20230410 Question and Answer Session

The following is a Question & Answer Session given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on April 10th, 2023 in Dallas, Texas,  USA.

Question: Just like the dacoits had many troubles like falling in the ditch, and getting bitten by insects, I also have many troubles. So many troubles come but the only feeling I have is to seek out some protection. There is no feeling of love or no feeling of that kind of shelter that you said we should seek out for? What to do?

Jayapatākā Swami: You see, this material world, there is a verse in the Purāṇas, it says padaṁ padaṁ yad vipadāṁ (ŚB. 10.14.58), there is danger at every step. In the Bhagavad-gītā, Lord Kṛṣṇa describes the material world as duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam (Bg. 8.15). But we are so foolish that we want somehow very nice arrangement in the material world. So we take birth after birth after birth after birth after birth after birth after birth. Chewing the chewed. And if we can only realize how much happiness there is by directly engaging in the service of Lord Kṛṣṇa. But we are so foolish, it says that Lord Caitanya came to deliver the foolish, the mūrkhas. We think somehow, we can make some arrangement, and the material world will be a very nice place. But it is not possible. If we can engage ourselves in the service of Kṛṣṇa, then we can taste the real happiness that we are actually hankering for. Hare Kṛṣṇa! 

Question: All the time we go to the temple we have the personal experience of seeing Gaura Nitāi in front of us, and the Deity form of the Lord is non-different from the Lord. So how do we develop the same kind of feelings that the dacoits had when they met Lord Nityānanda?

Jayapatākā Swami: You see the dacoits when they first saw Lord Nityānanda, They were facing different difficulties previously. Now, actually I did not take my dinner yet.  I was seeing in Mumbai, everybody was crowding around Rādhā-Rāsabihārī and Sītā-Rāma, Lakṣmaṇa and Hanumān, not so many people around Nitāi-Gaura. Actually, it is by the mercy of Nitāi-Gaura that we get the mercy of Rādhā-Rāsabihārī or Rādhā-Kālacandajī. That thing we should realize that Lord Caitanya, Lord Nityānanda, They are giving us this special mercy. And Śrīla Prabhupāda in 1973 in London, was giving a lecture on his Vyāsa-pūjā, and he said that he wanted all his gṛhastha followers to be parāmahaṁsas. His gurudeva was the son of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura. All the gṛhasthas, they should do the garbhādāna-saṁskāra, they should pray to the Deities and they should make ācāryas as their sons. Śrīla Prabhupāda he said that his gṛhastha followers, did things that even his gurudeva sent sannyāsīs, they could not do it. There was a British Lord, he asked a sannyāsī preacher, could you make me a brāhmaṇa? Oh yes! Just give up eating meat, eggs, intoxication, wine, illicit sex, gambling. You can become a brāhmaṇa. Impossible that Lord said. Now we have so many youths, so many devotees who have taken up Kṛṣṇa consciousness, so many gṛhasthas. That should be the way to get the mercy of Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityānanda and become really saturated with kṛṣṇa-prema. Śrīla Prabhupāda said, you take one step toward Lord Kṛṣṇa and He takes ten steps towards us. Why don’t you want Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityānanda’s mercy? They want to give you! Haribol! How many of you have my Jayapatākā Swami App? How many don’t have it? I am paying for it, it is yours for free! Both on Android and Apple. So how many of you have mobile phones? Right now go on Google Play store and look up for the Jayapatākā Swami App.

Alright! Did you like these pastimes of Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityānanda? So we will try to give class while I am here, every night.