20201222 Zoom Session with South Vṛndāvana Devotees

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
hariḥ oṁ tat sat

Jayapatākā Swami: I want to thank all the devotees from the South Vṛndāvana Project for having me come, receiving me, giving me the darśana of Śrī Nitāi Gaura, Rādhā Vṛndāvana Kṛṣṇa, Jagannātha, Baladeva, Subhadrā and Sudarśana cakra, Śrīla Prabhupāda. It is a wonderful temple where you do Tulasī-pūjā, Bhagavad-gītā reading, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam class, Caitanya-caritāmṛta class, Bhagavad-gītā class. In Chennai before the lockdown, they had 40 people attending the Bhagavad-gītā class. They asked all of them to invite their contacts, neighbors, relatives, work colleagues, any Whatsapp group they were in, they gave them the poster of the Bhagavad-gītā Made Easy. 18 days, 18 chapters. From 40 people, do you know how many got registered? Previously Jagat Sākṣi dāsa told me they had 500 registered in Thiruvananthapuram. But in Chennai from 40 people, they got 9,000 people registered! 9,000! 9000! I told that to Mangaluru, Nāmaniṣṭha dāsa in Karnataka. And he started a program in seven languages – Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Hindi, English, others. They got 11,000 people, 11000! Three times and they had 20 volunteers. So the different classes were given by the volunteers. And Nāmaniṣṭha dāsa, he simply trained each volunteer what to say in the next class. I got a letter today from Chennai saying that this COVID-19 lockdown is a blessing in disguise. I don’t want to hear anyone say after the lockdown, we will preach. You should preach now people are more receptive now! Now the people they are afraid of dying. So they are thinking more about God. When the pandemic is over, they will go back to their lives, sense gratification.

We want people to become surrendered to Kṛṣṇa. They should understand that Kṛṣṇa is our life, Kṛṣṇa is our soul, Kṛṣṇa is our father, Kṛṣṇa is our mother. The difference is that in the spiritual world, everyone tries to please Kṛṣṇa. And in the material world, most of the people, they try to please their senses. They don’t think much about Kṛṣṇa. Because India is a special place. Because here people are somewhat Kṛṣṇa conscious. We want to fan that spark; we want to help them become more and more Kṛṣṇa conscious.

In Guruvayur we hear about that elephant, Keśava. How even an elephant is Kṛṣṇa conscious. How he is running to get the opportunity to carry the Deity. How he is fasting on Ekādaśī. So this is India. And I am very happy that you made this South Vṛndāvana project. Nice Deity worship, nice Kṛṣṇa conscious activities. And I am worried that people are Kṛṣṇa conscious in the Gulf but when they come back to India, they get swallowed up by māyā. Now, it is nice that here and also in Palakkad and different places, the devotees are associating together, and they are doing Kṛṣṇa conscious activities together. This is the real purpose of life.

Actually, when Kṛṣṇa is pleased, it gives us more happiness. Senses give us sometimes pleasure, sometimes suffering. Like now in Māyāpur it is cold. I see in South Vṛndāvana, Kerala, it is very warm. Here we have the sweater, cap. It is 9 degrees here yesterday. Some days it is 12, some days it is 9, some day 15. So South Vṛndāvana I think it is always warm. So that is the nature of the senses. Sometimes they give us pleasure, sometimes they give us suffering. Rather than trying to serve the senses, try to serve Kṛṣṇa’s senses, Hṛṣīkeśa, He is the Lord of the senses. With our hṛṣīkeṇa, we serve Hṛṣīkeśa. With our senses we serve the Master of our senses. So I am very glad to see how you are all cooperating together to serve the Deities.

I am glad to see how Narahari Caitanya dāsa and Jagat Sākṣi dāsa they are coming to help. So in Kerala we know that this was the place discovered by Paraśurāma – He threw His chopper out and that land was renamed as Kerala, so that is a divine land. So we want the people to be God conscious and chant the holy name. We are the followers of sanātana-dharma. We chant in Sanskrit. But even if they chant in some other languages, if it is the name of the Supreme Personality of Godhead it is alright according to Śrīla Prabhupāda. So, everyone should chant the holy name of the Lord. Actually, we know that the holy name of the Lord even if it is chanted accidently, will give one special association and mercy of the Lord. This is our special facility in Kali-yuga. By chanting the name of Hari, we get the association of Hari. No difference between Hari and His name.

So thank you very much! I am glad to be taken on a visit, but I certainly would like to come physically when the pandemic is over. But in the meantime, you can preach. Hare Kṛṣṇa!