20221008 Dāmodara Program Inaugural Speech

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

Jayapatākā Swami: Vaṇakkam! Nandri! This is a very important day in Malaysia. The day of the Dāmodara launch. Some people observe Dāmodara from Ekādaśī, some from Dvādaśī. Some from Pūrṇimā. We usually take the Dāmodara lamp offering up to Pūrṇimā.

In the śāstra it mentions that any devotional activity you do in the month of Dāmodara (Kārtika), you get a hundred times benefit. Not an ordinary month. We would like to thank all the youth for the kīrtana. In this Dāmodara month, the specialty is offering a lamp to Yaśodā Kṛṣṇa or the Deities. This way people offer a lamp and get special mercy.

In Cuenca, Ecuador, we offered candles to Yaśodā Dāmodara in a town hall. Christians are used to the candles. And baby Kṛṣṇa and Yaśodā maybe they remind them of Mother Mary and Jesus. So whether they knew what they were doing, they got lot of sukṛti for the offering.

I was explaining how Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted his gṛhastha followers to be paramahaṁsas. Last night, I was asked what does it mean? So, what I mean normally in other Gaura sampradāyas the sannyāsīs are active but here in ISKCON gṛhastha devotees are also very active. Śrīla Prabhupāda was saying how his gurudeva had sent a sannyāsī to London. But he was not so successful. But then he had three gṛhastha couples go to London and they were very successful. I think that the Deity darśana song by Yamunā devī dāsī was published by Apple Records. So we want this Dāmodara month, gṛhastha men gṛhastha ladies, single ladies they should encourage others to offer lamp. The youths here are very active. So like this, that is the meaning of paramahaṁsa. We don’t take this opportunity to make excuses. We want Kṛṣṇa to see you. You go and encourage people, take up the simple service of offering lamp. If they buy a book that also will be very nice. Cirañjīva Prabhu told me how he wants to encourage book distribution in Malaysia. Some devotees do book distribution, they are very dear. You should also take this opportunity to engage everyone in Kṛṣṇa’s service. And so the fact that you are enthusiastic, it will spread, it is very contagious. Don’t leave this opportunity to serve Kṛṣṇa! Brahmacārīs and sannyāsīs. Everyone get into the fire! Here we have any gṛhastha devotees? We want to take this blessing to get people to offer service.

I see that Malaysia is a very special place. Here we have more Ratha-yātrās. Just by pulling the ratha, just by seeing the ratha people are blessing. And offering lamps, observing Dīpāvalī in a special way. Most people do not do any devotional service. By going and encouraging people to do this simple service you are doing a revolution in their spiritual life. What was last year’s number? 500,000. What is the goal this year? You have to increase! 600,000 should be the goal! Increase every year. Haribol! You see, Vaiśeṣika Prabhu, his goal was to distribute 100,000 sets of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam by Bhādra Pūrṇimā. He said that every year to increase it by 21%. So he put the target this year of 43,000. He achieved 45,000! We offered 500,000 lamps last year, how many years it will take you to offer a million lamps? You have to increase gradually increase every year. Gopati Kṛṣṇa dāsa is saying, “Don’t scare them!” I went to Kuching… he was also cutting jokes and laughing. Then I understood it is a national habit!

So we hope that everybody will participate in this Dāmodara-vrata. Actually, they call this as niyama sevā and because in this month people are doing many different vratas and we want to do the vrata of offering lamp. You could make your own goal. I heard one person he set up a booth in the Dīpāvali fair. I don’t know how many but huge quantities of people offered lamps. In Chennai, they went to the schools, and they had the school children offer lamps. Taking your example, the Dāmodaradeśa devotees also they go house to house and entice the Hindus to offer lamps. What is the system for inaugurating? One, two, three!