20160408 A Talk about Pastimes with Śrīla Prabhupāda.

20160408 His. Holiness. Jayapatākā Swāmi gives a talk about Pastimes with Śrīla Prabhupāda. [360p]

Gurumahārāja:

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ

paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim

yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande

Śrī gurum dina tarinam

paramānanda-mādhavam

Śrī Caitanya Iswaram

Hari Oṁ Tatsat

So, I will start today with the recitation of Prabhupāda’s līlā. 

Is that alright? Its ok?

When Prabhupāda would go around, he would see the Deities, he would circumambulate three times. Each time he would ring the bell. Sometimes there were two bells, but sometime only one bell worked. Somehow the bell coming out seem to be the one working. So, Prabhupāda would stop and ring the bell, and then we would jump and down with the kīrtan and the bell ringing. So, this was a very ecstatic pastime that Śrīla Prabhupāda did every day. At that time there was the small Rādhā-Mādhava and Lord Caitanya. Lord Caitanya came later when we had the Shaligram. Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “If you have a brass Lord Caitanya, you had to have a shaligram.” I don’t know why but he said that. So, that time the temple was where the Caitanya exhibit is now. The Deities were looking to the West. Prabhupāda was at the other end down on the vyasāsana looking to the east. And that same āsana… the stone āsana was shifted to where it is now. Maybe some aspect was improved, but by and large it is the same. Śrīla Prabhupāda sometimes came up on the roof and walked around. That time there was no conch building, no temple extension and no sankirtan building. There was a chakra building, and maybe at same time there was part of the Gadā building. So, we had a fairly good view from this lotus rooftop. We could see all the way to the goshala, to the Taranpur road, to the Yogapith, and up and down the road. 

One day he was saying how we could allow Muslims to stay here in Māyāpur, and they could perform their five prayers a day… their namāz, but they had to attend all the āratis and chant sixteen rounds japa. They could also do their namāz. You know, Prabhupāda… whatever he was thinking of, it was always amazing. He would think of things… how to engage different people. In one year came back to India via Tehran. Stopping in Iran he discussed with some of the Islamic pandits. So, he said his discussion in the Calcutta temple when he arrived there. He gave a class on the arrival address in Calcutta… I forget. It is 72 or 75. He was saying that they came to an agreement that Allah O Akbar was meant the absolute truth or the parabrahman, parameshwas. So, that was also a name of Kṛṣṇa. Then when he was walking here upstairs, there was a husband and wife reading śāstra together. Looked quite Kṛṣṇa conscious. But Prabhupāda said, “They should read together in their house.” He said, “No phish-phish talk in a public place.” So, when Prabhupāda went around, he would freely comment on anything that he thought needed adjustment. When he saw some paper or some refuse, he would say, “What is that?” and we had to immediately pick it up and make sure that tomorrow there would be no refuse there. No excuse. You couldn’t give Prabhupāda an excuse. If you tried to give an excuse you will be shot down. 

One day he had allowed some godbrother to stay in the what is now shops; at that time, they were just rooms. And then he asked, “Where is he staying?” So, we pointed out which room he was staying. Then he went sh..sh…sh… hit the door with his cane, the guy came out, mucus in his eyes. Prabhupāda said, “He shouldn’t stay here.” He was also very strict. So, on one hand he was soft as a rose, liberal, but on the other hand he was strict. When he would leave the temple there was a group of mainly the Nepali brahmins and pandits who were all young men. They had composed a poem for Prabhupāda in Sanskrit. So, they chanted that poem and he leaned over the railing on the second floor and listened to their offering. Dh..dh..dh..dh..dh… I didn’t memorize that, but it was all… sounded like very nice Sanskrit. But I am not a Sanskrit critic. Prabhupāda, he accepted that what they were offering him was very nice. Then the local Muslim villagers, they wanted to perform a stick dance… stick fighting. Dramatic performance for Prabhupāda. So, he said “Alright!” although it was not at all Kṛṣṇa conscious; but he was engaging them. So, they played this drama of dacoity or an armed robbery and fought with their sticks. They were expert at whirling them around. And then one took kerosene in his mouth and blew it out of a flame. Must have tasted horrible, but a big flame came out. So, Prabhupāda watched; all they did is stick fighting. So, somehow although they were doing a mundane thing, it was actually a Yukta vairāgya because he was accepting it as a sevā. One day our high-tension wire was going over the chakra building. This was the West Bengal government 11,000 Volt wire. That was so powerful that it literally sucked up the contractor and he was getting electrocuted. We had to take a bamboo and knock him off. He survived but he was not the same after that. So, Prabhupāda was there when this happened as far as I remember. He had us take him to the hospital where he was treated. 

Prabhupāda would have letters… at that time most of the correspondence came by letter. Sometimes by telex. There was no email then, no WhatsApp, no Facebook, just snail mail. So, Prabhupāda would keep the envelopes and write on the inside not to waste any of Krishna’s energy. One day… he would answer every day the letters and he would read the letter and he would answer. The secretary would take notes, and the secretary would type it up, then Prabhupāda would sign it, and that will be mailed out. So, this would happen usually in the morning after the breakfast. And sometimes before lunch some V.I.P guest would come and he would speak to them. That time the home minister was Dharam Kānti Ghosh. His father was Tushar Kānti Ghosh and his grandfather a famous Vaiṣṇava who had written the “The Seventh Goswami.” where he glorified Bhaktivinod Thākur. So, the Gauria math had… at that time the President of India was Jail Sing, a Sikh. He came to the Yogapith by helicopter. So, thousands of villagers came to watch a helicopter… wow… like in the West if a flying saucer come…a helicopter… wow! Prabhupāda was watching from here. He was… he was… at that time we didn’t have so many visitors and the Gaudia Math was having a lot’s of visitors; and especially this top government people. So, the President of India was a big thing. I don’t know why he came? To inaugurate something or another. Anyway, he came and he came by a helicopter. So, we went up to greet him and invite him to come. But at the last minute they don’t change their program. So, he too our garland and he did what he had to do and flew off. So, Prabhupāda was thinking that we should also have someone come by helicopter. And then it was like Krishna fulfilled his desire because Tarun Kanti Ghosh as the Home Minister… he also had a helicopter. So, he came here by helicopter and then all the people came and gathered and saw his helicopter. (applause) Then he was sitting on the second floor Verandaha taking prasādam, and then one head of an ashram in Nabadwip came over, and he saw this lady was serving him. Then she turned around; she had a big beard. She was a sakhi-pekhi; that means a man who dresses up like a woman to get in a mood of a being a sakhi. You know… so, anyway these things were overlooked by Prabhupāda. So, he greeted Tarun Kanti Ghosh and we talked for some time. He showed us how to be a host by sitting down and supervising the service. We served out prasādam on a banana leaf plate. So, that reminds me that one- time Tarun Kanti Ghosh had invited Prabhupāda to visit his temple. His temple was outside of Barāsāt; just between Barāsāt and the airport. And every day he would bathe… they were the owners of the famous papers: the Yugāntar in Bengali and Amrit Bazār Patrikā in English. After Tarun Kanti Ghosh left they ceased to publish, but he would do abhisekh of his Gaurāṅga Deities and the water of the Deity would flow down over this newspaper. Maybe the newspaper was staying in print because of the mercy of getting the charanamrita of the Deity, but that time we also had a number of us with Prabhupāda and he gave out banana leaf plates made from banana leaves for cups of dāl. Several cups of different types of dāl. Some chatni, some pakorās, some sabzis, then sweet rice. We were ready to burst, and then he came out and he had rasagullās. We said, “No, no, we can’t take.” He said, “No, no, you just take it and you wiggle it down.” and we wiggled it. Like that he forces us all to take rasagullās. And because Prabhupāda was with us, the whole experience was transcendental. I remember one day we were walking on the road with Śrīla Prabhupāda, and he said, “You know in the winter you just let the cows out to graze.” But I thought, “Well, it is colder in the winter. So, we should give some blanket or some cloth over the cow.” And I tried to interject and say this to Prabhupāda, and it was impudent of me to speak over Prabhupāda. Suddenly he just stopped speaking and it was like I wasn’t there, and I realized, “I blew it.” And I was crying. I felt like a real aparādhī. So, I ran in front of Prabhupāda and I offered my obeisance’s. Then he resumed talking to me again. Other things I am not sure whether I spoke before or not. I think this I didn’t speak.

Any questions?

Question: Were there floods when the Deities were in the hut where the twenty-four hours kīrtan was, and if there were floods what you did to the Deities? Where did they stay during the flood?

Gurumahārāja: I don’t think that… there was a flood before we had Deities. That time Bipra Sudāmā was in the grass hut and he went inside the hut and the water kept rising up… up. So, he thought that if I am stay here I am going to get drowned. So, then he took a deep breath, then tried to dive under and go out but he hit his leg in the verandaha, and he was slightly injured, and then he swam downstream to the Goswami Math and stayed there. That time we didn’t have Deities. I think… I don’t remember if we had flood when we had the Deity in the front. I think right after that we started the lotus building. This cost us six lakhs and twenty-five thousand rupees. I built it. Now you can’t even buy a kathā of land. So, we may have had a flood after that. I mean six or eight years we have had floods. So, I think we must have brought the Deities upstairs. I don’t remember exactly.

Question: How come Tarun Kanti Ghosh had a great Vaiṣṇava, Śiśu Kumar Ghosh as grandfather but was still not practicing Vaiṣṇava principles? 

Gurumahārāja: The Vaiṣṇava system at that time was a bit compromised. There were many apasampradayās and most people didn’t follow the rules and regulations. He would chant japa and in his temple he would only have vegetarian meals, but in his house, he probably ate fish. But it’s like in Jagannath Purī eating fish is considered vegetarian in the śāstra. Someone asked Bhaktisiddhāntha, “Why don’t we eat fish?” then he said that, “It doesn’t say that you get Kṛṣṇaprem by being vegetarian. We have to eat Kṛṣṇa praadam, and we can’t offer fish to Lord Jagannath.” So, some of the so called Vaisanvās, they who respect the Vaiṣṇava principle, they respect the Vaiṣṇavās; but to extent that follow may vary from one person to the next. This is also in the time of Lord Caitanya. One sādhu in swarupaganj invited him… Nitāi Gaura to take a bālya bhoga of breakfast offering to his Deities. That was mainly fruits. So, that sādhu was so happy in giving Gaura Nitāi… not the Deity, the person… his fruit prasādam, that he asked if they would stay for lunch, and he said, “I will get you a nice fish”, and then they both looked at each other and said, “You take fish?” He said, “Fruit of the river.” They threw down the fruit that they were eating and they ran into the Ganges and jumped in with all their clothes. There is a lot of stories like this we heard.