19840420 Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya-līlā 13.3-5

The following is an evening darśana given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on April 20th, 1984 in Atlanta, Georgia. The darśana begins with a reading from the Śrī Caitanya-Caritāmṛta, Madhya-līlā, Chapter 13, Verse 3-5

jaya jaya śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya nityānanda
jayādvaita-candra jaya gaura-bhakta-vṛnda

All glories to Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya and Prabhu Nityānanda! All glories to Advaitacandra! All glories to the devotees of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu!

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam

 

Cc. Madhya 13.3

jaya śrotā-gaṇa, śuna, kari’ eka mana
ratha-yātrāya nṛtya prabhura parama mohana

Translation: All glories to listeners of Caitanya-caritāmṛta! Please hear the description of the dancing of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu at the Ratha-yātrā festival. His dancing is very enchanting. Please hear of it with great happiness.

Cc. Madhya 13.4

āra dina mahāprabhu haṣā sāvadhāna
rātre uṭhi’ gaṇa-saṅge kaila prātaḥ-snāna

Translation: The next day, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and His personal associates got up in the dark and attentively took their early-morning baths.

Cc. Madhya 13.5

pāṇḍu-vijaya dekhibāre karila gamana
jagannātha yātrā kaila chāḍi’ siṁhāsana

Translation: Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and His personal associates then went to see the ceremony of Pāṇḍu-vijaya. During this ceremony, Lord Jagannātha leaves His throne and gets up onto the car.

Jayapatākā Swami: Doing some of the Ratha-yātrā slides I had taken. Of course, some were there, some went there. So this part of the Caitanya-Caritāmṛta describes something about the Ratha-yātrā ceremony. How Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu with His personal associates personally went to see Lord Jagannātha to get on to the car. Actually, the first year… I was sent to India in 1970. We had no temple at that time. So I took the opportunity since I couldn’t attend the Ratha-yātrā in London. On my way over from America to India, I stopped in London, and the President there wanted me to stay for the Ratha-yātrā festival. When I asked Prabhupāda he didn’t reply, so I thought, “Well it is my duty to just follow the instruction that I had.” So I went to India, so that I thought, “Well since I am an Indian, why don’t I visit the Jagannātha Purī Ratha-yātrā festival?” I think I explained one time before here, how Jagannātha when he has to come down from the temple, these big pillows and, pow goes one after another, cotton flying in the air, it’s a whole extravaganza.

Maybe I explained that in New Orleans or maybe here.

Devotee: Yeah, it was here.

Jayapatākā Swami: Anyway Lord Caitanya, He would personally go to watch this… these various ceremonies in a very nice way of expressing devotional service. Of course some people they are against all type of ceremonies and rituals, and chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa is certainly enough. But when you have the various ceremonies, and uh, programs it allows, those performing them and those witnessing them to be absorbed in meditation. So it is very effective. Just like now in Māyāpur, we have our elephant processions, paraṁparā was there this year. Where about 25 boys. Those pictures are about to be developed; I don’t know if I have it tonight. For they have 25 boys who carry special trays with lamps and auspicious things, and procession and they are all wearing little turbans and special cādaras and everything, and then they carry a kumbha in the front. That means is that a pot with a coconut on the top, and decorated with certain yantras written with it, and that’s taken along with chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, the kīrtana party, and each of the… the trays have the lamp on it. So just after… just at sunset, they take the Deity on the top of the elephant and they fan the Deity, and they go every corner of the parikramā path, they offer an ārati, it is very nice, for one time we are around.

Devotee: Baby elephants?

Jayapatākā Swami: Huh?

Devotee: These are full grown elephants or baby elephants?

Jayapatākā Swami: Full, ten feet high. One baby and one full. We first had the full grown, but she already grew a foot and a half since we got it, she was full grown to begin with, now she is overgrown. (Everyone laughs) They say that she is the best-fed elephant. Bhavānanda Mahārāja, especially, he always goes and gives apples, and when I am there I have to also… the elephants come I have to feed them, otherwise they get very upset. But the baby elephant has become so attached to Bhavānanda Mahārāja, because he knows exactly her tickling spots (laughter), that she runs up to him and lifts her one leg in the front and then grabs his hand (laughter) with his… trunk and puts it there.

So much so that she knows how to open up the gate of the lawn, and go and she across the lawn, and go and she runs across the lawn right over to Bhavānanda Mahārāja. So sometimes he runs upstairs to get away from him, he tries to get upstairs but little bit difficult for elephants. Elephants are very personal. They know who feeds the sweetmeats.

You know so, in ISCKON, we have these still ceremonies too like… Prabhupāda he used to criticize in the Kumbha-mela that the Māyāvādi-gurus and yogīs, they were right on top of the elephant, and he said that actually Kṛṣṇa should ride on top. In our processions, we should have elephant processions. We will carry the Deities, and this is what they do in the Kṛṣṇa temples in South India also, is that they carry the Deities, but in North India there is some Mayavādī, impersonalist gurus, and they ride on the elephants, not the Deities.

Sometimes they have some very well sādhūs called Nāgā-bābās dance in front of the elephants with tridents and things like that when they are coming into the Kumbha-mela. Prabhupāda said, actually they should carry the Deities. So now we have implemented that desire probably wanted to have elephant procession, and here of course this is already a ceremony which is started thousands of years ago, the ceremony of Lord Jagannātha going out, and of course this it’s not always possible to do all of the various ceremonies that they have done, but to do as… some of the things is very nice… meditation, just like Deity worship.

Actually a very minimum standard of Deity worship is adequate, but sometimes for the pujārī to keep his mind absorbed there is a provision for doing five offerings, or sixteen offerings or sixty-four. So according to one’s ability, the economically or service-wise, one can do more. It doesn’t mean that if with full devotion, one is fully absorbed and even offers the lesser amount, that it wouldn’t be accepted by the Lord and He wouldn't be fully satisfied, but it depends on the devotee’s capacity. If they have more capacity, they are working at half, then it’s a problem. Then their mind may be un-engaged. Idle mind is a devil’s workshop and māyā can come in. So if it is always busy with the service then it’s absorbed in Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

You ready?

Cc. Madhya 13.6

āpani pratāparudra laṣā pātra-gaṇa
mahāprabhura gaṇe karāya vijaya-darśana

Translation: King Pratāparudra in person, as well as his entourage, allowed the Pāṇḍu-vijaya ceremony to be seen by all the associates of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

Cc. Madhya 13.7

advaita, nitāi ādi saṅge bhakta-gaṇa
sukhe mahāprabhu dekhe īśvara-gamana

Translation: Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and His prominent devotees — Advaita Ācārya, Nityānanda Prabhu and others — were very happy to observe how Lord Jagannātha began the Ratha-yātrā.

Cc. Madhya 13.8

baliṣṭha dayitā’ gaṇa — yena matta hātī
jagannātha vijaya karāya kari’ hātāhāti

Translation: The very strongly built dayitās [carriers of the Jagannātha Deity] were as powerful as drunken elephants. They manually carried Lord Jagannātha from the throne to the car.

Purport: The word dayitā refers to one who has received the mercy of the Lord. Lord Jagannātha has a number of stalwart servants known as dayitās. These servants do not come from very high-caste families (brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas or vaiśyas), but because they are engaged in the service of the Lord, they have been elevated to a respected position. Thus they are known as dayitās. These servants of Lord Jagannātha take care of the Lord from the day of the Snāna-yātrā up to the time the Lord is carried from the throne to the Ratha car. In the Kṣetra-māhātmya these dayitās are said to come from the śabaras, a caste that keeps and sells pigs. However, among the dayitās there are also many who come from the brāhmaṇa caste. Those dayitās coming from the brāhmaṇa families are called dayitā-patis, or leaders of the dayitās. The dayitā-patis offer food such as sweetmeats to Lord Jagannātha during the anavasara, the resting period after Snāna-yātrā. They also make the early-morning offering of sweetmeats daily. It is said that during the anavasara Lord Jagannātha suffers from fever and that the dayitā-patis offer Him an infusion of drugs represented by fruit juice. It is said that in the beginning Lord Jagannātha was worshiped by the śabaras and was known as the Deity Nīla Mādhava. Later, when the Deity was established in the temple, the Lord became known as Jagannātha. Because the Deities were taken from the śabaras, all the śabara devotees were elevated to the position of dayitās.

Jayapatākā Swami: Lord Jagannātha of course is very merciful, that He allows even the un-purified or normally unqualified persons, to directly serve Him, just like when He comes in the Ratha-yātrā, everyone they can pull the ratha chariot, and that is the specially the mercy of Lord Jagannātha. So those who get the opportunity to serve Him, are known as dayitās, or recipients of His mercy. It is said that even… in Jagannātha Purī, even the people are not very careful about following some of the rules and regulations, because of the power of the dhāma, still they get the same benefit as if they were following all the principles.

If they chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, then they can make a lot of advancement. So like this, the holy dhāma has a neutralizing effect on the material contamination. So we try to reproduce these festivals in the West adding a little culture to the humdrum life in America, where people have very little exposure to cultures other than the culture that they’re are born in. In the sense that it is a shame that the leader of the so-called free world, the citizens themselves have little exposure or little understanding about anything that doesn’t exist in America. Sometimes they’re criticized for that, and even they don’t know a lot of the things that is going on in America from one part to the next.

So, Kṛṣṇa consciousness is of course adding a cultural milieu… a cultural touch, where the people of America understand something more than they would normally be able to do, and the wonderful thing about Indian culture, Indian art, Indian drama is that the Vedic, ancient systems of art, culture everything was centered... All the festivals were centered around the worshiping, Kṛṣṇa worshiping, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

In fact there is a saying, bāra māse, tera parbana. It’s like a little cliché. For twelve months there’s thirteen festivals. May… there’s more festivals than days to have them on, practically. It’s always some festival or another going on. You look in our calendar, there is always some, every month one festival or another. Some months it’s a veritable bonanza. So in this way by having various types of spiritual festivals, it’s possible for the people to keep their minds absorbed, and in this way they can offer their service to the Lord by participating in these festivals.

In fact in Vṛndāvana, it’s described that when Kṛṣṇa would do His daily pastimes it was a daily festival. And even in our Kṛṣṇa consciousness temples, for many devotees they experience it as a daily festival starting off with the maṅgala-ārati and the chanting and offering lamps, flowers and dancing. Right through the day, practically speaking it’s like a festival, and festival is called utsava in Sanskrit. Ut means to uplift, sava means everyone. So for uplifting everyone we have a festival.

So actually Lord Caitanya’s movement is like one continuous festival. One continuous party. But instead of just being a party or a festival in the mode of ignorance, it’s a festival which is in the mode of complete goodness, transcendental goodness, meant for actually uplifting the consciousness, not simply getting intoxicated and kind of forgetting their problems of life, but actually the transcending the problems of life and actually experiencing transcendental inspiration, transcendental ecstasies.

So even for those who are not at that level to be able to taste transcendental ecstasy, at least they can appreciate, “Well it’s a very colorful and beautiful ceremony, the various Kṛṣṇa conscious festivals.” And even those who visit their temple for the Sunday feast when they student come, they also find it quite colorful and quite interesting. So Śrīla Prabhupāda said that we can preach Kṛṣṇa consciousness in the West, especially through cultural presentation. We are constructing … a Māyāpur now a… fifty dioramas… at least fifty, if not 108, and those are to be reproduced so that they can be provided to the temples all over the world.

And starting this fall, there is supposed to a pāda-yātrā or a complete tour of the route of Lord Caitanya, a great deal of it by foot, with a whole camp and everything. That will start from Dvārakā, go down to the bottom of India to Uḍipi, Kanyakumāri up to Tirupati, Rameśvaram, Tirupati, up Jagannātha Purī, then to Māyāpur, by 500th anniversary of Lord Caitanya.

So hoping that devotees doing that fifteen months of that program, different devotees will be coming for one or two months from different parts of the world to participate, in this a way that will be a festival every day. So Ratha-yātrā is one of the festivals introduced in America. We could see how the pictures came out. It’s just like there is our Vṛkodara Dāsa with the camera in white, he is the president of New Orleans, in the temple, you went there for the Ratha-yātrā?

It’s under construction there. Remodeling the inside of temple.

Rādhā-Rādhākānta, Nitāi-Gaura, remember I told you years ago that when I went… go to Bolivia, they provide me police escort to the red light. So then after I came back, they had provided here police escort for Lord Jagannātha.

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapatākā Swami: So He came through the red lights. (laughter)

Jagajivana Goswami, the governing body commissioner of South American countries,

Jaya Baladeva!

Blowing conches, waving fans.

Jaya Jagannātha!

Jaya Subhadrā Devī!

Actually we should… Subhadrā should be… come before Jagannātha.

Śrīla Prabhupāda ki!

Devotees: Jaya!

All credit to the mātājīs who blew those conchshells. (Laughter)

Devotees: Jaya!

Devotee: Long-winded.

Jayapatākā Swami: That’s Nityānanda Prabhu, President of Mississippi farm, the Co-President, Ācārya Ratna, Gauḍīya-maṭha, doing personal service for their booth.

So we should show this (inaudible), so Jagannātha’s Himself could see it, this are the small Deities. Once… during the actual ratha-yātrā it started raining. It didn’t dampen the enthusiasm. (devotees laughing)

A large number of… (inaudible)

Gokularañjana Dāsa Prabhu.

Devotees: Jaya! Jaya!

Ford got blessed in so many ways. Jagannātha rode in a Ford. Is that a Ford LTD or something? Lincoln?

Devotee: Cadillac ran out of gas.

Jayapatākā Swami: That’s a Cadillac.

Devotee: The Cadillac ran out of gas, and they moved Him to the Ford. (laughter) Without a stick.

Jayapatākā Swami: Ambarīṣa’s service is…. Because the roads are so narrow in New Orleans, so we have to shift over to a palanquin system to get it to the park. There was any shots of the night time kīrtana on Bourbon Street?

Ours Lords from Atlanta have gone there to benedict the people of New Orleans.

Devotee: These things are from New York, coming up.

Jayapatākā Swami: They have… this is a very wonderful exhibit “The Search for the Kingdom of God.” it goes to the whole history of Christian history and Aristotle, Socrates, it goes to various histories of… of man’s quest, modern science and it comes up to the… to a actually a… some nice conclusions.

Question: Are those paintings or reproductions?

Jayapatākā Swami: Those are display paintings. These are reproductions from our books, on the right.

Comment: Real nice.

Jayapatākā Swami: Changing bodies.

Tom, which stage were you in?

He is still here?

Yeah

(Not clear)

Tom: I didn't what you are saying

Jayapatākā Swami: You understand what this is?

Tom: Yeah.

Jayapatākā Swami: Which stage are you in? (Devotees laughing)

Tom: 28 year or 8-year-old stage. Between the old man and the young man. (laughter)

Jayapatākā Swami: How many more times you want to go around in this cycle?

Tom: Uh, I hope this would be last time. (laughter)

Devotee: Jaya!

Jayapatākā Swami: Congratulations. (laughter)

Devotee: That’s a vīṇā?

Jayapatākā Swami: They collect all these artistic relics from India which are quite… some are expensive, and some are not very expensive. Jagatguru Swami made one, people are… People are interested in seeing those things.

Devotee: They’re opening up a museum with artifacts… (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: He wanted to set one up here in Atlanta if there was any interest. There in New York, there have various… they have different things going on, different stages, this was a non-stop kīrtana going on off on one side, in the main stage there were lectures, dramas by the gurukula. So they had three, four things going on at one time.

Washington Square Park. So you can see for the free feast there is always a lot of… (inaudible)

Bhavānanda Gosvami, my co-GBC in Māyāpur, Śrīla Rāmeśvara Swami.

Devotee: Dancing?

Jayapatākā Swami: Gujārati. These are the gurukula children.

Devotee: Is that Gopāla Kṛṣṇa?

Jayapatākā Swami: Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami.

Accha. Jaya Rādhā-Rādhākānta!

Oh, this is Rādhā-Govinda in New York.

Devotee: This is the restaurant in New Orleans.

Jayapatākā Swami: This is New Tālavana. After the Ratha-yātrā, we have a special little festival in New Tālavana. You wanna have in the South East here, festival in each temple, and here we have Pānihāṭi and we have… number of festivals in Atlanta, but one we would invite everyone to come.

Be one in Murāri, and one in New Tālavana.

Is there any cookies to give out tonight?

Devotee: You have a question.

Jayapatākā Swami: Yes.

Question: Did you tell about the competition? (laughter)

(inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Nirguṇa in the transcendental platform. (laughter)

So, of course since everyone was chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, everyone wins. (laughter)

Sudarśana-cakras.

(laughter)

We made the most respectable gentleman there, one retired secretary of the government... K.B. Roy Chowdhury as the Chairman. They had a very nice slideshow.

And any more slides of the parikramā in New Tālavana?

Devotee: No. (Not clear)

Jayapatākā Swami: So then Vaiyāsaki prabhu, he first told all the men, that they should chant very loudly, Hare Kṛṣṇa, and then get everyone to chant, and the mātājīs, especially the women that “You have to chant louder than the men.”

They chanted, and then the judge stood up and said that, “I don’t think you really understand what you are supposed to be doing. Its a competition. All the men and all the women… First the men are going to chant, how loud you can shout?”, then the women, “How loudly you can chant?”, and then, whoever chants the loudest, we are going to give this mahā-prasāda as the prize, now you try again.” Because it wasn’t good enough,

(Laughter)

So then Vaiyāsaki Prabhu said “Listen! He want you to, we are not just chanting just… to the stage you have to chant so loud that Kṛṣṇa can hear you in the spiritual world.”

So then everyone chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, he got everyone to chant, he and Sarvākṣa prabhu, our two-three boys. So then, the mātājīs… it was very spontaneous, they are very imagina… then they said, “No, we want to chant so loudly, that not only just Kṛṣṇa hear in the spiritual world, but we can bring Kṛṣṇa down, right amongst us. (Laughter)

And they… all the mātājīs, it was very loud chanting.

The judge stood up and said “It was very close, I have to hear one more time.”

(laughter)

It’s not… we had loud enough (laughter) It was tumultuous already, so then this time I told the man that, “You should get them to stand up when they chant.” So then they get all the men to stand, he asked them all to chant. “Everyone stand up, they had them all chant very loud, it seemed unbeatable.”

Then the mothers came and complained that “Why you gave them advice?” (laughter) “You have to give us some.” “So, okay, alright I’ll tell you.” (laughter) So then I said that uh, “Two… one of you in two, three words down the chanting, you jump into the crowd… you know there’s twenty-thou… but jump in the front, raise your hands up and get them all, in that way to suddenly jump up and chant.”

Devotee: Hmm.

Jayapatākā Swami: So then they gave a little speech, they said that, “We want to chant so loudly that every bird, ant, creeper, tree, they all get liberated, by hearing the holy name, so everyone chant.” So then after about Hare Kṛṣṇa, then they would respond Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa, then one I think it was a girl from Hawaii, or may be the girl from Sweden, any one of them jumped right up. “Everyone chant!” and all the mātājīs, they saw that what you know, they jumped up in front, they all stood up, and then the mātājī in the stage started to jump up and down and all the way started jumping up and down:

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kr…

And then the other, ululululu! They did their ulu. (laughter) And then the judge, he looked and he saw twenty of us dancing, he said… he stood up and said, “Listen, the men did a very good job…” (laughter) “…but I never saw in my life, so many mātājīs, jumped up and actually jumping…” (laughter) “…chanting. They’re loudest. They win.”

It went on like that for three nights.

And after that… then they told “Everyone now, both combined men and women, they should chant.”

So then I took up my big whompers (laughter) and got them all to chant.

So then the ambassador of India, who was there as special guest, that was the chief guest, we had the last… they said after our program no one could follow. So we had to be the last act. So from 8 till 12, sometimes it went up to three in the morning. One morning we didn’t get to the bed till four. It was a very strenuous… and the people they just stayed, they stayed the whole night, we just kept on doing different programs, and … So that ambassador, he was… he had left early though, about say after hearing a few things he left, so he didn’t, he wasn’t present for that competition. He was sitting two miles away in his guest room, and he said that he was taking his evening tiffin, and then suddenly heard this loud Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Just as… so loud, he said his hair started standing on end, he just raised his arms (laughter) And he said that it was so intense that he couldn’t help but himself said, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, he started to chant, just like that, you see. Never heard so loud, cause just two miles away. (laughter) So literally you can say... and the third and the last night of the program, they had the… after the competition, after the big kīrtana, then Sarvākṣa prabhu said, “By the mercy of Nitāi-Gaura, they are raining down the love of Kṛṣṇa!” and just at that time, pow! It just started pouring rain.

(laughter)

Which they all wanted because there was the drought there, and that was like the last thing and it was just you know… just *pshew*, and then everyone… then it stopped for a second, everybody ran for cover and then *phwaik*, and it rained all night, so they could all plant their crops, so they took it as very auspicious… just he said that love rain down, it poured.

They took videos of that, they had a video there, I don’t know it was there was enough light, but they had a video, I don’t know if they took a video, I don’t know there was enough light, they took some video and they took a lot of photos. Some of those photos must be in here, in that… in the ones to be developed.

So everyone chanted there, and they were all just they heard so many speakers before, it was like a big national Hindu gathering, so we were the last program, like that after hearing so many speakers, that just clear their consciousness we did an ārati and then just chanting, and we signed up twelve Nāmahaṭṭa branches in that program, and hundreds of people signed up, that they wanted to prepare themselves for initiation, and for following the principles. They would start chanting, and some of them, we made six devotees in that program, and uh, it was very successful, preaching program, but it was in the middle of nowhere.

We went, the bridge… the danger, that was just made out of wood, and so we had my big bus, and it said “No heavy vehicles” so we had to go down, and they made a… like a temporary bridge out of barrels and dirt that went over the river, just narrow stream. On the way back the driver miscalculated and somehow drove where there wasn’t any road, and there was... and it somehow bounced, right over where it…just like a big hole, but went right in the stream, and it was just leaning like this, almost ready to fall over that like kind of pontoon kind of a bridge… not a pontoon, but just like a makeshift dirt… and then everybody, all the village people came out, we pushed and somehow got out, it was a big ordeal getting that… getting out of there. It was way… we had to drive through fields, just through ploughed fields for two miles just to get to this place, and then uh, when it started raining, we quickly sent the vehicles out before it got… because if it would have just stuck for who knows, you know till next year? (laugther) You can drive over dry fields, but that’s even hard, but wet fields forget it, you know. So, but the people came from a long way, it was very nice there.

Nonstop preaching. The most preaching tours we can show as soon as they get the film developed.

Any other question?

Devotee: Yes what’s the (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: I know, what did they decide?

Cause another program…

Devotee: …we are thinking, in conjunction with the Nāmahaṭṭa festival, maybe like the day after, something like that. (inaudible) That’s one possibility. (inaudible)

But I had one other idea, was that you know like you usually have the one service… the person who gets the junior… the little… I wasn’t thinking about this Sunday feast, nice to have the next one. But have a tra… for the Vyāsa-pūjā day, so I was thinking we could just have it out there at Murāri. At least all the devotees here would go. Unless we just want to have it here for a Sunday Feast program, but d… the other idea’s… that one’s a pretty good one. The day after. But it’s not the same as like uh… you’re not going from New Orleans to Mississippi, because…

Jayapatākā Swami: It’s quite a long distance.

Comment: It’s like another whole journey. So we might lose some of the…

Devotee: Well, what would be the possibility of getting New Orleans devotees up at another time? (inaudible) …festival?

Reply: I don’t know.

Jayapatākā Swami: We’d have to look at the calendar.

Comment: I just thinking once they’re half way here, it’s not so bad to go, you know, a few more miles.

Reply: Yeah, it’s not so bad.

Comment: It’s something have to figure out. Perhaps just consult…

Reply: People in town, if you can get them up there. Once they… (inaudible) Of course this is… don’t they have some already that are right there in Knoxville? In the Smokeys? Aren’t there a bunch of them there already?

Reply: Well, it’s… they’re kind of… they’re all kind of phasing out in… (inaudible)

Reply: But they’re already there, right now.

Jayapatākā Swami: Some New Orleans devotees?

Reply: Yeah.

Comment: (inaudible)

Question: What happened to the slideshow already? We already have it?

Jayapatākā Swami: Yeah, it was great. (applause) (inaudible), where were you? (reply not clear)

You can show it again for him after we go, it was very nice

Comment: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: That’s just half of it, putting it together.

Devotee: That’s another thing.

Question: It was really far out, whatever happened to that prabhu, Devamūrti? He was doing that program, before your Nāmahaṭṭa.

Jayapatākā Swami: That came up here?

Devotee: Is he still active?

Jayapatākā Swami: Fairly, he is more as like a FOLK member right now, but the program is very active, the program. He’s helping that program but there is some devotee living in the temple that does it full time… two or three devotees doing. They have about, they print a monthly uh, newsletter which is very nice with different articles, a few ISKCON news and things like that, then they mail that out to over a thousand people on their mailing list, you know contribute something but those who can.

And must be at least 20… 20 FOLK members who are taking initiation there, maybe 15 or something. There are some doctor, some uh, policemen like a higher ranking one. Some are working in the ministry of education, some businessmen, one boy… one man owns a toy factory, six employees. Small time but nice. He has a little Dias, temple in his house, and invites people every Saturday for a Saturday feast and attends the temple for the Sunday feast, you see.

There is one person, that owns a karate school, who has taken initiation and he asked him to stay longer for higher level instruction, then after the karate instruction, teaches them you know, to be a vegetarian, and to dovetail it that way, and he has made many devotees, who are interested in eastern martial arts, kind of took them on a stage higher to yoga and to bhakti-yoga, brought them over the temple.

Question: Where is this?

Jayapatākā Swami: This is in Peru.

When the people they make their promise there, they seem to wanna live by it, to large degrees, sometimes to a more so-called sophisticated country. People make a promise, you see, make a oath of initiation or something and then they, “Well I’ve made so many promises, what’s one more down the drain?” Its… they don’t take it seriously, but proof is specially they seem to take it quite seriously, and therefore even living outside they follow. That’s all one needs to be really serious to make advancement in spiritual life.

Gaṅgā, take a cookie, prasāda. Those days, I don’t know I tell you one thing.

Question: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Some devotee gave them to me, their Gaura-Nitāi deities, but I don’t know exactly where. They look definitely more ISKCON, I think that they ordered these in Bengal and they installed it one temple, but I forget which… the temple.