19870412 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 6.5.15

Lecture Code: 19870412

Scripture: Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam

Verse: 6.5.15

Date: 12-Apr-1987

Place: Sridham Māyāpur

Transcribed By: Bhaktin Charlene

Transcribed On: 9-Nov-2020

STATUS: Completed

tat-saṅga-bhraṁśitaiśvaryaṁ
saṁsarantaṁ kubhāryavat
tad-gatīr abudhasyeha
kim asat-karmabhir bhavet

tat-saṅga — by association with the prostitute of intelligence; bhraṁśita — taken away; ai — the opulence of independence; saṁsarantam — undergoing the material way of life; ku-bhārya-vat — exactly like a person who has a polluted wife; tat-gatīḥ — the movements of the polluted intelligence; abudhasya — of one who does not know; iha — in this world; kim asat-karmabhiḥ bhavet — what can be the benefit of performing temporary fruitive activities.

[Nārada Muni had also spoken of a man who is the husband of the prostitute. The Haryaśvas understood this as follows.] If one becomes the husband of a prostitute, he loses all independence. Similarly, if a living entity has polluted intelligence, he prolongs his materialistic life. Frustrated by material nature, he must follow the movements of the intelligence, which brings various conditions of happiness and distress. If one performs fruitive activities under such conditions, what will be the benefit?

Polluted intelligence has been compared to a prostitute. One who has not purified his intelligence is said to be controlled by that prostitute. As stated in vyavasāyātmikā buddhir ekeha kuru-nandana: those who are actually serious are conducted by one kind of intelligence, namely, intelligence in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Bahu-śākhā hy anantāś ca buddhayo ’vyavasāyinām: one who is not fixed in proper intelligence discovers many modes of life. Thus involved in material activities, he is exposed to the different modes of material nature and subjected to varieties of so-called happiness and distress. If a man becomes the husband of a prostitute, he cannot be happy, and similarly one who follows the dictations of material intelligence and material consciousness will never be happy.

One must judiciously understand the activities of material nature. As stated in

prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni
guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ
ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā
kartāham iti manyate

“The bewildered spirit soul, under the influence of the three modes of material nature, thinks himself to be the doer of activities, which are in actuality carried out by nature.” Although one follows the dictations of material nature, he happily thinks himself the master or husband of material nature. Scientists, for example, try to be the masters of material nature, life after life, not caring to understand the Supreme Person, under whose direction everything within this material world is moving. Trying to be the masters of material nature, they are imitation gods who declare to the public that scientific advancement will one day be able to avoid the so-called control of God. In fact, however, the living being, unable to control the rulings of God, is forced to associate with the prostitute of polluted intelligence and accept various material bodies. As stated in

puruṣaḥ prakṛti-stho hi
bhuṅkte prakṛti-jān guṇān
kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo ’sya
sad-asad-yoni-janmasu

Translation

“The living entity in material nature thus follows the ways of life, enjoying the three modes of nature. This is due to his association with that material nature. Thus he meets with good and evil amongst various species.” If one fully engages in temporary fruitive activities and does not solve this real problem, what profit will he gain?

Thus end the Bhaktivedanta Swami purport  to Canto 6, chapter 5, text 15, of the Bhaktivedanta  Swami Purports of the Srimad Bhagavatam.

The previous verse explained, mixed with the… Narada Muni ad described that a woman, who is a professional prostitute, the Haryasvas , understood the audacity of this woman. Mixed with the mode of passion.

Translation:

Mixed with the mode of passion, the unsteady intelligence of every living entity, is like a prostitute, who changes dresses just to attract one’s attention. If one fully engages in temporary fruitive activities, not understanding how this is taking place, what does he actually gain?

So, Narada Muni had given some allegorical instructions, which were almost like rules.  But the Haryasvas could understand the purport. Normally when they give a philosophical point, they then give some example to demonstrate that.  Narada Muni gave the examples without the philosophical explanation. The Haryasvas, they giving the philosophical explanation. These were the examples they gave, understanding the meaning.

This is an interesting form of discussion. This had also happened when Narada Muni explained some stories to the King of the Maharaj Prācīnabarhiṣat, in the story of Puranjana.

In any case, today we discussing about the intelligence. Intelligence is normally polluted or affected by the mode of passion in the material world. When this happens, it means the intelligence is a bit fickle, very changing, going from one thing to the next, trying to rationalize and find what will give one happiness. When one doesn’t feel happy with one thing, he goes onto the next. In this way one is always going on from one thing to another, and the consciousness is not at all fixed. Sometimes the intelligence may be splayed into different directions, this can become so acute, that a person could become schizophrenic, having even a split personality, or having various types of mental problems, all due to a mind, not being properly controlled by the intelligence. So, to practice Krishna consciousness, it's essential to bring the intelligence, under the control of the atma.

There's a famous example, I am sure everyone has heard, Srila Prabhupada explained, the difference between the activities in Krishna consciousness and material activities. That material activities are based in the gross matter. Gross matter forms, or is objects of sense gratification. So, the senses of the body, they are concentrating on the objects of the senses. The objects are seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, thinking, smelling. Then the mind is engaged in providing information and input for the senses. The intelligence guides the mind in serving the senses, which are serving dull matter, and the soul or the living force in the body, that is simply going on blindly following. So ulimately, in material life, everything is headed towards serving dull matter. The reverse is true for Krishna consciousness.

 In Krishna consciousness, the object of service is Krishna. The soul or atma, is surrendered to Krishna. And the intelligence is engaged in devotional service to... Is engaged under the service of the soul. The intelligence directs the mind. Because, say a thought comes into the mind, we can intelligently decide to think about that or to change the thought. For instance, someone gets angry, and he thinks, 'I should kill this person. He is my enemy.' Now, one's intelligence could tell, 'That is not a good thought and if you continue thinking in this way, you will go to jail. It will be a bad karma, or sinful, or cause you so many troubles. Or something like that.'

Or one's intelligence in the mode of ignorance, may direct one, 'Yes, you want to kill the person, here’s how to do it.’ So, it’s a good idea too… The intelligence is able to discriminate between different ideas coming up in the mind.

So, the Krishna conscious intelligence, takes the mind away from thoughts which are not Krishna conscious. And applies the mind on thoughts which are beneficial to one’s spiritual advancement. So then the mind engages the senses in Krishna conscious activity. Thinking of different Krishna conscious ideas for serving. And the senses use the dull matter in Krishna’s service. Just like this book is made out of so many material elements, that took intelligence to type that, translate and type that and publish this book. Distribute it. So, all that intelligence is Krishna conscious intelligence, because it is being used for Krishna. 

Same intelligence is also used to print a pornographic book, but there the object is simply to get some form of temporary sense gratification, without any higher spiritual objective.

So, in this way, either one’s energy is being directed upwards towards Krishna, going from dull matter, to the senses to the mind, to the intelligence, to the soul, to Krishna. Or the opposite is true that all the energy is being directed down to serving the objects of the senses.

Those who are self-realized souls. They understand there is a difference between matter and the living force. When my mother came to Mayapur, 1977, my … ashram’s mother, my previous ashram’s mother. Sanyasi’s previous life is considered the previous ashram. It’s a new life now. So that ashram’s mother, when she came here and saw Srila Prabhupada, she didn’t have an understanding about what was matter and what was spirit. So, Prabhupada, took the time to personally preach to her, and explained to her that how we should understand that in the body there is a living force, there’s a dynamic energy and this dynamic energy is actually, who we are, that’s the self. When that dynamic living force, leaves the body, the body is considered dead or as a dull matter. When that living force is in the body, then the body is alive. Actual life has nothing to do with the body. The body is a complicated mechanism made of the elements of nature, to allow the living force  to function in the material world. According to its karmas, according to its desires.

So, Srila Prabhupada was able to in this very simple example, impress very deeply on my previous ashram’s mother, regarding this basic truth of spiritual life. So, we have the choice of bringing the intelligence under the soul. Or allowing the intelligence to simply be fickle and go here and there, serving material nature. If you let the mind free, you think that’s freedom. The mind can think of anything. Create any kind of plan for enjoying material nature, but that is not considered real freedom. According to the Srimad Bhagavatam, that entity has a polluted intelligence, and by that type of intelligence, one will lose all freedom.

Say a householder has a very beautiful wife. Householder is also good husband, protecting his wife. Husband and wife are very faithful to each other. Now, he is free to do various activities, do his occupation, without very much anxiety. But his wife, if she is very unfaithful or compared here, she is like a prostitute. As soon as she gets a chance, she will cheat on him and go with some other man, then he will be always in anxiety. How to… because he may be also attached to his wife. So then, he will always have to think of various ways of keeping his wife satisfied day and night and keeping her from being and to always be occupied with her, otherwise she will go off with some other man. So actually, where is his freedom? He is totally tied down.

So, if one’s intelligence is like that, if it’s in Krishna, than one is actually free to engage in so many devotional services for Krishna. To engage in the other, the mind and the senses of various types of activities and one can be very peaceful, and actually choose a proper direction. When, one can be developed fully, one’s full potential. But when one’s mind, intelligence is uncontrolled, than even though one may of an idea at this time, let me do this particular thing, because the intelligence is uncontrolled, it’s being controlled rather by the lower impulses, than as soon as something different influences that intelligence, than one’s intelligence is taken off of his previous track, and it goes to some other direction.

You can see, just like a small child, who’s intelligence is not fully developed, they may be doing something, they may even have a 100 rupee note, but  if you offer, here take  a lozenge as soon as the sense see the lozenge they get, the mind gets attracted. The intelligence, the undeveloped intelligence thinks, ‘Yes, I should enjoy this lozenge.’ So, just give me that piece of paper and you take the lozenge. So they give the 100 rupee note, they’ll take the 10 paisa lozenge. Then after having lozenge, then after few minutes, something else may come. In this way the mind is going, there is no control.

So, even a grown person, their intelligence is developed, so they have more sophisticated plans and they have a particular way they going, but that intelligence can also be easily deviated. For instance, Kamsa. Kamsa was a great King. He was an emperor. He had many other Kings under him. He was efficient in his government and political activity. I don’t know if there is anyone who is as efficient as Kamsa was, in the world today, as far as administration. But, Kamsa was a total materialist. He was envious of Krishna or God. That’s one of the symptoms, normally materialists develop. Some are simply materialistic and some are materialistic, plus envious of Krishna. Those who are simply materialistic, they are considered innocent people, they can easily be saved. Materialism is not a permanent disease. That is a superficial covering of the soul. But in Kamsa's case it was a very compulment thing. But nontheless, the symptoms are similar in terms of the material activity. Whether you are just a gross materialist or whether one is a gross materialist, come demon, in terms of material activities, it's the same. The difference is that someone who is very animical to Krishna, it's harder for them to awaken their spiritual consciousness. And for one who may simply be in illusion, it's easier for them to awaken their spiritual consciousness. There's no obstacle as such. Because material consciousness is simply due to ignorance of our real spiritual transcendental position. If we have transcendental knowldge, we can easily transcend the material ignorance. Just like it was dark at mangal arati, but right after mangal arati the sun came up, the darkness went away. Then we can see everything. So in the same way, one may be in ignorance and be acting as a total materialist, due to not understanding who one is. That there is a difference between matter and spirit. That there are higher laws controlling the material nature. And that as a human being, with our developed intelligence, we should overcome these laws by proper activities and not simply be moved here and there, as a type of pawn of the material nature.

So Kamsa, being a very, he was taking, at the time of his sister's marriage, Devaki. He was taking his sister and his new brother in law, Vasudev, in his charot. It's the indian custom that when the husband and wife, the new bride goes to the husband's house, some relative, normally it's her brother, should accompany, so that she won't feel any inconveniece or abandoned, or anything. The indian system is that the bride, goes to the house and lives with the husband. Now ofcourse, this giant family is breaking up. But the previous system was that the son will continue to live with his mother and father, and wife will go and live with that family. In this way, there's a type of joint family system, which is still very prevalent everywhere in India accept, gradually getting decayed in the bigger cities.

So, in this time, Kamsa was taking his sister Devaki, and Vasudev, his brother in law, in his chariot. Accompanied with so many musicians and other attendents. All of a sudden there was a dwaibhavani, or a type of oracle from the sky, tha Devaki's eight son, Krishna, would kill Kamsa. So as soon as Kamsa heard that, even though he was riding the chariot for his sister and brother in law. He was being a perfect host and a brother. It was the wedding day, there were so many relative... As soon as he heard that, immediately his intelligence switched, 'I must defend myself.' And he immediately saw his sister as his enemy. Pulled out his sword, grabbed his sister by the hair, and immediately proceeded to cut her head off. Until Vasudev objected, 'That please don't kill your sister.' It will, so that's another story.

The point is if Kamsa, he may have had one type of intelligence. He had, 'Let me please my sister. Let me make my brother in law happy. Let me be the perfect host. Let me be the perfect brother.' In this way, as soon as another interest took prominence, his intelligence changed and he became a totally different person. Hateful, angry, murderous, cruel, killing innocent women. Just on the basis of some oracle, suddenly he became totally transformed.

So, this is the difficulty in material life, a person may appear very nice, very wonderful. But if they materialistic, if their intelligence is simply based in the material world, you cannot depend upon them. However nice they might be, if somehow their intelligence see's that their own interests, their material interests, depending on their particular conception at that time, and that conception is also subject to change, then they can totally change and become a different person.

When a devotee, because his intelligence is fixed in Krishna consciousness, the devotee is totally fixed in serving Krishna, that they do not change in this way. Therefore a devotee is , considered to be the satsanga, or real good association for advancing in spiritual life.

For instance Vidura. Vidura was the brother of Dhritarashtra. Vidura was... Dhritarashtra was a blind king. He had a 100 sons, who also, although they were not blind, but they were spiritually blind. They were envious of Krishna's devotees the Pandavas. And they were very materialistic. So they kept making plans to illiminate their cousin brothers. Various political intrigues to assasinate them so that they could enjoy the absolute authority over a kingdom, which was not rightfully theirs. Now Vidura, he was a neutral party. He could see that what they were doing was ultimately bad for their own future. It was in every respect, improper and inauspicious. It was simply going to create suffering for them. And he would go, and he would give good advice to Dhritarashtra, but Dhritarashtra wouldn't take it, normally. One time it went such ahead, that when Vidura gave advice to Dhritarashtra and Duryodhan, specially to Dhritarashtra not to listen to Duryodhan, his eldest son. Because he was giving advice which was simply meant to destroy the entire dynasty, by engaging everyone in a useless war. Duryodhan became so hateful. He started to just criticize Vidura. Calling him as a dog and so many just critical words, as a result, Vidura, he simply thought, what is the use of staying here and giving advice when no one is going to listen to him. So he left and he went to visit all the holy places in India, and left them to suffer their own fate. He didn't have any bad feeling. He was hurt that his relatives were criticising him when he was trying to offer, but that was a temporary sentiment, which he needed that he just had proper intelligence and he thought what to do? 'Let me do something which will be more beneficial since, even though they are the emperors, they not listening to my good advice.' So, he went and visited the holy places.

In the meantime, the Kurukshetra war was heldand Duryodhan and his brothers were killed, which had they listened to Vidura's ggod advice, they could have avoided. See how the difference in intelligence. One's intelligence, if it's fixed in Krishna consciousness, they are saved from making so many blunders, which will simply cause suffering.

A person who's intelligence is fixed in material nature, material desires, they going to be swept away by so many currents of the material world.

Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, He came to give us very simple method of engaging our intelligence, by giving us Krishna's service. First we need to purify the intelligence because it's polluted. Suddenly they going to say, that now I'm going to think just like a Krishna conscious person, even if a person has that desire, he cannot just suddenly change the . momentum and the way in which we have been thinking and willing and feeling, just in one second. Because the consciousness isn't pure, it's polluted. We need to purify them. So we purifying that consciousness. Ofcourse that purification is not dependent upon time, but that purification is actually to engage the mind, intelligence, in Krishna consciousness. Chanting Hare Krishna, spreading the sankirtan movement, engaging in devotional service, worshipping Krishna and studying these vedic literatures which purify the intelligence to understand how everything is working in this world, and what is our relationship with Krishna. And how we can engage in Krishna's service, and what is the perfection of life.

Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, He engaed different devotees in different legs of devotional service.Like lord Ntyananda prabhu, when Raghunath das Goswami came to Him, in Pannihati, he told Raghunath das that, 'I'm going to punish you, because you tried to jump over the guru.'

Raghunath das Goswami, he wanted to go to join Lord Chaitanya's movement. So several times, he tried to run away from home. He ran away from home and tried to join Lord Chaitanya. Now Raghunath das's father was a very rich landlord. In fact, he had to pay annual taxes to the emperor, 1.2 million gold coins. A kola gold coin now, is worth 400 dollars and those days a gold coin was what? A kola. How many kolas... 1 kola was a gold coin. So thats 11 grams, or you can say, more than a third of an ounce. So that means, even by todays time he was just paying annual taxes of over 150 million dollars. But in those days they just used a conchshell. They didn't even use the coins for normal things, they just used coinchshells. A person could live his whole life on one gold coin. What to speak of what he was keeping as his own share. That was what he was paying in taxes.

So, Raghunath das, he had all facilities, uncle and father were fantastically rich. But he didn't have any attachment. He wanted to join Lord Chaitanya and simply engage in the sankirtan movement. But Lord Chaitanya told him, 'No you just remain in your house and engage all the facilities for Krishna.' So after a long time, Raghunath das was thinking, 'Why is it that I am not able to join Lord Chaitanya?' So, he went to see Lord Nityananda. And Lord Nityananda told him that I am going to punish you because you tried to approach Krishna Himself. Lord Chaitanya is Krishna. You tried to directly approach Krishna without going through the guru. Nityananda is the original guru. If you want to approach Lord Chaitanya, you have to go through Lord Nityananda. Just like if you want to approach Krishna, you have to go through Guru.

So then, Lord Nityananda said that, 'Your punishment will be you have to make a big feast for all the devotees here.' And because it's hot weather, just like one month from now, when it , gets a little hot, warmer, it's more or less the same heat, but after a while it gets a little overwhelming. So Krishna sends a kind off relief. He sends alot of fruit. Litchis, mangoes, jackfruit, banana, jum, all different types of fruit. If you see now, you see the baby mangoes just by the side of, in front of the temple, the mangoes are on the tree here. So Krishna sends the right fruit at the, the right food at the right time. So when it's very warm aspecially, you like to take very cooling food.

So Lord Nityananda, it's the month of June, beginning of June, end of May, this festival falls. He requested that, 'You provide a feast of yoghurt, flattened rice and fruits.' So, Raghunath das, in Pannihati, he put on, he sent all of his aids. Ofcourse, he was a very rich person, so he had no difficulty. So, he started ordering. And they have very big clay pots, known as jalas in Bengal. I don't know, in other parts they may also have. But a jala is sometimes 6 feet, or 2 meters high. So he had very big jalas brought. And he filled up with huge clay pots. He filled one with chira, dahi and chini chapa kola, is a type of banana that scientists believe is the highest percentage of sugar of any banana in the world. They are known as chini chapa or  sugar chapa bananas. So, like this, he got various high quality fruits, mixed it together with chira and dahi, in other parts he used condensed milk and pop or puffed riced. Not the normal, this is inflated rice. Popped rice, its actually popped open. Known as koi.

So, busy making all these preparations, gradually, more and more people, they heard there was going to be a big feast, they all... In Bengal, if you say theres going to be a mahautsav, or a feast, people come out of nowhere. It's like, maybe you saw, some of you saw the drama, dance drama, of the Orian dance troupe. Lord Nityananda started to throw laddoos into the crowd. Everyone immediately grabbed for it.

So, this is a custom here. If there's a prasadam feast, the people, they like to get some prasad. Even if its a small amount, they'll be very happy.

So, as soon as they heard that Lord Nityananda had called for devotees to be fed, Immediately everyone came and as one person saw and said, 'Where you going?' 'There's a special festival feast going on.' Just spontaneously, no one was invited. Until this day, this festival is still being held.

So then, they all started to come to the Pannihati ganges side, where Lord Nityananda ws sitting on a raised platform under a banyan tree and where Raghunath das was, he saw there was more and more people coming. He sent his servants, 'Bring more." So they had to go further into the village and they were filling up bullock carts ith yoghurt, fruit, grain, and there was a continuous caravan of various supplies coming in, and as more supplies were coming, more people were coming. So it just kept on going.

Then Raghunath das... Ragava Pandit, he came to give Lord Nityananda lunch. He said, 'Now it's time to come and eat your rice, dhal and sabjis.' And Lord Nityananda said, 'I'll take lunch in the evening. Today we having a picnic here, under the tree.'

So then, Lord Nityananda, he was given his two pots. All of his associates were given chira and dahi, and fruits and condensed milk and koi. The puffed rice and flattened rice. So, in this way they were taking prasadam. And they made a seat for Lord Chaitanya. Although Lord Chaitanya was in Jaganath Puri, but Lord Chaitanya actually came through His mystic opulence, and He was present there, taking the prasadam with Lord Nityananda. And those who were very fortunate, they could see. And Lord Nityananda, He came, completely in the mood of being in the forest with the cowherd boys. Just like we see in the prasadam pavillion, on one side is actually this pastime of Pannihati, I believe, on the other side is the boys in Vrindavan taking picnic with Krishna.

So they were all, so Lord Nityananda, He started to take the chira and dahi and started to feed it to Lord Chaitanya. He started to go around and just as Krishna and Balaram, they would treat all of their devotees as equals. Sakhya rasa, or the rasa of friendship, means that Krishna treats His friends as equals.  And the friends treat Krishna as a friend, as an equal. They don't consider Krishna to be God. They consider Krishna just to be their dear most friend.

So in this mood, Lord Nityananda was taking food from everyone's pot, and He was eating it. And He was giving it to Lord Chaitanya and He was eating. Actually, what mood they have, ofcourse we cannot fully understand or explain. But they were having their pastimes in this way, taking the food from their own devotees. But when the people were watching, they couldn't, they were seeing Nityananda take some prasad from the pot, and then put it in the air and it was disappearing. Yes, He was feeding it to Lord Chaitanya, but then His hand went, and He was taking... So, people couldn't really understand what was going on.

Meanwhile, Raghunath das, he was using his intelligence, how to feed the hundreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands who were coming. And so he had to continue making more and more arrangements and more and more people were coming.

Finally, the people, they were standing on the Ganges side and some were being pushed into the water. There was standing in the water, some were up to their chest in the water, eating prasad. There was no room on the land.

Actually, Krishna gives intelligence to the devotees, how to serve. In this way their intelligence is considered purified, because they using it to serve Krishna. And maya, she gives her intelligence to those who want to enjoy the material world, but that intelligence is considered polluted, by Maya. And therefore one forgets his spiritual position in relationship to Krishna.

This Panihati festival, it shows that how Raghunath das used his intelligence, and how he pleased Lord Nityananda. Actually this Panihati festival is still going on and Prabhupada, He wanted us to participate in that festival and actually He instructed some devotees to build a temple there on that place where Lord Nityananda sat with Lord Chaitanya, for this festival.

We hope that in the future that can, in fact, He authorized the BBT funds to be used for that project. It was so important to Him. He said there could be motorized boat service in Calcutta to Mayapur, taking people by boat, by motor boat and on the way they could stop for a quick picnic at Panihati and then go on.

Now there is just a, there is a tree there, but there is no temple at that place. So when we first went to the Panhati festival after Srila Prabhupada had requested us to go, we brought Nita Gaur deities in the boat. And we brought provisions from Mayapur and various places by lorry. We never been to a Panihati festival before. When we got there we were late as usual. Atleast the usual for me. It was about 9 o' clock, 10 o' clock, in the morning, by that time already, a couple hundred thousand people had gathered. Up to 3, 4 hundred thousand get there, and the roads were totally blocked. And there was no way to get the prasadam to the tree. There was... First the boat came and brought Nitai Gaur, so when Nitai Gaur came, the people that were there chanting, one minstrel, one like senior, all of a sudden he saw Lord Nityananda, beautiful Deity, Nitai Padakamala, the both Deities that Prabhupada installed, and when he saw, he started to sing in Bengali. He started to sing, 'Nityananda has come.' And he started to sing, 'Nityananda ese che Nityananda ese che' Nityananda has come! Nityananda has come! He has come to give us mercy. He has come to give mercy to us. And then in this way he started singing. Everyone started chanting and shouting Haribol Haribol. We put Lord Nityananda and Lord Chaitanya right on the seat. Well, they never expected us to be there either, otherwise a number of professional brahamanas, who normally take that seat and do their particular pastimes at that place. But we didn't know this, we somehow came because this person was singing, everyone was chanting. Lord Nityananda, Lord Chaitanya, got established there, and the brahmanas had to move over. Which they weren't so happy about, but there was nothing to be done. But there was no way of getting the chira and yoghurt and everything through the hundreds of thousands of people. Through very narrow roads, about 1 km away, to that place. So we was just thinking, 'Krishna how we going to do this? We wanted to distribute chira and dahi to all the people, offer you prasadam, bhoga and distribute the prasad to all these people.'

All of a sudden, there was a blue sky, there was nothing like, all of a sudden, a black cloud came right overhead and it started to just pour rain. Just heavy, intense rainpour. Then singers started to sing, 'Take a look, Nityananda is raining mercy on us.'All of a sudden, because of the heavy rain, all the people that were in the road, they went off the road and they went by the side, by the buidings and under the trees and for that moment, the road was empty.

Immediately, we sent someone and brought all the provisions, as much as we could bring on their heads, they brought it all down to the tree and as soon as they got to the tree, the cloud stopped raining, the people went back on the road and filled up. Only half the provisions had got there. Someone forgot to bring the yoghurt. They just brought all the chira. We said, 'Oh no, how we going to, now we can't have chira and dahi, without the dahi, without the yoghurt. So then, somehow again the devotees went back, they waiting, they trying to figure out how they going to take the yoghurt, thorugh thid big crowd. All of a sudden, again the cloud came, poured rain, again the road opened, they brought the yoghurt down to the side of the tree. By that time they had already cleaned all the chira and cut the fruit and everything. They got there to the tree with the hundreds and hundred of kilos of yoghurt and then boom, the rain stopped. Then we nade the chira dahi, offered a 108 clay pots of chira and dahi to Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityananda, and many big drums, and we started to distribute the prasadam. But, I mean, thats a whole other pastime. Actually, about 25 000 people atleast, we were able, I don't know how many, atleast 25 000 - 50 000 got, by Lord Chaitanya's mercy. So, that pastime is still going on and all because the devotee, Raghunath das Goswami started to think, why is it that I am refused by Lord Chaitanya? Maybe I should go to Lord Nityananda and get His instuction. This is a proper, a devotee should think, 'What are the obstacles in my path? Let me go to the Guru and find out why is it that I am not able to progress?' He went there and Nityananda gave him a service and purified him, and then later, He also gave him the blessing he could join Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. So he went back and he became the personal assistant of Swarup Damodar, in Jaganath Puri, having the opportunity to personally associate with Lord Chaitanya on a day to day basis.

So, that festival is still going on. Devotees go there every year, and continue to distribute prasadam and now we have a seperate pandal. They have given us a seperate place where we have a pandal, and we build shoots, we build different arrangements so people can come and take prasadam without trampling each other. And it's very well appreciated.

Actually that time when it was raining, and the people who got that prasadam, they became so ecstatic, that I saw some people because it was a little muddy because of the rain, they started rolling in the mud. Or they fell in the mud and it was alright, they were just dancing. They were totally beyong the bodily conception of life at that moent. They were simply absorbed in chanting Hare Krishna. Then after taking a little prasadam, then they go in the Ganges, take their little bath. In this way the whole day is spent chanting Hare Krishna, taking a little prasadam, and thats the entire pastime. And everyone is totally happy, totally satisfied.

So, we ofcourse owe our eternal gratitude to Raghunath das Goswami, and ofcourse to Lord Nityananda.

So, we should also use our intelligence and take the charity of Lord Nityananda's representatives and understand what is the actual purpose of life, and then fix our consciousness in achieveing the absolute truth, in achieving the real purpose of life. Otherwise, we'll just be drawn from here to there, we'll lose our freedom. By fixing the consciousness in Krishna consciousness, one actually becomes a truel y person, a liberated person.

Jai Shri Krishna Chaitanya prabhu Nityananda Shri Adwaita Gadhadhara Srivasadi Gaura Bhakta Vrinda!

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

Jai Srila Prabhupada ki Jai!