20200426 Zoom Session with Madurai Devotees

20200426 Jayapatākā Swami Guru Maharaj, Zoom Address to Madurai Devotees, India Devotees, Śrī Māyāpur Dham, India.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ

paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim

yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande

paramānanda-mādhavam

Śrī Caitanya Īśvaram

I am very happy that you are present on this call. I heard that in Madurai and other cities in Tamil Nāḍu, they are having a four-day complete lockdown. You are not allowed to leave your house even for shopping and other things. Only if you need to buy medicine or go to hospital. The reason why they have these lockdowns, why they tell you to wash your hands, observe social distancing, wear masks, because at present for the corona virus, there is no known treatment. There is no vaccine. They are trying to find one but they don’t know at present.

So therefore, if you touch something you could get the virus on your hand. If you wash your hand frequently with warm water and soak, you can kill the virus. If you don’t wash your hand and you touch your mouth or nose or your eyes, you may get the virus. So, on one hand we want you all to stay healthy. And since this virus came from the animals, therefore human beings, we don’t have natural immunity. Many people eat animals. And that is why this, because we are mistreating the animals, the animal virus came into the human society. And we would like people to not eat meat.

But unfortunately, even those who are vegetarian can also be affected by the virus. If the majority of people became Kṛṣṇa prasaditarians, then we would not have this problem!! So, that is the material disease.

 The spiritual disease, Śrīla Prabhupāda said, is birth, death, old age and disease. That can be solved by chanting the holy names. I was reading from the Hari Bhakti Vilās, in different parts of the Vedas, Skanda Purāṇa, Padma Purāṇa, Bhagavat Purāṇa, they glorify how chanting the name of Viṣṇu destroys all diseases, how the name Hari is so powerful. Even if one accidentally chants that, it has effect. Just like if one knows what fire is or doesn’t know, if you touch it, you get burnt! So, therefore it is important that people chant the name of Kṛṣṇa.

 In the Kali Santarana Upaniṣad it gives the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, it says, iti sodasaka nam nam kali kalmaṣa nāśanam, nātaḥ parataropāyaḥ sarva vedeṣu dṛśyate - that in all the Vedas the best system is to chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Rāma mantra. It destroys all the bad effects of Kali yuga. Today is the Akṣaya Trītīyā. Anything you do on this day, that stays for your permanent benefit. In the life of Brahmā.

So, this is a very good day to do some devotional service. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, read Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, Bhagavad-gītā, preach to others, donate some of your wealth to Kṛṣṇa, and other kinds of devotional service.

In the month of Baisak, you get 100 times benefit. And today the benefits are not lost. That is why it is called Akṣaya Trītīyā. Also today is the first day of Candan Yatra. We put on the head of Jagannath, on the head of Viṣṇu a, we put sandalwood pulp.

In Jagannath Purī, we take Patita Pavana deity of Lord Jagannath on a boat festival for 21 days. In Māyāpur we have the boat festival for only seven days. At 5 o clock today, they had the boat festival. It will go on for another six days. So, this is a very auspicious time of the year. So, although some people, they are afraid, especially if they get the disease, they are very afraid. 3% of the people or a little more, less than 4% die in India. In Spain it is 10%. So here it is much less. There is one Russian doctor, Audārya Dham das, he says he has a cure! So, we are trying that out. If anyone wants to try they can contact us. Apparently, he has cured 60 people. It is a very holistic process. Anyway, if you are interested there is a doctor in Māyāpur who is doing the study.

 We would like that you use this time expanding the outreach, using the internet. Jagat Sakshi prabhu said that he advertised a class for beginners in Bhagavad-gītā. And he was surprised, 500 people joined the class! People are more interested now in spiritual solutions. They know that materialistic doctors and politicians and scientists can only do so much. Now people are more interested in spiritual life at present. And the Supreme Court in India said that people should be counseled so that they are not afraid. And we should do promotion of bhajans, kīrtan and namaz.

So, we hope that you all use this period to cultivate your own Kṛṣṇa consciousness. If you are not initiated and want to be initiated in the future, it is a good time to complete your checklist. Or if you are already initiated it is a good time to read the whole Śrīmad Bhāgavatam. And also preach and outreach to other people. We take every situation as an opportunity to serve Kṛṣṇa. People think that the whole purpose of life is to enjoy. But this material enjoyment also leads to suffering. Kṛṣṇa describes this world in the Bhagavad-gītā as dukalayam aśāśvatam. A temporary place of suffering. So, the suffering is temporary, happiness is temporary. But there is more suffering than happiness. We don’t want to get disease, we don’t want to get old, we don’t want to die, but these things happen! We cannot avoid it! So therefore, we should cultivate our service attitude, our affection and love for Kṛṣṇa. If the world was too nice, we would think that we would want to stay here always. So, this is a good time to encourage people to become devotees.

 I thank you for being present. And our capacity is 300 for this call. This is the first time we have reached the capacity!! So those who cannot get on, then can see on Jayapatākā Swami Tamil Facebook page.

Hare Kṛṣṇa!

We have to cover 300 people; we have to go very fast! I would like to see as many of your homes. So, we will go very quickly.

Please forgive us for that!

Hare Kṛṣṇa!