20200616 Statement About Dedication of the Soul Surrendered to Kṛṣṇa

The following is the reading from the new Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Book by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on 16th June 2020 in Śrīdhāma Māyāpur, India.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānandaṁ mādhavaṁ śrī caitanya iśvaram
Hariḥ oṁ tat sat!

Introduction: So, tomorrow is the Yogini Ekādaśī and if you observe the Yogini Ekādaśī, you get all your bad karma absolved, and ultimately achieve supreme liberation, you can read in the Padma Purāṇa, about the Yogini Ekādaśī Today we will continue reading about the pastime of Śrīvāsa Ṭhākura, where his son passes away, today’s chapter is entitled, 

Statement About Dedication of the Soul Surrendered to Kṛṣṇa.

The Dispelling of Grief – 3

Śrī Śrī Gītāmālā 26 by Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura

dhana, jana, deha, geha kṛṣṇe samarpaṇa
kariyācha śuddha-citte karaha smaraṇa

Jayapatākā Swami: Your wealth, your followers, your body, your house, everything is offered to Kṛṣṇa. In this way, having a pure consciousness, offer everything to Kṛṣṇa, and remember Him always. We are reading from Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s poetry that describes this pastime.

Śrī Śrī Gītāmālā

tabe kena ‘mama suta’ bali’ kara duḥkha
kṛṣṇa nila nija-jana tāhe tāra sukha

Jayapatākā Swami: So Śrīvāsa Ṭhākura is preaching to his wife and the other ladies, why are you saying again and again, “Oh, my son! My son! In great sadness!” Kṛṣṇa has taken His own devotee, just to suit His happiness.

Śrī Śrī Gītāmālā

kṛṣṇa-icchā-mate saba ghaṭaya ghaṭa
nātāhe sukha-duḥkha-jñāna avidyā-kalpanā

Jayapatākā Swami: Whatever happens is by the sweet will of Lord Kṛṣṇa. If we think anything as happiness or sadness, that knowledge is just our mental speculation, ignorant mental speculation.

Śrī Śrī Gītāmālā

yāhā icchā kare kṛṣṇa tāi jāna bhāla
tyajiyā āpana icchā ghucāo jañjāla

Jayapatākā Swami: Whatever Kṛṣṇa’s desire is, you must accept that as being good, renounce all your separate, personal desires, relieve yourselves of this botheration.

Śrī Śrī Gītāmālā

deya kṛṣṇa, neya kṛṣṇa, pāle kṛṣṇa sabe
rākhe kṛṣṇa, māre kṛṣṇa, icchā kare yabe

Jayapatākā Swami: Kṛṣṇa gives you everything, and Kṛṣṇa takes away everything. Kṛṣṇa maintains everyone. Kṛṣṇa protects one or Kṛṣṇa kills one, whatever He wants, according to His sweet will.

Śrī Śrī Gītāmālā

kṛṣṇa-icchā viparīta ye kare vāsanātāra
icchā nāhi phale se pāya yātanā

Jayapatākā Swami: If one desires something opposite to what Kṛṣṇa wants, that person’s desire is not fruitful, and that person simply gets trouble and misery.

Śrī Śrī Gītāmālā

tyajiyā sakala śoka śuna kṛṣṇa-nāma
parama ānanda pā'be pūrṇa ha'be kāma

Jayapatākā Swami: Reject all your lamentation, listen to the holy name of Kṛṣṇa which is being chanted in the courtyard, you will get supreme bliss, and all of your desires will be fulfilled.

You see, we think this is good and this is bad, based on our material identification, but we cannot control what happens. If we see that everything that happens is by the mercy of Kṛṣṇa, and simply try to cooperate with Kṛṣṇa’s desire, then we will be peaceful, and then we can achieve our ultimate happiness. We cannot see all the past, present, future, but Kṛṣṇa knows everything. So, the soul depends on Kṛṣṇa, and does whatever Kṛṣṇa wants, he considers that to be good.

There is a story in the Purāṇas, that a king lost his finger, and he asked his brāhmaṇa counsellor, “Why did this happen?” and the counsellor always would say, that “Whatever Kṛṣṇa does is good”, and the king said, “You are nonsense, you always say that, how is my losing a finger good?” So, he arrested that counsellor, and then he went out hunting, and he was captured by some thieves, and they wanted to offer him as a human sacrifice to the goddess Kālī. They bathed him and put on him white cloth, they tied his hands behind his back, and put his head on the chopping block. The priest came out to offer, “Chop his head off and offer him as a human sacrifice to the goddess Kālī”, and then he said, “What is this? He is missing a finger! He is an incomplete human being; He cannot be offered to Kālī. Rejected! Rejected! Take him back.” So, the king was very happy, then he came back and said, “I lost my finger but that saved my life. But I arrested you, what you said was good, so why did I arrest you? How is that good?” The counsellor said, “I am not missing a finger, If I would have been with you, I would have been a human sacrifice. So whatever Kṛṣṇa did was good!” Haribol! So, there are many examples like this, we may not know what is good or what is bad, but if we depend on Kṛṣṇa, that is the ideal thing for the surrendered soul.

Śrī Śrī Gītāmālā

bhakativinoda māge śrīvāsa-caraṇe
ātma-nivedana-śakti jīvane maraṇe

So Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura prays at the lotus feet of Śrīvāsa Ṭhākura, give me the power to completely surrender myself at the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa, in life or death. So, in the instructions given by Śrīvāsa Ṭhākura to his wife and the other women, he shows how one should be completely surrendered to Kṛṣṇa, and see whatever Kṛṣṇa does, as good.

Śrīla Prabhupāda was mentioning how in 1898 there was a plague in Calcutta. There this Bābājī encouraged the people to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, Christians everyone, they all chanted the holy name and thus the plague was out of Calcutta. So, we don’t like to ask Kṛṣṇa to do anything material, we always want to chant His name, and we depend that whatever Kṛṣṇa wants, He will do. People have broken the laws of nature, they have broken the laws of God, and presently they are suffering the pandemic. So, these afflictions and daiva suffering or kleśa, like cyclones, earthquakes, they are the cause of our breaking the laws of God. So, we should chant for His pleasure, and by His mercy whatever He wants will happen, but we should be surrendered to Him.

Thus, ends the chapter entitled, Statement About Dedication of the Soul Surrendered to Kṛṣṇa.

Today I have a very special announcement to make, in fact, it is a very, very, special announcement, are you all ready to hear? I am announcing this first here! Śrīla Prabhupāda was talking about having a worldwide saṅkīrtana party. So, we are taking a step in that direction. Today, we are launching this initiative for the pleasure of His Divine Grace Abhaya Caraṇāravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami Śrīla Prabhupāda. You want to hear about this? Do you know who is going out to step to distribute mercy? Then hear on! None other than the Lord of the universe. Yes, our very dear Lord Jagannātha Śrī Rājāpur Dhāma of Māyāpur dhama! Has decided to go on a first ever, round the world, Ratha-yātrā trip along with His brother and sister Baladeva and Subhadrā Mahārāṇī Haribol! Haribol!

This will be the first worldwide digital Ratha-yātrā, where Lord Jagannātha’s ratha will be expanded into about 108 e-rathas, and they will simultaneously move across multiple cities, countries and continents. So ISKCON Māyāpur is organizing this innovative initiative. We are thankful to the Māyāpur management, the MEB – the Māyāpur Executive Board, the Māyāpur Administrative Council, and others for coming up with this unique idea. I am thrilled, I am very excited, that in these tough times, Jagannātha Svāmī would distribute His mercy to His dear devotees around the world.

So, when Their Lordships Jagannātha, Baladeva, Subhadrā Mahāraṇī and Sudarśana-deva, come to your home, what are you going to do? What are you going to offer? How would you like to welcome Them? So along with the deities and the e-ratha, I will be on one of the e-rathas, and others like His Holiness Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, His Holiness Bhakti Cāru Swami, His Holiness Bhakti Puruṣottama Swami, and many other international gurus and sannyāsīs and GBC members may go on the Ratha-yātrā. So now, first come first served! Register now! To become a Yajamāna and have Jagannātha visit your house! How much do you have to pay? Very cheap! Free of Cost! I don’t know how they are doing it, but the seats may be limited.

Bangladesh, they usually have a 100 Ratha-yātrās. So, we don’t know how many people will register. In India, they said that complete shut down in Tamil Nadu, the incidents of corona virus are increasing. So even in the shutdown we are trying to take Jagannātha to everyone’s house. But we need help also, in every ratha we will have to have anchors, announcers, technical staff. So, like I don’t know how long an announcer can last, so maybe every hour and a half we have to switch. For every ratha we will need two announcers, so if we go to Russia, how many rathas we will need in Russia. Just like I visit houses, and they announce, they say, “Oh, Guru Mahārāja has come to your house, He accepts your garland, he accepts your prasāda.” So, we see that there is a lot of work for the announcers, like the anchors. So, we know people who known English, Russian, Chinese, to serve and be with Jagannātha, to take Jagannātha to every house.

So now I am giving the first chance, quickly register. www.mercyonwheel.com who will be the first to register? Those who want to help to be an announcer, an anchor, the tech staff. So, you can register on the same website if you want to help, we need hundreds of volunteers, So, some people may have to, if they are from Māyāpur they would have to do the South American or the North American link, they will be up all night, because their day is our night. We would also like to have some volunteers from each continent, this is a great opportunity to ride with Jagannātha! There is not much time and actually, at first we thought we will charge and make this our initiative to raise funds. But then the local management decided to do it free, help all the people around the world, thank them, because they have been supporting Māyāpur, so this is the least we could do. So, it is a very big yajña, and 21st is a solar eclipse, 23rd is the Ratha-yātrā. So, India and Bangladesh, I think for those countries that are having lockdown, no problem. But for those countries that don’t have lockdown, it is a weekday. So, I don’t know what to do.

The Purī pāṇdās want us to have Ratha-yātrā on the same day. So, by seeing these Rājāpur Deities, they are self-manifested, this place in Māyāpur is not different from Jagannātha Puri. So, you can please invite Jagannātha to come to your house. I hope that you will be able to have a video connection. We see that some people they come on the call, but they don’t have a video connection. So then how will Jagannātha visit your house? So that you should somehow before the Ratha-yātrā, see that you have a video connection, remember that the website is www.mercyonwheel.com The website says wheel, are the translators going to help? They are showing their thumbs up! So, it would be a great opportunity, and people that are listening to this class either on Facebook, English, Bengali, Russian, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, they get the first chance. But this will be announced on the Daṇḍavats and various ISKCON platforms. So first come first served, book Lord Jagannātha now! Be ready to welcome Him in your house, have your garland, have your bhoga, have your ārati, whatever you can do to welcome Him! We will be in your house for a minute or so, so you have to be organized, exciting! How to visit more than a hundred thousand houses, to give out the mercy of Jagannātha! Haribol! Haribol!

Jaya Jagannātha, Jaya Baladeva, Jaya Subhadrā, Jaya Sudarśana cakra! Haribol!