20110924 Talk at the ISKCON Farmhouse

The following is a talk given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Svāmī Mahārāja on September 24th 2011 in Tirupati, India. The talk was given at the ISKCON Farmhouse with Telugu translation.

Guru Mahārāja: 

nama 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

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

jaya jaya śrī kṛṣṇa caitanya nityānanda;

jayādvaita-candra jaya gaura bhakta vrṇda

Nitāi Gaura-haribol! Haribol! Haribol! Haribol!

Jaya Prabhupāda Prabhupāda Prabhupāda Jaya Prabhupāda

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim

yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam

paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram

Hari oṁ tat sat

Whose hear from Tamil Nadu? Who is here from Bangalore? Who is here from Andhra? Who is here from the spiritual world!

Devotee: Hare Krsna.

evam etad yathāttha tvam
ātmānaṁ parameśvara
draṣṭum icchāmi te rūpam
aiśvaraṁ puruṣottama

O greatest of all personalities, O supreme form, though I see You here before me in Your actual position, as You have described Yourself, I wish to see how You have entered into this cosmic manifestation. I want to see that form of Yours.

Purport: 

The Lord said that because He entered into the material universe by His personal representation, the cosmic manifestation has been made possible and is going on. Now as far as Arjuna is concerned, he is inspired by the statements of Kṛṣṇa, but in order to convince others in the future who may think that Kṛṣṇa is an ordinary person, Arjuna desires to see Him actually in His universal form, to see how He is acting from within the universe, although He is apart from it. Arjuna’s addressing the Lord as puruṣottama is also significant. Since the Lord is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, He is present within Arjuna himself; therefore He knows the desire of Arjuna, and He can understand that Arjuna has no special desire to see Him in His universal form, for Arjuna is completely satisfied to see Him in His personal form of Kṛṣṇa. But the Lord can understand also that Arjuna wants to see the universal form to convince others. Arjuna did not have any personal desire for confirmation. Kṛṣṇa also understands that Arjuna wants to see the universal form to set a criterion, for in the future there would be so many imposters who would pose themselves as incarnations of God. The people, therefore, should be careful; one who claims to be Kṛṣṇa should be prepared to show his universal form to confirm his claim to the people.

Guru Mahārāja: In this verse, Arjuna is asking to see the universal form of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Not to satisfy his own desire so much as to establish for the future who Kṛṣṇa really is. That means, if someone says they are incarnation of God, you can ask them, “Please show your universal form, I would like to see.” If they can’t, you know that they are impostor. See Kṛṣṇa, when He came, He didn’t hide that he was the Supreme Godhead. Vasudeva, His father, prayed to Him, that all the rishis, all the authorities, they all said You are the Supreme Personality of Godhead. And he said so many praises. So Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma, They were smiling. And at the end, He said, “Whatever it is, you are My father. Whatever you say I accept, but still you are My father.” And so Kṛṣṇa had this pastime with Vasudeva, that he was the father and Devaki was His mother. And Devaki, she said, “Well, I heard You brought the dead son of Your teacher Sāndīpani Muni, You brought him back to life. So six of Your brothers, six children were killed by Kaṁsa, so I would like to see them also.” So then, Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma, They went to the planet of Sutala, where They saw Bali Mahārāja. Bali was so happy to see Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma. He got up and gave a very nice seat, bathed the feet, offered all kinds of aratis and reception, he was very happy. He took the water, his wife poured the water, he did the washing and after that he sprinkled the water all over the heads of he and his family members. How many of you would like to receive Kṛṣṇa in your house? And bathe His lotus feet? And put the water on your head? So then Bali Mahārāja, he sat and he was praising the Lord, “You are so kind, You have come here to my planet to see me. What can id do for you?” So, then Kṛṣṇa said, “There are six conditioned souls, they are in your planet. They were devas in svarga and they committed some offence to Lord Brahma. As a result, they became the sons of Hiraṇyakaśipu. Then after that they were born as the sons of Devaki and they were killed by Kaṁsa.”

He took them and they appeared as little babies to Devaki. All little babies. So she was so happy, her motherly affection had overflown, her dress was dripping milk and she gave the milk to all these babies from her own breasts., So she was so happy to see them. Because they took the same milk that Kṛṣṇa had taken, they were all freed of their karmas and their offences and they were promoted back to the svargaloka.

So like that Kṛṣṇa has wonderful pastimes. What Arjuna, he wanted to show in the battlefield that Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He wanted to show to them.  Therefore, he asked Him, “Can You please show Your universal form.”

So we have the great fortune to be the followers of Lord Caitanya because many people they don’t realize who Krsna was. Therefore, Lord Caitanya came. He is Kṛṣṇa as a devotee and He came in order to give bhakti to Kṛṣṇa, knowledge of Kṛṣṇa. He also came here to Tirpuati. Tirupati is also the līla place of Lord Viṣṇu, who is non-different Kṛṣṇa. So this is also Kṛṣṇa ‘s place and Lord Caitanya visited here. So here also there is a temple down the road, I don’t know if you saw, Bālāji, He was dressed as a woman soothsayer to get the hand of Padmāvati, He played some tricks. So Kṛṣṇa has all kinds of wonderful pastimes and His expansions have wonderful pastimes.

So we are very fortunate to have the opportunity to be devotees or try to be devotees. This is possible by chanting:

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare

The holy name of Kṛṣṇa has all of the potencies of Lord Kṛṣṇa. And it can give, awaken the dormant love for which is in our hearts. So you are all blessed. I was seeing how in Coimbatore we have now a program in the vernacular, in Tamil, called ‘Śaraṇāgati’ and there they are preaching in villages. And that was also published in one of the leading dailies of the city. See in Bengal, the namahatta program has over 500 namahattas and five to ten thousand śraddhā kutirs, with about 100,000 devotees. So there no one thinks twice, you can directly preach in Bengali. In big cities, like Bombay, Calcutta, Chennai, Bangalore, you can preach in English maybe. But in villages the people speak the local language whether Telegu, Tamil, whatever their language is, Kannada. So if our devotees who know these local languages go out and also do some programs, preaching to the villagers, they can. Our devotees are the last refuge of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. But they are getting spoilt by TV and by Kaliyuga, by politics and stuff. So, it is very nice if everybody tries to also preach and bring a lot of devotees. So whether you preach in English in the cities, where they are educated or you take the educated boys and girls and preach in the village, but somehow give out the maximum mercy of Lord Caitanya, which is all nectar, Haribol! Haribol! Haribol!

We have this great great opportunity to help Lord Caitanya flood the world with Kṛṣṇa consciousness.  Haribol!

So this was Prabhupāda’s special mercy that you are getting Lord Caitanya’s mahāvaṇi all over. And he was sent particularly to the west. And he sent some of us back to India and he said, “Please, the Indians they already have this in their blood. But they need to be a little enthused.” So we would like to see all the Indians take out their natural activity of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. This is the holy land. Here Rāma, here Kṛṣṇa, here Viṣṇu, here Nṛsiṁhadeva, They have all had pastimes. So we would like to see that we awaken, that devotees take the mercy of Kṛṣṇa and His incarnations and by chanting His holy names, relieve us. Here also Lord Śiva he was dancing in ecstasy, he liked to hear the Holy Name chanted. So this is a great chance we have to visit all these holy places and give out Kṛṣṇa to everybody. Lord Caitanya gave the instruction, yāre dekha, tāre kaha ‘kṛṣṇa’-upadeśa, āmāra ājñāya guru hañā tāra’ ei deśa. “Whoever you meet, whoever you come in contact with, tell them the message of Lord Kṛṣṇa. That is My order. Be a guru and deliver these people.” So please give out Kṛṣṇa’s mercy and deliver the people around you. Haribol!

Are there any questions?

When I travel, I always like to take some books with me. And you can ask them, “Oh, have you see this book? This book is really interesting.” Or you know in books, you can introduce Kṛṣṇa by books, because how much can you say in a bus ride? If a person reads a book, even a small book, there will be hundreds of hours. So the book will do the preaching. Or even start to ask some question, “My dear Sir, you look very intelligent...” And then Kṛṣṇa gives you some intelligence how to ask some question, “Oh you came from Tirupati!” “You came to see some temple, Oh!” Like that somehow you stir the discussion around Kṛṣṇa. “Have you tried chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa? Someone gave me this mantra and I found it really really works. It took all the problems from my life.” I mean you have to see, you have to know a little bit, sometimes it is better to make a friend first and after you make a friend, then you can also tell that person something about Kṛṣṇa. It is important to be friendly, open. Sometimes it may be that you have some prasād or have extra gulab jamuns! “Would you take sweets, here you can have them.”

There is some person, when I was in the hospital in Sydney, he was in the next bed. He was a crazy guy, he was bad mouthing the nurses. He was... Someone said maybe he was a drug addict or something. I sent my student disciple to Gaura-nāma dās to give him some yoghurt because he wanted some yoghurt and he didn’t have. So he said, “How much.” “No, no you can have. This is prasād.” “No one gives anything in this world free.” After that he became very friendly. And the nurses said, “How can you give him, you didn’t give us.” So in this way he was given prasād and everybody started asking questions. So how the subject opens, you will be surprised. Obviously everybody can’t just go around and tell “Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Surrender!” Although we would like to do that, we can’t. So we have to gradually make friends, talk, hear them out and in this way gradually you get to tell them about Kṛṣṇa. Any other question?

Now Lord Caitanya has gone back to the spiritual world. Now it is not a problem to tell everybody that He was Kṛṣṇa. When He was present He was channa-avatār in Kali-yuga, like Śrinivas Govinda, He didn’t advertise He was Viṣṇu and was gūḍa, He didn’t advertise He was Viṣṇu. These are called channa-avatārs. Because in Kali Yuga, if you come out and say ‘I am God’, everybody will come out and say, ‘I am God too’, ‘Oh, I am God’ ‘I am God’, ‘I am God’. So the Lord is called as tri-yuga. He only comes proclaimed as an avatar in three yugas. In Kali yuga, he comes in disguise. So while He was here, He was in disguise. So now He has left, you can tell everybody that Lord came, He was here! Lord came, He was here! Haribol! But in our temple we like to chant Pañca -tattva mantra, Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, some of the bhajans from our ācāryas, but sometimes devotees chant Haribol! Haribol! Haribol! Haribol! Or they start chanting Nitai Gaura Haribol! Nitai Gaura Haribol! And they go on this crazy chanting Haribol! Haribol! So I guess in that sense someone may say you shouldn’t chant Gaura Haribol! Haribol! Haribol! Once or twice Nitai Gaura Haribol! Haribol! And then chant once or twice. We don’t chant hundred times or a dozen times. That we chant Hare Kṛṣṇa in our temples. In our temples. This is the logic, why you put Lord Caitanya on the altar, why do you worship Him, why do you offer Him bhoga, you put Tulsi on His feet? He is a sannyāsī, please explain this, why do you worship Lord Caitanya with Tulsi on His feet on the altar?

Ladies this side and men on this side, help me, put your hand under my hand, I will drop the prasād.

Tags: Universal form, Bali Mahārāja, preaching, books, prasād, Tirupati Bālāji, channa-avatār