19840602 Evening Slide Show

The following is an evening slide show presented by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on June 2nd, 1984 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Hṛdayānanda dāsa Goswami: Of course, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s principal pastime is giving Kṛṣṇa to the world.

(Devotee: Haribol!)

And He did this of course - āpani ācari' bhakti śikhāimu sabāre (Cc. Ādi. 3.20). Prabhupāda used to quote Caitanya Mahāprabhu by his own example who taught and then He also gave a verbal instruction. So, of course we have those two aspects of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s glory; his example and his philosophical teaching. So, I thought I would say a little bit about His teaching in His books. His pastimes of writing his books which is something I have to always think about. So, Śrīla Prabhupāda, not only in his books but also in his practical activities illustrated a degree of dependence upon Kṛṣṇa and faith in Kṛṣṇa which was practically not to be seen anywhere else in the world.

As stated in the Bhagavad-gītā (7.19), “vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti” A great soul after many many births and deaths understands that Kṛṣṇa is everything. In his commentary in the Eleventh Canto, Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura again and again emphasizes the point that there are different stages of advancement in devotion to Kṛṣṇa and in the lower stage, one considers service to Kṛṣṇa to be the most important thing and in the higher stage one considers devotion to Kṛṣṇa to be everything. So this stage of devotion of understanding how service to Kṛṣṇa is everything not only something and not even the most important thing but actually everything, obedience to order of Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa’s representative and very boldly presenting Kṛṣṇa as the Absolute Truth crossing over all the barriers which basically are simply the mental concoctions of māyā.

It was Śrīla Prabhupāda with His style of preaching and force and intensity of his preaching actually demonstrated to us how to transcend our liberated Kṛṣṇa consciousness beyond any mental consideration. At the same time, He was very diplomatic very expert in understanding things according to time and place so that can be illustrated in his books, in his famous Bhaktivedanta Purports in which He is always insisting that Kṛṣṇa is the Absolute Truth and of course Kṛṣṇa is the Absolute Truth and people always used to say well that this is your opinion and Prabhupāda always used to answer very strongly “No, it is a fact”. So that’s just one little thing I wanted to mention this morning ... this absolute conviction, confidence in Kṛṣṇa which is based on realization, based on full realization and full devotion to Kṛṣṇa.

So, that’s not exactly not an anecdote but is something I have been thinking a lot - how Śrīla Prabhupāda presented, beyond any material consideration, how He presented this very powerful movement, powerful in the sense that Kṛṣṇa is everything and everything must be adjusted for the pleasure of Kṛṣṇa. We take these things for granted but it’s very difficult to have the courage, the realization and the determination, the confidence, the strength of character in an atheistic world, in a materialistic world when people simply ridicule Kṛṣṇa “avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā (Bg. 9.11)”, to actually present the absolute truth in a very bold and uncompromising way and that is illustrated in Prabhupāda’s books and also in his practical activities. So that’s not exactly an anecdote but its something which I often remember so with the permission of Ācāryadevā… Ācāryapāda (laughter) Even I get mixed up… So, I have gotten the permission of Ācāryapāda, so I’m going to go and rest a little bit and then you can continue your līlā-smaraṇam, haribol.

Devotee: Jaya Ācāryadeva!

(sings Jaya Ācāryadeva)

Jayapatākā Swami: Śrīla Ācāryadeva kī…!

Devotees: Jaya!

[break]

nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine

namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe

namo mahā-vadānyāya kṛṣṇa-prema-pradāya te
kṛṣṇāya kṛṣṇa-caitanya-nāmne gaura-tviṣe namo namaḥ

namo brahmaṇya-devāya go-brāhmaṇa-hitāya ca
jagad-dhitāya kṛṣṇāya govindāya namo namaḥ

vāñchā-kalpatarubhyaś ca kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca
patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namaḥ

śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda
śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda

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

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

Śrīla Prabhupāda kī…!

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapatākā Swami: So, if everyone can sit in such a way that their back is not facing Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Last year there were lots more devotees who were here at the time of Prabhupāda’s arrival in New Pānihāṭi, then, although seem there are few here. So, it’s nice that Gokula-rañjana began it last year. I can tell you about when Śrīla Prabhupāda came to old Pānihāṭi or Ādi Pānihāṭi in India. The… as you know Pānihāṭi-dhāma is one of the five places where Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu permanently resides. It’s the place where Lord Nityānanda danced, where…

[aside]

There are some more seats for the Swamis.

And that’s of course that’s where the ciḍā-dahī festival that we will be observing today, this afternoon… that we are observing today was held and there are many other pastimes at old Pānihāṭi. So one member of the Legislative Assembly something like the state senate, or… state senate would be here, state senator came to see Prabhupāda and told him that “We want to give you the Pānihāṭi temple to develop because we have faith in your movement and in you… you personally.” So Prabhupāda was… He was very overjoyed. He said this is a very important place. So we all got into a car, or a caravan of cars and He said “Well let’s bring along some picnic.”

So… because Pānihāṭi-dhāma is of course, famous for picnic, this picnic of Lord Nityānanda when Raghunātha dāsa provided a vana-bhojana or ciḍā-dahī picnic for everyone under the banyan tree on the Ganges side. So we all went there. Prabhupāda saw the banyan tree where Lord Nityānanda and Lord Caitanya sat under and accepted Their prasāda, it’s still there. We saw the broken temple of Raghu… Rāghava Paṇḍita and it was… so many banyan trees had grown into the… it was the same old original temple 500 years old but some banyan seeds fell on the temple so little banyan trees started to grow and they had grown roots going right into the walls and all the walls were just… it was not wall or banyan tree. It was all one. If you tried to cut the tree down, you will knock the wall down. The house was… it was a hopeless case. So, Prabhupāda said we should take a photograph of it and reconstruct it as it was and then put the picture of the original so that we can show the historical, the same place, the same form but due to the ravages of nature we had to rebuild it, and then we went down to the tree again where Lord Caitanya sat and he said “We want to build a big temple.”

It was a big mystery because the area was only about a 100 feet by 70 feet and right on the bank of the Ganges there was already a 30 foot by 40 foot kīrtana hall and then there was about 10 foot by 15 foot seat under the banyan tree where Lord Caitanya sat and the open air was only bits and pieces on the different sides. So the devotees were wondering how are we going to build a temple here? So the MLA said, cause he thought we were only going to fix up Rāghava’s house.

Prabhupāda said “No we will have a big temple here of the 150 feet by 70 feet… you know by… it will 50 feet wide and it’ll be about 150 feet high.”

So, I was just trying to figure out, “How is this going to happen?”

He said is, “We’ll do is, you just build the temple… the columns up 16 feet, 18 feet and whatever is there now on the ground floor, we will leave it, we will begin from the second floor up. The people they will be able to walk underneath the temple, go and see everything. We’ll be above that.” So that attracted everybody’s fancy and then all of a sudden Prabhupāda across the… across the way from the tree where Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityānanda sat under there was another gṛhastha house, and in their house, they had a temple of Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityānanda also of Balarāma and Revatī. So the householder begged Śrīla Prabhupāda “Please come over.” Turned out He was member of the suvarṇa-vaṇika family where Prabhupāda is also previous caste He was member of that family or He come historically from that family. And they worshipped Śrīla Prabhupāda. They gave Him a very nice seat and darśana. After he took darśana of the Deities the members of the household they came and they started to fan Śrīla Prabhupāda with their own hands with little palm fans. Prabhupāda told us that we should do a little kīrtana. It was very spontaneous. There was nothing planned but then as He was leaving, this sādhu came and said, “Please come and see my temple.” Suddenly Prabhupāda, he agreed and it was a big Kāli temple. It was a small temple but a huge Kāli deity, and Prabhupāda offered his respects to Kāli, said “She’s a devotee.” and then that brāhmaṇa gave a śālagrāma-śilā and that was the first Śālagrāma-śilā that was worshipped in Māyāpur. The first śālagrāma-śilā in our movement. He had a Nārāyaṇa there and just spontaneously he gave.

There are some other pastimes, Anyway now that Gokula-rañjana… I can say more later. He is here. You can tell because you were here when Prabhupāda came, so you could kind of talk about his arrival here to New Pānihāṭi. One thing that Prabhupāda said, we were driving along and the road was terrible from Calcutta to Pānihāṭi ... I mean the road was very big, but on both sides, there is all kind of just shacks and little industrial units, factories and then sometimes you’d see a real… an ancient mansion and a big yard with all kind of orchard in the background. Prabhupāda looked and said “This is hell.” He says, “Before, outside of Calcutta…” He said, “…these were all bagan baris.”

Bagan bari means like country estates. Before they would leave Calcutta and go out, little half hour ride by horse and buggy, or by you know, their Model T Ford or whatever and these were all the mansions that all… and you could see there were mansions there, and he said, “Now…” you know, “…with their so called industrial revolution they have spoiled everything, made it so dirty made it so terrible.” He said, “They offer the people in the village who are the 600 rupees a month or sixty dollars a month wage which is you know such… so much. Two dollars a day. Phew. Much more than their average 80 cents a day. So, they all come running to… and thinking that “Now we are going to get such a high wage.” and then they come live and work in some factory but they have to live in one of these slums. Their children go up in a slum area because it’s so hellish the husband starts to drink where he wasn’t drinking in the village and then because of bad association there is prostitution and then they have money, because they’re drinking, they have nothing to do so they gamble their money away. In this way all of their good qualities go to hell. So, he was lamenting that how due to a type of unplanned un-Kṛṣṇa conscious industrial development without you know… and false propagation, and He told us… He made one comment that we want to... “We want to preserve the dignity of the farmers, preserve the dignity of agriculture, because in this way people can be independent, and they don’t have to be dependent on this type of a false situation. They can actually, in that occupation they could more easily practice God consciousness than being one of these factory workers. I’ll say more later now. Gokula-rañjana…. That’s some of the pastimes. There are many more of Prabhupāda going to old Pānihāṭi or the original Pānihāṭi. Maybe we could hear something about His coming to New Pānihāṭi.

Gokula-rañjana dasa:

nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine

namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe

So, just briefly to mention the history of the Atlanta temple, before Prabhupāda came so that the full impact of what it meant to the Atlanta temple. At that time we were a small temple living on the other side of the track so to speak I guess, you know, a small little house and for years and years trying to get a better situation for Lord Caitanya’s movement, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s society, struggling to find a better facility and we just had this one little house and then another little house later but they weren’t adequate by any means and the… the temple had been over on 13th street for maybe for about four or five years at that point there were so many attempts to get other buildings and they all fell through in the end and there was lots of prejudice also at that time in terms of they did not want to rent to us because we were controversial, and being in the south there’s a lot of prejudice against anything that is not Christian or specifically that’s not Southern Christian and so the temple started to expand. More devotees were coming and so at the point Balavanta Prabhu was the temple president and he had made this friendship with an older man. His name was Bhakta Fred we called him, and he was able to convince the landlord of this property to finally allow us to stay here.

Since then, we’ve developed a relationship with him. His name is Mr. (inaudible). Rupānuga prabhu calls him our guardian angel. Sort of an unusual character, but… you know, moved into this property but it was in extremely bad condition Vedaguhya, and Sahasrāṅgī Prabhus can testify. They work crews to fix everything up, and the place was just, you know, just like… They were… I know for a fact that that building, and that building for some time had just been deserted. You know, just bums had been coming in and out. Even still they didn’t want to rent to us. So, we finally were able to secure the place and we were in the process of moving the deities, and you know what it is like to move a temple. It is a big endeavor. Moving… we only… Gaura-Nitāi had been installed for about a year and Jagannātha was not… had not come yet, and uh, we put Gaura-Nitāi in the back seat of a limousine and drove Them through the city. Balavanta sort of took the best route and was… as we were driving he was telling them all about the city of Atlanta, that they were the predominant Deities. It was kind of unusual to see the reactions that some of the people when we stopped at red lights ... when they saw these two deities sitting at the back seat with their crowns on and… (laughter)

So finally, we… so, we were in the process of moving in and simultaneously to that also we discovered under our noses the Atlanta Airport and it was the best facility for book distribution… for distributing Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books that had come along you know at that point, and it was just incredible the amounts of books that we were distributing. We thought it was just… The scores were just phenomenal, and we thought it was unlimited how many books we could distribute, and then right after that, about a month or two after we moved in, we got… there was a rumor being passed around that Prabhupāda might come here, but we just never really took it seriously because when Prabhupāda came into America, it meant we were… maybe… could go see Him in New York or He would go to Los Angeles or Chicago... the bigger temples. Never to a place like Atlanta.

Atlanta was such a small place. But now that we had this better facility and Svarūpa Dāmodara who was staying here then, and he had been writing to Prabhupāda that this is a very nice place, nice climate. So, the next we knew, we had like a two-week warning. I believe something like that, Prabhupāda was coming, and we didn’t have any place for him to stay or anything. We were just… so we just went wild. The whole temple just went on a 24 hour a day, two-week long marathon to fix everything up and throughout the two-week period, there was like, “No he’s not coming. This GBC is trying to get him over to that zone. No.” and then, “He is coming.” It was back and forth and finally he was coming, and so we met him at the airport with all the devotees, and everyone was thinking… all the other devotees in the movement at that… in North America were thinking that this was would be the perfect place to come see Prabhupāda because this is a small temple. It’d be real intimate. So somehow or other, just everyone thought like that, and so it was… it was, you know… it was incredible. It was something like 3, 400 devotees came, and (laughter) there was… Tamāla Kṛṣṇa brought the entire Rādhā Dāmodara party, all the brahmacārīs and for the first time he introduced them to Prabhupāda, and Śrīla Gurupāda brought his travelling library party, the BBT Library Party. Tripurāri brought the BBT Book Distribution Party. Dharmātma had this women’s party that was just starting out that time, and all these other temples, everybody was just coming and so we had a huge kīrtana out at the airport.

That’s the… they actually, after that they passed a law about that, that we couldn’t have kīrtanas any more at the airport, but somehow or other we were able to… I mean, we took over the airport. Fortunately or unfortunately at that time I was chosen to stay with the limousine. I wasn’t in the airport and my job was to somehow or the other secure the… right in the middle of you know… where they drop passengers, the taxi stand there. I had to secure that spot with limousine and you know there are always asking you to keep moving on, and in the old airport, it was a smaller space so it was… you… I was taking up half of the space practically and all the police were gathering around trying to ask me to leave, and I just was like saying, “Well, it’s just a few… few more minutes. It’s a very important person coming here.” And finally, it just like, somehow or other kept dragging on and on and on like half hour already.

There was a delay in the plane and the police were just furious so it was an opportunity to preach. I had all the police standing around and I… so I just.. they wanted to tow the car away. At one point in there, I lost the keys to the car as well, I was so nervous. (laughs) I couldn’t find the keys to the car, and I really went crazy and I found them, and then… so then I started preaching to the policemen. I said, “Well just imagine somehow or the other Jesus Christ was coming, (laughs) and know you, and it was your responsibility to make sure that his ride was there you know. Would you listen to the police?” (laughter)

You know I just, and they thought… their reaction was the same, they started laughing so they said “Alright, we’ll give you…” you know so I was able to keep limousine there and I was feeling really proud of myself (laughter) so I was… I made sure that I was sitting there right behind the wheel, and I was like holding on to it cause I wanted to be the one to drive. I mean I went through this whole thing to keep the limousine there (laughs) so I’m holding on you know, and I see… then all of a sudden, I see you know, the kīrtana’s coming and the I hear the car door open you know, on my side and there was Balavanta, he tapped me on the shoulders and said “Get out, get out.” so I was asked to leave, and then so I then I stood… I figured this was one experience I had where I was really… I had this realization of like, I wanted Prabhupāda to see me you know. I was really young I guess, or immature, or puffed up, or whatever, but I wanted Prabhupāda to see me so I… I just stood there by the door and I tried to open the door and somehow or other Prabhupāda’s head was always in the other direction, (laughs) and so I specifically went around to one of the doors to open that door, I figured he was coming on that side. Instead Tamāla Kṛṣṇa and Paramahaṁsa Swamis, they went in to pushed me aside and Prabhupāda just always had his head looking the other way, just got in the car like that and just waved to everyone and I was completely dejected (laughs).

I had a realization at that point that we can’t be… we have a right to be attached to our service but not to the results of the service. So I… Because I was attached to the idea that I had you know, fought off the demons, or the police from moving the vehicle. I wanted Prabhupāda to recognize that but anyway… but in any case (laughs) I didn’t get any rec… externally anyway. Then simultaneously while all of this was happening at the airport, the Vyāsāsana was being built. The stairs were not built, and the back was being put on. I think, (inaudible) were you helping with the Vyāsāsana at that point? They were building the Vyāsāsana at the time that Prabhupāda was at the airport, so no one knew whether or not he was going to be… whether or not it was going to hold him or anything, you know.

As He… you know everyone… so He comes into the temple room, everyone was just starting to see if everything is going to hold together, and we were fortunate that they had built it properly but first when Balavanta brought Śrīla Prabhupāda in a sort of a roundabout route to the temple and all the devotees were out at the front of the temple who had been at the airport, and had a big huge kīrtana and when Balavanta told me that Prabhupāda when he saw the devotees, he had been sort of resting at the back seat. He looked forward, and he was looking out like that and Balavanta was explaining you know… they were parked at that intersection down there. He was explaining that this is women’s house, that’s the men’s house and in the middle is the temple, and he saw all the devotees and Prabhupāda was really like, His eyes got real bright and He’s real, He looked very happy and I… we by Kṛṣṇa’s mercy and by (inaudible) Vedaguhya prabhu also had to (inaudible) for pictures. I have some pictures of when he was just arriving, they’re big enough so that everyone can see. Yeah, here it is, just arriving. (inaudible) He’s first getting out of the car. So all the devotees were singing kīrtana in the front lawn and the porch when Prabhupāda drove up and this is a picture of him coming out of the limousine here.

Jayapatākā Swami: Śrīla Prabhupāda kī…!

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapatākā Swami : Nava Pānihāṭi āgamana kī…!

Devotees: Jaya!

Gokula-rañjana dāsa: That’s Svarūpa Dāmodara there. There’s Gurupāda, Rūpānuga and Balavanta here.

Comment: Bala drove?

Gokula-rañjana dāsa: (laughs) He got to drive, and here He’s coming out of the car, and some of the other devotees. I think this is Vedaguhya here, and this… this devotee here was supposedly the secretary of… what’s?

Comment: Maharṣi.

Gokula-rañjana dāsa: Maharṣi, yes. He is the one who said that… he had just come to tell Prabhupāda the story that Maharṣi had told him to come to Prabhupāda because Prabhupāda was the one that could teach him the highest knowledge, and so then Prabhupāda came in to the temple room and it was… Gaura-Nitāi were there on the altar and all the devotees had a kīrtana. He still had his jacket on ... it was in the winter and the Deities were wearing… They had red, long coats and the women had embroidered beautiful peacocks onto the coats.

I think the Deities in Murāri Sevaka are still wearing this outfit ... real nice colorful blue and green peacocks on the coats. That was a real nice outfit and Prabhupāda just, you know, he stood there and was having darśana and he noticed at that point that we had mirrors on the ceiling ... we’ve taken them down after last winter ... they were too much trouble they were falling but at that point we had put them on and… so Prabhupāda was looking up and he turned to Balavanta; He said, “What is this?” and he said to Prabhupāda that it was mirrors and Prabhupāda, you know… cause if you looked at it, looked like there was two altars, you know, cause they were real clear at that point.

So then, Prabhupāda marched back through the… we had an aisle as generally devotees do and we were chanting and he sort of marched back very slowly and gracefully to the Vyāsāsana and sort of like a general reviewing his troops and he had a big smile on His face, and you could notice there were tears in the… in His eyes. He was really… really had a… had a really big blissful smile, and then He got on the vyāsāsana and then He started to speak but as you could notice right from the very beginning that he was you know… there was a lot of emotion in his voice you know almost like He was… you could hear, you know he was almost like choked up so he started to say, “I have…” you know, “…travelled to all these different temples. I have come from Caracas, Miami, that’s how he said Miami, so many temples I have travelled to, and I can see that of all the temples your temple is the best.”

Devotees: Jaya!

Gokula-rañjana dāsa: Then everyone started chanting, “Jaya!”. Then he started quoting from this song parama karuṇā pahu dui jana nitāi gauracandra, and he said, “So these two prabhus Nitāi-Gaura who appeared 500 years ago in West Bengal India are now standing here on your altar in Atlanta today.” and everyone started chanted “Haribol!”

 Jayapatākā Swami:

śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya-prabhu-nityānanda
śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda

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

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-gurum dīna-tāranam

So by the festival in Pānihāṭi is called mahotsava ... mahā means great, ut means to uplift, go up and sava means everyone. So that great festival which uplifts everyone is called a mahotsava. So especially the Vedas advise us that we should go to the janeṣv abhijñeṣu, we should go to the persons, hear from the persons who have transcendental knowledge, take their association of the Vaiṣṇavas. So we feel that if nothing else the festival was successful because Śrīla Ācāryadeva has kindly come here to give us His association and it’s by the presence of many Vaiṣṇavas that one gets more and more enthusiasm. The saṅkīrtana movement means many people together perform the saṅkīrtana-yajña or the congregational chanting of the holy names. This slide show was put together by Trivikrama Swami. I haven’t gone through it yet so… Is that Bangladesh? Why don’t you go to the next shot?

Devotees: Haribol!

Jayapatākā Swami: Oh go back this side. Back, tsh tsh.

So what happens is that in Bangladesh a great… well what we couldn’t do is here we are having Pānihāṭi festival which is of course Pānihāṭi happens on the bank of the Ganges. This is a tributary of the Ganges river and Pānihāṭi festival is where many devotees with Lord Nityānanda were chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa and all of a sudden it wasn’t expected but Lord Caitanya came so like that, we’re very honored that the servant of the servant of Śrīla Prabhupāda, Caitanya Mahāprabhu, Ācāryadevā, He’s agreed to come even before even though we didn’t… couldn’t expect it. Today I heard He was coming, yesterday He was not coming. I phoned him up and said, “We already have our high hopes up, don’t deprive us since you are merciful you should come on up.” So He decided to come.

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapatākā Swami: So, since he has already explained so nicely from the Bhagavad-gītā, the basis and purpose of this Kṛṣṇa conscious movement for cutting the attachment to this material world and for going to the spiritual world from whence we do not have to return ever, so here is a tour of our Bangladesh preaching in east Bengal which Lord Caitanya toured and many of His associates appeared and will see what’s in the slideshow. I don’t know myself so it’s a surprise. It’s like Candid Camera for me. This is… I believe this is where our vehicle got stuck and required about 300 people to pull it out and I had to direct it; that’s why I had to pull my dhoti up so Hare Kṛṣṇa. Here is the vehicle that got stuck.

Devotees: Laugh

Jayapatākā Swami: This is the Mercedes bus that I travelled about. That’s Vaiyāsakī Dāsa my assistant in Bangladesh, now he is in North America. He is an old veteran there. You might have heard his kīrtanas, Vaiyāsakī Dasa.

Comment: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Yes. He went on the tour. So did a number of other... This vehicle is towing it out. Actually this whole thing began because they didn’t listen to me. (Laughs) I told them to go the other way and… But you can see spontaneously… they… we didn’t... they weren’t… this wasn’t for money. This was for love you see. But we tied our van and all the people, and all together, they yelled, “Haribol!” and they pulled it. (laughter)

Question: They were Muslims?

Jayapatākā Swami: Hindu, Muslim you name it, Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa we got out, don’t worry. These are the… the lady with a kind of saffron-ish sari in the middle is the secre… the tall one she is the secretary and president of the Bangladesh Cottage Industry Program. She… the tall one recently got the President’s Award for doing the most help to the people. So I was telling her how she should also incorporate Kṛṣṇa Consciousness with her social upliftment and the secretary agreed to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa every day and signed a pledge to that effect. In the back you can see Prabhaviṣṇu Swami our assistant GBC; that’s his śikhā there, Haribol.

Here’s where I probably signing their pledge. Kṛṣṇa Kīrtana… Well what happened was this Vicitra Vāsinī… Is Latikā Bhakti here? She didn’t come? She was there also. There was three mātājīs. This one mātājī from England and Vicitra Vāsinī from Hawaii and one other. So we had a big program with 75,000 people. At the last part of the program, the saṅkīrtana leader raised his arms and he said “The mercy of Nitāi-Gaura comes raining down like a flood of mercy!” so it started pouring raining so we had to run inside this house to get away from the rain. So, then we began to preach, nowhere to go. So these people they are all signing up to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa every day.

That’s Subhag Swami Mahārāja at the front for selling books in Bangladesh which is a 80% Muslim country. He had to spend one month in jail but it didn’t dampen his enthusiasm. He is still preaching there very actively. Go on. Jaya Nitāi-Gaura Haribol.

This is the ārati. There’s Vaiyāsakī. The President of the function gave me an introduction. I was the chief guest for the function which was the National Sanātana-dharma Sammelana. The ambassador of India and the Minister of Bangladesh were represented there. Now we have quite good relations with the government. It was due to a misunderstanding that was addressed.

This is a typical house of Bengal ... grass roof, mud floor with cow dung coating and these are the residents, mother and daughter. Here are some of the devotees distributing books and beads. People are very eager. You can see the habitat. It’s beautiful. They are under a mango tree behind there are all bamboo forests. It’s by the side of a river. This was during the day time. They had various lectures. In the night time we did our program.

This one is one student getting Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books.

This is a common sight, people staring. (laughter) But they are interested. And its nothing to be afraid about, as you soon you start to preach to them they’re all ears but they don’t know what to think because there is no road. This bus is inside the middle of a village and there was no road. We drove over 3 miles of fields so you’d be amazed too. (laughter) Anyway we bathed in the river. That’s all there is? Hare Kṛṣṇa. No piranhas ... (laughter)

This is a meeting with all the village elders. They all came around and they’ve decided… they set up about thirteen Nāmahaṭṭa branches for propagating the message of Śrīla Prabhupāda. That’s again Subhag Swami. Here we were discussing they were offering us forty acres of land to build a gurukula. They said the children in this are they need a gurukula and they’d like us to establish a gurukula there. On the left that’s doctor… what’s his name? Doctor Bose or something. He was the head of the district Sanātana Dharma Conference. We were under the date trees and coconut trees. So the purpose of these tours is actually to encourage people to take up the process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness and to take up the philosophy in a practical way, so the response is incredible. This is outside of the main meeting area. There are of course many vendors selling peanuts and what… you name it.

This is one of the bridges. It’s just two bamboos. How many thousands of people crossed over to hear the Kṛṣṇa Conscious presentation! People there they make average wage of may be a dollar or fifty cents a day, but still even though they are so poor they want to get books and beads. They… they want their spiritual development. So people say if the people aren’t fed, if they are still hungry then they don’t want spiritual things, but actually it’s the rich people who say that, people who are very puffed and inflated that it’s not necessary that one has to first have economic development. Who’s going to provide economic development? There is nearly a hundred million people in Bangladesh. America puts millions of dollars there. You don’t see any change.

What’s the econ…? They have a beautiful surrounding, their grass hut, economic development means they put a road in or a pump in, give them a brick house. How is that going to appreciably, or they maybe get some more vitamins in their meal, but they are still suffering birth, old age, disease, death. So, they know that this life... We don’t discourage them to develop economically but the point is that in this life there is only one end and the real purpose of life is to go back home, back to Godhead. So along with their endeavors they actually want to achieve spiritual realization.

This is Latikā Bhakti, who’s now in New Orleans. She’s from Sweden. She was preaching there.

Here are some of the children who want to join the gurukula. We actually made nine devotees at this program. Haribol. Haribol (loud).

Devotees: Haribol.

Jayapatākā Swami: This is what Ācāryadeva was talking about ... supernatural powers ... Sanātana Dharma Mahā Sammelana. This was another... for some reason they never showed the crowd. We did a series of tours for one week. Here was another program that we arrived just at sunset and all the people came to greet us.

Here is a typical crowd. More than the flash can pick up. Just thousands and thousands of people, but this wasn’t the biggest crowd. There must be about ten thousand people here: Men on the left, women on the right. This was... we started a new program which was a completion to get everyone to chant. To get women to chant we employed the mothers, and then to get the men to chant, the men would encourage them. What happened was we had a program at one place and then we were going to… we went to see the birthplace of Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī... not Raghunātha... It was one of the gosvāmīs.

Comment: Lokanātha.

Jayapatākā Swami: Lokanātha Gosvāmī, and we couldn’t get there. We were travelling by bus and there was a bamboo bridge and we were just not going to take that ten, twelve-ton truck across the bamboo bridge. This one sādhu was there and he said “Please come see our temple.” So we went just for fifteen, twenty minutes and all these people spontaneously were receiving us. It was very… we had to walk couple miles to get in there, may be half a mile, it wasn’t so much. These are different…

This is another program in Dhaka. They said Trivikrama Mahārāja… he did a good job but he did not know the different places. We had so many different programs. Basic program was there would be some introductory lectures, ārati, then some more chanting competitions, sometimes a few more lectures by the different devotees, then the different devotees and I would give a Bhāgavatam class and we’d show movies. Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Devotees: Haribol! Jaya Gaura-Nitāi!

Jayapatākā Swami: This is another typical scenery of Bangladesh. I mean it’s incredibly opulent, these are all banana trees and coconut. In all the villages these houses are built around these manmade lakes called pukurs. Here is the birthplace of Vāsudeva Datta.

Devotees: Haribol! Jaya!

Jayapatākā Swami: Vāsudeva Datta was of course dearmost devotee to Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu. On the left is Niṣṭhula dāsa, a Canadian devotee… Irish devotee… I forget who’s living in Bangladesh near Puṇḍarīka dhāma. This site was donated to us for developing a temple there. So we did some excavation to find the foundation of the original temple you see. Near… Puṇḍarīka Vidyānidhi was the guru of Gadādhara. He lived in Caṭṭagrāma which is the far east of Bangladesh ... eastern Bengal. Just about half mile from his house, Vāsudeva Datta house and Mukunda Datta, their houses were there, so... Hare Kṛṣṇa.

We were inspecting. In the back, just… I don’t know if you can see. At the back just… I don’t know if you can see. We started an excavation on the side how this project could be developed. These Deities are backwards. Maybe you could turn it around. Jaya Vārṣabhānavī-Murāri-Gaura haribol! Because Puṇḍarīka Vidyānidhi... These Deities are Puṇḍarīka-dhāma. ... the birthplace of Pundarīka Vidyānidhi because Puṇḍarīka was Vṛṣabhānu, the father of Rādhā in Kṛṣṇa-līlā, so we call the Deities Vārṣabhānavī meaning “Rādhā(the daughter of Vṛṣabhānu)-Murāri” and of course, Gaurāṅga Mahāprabhu. Murāri is enchanting.

So there… this is also backwards, but anyway. This is… now in Puṇḍarīka-dhāma for our annual festival. The annual festival this year fell on February 7th. After leaving Atlanta, I went back for the Ratha-yātrā in Madras and then I went here. There was about 40-50,000 people came over a four day festival. We were feeding... Here are the dharma-sabhā or the religious conference where we gave lectures. And this picture is taken from within the place where a non-stop forty-eight-hour harināma chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa will go on. This is the veranda of our temple of Puṇḍarīka-dhāma. You can see the rice paddy fields and the scenery in the back. This is the little village children chanting. This one’s really fired up in the front there. He’s got the karatālas. (laughter) He is about four years old and he is leading the kīrtana.

Devotees: Jaya.

Jayapatākā Swami: This is actually taken after the festival but you can see that there’s some steel pi… steel rods sticking up; we’re building a kīrtana hall there. Ran out of… We got up that far before we ran out of money. In the back there’s… a lake, manmade lake right by this temple. It’s very beautiful. Anyway, go on.

Yes?

Question: Is that vyāsāsana for Prabhupāda?

Jayapatākā Swami: Yes, told them make a bigger one. This was on Rāma Navamī. We did a bathing ceremony for the small Deities of Vārṣabhānavī-Murāri. Abhiṣeka with milk and yoghurt, ghee, honey, sugar water, dab juice and so many other things. Jaya!

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapatākā Swami: Prabhaviṣṇu Swami. This is the first… No this is the first major temple to be. He is doing the initiation ceremony there ... first major temple to be constructed since Bangladesh became Bangladesh. Hold it back. Turn it back. There was some ... what happened? Back? We’re going forward. Okay, stop there. This you see Mrs. Mandanaya, can you see that... Bengali lady wearing tilak with her sindur. You were saying they don’t wear a tilak, only widows. She is a married lady. You see it, you don’t see it. Got a pointer. (laughter)

Devotee: Jaya Ācāryapāda.

Jayapatākā Swami: Hare Kṛṣṇa. They… actually they took a video of this. We should get the copies. People are very... this is their biggest enjoyment is these festivals. This is more interesting to them than everything else. But it takes an incredible amount of endeavor to put on these festivals but the rewards are unlimited. Here are some devotees taking initiation Here are some of the local organizers. This is where we fed over 20,000 people prasādam.

Devotees: Jaya.

Jayapatākā Swami: We’ve formed a joint committee there where we work with the local leaders of place although the worship and management is officially in our hands but we work cooperatively with the local dignitaries. The… here’s the temple that was constructed. So we had to… 20, 000 plates. People always ask “Where does that food relief money go?” That’s where it goes, but it’s only a drop in the bucket compared to what’s actually needed. It goes in the… I mean distributing of prasādam. Here is again the spiritual conference. Again there are so many people listening. They listen from 4 in the afternoon until 11 o’clock at night, about seven hours straight, different philosophical lectures. I was presiding. We had different lectures speaking. It’s the limitation of these flashes. That was the end of the Bangladesh tour.

Here if the Calcutta Book Fair. This is the largest book fair in Asia, and we had the award-winning booth for having the most titles in the most different languages. We actually sold book in Russian, Czechoslovakian, Russian, Hebrew all different languages. We actually were selling the book over the counter. People were coming there.

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapatākā Swami: Yes. That’s another shot of Prahlādānanda Swami. Now he is regional secretary in Peru and Ecuador. This is Bhakti Charu Swami. We went to see a few other stalls to see how they were doing but of course we they just had Bengal language. Adridhāraṇa Prabhu the President of Calcultta. You see there at the back, Chinese, Arabic, Persian, but normally you show these. But people were coming and buying. We had Chinese people there was every day we got a report especially Russian bought books, check round if the KGB was watching and they’d buy a book. Here is Bhaktipāda’s Pa… Prabhupāda’s palace of gold. We had a whole display. Prabhupāda, I don’t know if the picture comes up but Prabhupāda when you walk up the center figure was the big deity of Śrīla Prabhupāda. BBT books flood the world with spiritual knowledge. Every second a Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, is distributed.

Devotees: Jaya.

Jayapatākā Swami: Then we went to see the Soviet book stall. They have these really big books but they are completely subsidized. You can buy it for twenty cents but a huge big book. But our stall was packed with people. The devotees, they could not keep up with the demand.

Devotee: Prabhupāda.

Jayapatākā Swami: Śrīla Prabhupāda, ki, jaya!

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapatākā Swami: This is Śrīla Prabhupāda in the Calcutta temple. This is bathing in the Calcutta Ganges. Hare Kṛṣṇa. A lot of these shots. So unfortunately I don’t have any shots of the Pānihāṭi festival because every… last year I was here for this Pānihāṭi festival so… but you get a taste what it’s like about 200,000 people go to the Pānihāṭi festival.

(Pujārī rings bell from altar)

Jaya Nitāi-Gaura, Jagannātha, Subhadrā, Balarāma ki,

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapatākā Swami: And they all line up and instead of distributing the khichuri, rice-dal mixture, we distribute the ciḍā and dahī. So tomorrow we have a big program. Everyone can freshen up and have rest. It’s nice so many devotees have come.

Question: (Inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: I wanted to be. I don’t know if it’s going to be possible now, because some other commitments.

Are there any questions?

One can’t… it says even by repeated bathing in the Ganges… it takes repeated bathing before one gets purified but even by even a moment’s association with a devotee of the Lord,

‘sādhu-saṅga’, ‘sādhu-saṅga’—sarva-śāstre kaya
lava-mātra sādhu-saṅge sarva-siddhi haya
(Cc. Madhya 22.54)

one can achieve all perfection in life. So this is specially an opportunity when one can associate with hearing and personally at the festival and in this way understand what is the inner purpose of Lord Nityānanda giving the mercy to Raghunātha dāsa gosvāmī. What was the purpose of Śrīla Prabhupāda touring all over the world. Tomorrow morning we will have some smaraṇa-sabhā or remembrances of Śrīla Prabhupāda here in new Pānihāṭi and elsewhere and then at noon or one o’ clock… at noon there will be the offering of ciḍā-dahī and then there will be different programs which Balabhadra Prabhu can announce in the morning. So are there any questions?

Yes?

Question: Did the Bangladeshi government hear about the construction of our temples?

Jayapatākā Swami: It’s registered. Our society is registered.

Question: So they haven’t complained… (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Not yet, thank Kṛṣṇa.

Question: (Inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Well in the winter because there are so many rivers that it’s so difficult to travel in the rainy season. Government is... we don’t talk about those things, but the Government is somewhat favorable now, but we just don’t discuss those things.

Yes?

Question: Will there be time to… (inaudible) …their first grain ceremony?

Jayapatākā Swami: They’re six months of age? Five or six months. Have to offer sweet rice at noon along with ciḍā and dahī. May have time. Maybe we can do two at one. Then I can just say the mantras once. (laughter) (conchshell blows)

Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Devotees: Jaya Śrīla ācāryapāda!

Transcribed by Uśatī Citrā Devī dāsi
Revised by Jagannātha dāsa brahmacāri
Proofread by: Srivani Mtji
14/Oct/2020