20210423 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.1.22

The following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on April 23rd, 2021 in Sri Dhama Mayapur, India. The class begins with a reading from the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 1.1.22.

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

Translation: We think that we have met Your Goodness by the will of providence, just so that we may accept you as captain of the ship for those who desire to cross the difficult ocean of Kali, which deteriorates all the good qualities of a human being.

Hariḥ oṁ tat sat!

Guru Mahārāja: I will just speak in English because simultaneously they are translating into Hindi and Bengali. In this verse, Śrīla Prabhupāda is saying how the human being is very absorbed in sense gratification. Thus they have forgotten the real purpose of human life which is self-realization. One BBC reporter came and was taking pictures of Māyāpur. I took him on a boat and somehow, I brought him into discussion, how people were absorbed in sense gratification. He commented, “What is wrong with that?!” You know, it kinds of sums up the consideration in the world today that people have to have their senses satisfied. We know that they are actually serving their senses. They are go-dāsa, we want them to become gosvāmī, to control their sense, not to be controlled by the senses.

So Śrīla Prabhupāda he took the great austerity to go to the West at a ripe old age. He could have stayed in Vṛndāvana and got mokṣa. But he wanted to see his spiritual master’s instruct, Lord Caitanya’s instructions fulfilled. So he took this austerity to go to the West. And he did not have any money, which you can hardly eat one day in America! So he had no help and he was in a foreign country. But he had Kṛṣṇa. So he was guiding the conditioned souls to seek after self-realization. To seek after Kṛṣṇa. So, Lord Caitanya had three instructions: bolo-kṛṣṇa, bhajo-kṛṣṇa, karo-kṛṣṇa-śikṣā. Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, worship and serve Lord Kṛṣṇa. And study Lord Kṛṣṇa’s teachings. Teachings - Bhagavad-gītā spoken by Kṛṣṇa and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam which is spoken about Kṛṣṇa. So he worked tirelessly at transcendental Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Bhagavad-gītā.. Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. At that time, he mentioned there were about 400 English editions of Bhagavad-gītā but every edition more or less, they gave their own speculative interpretation. Some were better than others. But nothing was just mentioning what Kṛṣṇa was instructing. So, Śrīla Prabhupāda made the Bhagavad-gītā As It Is.

And I remember I had to read it 10 times before taking initiation. Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted that his books be studied. I hope all the disciples, all the devotees, all the followers of Śrīla Prabhupāda will read and study his books. He left the books as his donation for the future. And I saw how he would get up by midnight and he would be translating all night, then go for his walk at about 5 in the morning, come back to the temple at about 6 or 7. Then circumambulate the deities and give his Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam class. Then, he was very regulated. And every day would be the same schedule more or less. When he would read letters, when he would meet people. When he would take prasāda or take his massage, he was very regulated. So like that, we had the good fortune to have his association in Māyāpur. I also had his association in North America. In Canada, in California.

So, this is like the sages were very happy to have Sūta Gosvāmī as the captain of their ship. Similarly, we were completely lost in the age of Kali. And so Śrīla Prabhupāda came to be the captain of our ship. He told me you are a soldier in Kṛṣṇa’s army. So I have been trying to do that for the past 50 some years.

How this verse tells us that we should have a spiritual master who is the captain of our ship. We see how Lord Kṛṣṇa came down as Caitanya Mahāprabhu so that He established this saṅkīrtana movement, He is the original captain of the ship. That has been handed down through guru-paramparā. So we all have to accept a captain of our ship. In flying any airplane, they have different levels of license. Those who have to see to fly, that is one level. Those who can fly into the clouds and not see, they completely depend on their instruments. Their body may fool them and they feel that they are going up or down but the instruments show something else. So they have to follow the instruments. Like that we have to depend on the guidance of our spiritual master. He is the captain of our ship. And we may feel something else, but still we have to follow the instructions of guru and Kṛṣṇa. Śrīla Prabhupāda left us these instructions of Kṛṣṇa and the spiritual master applies that to our lives. In this way, we cross this ocean of Kali. Kali-yuga in one sense is very dangerous. Because if one does not have a spiritual master, spiritual captain of the ship, then you can gradually lose the good qualities of a human being. But if they have a spiritual guide, then he can guide them through the dangerous ocean of Kali. And then actually, Kali-yuga is a special blessing. Because we can achieve in Kali-yuga what you could not achieve before. Lord Caitanya’s mercy is flowing. And some people beg, pray to be born in Kali-yuga so that they can chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. They can practice bhakti-yoga. Lord Caitanya when he was chanting, the sound was penetrating the whole universe. And even reached the spiritual world. When Indra heard the kīrtana, he and many devas came down to see and when they saw Lord Caitanya chanting and dancing and crying, manifesting differ ecstatic symptoms of love, they were amazed! They fainted and they came to consciousness again, they took human forms and entered into the kīrtana. Haribol! Haribol! Like this people all over the universe joined this massive kīrtana of Caitanya Mahāprabhu to go to the Chanda Kazi.

Lord Caitanya when He was in Jagannātha Purī, He would also chant before the ratha of Lord Jagannātha. At that time, He was in the mood of Rādhārāṇī and His prayers were like Rādhārāṇī meeting Kṛṣṇa in Kurukṣetra and taking Him back to Vṛndāvana. So the Ratha-yātrā was Kṛṣṇa leaving Dvārakā and going back to Vṛndāvana. So, that is why we sing to Lord Jagannātha, nīlācale-candra āmāra prabhu jagannātha, that is Nīlācala is like Dvārakā and Guṇḍicā is like Vṛndāvana. Then they call Guṇḍicā, Sundarācala. Sundarācala-candra prabhu āmāra jagannātha, jaya jagannātha. Sundarācala-candra prabhu āmāra jagannātha, The Lord of Vṛndāvana,The Lord of Sundarācala is going from Nīlācala to Sundarācala, going from Dvārakā to Vṛndāvana. So this ecstatic consciousness of Kṛṣṇa-līlā was something that Lord Caitanya would experience at every moment. And this is something rare, conditioned souls are not aware of the Personality of Godhead. But the mercy of Lord Caitanya, we enter into His very confidential pastimes. And this has been revealed to us by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda. So whether He is doing Navadvīpa-līlā or Nīlācala-līlā, or He is travelling throughout India, especially South India, also to Vṛndāvana, Dvārakā, Pāṇḍarapur, all these pastimes of Lord Caitanya, they are very special. And that has been revealed by Śrīla Prabhupāda, they have been revealed by Lord Caitanya.

So, as human beings in the Age of Kali we don’t have the spiritual inclination then all our human qualities will be gradually lost and we will become like animals. So Sūta Gosvāmī, he met the sage of Naimiṣāraṇya and they were so happy to accept him as their spiritual guide to their ship. They wanted to thank him for coming there and guiding them. So in this age of Kali, we need to take shelter of some representative of the guru-paramparā so that we can also achieve the full success of human life.

So morning usually after attending maṅgala-ārati, after that I see different temples. But this time, I saw some temples, I don’t know if all have downloaded by Jayapatākā Swami app from the android or the Apple. So, there I found that under the JPS Vyāsa-pūjā 2021 there are different Vyāsa-pūjā offerings going on from India, from the Middle East, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Australia, USA and Canada. So I just could not hear so many I scanned through, I heard some. I want some time to hear all the offerings.

So like that, 5000 years ago when the sages of Naimiṣāraṇya were talking to Sūta Gosvāmī, they went to Naimiṣāraṇya, that place was like the hub of the universe and they were there to help the people of Kali-yuga. But now, we are advanced in Kali-yuga and we have the internet, actually many people use the internet for various sense gratification. But we can see we can also use this in Kṛṣṇa’s service. I could see it is so nice that people from all over the world are participating. I am thinking that on the 125 anniversary of Śrīla Prabhupāda We can do something special The idea is that he is the captain of our ship Śrīla Prabhupāda is our Founder-Ācārya, he is the preeminent śikṣā-guru, and he is, like in the flotilla there are many ships, there is an admiral, and he guides the whole flotilla, and each ship has a Captain but they all follow the admiral. So like that Śrīla Prabhupāda has set the path and different ships are following. Somehow Lord Caitanya He has given us this opportunity to go back to Kṛṣṇa. And this way, we should be very careful to mature in our devotional service and to become true future captains of the ships throughout the ages. So our human form of life is a great opportunity to actually learn the science of bhakti-yoga. But unfortunately, everyone is taught, children are taught to be expert sense gratifiers. But actually, there is no happiness, very minimal happiness, real happiness we are seeking is to have pure love for Kṛṣṇa. This material life is like a dungeon like a prison house, but somehow, we are thinking we are the masters of the world, but actually we belong in the spiritual sky where there is no birth no death no old age disease. So we can engage in the direct personal service of Kṛṣṇa and so, Śrīla Prabhupāda said, we should make the best use of a bad bargain. While we are in the material world, with a material body, use that body to serve Kṛṣṇa. And that way we make the best use of the bad bargain. And we can achieve Kṛṣṇa’s lotus feet. We can gradually awaken our dormant love for Kṛṣṇa.

So, if the husband wife they help each other to serve Kṛṣṇa, that is an ideal situation. In this way, we want to keep Kṛṣṇa in the center of our lives. We want to have the children also awaken their dormant love for Kṛṣṇa. This way in the future we can see the whole world oriented on service to God instead of service to the senses. People now they are gradually having some altruistic ideas. So that can be further develop din to God conscious. So now people want to see the ecology, save the earth, they want to see people of all races including, all genders, all types of material bodies, in the śloka about devotional service, it says sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṁ - free of all material designations. And that way the whole world could be united. So it is very important to cross over this ocean of Kali, having a proper captain of our ship and understand the real purpose of human life. Hare Kṛṣṇa!