19900930 Talk On Ratha-yātrā

The following talk given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on September 30th ,1990 in Atlanta, Georgia talk is giving on the Ratha yatra.

 

oḿ ajñāna-timirāndhasya jñānāñjana-śalākayā

cakṣur unmīlitaḿ yena tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ

 

nama oḿ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale

śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine

namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe

nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe

 

jaya) 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

paramānanda-mādhavam

 

 

We are taking this opportunity and thanking everyone for coming today on this transcendental festival of Jagannath Ratha yatra festival of chariots and specially we like again thank His Holiness Kavichandra swami Maharaj for taking the trouble to come here he is busy, preaching tour and giving us very nice explanation of some of the significance of Rathayātrā festival.

 

Especially How Śrīla Prabhupāda our founder ācārya His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda his relationship in how the Rathayātrā festival and how the Rathayātrā festival unfolded.

 

Lord Jagannath is coming specially to give mercy to the conditional souls. He has several wonderful aspects to his presence.

 

Jagannath is Lord Kṛṣṇa he is with the wide lotus eyes and the smiling face and  he is on the right and his left is Lord Balarāma, his elder brother and  in the middle his sister Subhdra Devī so Kṛṣṇa was present 5000 years ago in India in this planet . And He went with his sister and brother from Gujarat.

Today was known as Gujarat from Dwarka where He had his kingdom in an Island a massive paradise island of the shore what is now known as Gujarat. He went by boat to the main land and with his many associates and some army they went to Hastinapur, which was the capital of India where now in the vicinity of New Delhi, from there they went to Kurukṣetra where the Bhagvad Gītā had been spoken some years before by Lord Kṛṣṇa to Arjuna. That time Kurukshetra was a battlefield but Kurukṣetra is also known as Dharmakṣetra, a place of spiritual sacrifices and religion.

 

So, when there was a solar eclipse to counteract the negative effects and to take advantage of that the astrological movement, they all went to the holy thing there is some manmade lake in Kurukshetra and everyone goes and bath there. When there is a solar eclipse. So that time Kṛṣṇa met with his childhood devotees, and friends and associates who came from Vṛndāvana, Lord Caitanya he would participate in this festival with a mood of bringing Kṛṣṇa back to meet his friends, his devotees from Vṛndāvana, bringing Kṛṣṇa back to vṛndāvana. These all kind of mysterious things but each has got many historic meanings towards it. That Kṛṣṇa, came down from spiritual world, to this planet to display to people that in the spiritual world the basic bond between everyone is pure love. And he showed to his loving relationships through his different devotees, how pure is the love between the supreme personality of godhead and his devotees.

 

Now I just came from India in(not clear) I stopped in Rome and we want to build one of the biggest spiritual monuments in the world for Lord Chaitnya Mahāprabhu in Māyāpur in the center of the spiritual city that His Holiness Kavichandra Swami Mahārāja mention , so we wanted  to see again even with an architect and the design  to see the barricades the shelindeir and  as well as the (unclear) and few other monuments in Rome, so there in there barricades ideas about the God  is an old man in the sky someone who is very old because he so (unclear) anyone who is (unclear)because he must be pretty old, so anybody old is wrinkle and white hair this is what we normally think of in a west  when we think of  God is  only we think of some light or energy.

 

But Kṛṣṇa came to dispel of the doubts to show what even he like, he never grows old but he never goes old he is oldest but he does not grow old because he doesn't have a material body. He has spiritual body, a spiritual form which is eternally youthful. He doesn't really have to anything to do, we have to work hard in the material world so he instructed in Bhagavad Gītā the purpose of human life is to achieve the self-realization, to realize the self, to realize him through yoga and to wind up this material life so after this life when we leave this body, we the spirit soul the living force in the body we can be turn back to the spiritual world.

 

Many times, people ask what will I do if I go to the kingdom of God what does anybody do and generally speaking nobody can answer that but Kṛṣṇa he came to show what are the kind of things to do and by engaging him, bringing with him hundreds and thousands of his eternal associates from the spiritual world and including many new devotees are waiting here to be brought back in to the spiritual world. They joined up with his pastime in this universe and from here to bring back them to the spiritual world. Then when I am from this universe now, he is in another universe somewhere else in the material creation. His pastimes are always going on in one universe to the others and also beyond this material world there is a spiritual world which is beyond the time factor. There is no death, there is no birth, there is no disease, there is no old age, there is no anxiety, there is no fear there is nothing negative at all there. Not even a Tinge.

 

So, the perfection of human life is to be able to turn to the spiritual world and where we are living in this world were, we able to live in that atmosphere. So, by Kṛṣṇa showed that the basic fiber or the basic mood in the spiritual world specially in Goloka vṛndāvana is the highest planet of pure Love. How we can get pure love - Golokera prema dhana Hari naam sankirtan.

 

That pure love of Kṛṣṇa has come from the spiritual world in the form of Harinaam sankirtan in the form of chanting of

 

 

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare

Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare

 

By chanting this mantra suddenly not only one can achieve all kinds of perfection even a liberation but ultimate perfection of pure love of Kṛṣṇa can be achieved. So therefore, anyone can chant and hear attentively. After some time, they start to feel very good and they start to feel some attraction for Kṛṣṇa. As they are conditioning from material nature becomes cleanse and natural propensity to love becomes awaken.

 

So as mahārāja has mentioned normally this temple in India, they are not open to the public they open only to the devotee and specially Jagannath Purī temple still there is very rigid on this point. They have very narrow view on what a devotee is, but still for nine days every year lord Jagannath comes out on the street and He makes himself available to everyone and one of the features of Jagannath festival is Jagannath wants everyone to takes his specially scantified food, simply taking a drop of this food one can experience spiritual bliss. One can achieve unlimited perfection.

 

We want, everyone wants to participate in this love feast they takes Jagannath's mahaprasdam. And just the way Jagannath arrived we probably noticed that there was a cloth put in front of him and some bells are ringing the devotees prepare the food following a particular Bhakti yoga meditation and then they offer the food to lord Jagannath who eats it by glancing over or anyone who takes that food it’s a type of spiritual food they are immediately giving spiritual energy just from that food.

 

So, one of the special desires of Jagannath and his devotees is that everyone should taste his prasādam.

 

Lord Caitanya he had all his devotee chant at the Rathyatra festival. He had seven different Kīrtan groups. Some are in front some were on behind and some on the right side, some were on the left side of the chariot. While they were all chanting then lord Caitanya would visit each other kīrtan group chanting and dancing with each one of them. There was a king of that country of lord Jagannath land in Orissa, the prajāpati, the King of Orrisa, at that time his name is Prataprudra, he was on his top of his palace watching this Kīrtan, then he saw that simultaneously lord Caitanya was in all of the seven different Kīrtan, chanting groups, singing and dancing. He was astonished, that he was seven times duplicated at the same time but each group thought that he was only with us.

 

So, Lord Caitanya is also the lord but he came as a devotee, in order to teach us how to worship Kṛṣṇa, how to experience the perfection of yoga the perfection of life in this human birth. So, lord Caitanya predicted that in every town and village the entire world this sankirtan movement would be spread.

 

And His Grace Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta swami Prabhupad our beloved spiritual master and founder, he brought this message of Lord Caitanya to the western world 25 years ago, he landed this month in North America in Boston 25 years ago I believe it was September 17 or 18.

 

So, this is the historic movement the 25th Anniversary jubilee, the silver jubilee of Śrīla Prabhupāda arrival here in America and soon after Jagannath also came.

 

Lord Jagannath is the form of Kṛṣṇa which is very merciful, he is very merciful he doesn't take offences very easily. There is several stories how these deity form came to be. One is famous story how great sculptor from the very higher planetary system - Visvakrma, he agreed to carve the deities of Kṛṣṇa and his brother and sister for the emperor of that time. The condition is that no one would disturb him. Until he was finish. He was working for many days and the King was (not clear) behind the closed doors then after some time he didn't hear any noise. So, he wanted to know what was happening so then after several days of not hearing any sound and he opened up the door of the workshop, they were starting now Visvakrma turned around and said now you interrupted me so now I am not finishing and he left and these were the deities which appear to be incomplete forms of Kṛṣṇa. Then there is another story, that explains another explanation these are actually forms of Kṛṣṇa in ecstasy. That When Kṛṣṇa was 16 years old then he left his mother and step mother and father in his childhood friends and went to (not clear) the world from various evil went to Mathurā, Went to Dwarka so he was always remembering his childhood friends  and devotee and every one hear about them he would feel intense love for them and separation so when he was in Dwarka no one was discussed about his childhood friends and pastimes because Kṛṣṇa would become too emotional, too affected due to love for them.

 

So, one day Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma gone out so all the queens of Dwarka requested Rohiṇī the mother of Balarāma to please tell us about Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma’s childhood pastimes, we want to hear what they did when they were in Vṛndāvana when they were playing like cowherd boy. Playing on their flute.

 

So, then Rohiṇī said alright but then as long as lord Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma cannot hear, in case they come back someone has stay at the door and watch and warn us so they have sister, Subhadrā standing outside the door to give the alarm in case Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma came back and then Rohiṇī she started to explain to all the queens of Dwarka all the beautiful loving pastimes of Kṛṣṇa. Meanwhile Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma came back and they knocked the door but Subhadrā was so busy to listening to the door, and Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma they also put their ears and they were listening. And When they started to listen and heard about all the devotees of Vṛndāvana and their pastimes they started become choked up and feel separation, they overwhelmed  the highest ecstasy of Kṛṣṇa prema, pure love, so they started to retracted their limbs of their body feeling such intense ecstasy  that their head and their arms enter in to their body and they became like frozen in this kind of a unique (not clear) position, Subhadrā being between them she was also similarly affected by this ecstasy.

 

So, this is another explanation and while lord Jagannath in special mood and then actually he in the mood of his extreme ecstasy for his devotee while in Dwarka. So many people feel that the supreme truth must be impersonal because we are all in persons  and when we are living in this world we have lots of personal questions so we think that the perfection must be no personality, alive and energy but this is an incomplete understanding so lord Kṛṣṇa came from the spiritual world to show that in the spiritual world there is a personality but it's not material there is no enmity , there is no deficiency , there is no old age , there is no defects that we find here in the material world . He came to firmly establish firmly the personality of Godhead that he is a person And the life which the yogis and serious of the truth are fascinated by the light is simply his personal Ora which he expands all over the universe and the subtle platform of spiritual energy  known as Brahman or brahmajyoti, so you all participating in the pastimes of lord Jagannath and he has come here in the deity form and allowed us to  take you to the possession to chant with him , to pull his chariot and by doing that you all become very close to him.

 

 He is great full for your all the service he will never forget for that and we hope that you continue to develop in this relationship with Lord Jagannath, Śrī Kṛṣṇa and continue to chant

 

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare

Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare

 

whether in the temple or in your home or in the street or everywhere. Always keep Kṛṣṇa in your mind chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and be happy.

 

Thank you.

 

Hare Kṛṣṇa.

 

Śrīla Prabhupad ki

 

Devotees: Jai.

 

Jagannath Baladeva, Subhadrā ki

 

Devotees: Jai.

Chaitnya Mahāprabhu ki

 

Devotees: Jai.

 

Jagannath Rath yatra mahamahotsav ki

 

Devotees: Jai.