20200919 Zoom Session for South India Youth Boys

The following is a Zoom Session with the South India Youth Boys by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on September 19th,2020 in Śrī Dhāma 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!

Jayapatākā Swami: So, in 2008 I had a stroke and that left the left side of my face paralyzed. I don’t know if you can understand what I say. So, I am having it repeated. So this is a very interesting topic – how to be internally and externally strong. We know that we are the jīva-śakti, we are the independent energies of the Lord. And therefore, we can be under the illusory energy, Mahāmāyā or the transcendental energy, YogaMāyā. So naturally, Mahāmāyā, the material energy gives us various problems. It allures us by thinking that we are the body, and we can be happy by sensual pleasure. Now this is an illusion. But the same senses also give us suffering. Even the pleasure is very momentary and not satisfying. It is like a fish out of water. We need to have the spiritual bliss, as long as we don’t have that we are technically very weak and we can be controlled in different ways by the external energy. Now this way you see people become very jubilant when they win a football game or something, when their team wins a cricket match. And when they lose, they get depressed. Ah! Why am I living! We heard somebody in Bangladesh who committed suicide when their cricket team lost! Ha! Ha! We should be strong internally and externally. Internal strength comes from under the shelter of the internal energy and external strength can come by good association, by transcendental association. So that we can surround ourselves with Kṛṣṇa conscious inputs. We chant the holy names, we take kṛṣṇa-prasāda, we avoid the things which are against Kṛṣṇa consciousness, that way we become very strong.

Śrīla Prabhupāda was giving an instruction which we read this morning that spiritual life is like shaving with a sharp razor. If we are not very attentive, we can cut ourselves and immediate blood. If we are very careful, then we can shave alright and no blood. So naturally, we have to be very careful in our spiritual life. We cannot take anything for granted, I mean anything material. We know that the material world is duḥkhālayam, aśāśvatam, a place of suffering, temporary. In youth maybe one feels oh, I can be very happy just by some material arrangement. Actually, as a youth, I was never happy. This was before Kṛṣṇa consciousness. I would have some pleasure and some suffering but permanent happiness, fixed happiness I did not have. When I came to Kṛṣṇa consciousness I thought let me try this fully then I will see! If I try it and it is not satisfying me, I can give up and try something else. But if I don’t try it, I don’t fully submerge myself, how will I know? So I tried it, I am still here, 52 years and I never found any problem. I mean physically, material problems so many!

In 1989, I was attacked by a crazy man in the Madrid airport. The doctor that operated on me said the cut was one millimeter away from the coronary artery. The artery that goes from the heart to the brain. If that is cut even the hospital cannot save you. Just one millimeter, the doctor said, you must be blessed by God! In 2008 I had a stroke, the doctors said, “No chance for survival!” – am still here by the mercy of Kṛṣṇa. And then other problems. So this physical world there will be problems. One of the youths in Pune, he asked me, “Being a devotee don’t you have some doubt why you got this sickness?” I told him that, “I have many disciples. They are not following very strictly. So I have to take their karma. So it may be natural that I have to suffer.” But to try to help people to advance in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, I take this risk. Anyway, the point is that although there may be some physical difficulties, actually the bliss of Kṛṣṇa consciousness has been increasing.

One time I had fever in 1975. My body was on fire but I was listening to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s classes on the Nectar of Devotion. I felt great spiritual happiness. My body was suffering but my consciousness was blissful. And I realized that I am not the body. I am actually the living force in the body. And that living body if it is connected to Kṛṣṇa, then naturally we will feel happy. In the material world there will be happiness, there will be distress. We shouldn’t be very much affected by that. Our goal should be to be God conscious, Kṛṣṇa conscious, to be practicing bhakti-yoga and that will make us strong, internally and externally. Also, externally as I said, we want good association. If we associate with devotees, it is very easy to be a devotee. If you associate with people who are addicted to drinking you may become a drunkard. Depending on what association you keep, that can affect you. Try to keep good association. Śrīla Prabhupāda said the reason why we have established ISKCON is to give people that good association. Hare Kṛṣṇa! So, of course I would like to answer your questions. I could speak longer but your questions may be more relative, more pertinent.

Question: Today morning I received a call from one of the devotees that a devotee who is initiated and practicing Kṛṣṇa consciousness since long, suddenly he is facing problem of depression, and he was asking me can I spend some time with him and things like that. I was wondering even devotees who have been practicing for some time, they are applying themselves to the process, what could be the reason Guru Mahārāja, why they have to get into depression and things like that and how can we address them and help them?

Jayapatākā Swami: I don’t know particularly. Because it is a personal thing. And what is the cause, may be different for each person. I don’t know why that devotee is depressed. They did a study in Los Angeles. They thought that the devotees had some kind of mental problem. In America 40% of the people have depression. They found very few people had depression amongst the devotees. They were surprised. So, if someone gets absorbed in the external energy, and they feel depression. And that is why we have to be very careful to keep ourselves in spiritual bliss. Now is the Puruṣottama month, it is a special month for bhakti-yoga.

Chanting every day,

govardhana dharam vande, gopālam gopa-rūpinam
gokulotsavam īśānam, govindam gopikā-priyam

We offer a lamp to Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa and like this we chant our japa. Normally the older devotees should not be depressed. I am curious to know why that devotee is feeling depression. Sometimes maybe the father is sick and one is attached to the father. Or they have some material goal and that is not realizable. I don’t know, some people get depressed when their relationship with women is interrupted. Things like that. Why a regular brahmacārī should feel depression I don’t know. I would like to know more details about that person. Maybe it is just that sometimes a devotee feels hopeless, they think I am not Kṛṣṇa conscious, there is no hope. Like that they feel depressed. Actually, Lord Caitanya gives His mercy to the most fallen. So if we are dīna, very fallen, then we stand a better chance to get delivered. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu – patita-pāvana hetu tava avatāra, mo sama patita prabhu nā pāibe āra. There is no one more fallen than me. So have Your mercy on me. You have come to deliver the most fallen. I am the most fallen. That is how Śrīla Narottama dāsa is praying. I prayed once to Śrīla Prabhupāda, I am the most fallen, you deliver the most fallen. He told me you are not the most anything. So he taught me to be humble. Anyway, there are many hands up.

Devotee: I want to serve you and I am not able to chant properly [not clear after that.]

Jayapatākā Swami: How many rounds do you chant?

Devotee: Earlier I used to chant 16 rounds. But now I am not able to chant 16 rounds regularly, miss doing rounds now and then.

Jayapatākā Swami: Okay. He said that he used to chant 16 regularly and now he sometimes misses. You see, you keep track of how many you are short and later on you make it up. This way you can keep your standard. Haridāsa Ṭhākura, we say that he chanted 3 lakhs a day. Actually, he had a monthly quota. Some days he would chant more and some days he would chant less. But average was 3 lakhs a day. We just chant 1/12th of that which is 16 rounds a day. Still there may be times when we have difficulties. You keep track and make it up. In that way, maybe on Ekādaśī or some holy day, you chant 64 rounds or 32 rounds, make up your balance. Don’t be depressed. Ha! Ha! Okay?

Question: How as youth in general, how do we very practically get over our attachment to sense objects. What activities should we do to get over our attraction to sense objects very quickly?

Jayapatākā Swami: You see, Śrīla Prabhupāda, when I was 19, told me practice brahmacarya till you are 25. And then with your guru make your decision. So between 25 to 30 you can decide which way to go. One way of helping the mind, you say, okay, I will not go into the sense attraction till later. Postpone it and then you can practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness with your full concentration. Also by staying busy in devotional service. There is no time for the sense attractions. Naturally, the living being is thinking, feeling, willing and doing. So, we should be so fixed in Kṛṣṇa’s service that we are always thinking about Kṛṣṇa. We try that when we are 25 to 30. And then we can decide which way we will be stronger. As a gṛhastha or as a brahmacārī.

Question: How to become stable and strong when the situations are worse?

Jayapatākā Swami: Question is how do we be stable and strong when the situation is difficult? How could you study in college if there are exams? There will be exams, you cannot avoid it. That’s how you get your degree. If you want to be a devotee, there will be tests. It is not a cheap thing, it is a very valuable thing. So naturally, there will be difficulties. And don’t be disturbed by that. It is part of the process.

Question: I am not attracted to the spiritual world; I don’t know why, it is amazing. Please tell me about the spiritual world and what should I do to be attracted so that I can take up sādhanā and regulative principles and bhakti seriously?

Jayapatākā Swami: You see this material world is a temporary world, aśāśvatam. And it is a place of suffering. You can look up the Al Jazeera or TRT World or any other news stations, you see all the difficulties. Some countries there is flood, some countries hurricanes, cyclone, some country war, some pandemic, rising cases. There is no old age, disease, birth or death in the spiritual world. There everyone is related to Kṛṣṇa in a loving relationship. Naturally, one feels loving ecstasy all the time. So you have your choice. In this material world there is suffering, there is some lust, temporarily you will satisfy your lust and you think that is the goal of life. But that is not what we are actually looking for. What we are looking for is the spiritual world. Free life, free choice. Spiritual bliss. There you serve the Lord out of love. Here you work for some office because you make them money and when you are not making money, they lay you off, they fire you! It is a business relation, there is no love. So it depends what you want. If you are attracted by love and freedom of all kinds of suffering, then that is the spiritual world.

Question: I am in association of devotees for the past eight years. Just like any other devotee I could admire all positive aspects of other devotees. While at one point of time there is a fall in the graph when only the negatives of other bhaktas are only visible. I think many other devotees feel the same way as well. Guru Mahārāja, how to overcome this mentality of fault finding. Is there any particular reason why such thoughts are appearing in my mind?

Jayapatākā Swami: Someone asked this kind of a question to Śrīla Prabhupāda. And Śrīla Prabhupāda said that the temples are hospitals – spiritual hospitals. When you go to the hospital you see sick people. It is natural. That is what hospitals are for. Some are doctors, they treat the sick people and there are nurses who help the patients. They are not as qualified as the doctors, but they serve the patients. So like that, devotees will have some defects until they are perfect. But we see the good qualities in others, see all the good qualities, all the things that they are doing for Kṛṣṇa and see the defects in ourselves. So don’t be like a fly which always goes to the cut wounds and stool. See the good qualities. We try to see where we can improve. It is not a competition like in the material world. Not by putting others down, we will go up. They tell me in the corporate world someone is an operations manager, someone is a quality control manager, someone is the marketing manager. So one manager tries to screw up another manager so that he can be promoted to general manager. So this thing is there in the material world. Not like that in the spiritual life. Kṛṣṇa rather sees how you cooperate with others. How you help others. Not how you fault find in others. One of the qualities of the devotees is nirmatsarāṇām, freedom from envy and fault finding. So, everything we can dovetail, except that one thing, that thing we have to renounce.

Question: How to rise above the bodily consciousness, for example we will be very disturbed when there is little suffering in the body. How to rise above that?

Jayapatākā Swami: How to rise above the bodily sufferings? You know Śrīla Prabhupāda had said that Kṛṣṇa consciousness, bhakti-yoga is a gradual process. We should expect living in this material world there will be a certain amount of suffering. And so while we practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and encounter some of the suffering of the material world. As I said, I had a fever, at the same time I was hearing the classes of Śrīla Prabhupāda. I felt great spiritual bliss. My body was on fire, high fever. I realized I am not the body. My consciousness was in bliss. My body was suffering. That happens practically, how did I get that realization, I don’t know! That happened naturally. Now like that, even though we have some material suffering, we continue to hear spiritual lectures, we chant, and that way we can realize this that Kṛṣṇa consciousness is not dependent on this material body.

Question: How to get everlasting taste in Kṛṣṇa consciousness so that we don’t look back. Right now, we get the taste but it is occasional.

Jayapatākā Swami: You see there is step by step advancement. Ādau śraddhā, first you have faith, try to listen. Then you have good association, that is satsaṅga. Then next is bhajana-kriyā, you start to practice chanting and devotional service. Then usually at that stage one takes initiation. As I said, sometimes Lord Kṛṣṇa gives special mercy, Lord Caitanya gives a glimpse of spiritual bliss. But as you said, it may not be lasting. Then one takes initiation, chants avoiding offences, they get rid of the different anarthas, anartha-nivṛtti. Then they reach a stage of niṣṭhā which is fixed up in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then after niṣṭhā, comes the stage of ruci. Ruci means consistent taste. That is what you want to achieve. That is a few steps down the road! After that is āsakti, you become very attached to the taste. After that there is the stage of ecstatic love where you start to manifest eight symptoms of loving ecstasy. Then there is pure love. Now what level are you on? That way you can understand how many levels you have to go. You are getting some glimpse of taste. Naturally, if one has that it is a special mercy. Then you want to get regular consistent taste. That is called ruci. So after initiation it is one, two three, third step up. But by Lord Caitanya’s mercy, sometimes we get a special blessing. We have a great taste momentarily. So then we realize that if we keep up with the process, we will find permanent bliss. Hare Kṛṣṇa!

Question: I have analyzed myself and found that I am very sentimental and emotional by nature. On one hand this is good because I try to do my services in the best possible manner for the pleasure of guru and Kṛṣṇa. But on the other hand this is very problematic when devotees hurt me by criticizing unfairly, that time I start feeling worthless and lose all enthusiasm. It takes quite a time to recover from that.

Jayapatākā Swami: That is what Lord Caitanya in the third verse of the Śikṣāṣṭaka said that you should be humble, tolerant, offer respect to all others, don’t expect any respect for yourself. In that way you can always chant the holy name. So it seems you are expecting others to say nice things to you. Lord Caitanya advised that we should not expect that. And then you will never be let down! Ha!

Question: How to overcome monetary pressure especially when our condition keeps getting difficult and we are jobless and have to maintain our spiritual sādhanā effectively?

Jayapatākā Swami: That is the difficulty in the material world that people want a job then they get salary. When I asked some devotees who has a crazy boss? Everybody raised their hand. They all felt their boss was crazy! So sometimes I heard that in Chowpatty they ask the devotees to work out for a year and a half and then join. So that they have an idea what it is like in the material world. I don’t know if that is true but anyway, that is one advantage of being a brahmacārī, we get our prasāda, we get our cloth, and we have our service, we don’t worry about anything. But if you are working outside, you have to worry out getting job, getting a salary, tolerating your boss, etc. etc.

Question: How Jayapatākā Swami initiated his Kṛṣṇa conscious journey being an American by nationality, it is very rare that at that time to follow Kṛṣṇa consciousness. How he made up his mind to listen to Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Jayapatākā Swami: I was looking for a spiritual master, I wanted to find someone who would tell me the answers to life, what is the purpose of life? Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? So I tried different paths – Buddhism, aṣṭāṅga-yoga, astral projection, various processes and I thought I will go to India and find a guru. But then I found Śrīla Prabhupāda’s disciples. So then I thought let me see the guru, see whether this is real. So then I went to see Śrīla Prabhupāda, at that time he was in Montreal. And then he fulfilled all my expectations. He asked me, what I wanted to do? I told him that I want to go to India. He said I will train you up first and then I will send you. So I stayed in the West under Śrīla Prabhupāda’s guidance. Then he sent me to India. Then I was in India for many years, since 1970 and he asked me to be an Indian citizen so that I could stay here. To do that I had to renounce my American citizenship. So today I am speaking to you as an Indian. I renounced my American citizenship. Hare Kṛṣṇa!

Question: How to have proper consciousness while doing our duties, our services and doing sādhana?

Jayapatākā Swami: You see, whatever our duties are, we do them as an offering to Kṛṣṇa. In that way, our activities are connection to Kṛṣṇa. We can be fully Kṛṣṇa conscious no matter what we do. That is called yukta-vairāgya. Devoting everything in the service of Kṛṣṇa.

Question: I got initiated by you. How do I feel connected with you all the time?

Jayapatākā Swami: Are you in Bangladesh or in South India.

Devotee: In Bangladesh, Caṭṭagrāma

Jayapatākā Swami: Did you download the Jayapatākā Swami App.

Devotee: Yes.

Jayapatākā Swami: I send about six to ten messages a day. Does that not help you to feel connected?

Devotee: We have limited number of lectures to connect with you in Bengali.

Jayapatākā Swami: Every night at 7 pm I give a class on caitanya-līlā and that is translated into Bengali. On the Jayapatākā Swami Bangla Facebook page. I will tell the people on my App to put more Bengali classes. Messages are there in Bengali.

Thank you very much for your participation. I hope you are both internally and externally very strong. Hare Krishna!