20200409 Zoom Class to Mathurādeśa Devotees

The following is an address given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on April 9th,2020 in Śrī Dhāma Māyāpur, India. The address was given to the Mathurādeśa Devotees via zoom.

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: I don’t know if you have lockdown in Mathurādeśa. You see, this COVID-19, the doctors say there is no treatment and there is no vaccine. As a result, they say the best thing is to avoid getting the disease. That is why they are saying keep social distancing, wash your hands frequently, because the virus stays alive for about three days on some hard surface. Like in the elevator or lift, you push the numbers and someone positive with the virus pushed the number before you, the virus stays on the button for three days. You touch it, it is on your hand. If you wash your hands frequently then you are safe. Otherwise, you touch the elevator button, it is on your hand and then touch your nose or your mouth, your face, then you get it. That is why they say, keep away from people, wash your hands frequently. But most people don’t understand how the virus works.

So apart from this, we know that people have broken the laws of nature and therefore they are suffering. This virus comes from the animals. That is why human beings, we don’t have the natural immunity. So because they eat animals, the animal virus came into the human beings. Anyway, chanting the name of Hari, chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra, at least chanting some name of God, will gradually help. The Lord is known as All Merciful and therefore He is pleased if you chant His name. You can ask the believers of other Faiths to chant the name of God they believe in. And if they are open, they can chant the name in Sanskrit. In Sanskrit it is

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare!

The Kali-Santaraṇa Upaniṣad states that these 16 names they destroy all the kali-kalmaṣa, all the contaminations of Kali-yuga. Therefore, we need to have everyone chant, especially the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra otherwise the name of God. But Nārada Muni says in some Purāṇa, even if you trick someone to chant the name, like Nārada Muni he got the dacoit to chant mara, mara, mara, kill, kill, kill. But by chanting mara, mara, mara it came out with the first syllable as Rāma, Rāma, Rāma. So that way the dacoit got purified. I don’t know what particular words have a double meaning. Like the word for get ready, in Hindi it is tayyar hai? In Bosnian and Serbian it is Spreman. Spreman if you remove the S and the N there is prema! So like that, if you wear a tie on the knee, what is that? It my Knee tie, Ni – tai! Like that, you could tell people Go run Go, Gorungo, Gorungo, Gorungo! That becomes Gaurāṇga! Somehow or another, get the people to chant!

In the last verse of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, by chanting the name of Hari, one can get rid of all the bad karma and all the sufferings. If people want to be free of suffering, they should chant the name of Hari. So, here in Māyāpur, I give, some days, four classes a day, three meeting and I lost my voice!! Now I just give two classes or three. Today I gave three! And one meeting. From 11 to 1 in the morning I met with the UK devotees. And here I am meeting with the Mathurādeśa devotees. Most people’s videos are off. Everybody has got their hand raised on zoom. So every day at 6 pm I give a class on Caitanya-līlā. That is on Facebook. But this is zoom. This is a special class for the Mathurādeśa devotees! Haribol! If you have any questions, I will try to answer them?

Any questions?

Question: How do we increase the intensity of the absorption in our daily services to you and Kṛṣṇa? In other words, how do we keep our attention in devotional service fresh every day?

Jayapatākā Swami: Just like Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura said, kṛṣṇera saṁsāra kara, chāri anācāra, we want to put Kṛṣṇa in the center of our household life. We want to just give up the prohibited activities. Meat eating, intoxication and others. And if one wakes up with that intention then naturally, they will try to increase their services of the day. We want to please guru and Kṛṣṇa. That is the goal of our life. The common people, the goal of their life is to have sense pleasure. But sometimes our senses are pleased and sometimes they suffer. Just like no one wants fever but some people get. Nobody wants the Corona virus, but some get. Vrajeśvara Gaura Dāsa, he read to me one quote that Sarvajaya Mādhava from Dallas had sent, something that in the Bible, they said that stay in your house for a little time and let the Lord take His vengeance and then after that it will all pass! What a coincidence, how great is our God. The Government arranged the closure on March 26, 2020, in the Bible verse Isaac 26.20 says “Go home My people and close the doors. Hide a little until the wrath of the Lord has passed.” They found this verse in the Bible.

Anyway we are trying to do inter-faith preaching. Not only the Hindus but get the other faiths to preach. In America they have mostly Christians. Middle East mostly Muslims. We respect all the religions and we want them to just chant the name of God they believe in. So if we chant Hare Kṛṣṇa in the morning and every day we do our devotional service, naturally, that becomes the focus of our life. We want the husband and wife to work together and cooperate together. I was so inspired to hear how different gṛhasthas are doing internet preaching! One gṛhastha said that he was giving four classes a day in this lockdown period in India and he had 500 people attending. One lady was saying how she had a Japathon and they were chanting japa, one person chanted 2 lakhs 11 thousand rounds. A little child chanted 16 rounds. Sometimes Japathon, sometimes class, sometimes Bhakti-vṛkṣa, different ways they are preaching, encouraging people to take up to chanting in this time of crisis. Even in the Supreme Court of India, they recommended to the Government, people should do bhajana, kīrtana and namaz. Any other question?

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Question: I have taken Prabhupāda āśraya. Daily I am getting chance to serve so many COVID patients. But so far, so many patients came negative. Still we are in the line that we will get more patients. During the time I serve those patients what kind of attitude should I have towards Kṛṣṇa consciousness?

Jayapatākā Swami: You are a nurse? Please be careful. You have protection? (Yes, the protection is not so adequate in some places. In that case it is my duty to serve humanity as I am a nurse. How should my behavior be? It is a crisis and I cannot say it is not my responsibility and I feel Kṛṣṇa will not accept that if I am away from my duty.)

Even in America the nurses are demonstrating. If you get infected, you cannot be of any service. You should request your supervisor to give you the appropriate protective gear. At the same time pray to Kṛṣṇa for protection.

Kṛṣne matir astu!