20220830 ISKCON Visakhapatnam Evening Address

The following is an evening address given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on August 30th, 2022 at Iskcon Vizag, 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: I have seen so many Gaura-Nitāis that They are accepting the bhoga.

Just by glancing they can eat.

By any sense they can do any activity of the other senses.

By looking at the offerings He can also eat.

And the devotees have put all their bhakti and made beautiful preparations.

So, I saw preparations for all parts of India.

Rajasthan, Bihar, Bengal, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and all-over South India.

But there is bhakti in all the preparations.

Some devotees of Lord Caitanya are famous for their cooking.

Rāghava Paṇḍita and his sister are famous.

They would prepare prasāda which don’t have expiry date.

Some preparations have an expiry date of one year.

Some expiry date for six months.

I once went to a temple in Nāthadvāra, Nāthajī, in Rajasthan.

The pūjārīs, do not get any allowance.

But they get a percentage of the prasāda.

So, the pūjārī would identify, this is one year, six months, three months, one month.

Then he showed me some raita with yogurt and vegetables – this has expiry date 3-hours, then it will be gone. 

And like that when Lord Nityānanda came to Pānihāṭi, Rāghava Paṇḍita was very happy to see Lord Nityānanda.

And he asked how many people are there with You?

Alright, take a bath in the Ganges and in one hour I will have cooking ready for 50 people.

And he would send to Jagannātha Purī every year, bags of prasāda.

They were famous Rāghava’s jhālis.

And for one year the preparations were sent and some would be one year, some would be six months and so on.

He knew how to make sweet from Ganges mud.

You have to be very expert to make an edible sweet from Ganges mud.

Of course, we all are associated with the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, we chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, we read Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, we also offer Kṛṣṇa various types of sāttvika-bhoga.

We hope that Nitāi-Gaura will be very pleased with your offering.

Rādhārāṇī got the blessing from Durvāsa Muni that whatever She cooked would be nectar.

So, Mother Yaśodā, the queen of Vraja said, Rādhārāṇī has to cook for my son because it tastes nectar.

In this way, every day Rādhārāṇī had to cook for Kṛṣṇa.

So cooking is a very special service.

For installed Deities we want the cooks to be second initiated.

So, here we saw that many people are cooking very expertly. 

And at one time, when Śrīla Prabhupāda was sick in Vṛndāvana, he said he wanted some baṭi-charcaḍi.

They gave him but there was no chili! He said, “Where is the chili?” They said, “You are sick Śrīla Prabhupāda.” He said, “I am sick because my digestion is weak, so I need chili to digest all the ghee.” He sent the preparation back and said add chili!

I heard that in Andhra they like chili!

So anyway, we see how some of the special pastimes they have strong relation to having big feasts.

We started ciḍā-dadhi mahotsava in America.

But since in India it is in the tropical fruits season, they have mango, banana, jackfruit.

But in America they have fruits from all over the world.

So I made 18 preparations.

East and West Pañca-tattva, the traditional Bengali, pure Western fruits, dry fruits, carob paste (imitation chocolate, cocoa).

We made Śrīla Prabhupāda preparation, Ecstatic preparation, six with yogurt, six with condensed milk and six salty.

Italian salad, Mexican salad, American salad.

So my purvāśrama mother she said, ‘Why do you give these free? You should auction them.” One clay pot auctioned for a thousand dollars! 80,000 rupees – one pot!

But recently, someone at some other place gave 5,000 dollars for one pot!

That was in Bengaluru.

The pots they had auctioned they got a total donation for the temple of 30,000 dollars.

So everybody gets a little pot free.

But the big ones are auctioned.

The small they can eat but the big pots they give out the prasāda to eat.

Anyway, this prasāda is a very inspiring sevā.

Every Ratha-yātrā they have in Malaysia, they have a big feast at the end.

Since they have a lot of Tamils there, some of the preparations are South Indian, and some are noodles, like Chinese type.

So, like today I saw different parts of India being represented.

And that everyone they offered to Nitāi-Gaura with devotion and love.