20110305 Talk at the Gaura Pūrṇimā Flag Hoisting Ceremony.

20110305 His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami gave a talk at the Gaura Pūrṇimā Flag Ceremony.

♪♪♪ nāma oṁ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭāya bhū-tale ♪♪♪

♪♪♪ śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine ♪♪♪

♪♪♪ namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracārine ♪♪♪

♪♪♪ nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe ♪♪♪

♪♪♪ 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 śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam ♪♪♪

♪♪♪ paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram♪♪♪

Haribol!

I think first year we did festival was 1972, because we got the land sometime in 1971 and then immediately Prabhupāda wanted to do the festival. That time we didn’t had any buildings, we just had tents, but Prabhupāda was eager that we do a festival. At that time he established the ananta-śeṣa, where this temple is being built. He said, “This will be the ananta-śeṣa for the whole project.” [Haribol!] So somehow, the “Temple of Vedic Planetarium” is coming up over that ananta-śeṣa. Prabhupāda, he got a vision of festival every year for all the people, for all the devotees around the world to be here. So, one GBC told him that, “Prabhupāda, they spend about… that time 500 devotees were coming, so he said, “Well! Each one spends a 1000$. If we took that is 500000$ then we can build a nice temple. So why don’t we just get money from them and not have the festival?” And Prabhupāda said, “You know, you people spend so much on food, if you stop eating then we get so much money.” [laughter] So they shut up. So Prabhupāda encouraged this festival as important as our daily bread. We can see now we have representatives from, I can’t even count… dozens of… May hundred different countries; we will get the exact count. But… We have devotees from all over the world. So this is a… rather Prabhupāda said, “This is a real united nations of the spiritual world!” [Haribol!] So this was His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda’s vision that we should have a festival every year and all the devotees… I see a devotee from Bolivia, from Russia, from all over the world. They have all come to participate in this festival. So we are very happy to welcome all of you. You are the one who makes this festival all success. And we hope that you will get enough prasāda, you get enough good rest to attend and dance in āratis. We have three phases of festivities. This… now we are going to the first phase, of seminars, where we hope that some of our senior devotees would stay back and they give seminars. And then we go to the parikramā phase. And then parikramā phase, we go into the festivity phase. At last ekādaśī, dvādaśī, trayodaśī, caturdaśī and pūrṇimā and then we have pratipad, these six days are the festival days for all the festivals of the year are revisited so that you can do Jhulan… One day Jhulan, at least one day – we do more. Also we do deities boat festival. We do different festivities; we also do Gaṅgā-pūjā. So something every day. And you hear Hari Śauri Prabhu, he gives announcement in the morning. So every day there is some… You also get a book of the festivities, every day there is some festival different. So please attend all the festivities and make maximum use; get association and then… you see that temple is already crowded, that’s why we are building a bigger temple with more space. When it gets finished, maybe there will be more room. They say, maybe five or six years, they should have it finished. We hope that we will finish by the 50th anniversary of the ISKCON. 2015 or 2016. So this year 1972 to 2011, you can end up 39 or 40 years (of ISKCON Māyāpur). So this is a very major festivity and we hope that all of you will be very blissful here. And there are the doctors here from the Bhaktivedanta Hospital (Chowpatty), also other doctors who will be here to see your health. There is all kinds of different devotees given their time to make your stay a success. All our Indian leaders are invited also to participate to help. This year we have four parikramā parties – we have English, which is International that will be translated into Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and so on. There is also Russian, Bengali and Hindi. This year new is “HINDI”. So I will try to visit all the parikramā and share my realizations. So on this parikramā you go to the nine islands of Navadvīpa dhāma. So nine islands are each one represents one of the nine practises of bhakti. So you can see that this festival again we hope that we will also feel very much attached to Lord Caitanya. This is His yuga, this is His time. Hearing from Bhakti Cāru Swami last night, that Lord Kṛṣṇa, He was lamenting that, I showed my pastimes in Vṛndāvana, but how will the people get access to that. So Lord Caintaya came to give all of you access. And coming here to His holy dhāma… It is every step is more than an aśvamedha-yajña. Every breath is… If you lay down to rest is like paying your praṇāma anywhere else. So every action that you do here, every service is… a thousand times more. So this festival is meant to give you kinds of spiritual strength, so that you can go out and spread the mercy of Lord Caitanya, Nityānanda all over the world. [Haribol!] So thank you very much for being here and we hope that… This is the official start of the festival. We hope that the festival will be very ecstatic for all of you and we thank you for coming again. Haribol!

His Holiness Jayapatākā Mahārāja ki… jaya…