19870220 Arrival Address Darśana

Following is an arrival address given by his Holiness Jayapātāka Swami on February 20^th 1987.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-gurum dīna-tāriṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram

Jayapatākā Swami: I was here last December, 7^th 8^th… from that time. From here, went to Malaysian for a Ratha-yātrā festival. Enroute stopped in Tokyo. On my coming and going to and from India, I have been for many helping them in Tokyo in a small way. One of my disciples there took second initiation. The devotees are very determined to distribute books in Japan. Then we went to Malaysia, where they had Ratha-yātrā festival in Penang for the first time. Penang is an Island known as the Pearl of the Orient. It’s in the Bay of Bengal, inside of Malaysia, just south of Burma. And the island is predominantly a Chinese population with a little Indian origin. Malaysia is multiracial country, so they have to accommodate the different cultures there: Chinese, Muslim, Indian. So the Ratha-yātrā festival started at a Rāma temple. There we took Prabhupāda, and they gave a special pūrṇa-kumbha reception for Prabhupāda and other sannyāsīs. Then we took the deity by procession to the ratha. Quite a good crowd was there, around twenty-five thousand people, for the first Ratha-yātrā. They just started off and so many people joined along the way. So the procession began through the town. Even the Chinese people, as their car was coming by, they are offering their obeisances, accepting prasādam. Unfortunately, they didn’t print an explanation about what the Ratha-yātrā was, except in English and Tamil. The Chinese people didn’t get a copy, though most the population is Chinese and they did participate. In fact they gave the largest donations for supporting the festival. After that festival, I went to Thailand briefly, then returned back to Māyāpur.

In the month of December and January, there was a 60-day Nāmahatta Yātrā, where they took 75 devotees in about 6 different vehicles. Three moving temples and other vehicles. They had a staff of another 50 people that were hired for lifting up and every night they put up a big top, stage. Then in evening they would have bhajana, dharma-sabhā - joint type of lecture setup, ārati, Bhāgavatam class and drama. So they did every night, the whole routine. So I was supposed to be there at inauguration, but I couldn’t, I was here. At inauguration, the Governor the state of Orissa, he inaugurated personally the Nāmahatta Yātrā. So I told I had to spend more time in Māyāpur for getting things organized for the festival. So they said, “Alright you don’t have to come to all the 60 Day program. You just come to important ones.” So, I said tick off which are the important ones. I should come to the important ones. So then they ticked off everyone but three. (laughter) So, anyway somehow we worked it out and was very interesting. Sometimes we had 25000 people for the lecture sitting hours & hours listening. Average crowd was about 10000. There was one of the last program in the section, one-two programs in Orissa, Gaura Govinda Maharājā participated in Orissa. And Subhag Swami Maharājā assisted in Bengal. So I participated in programs in all three: Assam State, Bengal state and Orissa. So there was one village Gajankol. We have Nāmahaṭṭa programs in India, about 2000 Nāmahaṭṭa centres. So this village had won Nāmahatta awards for different categories past several years. So I wanted to go and take a tour of the village. And one devotee had dedicated about a sixth of an acre, and over that they built a small house for having a meeting. Not that small but about 30-40 feet long by 16-20 feet wide. So then I went to all of the houses of all the devotees who are participating in the Nāmahaṭṭa. It started to rain and the only program that was rained out, so then I went & visited their homes. Now all the educated people they said, “We want to hear about the philosophy of Caitanya Mahāprabhu”. So I gave a class in a school room. It was a little school house. Emptied out all the tables in the main auditorium of the school house. Few hundred people gathered and we had questions & answers. If you find that in this small group they asked very difficult questions, we had to have the mercy of Kṛṣṇa and studied Prabhupāda books to give the answer to some tricky questions, which proved to me that to do the Nāmahatta preaching actively alone or with an assistant, one has to be very well versed in the philosophy. So after that program, I want to Silchar where they gave us a land to build a temple and the temple design is basically finished. Then in Madras, we had a Ratha-yātrā festival, and about 50 devotees from all over the world were there in Madras for the Ratha-yātrā festival. A very big crowd of people. We did all the pūjās, we broke the coconuts, we did everything we were supposed to do. But when it came the time for the ratha to move, the wheel jammed, the break jammed. So they were working for I think like an hour trying to get it unjammed. Finally they decided to unconnect the break. We decided to go without breaks. If it was Bengal, we couldn’t have gone at all. So, in Madras it is little bit more conservative, so it is okay. After that we had a seven-day festival. Then went back again to Māyāpur. This winter we are getting about 20 to 25 tour buses coming every day in Māyāpur. On the 22nd of January, the president of India, he came. So I went there and gave him a garland and some books. He was very happy and it was covered in all in the newspapers that the President of India was praising Caitanya Mahāprabhu, and that he had visited Māyāpur, and he had discussed with the representative of ISKCON - Jayapatākā Swami. In this way a lot of Māyāpur oriented preaching had to go on.

Then in Bangalore, we had another Ratha-yātrā. The Ratha-yātrā in Bangalore, I asked them to actually send a picture to the temples. I don’t know if they sent. There the rathas are of different shape. The shape of the ratha is like Uḍupi, its more to a hot air balloon, its a big bubble. And although while bringing it to the site, the axle broke twice, they fixed it finally the third time, and then it didn’t break the whole way. So there the ex-Vice President of India inaugurated the Ratha-yātrā. Now he gave some kind of speculative lecture about everything is one etc. So, then, the person who gave the announcement, he stated, “…and now we request Jayapatākā Swami to lecture and to straighten out.” (laughter) You can’t say that in public with all the people! (laughter) But somehow they were angry at his speech. So even with the hot seat introduction like that, somehow I gave a brief talk and everyone was quite satisfied. So then it came time, we requested him to kindly sweep the road. So the person announced; this announcer was very expert in saying exactly the wrong thing. (laughter) He said that, there was King of Orissa used to sweep before Jagannātha. So this is a very kingly custom. And to perpetuate this, we are requesting that he sweep. He said, “I am Vice President. I am against kings. I am democracy. We don’t believe in kings. So I refuse to sweep the road.” (Devotees laughing) So, then I had to take the mike and explain that, “No, the point is that before Kṛṣṇa everyone is equal. This is democracy, we are all going to go and sweep the road. (laughter) And we request you also come. Then he said, “Okay, I will come!” (laughter) So then he swept the road very briefly, and then we swept the road. So many other people swept the road, and then we offered ārati to Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma deities. In the meantime, all the newspapers caught up and they published a special article. And the headline on several newspape articles was ‘The Vice President refuses to sweep road before Jagannātha’. (laughter) Anyway, so then they had organised a competition amongst all the high schools in the city, on Kṛṣṇa. And they got 6000 applicants for the test. 6000 people applied. They took the test. Out of the 6000 persons that took the test, 1000 certificates were given. And we had every night a lecture program and drama. Before that we had a program in Assam, the far north eastern region of India. Then after Bangalore Ratha-yātra, we went to Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh, they have the moon cycle just before Advaita Saptamī. The pañcamī is the birthday of Puṇḍarīka Vidyānidhi. So this year we had completed the construction of a small temple for Vāsudeva Datta’s Deities. We had excavated and found the foundation. So over that we built a little temple and there the deities of Lord Caitanya – Nitāi-Gauracandra, were established there. Even though it was slightly raining but all the functions went on. It was raining because all of a sudden, a little cyclone came up in the Bay of Bengal. Tore down the pandal. But we just kept things going. It’s a 5-day program ending witha drama. Then from Bangladesh, I flew to Bombay to a godbrothers meeting, then I came back to Māyāpur. Then we had a celebration of Nityānanda-trayodaśī. We’re trying to get some land at Nityānanda’s birthplace. Probably a little temple for the devotees to visit. And from there in Māyāpur, a little re-organisation, following more of a Vedic blueprint. Stayed upto Bhaktisiddhānta’s appearance day, then I came directly here. After 18^th afternoon, drove to Calcutta, flew to London, reached on the 19^th and then flew directly here today. So in the month of December and January that is basically what happened. Few details. Just travelling after that. But in Māyāpur we are getting about 25 tour buses every weekend. So now we have organised, under Mahā-Śṛnga and Somaka Maharājas, a special tour campus preaching programme. You see normally campus preaching, we go to the university campus. But this goes to the temple campus. Our own campus is always packed with people, but there wasn’t any organised preaching programme for them. So now we have tours. We take them to Prabhupāda’s rooms, to the roof, to the gurukula, to bhajana-kuṭīra, different places. And this promises to be like a  preaching programme. Then on the Padayātrā lotus feet that we established in Māyāpur at the end of the six thousand miles trek, I put 108 circle cakras in a spiral around, and then on crowded times of the day people stand there and announce and bring their people over and say, “This is our system. You stand on the step and you say:

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

One time for each step. You give them the mantra card and they start going around till they complete 108. They touch the lotus feet and they get the caraṇāmṛta. (laughter) This is so popular that the first hour after starting, 200 people lined up to go on. So popular! And designed the whole internal philosophical display using dioramas for half of the expo. So that’s supposed to be ready for the festival.

They had two dramas. In Orissa they had a Orissan drama. In Bengal a Bengali drama. In Orissa they performed Chand Kazi līlā. Then they also did Sākṣī Gopāla, I think Sākṣī Gopāla. Bengal, Orissa both, that is enough. They only stayed one or two days in each place, sixty days sixty places. Then South America then after Mardi Gras. Festival is already starting on the 28^th. I am just coming in Vṛndāvana, Vṛndāvan is first. I have already organised things regarding the festival. I have to go there at least a few days before the devotees arrive, to Māyāpur, just to see that everything is proper. I am the chief director of the festival. I hope they’re so well trained that I can show up only a few days ahead. (laughter) I hope! (laughter) One life member, he is building personally, a thousand bed guest house. This wasn’t in the plan but he decided to have a little dining hall, but then he build a dining hall for thousand people, for thousand bed, thousand people. So then we said that know so many tourist buses are coming, where would they eat. This way it is only going on expanding. My first budget was 4 million, know it is going upto 8 million. How will I do? I will depend on Kṛṣṇa. So he is building a 2000 person big dining hall. May Kṛṣṇa gave him a long enough life to finish, and strength.

So that Vāsudeva Dutta temple was totally constructed by donations from me. Whatever money I got was from the west here basically. Few donors we have here. The Orissa temple, we have also collected for that. We have some money in the bank and it supposed to the start the construction again in march. On the  Mardi Gras day, we’re having a Jagannātha Ratha-yātrā float. We go there to drink the nectar of chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. We don’t go there to participate in the Mardi Gras. We go there to purify the people by involving them in Kṛṣṇa conscious activities. We always did the Ratha-yātrā in September when there were no people. But in Mardi Gras there are many people. So we’re trying to see if we can dovetail the fact that everyone is in a festive spirit. Because they’re in an enjoying mood, they also chant Hare Krsna and sometimes couple hundred people would chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and join up!

This happened one time when Lord Caitanya was going to Navadvīpa and there were some drunkards sitting there, and they saw Lord Caitanya go by and one started to criticize, “Oh there’s Gaurahari, look at him!”

Someone else said, “Oh! He is a very good dancer.” And they started following after him, mimicking and saying, “Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa”. Lord Caitanya, He just went on. He didn’t pay any attention. So after sometime His associates said, “How is it that you just tolerated that they are ridiculing?”

Lord Caitanya said that, “Well they are drinking, it is the effect of drinking. It will wear off. But the effect of chanting, that will stay.”

Devotees: Hari bol!!!

*some random conversation takes place*

Verified by your humble ever Servant 

Vinoda Gopīkeśa Dāsa
26-12-2024
Māyāpur India