20080811 Bhagavad-gītā 8.15 in Czech Festival

Following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Maharāja on August 11^th, 2008 in Czech Festival in Czech Republic. The class begins with a reading from Bhagavad-gītā Chapter Eight, Text Fifteen and comes with Czech translation.

Bhagavad-gītā 8.15

mām upetya punar janma
duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam
nāpnuvanti mahātmānaḥ
saṁsiddhiṁ paramāṁ gatāḥ

Translation: After attaining Me, the great souls, who are yogīs in devotion, never return to this temporary world, which is full of miseries, because they have attained the highest perfection.

Purport: Since this temporary material world is full of the miseries of birth, old age, disease and death, naturally he who achieves the highest perfection and attains the supreme planet, Kṛṣṇaloka, Goloka Vṛndāvana, does not wish to return. The supreme planet is described in Vedic literature as avyakta and akṣara and paramā gati; in other words, that planet is beyond our material vision, and it is inexplicable, but it is the highest goal, the destination for the mahātmās (great souls). The mahātmās receive transcendental messages from the realized devotees and thus gradually develop devotional service in Kṛṣṇa consciousness and become so absorbed in transcendental service that they no longer desire elevation to any of the material planets, nor do they even want to be transferred to any spiritual planet. They only want Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa’s association, and nothing else. That is the highest perfection of life. This verse specifically mentions the personalist devotees of the Supreme Lord, Kṛṣṇa. These devotees in Kṛṣṇa consciousness achieve the highest perfection of life. In other words, they are the supreme souls.

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Jayapatākā Swami: This is Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, Chapter Eight, Text Fifteen. This is spoken at the Czech Summer Camp on 11^th of August 2008, in the 522^nd, year of our beloved Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, in the presence of Their Lordships – Jagannātha, Baladeva, Subhadrā, and Nitāi-Gaurasundara, and to the West of the Mother Ganges. You want me to read the whole purport or a part of it?

So, in the previous verses, it mentions in verse thirteen that if one is situated in yoga practice and vibrates the sacred syllable oṁ, the supreme combination of letters, and thinks of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and quits his body, he will certainly reach the spiritual planets. Śrīla Prabhupāda says that the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra includes oṁ. So, if you chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, that is certainly that one will reach the spiritual planets. Devotees of Kṛṣṇa go to Kṛṣṇaloka, others who just want to go to the spiritual world, they may also end up in a Vaikuṇṭha planet, if they are not focused on Kṛṣṇa, then also Kṛṣṇa says, in verse fourteen anyone who always remembers Him is easy to obtain by constant engagement in devotional service.

So, Kṛṣṇa mentions chanting His holy name at the time of leaving the body, or by constantly remembering Kṛṣṇa throughout one’s life – these kinds of souls go back to the spiritual world. Once you achieve the spiritual world, then you do not want to come back here. So, these bhakti-yogīs, they do not come back again to the temporary world, at least not to enjoy the material world. If they come, they will come for some pastime of Kṛṣṇa. That means they are not really part of the material world. They are just here for serving Kṛṣṇa. Similarly, the devotees are really not focused on going back to the spiritual world. They are focused on serving Kṛṣṇa.

mukti, bhukti, siddhi-kāmī sakali ‘aśānta’
kṛṣṇa-bhakta niṣkāma, ataeva ‘śānta’
(Cc. Madhya 19.149)

Right? So got that? So, there is three categories that are having some material, having some desire – those who have desire for sense gratification, desire for liberation, and desire for mystic powers. All of them will not be satisfied. They will be aśānta, they will be in a disturbed state, unpeaceful state. Who wants to be here in unpeaceful state? So then, if you want to be peaceful, the Lord Caitanya said, kṛṣṇa-bhakta niṣkāma, ataeva ‘śānta’ [Cc. Madhya 19.149], because kṛṣṇa-bhakta only wants to serve Kṛṣṇa, does not want anything material, spiritual other than serving Kṛṣṇa. He is peaceful. He or she is peaceful.

You see, some people preach about going back to Godhead, but that is not the ultimate focus. Here Śrīla Prabhupāda says the pure devotees, they want to serve Kṛṣṇa. If you want to be with Kṛṣṇa, you want to serve Kṛṣṇa, you want His association. Well, you are going to either go to Goloka Vṛndāvana or you are going to go to somewhere in the material world where His pastimes are going on, because that is where Kṛṣṇa is. So, while we are in the material world, we connect with Kṛṣṇa through our devotional service. And when we are in the spiritual world, then we have some relationship with Kṛṣṇa, like a cowherd boy, a cowherd girl, a friend, a parent, a lover, a wife, something, a servant. So, in the spiritual world, it would not be the same situation of sādhana-bhakti. You will be doing some personal service for Kṛṣṇa and your relationship with Kṛṣṇa is what links you to Him.

I met one Hindu, and I told him, well, if you want to go back to Godhead, you should chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. He said, “I do not want to go back to Godhead. I am rich, I am happy here. Why want to go back to Godhead? And what will I do when I go there? Chant japa all the day?” Obviously, he has no taste for japa. (laughter) Yeah. So, like some people, they have some, you know, speculated idea like being angel on the cloud, playing a harp or something but from the Bhāgavatam we find out what Kṛṣṇa does, what is His daily activities, His relations with His devotees. So that is what happens when we go back to Kṛṣṇaloka or into kṛṣṇa-līlā. We will be assisting in some of those pastimes in some way. Assistant of an assistant of the assistant. So, if you get attracted by Kṛṣṇa’s pastime, well, that would lead you to take you to Kṛṣṇa also.

Then, so Śrīla Prabhupāda has given us the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Caitanya-caritāmṛta and BBT is always publishing – also authorized, publish more books that are needed. So, gradually the BBT is also publishing different works of the Six-Gosvāmīs. Before we go to those, we need to have our basic foundation. Even our Bhakti-śāstrī course, we read Bhagavad-gītā, Nectar of Devotion which is Rūpa Gosvāmī’s Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu and Īśopaniṣad. So, we should engage ourselves the way that Śrīla Prabhupāda has instructed us.

Now Lord Caitanya’s pastimes, He was just here only 500 years ago and His extended pastimes are still going on. How many of you like to participate in Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes? HARIBOL! So, Lord Caitanya is also Kṛṣṇa, but He is in the mood of a devotee. And He is the incarnation, the avatāra of Kṛṣṇa for this Kali-yuga.

And when He came down, He engaged His devotees in the saṅkīrtana-yajña. So, in this way but He had His own inner purposes for coming but generally all the general devotees were engaged in spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Lord Caitanya, when He was... for six years He was touring around India. Then He went to different places, and He preached to those people. He went to the Kūrma-kṣetra. How many have been to the Kūrma-kṣetra? (laughter) Go with us in the South Indian Safari. Take a new, make a new DVD. I met Lokānātha Mahārāja, he had his beard and everything. He was going to go for taping some interview. I heard you were showing it last night. Oh, draft preview. Okay. He said he had to look for Bhakti Vaibhava Mahārāja’s DVD as like a rustic villager. Not too much Hare Kṛṣṇa. So, I am waiting to see that. (laughter)

We all enjoyed the Gaṅgā movie. So, Lord Caitanya was preaching all over India. He went to Kūrma-deśa. And Kūrma-deśa is where a Deity of Lord Kūrma, the Lord Tortoise is situated. The tortoise has a kind of a round back shell on the back. So, originally the people thought this was a śiva-liṅga, kind of a broad śiva-liṅga. And then Rāmānujācārya was transported over there. And then he revealed to the people, this is not a śiva-liṅga, it is a Tortoise, because He has four legs and one head.

And there He [Lord Caitanya] worshiped the Lord Tortoise and He was having His pastime there, He was staying at a rich brāhmaṇa’s house. And the brāhmaṇa, before He left in the morning at 7 o’clock, He would leave, so before He left, He told him that, “You see, I am a wealthy brāhmaṇa. I have land, I have money, I have a beautiful wife, nice children, house, cows, orchards.” So many things he had, good position in society. He said, “But I am not feeling satisfied. I am not feeling happy. So, I am going to leave all these things and join with You and walk around India like a sādhu, sannyāsī.”

Then Lord Caitanya said, “I do not want to hear these words from your mouth again. Because this is like markaṭa-vairāgya. You do not like what you are doing, so you want to leave it. That is not renunciation”, markaṭa means monkey. Monkey looks very renounced, sitting in the forest naked, very renounced. I once saw the Discovery Channel on the airplane. A whole documentary about monkeys. If you see that documentary, you would not think monkeys are renounced. The alpha monkey is got sometimes up to thirty wives. And if another monkey comes up to take one of his wives, then there is a big fight. So, looking renounced outside but keeping your mind on sense gratification, that is called markaṭa-vairāgya but Lord Caitanya gave him a specific order,

yāre dekha, tāre kaha ‘kṛṣṇa’-upadeśa
āmāra ājñāya guru hañā tāra ei deśa
(Cc. Madhya 7.128)

“Whoever you meet, tell them the message of Kṛṣṇa. Follow My instruction and My order. Be a teacher, be a guru and deliver your country, deliver your land, use what you have and spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness.” He had a nice house. He could use it for Nāma-haṭṭas. He had a lot of milk and grains and land. He could distribute a lot of prasāda. He has got a lot of money. He can have big festivals. In this way, you can spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

So, Lord Caitanya personally gave that instruction to everybody to go out and preach Kṛṣṇa consciousness from their own house. There are some renounced people like the Six-Gosvāmīs, He sent them to Vṛndāvana. But mostly the gṛhasthas, He engaged preaching from their homes. So, like this, Lord Caitanya did not tell him, “Yes, go to some holy place and sit there and meditate and read.” He said, “Preach from your own place here. Deliver your land.” You see, you can preach in Czech and Slovakia in your own languages and in this way spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness here to the other people.

Lord Caitanya said,

nāmnām akāri bahudhā nija-sarva-śaktis
tatrārpitā niyamitaḥ smaraṇe na kālaḥ

That all the potency of Kṛṣṇa is in His names and you should chant these holy names. There is no hard and fast rule for chanting. Rūpa Gosvāmī, he wrote a verse that said how we should preach, yena tena prakāreṇa manaḥ kṛṣṇe niveśayet [Brs. 1.2.4] – by any means, get people attached to Kṛṣṇa. And then when they have an attachment, then you can start to introduce sādhana-bhakti and different rules and regulations. Sometimes people try to present the very complicated aspects of Kṛṣṇa consciousness or extreme austerities which are optional to new people. And then it discourages some people. "So, I cannot do that”, or if we do too many austerities, that makes our heart hard. We may get proud and puffed up. We may criticize other devotees.

Prabhupāda was saying the pūjārīs are very fortunate. They are directly worshipping the Lord. They will surely go back to Godhead, and they are very clean but if they get a little envious or proud against, say, the saṅkīrtana devotees who go out and preach — they may be there in the street talking to people — if they think, “Well, I am better than they are, they are dirty a little bit, you know, they come back with their socks dirty and everything,” then that is offensive.

Prabhupāda said, ISKCON is mainly for goṣṭhy-ānandīs primarily, and we want to increase the number of devotees, goṣṭhī – actually in Slavic also means like an assembly or something, right? In Russian, I think they say goṣṭhī — means something like that.

Translator: Yeah, goṣṭhī, like guests.

Jayapātaka Swami: They call guest houses a goṣṭhī or something. So this idea, a little bit of Sanskrit means actually the number of devotees or the association, family. So, one day I was for some time in Calcutta when I was the president there. I was chanting 32 rounds and on holidays – 64, like some Janmāṣṭamī, some big holiday – 64. So then one day Prabhupāda came out from his room on the veranda, saw me there chanting after breakfast. “So what are you doing here?”, I thought, you know, “Prabhupāda is going to be very proud of me. I am chanting 32 rounds every day and more on other days, some festival days.” “Who told you to do that? If you do that, who is going to go out and preach? If you sit here all day chanting rounds? Chant your 16 rounds and go out and preach.” (laughter)

So, I was out on the road there, preaching, selling books, and making life members. Kali-yuga, after 5,000 years, supposed to start the Golden Age. It is mentioned in the Brahma-vaivarta Purāṇa but Kali does not want us to preach. It is called Kali-yuga. It is named after Kali. So, he has got his own agenda, program: meat eating, illicit sex, gambling, intoxication like things like that but if people preach and give people a taste for chanting and hearing and serving, they are not going to do those things. And then Kali-yuga gets counteracted.

So, Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura said that after about 200 years of Lord Caitanya’s movement expanding like anything, Kali was really frustrated. It goes like this around the world. “I would not have any... I would not have any more influence!” So, he went to the guru of the demons. “You have to help me. This Caitanya Mahāprabhu, Viṣṇu’s movement, Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s movement is blocking my supremacy in this age. Do something, please!”

So, Śukrācārya, when he tried to stop Bali from giving the three drops of water, Bali had promised he would give the Vāmanadeva, the dwarf brāhmaṇa, whatever he wanted. He said, “I just want three steps of land.” So, the symbolic way is, the king has to put three drops of water in the hand of the brāhmaṇa. That means, “Okay, I have given you.” So, the three drops of water was going to be given from the pot of Vāmanadeva. Śukrācārya wanted to stop this, does not want a disciple to give everything to Viṣṇu. Then he would not get any more guru-dakṣiṇā. So, he took the form of a fly. He flew into the spout of the kamaṇḍalu, the water pot. They are pouring but no water is coming out because this fly blocked the water. So, then Vāmanadeva took back His pot—looks, “Oh, Hmm. There is a fly in there”, took a kuśa grass and POW! put it in the hole of the spout and pushed out the fly. That sharp point of the kuśa grass poked out one of the fly’s eyes. Since that time, Śukrācārya is blind in one eye. So, he was angry at Viṣṇu. “Why? He made me blind in one eye.” He said, “Okay, I have to get back at Viṣṇu. So, I will destroy His saṅkīrtana movement. Do not worry. I will do it for you.”

Then he appeared on the Earth as Rūpa Kavirāja. And he started a philosophy of sahajiyā-ism, sahajiyā-ism means that they tell you, “You do not have to do sādhana-bhakti. You do not have to preach. You do not have to do. All you do is you just imagine that you are very advanced, and you have a great taste for chanting and everything.” Whether you do or do not does not... You just have to imagine this. And then that is what you are. Just shortcut. We had one bhakta in Māyāpur, he was a Hindu, his name was Bhakta Gopāla, had a nice name — Bhakta Gopāla. He had an addiction. He was always smoking. “I want to...” So, he did go in the toilet and smoke. And we did find him, you know, with the smoke in the room and say, “What are you doing, Bhakta?”

It is one thing if you are a new devotee and maybe you have some of these addictions and you are practicing from your home, that is okay. It will gradually get better. But if you want to live in the āśrama, there is certain rules. Then he got caught stealing the sweets from the sweet shop. So right, we said, you have to sweep the floor, get purified, because sweeping the temple cleans your heart. He ran away. “You do not know. I am a very great devotee. Why do you want me to sweep the floor? I am too good for that.” In Navadvīpa, there is a lot of sahajiyās. There is all kinds of groups. All the 13 groups mentioned by Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura—more or less, they are all there. You go into one temple, there will be a lady doing the ārati. “Oh, it is nice. Lady doing the ārati.” Then takes the lamp, turns it around, offers it to the devotees. It is not a lady. It is a man with a big beard. Dressed up in a sārī, sakhī-bhekī, he thinks he is a gopī. So, he wants to practice even though he has got a beard, and he is in a male form. (laughter)

One time one minister came to Māyāpur, and he brought over Lalitā-devī, who was one of these guys. So, I do not know what group he went to, but he found some group there and they gave him bābājī. He came back with a short white dhoti, the cādara, beads, big, you know—what do you call that? Rādhā-kuṇḍa tilaka, say, “Hey, Bhakta Gopāla, what happened to you?” “No, I am not Bhakta Gopāla anymore. Now I am whatever something—Dāsa Bābājī. And now I know that I am a mañjarī in kṛṣṇa-līlā. And I have my ekādaśa-bhāva, my eleven different characteristics, and my intimate service to the Divine Couple”, and talking all this really esoteric high stuff, you know, while he is still smoking a cigarette. So, Prabhupāda wanted us to avoid all this kind of deviations. Lord Caitanya was also preaching. He was getting people to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and that is what Lord Nityānanda was doing. That was what so many associates of Nityānanda, who had come down from the spiritual world were doing.

Even Gadādhara Prabhu, who is Rādhārāṇī, He was also preaching. There is a place, I forget the name now, but it is between Māyāpur and Katwa. Like about 30 km north of Māyāpur. Bharatpura, maybe something like Bharatpura and there, Gadādhara Prabhu preached there to the whole village. At the end of his lecture, the whole village said, “We surrender to you. We accept you as our spiritual master. Tell us what we have to do to be Kṛṣṇa conscious. We will do it.” So, he took it very seriously. “These people are all surrendering—I have to give them shelter.” So, he told his disciple, his personal assistant, “You have to stay here and train them up.” But the personal secretary of Gadādhara was so much attached to Gadādhara, he wanted to stay with Gadādhara. He did not want to stay there in the village and teach all these people, “Well, but I want to be with you.”

Gadādhara, he said, “No, but these people have surrendered. You have to stay here.” So, the order of the guru we have to follow. Then, “So… well, I do not have any Deities.” Then Gadādhara Prabhu, he had a special, like a miniature Ṭoṭā-Gopīnātha - type Deity that he wore in a cloth bag around his neck, took that Deity off, said, “I am giving you My Meyo-Kṛṣṇa.” That is the name of the Deity—Meyo-Kṛṣṇa. “This Deity is non-different from Me, and it is as dear to Me as Kṛṣṇa. It is Kṛṣṇa. It is completely dear to Me.” So, for training up this village, how the Deity was, he gave his own personal Deity that he wore around his neck. “Then, I do not have any śāstra to preach from.” Then Gadādhara took out from his bag his personal Bhagavad-gītā scroll. Scroll of those days, Gītās were written on palm leaves. This Gītā personally was autographed, was signed—a verse was written on the first leaf by Lord Caitanya personally.

Like, if somebody has a Bhāgavatam signed by Prabhupāda—who would give it away, right? How many Bhagavad-gītās are there with a verse written on it by Lord Caitanya? So, he gave his most dear thing — his personal Bhagavad-gītā with a verse on it written by Nimāi Paṇḍita. So dear to him. So that these people would be preached to. So, what could the disciple say? Obviously, he was very serious about it. He had to stay there and preach to these people.

So, I am the chairman of the Bhaktivedanta Swami Charity Trust. Prabhupāda made a fund for repairing holy places in Gauḍa-maṇḍala-bhūmi. So, we go around and repair different holy places. I go and inspect it sometimes. So, I went to this, I think it is called Bharatpura and there was a crack in the temple. So, we repaired the temple roof, fixed the crack. The same Bhagavad-gītā is still there in a glass wooden box. You can see that, so many people were touching it, especially. So, they put it in a glass box because it would be destroyed otherwise.

They also have a bigger Deity. Meyo-Kṛṣṇa is small — He was around the neck. There is a bigger Deity, like maybe so big. And this whole village, even till today, after 500 years, they are totally focused around this Deity. They come and they do the ārati in the evening, the maṅgala-ārati, sandhyā-ārati. And everybody in their house — they have an altar. But in the altar, they have the center position open. And they have their own personal Deities. But, in rotation. The Deity from the temple is taken in procession for the rāja-bhoga, the lunch offering, put in the house. And then the head of the whole family will do pūjā to the Deity. They will cook that day, because they are all brāhmaṇa-initiated and Vaiṣṇava-initiated. And they will offer the bhoga. The Lord will take the bhoga, and then after the prasāda, they will take the Deity back to the temple.

So after 500 years, they established this kind of system that the Deity—the utsava-mūrti, that bigger new Deity, not the Meyo-Kṛṣṇa, the bigger one—would go to everybody’s house. So, this preaching is the pastime of Lord Caitanya. His pastimes are still going on. He said the whole world will be Kṛṣṇa conscious. We have a few towns and villages left to go. Here in Czech, all the villages and towns are already flooded with Kṛṣṇa consciousness? Maybe in Slovakia. (laughter)

So, there is so much service to do. And you saw all these associates of Lord Caitanya in different ways. Most of them were all preaching ninety-nine percent— everybody, the Six-Gosvāmīs, they were preaching by writing books and they were finding the holy places in Vṛndāvana for us. So, we can go and see where is Govardhana, where is Rādhā-kuṇḍa, where is Sūrya-kuṇḍa and Vṛndā-kuṇḍa and all these places. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī was training up all the ācāryas, sent them back to distribute the books.

And to get the strength to be able to preach, you need to chant, hear the chanting, worship the Deity, have nice Vaiṣṇava practices. So, this is not something mundane or something neophyte. This is to be able to bring people to Kṛṣṇa. That is one of the greatest services anybody can do. So, these devotees, they are in connection with Kṛṣṇa already. They are doing His service – confidential service. They are considered as confidential devotees. So, like this, once we achieve Kṛṣṇa, we do not want to leave Kṛṣṇa for anything else. Certainly, somebody goes to Goloka Vṛndāvana, they do not want to come back to the material world. These eternal associates came with Lord Caitanya to be in His līlā. That is not, they are not related with the material world. They are doing everything in relation to Kṛṣṇa.

So, I have also some different shows, video shows. We have the seven-minute-long designed presentation about the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium. Have you already seen that here? How many would like to see that? I also have a little 10-minute presentation. I do not know it is 10 or 12 minutes, about a program that we started, that we have started for the past number of years. We are trying to promote from the Congregational Ministry about observing a special kind of preaching program during the month of Dāmodara.

So, the idea is that in the month of Dāmodara, anything you do gives a hundred times more spiritual benefit. And there are different quotations in different Purāṇas that offering a lamp to Dāmodara, chanting prayers to Dāmodara — this can deliver thousands, millions of forefathers, bring them back to Godhead, and awakens your love for Godhead, so many different quotes are there. There are different temples around the world that during this month, they go out and put a picture of Dāmodara and Yaśodā in people’s houses, and they do a dāmodara-pūjā with the family there. Maybe spend 20 minutes in the house or 25 minutes, and in this way the whole house is blessed. [Aside: What is this one?]

So, especially they have taken this up as one of their main programs in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. And we have asked them to be the worldwide coordinator of expanding the Dāmodara house programs. We got to set up so you can show that one first. [Aside: The light in the back can be there, but there is lights in the front] The temple in Kuala Lumpur is called Jagannātha Mandira Festival. Jaya Jagannātha, Baladeva, Subhadrā kī Jaya! Prabhupāda kī Jaya!

This is the Dāmodara festival, when they started, they do a big launch, meaning something very special to get all the congregation to come, “We are launching the Dāmodara Festival.” Inaugurating. Bhānu Mahārāja came there! Big picture of Dāmodara. The gigantic picture. Jaya Dāmodara-Yaśodā kī Jaya!

And also, one gṛhastha made a booth in a marketplace, there are three markets. And he had 160,000 people offer lamps. These are Dāmodara Celebrations at the school. Here the kids are offering, gave all the kids a little feast. Jaya mahā-prasāda kī jaya! Of course, Malaysia is fifteen percent Indian. So, they have different temples to demigods in Malaysia. So, they also, they did the dāmodara-pūjā in these temples. Even the priests—even the śaivites priests are offering āratī to Dāmodara, Yaśodā-Dāmodara! University teachers, students, everyone. The most important is the home program that can be done anywhere all over the world. Lot of dīpas in different homes. They also printed up a calendar. They belong to a Chinese family—Chinese, Chinese Malaysia, there is 30% Chinese. So, they also dāmodara-pūjā.

Prabhupāda said it is Dāmodara month, and it would be good for new people because they get a big boost in their spiritual life. See, they started off with like 25 groups. 25 programs. 75... 250... 300... 800... 1500... 3800 every year, it increases. They give gifts out to people that do dāmodara-pūjā. See a picture there of Rādhā-Dāmodara and in the back is the calendar. They keep it on their altar. They mass publish and they give thousands of these out like 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 to everyone that does Dāmodara. They have children’s Dāmodara. Have a simple altar, short kīrtana, a sweet pastime, explain about dāmodara-līlā. Simple prasāda, dry prasāda. Give a little, blissful deep impression. Become members of the Nāma-haṭṭa or friends of Kṛṣṇa. It is a public relations exercise that promotes Vedic culture, creates a mood of a festive mood among the congregation, family, and friends, giving everyone a chance to glorify Kṛṣṇa, introducing Kṛṣṇa conscious philosophy to the people.

How is it celebrated? Read scriptures, give charity, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. What are some of the benefits of Dāmodara? It was last preserved by the Hindus—it is also Vaiṣṇava also. That is in the month of Dāmodara. So, do you think this can be used in your college programs and your house programs? Some people—even the neighbors—said, “What is happening?” “Oh, we are doing dāmodara-pūjā.” “What is it?” “It delivers your forefathers—hundred generations—and gives so much prosperity and blessings.” “Oh, why do not you do it in my house too? I also want. I need a few blessings.” We did it in South America at a public program. We had 150 people come up and offer lamps. Coming out... [Aside: Some kind of worm is trying to send something out.] You have the Māyāpur... I also have my tour around the world. Czech festival is also there in the world tour. Would you like to see that? Yes, yes. Tuck. How do you say in Czech? Yes? Any questions? You have it ready?

Question: Is it okay to offer a candle instead of ghee lamp in the month of Dāmodara?

Jayapātaka Swami: Something is better than nothing. If you are going to leave, come and get some prasāda. Do not leave without prasāda. Offensive. It is an offense. (laughter) So, what do you think? This Dāmodara festival, can it be useful for in Czech, Slovak Republics? However, many Nāma-haṭṭas there are, temples, they make a strategy. They have a meeting before the month of Dāmodara, like a month ahead. How many programs they can do a day? Every member in their house, every friend of the member. Like this, they had a goal to make 1008 Dāmodara festivals in the homes in 2006 but they did 1500. Then the next year, I do not know what their goal was, but they did 3800. [Aside: What happened?] If anybody wants a DVD in English and Russian either, optional of our South Indian Safari last year. Any donation? I will give you one, recommended four or five euros. (laughter)

In India this afternoon, I gave oil called aṣṭagandha, which was eight Ayurvedic oils that were bathed over Narasiṁhadeva. This is another oil. We also bathe Narasiṁhadeva with this, puṣpagandha, eleven different essential oils from fragrant flowers — lotus, jasmine, patchouli, patchouli, lavender like that, so many different flowers. So, while we are fixing this...