20200107 Evening Darśana

The following is an evening class given by His Holiness Jayapātākā Swami Mahārāja on January 7, 2020 at New Panihati Dhama in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim

yat-kṛpāṁ tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam

paramānandaṁ mādhavaṁ śrī-caitanya-īśvaram

hariḥ oṁ tat sat

Jayapātākā Swami: I think all the Lord Caitanya’s associates are nitya-siddhas and have a great good fortune to be developing some of their birth places and līlā places. In Bangladesh we have Advaita Gosāi’s birthplace, Śrīvāsa Ṭhākura’s birthplace, a līlā place of Rūpa and Sanātana, a birthplace of Haridāsa Ṭhākura and Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura, and also third branch of the Caitanya tree under the Puṇḍarīka Vidyānidhi and also Āśrama of Vāsudeva Datta and Mukunda Datta and many other places Śacī-mātā. It’s not easy to do the same thing in West Bengal. It’s not as easy as but we are trying we have the (Audio Not clear 2:10) Lord Caitanya used to do kīrtans. At that time the Emperor of Bengal was Hussain shah. He asked his ministers what is the position of Caitanya Mahāprabhu? The minister was a hindu, he was afraid, I don’t know, you know what do you think, you are the representative of the Lord and you are the emperor? Emperor Hussain Shah said, “I think he must be connected somehow to Allāh!” He asked the minister, “why do you work for me?” He said, “you are the emperor, I work for you because you are great”. “No”, the emperor said, “you work because I pay you. If I didn’t pay my army, I didn’t pay my ministers, nobody would work for me. In fact, if I didn’t give a kiss to my queen, I don’t know if she would work for me!! But I see that great ministers like, who at that time Rūpa and Sanātana were known as Sākara Mallik and Dabira Khāsa, they are running after Caitanya Mahāprabhu. And He doesn’t pay anybody anything! So unless You are connected with Allāh, I don’t think anyone would get this free labor!”

So like this, the emperor Hussain Shah appreciated—but he didn’t know that Lord Caitanya was Allah! Ha! He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead who came as a devotee.

So, similarly so many different pastimes of the Lord happened in Navadvīpa, in Jagannātha Purī, all over in India and in Bangladesh. So like this Lord Caitanya came and He predicted that every town and village of the world, His name would be sung. I thank you for helping to spread the message of Śrī Caitanya all over the world. Here in America people need, also, everywhere they need and Lord Caitanya’s mercy is such that if one chants Hare Kṛṣṇa, chants the name Nitāi-Gaurāṅga! Nitāi-Gaurāṅga! Nityānanda! Gaurāṅga! They get bliss! They get mercy! Yesterday, we had the Ekādaśī, I think everybody here observes Ekādaśī? Right? So, many people don’t know how to observe, what to observe Ekādaśī. Like this is such a holy day, one hundred times benefit of any spiritual activity, even greater than that! So, today is Dvādaśī, it is a day of feasting! Hope you all had a feast? I was saying how in Sunday Feast, we should not observe too much austerity, because it makes the heart hard, but, one supreme sacrifice everybody must make – eating Kṛṣṇa-prasāda!! He is laughing! You like prasāda? Most people like prasāda! How many like? And this is an austerity that everyone should perform! But some people, they cannot stop eating meat, they like the taste of meat. I heard that in New York, one gourmet restaurant advertised 200 dollars a plate for hare dinner, rabbit dinner. And they brought out two rabbits – one black one and one white one. And then they asked the people, please look them in the eye and see which one you want to eat! 80% said, I don’t want, I will not eat. 20% said, okay black one or whatever. Then he brought a knife and said, now you will have to kill it! I won’t kill it the person said. He said, if you want to eat it, you have to kill it!  Then everybody backed out. So the owner was trying to teach them that they should be vegetarian. Most people, they don’t think what the consequences of eating meat are. You have to kill the animal and eat it. Well, animals are very nice people, they are very nice people and we shouldn’t want to kill them. There was once a drought, and one sage was caught in the drought and he was about to die, and he went to the desert. He came across a dead dog. So he ate the dog. He went out of the desert and he survived. So it was like a life and death situation, that was alright! Most people they don’t need it. There is opulent food available, they don’t need to eat the meat. If you are in a situation where it is life and death, you come across a dead animal, you might eat it. Most people are not in that situation, I would say 99.9%, before they reach that situation. So they should be vegetarian. And more than vegetarian, we offer our food to Kṛṣṇa and then we take Kṛṣṇa-prasāda, that is transcendental, that is called yajña-śiṣṭa. Remnants of sacrifice. So that destroys bad karma in ourselves. Anyway, it is a bit late today, I will just have some question answers and we will call it a night. Anybody has any questions?

Question: Hare Kṛṣṇa Guru Mahārāja

Jayapātākā Swami: Hare Kṛṣṇa!

Question: I cannot understand this. I have a brother who is working on a legal case and there is a little girl she is like 6 years old, she was in a car accident and she is in a vegetative state, her seat belt ripped all of her body and her organs but she is alive. So my brother was telling me that there was a chance that probably she would live another 50 years on life support. Maybe even longer and that they brought in specialists from Canada who can communicate with people in vegetative state and they understand that the little girl, even though she cannot open her eyes, she cannot really do anything, she can respond, she is happy in that state. But the question is that she has a mother who knows that her little girl is responding, that she wants to win, she is happy. But then you have the insurance people who want to pull the plugs because she cannot live by herself. What is the right thing to do in a situation like that where she is mentally responding, that she does not want to die? Only neurologists can communicate with her.

Jayapātākā Swami: We don’t particularly give any opinion on these things usually. What we are concerned with is that where does the soul go after death? If you can read Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam or Bhagavad-gītā to the person who is injured this way, if they can hear it, they can, in the next birth assuming that they have to leave, if they pull out the plug immediately, if they stay for some time. So the point is to help them to reach the next destination. But sometimes by hearing the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, they may get so purified that they can recover. We try to rather help a soul to reach a transcendental destination and that is our primary concern. We put Gaṅgā water on the head, give them caraṇāmṛta, read the Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and this way try to help the soul to transcend the conditioned state that she is in.

Question: I have a question about milk products. Many devotees have different opinions about buying regular milk from the store or they are becoming vegans. I want to know what is your position?

Jayapātākā Swami: We can have ahiṁsā milk, that is a good thing. We protect the cow, vaiśya’s duty according to the Bhagavad-gītā is kṛṣi-go-rakṣa, protecting the cow. Now there is arguments since most of the commercial milk is not ahimsa, they kill the cow. My personal concern is, that, first of all Śrīla Prabhupāda would take it, if we offer to Kṛṣṇa, the cow is benefitted. If we don’t offer it, will they stop killing cows? Reason they are keeping the cow alive is because it is giving milk. They are just using the cow for some commercial purpose. But at least if we offer the milk to Kṛṣṇa, that helps the cow. Just like, years ago there was no such thing as organic food. But now people are buying organic vegetables, organic this and that. So in the same way, if we are willing to pay extra money and get ahimsa milk, have farmers raise cows and don’t kill them, let them die of natural death, old age. I think we should go for that rather than stop drinking milk. Just like they have the people that promoted the organic movement, they certify that this farm is organic, they become multi-millionaires. So you know, our Cow minister, he recommended that we should offer our deities ahimsa milk products. I just got some cheese and milk sent from Gītā-nagarī and from ahiṁsā cows. We have farms in New Talavān, Murāri-sevā. So if we take the milk and protect the cows that will be ideal. We want ahimsa milk, we want go-rakṣa. But until that is available, we should be willing to pay extra. But to stop drinking milk, how will that help anyone? How will that help the cow? That is my concern. That by offering the milk to Kṛṣṇa let them benefit.

Ekanātha Gaura dāsa: I think the question is not because they kill the cow after, but because they torture the cow to get the milk. In order for us to take the milk they torture the cow. That is the main concern. Every time milk is taken, it comes by torturing them. That is why devotees are becoming vegan.

Jayapātākā Swami: In Māyāpur we have a dairy, we protect the cows. We don’t torture the cows. They willingly give the milk.

Ekanātha Gaura dāsa: I am talking about the factory where they put all the cows together, they put all the machines. They don’t let them eat, they don’t let them move, factory farms.

Jayapātākā Swami: So if you don’t take milk, will they stop doing that.

Ekanātha Gaura dāsa: At least we are not part of that.

Jayapātākā Swami: I am offering it to Kṛṣṇa, they will get some spiritual benefit. Which you are depriving them from. They are being tortured anyway. I don’t know if that is torture for them but. Anyway, it is my personal viewpoint. As I said, different people have different viewpoints.

Question: Hare Kṛṣṇa dear Guru Mahārāja please accept my respectful obeisances. Two questions: Question no. 1 Austerity is needed to grow in our bhakti, can you advise what type of austerities can make one hard hearted?

Jayapātākā Swami: The austerities – no meat, fish, eggs, onion, garlic, no intoxication, no illicit sex and no gambling. These are the austerities we are doing. The austerity like some people fast for many days, they do heavy austerities, so that may produce a hard heart.

Devotee: Question No. 2.

Jayapātākā Swami: 2.

Question: The consciousness of the cook goes into the food. Does it apply even to the bhoga made at the temple kitchen?

Jayapātākā Swami: You see, cooks in the temple are supposed to be second initiated. And therefore we take the cooked food to be somewhat pure, and that is offered to Kṛṣṇa, Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, Nitāi-Gaur, Jagannātha-Baladeva-Subadrā. So accordingly we think that that doesn’t have any karma. Rather that has the ability to neutralize the karma. But if we have somebody cooking who is not initiated or we are taking food from them, Śrīla Prabhupāda said, do you have to take, if they give us free food, we take their karma. If we take free food from Kṛṣṇa, then no karma. But if we take free food from anyone else, there may be karma involved. So the karma is more if the food is boiled, like boiled rice, and less karma if it is ‘pāka’ that means fried like puris, siṅgāras, or kaćoris, etc. And then less if it is fruit. But if a person is an initiated devotee and they are offering it to Kṛṣṇa, maybe you can consider if it has any karma.  Alright!