20200830 Zoom Session with Mathurādeśa Devotees

The following is a zoom meeting with His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on August 30th,2020 in Śrī Dhāma Māyāpur, India. Zoom meeting with Mathuradesa Devotees

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

Hariḥ oṁ tat sat!

Jayapatākā Swami: Today is actually, the Vāmana Dvādaśī in Māyāpur. If you have difficulty, then raise your hands. You see, we were reading how Mother Śacī, Lord Gaurāṅga told her that she had been His mother for many, many births. She was His mother as Pṛśnigarbha, she was His mother as Aditi, the mother of Vāmanadeva. And today is the appearance day of Vāmanadeva. Vāmanadeva came as a midget brāhmaṇa and begged from Bali Mahārāja, three steps of land. How Bali Mahārāja said, “I can give You all the land, why do You want only three steps?” Bali Mahārāja (Vānama) said, “I will only be happy with three steps of land, nothing else will satisfy Me.” So, Bali agreed to give Him three steps of land. But His guru Śukrācārya told him that, “Don’t give Him, He is Viṣṇu, He will take everything.” But Bali said, “I have already promised, how can I take away my promise?” And Śukrācārya told all the different reasons one can take and tell a lie according to śāstra. He said use one of these reasons and take back your promise. But Bali Mahārāja, he was committed. So Vāmanadeva, He expanded Himself into Trivikrama. One step, He took the whole Bhū-maṇḍala, with the other step He took all the higher planets and pierced the cover of the universe. And then He penetrated the universe cover and the Causal Ocean entered as His lotus foot wash, caraṇamṛta. That was Mother Ganges who was caught on Lord Śiva’s head. So like this Trivikrama asked Bali, “Where should I put My last step?” As with His two steps He had already taken the entire kingdom of Bali Mahārāja. Then Bali said, “Put it on My head!” Bali would become the legitimate Indra.

Mother Śacī like that she was Devahūti, mother of Kapila Muni, she was Devakī the mother of Lord Kṛṣṇa. So like that Lord Caitanya said, “You are My mother life after life.” So Lord Caitanya was going to take sannyāsa. He told His mother, “Whenever You want Me, you just desire it, I will be there, I will come. But don’t be in anxiety.”

So like this, today is also the appearance days of Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī is one of the Six-Gosvāmīs. He was the youngest nephew of Rūpa and Sanātana. He went to university, in order he thought I should be educated to serve my spiritual master. He took initiation from Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī and śikṣā from Śrīla Sanātana Gosvāmī. So, sometimes our children ask, “How can I dovetail my education, how can I balance between education and spiritual life?” We should see that our education is also something that we an offer to Kṛṣṇa. And we take our education as a devotional service. So like this, everything we do, should always remember Kṛṣṇa. Lord Caitanya was doing kīrtana and He promised people to visit His house. They all brought flower garlands, sandalwood pulp and offered their prostrate obeisances, daṇḍavat praṇāmas and Lord Caitanya said: “bolo-kṛṣṇa” – chant Kṛṣṇa, “bhaja-kṛṣṇa”, worship Lord Kṛṣṇa, “kara-kṛṣṇa-śikṣā” – study the teachings of Kṛṣṇa – His two teachings are Bhagavad-gītā, spoken by Lord Kṛṣṇa, and the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam which is spoken about Lord Kṛṣṇa.

Now we are having two days left before the Bhādra Pūrṇimā. I don’t know how many devotees have pledged for the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam sponsorship or distribution. This is a great opportunity to get the blessings of Lord Kṛṣṇa. To give out His literary incarnation, His sound avatāra.

Anyway, Lord Caitanya was saying how Mother Śacī was His mother birth after birth. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam tells us we should not make our goal of life sense gratification. In the material world we see that everybody is making sense gratification their goal in life. So we have bodies, our material body will sometimes experience pleasure, sometimes experience suffering. Now with the corona virus pandemic, many people are experiencing suffering. Some people are dying. The material world is not a very nice place to stay. The material energy is causing us to suffer, to remind us that this is not the place we want to stay. We want to go back home, back to Godhead. So although we may suffer, or sometimes we may enjoy, that should not be our goal in life. Our goal should be to enjoy spiritual life, spiritual bliss and ecstasy. To have love for Kṛṣṇa. Materially happiness comes, happiness goes. Like that. So, we do bhakti-yoga, we want to always remember Kṛṣṇa and never forget Kṛṣṇa. Lord Caitanya was advising that when you are resting, when you are eating, when you are awake, every time you should always remember Lord Kṛṣṇa. So this was His advice and people seeing His beauty, hearing His instructions, chanted Haribol! Haribol! Haribol! They were feeling so much ecstasy in the service of Lord Caitanya! So we want all the devotees to experience this spiritual bliss and in the material world there will be suffering, there will be enjoying. Both things will be there. We should not plan to stay here for more births. I don’t know if anyone’s birthday is today. I mean it is Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī and Vāmanadeva. We do hope that if it is, this is your last birth, we want you to go back to the spiritual world where there is no death, no birth, no old age, no disease, no suffering. Where one can be fully engaged in the Lord’s loving service. If we practice in this world doing devotional service for the Lord, then we naturally awaken that dormant love of Kṛṣṇa that is in our heart and then we want to go back and serve Kṛṣṇa all the time. Hare Kṛṣṇa!

Thank you very much on this auspicious day of Vāmana Dvādaśī. I don’t know if it Vāmana Dvādaśī in Australia but here it is. Any questions?

Haribol! Hare Kṛṣṇa! Gurumahārāja ! Hare Kṛṣṇa!

Question: Today we were reading from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam Vāmanadeva’s līlā and Śrīla Prabhupāda mentions in the purport that Mother Earth is feeling the burden of untruthfulness. My question is how can we alleviate this in this Age of Kali-yuga when it is one of the symptoms of Kali-yuga?

Jayapatākā Swami: There are four legs of religiosity, and the last leg is truthfulness. Still a little truthfulness is there in Kali-yuga. Austerity, cleanliness, mercy – no mercy but little bit of truthfulness. We want to promote that, if people chant Hare Kṛṣṇa then all the qualities of religiosity will be on the up rise. If we get people to chant naturally truthfulness and the other qualities will be on the rise. What do you think?

Devotees: I think that is great Guru Mahārāja. In terms of people that are not following, our role is to encourage them to do Harināma and elevate their consciousness. Is that one way maybe?

Jayapatākā Swami: Have you downloaded my Jayapatākā Swami App? (Devotees: Yes, I have, thank you). Have you seen the message where I gave the video of Bhakti Tīrtha Swami. He quotes the Qur’an and Bible, all the scriptures say that chant the name of God. So, if people won’t chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, and they say there are Muslim or Christian, then you can quote these verses in the Bible, in the Qur’an, how they should chant the name of God.

Haribol!