19831003 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 5.7.12

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on October 03, 1983 in Atlanta, Georgia. The class begins with a reading from the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, 5th Canto, Chapter 7, Text 12.

tayettham avirata-puruṣa-paricaryayā bhagavati pravardhamānā-nurāga-bhara-druta-hṛdaya-śaithilyaḥ praharṣa-vegenātmany udbhidyamāna-roma-pulaka-kulaka autkaṇṭhya-pravṛtta-praṇaya-bāṣpa-niruddhāvaloka-nayana evaṁ nija-ramaṇāruṇa-caraṇāravindānudhyāna-paricita-bhakti-yogena paripluta-paramāhlāda-gambhīra-hṛdaya-hradāvagāḍha-dhiṣaṇas tām api kriyamāṇāṁ bhagavat-saparyāṁ na sasmāra.
(ŚB 5.7.12)

Translation (by His Divine Grace Śrīla Prabhupāda): That most exalted devotee, Mahārāja Bharata, in this way engaged constantly in the devotional service of the Lord. Naturally his love for Vāsudeva, Kṛṣṇa,increased more and more and melted his heart. Consequently, he gradually lost all attachment for regulative duties. The hairs of his body stood on end, and all the ecstatic bodily symptoms were manifest. Tears flowed from his eyes, so much so that he could not see anything. Thus he constantly meditated on the reddish lotus feet of the Lord. At that time, his heart, which was like a lake, was filled with the water of ecstatic love. When his mind was immersed in that lake, he even forgot the regulative service to the Lord.

*translation with repetition*

Purport: When one is actually advanced in ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa, eight transcendental, blissful symptoms are manifest in the body. Those are the symptoms of perfection arising from loving service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Since Mahārāja Bharata was constantly engaged in devotional service, all the symptoms of ecstatic love were manifest in his body.

Thus end the purport of Text 12, Chapter 7, Canto 5 of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam Bhaktivedanta purports in the matter of “The Activities of King Bharata”.

Jayapatākā Swami: So Mahārāja Bharata had given up kingdom. He was the emperor of the world. His wife, family, kingdom, power, money, fame, he was still young, not at the complete fag end of life, but he gave everything up. It is described just as a man gives up his fresh stool, runs off, just completely gave it up.

But we can see here that instead what he got was pure love for Kṛṣṇa or at least ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa-bhāva. That by constantly engaging in devotional service of Kṛṣṇa, he was able to advance to the point where simply by chanting the prayers to the Lord and meditating on devotion… being engaging in devotional service he would become filled with ecstasy. So, one never loses by giving one’s love, giving one’s devotion to Kṛṣṇa. Rather one is a gainer so many times over. Unlimited times over.

These ecstatic loving symptoms naturally are very attractive. In India there are groups of so-called, groups of so-called Vaiṣṇavas or apa-sampradāyas, unrecognized, deviant groups and sometimes they imitate, or they cultivate just manifesting these symptoms although they are not always natural. More like an actor on the stage, they are able to produce them. Once we heard that there was a sādhu giving Bhāgavatam lecture and he had one person on either side of him carrying a hankie. As he was giving the class the tears would be rolling, and one would go like this, (laughter) and the other he would go over like that, and the tears would just be pouring down. And I forgot where it was. One of the devotees went back stage after the performance and caught him pulling the chilies out of his nose. (laughter) He must’ve been a yogi not to sneeze.

There is a story that Prabhupāda told of how one Vaiṣṇava, one pāṭhaka, one lecturer was giving a Bhāgavatam lecture, and in the front row there was a lady. Every time he would make a very strong point, she would start crying. (laughter) He would be making, you know, so many devotional points, she just be crying. And he started thinking, “This is a great devotee! And has completely absorbed.” So, after the class was over, he had one of his assistants call her as a great devotee inside. “What was it that was making you cry every time I was making these points? What is your realizations?”

(In crying tone) “I just lost my goat and his beard was just like yours and every time I see you I remember him.”

(laughter) So Prabhupāda said, “You have to be careful not to take it, every time somebody cries that does not mean they are in ecstatic devotion.” Because we see something right here, it mentions clearly that his heart which was like a lake filled with the water of ecstatic love, in other words his emotion, his devotional ecstasy was coming from the heart. It wasn’t a mental adjustment, it wasn't a physical prompted thing. It was something which is just like, the heart was just flooding, becoming like a lake and he was taking swims in it. It was something coming right from the heart spontaneously, so much so that he would be so regulated, every morning doing sun pūjā, meditating how the sun is a representation of Nārāyaṇa. He would always be absorbed in various types of chanting of mantras but sometimes he would get so overwhelmed by the ecstasy that he would forget what time of day it was, what regulative thing he was supposed to do. But it was something completely spontaneous. So that should be noted that it is not an artificial imposition upon the mind as Prabhupāda in that original record player, recording stated that it is something which is happening spontaneously from the heart. The key word here repeated several times, “engage constantly in the devotional service.” Thus, he constantly meditated. Since Mahārāja Bharata was constantly engaged. In other words, if a person wants to develop ecstatic devotional service, wants to become completely absorbed in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then he has to be constant. Ahaituki apratihatā – causeless and unbroken apratihatā – without any break, even a little vacation to māyā that can interrupt one’s progress.

One-time Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu and Lord Nityānanda, They decided to go to Śāntipura to see Advaita Gosāi. And on the way, there was a sadhu in Godrumadvīpa side of Navadvīpa, he requested Them to please come and visit his āśrama. He offered Them a nice seat. He was very respectful. They were discussing. He said, “Please take a little prasāda.” He brought out some food and They said, “We don’t take outside food, We are brāhmaṇas. We’ll just take some fruit.”

He brought out some fruits. In the course of the conversation, he asked, “If They would like to have a little wine.”

“What!?”

“It helps the meditation.”

They realized that this was one of those imitation sādhus who was taking wine and so many other things. So immediately, They just jumped up, They felt completely polluted that They had taken food which had been touched and given by someone who wasn’t strictly following the regulative principle. They ran to the Ganges and threw Themselves in with Their whole clothes on, just like that. He was just talking, and the next second, psht… they’re up and run.

So Lord Caitanya, He respected someone who was trying to be Kṛṣṇa conscious. But someone who was putting on a profile of being a great devotee or a sādhu, but who in fact was not even following the regulative principles, who was not constant in the devotion, Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityānanda, They didn’t accept their offerings, what to speak of higher benediction.

One-time Śrīla Prabhupāda got a letter. Maybe Pañca-draviḍa Mahārāja was there when it happened.

[Aside to Mahārāja: You were… you were at Bombay at one point, weren’t you?]

He had a letter from one couple, Western couple. And he read it out or described it during a class in Bombay to the Indian Life Members met him in darśana, private darśana. How this couple wrote him that, “We are aspiring to be your disciples, we are very attracted to the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement; we are however feeling ourselves very unqualified. We are trying to control our sex desire, but we are very ashamed sometimes we are swept away and fall down. So, we’re trying to chant every day our 16 rounds, sometimes we are falling short. We are trying to control the desire for intoxication, sometimes due to the influence of our friends we smoke or something. We are working, we are trying to get rid of all these habits, we want to be completely pure. Now we are able to, we’ve given up meat and fish and eggs, we are pure vegetarians. We are very anxious for your mercy that although we are so fallen, sometime in the future we will be able to come up to the purity to become your disciples.”

So Prabhupāda expressed, he was crying, “See how they are struggling, how they are struggling with māyā, this struggle is glorious, trying to conquer over the senses for Kṛṣṇa to engage in Kṛṣṇa’s service purely, constantly.”

Prabhupāda was admonishing the life members, “Many kaniṣṭha-adhikāri devotees, they don’t try to control the senses, they are satisfied with doing some minimum amount of devotion. Which is, no doubt, somewhat bene… no doubt, beneficial for them. But to come to the higher platform it is actually glorious. To try to conquer the impulses of the senses, to try to become purified, not to be self-satisfied with an inferior platform, then one will be on the road of perfection.”

Śrīla Prabhupāda said to some sannyāsīs that, “Well, if you control your sex desire and then fifty percent of your battle is finished. Fifty per cent.”

So, another fifty per cent, in other words even after the four regulative principles a person controlled completely then they still have fame, distinction, adoration, kuṭi-nāṭī – different kinds of duplicitous tendencies, so many other impurities are there in the mind. So that struggle will go on. Initially it may be a struggle just to follow a principle, but the struggle goes on until finally one reaches Kṛṣṇa’s lotus feet.

Even if one has the ecstasy one should not become complacent or careless because that is still a preliminary stage of pure love for Godhead. Prema, where one will actually have the realization of Kṛṣṇa and transcend the material mind is the only position from where it is almost impossible or highly unlikely. I don’t know the exact adjective to use. But normally once you get back from the material world and reach prema, you don’t fall down again. The only infallible position. As you are actually liberated from the material consciousness, it is considered a completely liberated state. Although this is also liberated, Bharata Mahārāja would not be getting any karma by his devotional service. So, in one sense he is also liberated. But if he is careless, if he is inattentive, if he forgets the words of his guru and allows again any kind of material weed or attachment to grow, it could at least temporarily hold him up. Of course, we know that something like that did happen. Minor delay.

So Caitanya Mahāprabhu, His special mercy is that this ecstasy that Mahārāja Bharata is achieving, that ecstasy He gives very quickly. Even Śrīla Prabhupāda, one of his purports to Caitanya-Caritāmṛta described how some of these unauthorized groups just by repeatedly chanting the name of Lord Caitanya, they become ecstatic. They start to laugh or cry. Because Caitanya Mahāprabhu, His specialty is that His special nomenclature or His special uniqueness is that He is not accepting offences in chanting the Holy Name.

If a person were just to chant the name

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare

it takes very regulated life, great purity, considerable constant attention. And then it is like Mahārāja Bharata left off everything, living in the forest, doing his regulated worship, wearing deer skin, eating just a little bit,very regulated, chanting constantly, worshiping, always staying engaged, no material attachments, no offences to the Vaiṣṇavas, there wasn’t anybody there. Then he was able to get this love for Kṛṣṇa, preliminary love for Kṛṣṇa, ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa. It was given by Kṛṣṇa previously but to those who were completely nirmat-saranam, completely free of all enviousness, all offences.

But Caitanya Mahāprabhu, not that He is promoting that one should be offensive or anything. But He knows that everyone has got so many embarrassing mentality, so many defects, He is giving the mercy that, “If you chant Hare Kṛṣṇa taking shelter of Him under His order, He gives immediate mercy which normally would take a lot longer to achieve.” So once one gets a taste for Lord Caitanya’s mercy, taste for this transcendental happiness, then one should be very careful to give up anything which could be offensive. It is the only responsible thing to do.

Śrīla Prabhupāda expresses like in a feast the kids are always very impatient, so you give them the dessert first. Lord Caitanya is actually giving the dessert first, giving a little taste of ecstasy first, then you go back, then you go back to the main course. You also still have to go through the principles of devotional service, not that we neglect them. But even someone might come just in a ratha-yātrā festival off the street by chanting and feel some great happiness. Just like nāmābhāsa, special mercy of Lord Caitanya which normally would be highly unlikely in the ordinary circumstances without Lord Caitanya’s mercy. Not that they should… Once they are getting the higher taste, they can get just a, just a drop of the ocean of happiness that they will experience when they become pure, the special rain of benediction by Lord Nitāi-Gaura so that we can come up to the higher platform very easily.

We pray

hā hā prabhu nityānanda premānanda-sukhī kṛpāvalokaṇa koro āmi baḍo duḥkhī - “Give me Your mercy now Lord Nityānanda. Lord Nityānanda You are premānanda-sukhī, You are completely the personification of transcendental happiness, ecstasy and love for Godhead.” Just like Miniketana Rāmdāsa, this devotee we find in Caitanya-Caritāmṛta, he would go, he just touch somebody with his flute, they start becoming ecstatic.

That fisherman when he was, when Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu ran into the ocean and was floating, he picked up Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, just he touched Him. And there all the associates of Lord Caitanya going up and down the beach looking, “Where is Lord Caitanya?” for miles, and then they saw this man completely afraid,

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare 

“What is the matter?”

“I have been possessed, there is a ghost there. Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa"

(laughter)

So, then Svarūpa-dāmodara he could see that, “Where is this ghost? It must be Lord Caitanya.”

“No, no, I have seen Lord Caitanya, Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Rāma. I have seen Lord Caitanya. This is some terrible thing nine feet long, skin is all loose, bones are hanging everything and is going chuga chug chuga chug, is making this terrible sound.”

(laughter)

They know that Lord Caitanya in ecstasy He stretches out. It is Jagannātha, Jagannātha just comes out as a gargling sound. So then uh Svarūpa-dāmodara said, “I know how to cure these things.” You see. Just whack, whack, whack, slapped him three times.

“Alright, the ghost is gone.”

Just cause the guy was so hysterical you see, he was overwhelmed with love for Kṛṣṇa but he was ignorant, so he was all afraid. So, when he slapped him three times, then, “Now you are alright. You still chanting and anyone possessed by a ghost, they don’t chant Hare Kṛṣṇa like that.” (laughter)

So then… like this, so… Of course then they bathed Lord Caitanya, chanted Hare Kṛṣṇa and He came back together. So like that Lord Nityānanda when He would meet someone, easily give them ecstasy. hā hā premānanda-sukhī. So that is the point if we get that drop of ecstasy, if it fills our heart, when the heart is filled with a lake of Kṛṣṇa-prema, Kṛṣṇa-bhāva, of ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa, you see, then the room for material attachment, the room for material attachment is not there, the room for falling into illusion is not there.

So, if someone becomes complacent in that ecstasy and forgets to refer to the guru, step by step, then of course there is still some danger. But in general, it is not difficult to control the senses because the heart is already full, the desires, everything are satisfied, there is no room for material desire to come in. So that’s the easiest way is if we can get the mercy of Lord Nityānanda that fill our heart with ecstasy and love of Kṛṣṇa. Like that we pray for Lord Nitāi-Gaura’s mercy.

I had some pictures to relay com, give us some nectar.

Pañca-draviḍa Swami: You had the ratha-yātrā in Calcutta, recently?

Jayapatākā Swami: Yes, I brought the slide show if anyone wants to see.

Devotees: Jaya! Haribol!

Jayapatākā Swami: You got a slide projector last time I was here, right? Is it still working? (devotees laugh)

Pañca-draviḍa Swami: It broke at the window.

Jayapatākā Swami: It did? Well, I’ll play it tonight, the slide show.

Devotee: Haribol!

Question: How many people participated?

Jayapatākā Swami: More than you can count. (laughter) Somewhere between one and two million. But don’t believe me, see it tonight! I mean, don’t take my word for it. There was a whole… Last year you know the communist government said that, “This is your last year. After this no more Ratha-yātrās.” There was a Ratha-yātrā this year. I had to go from here. It was such a rush. Mahavira raced me, was it, no… You were busy at that time, but someone raced me to the airport. Just barely got the flight, flew to London. I was 279 on the waiting list on an Air India flight. (laughing) Somehow the computer just went “tic” put my name on! (laughter) They told me, “You’re 279.” Then the guy came back, looked again and said, “No, no, it’s on, ok.”

Devotee: One of the way to get it wide…. (laughter)

Jayapatākā Swami: One of the bytes were if it’s a devotee.

(laughter)

Devotee: (inaudible) (laughter)

Jayapatākā Swami: Got there, just 11 evening. 12 was the Ratha Yātrā. It was very nice but, I don’t want to spoil the… very nice festival. It was a nine-day festival. One day Ratha was going ten miles, six-to-eight-hour procession.

Devotee: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Ten. (laughter) It takes… Then we have one week to rest up for the return one. (laughter)

Pañca-draviḍa Swami: We have a week to go ten miles.

Seven-day big festival.

We build the whole temple out of cloth. We have a big top, the size of a football field. Also about 15 to 20 thousand people. And we have a carnival grounds where there is question answer booths, book tables and exhibitions.

Any questions? We’re you going to say some… is that all you were saying?

Comment: We also had ratha-yātrā at (inaudible)

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapatākā Swami: Jaya!

Pañca-draviḍa Swami: The seventh ratha-yātrā down in the park, a chariot also came down for that one.

Everyone: Jaya!

Pañca-draviḍa Swami: That was very nice. Acaryadeva stayed the whole day. I don’t think even heard very much of what he said. I’m sure they listened to him, but most of the time, they were just looking at him. He hadn’t… he hadn’t been in Mexico for 2 ½ years.

Devotee: Hare Kṛṣṇa. (laughing)

Jayapatākā Swami: They were so hungry there, he did not even have to speak. They were so absorbed in… (laughter)

Pañca-draviḍa Swami: It probably took them a few days actually to realize that he was there. (laughter)

Jayapatākā Swami: No other questions? Are there any questions?

I don’t know. The Samādhi in Vṛndāvana, I haven’t seen it, I don’t know how much the progress is going there but I heard it’s… they’re working on it, (laughter) trying to finish it up. But in Māyāpur the dome of the Samādhi is finished, and then they put up the top ring beam for the upper last cūḍā… what do you call that? Last uh, dome and they are doing all kinds of work around it, very… there is like four towers that come on all sides of the Samādhi in Māyāpur and most… one, two of them are up about 70 feet now. There was Bhaktisiddhānta Das Adhikari, he has set up a factory for making bronze panels and the Deities and dioramas and they found all the raw materials that you can get in the West, they found them there, flatly found that they were one half to one third the price. Latex, some things like that. So they have one uh… there few devotees they all working together from different parts of the world and they are building these beautiful panels for the Samādhi in Vṛndāvana now because that needs to be opened very soon.

They have Prabhupāda at Tompkins Square Park, they made it. It’s about… the panel must be about ten by six or maybe twelve by eight, it is a huge thing. So they make this big panel and they take it apart piece by piece and make latex uh, moldings and then they have a whole thing it is a big its… they built a big shed for that operation. Then they have on the outside, a special place for foundry, for smelting the bronze material and casting it. So, it is a pretty highly technical thing, they said that if one drop of water is inside that mould they whole thing would explode like about a kilo of TNT. I always ask them to tell me when they’re casting. (laughter) But they seem to be pretty expert; they are making all these things you see have to do this. They have also hired some people to help them. So they have these two big sheds and they are making all these big dioramas and murals and castings. So there is a lot of finishing work going on there now already.

The dome now all the inside, all the shuttering and scaffolding everything has been taken down, and some devotee found that the dome has got a hyperbolic effect, that if you go in one specific spot just in front of where the deity is going to be and chant

(quietly) “Hare Kṛṣṇa”

(shouts) “Hare Kṛṣṇa” it comes back like that (laughter)

So when no one is looking you will find devotees going there “Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa” But because it is rainy season and its… the work is going on but gradually. Not… In the winter normally it picks up in a fast way. I opened up the temple in Guwahati. It was constructed by the devotees there Bhavabhuti das. I think he was originally connected for some period in Florida.

Pañca-draviḍa Swami: Yeah, he was bhakta Bob. He was on the bus with…

Jayapatākā Swami: So, ex-bhakta Bob, he is the regional secretary of Assam. Assam you might have read in the papers is a troubled area, there always some disturbance there. Because of a lot of influx of refugees from Bangladesh has created a political turmoil. So, there are demonstrations and everything by the local people who don’t want to become a minority in their own state due to refugees coming from another country. So there is lot of difficulty there and in the midst of this three year on going difficulty he married an Assamese girl but even then they wouldn’t easily let him go there. Has to only get a permit once every few months but somehow, he was able to construct a three storey guest house a little bit smaller than Māyāpur’s, about half-size, very nice. Now he has turned it into the Bhaktivedanta Hilltop School. And then now he has constructed the temple which is unique. It has some of the… It has got a dome in the middle of the temple so there are no beams like in the kirtan hall area he was able to get a special design for a shell dome. So it is a very, It was quite big, it is about 80 feet by 30 feet. It is unusual to have a shell dome that size, quite inexpensive also. He went to some of the best architects in India who had big computers in the West and they figured out how to do this dome.

So then we moved the Deities from the Bhaktivedanta Hilltop School to the temple on Janamashtami morning. Very nice program, yajñas and everything. Then, but it was… when I went to Assam, the day before there was a Assam Bandha which means that everything is stopped, it is a strike. For 36 hours from 6 in the morning till 9 the next uh, night or 6 the next night nobody can go out on the street, can shop, can do anything. If you do it is at the risk of your life. So when I arrived there was a Bandh, there were no buses, no taxis, nothing, no one go because people were just throw bricks to the windows or something. So I had to go by an escorted military vehicle to the temple, with machine guns and everything. It was a whole… was like going in the middle of a war zone but everything worked out very nicely.

So from there we flew down to Māyāpur on Janmashtami afternoon, got to Māyāpur. The two ministers from the Left coalition in Māyāpur were the chief guests for Janmāṣṭami. One of them gave this fiery speech of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s teaching was the only solution to the world‘s problems. That it had the universal vision that there would be no political system, even communism would fail without God consciousness. Now being a Left guy so he has to say, even communism. But for them you know normally they are complete atheist. He was saying that, he was promoting that there to be some God consciousness, who knows may be a forerunner of the future. But they were very much impressed by the whole program there.

We had a big yajña at one o’clock that night and at midnight of course we had the abhiṣeka for the Deities. So, all India television came there and photographed, shot the whole bathing of Rādhā-Mādhava. And when I got to Madras, we glad that all the life members said that they have seen it on television. So, it had been broadcasted all over India, in Māyāpur. Prabhupāda always wanted Māyāpur should be known by all the Indians and by all the people in the world. So the first time that Māyāpur got, you know, real, I mean direct darśana of Rādhā-Mādhava abhiṣeka all over India at the 7.30 news. (laughter) And the Vyāsa-pūjā day is special like All India radio ah television gave the Vyāsa-pūjā offering to Prabhupāda. The next day, they prepared about a thousand preparations for Vyāsa-pūjā.

Usually we always get about 150 Vaiṣṇavas from all the neighboring temples in Navadvīpa and Māyāpur come for Prabhupāda’s Vyāsa-pūjā. About a dozen come for the lectures and a 150 just happen to show up at the time of the ārati and prasāda. But it is our tradition always to serve them sumptuously. So normally a lot of them follow various restrictions like no eggplant, no this, no that, no poṭola, no thin beans, you know, they have all these little rules. Caturmasya. Caturmāsya upanīyamas – sub rules. So, Normally for the preacher it is not considered very important but even then, when they bring out, we have these big 12 ft tables, 12 ft by 3 tables, all the hundreds and hundreds of little bowls are on there. When they see that they just say, “Jaya Rādhe! Jaya Gaura!” (laughter)

It is actually… that’s just like Mahārāja Bharata sometimes in his ecstasy he would not become so attached to the regular rules like that. So… which side, face, this and that when you’re doing…just you know so many little things. But just like alright and this month we follow the basic thing, no spinach, no dahi, no milk, and no urad-dāl. But you know there are so many other rules like that don’t shave, and only shave on this day and many rules like that if they want to, they can follow, additional. But when… in the face of all the ecstatic offering that was made to Prabhupāda and the Deities Nandotsava day. And they, each one of them are having their feast. So, 150 are coming, we are having a feast, it is something very special. Every temple has a feast on that day. So, they are coming because it is a very special opulent, you know incomparable experience. And then they all request, can they take a little, they wrap up in their cloth a little pot-full. (laughter)

Then sometimes they have a program where they line up all the gurukula, 100-yard dash, whatever’s left on the plates, they put out, and psh, they just run (laughter). They stopped that because it was a lot of waste but a couple of years, they were doing that. It was very enthusiastic. We spread out the tables, give the little kids a chance. That was the Janmāṣṭami festival.

Things are coming up very nicely in Māyāpur. We are getting a new elephant, the gardens are expanding, and they now have a special now aviary, cockatoo birds, mynah birds, all kinds of birds. Government wants to buy, wants us to… Zoological department, we have some rare deer, special antelopes, so they are going to... They want to get one pair of deer from us and give in exchange give us some spotted deer. That will give official recognition to our animal farm if we have official transaction with the Zoological department. So, then we can go on expanding our little zoo there which is very nice actually for preaching. People come and they like to see the deers, and we haven’t got permission for the kangaroo yet from Australia. Vishnupada is trying to bring in one in, it is their national heritage. They don’t want to give it up. Although they rode and stare, they shoot them on the road, they don’t care. Run over them, but they won’t let anyone leave the country. Because right now if you want to see a kangaroo you have to go to Australia or to the zoo, so we will get more recognized if we able to get some kangaroos too. Any way if you are visiting New Orleans you can see the Indian white tiger, it is on display there. In New Orleans, in the zoo.

Pañca-draviḍa Swami: They were going to the temple. (laughter)

Jayapatākā Swami: Many temples in South India have big, big zoos, big, big animal sanctuaries. It is very common. In South India in the temple of Guruvayur they have fifty elephants. They all… Sometimes in the big festivals they have the deities in the middle and 25-25 on each side. They go around and circumambulate the temple. In normal festivals they have six, eight, fourteen elephants. This one elephant would every day go and offer his obeisances before the temple. And when the elephant would come up and every day fan the deity, in procession, backing up and fanning. (laughter)

And when finally, the elephant was like… it would stop eating, it was very old and then there was something they wouldn’t let it, they wouldn’t let him go to the Deity that there is something he became ragging and ripped out the chain right and just came,and everyone was really afraid. He came in front of the deities, he offered obeisances and died. There is a lot of stories about these… They tried to take one of the temple elephants from Guruvayur to be the mascot in Delhi for the Asian Games. Did not want to leave. (laughter) Didn’t want to go, had to think of another alternative. No maya service, only Kṛṣṇa’s service! (laughter)

Pañca-draviḍa Swami: You can’t get more mundane than that. (laughter)

Jayapatākā Swami: Anyway, I’ll talk. I’ll tell you some more. A lot of recent things have been happening, but I’ll… Don’t want to delay any further. Hare Kṛṣṇa!