20220302 Śrī Śrī Rādhā Mādhava Golden Jubilee Festival Address

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

Jayapatākā Swami: I would like to offer my humble obeisances to His Holiness Lokanātha Mahārāja, Bāsu Ghoṣa Prabhu, Hṛdaya Caitanya Prabhu and all the sannyāsīs assembled here, all my godbrothers, all the devotees.

I remember when Śrīla Prabhupāda sent me to Māyāpur, there was only the grass hut. And one tent for cooking behind. The Deities were there with Jananivāsa Prabhu and They came a little later. At that time, we had Rs. 35 rupees per week to spend in any way we wanted, 6-7 devotees to maintain. So I asked for permission to grow some vegetables and things. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, he said, “Oh, he is a city boy what can he do?” Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “Alright let him try!” And on a small plot like one khaṭa I grew radish (mūla) and devotees, you would be amazed how much vegetables were grown in one khaṭa. Quintals, tons, so our devotees told me, “No more radish please! No more radish!” There was not very many ways you could cook radish!

Anyway, I remember Śrīla Prabhupāda he came here and said this hut is in the mood of goodness and the guest house and other things made with bricks and cement and steel, they are in the mode of passion. But who will stay in the grass huts? So we had to build guest houses and parks, so that people would stay. And in Māyāpur at that time, we just had a bamboo gate, and people would ride by in their bicycles in the morning, to work in the jute mills. Across the road one day we saw a tiger. And at that time this place was a very remote place. But Śrīla Prabhupāda envisioned that he wanted to build a city. He told me that, in Māyāpur we want to build a city and that we should have 50,000 devotees, and he had a whole vision.

And when Tamala Kṛṣṇa came out to buy land, I was the temple president in Calcutta. When he and Śrīla Prabhupāda went out to see Śrīdhara Mahārāja, I had the opportunity to worship his Rādhā Gopīnātha Deities. Anyway, I remember when Tamāla Kṛṣṇa came back he said to make sure that the land deal was confirmed, he had each rupee serial number written down. This is not normally done but he did it. At that time, the farmers they came out in a pickup truck with sticks, although it was only 14,000 rupees, at that time it was a lot of money. What has been described as the ground-breaking, Śrīla Prabhupāda actually installed Ananta Śeṣa and they dug a deep pit and went down with a ladder and one other Gauḍīya Maṭha sannyāsī accompanied him. Many different Mahārājas and brahmacārīs, they came. We heard a nice description from His Holiness Lokanātha Mahārāja.

Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted to build a temple for Lord Caitanya, the TOVP and he was seeing different designs and it was his desire to build a temple of the Vedic Planetarium to Lord Caitanya.

One day, our Śrīdhara Swami, he brought a high tech purī roller, for us it was high tech. With two small vinyl surfaces, he put some dough in between and pushed it down and put ghee and flattens out and fried in ghee and we were testing it out. And we took some date gūr and ate the date-gūr with the puri. And Śrīla Prabhupāda was looking out of the window of the grass hut and called me over, “This is not sannyāsa life!” He was teaching us as Subhekṣana said, sacrifice. No sense gratification, not even puri with date-gūr. So like that we were gradually growing, we grew vegetables, rice.

We had some cows and we had beehives. One beehive was by Śrīla Prabhupāda and we had a cow Kāmadukh who would give milk without babies – that was very rare. She was eating the grass under the beehive. She knocked the beehive over and Śrīla Prabhupāda called, “Jayapatākā, Jayapatākā!!!” All over him there were bees. So I wore my bee shoes and clothes and went to remove them. Then Śrīla Prabhupāda said better to have the bees somewhere else.

So like this many different things happened. Śrīla Prabhupāda said that this was his places of worship, Vṛndāvana was his residence and Bombay was his office. There was a pukur, and at one point he said that at the edge of the pukur, build him a bhajana-kuṭīra, a residence. But he left just before, that so that is why we built his samādhi there.

I can tell you many things how Bob Cohen, Brahmā-tīrtha Prabhu, he asked Śrīla Prabhupāda many questions. Śrīla Prabhupāda he had a vision, at first, he thought he would build four like Lotus building. Then he approached the minister of the Congress government at that time to get about 400 acres of land, but before that was done the Communist government was formed. And recently the Trinamul Congress had formed the government and Mamata Banerjee and her cabinet granted us the land ceiling of 750 acres.

Hṛdaya Caitanya is working on the Master Plan, Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted a Master Plan, and as I said he wanted to build a spiritual city here. 50-years ago we had 6 or 7 devotees, now we have about 6 or 7 thousand devotees. So like that, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s vision was that we should have 50,000 devotees. We are very thankful to all the devotees who are here and helping to build the TOVP and in helping to build the city, and we are trying to fulfill the vision of Śrīla Prabhupāda and the previous ācāryas, to manifest the spiritual city. I want to thank you all very much. Hare Kṛṣṇa!