19960413 Reception Speech

The following is a Reception Speech given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on April 14th, 1996 in Denmark.

Usually when I… Usually when I arrive places and often they ask, what happened recently to talk about that or sometimes they ask for just a regular class. But here is, you are unique, everyone, they just ask for Gaurāṅga!

New Śrīvāsa Aṅgan. So Śrīvāsa Aṅgan many different pastimes happen at Śrīvāsa Aṅgan. This was the place where Lord Caitanya was always in ecstasy. Whenever the… (A-side: Hare Kṛṣṇa, sap tīk?) Whenever there was kīrtana, He would always feel ecstasy and be dancing. Of course, one day he was chanting, and He didn’t feel any ecstasy. And he called Śrīvāsa and said, “Why am I not feeling any ecstasy today?” And then Śrīvāsa being very humble, he thought, “What did I do wrong? Maybe I have committed an offense.” Then he asked all the devotees, “Every day I am feeling ecstasy. Why today I am not feeling ecstasy? Who is responsible?” All the devotees are thinking, “Well, what did I do today? What am I doing that stopping Lord Gaurāṅga’s ecstasy? Why He is not feeling bliss in chanting?” All the devotees, they naturally look to others… look for the good qualities in others and look for the bad qualities in themselves. Then nobody came up. Then Śrīvāsa, he also looked in his house. See if there is anybody there. Didn’t see anybody then… and the kīrtana started again, they were chanting,

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

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

Again, Lord Caitanya, “Stop the kīrtana. I am not feeling any ecstasy today. Not feeling any bliss. Who is responsible?” Why aren’t I? Why aren’t I feeling spiritual happiness? What is the cause? Who is responsible?”

So everybody was looking at each other, thinking, “What did I do wrong?” Śrīvāsa again, he started to look in his house. Is anybody there? Then he saw there was a basket outside his cottage. It was upside down. So then picked up the basket. Under (it) there was this elderly lady hiding in the basket, looking. So he grabbed her and just, he might have even taken her by the hair or just like grabbed her and took her escort to the door and said, “Please, goodbye!” Closed the door and threw her out very abruptly.

So then Lord Caitanya said, “Who was that?”

“I don’t know.”

“No, no. Who was that lady?”

“I don’t know.”

“You must know, who was that lady?”

“She is my mother-in-law.” (laughter)

“How could you mistreat your mother-in-law like that? Just kind of grab her and push her out the door.”

“If she is disturbing Your kīrtana then that’s all that is important to me.”

And then Lord Caitanya started to praise Śrīvāsa Ṭhākura because total dedication at pleasing the Lord. Then they started the kīrtana. This time they were feeling ecstasy. A lot of unique things happened at Śrīvāsa Aṅgan.

We were… this year, after Gaura-pūrṇimā, I went with a group of devotees to, we went to Vṛndāvana for the festival there for the centennial. And after Vṛndāvana went for the first time. I had never been to Jaipur in all these years. I was so much, so busy, different things. I never went there. So I took the opportunity to see Rādhā Madana-mohana and Rādhā Govinda and Rādhā Gopīnātha.

I am reminded because these laḍḍus that we had today, of course, except for the carob covering, but this kind of whatever they are, sweets, they have something similar at Nāthajī, Śrī Nādvāra temple, and in Nātha Śrīnāthajī. The Śrīnāthajī is the Kṛṣṇa Deity, which was revealed, who was revealed to Mādhavendra Purī, known as Gopāla in Caitanya-caritāmṛta. And we heard the whole history, how he was being worshipped in Govardhana, after Mādhavendra Purī recovered Him for almost about 300 years or so. But when Aurangzeb, the Mughal ruler, who was very much against, I don’t know how to express it, but anyway, he was smashing temples. According to report, so many Deities at that time were shifted to Jaipur. And Rajasthan, where the Rajput kings were protecting them. And when the army of Aurangzeb came up to Gopāla Śrīnāthajī, then temple, then they showed that how the Delhi rulers, the rulers, they had been favorable and given some land and different things to the Deity. And therefore, so they thought that their Deity wouldn’t be affected. But the general said, we have been ordered to smash all the Deities. But since you are showing me all these papers, I will give you a chance. You know, you have like two weeks or whatever, some period of time, you should shift the Deity. Otherwise, the order is not considering, whatever the previous rulers had done. This is a new situation. So the Rājput kings from Udaipur came and they took the Gopāla Deity, who now is known as Śrīnāthajī. And so it took about 13 or 18 months to reach the 253 kilometers, because everywhere they would go, the villagers were worshipping the Deity and He would stay there for about two months. So it was taking a long time to go from one place to the next, till finally He was situated at the temple, (in) Nāthadvāra.

Any of you been to see the Śrīnāthajī Deity. For me, it was very interesting because they have a nice system about engaging all the congregation in serving the Deity. That after the maṅgala-ārati and the people take their darśana and they come out, then there are devotees there, who offer to get milk for them. If you want to offer milk to the Deity, you can order the milk, and they will go buy the milk and bring it back and give it to you. You take it to the milk window of the temple. There is a window, marble window for milk donation. Give it to the priest, and he will take it and put it in his container. And that milk will be used that day for the Deities offering. They have another window for vegetables and flowers and fruits. And so then as you leave the temple door, there are so many people selling flowers, and we didn’t realize. So were all in the mood, let’s do some service for the Deities. So were buying at that time, it was one tray of flowers was Rs. 30. Later, we found that when the initial crowd goes, the price comes down. It’s actually just people selling flowers. But you can buy the flower, and they are selling the flower to be offered to the Deity. So hundreds of people are buying flowers and going and queuing up to offer to the Deity, to the window, where they are accepting these different offerings. And same goes for fruits. So we went and got some good mangoes… It’s kind of different. Here is the market where everybody’s buying things, the best things, and they are fighting with the fruit seller, you know, to get the price down and get a good. But it’s not for themselves. They are all going and then giving it to the Deity. So it’s kind of interesting.

And then I almost got run over by a buffalo carrying a big load of firewood. And then the buffalo stops, and they throw all the firewood down in the courtyard. And then one of the workers of the temple just starts shouting out, sevā. We will do service. Service. And people start running and picking up firewood and bringing it into the kitchen. So I picked up a log also and brought it in. I wanted to see the kitchen. I wanted to do some sevā, since I had come. So and so all our devotees with us, we all picked up firewood and brought in. But then they have a place where during the... When they have their class, then there are devotees who are making garlands, cutting sabjīs. But it’s a regular feature like some of our small temples is like that because there is no one else. You think, “Okay, well, we just have to do it.” But there. It’s a simple thing that they actually invite the public to come and cut the subjīs and make the garlands and things like that. So you get maybe 50 or 100 ladies and men were there sitting and cutting, and listening to a class. So that was nice to see the kind of service attitude that everybody had. And then they have one well, which is a well of ghee, that they accumulate ghee for the Deity service. And apparently, sometimes people donate whole train loads of ghee, one train wagons of 23-ton container. And they have got these big wells of ghee. And apparently, originally there was a direct pipe into the kitchen. So just like a non just taps of ghee. (laughter) And so then they have a big heater, they have a big place that they scoop out the ghee and they warm it up. And then they have people carrying it on hand also. Well, that’s, the taps are not all year functioning. In the winter, they have an alternative system. And so they have a big warehouse there. And they call, this is the... this is the utilization warehouse. This is only for utilization for the Deities. Nothing. You know, you can come here, and people come and bring whatever they want to offer the Deity, wheat, rice, anything, and deposit there. And from there it just goes into the kitchen.

So, of course, we see, like, another interesting thing was in Guruvāyūr, they had this system, where you can weigh yourself and offer your weight in some item to the Deity. So some people, maybe poor person says, “I offer my weight and salt.” And previously there were some kings that offered their weight in gold. And now, you know, people generally tend to offer their weight in sugar or wheat or dābs or some item, some coconuts. But, you know, you see somebody’s wife, they are putting one side of the scale, on the other side, they load up with whatever the item, the bananas. They are weighed in bananas. It’s kind of balanced out for those that don’t want to sit on the scale. And they can just stand on a scale and get their weight. And their weight of things can be… There is a little warehouse there, a little shop, and you can get that much weight of items transferred over to the Deities from that shop to Deities storehouse. But that was also nice.

But here in Śrīnāthajī, I saw so many kinds of things they were offering. And then, because every day in their cooking, they only cook with ghee because Śrīnāthajī is in Gopāla, is a child form of Kṛṣṇa. And so He only eats with ghee and not too much spice, not too much salt, kind of mild. So profuse prasāda comes out. At noon time, if you are there just when the prasāda comes out, you can get anywhere between five to ten varieties of prasāda of vegetables, rice, dal, capatīs. One cup of vegetables, like a rupee, bigger cup maybe 2 ₹. So for 10 ₹ you can get a big meal. 20 ₹ you can have a feast. But then they have these gigantic laḍḍus, but ten different… Some are like this, some are like, you know, four or five kilos for 80 ₹, 100 ₹, depending on who you get it from, the different prices. Because what they do is they don’t pay any salary to any of the householders that work there as a pūjārī. But what they do is every day they are cooking 600-kilos of ghee, just the ghee that they are cooking in preparation. So there is so much prasāda produced, what they do is they give the prasāda, certain amount of prasāda to the pūjārīs. That is their share, that is their like as serving, they get some prasāda. So for maintaining their family, they have dealers that sell prasāda. If you get right from the temple, it’s much more expensive. You get from the pūjārī outlet, it’s discount. But so there is so many, I mean, big blocks of prasāda. I mean, the smallest block was maybe about two kilos for Rs. 20. It is quiet very… And then they say one person was an older pūjārī was there. He said, “Well, this one, expiry date: six months.” This one, it was so hard, you can’t bite. So he said, expiry date, six months. Expiry date: one month, expiry date: two weeks, expiry date: one week. And this one here, expiry date: one hour. You have to eat right now. So the different kind of prasāda and expiry date, how you had to eat it in that amount of time. So we had.

And when you came in to have the darśana, there is a room about this size, but not this shape. A little longer, maybe this wide and twice as long as this. And so this much is for men and another size this much for women. I think the width is a little less, slightly less, maybe up to... from here to there, or no, maybe almost this wide, maybe. But for maṅgala-ārati, there was must have been at five in the morning, a little late maṅgala, but there must have been, I don’t know, more than a thousand people, two thousand people for maṅgala-ārati. And nobody wants to be. Everyone wants to see the maṅgala-ārati. Everyone. So what is happening is people are just pushing in and in, and then gradually what happens is you are just completely getting squished. You can’t move. You just completely. And then finally it becomes such a critical mass that somebody just pushes their way in here and someone pops out on the other side. (laughter) And then that creates a flow. I wanted to continue to see the ārati, but then somebody grabbed me, one of my secretaries. Someone grabbed me, and I said, “Oh! No! no!” he went put. So I went quickly, went around and got in there reverse flow again, and came in. But they were saying, don’t bring camera. Don’t bring. Actually, anything you bring in, it just get crushed. This is sandwich a darśana. just get sandwiched in. So it was interesting. We had some. They wouldn’t.

The only the bad thing that they wouldn’t let us do any kīrtana inside the... We were just saying, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, while we are taking darśana. They came really angry, said, “No! No chanting!” I don’t know. I mean, maybe they thought they didn’t know what were saying. I want to talk to their ācārya. But he wasn’t there that day to find out. And then later, some of their trustees said, “No, we don’t. Hare Kṛṣṇas is all right, but maybe he didn’t understand, what you were saying.” Just, you can’t sing other things. But I didn’t hear what they… I didn’t hear them chant actually. Outside we were allowed to chant, but not while were taking darśana.

And they changed the Deity a couple of times in the day at noon time for the noon ārati. That time He was in a playful, so they offered toys at a whole table of all kind of little toys for Gopāla to play with. You couldn’t see. We have to like, after fighting my way and getting a vantage point, I could actually try to notice what was going on around the Deity was they changed it a few times. And then on the side, I saw they had all toys for that, because going around and trying to… These are the one temples, the few temples I hadn’t seen to try to get all the best ideas to put in a Māyāpur temple. So I was inspired. This idea of being able to serve. And I don’t think we will have to have the sandwich, darśana, (laughter) but we may not, we may have anyway, even we don’t want it. But the sevā thing was very impressive to me that having that people can actually buy things and offer. That’s nice to feature.

So I am coming here also for two reasons. Three reasons. One is to get purified by Gaura-Nitāi and all the great servitors of Theirs who are here by their association. And also that Harikeśa Mahārāja asked me to… When I make my congregational preaching seminars, I should include seminars about Māyāpur temple. So I was supposed to come and get some slides on the Māyāpur temple for doing that. And then the other thing was, which is the Nāma-haṭṭa, new bhakti branch, Cell program that we have been giving seminars on the past year, and it’s been starting to be implemented around the world, that having a series of discussions on that with Ajā Prabhu was helping and was actually compiling these different notes and trying to produce the manual. Harikeśa Mahārāja asked also that he wants to have a manual. Everyone is asking, the centennial is asking. So this is the plan is for me to be here. I don’t burn everyone out for three days, and then I am supposed to meet with Harikeśa Swami, if his health is permitting in Stockholm. So during the day we will be having these different sessions. Within Māyāpur archive, whatever, Māyāpur... What’s the name? Interactive archive? Multimedia. And with Ajā Prabhu. And with Ajā Prabhu. So for the morning program, I will be with everyone.

Any questions?

Can, if you want. (Haribol!) I don’t know if I have time.

Any questions?

We went to Puṣkara, also Puṣkara. Have you went to Puṣkara. And we saw the only Brahmā Deity in the world. Because I take everyone, Navadvīpa parikramā, and I was taking the non different Puṣkara-tīrtha. But I hadn’t been to these places, so I didn’t know exactly all the pastime. I always had to ask the Vraja-vāsīs, who had been to those places. I thought, at this occasion, since I will be in Vṛndāvana for the centennial, I can see the places that we take there. Actually, everything is innovative, you don’t have to go. But as a Navadvīpa parikramā guide, I thought I should see the original places and be able to give the mood better, something. So we saw Lord Brahmā deity and we offered the Brahmā-saṁhitā prayers to him. We took a bath at the Puṣkara lake. One devotee suddenly got fired up and decided to swim across the lake to the other side to see the Brahmā temple. But in the middle of the lake there’s millions of fish, tortoises and other creatures. And they attacked him. And he’s got all got slashed and everything. Everyone told him, “Don’t swim. And it’s not for swimming. It’s like a holy.” Somehow, he just decided to swim over to the temple. And then in the middle we saw these fish jumping. He quickly came back, and he was bleeding. He said he saw some huge white thing coming up from under the water. He used to have white crocodiles there. We don’t know what it was exactly. Again, he felt purified. (laughter)

One thing is, we see in some of these holy places, you go, and then the priests, you know, they have you sit down, they say, “Okay, hold the water and offer, hold the flower and say this prayer.” And they have you go through some ritual. I went to one temple in Assam of Lord Kṛṣṇa, and they had all the people that come there, they have them take a flower and they said, “okay, please repeat:

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

(Viṣṇu Purāṇa 1.19.65) 

Offer to the Kṛṣṇa’s lotus feet. Okay, then bow down.” I think this is very nice, you know, for our congregation. Sometimes people come in the temple, especially here in the west, they don’t know, you know, what to do. Even India, they are doing this and what to speak of, the Indians and the westerners, when they come to the temple, they don’t know. So there is someone there that takes and puts the flower in their hand, saying, “Namo mahāvadanyāya. This is Gaura-Nitāi, offer the flower bow down. This is Prabhupāda, say nama oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya, offer the flower.” People like it, and they tell them, now you can make your prayer and take caraṇāmṛta. So someone leading them through like that and picking up little things everywhere I go for Māyāpur as well as for ISKCON Congregational Preaching in the temples. But that little thing can improve the quality of people when they visit the temple, if they have a little more interactive participation with the Deities also, offering – “Deity Interactive”.

Devotee: How was the Nāma-haṭṭa festival?

Jayapatākā Swami: Over 2,400 people came. It was 1000 more than last year, and it was less because there was high school exams at that time, so they couldn’t all come. If we didn’t have the tents, there would have been no room for that many. So it was like a… Mukunda Mahārāja, he had just happened to be there, and he saw, he was amazed, like the whole place had emptied out after the Gaura-pūrṇimā. And all of a sudden it was packed, and the temple room was totally packed. They are a little more docile than the devotees from around the world, so it’s a little easier to manage. I mean, they don’t all go looking for the pizza place or this place (laughter) so you don’t have to provide, you know, so many. I mean they just kind of one program and it’s still simplified thing, but we don’t mind just a different flavor, you know. But they as they were very, but what they demanded is they said we want to go on Navadvīpa parikramā too. We want that many Russians going to come again next year. They want, they want to have their party. So no, they were very enthusiastic. And for the centennial, everyone is fired up to expand the preaching. So you weren’t there to get any of the films? I may have. I mean, yeah, they probably haven’t sent those videos to America yet so you could see if there is anything there.

That’s everyone here is all right. Did they get personal…