tantalizing, intellectual ideas which have nothing to do with devotional service or with loving God or with actually advancement in real understanding about who is Kṛṣṇa. They will touch on other subjects.

So our goal is to fulfill Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s prediction. He predicted that ‘pṛthivīte āche yata nagarādi, "towns," grāma.. sarvatra pracāra haibe mora nāma, that in every town and village all over the world, His message, His chanting will be performed. So in other parts of the world, some of us are going and also trying to encourage the preachers there and other parts.

Other great devotees they are all preaching. Just now we got a very good information from Viṣṇupāda Bhavānanda Gosvāmī, who is also the Ācārya here in Calcutta of our temple and in Māyāpur that there is a very successful preaching in Australia, and a record of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of books were distributed to all of the Australians during this Christmas period. Not only in Australia but in New Zealand and in Indonesia.

So this is our goal that all over the world, that our philosophy, is not simply a sentiment or fanaticism, it is based upon scientific information from the Vedas. Therefore, first thing we have to have books and those books we study and we practice. So the simple practice is chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa and eating Kṛṣṇa-prasāda. After that other things come, especially chanting is a must for everyone. So actually when I… actually Caitanya Mahāprabhu, He came from Bengal and took sannyāsa at twenty-four. He went to Purī on the request of His mother. From Puri He went to South India and preached for eight years… six years.

Devotee: Six years in South India.

Jayapatākā Swami: For six years, and I was wondering that where was the sign of Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s pracāra because although He was preaching there for six years, whether there is any symptom of that preaching. So I actually found that everywhere I went in Tamil Nadu, in Bangalore, and even when I was in Trivandrum in Kerala at the very tip that actually everyone has a great faith in the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra. Even in Kerala at one of the Ayyappa temples which is a temple devoted to one form of deity connected with Durgā and Subramaṇyam. There also they were chanting

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

After so many Malayalam kīrtanas, all of a sudden they started chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. There I found that also most of the people know this Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra. Even in some villages we found some people are having similar drums and they are chanting also. But no one can remember that, who brought this chanting to South India. We know in Bengal or in Orissa, here, everyone knows Caitanya Mahāprabhu, because He had so many followers who kept on preaching. But He alone went to South India. So everyone knows of Him from history books and so on, but Rāmānujācārya, Śaṅkarācārya, the other ācāryas… Madhvācārya, none of them chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa so far that we know, it has not been recorded. So then, how is it that through the whole South India everywhere, people are chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa? I take it this must be the only sign of Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s preaching that still today, so many people are having faith in Hare Kṛṣṇa chanting due to the original preaching which He performed five hundred years ago.

So now we are trying to establish in India that in every town, in every city, in every community, in every school, in every college, in every village, that people should regularly chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. In Bengal there was before Hari-sabhā, in Orissa there was Bhāgavata-tumis, in Assam they have of course the Shankardev, but they have the nāma-ghara. In different places they have different programs of meeting together and doing these type of things. I don’t know what they have in U.P. or Rajasthan, other than they have beautiful temples. But this program of coming together and chanting is very easy.

Just like, we are having one group meeting every two weeks here. So like that now we have started in all the villages, in all the towns, in many of the universities a program to have the people meet once every week in their own place. Come together, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, read a little bit from the Gītā or Bhāgavata and then discuss, sometimes write questions and our sādhūs go there. That is called the Nāmahaṭṭa. Nāma Hāṭa is Bengali, actual Sanskrit is Nāmahaṭṭa.  One of our big life members in Bombay, Brij Rattan Mota, he told me “What is this Nāmahaṭṭa? Haṭa means haṭāo. That means get out!”

I said, “No, no, this is Sanskrit.”

He said “No no. I know Hindi and Sanskrit, I have never heard of this haṭṭa.”

I said “No.” I said, “‘ṭa, ṭa, haṭṭa. This is Sanskrit.”

So he took out his big dictionary and he paged through it and he looked up and he saw “Haṭṭa...  accha, bazar.”

I said, “Accha.”

“You are right!”

Guest: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Haṭṭa.

Guest: Mangal-haṭṭa.

Jayapatākā Swami: “Hāṭa”, they said, but “Haṭṭa” this… Sanskrit. Idea’s in the bazar, if a Muslim comes or a Hindu or a Christian or a śūdra or a brāhmaṇa or whoever, if they come with their money and want to buy the goods, they can buy and take it away. No one is restricting in the bazaar. and so many things are being bought and sold, and so many things are being bought and taken away. So like this, Nityānanda, He made a bazar for giving out Kṛṣṇa-prema, Kṛṣṇa-nāma. That bazar, anyone can take it, but what is the paisa, what is His fee? Denero? The money which that nāma can be purchased by? That is śraddhā or faith, bhakti or devotion.

With those exchanges, then you can take as much name as you want, regardless of your caste, creed, whatever you may be. No restriction.

So like that, these Nāmahaṭṭas in Bengal… two years ago we started, just… a few months before Gaura Pūrṇimā. At Gaura Pūrṇimā we had 40, in a very short time. Last year Gaura Pūrṇimā we had about 150. I predicted that by the next year we would double. But now already we have 450 Nāmahaṭṭa-saṅgas who meet at least once every week. Amongst them about 10% in the villages, they are meeting every morning and every night and some of them also, they want their… Some have donated land and some of them have already constructed some Nāṭa-mandir, some out of grass hut, some out of corrugated, some also want to… building pakka… some structure so they can meet together and chant in their village.

They are also organizing a program. Our saṅkīrtana party went from Calcutta last month and they went to Paschim Dinajpur, that is West Dinajpur, to Jalpaiguri, Coochbehar and other places.  And there I found that nowadays there are a lot of different type of groups out there, giving different types of mantras and different types of instructions. Some are telling you “All God… You don’t need to do anything.” So many different things are going on. But generally speaking, most of the people have faith in the mahā-mantra given in our Vedas and Purāṇa. In the Kali Saṅtāraṇa Upaniṣad, it very clearly says:

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

iti ṣoḍaśakaṁ nāmnāṁ
kali-kalmaṣa-nāśanaṁ
nātaḥ parataropāyaḥ
sarva-vedeṣu dṛśyate

That these sixteen… iti ṣoḍaśakaṁ nāmnāṁ, these solā-nāma, sixteen names, kali-kalmaṣa-nāśanaṁ, all the kalmaṣa of Kali-yuga destroyed, nāśanaṁ. nātaḥ parataropāyaḥ, no other upāya, no other way, sarva-vedeṣu dṛśyate, all the Vedas, they confirm this. You can find so many proofs. So the people generally believe in Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra. They are coming forward. They are very eager. They say that “No one cares for our spiritual life. We are here in a village, only sometimes once in every four or five years, they come to get votes but nobody comes to give us any spiritual life. You are coming, we are very grateful.”

So some places also we are also organizing schools in the village, gurukula or some religious instructions in the evening. In some places other programs have been taken up like prasāda distribution and so on. It is still in the very beginning stages. Here in the Calcutta area we have about twenty groups who have applied to be members. But we have not fully developed them yet. In Trivandrum in south India now Bhakti Svarūpa Swami has taken it up to make a Nāmahaṭṭa in every university and every major high school and in every major town and in surrounding villages.

So already many students have come forward to have weekly meetings. In this way we want to revive the whole spiritual life of India so that the whole world can be purified, so that the youth can be brought up in a nice atmosphere, so that the actual country can be purified. So this is certainly blessed by Caitanya Mahāprabhu, blessed by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, our Founder Ācārya who has started this, you can say, spiritual revolution in motion and who is still present and giving his constant blessing to all these attempts.

So many members are not here, but I feel that for the proper implementation of such a broad… such a broad program as this Nāmahaṭṭa program is, that in different ways the guidance and the experience of the members can also afford a great contribution. When we told the leading Hindus in Bangladesh that we had already 500 Nāmahaṭṭas in West Bengal. They said “We will have 5000…”

Devotee: Haribol!

Jayapatākā Swami: “…here in Bangladesh.” [break] They said, “There are 68,000 villages in Bangladesh. Of that 15-20% have some considerable amount of Hindus. That means we have 10,000 villages. So of the 10,000 it is not at all difficult to have 5,000 Nāmahaṭṭa. We challenge you. Because you are having 40,000 villages to 48,000 in West Bengal, of which only about 25% or 20% are Muslims in all… at most or even less. That means at least 30,000 are clearly having a Hindu population. So we are challenging, we will do 5000.”

So like that they are also very enthused. So we feel that Calcutta itself is one whole district that we can make on a higher level for the university students just like we have our Vaiśya-ṛṣī program… a type of program suited for them because generally speaking where I found that there are many, many nice boys and girls going to university but because of the whole political atmosphere, because of the whole moral degradation, all the cheating and everything going on in the schools, that… many of them get spoilt. And even the good ones, they don’t have anything to do there. So gradually they also fall into a bad association. So for these, the only solution is to provide a positive alternative. That positive alternative is to have nice service programs including chanting and discussing different things, this is very important. This is the only hope. Anything else is too difficult, but anyone can chant.

I personally, when I was in Dhaka this time we did a program at the Jagannāth Hall which is the first time that there was a program done in the University of Dhaka in Jagannātha Hall which is the big Hindu dormitory with 1,000 Hindu students. All of the students were present there. Justice Ranabir Sen the only Hindu Justice from the High Court of Bangladesh, he also was present to grace the occasion. So we gave our discussion. One man commented that in Bangladesh people have become so undisciplined in religious functions that generally you will always find someone smoking a biḍi or cigarette.  But he said in this particular function there was no sign. There weren't anywhere written “Don’t smoke.” nothing.  But anyone who came into that gathering, not one person dared to light a cigarette. He said “This is a divine power.” This was his (inaudible) So anyway there 1,000 students… We only brought 200 cards with us. 200 cards of people… they… they pledged to chant 108 times Hare Kṛṣṇa every day, as a start. And out of that many students have already formed together and made a cultural society based on this Kṛṣṇa conscious principles and they have already formed three branches in two other universities. So like that they are already beginning to work on that side. But they have so many obstacles. Here there are no obstacles, except our own lethargy. So anyway this is one of our programs we are hoping for seeing the actual effect of Kṛṣṇa consciousness reach everyone, to help them become peaceful, become happy and to become lovers of God.

So we are thanking all of you for taking the active part and we feel that you are all wonderful devotees and that with this type of association of devotees more and more will be able to increase this association of devotees and the effect on the whole society. Actually you are the leaders in terms of religious matters of the society. Government is so-called communal or non-communal, whatever they call it. That means they take no interest whatsoever,

Devotee: Secular.

Jayapatākā Swami: Secular. So as a result if we don’t take the interest, no one will take the interest, because no one else is going to take the interest for the peoples’ spiritual life except devotees who are dedicated to seeing the whole society become God conscious. So I feel that all of you are taking a part in that great movement, therefore I offer you my humble respects. Thank you very much.

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

Namaste!