20150301 Evening Darśana

The following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on March 1st, 2015 in Śrī Dhāma Mayapur, India. The class was given on day 2 of the Caitanya Līlā seminar on the Lotus building rooftop, Māyāpur, India.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānandaṁ mādhavaṁ śrī caitanya iśvaram

hariḥ oṁ tat sat

Hare Kṛṣṇa!

How did you like the auspicious Ekādaśī before the Gaura Pūrṇimā. Haribol! We heard there was a devotee named Aiśvarya dāsī, she had seen me in the airport at Kuala Lumpur. So she asked for shelter, she said that, she was chanting sixteen rounds and more for a long time. But somehow, she wasn’t able to take shelter. So, we had a quick ceremony in the Airport. Haribol ! And she had cancer. So she was with her family today and she said, “Kṛṣṇa has come, He has come to take me! I am going with Kṛṣṇa! Good Bye!” Haribol! and she left. (Haribol!) So, someone asked yesterday, “Is taking aspiring, shelter or initiation is it relevant?” So, what do you think? (Haribol!) I pray to all the devotees who are initiated, sheltered or aspiring. Also to śikṣā disciple, also to the grand disciples and others. So whenever I am in front of Pañca-tattva, you may wonder what I do? “I am praying for you!” (Haribol!) So, Rukmiṇī got the information that Kṛṣṇa was coming to see her. And she cleaned the house by herself along with her maids. And she had the children well decorated. And had all the auspicious things for welcoming Kṛṣṇa. Brāhmaṇas chanting mantras. Musicians playing music and like this auspicious things like sugarcane, water pot filled with water. And when Lord Kṛṣṇa came, she send the children to greet Him and embrace their father. And then she took Him into their private quarters. And she was bathing His lotus feet. And He noticed that She was crying. Now why she should be crying when is arriving, it is a matter of rejoicing; but she was crying. So He asked, “Why you are crying? Have the children not listen to you? Or is some servants arguing back? Is there some reason why you are crying?” And Rukmiṇī commented, “You know what Brahma is doing on Satya-loka; You what Śiva is doing in Kailāśa? You know what is going on ananta-koti brahmāṇḍa; and You know what is going on in the spiritual world. Is this the one thing that You don’t know?” He was surprised with this reply. Because no one had ever said that Bhagavān didn’t know something. So she said, “I know, Rādhā-rani knows, it seems that You do not know.” And then, He brought her by His side, He wiped off her tears, and then He asked her, “What is the thing that I don’t know?” “I don’t think You know, how much we devotees love You. And in what way we love You. You are the Lord, You are receiving the worship, and You don’t know what we are feeling.” Just at that time Nārada Muni came, and Kṛṣṇa was in His pastimes He was dealing with Nārada Muni as His guru. “Oh! Gurudev! Ah! What a pleasant surprise.” He jumped up. So Rukmiṇī began to bath the Nārada Muni’s feet by pouring water and Kṛṣṇa massaged the water in. Although He is the supreme Lord, He like to play the dramas or līlās. Then He noticed that Nārada Muni was also agitated. “What a day? My Guru, who is usually very peaceful, he is agitated. My wife says something, I don’t know.” “So why you are agitated?” And Nārada Muni said, “The symptoms in the world show that Your pastimes will soon come to an end. And when You leave Kali-yuga will start. And Kali-yuga is the yuga of quarrel and hypocrisy. So how will the conditioned souls get delivered in this Kali-yuga.” Then Lord Kṛṣṇa said, “Alright, I will come again. I will come in Kali-yuga. But this time I will not come as the Lord. I will come as a devotee. And I will research, what my devotees feel for Me. And while I am here, I will establish the yuga-dharma of chanting the holy names.” In this way Lord Kṛṣṇa predicted His coming as Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. (Gaurāṅga!!!) Since the Lord was coming as His devotee. The predictions in the śātra has to be covered. Because if they are too clear then it make no sense. Then He cannot come incognito, if it is broadcasted all over the place. “Alright the President of India is coming 2 ‘O clock in the morning, exactly at this corner. This is a secret!!!” Then everyone will be there. Or the Prime Minister of UK in secrets he is going to see the Oxford street, then everyone will be looking where is he? where is he? So that is why, it is although mentioned, but those quotes are somewhat oblique. Like it says in the Bhāgavatam that Kṛṣṇa will come again in Kali-yuga, but He won’t be blue color. He will be associated with His expansions, with His devotees and His energies.

kṛṣṇa-varṇaṁ tviṣākṛṣṇaṁ
sāṅgopāṅgāstra-pārṣadam
yajñaiḥ saṅkīrtana-prāyair
yajanti hi su-medhasaḥ
(ŚB 11.5.32)

So that is oblique enough, people cannot exactly say where is He coming. But in retrospect you can see that it indicated Lord Caitanya. That He started the saṅkīrtana movement and the intelligent people were participating in that, and that He was associated by His expansions, energies and so on. So there are many verses like that. Some say one aspect and some say another aspect. Together if you see them, you will realize that Lord Caitanya is Kṛṣṇa Himself. But, Is like covered. So, in the Brahma-vaivarta Purāṇa. All the holy rivers came to see Lord Kṛṣṇa. And they appointed Gaṅgā as the spoke person. So she came forward and said that “In the Kali-yuga, people will be performing many sinful acts and they will bathe in our waters and we will get over loaded by sins. So, better You take us back with You. And save us from the deluge of Kali-yuga.” And Kṛṣṇa smiled and He said, “Tolerate 5000 years, then I will send someone, who will spread the holy name all over the world. He will assure in the Golden age for 10,000 years. And that time people will be chanting the holy names. And you know that just to see a Vaiṣṇava is purifying, what to speak, if they are chanting the holy names. You can tell that these are devotees. Because when they bathe in your water they will be chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. Don’t forget that.” So that was an interesting prediction. He said, “After 10,000 years, you can go subterranean like the Sarasvatī river. And you can stay underground for the rest of Kali-yuga.” Now is the beginning of the Golden Age. And we should take advantage by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. Lord Caitanya came, exactly after 4500 years, but Śrīla Prabhupāda came after 5000 years. And Lord Kṛṣṇa said that, “He would send His devotee after 5000 years.” So, Śrīla Prabhupāda brought this message to all of the continents of the world. And I saw the temple that he established in Caracas and there he gave the deities the name “Parama-karuṇa Nitāi-Gaura” Parama-karuna means supremely merciful. And of-course now we have centers all over South-America. And from Caracas he went to Mexico and then he went to Atlanta. So somewhere in the Southeast of the USA, he told them, “You are living very far, far away in the distant corner of the world” I think most Americans think that they at the center of the world. But here Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “You are very far, in the corner of the world. Far from the holy dhāma.”

(Haribol!!!)

You are all here taking advantage of the holy dhāma, getting the special mercy that the holy dhāma gives. And this is beyond calculations Many people they don’t understand how great is devotional service to the Supreme Lord. And they miss the chance. So now is the opportunity that you have to get the mercy of Lord Kṛṣṇa through Lord Caitanya. This dham is the audārya-dhāma — the mercy dhāma. Jagannātha Purī is the aiśvarya-dhāma — the opulent dham and Vrindavan is the mādhurya-dhāma — the sweet dhāma. But this Māyāpur is the audārya-dhāma. To get the mercy here, which otherwise you cannot avail. So, Kṛṣṇa comes once in a day of Brahma. A day of Brahma is 8 Billion 640 million years, that is the day and night. And sometimes, Lord Caitanya comes, not always. So, we are having this special mercy and we shouldn’t miss out to get this mercy. In the spiritual world there are two things which you cannot do. But which you can do in the material world. One is kill demons — because there is no demons in the spiritual world and one is preach to the conditioned souls — because there is no conditioned souls in the spiritual world. So, I was thinking today how importance today it is for everyone to engage in the chanting the holy names. It says that among all the devotees gopīs are the best. And what they do is they are chanting the holy name of Kṛṣṇa day and night. When they are churning butter they also chant; when they do household cooking they also chant; when they waiting for Kṛṣṇa to come back from the forest, they chant; if Kṛṣṇa leaves them, what do they do — chant. They were always chanting. Some devotees said, “I don’t have taste for chanting.” But we see that these great devotees they would chant all the time. So we should also try to chant all the time. One time I was a bhakta in Montreal and the guy sleeping next to me, he was talking in his sleep. So I thought why he is disturbing? Then I was going to wake him up, then I try to listen what is he speaking. He was saying, 

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

I thought, well, he is chanting in his sleep. Better not to disturb. So, the devotees chant all the time. And Kṛṣṇa, He is non-different from His names. So, in Kali-yuga people can chant the holy names of Kṛṣṇa. And this way they attract Kṛṣṇa. Today we were waiting for the deities to come on the elephants and gurukula boys they were chanting some mantras and some boys were beating drums — you probably heard it. And there were others who were chanting. So, this chanting filled the air. Then I was by the Gada building, I heard the devotees chanting in the Harināma party and I thought, “Why not establish such Harināma parties all over Bengal?” (Haribol!) I want to talk to our Nāma-haṭṭa they can have the people on rotation to chant. So then the harināma will raise everywhere. And people will naturally very blissful. So, in some places, we are restricted from chanting, but at least here in Māyāpur we are not restricted. We have the Chand-kazi emblem — no one will disturb you. So, here we can chant. Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted to establish the chanting unlimitedly around the world. And Lord Caitanya said, gṛhe thāko vane thāko sada hari bole ḍāko — whether you are a gṛhasta, whether you are a brahmacāri, vairāgī. Everyone should chant the holy names. So, we see how important it is to chant and then I was thinking also how to expand the book distribution. So, these are the things that go on in my mind. But, I can’t do that much alone and I need all of your help. So, please try to establish the Harināma and book distribution in different congregational methods. And certainly this will please Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityānanda and the Pañca-tattva. So, When Lord Caitanya appeared that time people were very religious. But the religiosity was just a show. They would spend a lot to marry their daughter.

When they ran out of daughters, they would spend for cats marriage and dogs marriage.

They were trying to show off that they are very religious. But really they just wanted name and fame. And like that there were different shows of religiosity, but actually people didn’t have the real bhakti. So in the Suvarṇa-vihar the king there, he prayed that he could be part of Lord Caitanya’s pastimes. So, he was allowed to come as Buddhimanta khan. And there he paid for the marriages of Lord Caitanya. First marring Lakṣmī-priya, when she died by a snake bite. And then Viṣṇu-priya. So, there is a ceremony called adhivāsa happens a day before the marriage. And ladies bathe the lady. And men bathe the groom. So, there is secret thing that men should close their ears that there is a special clay pot with turmeric and there the name of the husband is put in the water. And then water is sprinkled on different places of the brides body. So she will control him. In those adhivāsa, they have snacks. And some of the servants came and complaint to Buddhimanta khan that, “People are coming to twice.” He said, “Really! That is very bad. Feed them five times as much. So they won’t have any more room to come back.” So he gave a big feast, even hough it was snacks. And when they had next day the procession. It was like a prince’s procession. And everyone was dancing, bands, people were marching, carrying Lord Caitanya in a palanquin. So it was a very opulent occasion. So Buddhimanta khan, he had this great opportunity to serve the Lord. So, if we can serve the Lord by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, that will be also very nice. Actually, here we have the Māyāpur.tv and they are connected to about 200,000+ cable TV viewers. So people can watch your kīrtana and you might notice that lot of people who come it is because of mainly added propaganda of the cable TV. The brahmacāris were jumping, but the ladies can learn from His Holiness Indradyumna Swami Maharaj’s team, how to dance in a cultured way. I can’t do it. You have to do it. I am sorry, I am not a good teacher. Remember that in ārati, there may be 100,000 or 200,000 people watching. Watching you. Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted to make our own handloom cloth as well as the drums, and the karatālas. So he had devotees come here to learn how to make mṛdangas. And in the beginning of Māyāpur, we had so many devotees learning, how to make mṛdangas, how to make clothes, how to do different practical things. And I also tried something practical, So I got apiary bees. So, these bees were kept by the window of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s grass hut. And a cow saw that there was lot grass by the beehive. So she went to eat that. And inadvertently she knocked over the beehives. And they warmed in to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s room. And he was calling,“Jayapatākā! Jayapatākā!” That is my name.

So, I have to run and we had smoke shot. So we gave smoke shot to Śrīla Prabhupāda and myself. Then we tried to gently convince the bees to go out. Afterwards Śrīla Prabhupāda kept his school, he said, “I think you should put these beehives far away.” So, not everyone’s practical efforts were baring the same fruits. I grow some long grain rice, and the government gave me an award, they said, “This is the best rice in the district.” (Haribol!) But as I mentioned, I also grew some vegetables. Like, Radish. And you will be surprised, how many tons of radish you can get from a little piece of land. And I give radish to the devotees. And they would cook it, grate it, and they try to consume it different ways. But in the end they said, “Maharaj, please no more radish!” My practical efforts were not always bearing the right fruits. We got so much harvest that the devotees they couldn’t deal with it. So, we have to sell that in the market. So like this, I was getting the ICAR — Indian Council for Agriculture and Research. They would give the latest research and being a science student, I would always try the latest. And we had wind-beans and again these wind beans were a special seeds from Australia. We had so many wind-beans, then again it was an over dose. But in the market, they had never heard of wind-beans. So they didn’t want to buy it. But sometimes, we had a known crops, like tomatoes. In five kaṭhās of land, which is about… it is a small part of an acre. Like one fifteenth of an acre. So we had so many tomatoes, tons of tomatoes and devotees like tomatoes, but there were too many tomatoes. But those tomatoes we could sell in the market. Like that we kept ourselves busy growing different crops. Growing Sugarcane, rice, beans, potatoes, radish, spinach, Bhinḍī (Ladies Finger) and some other kinds. So, I remember that I wanted to get a small amount of money to start, but Tamal Kṛṣṇa Maharaj said, “He is a city boy, he won’t be able to do it.” I said, “Let me give a try.” Because my maternal grand-father was an agriculturalist and my paternal grand-father was a multi-millionaire. So I had some idea about cultivation. Śrīla Prabhupāda was very merciful to give every a chance to serve Kṛṣṇa. And there was devotee, who is around, and I saw him in Los Angeles. He was playing his guitar and singing, and Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “You sing very nice, you can go on singing for Kṛṣṇa.” So, he went on singing, “Hare Kṛṣṇa!!!” He went off the land. Like this Śrīla Prabhupāda was engaging everyone.

So any questions?

Question: I want to ask you said, we should develop book distribution and chanting Hare Krsihna, and you gave idea about how to develop chanting, but what is your ideas about how to do more book distribution?

Answer: We are in competition, after I try, if it is successful or not I will tell. And if you are in Māyāpur, you will find out. But, His Holiness Gopal Kṛṣṇa Goswami Maharaj, he said that 2,750 devotees were on the marathon month in Delhi. So, one thing is to get as many devotees as possible during the marathon and distribute Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books.

Question: Sometimes, while we are doing some service that time internally how we will please guru and Kṛṣṇa? That mood is not working properly. It is just name and fame what you said, Guru Maharaj, especially me. Thinking for that only. How I can get free from that?

Answer: Lord Caitanya, He wrote in His śikṣāṣṭakam in the third verse. It says, we should offer others respect and not expect any respect for ourselves. In this way we can always chant the holy names. So you said, we are expecting people will deal with us properly. Will give us proper respect. And when we won’t get that, we feel false pride. But Lord Caitanya advised that we should not expect these things. We would like our devotees, to be like this always, to deal with respect and appreciation. But if they don’t do that, that should not be the reason that we don’t do service. Rather we should do service, even though we don’t get treated the way we like to be treated. If you take that humble state of mind, then it is very easy to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa all the time.

Question: Śrīla Prabhupāda says that, Books are the Basis, Preaching is the essence, and Utility is the principle, Purity is the force. I wonder how to understand, how utility is the principle and how to apply it in our preaching?

Answer: Don’t put a beehive under the window of your guru. (laugh) The common sense is the easiest thing, but it is the hardest thing to come cross. Most people don’t have common sense and they do things very impractically. So, you can ask your guru or śikṣā-guru or senior devotees,

What could be the best thing that you can do? Under the circumstances, and accordingly you can act. So utility is the principle means something may not be very useful. And we just do them and we don’t get the desired result. So utility is the principle we should see, what will bring that out, proper results.