19920126 Continuation of a question-and-answer session

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The following is a continuation of a question-and-answer session given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on January 26, 1992 – in Bangalore, India.

These are all things you have to watch out for. If somebody has that duty of correcting others, they can go ahead and correct. Otherwise we may question. Generally we should see, we should learn from other good example. And if someone we think is, well, there may be a defect in this person. We try to adjust in our own life not to do the same mistake, not to rather to follow the Dada example. If we get into criticizing others, then we may lose our appreciation of my surprise. So we try to find the good in people in case we see that, okay, few defects are there also, but those may be burnt up by the good effect of the devotional service that the person is doing. You see, in the material world, people are doing nothing for God, you see.

So someone laid this homage service along with that 5, 10%, 30%. Maybe there are some defects, but the 70% or whatever they’re expecting extent of devotional service he’s doing that may in the ultimate judgment of Kṛṣṇa, he may just clear out the little deficit balance that’s there. So we have to be careful not to start to see the working of a too materialistic judgment. This is the danger when neophyte devotees start working very closely with the initiated devotees. You see, they start to find out how sometimes Māyā is giving actually a little. We call ingit, little bit of hint. Okay? You find a fault in the devotees. Then we start to lose faith in devotees. And then Māyā says, why you want to do so much sacrifice for devotional service anyway? These people are all detectives. You should just go and materialize again.

It’s much better. So they’re not kintelenuyas. Why not memory? Why not get misled? So in the beginning, for neophyte devotees, it’s very dangerous to start picking out too many defects. Māyā is already losing her grip on you. So she’s thinking, how can I get back so easy way to get back. A person who is surrendering to Kṛṣṇa is try to put in their intelligence few ideas, find out the faults in others. And by fault finding, we can lose our appreciation of devotees. And then Māyā will start to make Māyā kingdom appear more agreeable. In the end, we start doing all devotional service. So here that the world is doing so much devotional service, maybe a few defects are there. Those will get purified in due course. But somehow we get misled because of only seeing the defects and not seeing all the good aspects.

This is how Māyā tricks us. So we have to be very careful. The immediate presence of the spiritual master is very rare and valuable. How best can a Woman disciple take his association it. When the spiritual master is Sanyasi. So then the women disciples have to keep a certain respectful distance. Apart from that, maybe if the guru was a Grihasta guru, then husband and wife, they can do some work. Few more services may be there that they could do. Apart from that, there is no difference. If the guru is there, how does any disciple take advantage this life? Someone has to clean the room of their guru. There is no restriction that only a Brahmachari can clean the room of their guru. Man or woman can clean their room. Only the Kaupans are there.

Kaupen should only be cleaned by a Brahmachari or by men. Few restrictions are there. But otherwise cooking neither women devotees start cooking, but even a man can also cook for the guru. There’s no bias like that. Generally we do some service to the guru. Whichever the allowed service is that someone can take advantage by doing whichever services are permitted. From asking questions of the guru, from hearing from the guru, worshipping the guru. So whichever available opportunities are there to serve the guru, to hear from the guru, those opportunities can be taken to get the Bapu Seva. Apart from that, we serve the instructions of the guru or Vāṇī Seva. There are two kinds of service to Guru Bapu and Vāṇī. Vapu is when he’s immediately present and we are doing some direct service related to his presence.

And Vāṇī is when we are carrying out his instruction. So the instructions we can carry out all of the time. Those we had to carry out irregardless of our gender of our bodies. In fact, it said that when Lord Chaitanya was in Jagannath Purī, he was of course at that time a Sanyasi. So there was very strict regulations about women associating with him. So when the devotees came from Māyāpur and Abhideep Dham Bengal, many Grihastas came. So when the Grihasta men came, the women were following behind. They were going together. And then when they met Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s devotees, the Sanyasis and Brahmacharis and other Grihastas that were with Caitanya Mahāprabhu and Jagannath Purī. So all the Bengali devotees from Bengal, they went and joined and immediately offered their obeisances to Lord Chaitanya. From a distance, the Maharajis offered their obeisances to Lord Caitanya.

The men, they were going and they were embracing Lord Caitanya or Lord Chaitanya would pick their mouths among them and raise Them or would different devotees were embracing each other. So that time the Marathis and their mind, they were also. They were touching the lotus feet of Lord Shaytani on their mind. And they were praying, offering their prayers and they were crying in ecstasy. They were also experiencing the same ecstasy. Only they couldn’t physically touch Lord Chaitanya’s feet. But the other men, they were touching his feet. That was the only thing. But in their mind they were touching and they were praying. So they are also getting the same ecstasies, the same love of Kṛṣṇa. Their eyes were filled with tears and their heart was filled with love of Kṛṣṇa.

So only because of our Ashram, certain restrictions are there for giving the proper example to society. But spiritually there is no restriction on developing love of God here. Since there are many questions I am limiting. Oh really. Living amidst Vaishnavas is the most sublime act. Undoubtedly to advance in our Kṛṣṇa consciousness by serving them. Still. Still hardly. We find ourselves trying hard to satisfy please the Vaishnavas due to many Anarthas. What should be our meditation to improve. It? I see. There was one original question. Somebody showed me. About serving the Vaishnava. Is it right to serve a Vaishnava? Even if we don’t feel in our heart to serve the Vaishnava. But one can say that depends who the Vaishnava is. Slave. Some people said that even I don’t feel devotion for you. Prabhupāda sits on Should I bow down to you?

Should I bow down to Kṛṣṇa? So Prabhupāda said that if you by bowing down then you will feel the right attitude. You may not feel devotion to Kṛṣṇa but by bowing down to Kṛṣṇa that will give you devotion. That will gradually cultivate in you that attitude of devotion. So actually we don’t in your life the glory of serving the Vaishnavas. Until we serve the Vaishnavas then we can actually feel the purification. But if we are ready and offensive in our mentality then we may not be qualified to serve the Vaishvaras that way. Those two questions are here connected. First, especially we want to serve the senior Vaishnava. But there are some very great devotees that they are very happy to serve all the Vaishnavas. I remember were glorifying once and remembering the glories of one devotee. What’s his name? Jayananda.

Jayananda was a devotee who was glorified for making the Rath Yatras. In fact, every Rath Yātrā is supposed to have his picture on the car. Although he died of some blood leukemia, he was. His last wish was to be taken to the Sidha Rath Yātrā. He was the first one to introduce the Rath Yatras in a big way in the Western world. And everyone knows him for that. But actually, he was a very special devotee. And some devotees who are doing service with him, they were recounting some of his wonderful qualities. See, actually, he was not a very sophisticated person. In fact, before he was at the vote, he was a taxi driver in Los Angeles or some city. But somehow he was imbibed by this desire to see Rath Yātrā in the West.

But because there are all the low lane wires, so they don’t have the big, wide rolls with no wires. So they couldn’t do a big ratam. So. So he conceived of this collapsible rock, and he was working on that with engineers and financing it, somehow getting the. And he was a completely fixed. So although in the past, whatever he was, that didn’t matter. But he was very simple, sincere devotee. But some people were bringing out when there was no Rath Yātrā, what did he do? So sometimes he would be cooking in the kitchen, and he was very enthusiastic, whatever he would do. So then he would make a devotional service so attractive because of his enthusiasm that he wanted to do it. So that even, say there was one devotee, he was there. His duty was to take out the garments.

But in that time, he maybe was in some Māyā, he wasn’t feeling so enthusiastic. So after finishing his cooking and everything, when it was late, he saw that the garbage wasn’t taken out of the boat. He’s sitting there, he said, what’s the matter? And, you know, he was having some anxiety or something. Never mind, I will do the service. And he was taking out. And then when he saw how enthusiastic he was, that he also felt some inspiration. So he started doing his own duty. So Jayananda was such a devotee that he’d finish his service and he would help other devotees in their service. And he was just thinking how to help. So he was working overtime. Sometimes devotees get this attitude, you know, I did my service. I am doing all the work. What about the others? They’re not doing anything.

You know, they feel like this vagina was the exact opposite. He’d do all his service. Then he would think, how I can help others to do their service. And then he was one of the very senior devotees. But he always kept a very simple attitude. He never. So someone is asking you know, he would just go to people when I was going to do service. Then he would just take that very humble Arab Prabhu, you know, you are a very expert person at this. I like to learn from you how to do it better. Could you just show me? He would use various, you know, techniques, but very sincerely presented. He’d glorify the. Oh, you did it so wonderfully. The way you took out that garbage was a real. You are very expert. I mean, you’re really hard working the world.

He would be very lavish at praise. He’d be very lavish at the appreciation. Slightest bit. So in this way, although he was almost transparent, you wouldn’t notice. He would be the kind of person, if you have one devotee like that in a temple, the whole temple just runs wonderfully because he like invisibly fills in all the gaps and inspires everybody else. But he wasn’t, I think, leader. He wasn’t the temple president or some leader, but he was the person to make everything work really nice. So in the end, Prabhupāda, he was surprised everyone. He said, actually Jayananda, he went back to God. Kṛṣṇa personally told him that he’s taking him back to the spiritual world for the services that he did. Therefore, we also glorify his name. So this is actually. I was personally also blessed by having his association.

When I first visited the temple in San Francisco the very first day, he was building the Rathayatra car and I just went visiting and immediately he said, oh, could you just. One second, just while you’re standing there, just for a second, could you just hold the nail while I hammer it in? And he. I held the nail. Then he hammered it in. He said, you know, you held that nail first class. I mean, you’re really expert. You are a master carpenter. No, no, I don’t. Then held the nail. He also hammered, you know, just show me, you know, Fantastic. You know, how to hold me a hammer. Here you take. Give me the nail and the hammer. You just. Here, see these dots and you just didn’t hesitate anything. Next thing I know, I see they’re building the Rathgar.

He was like, he just succu. In the devotional service, you couldn’t escape him. He’s raw enthusiasm and any little bit you do, he immediately appreciate. Next thing you know, he couldn’t resist. He was so positive his vibration was coming out like the sun, just coming out positively. So I was very fortunate also. After one week of his association and going and chanting, I decided that I wanted to fully I did so many different yogas, Buddhism and Hatha Yoga, Kaja Yoga this, yoga that. So I thought, let me do Bhakti Yoga just by his association. You can say I was inspired with few other devotees association by chanting. So on the day of Rath, I said, I want to shave up, take off all my hair and be Brahmachari. So Jayananda was the one who shaved me up.

So in various ways he got the blessings. He wasn’t shy to do any kind of service for the devotee. Even a lowly devotee like myself at that time, just coming in off the street, he was very kind and very careful to give all kind of good influence and good inspiration. So if we help somebody, some devotee, if we serve some Vaishnava, we get the blessings from Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa directly is appreciating our service that way. We should see. And if we serve Vaishnava, of course we can say the other example. Sometimes serving from Upad due to false ego, we may do some service. We think. I think a very important service serving the guru is the other thing is very tough. One Maraji Jamuna Devī was recounting one Niyasa pūjā how she had completely cleansed Prabhupāda’s quarters in Los Angeles.

And she was waiting for Prabhupāda to come. And she was thinking that I did this my much better than other devotees. I mean, I really cleaned the room first class. So Prabhupāda would be very pleased with me, how wonderfully I did this. So she was just kind of waiting there to get all the praise from Prabhupāda. But then Prabhupāda somehow immediately picked up on her vibration. And immediately he started looking, where’s the defect? He started looking here, where’s this? Where’s that? And she started getting a little frightened, you know. Then finally he went to open up the window. And they had just freshly painted the window. So it was painted shut. Why is this not opening? Nothing is right here. Then she’s like, Then she realized that I was in a false ego. I was having the hankara made me humble, you see.

Then after that, she thought that she could realize. Her realization was the real mood is we should simply be trying to serve the Vaishnava. Whether they express their pleasure. We should try to please the Vaishnava, not think that whatever I am doing, this is the best way. Why the Vaishnava is not pleased with me, Hari, I am such a good devotee and is not pleased. Something wrong with his Vaishnava. We shouldn’t develop such a attitude. We should sincerely ourselves try to see how to improve. And then naturally we will be able to please Guru and Vaishnava and Kṛṣṇa. We will be pleased by that. Hare Kṛṣṇa. So now is our teacher. Thank you.