19820424 Attached to Kṛṣṇa, Attached to His Devotees - Evening Darśana

The following an evening darśana, given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on April 24th, 1982, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Jayapatākā Swami: The people, they can… just like everyone likes the Mardi Gras… of course for some could be so degraded, but in this case, it’s not. Why, they have the big parades? Why? And they want a prize for that. Kṛṣṇa consciousness’s so beautiful. We have so much colorful festivities, and colorful expressions, art forms. In this way even the more ma… [break] will appreciate those artistic art forms, if nothing else… [break]… on the basis our culture.

Then, gradually, because everything in Kṛṣṇa consciousness is all centered around Kṛṣṇa, they’d become more and more purified, so Kṛṣṇa consciousness is a continuous adventure. In our preaching, we go out and meet people. Everything connected with Kṛṣṇa, if one is actually connected with Kṛṣṇa, then it’s always an adventure, at every moment. It’s always new. One name for Kṛṣṇa is nava-yauvana, always new. Always new form, always new activities, always new quality He’s manifesting.

In the material world they have something… they’re always looking for something new. You’re on this grocery store, they always say, “New!”. It’s like everyone wants to get something new, but then… after a little while, the novelty wears off. Why the novelty doesn’t wear off in Kṛṣṇa, if we actually… once we get in touch with Kṛṣṇa consciousness, on any level, in reality, Kṛṣṇa’s always new. He’s new at every moment.

The gopīs, great devotees of Kṛṣṇa, they never became tired of looking at Kṛṣṇa, in fact, they were cursing the creator, Lord Brahmā, for creating eyes that were so defective that they had eyelids that blinked because that blinking would stop them from seeing Kṛṣṇa, momentarily. For sec…that moment when they couldn’t see Kṛṣṇa because of their blinking, they were cursing that moment. That’s how much their appetite was for seeing Kṛṣṇa, so Kṛṣṇa’s qualities is always new, so we can go on chanting and chanting and it’s always a new taste, always a new experience.

[Break] …(I) remember when I first joined Kṛṣṇa consciousness. At that time, Śrīla Prabhupāda was in Montreal. He didn’t have a Visa for America. I was up there, so there was an emergency period where we didn’t have saṅkīrtana, we didn’t have other means of collection, although I had jobs in America and other things, but when I went there, I naturally didn’t have any connection, so we just had to, by any means, get money, so we all tried to get jobs, and went out and… Manpower… went out to get any kind of job we could.

So, the only job I could find was sweeping the floor in an A & W Root Beer… or A & W Coffee Shop from 5:00 untill 10:00 at night, something like that, afternoon shift, and Śrīla… They asked Prabhupāda if that was alright because they served hamburgers there. He said, “Well, does he have to serve the hamburgers out?” They explained that all, “All he has to do is clean up after they’ve eaten.” So he said, “Well, from the person that grows the cow and sells it, to the person that ships it, to the person that butchers it, to the person that cooks it up, and serves it, then the person that eats it, there’s karma, but once it’s already eaten, then there’s… the karma’s already gone.” Devotees: (Laughter)

Of course, it was a very, you know, terrible job, very menial, hellish kind of a condition, but every morning, I was hearing Prabhupāda’s class. I’d come back and hear his evening class on the tape. I would see Prabhupāda in the morning, give him a rose, sometimes I’d stand guard outside of his room. Then I’d go to this hellish condition at night, but I’d be completely absorbed in serving my spiritual master and chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa.

So I’d be mopping the floor and I’d be chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, and I’d be smiling, and if somebody’d come in there with a hangover, and take a cup of coffee, he’d look up and see, “Here’s a guy…” he’s maybe got a big wad of money, he thinks, “Here’s just a bum, you know, guy sweeping the floor. Guy’s left, you know, singing and he’s happy.” And sometimes people would get angry at me and they’d say “Why you are happy?! Don’t you realize, you know that you’re a bum?”, you know, “You’re a lousy job, you know, what do you got to be happy about?” (laughter) 

“I got money, I got a job, I got this, I got that, but… I got a car, you know, but I’m not happy. So, why you happy?” Then I tried to tell them, then really, of course, they couldn’t relate to it, at all. [break] (I) remember that the owner of the shop, he became so angry because during coffee break, I’d sit and chant japa.

Devotees: (laughter)

Jayapatākā Swami: And he told me, “What are you doing?” This is my coffee break. “No, what are you doing? I said, “I’m chanting the names of God.” (shouting) “You can’t do this in my establishment!” He just started yelling and swearing at me. “You can’t… we don’t allow this stuff, here!” I said, “Well if the… if the other people drink their coffee, that’s their intoxication, this is mine.”

Devotees: (laughing) hari bol!

Jayapatākā Swami: “This is my thing.”, you know? The guy was such a demon, he couldn’t tolerate it. So on… for Janmāṣṭamī he wouldn’t give me a day off, and I couldn’t come, so he fired me, then I got a job in a printing press. There’re so many others… jobs I got to… just trying to pay Prabhupāda’s rent, at that time.

Now, it’s nice. We have book distribution, we have so many saṅkīrtana, we don’t have to work for these karmīs. Very difficult when you have to work under karmīs, but the point was that I could see so many people, and they’re just so miserable, and they couldn’t understand that why a person would be happy, no matter what condition he’s in, and in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, one who’s Kṛṣṇa conscious, just chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, doesn’t matter externally what situation’s one in, one can actually be always happy, and always be transcendentally situated, and every day, when… since that time, um, up to today is always a new festival, always a new experience, everything in the association and the service of Kṛṣṇa.

We go preaching in the villages, we always meet… or in the cities, wherever it is, you always meet so many people, different questions, different amount of interest, it’s amazing how many people like, I was flying from Geneva to Zurich and right next to me, a man pulls out a letter from his daughter, happens to be in Nepal. He’s a… He’s a director of the Piper, the company that owned the… big conglomerate that owns the Piper Comp… Airplane Company, multimillionaire. And, he’s reading this letter from his daughter’s, I saw the let… the letterhead was in Sanskrit. Then he starts talking, he gives me his card, says “Come by next time you’re in Geneva.” (Chuckles) I’ll come by stop by and see him. So, like that you meet all… Kṛṣṇa always brings one to different people. I don’t know how many times I’ve sat next to people that know about Kṛṣṇa consciousness, that have become… just see that Kṛṣṇa’s always arranging to bring people together, so in this way, there’s unlimited scope for helping people just by working as Kṛṣṇa’s agent.

People are always looking for something new, but in this material world, that newness is just very superficial, but in spiritual life, the newness is so eternal, and so real because it’s in connection with Kṛṣṇa, but actually, at every moment there’s expanding service, expanding consciousness, expanding freshness,if one serves, of course one can appreciate if one gets up to the level of ruci, or having a taste for devotional service. In the beginning, one has to become free from the contamination of bad habits, of materialistic attachments, that’s called anartha-nivṛtti. 

Anarthas are different contaminations that are in the heart. These contaminations are cleansed away by chanting, by serving, it’s natural that we be attached to Kṛṣṇa, we be attached to Kṛṣṇa’s devotees, but in material life, we don’t have that association, so because we don’t have the association in the initial stage, our attachment is spread over so many things.

We’re attached to, you know, we’re attached to mainly being number 1 in our class, or getting an athletic letter, or so many different things, having different kind of friends and different kind of social environments, and all this kind of a family or friendship, love, different types of attachments are in the heart, and these things offer us an immediate offer of happiness, but then subsequently, they always give us misery.

The Buddhists, they experience this misery, so they say that, “Renounce everything. Just achieve nirvāṇa.” They go between a bhoga-tyāga, enjoying and renunciation cycle. The Buddhist monks’ system is that you can be a Buddhist monk for three days, three weeks, three years, thirty years. When you’re a monk you have to follow along the renunciation, all the strict things, but then at any moment, you can take off your robe, put on a karmī dress, become a layman, again. So, what they do is they’ll sometimes be an ordinary person and… you understand, after three months they’ll become a monk, then they’ll become agitated again, become an ordinary, for them it’s not considered blooping, and whatever you do, in tyāga they consider, “Well, that’s a little bit better for him. ” Some of them stick to it, but Kṛṣṇa consciousness is not just like that, they’re… the one that renounced, there’s actually, I mean their gurus understand that material life offers happiness, but then ultimately ends in suffering, so then they want to renounce, but then, they don’t have any positive spiritual understanding, no spiritual realization. It’ just renunciation. “Just, be free from misery.”, that they got when their enjoyment became frustrated.

I mean, in America, people just become alcoholics or mental cases or something. Just like, what was Marilyn Monroe committed suicide, amrisol or something, took the sleeping pills. There’s so many people like that. I mean, in America, people just become alcoholics or mental cases or something. Just like, what was Marilyn Monroe committed suicide, amrisol or something, took the sleeping pills. There’s so many people like that. They reach some kind of material prosperity, fame, prestige, but there just frustrated in so many ways that then they don’t know where else to go. At least the Buddhist, he would then shave his head, become a monk, or a nun, they’d just take sleeping pills and kill themselves.

But Kṛṣṇa consciousness is neither of these. Kṛṣṇa conscsious means there’s a positive alternative. We actually understand our real, spiritual happiness, our spiritual relation with Kṛṣṇa, and in that, we get positive experience of… there’s a saying, nitya-mahotsava, a daily festival every day. So, initially, we have these attachments, but our attachment to Kṛṣṇa is actually the underlying factor.

Our attachment to other things is actually a perverted type of attachment to Kṛṣṇa. What we’re looking for in all these other things is actually Kṛṣṇa. That’s why when we… whatever we think that a thing is, when we get it, it’s never up to our expectation. What we’re actually expecting is Kṛṣṇa. What we’re actually wanting is Kṛṣṇa, but we don’t have the words or the concepts, or the understanding to know that. We just know that whenever we get the thing that we wanted, it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t really what we wanted. There’s something more, something missing. We go out looking, “What is that?” Actually, what we’re looking for is Kṛṣṇa, because Kṛṣṇa is complete. Kṛṣṇa is everything. He is the ultimate satisfaction of all of our desires.

[break] Kṛṣ-ṇa. The word ṇa comes from ānanda. It means the reservoir of all pleasure. Kṛṣ means the all-attractive. What we’re always being attracted to in different people is actually, just part of Kṛṣṇa. So, initially, we have all of these superficially attachments. We have these superficial attachments, therefore, our consciousness is splayed over so many desires, so these are called anarthas. These are unwanted. They agitate our mind. They disturb us, so we chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. We serve, we surrender to the spiritual master, and these anarthas are cleared away. When they’re cleared away, then we become fixed in devotional service, and from the fixed platform, we can develop a taste, an actual nectarean taste of devotional service.

Some people may immediately get some taste, even in the beginning stages, because Lord Caitanya’s all-merciful, but when one gets up to the stage of ruci, or full taste, at that time, the anarthas are cleared away. One no longer has strong attachment to these material distractions, and one is steady in the devotional service, the mind is not agitating in so many ways, and one can… develops (coughs) a taste, and that taste is natural. It’s not that we’re imposing, or teaching ourselves something. We already have a taste… we’re already desiring Kṛṣṇa, but we diverted that in so many ways. So, the attachment is already there, it’s just been misdirected. So, when we cleanse away the reactions of all the karma, good and bad, automatically, our attachment to Kṛṣṇa becomes established.

It is already there in the heart, just been covered up by so much dirt, like a mirror, covered with dust. We wipe the dust off, then we can see things, as they are. So therefore, we encourage people to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, and especially if one chants, follows regulative principles, then the cleansing process is very fast. If one chants but still breaks regulative principles, it’s described as hāti-snāna, or gaja-snāna. The elephant, if you’ve ever seen the elephant, the go on the water and they scrub themselves so good, sometimes the bull elephant will scrub all the cow elephants, and they’ll be very… you know, get very and then they’ll climb up on the uh, shore and they’ll take the trunk and they’ll take it in the dust, they’ll take a big scoop of dust and they’ll throw it all over themselves. So, they just took a big bath, and they go out, and the first thing they do is throw dust all over themselves. So, that’s called like a hāti-snāna.

We tell that to Indians a lot of times. You come and chant. We do there 24 hour saṅkīrtanas, but after it’s over sometimes, you’d light up a cigarette, so this is hāti-snāna. You’re purifying your heart. You’re chanting, but then you’re not concentrating on avoiding these bad habits, so you’re taking your bath, and you’re throwing the dirt on yourself, so we try and encourage them be a little more austere, so they can get rid of these attachments.

Once you get rid of your material attachments, simultaneously, as you’re… it’s like a progression. There’s 8 levels. As you’re more attached to material life, then you’re less attached to Kṛṣṇa. Automatically, as your Kṛṣṇa attachment increases, your material attachment decreases. Finally, when you get up to bhāva, you only have one percent attachment to the material world and 99% attachment to Kṛṣṇa, and then when you finally reach prema, then there’s no attachment to the material world, at all. That’s considered to be completely liberated state. Even bhāva is 99% liberated state, so this is the basic process.

If we want to engage the people in the festivities, in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, even if they say, “This is very nice. Oh this is a nice thing.” Even if they appreciate like that, immediately they get so much benefit. You find in the Bhāgavatam that it says if a person appreciates what someone does, if a person supports approves, he also gets the same result as the person doing it. So, even if people see the Hare Kṛṣṇa party, some people… Just like last time we went here for the Ratha-yātrā on Bourbon Street, we were giving out books, and somebody said, you know, “These people are always smiling, the Hare Kṛṣṇas.” One man in a book store was mentioning to one of the devotees. Just that approval, immediately he gets so much pious… so much sukṛti for that. Of course, the quantity, he’ll get the same… in other words, he’ll get the same spiritual benefit, just by approving, but according to his approval, or his involvement, the quantity would be different than a devotee.

If he gives ten dollars, he gives ten cents, or just gives a good word, depending on how much that is for him, of course then still, he’ll get a benefit from that. So, in this way, people who appreciate Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they benefit, more and more. Similarly, those people who criticize or try to stop it, then of course, they’re pulled down unless they get a special mercy of some devotee, but basically, this is very simple process.

At the same time, because the philosophy contains everything, so many people, they can’t immediately understand everything. So, just if they can understand that they should chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, and they should try to understand the Bhagavad-gītā, then those who are more intelligent, those who are more philosophically inclined, more fortunate, by their being Kṛṣṇa conscious, that will affect so many other people. Prabhupāda said that if one tenth of one percent of the people will become Kṛṣṇa conscious, the whole society will be completely changed.

Questions? Now’s your time to put some questions. 

Question: What’s the name of the book, here?

Jayapatākā Swami: Mahābhārata. 

Question: What stage does one enter the relationship with Kṛṣṇa, personal?

Jayapatākā Swami: Prema. At bhāva, there’s some exchange, sometimes.

Question: When he reaches prema, then he comes to his constitutional positon?

Jayapatākā Swami: Prema means… you can’t reach prema until you actually see Kṛṣṇa, in bhāva you may not see Kṛṣṇa, but your absorbed in ecstasy of serving Him, and sometimes Kṛṣṇa may appear momentarily. When He appeared, just momentarily, then at that point prema can come. Prema means you’ve actually seen Kṛṣṇa, and then after you see Kṛṣṇa… you’ve seen Kṛṣṇa, then bhāva. Sometimes a devotee in bhāva, chanting, smells Kṛṣṇa, His bodily aroma, or sometimes Kṛṣṇa might touch the devotee, and make him mad in ecstasy. Sometimes just in the thought of Kṛṣṇa absorbed. 

Question: At what point of advancement does one follow in the footsteps of the residents… of a particular resident of Vṛndāvana?

Jayapatākā Swami: Basically, from the bhava stage. That’s why that… people that are still having anarthas, or bad habits, or just kaniṣṭha-adhikārīs and then they try to imitate, immediately try to follow the system of becoming under the shelter of one of these associates, so artificial. Until one comes up to the platform, then how can… until one’s attachment for material society, friendship and love is transcended, how can one actually experience what his eternal relationship is with Kṛṣṇa? It will start to manifest… it can start to manifest at bhāva stage, though when one is actually in prema, then it’s really revealed and realized, as they say. 

Devotee: Which of the nine forms of material nature, what are they, what are their functions you have in the material world?

Jayapatākā Swami: No, these are just different… She appears in different places in different forms. She… it’s her personal form, not a form just as the energy, but she… personal form. She was Satī. It’s in the Bhāgavatam, and then her father criticized her husband, Lord Śiva, so then she felt that her body was contaminated because her father, who gave her the body was ap… was an offender, so one is… she couldn’t convince her father to take back his offensive statements and she sat in yogic meditation and in an anger, that she had taken birth from such a father who would’ve been an offender of a pure devotee of Kṛṣṇa, her husband, she burned herself up in yogic mystic power, fire and destroyed her body. That’s what got Lord Śiva so angry that he sent his Vīrabhadra to the arena and they killed… killed his father-in-law and made a complete destruction of the whole place.

Then she took birth again as Pārvatī, the daughter of the Himalayas. Every time she takes birth, she marries Lord Śiva again, but then sometimes she leaves her body and then takes birth again, somewhere. One of the forms of them is called Kāmakṣa, and it’s also in the Mahābhārata, and she directs the daughter of Narakāsura to surrender to Kṛṣṇa. Like this, the material nature also one name is Bhakti-pradāyinī. She gives devotion to Kṛṣṇa. She can also give devotion to Kṛṣṇa if someone wants it, but she tests whether someone wants it, and when she tests them, if they fail the test, then she doesn’t give it to them. Under certain circumstance, if one prays to her to be released from serving material nature and be allowed to serve Kṛṣṇa, she can also give that, but diction as a… as a devotee, and to some of her devotees, she actually directed them to Kṛṣṇa, but most of the people worship her in India, just for material. She’s mainly worshiped to get a good… to get a good wife, and to have material opulence. The prayer they make to Durga is dhanam-deya, pratiṣṭhā-deya, śriyaṁ-deya, pūjaṁ-deya, like that. Deya means give me.

Jayapatākā Swami: Dhanam, give me money. Dhanam-deya. Pratiṣṭhā-deya, give me position. Śriyaṁ-deya, give me beauty. Pūjaṁ-deya, give me followers and worship… you know.

Devotees: (Laughing)

Devotee: It’s just the opposite of what Lord Caitanya was praying for.

Jayapatākā Swami: No. It’s materialistic. It’s worship of the demigods. It says in the Bhagavad-gītā, “Those who worship the demigods, who are (coughs) bewildered by the flowery words of the Vedas, they’re attracted to so many material benedictions and they’re driven by lust.” So, therefore, the devotees don’t worship the demigods, independent of Kṛṣṇa. Because all they can give is some material benediction. They worship the devotees… demigods as devotees. We don’t disrespect them. We go to the temple… we bow down to the temple with the right side. Right side is for devotees, left side is for Kṛṣṇa and straight on is for the guru. This is the system. We worship them with our right side because they’re also bowing down to Kṛṣṇa and we don’t ask any material benediction from them. We depend on Kṛṣṇa. But, here you don’t have that problem. There’s no demigod temples that are in India.

We’re supposed to respect them as great devotees. One time we were on the boat, preaching up the Ganges, and then, one of the devotees started criticizing how… we went by a Kali temple, and just as soon as he said a very offensive statement about mother Kali, then out from the clear blue sky, sudden wind came up and blew the boat right into the water. Huge, forty foot mast went right over into the water. Water flung… went flying into the ship. Devotees flying off into the water. The boats going down, just at that… just immediately. Then the captain had to cut the sail with the rope, right from the mast, and then the boat went back up. The devotee paid his obeisances.

Devotees: (Laughing)

Jayapatākā Swami: So, although we don’t worship them, we don’t also want to get into any criticism. I mean they are devotees, but they have some material desire in most cases, some of them are powerful energies which are just doing Kṛṣṇa’s service. She’s the material energy. Her job is to keep you in illusion. Those souls who want to forget Kṛṣṇa, she’s the energy that makes one forget Kṛṣṇa. Otherwise, it’s not natural. It’s not natural for you to forget Kṛṣṇa, so Kṛṣṇa has an energy.

If you want to forget Kṛṣṇa, then you have to provide an energy to do that, to put you in illusion. So, we want to avoid serving illusion. So, in a sense, we’re declaring war on her, but everything’s fair in this war. So, sometimes even one prays to, “You’re very powerful, so for me you can just leave off. You can give me some penalty points.” 

Any other question?

Question: In India, which temple do you consider architecturally to be very sublime, is there… I mean are there any outstanding temples that’s there you’ve…

Jayapatākā Swami: So many. Different styles, different… Ask Surabhi. Ask our architectural minister. So many nice temples. Jagannātha Purī temple is very nice. I think I like the Jagannātha Purī temple. There’s some very nice temples in Vrṇdāvana also, but a lot of the… some of the bigger ones are broken by the Mohammadans. Something about the Jagannātha Purī temple, when you’re going… coming up to it, you can see it from about 10 miles away. I would stop to kind of pay my obeisances right there on the side of the road. It has such a presence to it.

Prabhupāda told us to build a bigger temple than the Jagannātha Purī temple in Jagannātha Puri, said when we do that, then Jagannātha we leave that temple, and come to our temple. We just have to do kīrtana outside the temple… [break] …come to our temple.

Devotee: Is this the temple that they won’t allow the devotees to go in?

Jayapatākā Swami: They don’t allow the devotees with light skin.

Devotees: (laughing)

Jayapatākā Swami: I know black bodied devotees who’ve gone in there. Some devotees have snuck in, wearing sarīs and… Hmm?

Devotee: Bhakti-Tirtha Mahārāja, went inside the temple, sometime.

Jayapatākā Swami: There’s the last temple in India that doesn’t let us in, because there was before a whole political thing that the government tried to force people in there, so they became very defensive about people coming in. During Gandhi’s movement, he wanted to have all the street-sweepers go in the temple. So, because of that, they’ve become so defensive, so that even though most of their… one of the sons is my disciple… son of the secretary of the committee, for that temple is my di… is a bhakta, of wants to be initiated when I go back to India, and he’s in the Calcutta temple, its just that because of this whole political thing that they had from before, and because the official saint of that temple is the Śaṅkarācārya of Puri, who is a renegade.

All the other three Śaṅkarācāryas in India also certify Kṛṣṇa conscious devotees, but this one is a diehard. He doesn’t like our movement for some reason. He’s a very heavy Māyāvādī Śaṅkarācārya, so between the two, there’s just enough pressure that no one takes initiative to actually do the red tape, to let us… to let us go in the temple. Otherwise, that’s the only temple… no other temple I can think of they don’t let us go in. But, our devotees… I just send my Indian disciples in and they buy the prasādam when I go there. We’ll build a big t… if they don’t let us in by the time we finish our Māyāpur temple, we’ll build a big temple there, and Jagannātha will come to us.

Well, today they have three thousand pujārīs, so if we want to do the pūjā, we have to have quite a few…

Devotees: (laughing)

Jayapatākā Swami: Three thousand pujārīs. It’s a very big complex. 

Yes?

Question: That… that… person Śaṅkarācārya, if he’s a Māyāvādī, why does he worship Lord Śiva… 

Jayapatākā Swami: He doesn’t…

Devotee: …I mean why is he worshipping Lord Jagannātha?

Jayapatākā Swami: He doesn’t worship Jagannātha. He doesn’t live in the temple. He’s got a separate āśrama, but the brāhmaṇas for the temple, are hereditary brāhmaṇas for thousands of years, and when Lord… when Śaṅkarācārya, the original, Ādi-Śaṅkarācārya preached in India, at one point, he drove out Buddhism from India. He was the topmost preacher for some period of time. At that time, the Śaṅkarācārya in Purī was given some kind of a position as like the official sannyāsī advisor of the temple, and he has his own separate āśrama, so they are very much in tradition there.

The king… The king… since three… you know, since thousands of years, the king of Orissa, Gajapati has always been the president of the mukti-maṇḍapa, or the head of the temple, so when they have the ceremony, the king, although kings have been abolished in India, still, whoever’s the hereditary king, now, even after independence, he comes up in his elephant, and he gets down with a golden broom. He sweeps the road in front of Jagannātha, then after that… he actually sweeps the road then they only start the Ratha-yātrā. Without him sweeping, they won’t start the Ratha-yātrā.

So, they have all these traditions, and all these things, so it’s not that Śaṅkarācārya worshipped Jagannātha. He… He worships Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, but he’s a complete Māyāvādī. I challenged them that, see “You’re worshipping Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa…” Prabhupāda told me that these Māyāvādīs, they’re actually bogus in the sense that Māyāvāda is so… impersonal philosophy is so dry that they can’t help but… one of them personally told Prabhupāda that, “My business is I am a Māyāvādī-sannyāsi, so I have to preach Māyāvādī, but actually, I am very attached to worshipping Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa.”

Just like, you know it’s a business for them. They got into a… they got into the wrong line, but they got all their followers and all that, and they’re too attached to go into another line and risk, you know, starting all over again. But, some of them are actually attached to Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa. So, this is how the Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa deity, I said that, “You’re worshipping Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa.” and he said “No. I’m worshipping myself. I am Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa.” So, then I couldn’t help but call him, you know, a few names and then leave.

Devotees: (Laughing)

Jayapatākā Swami: Too offensive. These people aren’t… that’s you we can’t listen to Māyāvādīs. They have all this poision philosophy.

Devotee: (softly) Are they just lazy lunatics, they don’t want to give up their attachments?

Jayapatākā Swami: Pardon?

Devotee: Are these lunatics who don’t want to give up their attachments?

Jayapatākā Swami: Well, just… some of them are sincere. It’s one philoso… philosophy. Some of them are sincere Māyāvādīs, and some of them are lazy. Some of them are actually doing it out of hypocrisy. They actually know that Vaiṣṇavism is better. I heard that some people before that Mahaṛṣi told some of his disicples that they should join Bhaktivedanta Swami if they wanted to learn bhakti-yoga, if they wanted to actually… they kept challenging him, he couldn’t satisfy them, he said “better go to him.”

They appreciate very much, except for that one Śaṅkarācārya, all the other ones appreciate very much. Even though they’re Māyāvādīs that what we’re preaching. They believe everything that we do, up to reincarnation, up to the absolute, to the… just that, they don’t believe in Kṛṣṇa’s personality as spiritual. They don’t understand that. They don’t know how to explain Kṛṣṇa. They don’t have any definition for Kṛṣṇa. Sometimes of… the karmīs we are much, you know… compared to the karmīs we have in common. When we get to the own philosophical discussion, then we have a lot to discuss, but we have a lot of difference.

So, right now there’s so many opposing elements. In India, the Mohammadans are going and converting the tribal people and the Hindus, outcaste into Mohammadan, and this and that, so there’s many common ground that the Māyāvādīs are approaching us, on the common grounds that we have. To use us to preach and spread Harināma, because they have all these caste traditions which stop them from preaching to the people. It makes them much more rigid and there, but we… Lord Caitanyas mood, we go to the masses we go to the people, and we spread Harināma.

So they’re requesting us to take up the preaching, because when they do it, people don’t believe them, because they’ve been so bigoted for so long, they support hereditary caste system for so long, that now, when they’re revolting against that system, when they go out, they think it’s just some motivated political thing, that, “Why, you’re coming out now, after you’ve been supporting this system for so long?” They know its… must be some political thing. But, because all along, we’ve been embracing everybody, to take up chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, therefore, they are… there’s a magazine I think they’ve published, “Who Will Save Hindusim?”. I think they published it in the World Review.

They’re pretty ineffectual, nowadays. Prabhupāda called those people who judge a devotee by what skin he has as tannists - shoemakers, because they’re not seeing the soul. They’re seeing the skin. So, the people make shoes, they’re expert at… whether the skin, hide is good, whether it can be made into a bag or a shoe, so he called them cobblers. They’re judging a person by what skin he has. They’re not seeing the actual person… the soul inside.

We just did a big program in Jagannātha Purī, outside the temple, and some of the people from the temple came and lectured. I think that with some time, they’ll have a change of heart. Last year we had over a million people, 9 kilometer, 6 mile long path we had to… route, all of which has pamphlets.

Devotee: I’ve heard it said that if you pull on the rope on the Lord’s cart… ratha-cart, you go back to Godhead. Is that true?

Jayapatākā Swami: Yes.

Devotee: …book by Kṛṣṇa-Balarama Mandir that they were distributing here. Some devotees brought that about the places of pilgrimage in Vṛndāvana and stories about that, produced by Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma Mandir, do you know about that book. I wonder if the stories are bona-fide or not. (to another devotee) You didn’t know about it, and Rupānuga Mahārāja didn’t about it, I think. I only want to use the stories… it says “Put out by Kṛṣṇa-Balarāma Mandir”. He never saw it, I thought that if you knew about it, or had…

Jayapatākā Swami: I don’t know any stories of Vṛndāvana. Some of the stories may be in the Purāṇas, some from the gosvāmīs, some are what the local pujārīs think.

Devotee: Well, I thought the GBC, might consult in Śrīla…

Jayapatākā Swami: It’s not an official BBT publication.

Devotee: It would probably be best to go ahead and stick with Prabhupāda’s books or something you heard him lecture about.

Jayapatākā Swami: Yes.

Devotee: It says, “ISKCON approved stories” or something, I’ll consider using that.

Jayapatākā Swami: I haven’t seen the book.

Devotee: Alright.

Jayapatākā Swami: I’m sure that… It’s like Prabhupāda said in his purports sometimes that, “Local pujārīs say this.”

Devotee: You’d have to say, “It is said…”.

Jayapatākā Swami: Yeah, “It is said…”. You can’t take those stories as being authoritative in terms of complete accuracy unless you know the exact source of the stuff.

Devotee: Even if Prabhupāda says, like: “It is said that this deity, this, this.” “At a certain time, it is said that these two birds will come every day and take some prasāda.”

Jayapatākā Swami: One of our devotees went and saw those two birds.

Devotee: Oh.

Jayapatākā Swami: In South India. Said they look… they’re a… they’re amazing. They fly right in, and eat right out of the pujārī’s hand. They look around at the people, and they look amazingly intelligent. They look at the people, take a little food, just to respect the prasāda, then they fly off. Those are the two demigods that were cursed, come every day, take the prasāda. Thousands of people want to see those birds, every day. Then the pujārī gives the bird mahā-prasāda. Actaully, everything we need to know is in Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books. These are all very interesting, but actually, the Bhagavad-Gītā and the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is what we actually need to know. How was saṅkīrtana today?

Female Devotee: It seemed like Kṛṣṇa was testing me all day.

Jayapatākā Swami: Rainy day?

Reply: Yeah, or I don’t know if that was the way to get Kṛṣṇa on my mind. (Laughs) It’s raining and everything, or “Should I stay here and get this shelter, or what? I think that I would be better at it here doing my own program, but I don’t have any service. I didn’t have a program, other than go on the street. At the shelter and no work, I’m not gonna do good, here. Therefore, I left and I thought (Laughing), “I’ll do good.” Oh, here come the raining! (laughing) So, now I’m so scared, I run… so, back to the shelter, the wrong time, found that…

Jayapatākā Swami: Shelter? Bomb shelter?

Reply: (laughing) I saw… In Chicago, we call it bi-lock, what you call it here?

Jayapatākā Swami: A bus terminal?

Reply: An overpass. An overpass, yeah. You can stand over there and see a lot of cars coming, and I could do saṅkīrtana. But, at the end of the day, I didn’t get much Lakṣmī, but the people were nice. It was…(laughing) That’s how it goes, like, out there. I’ll see the nice people.

I had the books, all wrapped up in plastic in my arms, looked like I’m carrying some newspapers, they’re looking at, like “What is all this you have?”, and I was trying not to get the books wet. I was, “Please give a donation for these books.” They, “Alright.” They might take out one, then I’ll be giving somebody help. So, it’s nice.

Jayapatākā Swami: When we have books wrapped in plastic, does that work, in America?

Devotee: In the rain? Oh…

Jayapatākā Swami: Mainly we put all the books in plastic and just show them one book, rather than, tearing off the plastic.

Devotee: We just distribute books, not that… She just did that today, because of the rain.

Jayapatākā Swami: Probably if you took off the plastic, then… person who reads… 

Devotee: We sign it. I sign the books. Goswami Mahārāja told it’s another way to get people not… to keep… not run off, you know? “Well…” If they try to run off with the book. “No. Let me sign it.” Then, you sign it, and it keeps them from running away so fast, and then they kind of think… some people think you wrote it, and then you just ask for a donation then, and if it’s kind of personal, they like it. They have a good memory.

Devotee: We’ve been going a lot to the people in the city because the city’s big enough. At first we distributed so much around here, really nobody wanted to see us anymore. But, then we did something different, kind of travelling saṅkīrtana, and everybody here’s pretty much ready to get a book, now. It’s pretty fresh, around here, although it’s not real great… bi… big. They don’t have that much money, so they don’t even… they’re not really that familiar with us, especially in the black community. New Orleans is mostly black now. They really… they always take our book, and they like it very much.

Jayapatākā Swami: Some people comment that the books are hard to understand? Is that still there?

Devotee: Sure. They’re not going to understand. They can’t concentrate. They can only… they… it’s so hard for them to understand, they don’t read them. But, some of the books are really nice, like the John Lennon book. Anybody who gets that book, reads it, and I like these books. I like to give everybody BTG’s. BTG’s, you can understand, at least some of the stories.

What they can't… It’s so hard to understand, they can’t understand because they don’t… they don’t want to read it, but it… it… everyone who got the John Lennon book they always told me that they, “Oh, I read it.” I, “Did you read it?”… I ask them if they got that other book, “did you read it?” “Ah, no. But, I’m gonna read it.” (Laughter) but they’re not going to read it. The John Lennon book, “Did you read it?” “Yeah, I read it. It was really interesting.” Almost every person that got it, read it. So, it’s a great book for America, at least, for this country, maybe England.

Jayapatākā Swami: Even the Science of Self-Realization, they don’t read that?

Devotee: Well, because… We have trouble selling that because the cover. They… they see Pra… Śrīla Prabhupāda and he’s… they just get a little bit afraid, you know. He’s such a guru, and they’re kind of afraid of guru, I think, but I… in fact you know, we can sell Bhagavad-gītā, but selling Science of Self-Realization, you’ll cut your sales more than in half. So, we’re giving those out for free, and we’re probably not going to order any more.

But, it’s a great book, and only a certain amount of people of elevated consciousness, relatively speaking could be… have interest in it, although it’s a great book. Bhagavad-gītā’s also very hard for them. I just get it all out there, John Lennon book and Bhagavad-gītā, although they usually don’t read that. It’s becoming pretty famous, Bhagavad-gītā. We have a paper back. We haven’t been distributing hard cover books in a long time.

We haven’t been distributing barely any books for a long time, but we’re going to try, you know, to start now to… up…. You know it’s a big project, but we’re tyring to distribute a lot of books st… start again to follow… We used to distribute a lot. As far as the readability of the books… They… I know they have to be distributed. I like to have some basic things to go along with the other ones. At least they’ll read the magazine and the John Lennon book. That one is actually much readable, but they’re so dense, they can’t… their brain is just all bewildered. They can’t even understand it.

Jayapatākā Swami: In South America now, in Spanish they’re printing these books like Mṛgāri the Hunter, so “The Hunter and the Saint”. Mṛgāri and… the hunter, just little books like that. Simple.

Devotee: I think we could use more books like that in America. People’d read them more. I don’t think they read… they’re not going to read them for years. If they buy them, they can’t understand it. I like to… I know we should distribute them, but I think if we had introductory book like Lilāmṛta, I was reading in ISKCON World Review about, they’re distributing so many of those in the paper back, that’s a very beautiful book also, and I think that if we distributed a lot of those, the people would read other books after they read that one.

They need some better introduction-type books. Very basic like… I mean they can’t understand even the little basic books that we have. They’re not… they can’t understand that, but some of the books are good, like Lilāmṛta, or John Lennon book are very readable, and I find people read those more. I’ve been talking to the people on the block, cause I used to sell Lilāmṛta, too. They’d read that one, also. Not as much as the John Lennon book, if we could print some of those, get more.

They’d reread all these, after they got the introduction. That’s why I always like to give them a magazine, although, most of the people… distributors, since I’ve been distributing books, they don’t want to give them a magazine, too, because they don’t want them to know that it was Hare Kṛṣṇa. They took them a long time to give the guy a book and some might come back and for their money, or something. But, I actually… I like to give them a magazine, and then… because then, see, they can really get a basic understanding.

Jayapatākā Swami: What about that “Who Are We?”

Devotee: I saw that this is about as the same as a BTG, according to me. I didn’t see the necessity of it in America, although, whatever book that we get, great. I thought it was pretty informative. BTG does a pretty good job, and other things, it’s welcome. I like getting everything. It’s more basic than the others out there.

Jayapatākā Swami: I’m going to lose an hour of sleep. Anybody bring their drum over?

Devotee: Um, no. We’ve got a little bit to worry about.

Jayapatākā Swami: Disturbing the neighbors?

Devotee: Well, we’re having little problem right now. The present person who lives downstairs…

Jayapatākā Swami: Switched with Chandler?

Devotee: Well, he was a little bit worried about… still kind of worried about bringing mṛdanga over too, cause there’s this petition going around the neighborhood right now about us. Kinda worried that we’re kind of causing… We get a lot of devotees coming here now. I think some of the people that really don’t like us very much are getting an alliance here.

Most of them pretty much like us, it’s just that, I think a couple of them want to live downstairs, here, and one of them lives down that street. They’re trying to make some complaints. Probably we should move to a place where all the householders… a lot of householders are coming, instead of like taking over the neighborhood. They get kind of afraid. I… I…

Jayapatākā Swami: Do you vote? When the election comes, do you vote?

Devotee: Yes, oh no. We don’t vote, but I told the mayor we vote. We know the Mayor, see him at the airport all the time. We don’t actually vote. I tell him we are going to vote for him. Cause he just won. He just was running for election last autumn, and that didn’t much help … We meet all people at the airport… all the local…

Jayapatākā Swami: But, you know they can know if you vote, or not.

Devotee: They’ll actually… I don’t think he’s going to investigate it.

Jayapatākā Swami: No, but I’m sure the local… When it gets right down to the local party in the neighborhood, they’ll know who votes and who doesn’t.

Devotee: Well, alright.

Jayapatākā Swami:… and if you vote, then they respect you a lot more. They don’t want to lose your vote.

Devotee: Uh huh. I told him we vote. He’s… He came to… He’s pretty soft, cause after all, you know, we’re going to vote, we’ve got a lot of influence, we’ve got a whole bunch of people living here there on Lafayette. We’re going to invite him to a Ratha-yātrā, cause he can’t convey where we’re going yet. It may change. So, we’re talking, you know. Check out the route, which way we like it.

2nd Devotee: (laughing) Politicians…

Devotee: We haven’t actually voted though.

Jayapatākā Swami: In New Vṛndāvana vote, they make a great big action. In their part of the country, they got 250 votes, there’s only 300 people.

Devotees: (laughing)

Jayapatākā Swami: 500 people, they’ve got like 55% of the vote, and every Hare Kṛṣṇa votes. You could never get all the karmīs to vote. So, the commissioner’s always coming around there, you know.

Devotees: (laughing)

Jayapatākā Swami: Asking them to vote for him, you know? Whatever they want.

Devotee: It’s really powerful.

Jayapatākā Swami: Yeah, if you have a whole block, and they know, you know that everyone, you know they all vote one way. (laughter)

Devotee: Yeah, we have to figure it out. Actually Vṛkodara has some friends. He know’s a lot of people. I got in trouble the other day, arrested and causing unlawful crowds, and told them I want to see the Chief, because it was an unjust arrest, and they were making a joke. They brought in some old man, and they go, “Here’s the Chief.”, you know, and I go, “That’s not the Chief!” Finally, the Chief… the actual chief was Vṛkodara’s cousin, and even though he was a young man, he just got me out no bail, anything. Now, instead of causing me all kinds of problems, but the chief just let me right out.

And that, Can… the mayor… Canner, I think is going to be the Mayor… It’s with… the airport that town, with the big suburb coming up, one of Vṛkodara’s best friends in school, and Vṛkodara also knows a lot of other people from wherever… who are his friends. Whenever go out, I always meet someone, you know they… a lot of his friends are going into politics. He’s actually been working with some of them… [end of recording]