20160717 Question & Answer Session

20160717 Question & Answer Session Sri Mayapur Dham India Literal Version

 

The following is a Question and Answer session given by His Holiness Jayapataka Swami Maharaj on July 17^th,2016 in Sridham Mayapur, India.

JPS: Today there will be questions and answers. Whichever language the question is written in I will answer in that language and then that will be translated into Bengali.

Question : How is that the jiva after falling down to the material world goes through all the species of life as well as millions of births in hellish condition. In spite of that this doesn’t change his mentality. What is the point of that suffering? Why the Lord doesn’t rectify the jiva perhaps in one lifetime of suffering instead of millions?

JPS: Some people, some souls come and first start as Brahma, so they could also return back to the spiritual world. Some come in different species. Every one is not the same. So if one wants to forget about Krishna, then they can take birth in the lower species which means that they will be very little conscious. So it depends on each individual. If someone wants to go back to godhead then they can take birth as a human birth and then as a human being they can get back to Krishna even in one birth.

But you see many humans, they waste their time. They don’t try to go back to Krishna. To go back again from human birth is a very big loss. So rather than worry why we go through all this births, why don’t we try to at least liberate the human beings.

Have the whole world of human beings become God Conscious.

(Hari Bol) everyone

(Hari Bol) everyone

Gauranga (by Gurumaharaj)

(Hari Bol) everyone

(Hari Bol) everyone

Question: When a neophyte devotee tries to control his negative impulses and in spite of him taking shelter of the Lord like praying to him he still falls. Can we still say that due to offences that the Lord allows the devotee to fall. How to control the negative mentality of a neophyte devotee who thinks that the Lord had forsaken him?

JPS: Prabhupada says that every step that we take towards Krishna, he takes a hundred towards us, and Lord Caitanya is a thousand times more merciful than Krishna. That means that if we take one step towards Lord Caitanya, He will walk 10,000 towards us.

Hari Bol (everyone)

So this new devotee wants to think how Krishna is neglecting him rather than accept the fault to oneself. Krishna… Arjuna asked Krishna the question, “Why do we do something when we know that we should not do it?”

Krishna replies in Bhagavat Gita, “It is due to lust.”

So here we fall down because we are desirous of enjoying some forbidden activity, like illicit sex, gambling, meat eating or intoxication.

We are eating poison despite knowing the right thing.

Still the person is thinking why Krishna is forsaking me? Krishna is thinking, “why this person leaving me? I will make that devotee more happy, why they want to be happy with this tamasic thing?”

Here Lord Caitanya, He came in Nabadwip Dham. He was playing the role of Nimai Pandit, and as such He knew all the sastras. He will defeated, He defeated all the other pandits but did it so nicely and so softly that nobody felt bad.

He met Mukunda and grabbed him by the hand, why you are running away from me all the time?

“you are just teaching Sanskrit grammer, that’s for the children.”

“all right but what are you learning?”

“I am learning alankara”

“Oh…ok, tell me one of your alankaras”

So he gave some verses that he had learned, but Lord Nimai Pandit He also found out one of the defects, and he knew all the sastras by heart. So he also said the same verses in more details. In this way he defeated Mukunda.

He said, “Mukunda you go and study your books more, come back tomorrow, we will discuss more” and then Mukunda thought, “If you were just Krishna conscious I would stay with you all the time.”, he was thinking.

This person has so much… how much knowledge, but if he used it for Krishna I would like to be with him all the time.

Bengali Question: (translation to English) – Instead of serving Lord, why is it more important to serve the devotees?

JPS: Lord Siva was saying the same thing. So Parvati was asking Lord Siva, “there are many types of worship, so what is the best type?”

So Mahesh was saying in Siva Purana

 

Aradhananam Sarvesam  Visnur Aradhana Param

Tasmat Parataram Devi Tadiyanam Samarjanam

So from all type of worships the worship of Visnu is the highest, but that is one thing that is higher - Tadiyanam Samarjanam, The worship of the things that are dear to Lord Visnu, that are related to Lord Visnu.

There is one secret, worshipping and glorifying the qualities of Krishna.   

Krishna wants His devotees to be worshipped and their qualities to be glorified. If Caitanya Mahaprabhu, if he had wanted to He could have established this dhama around the whole world, why didn’t he do it? Prabhupada said, “It may be that He left it for me to do.”

Hari Bol (everyone)

Those who help Srila Prabhupada, Srila Bhaktisiddhantha Saraswati Thakur Prabhupada was saying, “Those people will also achieve extremely special spiritual blessings.”

Who wants to help Srila Prabhupada?

Hari Bol (everyone)

Ulluh Dhwani, Prema Dhwani, Hari Bol.

Hari Bol ( by everyone)….

Question: Hare Krishna Gurumaharaj, you said in 2016, Nabadwip Mandal Paikrama, ending lecture that while Nityananda Goswami was touring, Jiva Goswami left some gifts here and there you said that you had seen that gift and Gauranga Prem Swami Maharaj has seen it. You said that you will say it next year. Kindly please say it now.

JPS: Come on the nabadwip mandala parikrama and ask me then.

Here is one of our leaders of our international party.

Question: Hare Krishna Gurumaharaj

JPS: Hare Krishna

Question: How can we take to heart the confidential teachings of the sastras and how to apply in the life practically.

JPS: There are many internal teachings. Now particularly which topic this person is talking about is not clear.

So antarga means within the association to give knowledge on Krishna. So the external reason for Mahaprabhu’s coming was to spread the sankirtan movement. His internal reason, “Rukmini was telling Krishna that how you devotees feel, I know Radha Rani knows but you don’t know.

Rukmini said, “There is one thing that you don’t know.”

Then Krishna asked, “what is that?”

Rukmini said, “How much your devotee’s love you and in what way they love you this you don’t know.”

To research this Krishna came in the form of a devotee. This is the internal teaching, confidential. So knowing this Krishna Caitanya used to dance before Jagannath and he sang one ordinary song, a love song. He was taking on the mood of Radharani and singing this song but nobody could understand why he was singing such a song, but Rupa Goswami he knew and wrote it down. Then he put it on the roof of the hut on which he was staying.

So Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu took that lead and thought that how did Rupa Goswami understand my true mind.

So Mahaprabhu asked Rupa Goswami, “how did you understand my mind?”

“If it was not for your mercy I would not have the ability to understand your mind. Most certainly you have gave me this understanding.”

So the question is that how the devotees can apply these confidential teachings. Therefore it is not  possible to apply this in one’s own life.

So by knowing this internal pastimes one can know more about Lord Krishna’s character and personality. So today we were discussing that different people do different types of activities, but everyone is doing some sort of service.

Those who are workers they have a boss, some people are serving their families.

So some topic came up about boss. So there was a group of devotees, I asked, “who has a boss that is crazy?”

Is there anyone who has a crazy boss.

Everyone has good bosses.

So I was thinking who was my boss. My boss is A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. I got the best boss and so in this way the guruparamapara is our boss, one boss after, and the original boss is Krishna.

Question: I heard that anyone who dies in the holy dham is going back to Krishna Loka, what about the people who are not devotees, are they going back to Godhead?  The devotees are working very hard in Krishna consciousness but the people who are not devotees, no.

JPS: So the deities are just open, 15 minutes, if you have to offer any prayers or offer something this is your last chance.

The people who don’t have any connection with the Lord and live in the dham, it is said that they live on a thin crust of material energy that covers the dham. So ah… who lives in the dham and who lives on the crust that remains to be seen. So we brought some of the muslim brothers here for a feast and ah… they were saying we were very happy that we were born in the dham of Lord Caitanya. So some of them may be more connected to the dham than we know.

We don’t want to be miserly. This is question is saying, “we are working very hard and we are getting liberation, and this people who are doing nothing are they getting the same liberation that we are?” They are thinking, “will these people also get liberation, they are not even working for it”

That’s why it is fortunate to be born in the dham, whoever is born here. They will hear the holy name, they get some prasadam, some of them gave land for the temple.

So in various ways they get jnata and ajnata sukriti, so that is their good fortunate. We want to see everybody get liberated, why just people in the dham?

Those from Hoogly, Malda, Bardhaman, those from every where.

Where you are from?

Devotee: they have come from Calcutta.

JPS: Calcutta, Bangladesh, Bangalore and Bombay, America, Russia, Ruski

Question: So despite my trying very very hard in my bhakti why am I not able to make progress, why is my laziness holding me back, is it because of some offences, please enlighten me.

JPS: You are asking me, why am I not doing this? Is my laziness becoming an obstacle. The answer is within the question itself. I am lazy. If you are lazy will you progress? What do you think Maharaj?

Maharaj: If you are lazy how will you progress, you gave the answer.

JPS: The first favourable quality in bhakti given in Updeshmrita, Nectar of Instruction is enthusiasm, there is nothing regarding laziness in there. If you are lazy… “oh…why am I not making any progress in bhakti”

It is definitely because of you….oh..

Don’t be lazy, go forward,

Gauranger nitya seva haiva vikas

Hari Bol (everyone)

Question: What should a book distributor who cannot raise his book score do? Should he continue trying through prayer or stop worrying about it and continue?

Gurumaharaj: Are you distributing books for the score? You want to liberate these fallen souls. Of course we keep track of the scores, but that’s not the ultimate goal. We want to see the people read the books and become purified. We want to learn how to be an instrument in Lord Caitanya’s hand.

Nimitya matrena bhava savyasachi

Arjuna became an instrument in the hansd of Krishna. This way we want to be instruments in Prabhupada’s hands, Lord Caitanya, Lord Nityananda hands.

We are reading how the devotee’s blessings are very powerful, that you may give your blessings to people who may approach to you and they may become favourable.

Jay Radha Madhav.

Even Lord Caitanya didn’t refuse to give blessings to become a lover of Krishna. When devotees blessed Nimai Pandit to become a devotee, He didn’t reject those blessing, He accepted them.

Who wants bhakti here?

Hari Bol (everyone)

Question : Gurumaharaj how can I bring people, relatives, father, mother, sister, brother, who are not devotees, how to bring them to Krishna conscious, how to connect them.

JPS: good question, how to bring those who are close to you on this path? So each person because of their past life samskara’s could advance well on the path of bhakti, and some are very far.

So I have seen from the previous question by praying for them, by giving them blessings, this can help them. Also various good opportunities to ask them, to request them to come on this path of bhakti, to come forward and in a very soft way to request them.

One round, two rounds, three rounds, four rounds of chanting. You can tell them one round only takes seven and a half minutes. Encouraging them in various ways like telling them become vegetarian on the holy month of kartik, vaisak, mag.

Or if they are not able to do it at once whole stretch you can encourage them to try on Ekadashi’s, then try for a month and like this way encourage them.

And after doing it for one month they may think, “Oh! That wasn’t even so hard for me.” In this way you can try.

Some will come forward, some will go backwards, and some may not even come. Some may come fast, some may come slow and some may not even come.

I invited my previous ashram mother to Mayapur on two occasions, she came twice came twice to Mayapur. I invited my previous ashram father to Mayapur but he didn’t come. He said, “I haven’t even visited all the states in my own country, so why would I come to India.”

You need to have a detached mood. Prabhupada’s granddaughter became a devotee and became my disciple, and one of his son’s became a devotee but he had thousands and thousands of disciples.

Now he said that the amount of difficulties that my own disciples are taking, my own children are not doing those.

So Thank You all for your participation.

 

Transcribed by: Sadananda Krishnaprem Das

Mayapur