20160605 Bhāgavatam Class on Pānihāṭi Pastimes

20160605 Sbhag Class Panihati Pastimes, Atlanta

JPS: So Raghunath Das, …02.40… the interview of Lord Caitanya, Lord Caitanya told him, “don’t be a market vairagya”, “don’t try to renounce everything suddently, stay in your family, act as a …03.05-03.08…, but keep your heart always on Krishna. This way do your duties just like a say a wife had another lover than the husband and she would be very careful not to be discovered. Like that if you keep your mind on Krishna but everyone will think that you are very much absorbed in material activities.

Like this Lord Caitanya sent him back. So for one year he had to like that, and what happened in that one year is given in the Caitanya Caritamrita and then he started to run away again, and then he came to see Nitynanda and Nityananda said, “You are a thief, you are a thief, today I am going to punish you, and his punishment was, putting his lotus feet on his head, and he gave him the punishment, “you have feed me and my associates chira-doi, that’s flat rice and yogurt and fruits, and condensed milk and flat rice and fruits. So Raghunath Das’s father he had to pay twelve million gold coins a year tax and he managed to cheat on the tax and make 300,000 gold coins extra, but if you pay that much tax you can imagine how much you have in the first place. So he was fabulously rich and for him to give a breakfast and yogurt, is no issue. He was very happy to receive this punishment.

So this pastime is… one can wonder why does Lord Nityananda call it a punishment, why does he say, “You are a thief”.

Raghunath Das, he tried to achieve Lord Caitanya. Even he went personally and saw Lord Caitanya but he was sent back because if you want to go to Lord Caitanya you have to go through Lord Nityananda, and Lord Nityananda’s representative is the dear guru parampara. So this pastime is famous because Raghunath Das sent his servants to the neighbouring villages to get all the fruits, flat rice and yogurt available. So the news is going out, so merchants were coming with their ox carts, with their bullock carts filled with clay pots, yogurt, fruits and flat rice, and then the word came out that Raghunath Das is giving this breakfast feast. At that it was already approaching late morning noon. People started running not because they were hungry but because brahamans, vaisnavas they loved feast, the loved parties and this kind of a spiritual party, so everybody showed up, and then even the merchants who were coming to sell their things they were given two pots, one yogurt, one condensed milk, told to sit down, feast.

So Lord Nityananda put a plate down for Lord Caitanya on a asana and using his mystic power he brought Lord Caitanya there but no one could see him except Lord Nityananda and a few very elevated associates and so very big clay pots, I mean big about six feet, they used these to store rice in those days because the rats the other rodents couldn’t enter. So they had mixed and they used those huge pots to mix, so they had different flavours, for Lord Nityananda they had seven flavours and for general people they offered two flavours, one with yogurt, one with condensed milk. This year we are offering 50 flavours for the 50^th anniversary of ISKCON.

We made out the menus yesterday and the day before but last time I had a doubt that the quantities were too much for each flavour. So I had them made a phototype and they found out that the quantity for each flavour was more, total same, but since there were more pots each flavour was more. Anyway, this is the ecstasy of making the pots.  So Raghunath Das while he was having his service of mixing and offering the prasadam, people started to gather and the whole field got filled up. In fact there was no more room, so people started to stand on the muddy banks of the Ganges, in fact even that became built and they began to stand in the Ganges itself and the water was coming up to their ankles but then there was no room. So people started to stand in the Ganges upto their knees. The place became packed with people. Then Lord Nityananda said, “I am a cowherd boy and this are my cowherd friends, and were all taking their mid-day snacks here in the forest, bon bazar, it’s a picnic as you say in the West.”

Then he walked with the crowd with Lord Caitanya. Everyone was chanting, Haribol! Hari Bol! Haribol! , you want more you could say Haribol! , you had enough Haribol! Everybody was chanting Haribol!

Lord Nityananda took from one pot and fed to Lord Caitanya. People would see that chipped rice rise in the air and disappear. Lord Caitanya would take some one else’s pot and put it in Lord Nityananda’s mouth, just like kids would share each other’s lunch and they woudn’t care about suci, cleanliness, just share each others. Like that all of them were accepted as cowherd friends of Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityananda and …16.28-16.32…

So that… in fact Raghav Pandit came out, looked around and said, “What’s happening here? Your lunch is ready, rice, dal, sabzi’s, panner” , Lord Nitayananda said, “I am taking a picnic here and just sit down, I will take dinner today, and sit down and have chira and yogurt.”

So like this there is unlimited happiness which was sung in the adhibas of this festival, I don’t think there was time to explain what the song meant. There were two lines, when this two lines are chanted in Bengal because everyone knows what they mean, all the ladies do the ullu dhuni and the men go Hari bol, Hari bol.

Anander sima nai, there is no limit to the bliss, no limit.  Anander sima nai, Anander sima nai, nirananda dure jai, nirananda dure jai.

Nirananda means unhappiness, it goes far away, nirananda dure jai, so  Anander sima nai, there is no limit, there is no limit, no boundaries, so someone was walking by last night and he had been practicing yoga for some years and then he said, “wow this people are really happy and he came into a resident also, didn’t know where I am staying and he got a cookie with everybody else, then he got a Bhagavat Gita. Apparently her sister in some other city got the Science of Self-realization the same day. So in this adhivas there are these two lines,  Anander sima nai, there is no limit to the bliss, no limit.  Anander sima nai, there is no limit to the bliss and unhappiness is far away. So everybody is forbidden to be unhappy (laughter), you have to be happy.

So anyway that festival, you read about in the Caitanya Caritamrita in the 70s sometimes, Prabhupada came here and he called this place New Panihati Dham. Around the same time, I don’t know I haven’t analysed the dates, maybe there is a connection, Prabhupada was offered the Panihati tree where Lord Nityananda sat under by one of the members of the legislative members of the state. At that time the congress party was the incharge of the state. So Prabhupada went there and inspected it, told us we should build the temple with columns so that the temple would be up off the ground. People could access freely the tree of Nityananda. It’s a banyan tree that is there since around 500 years. Then he went to see Raghav Pandit’s house, it was old and dilapidated but he said if they build a new one they should take a picture of this to show that this is the original and ancient place. So one brahman came up and offered us his saligram shila, offered Prabhupada, and that was the first saligram of Mayapur, the first of ISKCON, at Panihat, so then he showed how to decorate the shaligram, how to draw a face on it and since then now Shaligram Silas are used in different temples around the world and Mayapur we have around 200. Lord Narsinghadev has a necklace of around 108, and there are other various saligrams in the different temples.

So Prabhupada said that we should also have a boat service, from Kolkata to Mayapur and stop at Panihati for Chira-doi breakfast, that’s flat rice, yogurt, fruit, breakfast. So finally after so many years we have already paid down the payment and got the boat built, it’s being built. So we will have such a service and you can also avail of it once it is ready. I have gone many times the Ganga Safari up and down the Ganges, it’s very beautiful. It’s so beautiful and those who visit India on the road side see the tea stalls and tyre repair shops, it’s not so attractive (laughter), but this Ganges path, it’s incredible. It’s like time hasn’t changed. The cows are grazing in the fields, trees, orchards, temples, palatial buildings and Murshidabad is a palace with a thousand doors all the same. Anyway so this panihati is a dham. When Lord Nityananda came here sent by Lord Caitanya to go back from Jagannath Puri to preach in Bengal, then the first stop was Panihati and they had a big kirtan and the kirtan went on for three months non-stop. There was such an ecstatic kirtan, tens and thousands of people came and got lost in the kirtan. After three days they realized that they had a house, they had to go home and the devotees were kirtan, they started displaying superhuman mystical powers. Some started floating in the air, jumping from one tree to another, some people lifted up trees from the roots, started dancing with them. One picked up a 60 foot bamboo from one end and played like a flute. To lift up one bamboo by the end the weight becomes so great, usually you would have two people carrying but he was dancing with one.

Raghava Pandit told Lord Nityananda, they are tearing up my garden, they are tearing up my house, there will be nothing left. I think that the kirtan has become a little too wild (laughter). So the Lord Nityananda started going all over Bengal. Wherever he went the people became just overwhelmed with the kirtan. So like this he flooded the whole Bengal with Kirtan which started at Panihati. So this  is a place of kirtan also. Kirtan and picnics and festivals. So after Prabhupada visited the place we wanted to observe the Panihati festival. So we had our boat, the Nitai-Padakamala which Prabhupada had personally stood on and did arati to the Nitai-Gaur deities. So then he came with the boat on the panihati festival. Here in America they have in the first week of June. There it is by lunar calendar, so it shifts a little bit but it’s more less in June, this year probably it will be later in June the exact day. So when I came with the Nitai-Gaur deities and there were thousands of people gathered and by the tree of Lord Nityananda there were all Brahmanas sitting, they were offering people flat rice and yogurt and getting some dakshina. So they weren’t too happy with …32.18-32.20… with Nitai-Gaur but the general people were very happy and one started singing a ballet, “Nitai-Gaur Pani Hati eseche eseche, Nitai-Gaur Pani Hati eseche eseche, Nitai gaur has come to pani hati again”, Nitai-Gaur aseche means come again. And so he was dancing and the group was dancing and they came to Mayapur with a truck filled with chip rice, yogurt, mangoes, they wanted to drive right into the tree but the police stopped them half a kilometre away, are you crazy, look at the crowd, we can’t go in there, …33.33…

So then how do we get all the chira to Nitai-Gaur, with all these ingredients, and a black cloud came over and started raining. All the people went off the road to seek shelter from the rain. So we loaded up on our backs bags of chipped rice and yogurt, bags of mangoes, and half of the truck we took by running and we got to the tree and then it stopped raining, all the people back on the road. So then we got back to the truck and we had to unload the rest of the truck and then the black clouds came again, started raining, people went off the road and we ran with the chira-doi and mangoes, yogurt, got to the tree, by this time it became muddy, stopped raining, the ballads they started singing and they started rolling on the mud. There is not like anyone advertises this festival, it’s there on the calendar that this day is the panihati day, there is no other advertisement but ISKCON goes there and we distribute but before no organization was doing it, but hundreds and thousands people gather and whoever would offer chira-doi to Nityananda they would also give out to some people, so like a spontaneous distribution of prasadam. So we do that and some people have booked the big pot and some ….36.54-36.57… so they distribute, and that’s the panihati tradition to go around and distribute it also. So we get some from the temple, and then the devotees go around and distribute. This year because we are having 50 flavours we asked Jaygovardhan to give us some of his …37.34-37.3… specifically unoffered, which will mix in ten of the 50 preparations. That will be a surprise.

So while this is going on we started getting organized. First year I went on to make chira-doi pots… clay pots in Haridaspur. So then we made those and offered to the Lord at his banyan tree but how to distribute that one clay pot, hundreds and thousands of people, I don’t know if you have ever seen a hundred and thousands of people, I mean you have seen a football stadium but that many people packed, all coming on the ground. So this one devotee was going out to the crowd with a little container and it disappeared, everybody dived on it, he disappeared, he crawled down beneath someone’s leg and he came out with an empty pot. So this is not the way to do it, anyway that thing is going on. Meanwhile Prabhupada came near, he sang the Parama Karuna song and you will hear the lila smarans and amazing pastimes Prabhupada had when he was here. He actually was crying before the Gaur-Nitai deities and he called this place as new Pani-hati dham.

So I came here, after Prabhupada left, and I became an Indian citizen. So then someone sponsored my around the world ticket. Now they have introduced all kinds of rules, 16 segments, but that time they had no rules, I would have 30-40 segments, big tickets, I will walk in to change the ticket at some place and the ticket agent   …41.30-41.33… “Please don’t come here, I am not going to do it.”, that’s another story.

But I came here and they told that this place is new Panihati dham. I have been with Prabhupada twice to Panihati and then I had been there six-seven times for the festival and so then I said, “Well, do you observe the chira-doi festival here?”

“No, we don’t know about that.”

So then I explained how it is observed in India and since they offered seven varieties to Lord Nityananda and we were in America. We had fruits from all over the world. So we offered 18, six yogut, six condensed milk and six salads, since the Western devotees like salads so much. (laughter)

So these were our standard flavours and we gave spiritual names to each one and salad flavours we had different devotees make different salads. The maxican salad was made by Mexican devotee, the murari sevak was made by one of our made by one of our devotees here, and the New Orleans cagion by mother Padma, Govardhan Lila makes the Italian salad, we have north Indian and South Indian, this year we added four more. So we have 10 salads, 20 condensed milk and 20 yogurt, 50 for the 50^th anniversary. (haribol and applause)

I hope that everyone would help with cutting the fruits and things. So Lord Caitanya and Nityananda have been extending their pastimes here. We see here our Rath Yatra, Lila Smaran, so many things. Now we have the adhivas on Friday night. Yesterday Balabhadra was supposed to come and give class. I think here today. Siki Maheti and Guruvandan.

Anyway back to the Caitanya Caritamrita. After this feast Raghunath Das asked Lord Nityananda for his mercy that I want to join Lord Caitanya, I want to be part of his pastimes. So without your mercy it’s not possible. so please give me your mercy so that I can achieve His lotus feet. So Lord Nityananda told him to go back and said that it will happen and so Raghunath Das, he went back home and then after some days his guru took him out and gave his instructions to go back to his house, but then he realized that there were no guards, no assistance, he was free, he could go. So he went running home to Jagannath Puri. So he would always be caught because he went on the main path but this time he went on a circular route and he stayed in different people’s cowsheds and finally he got to Jagannath Puri, without eating and then he surrendered unto the lotus feet of Lord Caitanya. So we can talk a lot about Raghunath Das. He was one of the six goswamis. Although he was from a super-rich family, he leaved most simply and he was at first he was getting money from his father and feeding people and realized that it was not good. So he would just beg and get his meal, but then he thought that that’s not good either. So then the rice that was thrown in the drain that had rotten on the outside, usually the animals wouldn’t eat it. He would break it open, take the good part in the centre and eat that. He was so austere beyond anybody’s ability to copy.

Lord Caitanya became very affectionate towards him, anyway he later sent to Vrindavan, and he joined with the other five goswamis to be one of the six goswamis. So we observing the festival when he is still rich and we hope that all the devotees will assist Raghunath Das in his punishment, and the result of the punishment you get the mercy of Niai-Gaur.

Any questions:

Question:

Answer: Prabhupada was very concerned that after he left that ISKCON would just stay together and in his presence he formed the GBC, and he was the first chairman of the GBC, then after three or four years the GBC would meet and present him the result, the he would sign it, like this he was training the GBC and he said after Bhaktisiddhantha Saraswati Thakur left, his disciples fought, they had a G.B.C for about eight years and then they gave it up.

So some disciples say that it is more dynamic to have one Acharya and he orders everyone to do this, do that, like when Bhaktisiddhantha was present, but you can’t just rubber stamp somebody to be an Acharya. So they have appointed a senior devotee to be the Acharya. To make a long story short he had some problems with his regulative principles and as the result the whole Gaudiya math split up and Prabhupada was worried that this does not happen in ISKCON.

In the Caitanya Caritamrita, Adi Lila, Chapter 12, he touches on this topic, “many times I have been approached that we should edit out this 12 chapter by the members of the Gauria Math but how can we do that, Prabhupada wrote it very extensibly because he didn’t want us to do the same thing. The Gauria was selling off lands. When I was reached Mayapur they were feeding pawn rice – that means the fisherman would pay the rent and they could take all the fish, that’s against our principles. They are fallen so long, I don’t think they are doing that anymore.

So Prabhupada said that if you can atleast maintain what I have done, he had made a 108 temples but if you are going to expand it very nice, but at least maintain, don’t sell off the properties. This is what happens when some charismatic leader distributes the spiritual process and he has many followers and then after he leaves, the institution falls apart, people start to sell off the properties.

So by Prabhuapasdas mercy, by Krishna’s mercy, we have followed Prabhupada’s mandate that we work under the G.B.C. Sometimes it is austere, maybe we have a different idea but Prabhupada said that he was confident that the GBC’s collectively would not decide something off. I usually think that pretty right on. Sometimes they are a bit slow conservative but’s that’s alright but this is what Prabhupada asked us to do but achieving 50 years is a significant milestone. (applause), but now we are concerned about the succession. As Prabhupada’s disciples we don’t know how long we will be in the planet and so we look to you, the next generation, second, third, fourth, to keep up the institution, to keep up the instructions that Prabhupada gave us and Kali would try to create some diversion. This was predicted in Puranas and ancient books of Lord Caitanya that someone would come and distribute Krishna consciousness harinam all over the world and usher in a golden age of 10,000 years when the whole world will start chanting the holy name, atleast in every part of the world they will chant and it will be very easy to go back to Godhead.

But after this 10,000 years are over, it becomes very hellish Kali Yuga. So we are still in the beginning of the golden age, we just got a foothold. Now there is need the message very efficiently to stay united and that’s upto all of you.

So while we are here we are trying to let you understand how Prabhupada loved everybody, he took so much austerity to give this message all over this world. He had heart attacks, stokes, he was paralysed from the neck down but still his head worked and he was instructing how to practice, how to spread Krishna consciousness.

So much austerity he took, he was the mercy of Lord Caitanya and Nityananda. So we have been trying to keep that alive and for the most time it seems that ISKCON has multiplied, now we have 600 plus branches, thousands and thousands of small groups, namhattas, bhaktivrikshas, counsellor groups. So ISKCON has been expanded. So we hope that the next generation will also keep up this enthusiasm, may be even expand on it and finish the work of establishing the golden age. So this is very important. Still you can get association with so many Prabhupada’s disciples.

But now in Mayapur there are no more disciples of Bhaktisiddhantha Saraswati Thakur alive. May be some old man in some village I don’t know but all the sanyasis they are all gone and when we start to establish the Saraswat Gauriya Vaisnava association, Prabhupada told us to unite the Saraswat family. Some of the few existing disciples of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur, they came in, they blessed us, they said, “Please do this.”

So few of us have this experience. So many of the Godbrothers are still in the 60’s or still young relatively but like every year I was in the Prabhupada festival in Los Angeles. Siddhanta Prabhu showed the video of all the Godbrothers and Godsisters who left this year and some of the one’s from the previous year like Sridhar Maharaj, Tamal Krishna Maharaj, …1.07.50-53… we can get their association until we get back to Prabhupada.

So take advantage, today we will have the lila smaran, how great Prabhupada is how we should keep the heritage. The G.B.C is very concerned how to have the succession, so that’s why they started the G.B.C college, they have the Jonal supervisors, so that under the G.B.C there would be a hundred and something zonal supervisors. So then some of them will be elevated to be G.B.C men.

So in this way train up the younger people to be zonal supervisors, get some experience, men, woman and also keep up the Hari nam, keep up the practice of spreading. So 50 years doesn’t seem like went very fast. So the next 50 from here you will be all old people (laughter)

You will be preaching like this to the young I hope.

Hare Krishna.

Transcribed by: Sadananda Krishnaprem Das

Maypur.