20140228 Śrī Māyāpur Festival Inaugural Talk

Śrī Māyāpur Festival Inaugural Talk

Type Of Talk:

Other

Location:

Sridham Mayapur / India

Date:

Friday, February 28, 2014

Collection:

Inspiration series - 2014

Audio player:

20140228 SRI MAYAPUR FESTIVAL INAUGURAL TALK Nama Om Vishna padaya… First on behalf of the Mayapur Managers and the Mayapur devotees, and Sri Pancha Tattva, we would like to welcome all the devotees! Hari bol! Om Vishnupad Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, he told one of his parikrama parties that a person I just initiated, he will bring devotees from all over the world to perform Navadweep parikrama. People will come here from east, west, all over the world. But it will not happen in my lifetime and it will not happen soon. But it will happen! IT WILL HAPPEN! IT WILL HAPPEN! Now we are seeing – someone reminded us how one of the western GBCs had suggested to Prabhupad that instead of five hundred thousand dollars we spend on air fares, if that amount was collected, we could spend it to build a big temple in America, in those days. Prabhupad said, yes, you know the devotees spend too much money eating so if they stop eating we can have so much money to build temples. Case dismissed! Ha! So Prabhupad thought that attending this festival was as important as eating is to the body and attending this festival is for our soul, our self. Here coming to the spiritual dham is something very special. It is more than just charging batteries. It is so profound that I don’t think we can put it in words. We need to see all the devotees, we need to see the devotees from Japan, Korea, Mongolia, China, from Russia, from all over Europe, from America, from Latin America, Australia, Africa, we need to see all the devotees. We are all together; we are one family, united, to serve Krishna! Hari bol! Prabhupad said this is my united nations. United Nations of the Spiritual World! This is the 25th anniversary of the walking parikrama which we were inspired by now Lokanath Maharaj. We are doing the pada yatra parikrama. We have been doing the parikrama since the time of Prabhupad but then we used buses and boats. And so no more buses apart from those who commute, we will walk from one camp to the next and see all the holy places. That is a special mercy to get the dust of the dham. I don’t know exactly which year we started; it was like 40 some years ago. But walking parikrama, this is the 25th year. And that was a kind of parikrama that Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur did. Like the Braja Mandal parikrama, every parikrama is by foot. So we are doing traditional. And we heard how this Hare Krishna Maha mantra gives us Prema Bhakti and previously the Holy Name may have given sakaam Bhakti may be. But now we get Prema Bhakti by the mercy of Lord Caitanya and Nityananda. So we are very thankful for this kirtan mela, very thankful to Sachinandan maharaj and all the devotees who are participating. This gives us the time to meditate on the Holy Name, to chant and to hear; to hear and to chant! This festival has many highlights. They are asking me to compare this festival with the previous ones – everyone has its own character. But one festival has all these things – 25th anniversary, Maha Abhishek, kirtan mela, ILS, Shravana Utsav, wow! I don’t know if we can compare. Those who are here till the end, they are very, very, fortunate. I would like to thank Pragosh Prabhu for his MCing every year. You know actually the whole management is overseen by Bhakti Purushottam Maharaj and his team.

Jayaraseshwari devi dasi 11 July 2015