20201022 Zoom Session with ISKCON Śrī Narasiṁha Giridhārī Mandir

The following is a Zoom Session with the ISKCON Sri Narasiṁha Giridhari Mandir Bangalore by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on October 22nd, 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 it is a great pleasure to be visiting again at the Śrī Narasiṁha Giridhari Mandir. Lakṣmī Narasiṁhadeva and Gāndharvikā Giridhārī Gaura Temple. Lord Caitanya had traversed the length and breadth of Karnataka many times. It says how He visited Uḍupī, He visited Gokarṇa. It also says how He visited Hāmpi. I don’t remember all, but He went to various places in Karnataka. We see that in Karnataka in Uḍupī there is a Deity of Kṛṣṇacandra. Nearby on the beach there is a Deity of Balarāma. So Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma they are here in Karnataka. So, by the mercy of Lord Caitanya also accepted His initiation in the disciplic succession of Madhvācārya from a disciple of Mādhavendra Purī. And Mādhavendra Purī was initiated in the Madhva line. This is accepted by the Viśveśvara Svāmī, the Pejāvara Svāmī and various paṇḍitas. So we are very fortunate that this state has the mercy of Lord Caitanya. Therefore, we want to see that everyone takes up the chanting of Kṛṣṇa’s holy names. I was also very fortunate to go to Mysuru and see the Deities there, see the Kāverī river and also on the way see the Yoga Narasiṁha Deity, see the Nārāyaṇa Deity.

There are many pastime places in Karnataka. But unfortunately, the people, they are forgetting their great culture, and they are being absorbed in the Western things. So we want to help them to become Kṛṣṇa conscious. Śrīla Prabhupāda was saying how it is the duty of the followers of Lord Caitanya to use their intelligence how to engage the people in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. He used the word ‘cāturi’ cleverly engaging the people. You should think how to engage all the people of Bengaluru. I was telling that in Chennai they had a ‘Bhagavad-gītā Made Easy’ course. 18 days, 18 chapters. And they had 9000 people enrolled. I told that in Mangaluru, Nāma-niṣṭhā dāsa organized a similar program and had ten to eleven thousand people. So I am hoping that Bengaluru will be able to have ten more or at least as many! Anyway, this is a great opportunity. Many people realize that the reason they are suffering, this pandemic because they have broken the laws of nature. Therefore, they are suffering the pains of nature. Fortunately, in India the recovery rate is very high. And the death rate is very low. But many people are in anxiety and fear because they don’t know who will suffer. And sometimes there is disease, permanent damage in the lungs and other organs. So we have our doctor, I asked him today, he said, he is going to treat anyone who has the disease. So he will do a video conferencing and treat.

Here in Māyāpur we had many devotees who had gotten the disease and were cured. Anyway, this material world is not the place we want to stay permanently. We want at the end of life to go back to serve Kṛṣṇa eternally and in this life by serving Kṛṣṇa we get unlimited spiritual bliss. By serving Kṛṣṇa even as a gṛhastha or a vairāgī, one can get supreme mercy. Śaṅkarācārya said we can get liberation by his jñāna-yoga one has to be a sannyāsī. But by bhakti-yoga it is so powerful that one can be a gṛhastha also and achieve the supreme destination. This is mentioned by Lord Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad-gītā 9.32. So we hope that all the devotees will use their intelligence and think how to engage all the people in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. We just had the Puruṣottama month and in a week or so we will start the Dāmodara month. We hope that all the devotees are planning ahead how to engage as many people as possible in offering lamps to Lord Dāmodara. I heard today how the devotees in Malaysia their goal is 5 lakhs of ghee lamp offering. They want to break their record and they want to have the Dāmodara pūjā in the Guinness Book of Records. But we don’t actually, the research of the pandemic has actually come up. We don’t know how they will do it. But we are in the process of doing something for Kṛṣṇa. Bengaluru is known as the special intelligence city of India. So we hope that all of you will use your intelligence to help the people to transcend this cycle of birth and death. Thank you very much for having me present.

Hare Kṛṣṇa!