20221023 Addressing Māyāpur Vṛndāvana Trust's 50th Anniversary Kīrtana-melā

The following is an address given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on October 23rd, 2022 in Vṛndāvana, India. The address was given at the 50th MVT Anniversary celebration

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 offer my respects to His Holiness Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami, to Śeṣa prabhu and other MVT trustees and sevakas, and to all of the devotees.

I am very glad that we are celebrating our 50th year, Golden Jubilee.

Actually, the MVT has been existing even longer than that.

I think His Holiness Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami Mahārāja, he told me about MVT. He and Atreya Rṣī were trustees.

But Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted that his guru-dakṣiṇā, his personal guru-dakṣiṇā, should be especially used to see that in any difficulty, sevā pūjā in Vṛndāvana or Māyāpur, especially and also Bombay and to some extent Hyderabad, the sevā should not stop.

Also, Śrīla Prabhupāda used his guru-dakṣiṇā, a little bit, to start some of the difficult yātrās.

I forget 500 or 600 dollars to Nepal to start a temple.

And now we have 40 temples in Nepal.

So, his little strategic help in the beginning created the beginning of a great expansion.

Similarly, he was giving some help to Bangladesh, also about 500 dollars a month.

At that time, we had one center in Dhaka, now we have 120 centers.

So now, they give us some big donations to the TOVP and other ISKCON projects.

I don’t know, I was personally the GBC in Nepal and Bangladesh, I know about the situation there, Śrīla Prabhupāda also helped in Pakistan, maybe Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja can say about that.

(HH Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja said, they printed Urdu books up to the 4th canto, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and ISKCON is also recognized, they have an Urdu BBT there.) Haribol!

So Śrīla Prabhupāda had a vision that we should spread Krsna consciousness all over the world, all over South Asia.

He used the example that you cook a fish with its own oil, although we don’t eat fish.

So a little bit of help he gave, in the future, we see that it created a big impact.

We have various members who are trying their best to utilize the assets of MVT, to try to enhance the capital that Śrīla Prabhupāda gave, to serve, when we had the two-year pandemic.

We were tested then, even this time we did not expect any problem, but Māyāpur was under some problem because people could not come.

The whole state was locked down.

We don’t know what the future holds and MVT is there to help these very important temples of Lord Kṛṣṇa and Lord Caitanya’s pastimes and Śrīla Prabhupāda’s pastimes.

We can see how Śrīla Prabhupāda, he felt responsible for different Deities.

He established the Bhaktivedanta Swami Charity Trust.

At that time, he said that interest from Rupees one million of MVT should be given to that.

When he was asked about the Śrī Kṣetra and Lord Caitanya’s pastimes in Jagannātha Purī, he said someone else can do that!

So we see that he gave some loans to different BBT branches so that they could publish books.

And in this way he was trying to use MVT to give a little help and creating a big effect.

So, I am very honored, I guess I am on the MVT not for any business acumen, but because I am from Mayapur, and of course, His Holiness Gopal Krsna Maharaja was a businessman before and now he is a sannyāsī, etc.

So he has experience in all respects.

So, this morning we had a JSSS function.

They kidnapped me and took me away so I could attend this function.

I apologize for that.

So, it would be nice if there was some way of increasing the assets of the MVT to preserve the things that Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted preserved.

We have this facility in Vṛndāvana, the MVT facility.

But the assets are a bit tied up.

So I don’t know, it is a big responsibility, we need some of the people who are expert in financial dealings, entrepreneurs, to see how to increase the MVT holdings, assets, so that they can fulfill what Śrīla Prabhupāda envisioned.

We are very happy that all of you came here to celebrate our 50th Golden Jubilee.

I have not been in Vṛndāvana for a while, I am glad I could attend this function.

And Śrīla Prabhupāda he had a great desire. He had many desires, this is one of them.

Hare Kṛṣṇa!