20230927 Evening Address

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram
Harihi oṁ tat sat

Jayapatākā Swami: I did not have much chance to look around the temple. It seems there are lots of facilities. The pūjārīs and priests, they are doing a very elaborate Deity installation. This is called the prāṇa-pratiṣṭha. We take a statue which is made of material elements through various mantras, sacrifices and ceremonies, we purify the Deity. We request the Deity to come and accept our worship. I see so many devotees here. How many here are ready to worship the Deities? Who has more devotion – men or women?  We will have the hand check. Now the śaktis.  Of course, today there is no comparison. You see there are two kinds of devotees – sakāma-bhakta and niśkāma-bhakta. Then there are just ordinary people. Sakāma devotees chant with a desire that they may get something. Just like the devas they have some desires. They are also devotees, and they are worthy of our respect. Then there are the niśkāma devotees. They are devotees who simply want to please the Lord. Those are the devotees who go back to Godhead at the end of their life. Some devotees, they get the blessings of the Lord and get some material things. But material things are temporary. Some devotees, they pray to the Lord, they serve the Lord, just to please the Lord. So, the Lord, He gives them some spiritual gifts. So they get to stay with the Lord in the spiritual world. So, one fourth of this creation is the material world. Three fourth is the spiritual world. The spiritual world is divided into Hari-dhāma and Goloka-dhāma. Hari-dhāma is the spiritual world with awe and reverence. It has unlimited planets with different forms of Nārāyaṇa. There may be Narasiṁhadeva, different forms. Then there is Lord Ramacandra at the edge of the Hari-dhāma. Then you enter Kṛṣṇaloka. And Kṛṣṇaloka has four parts. There is Dvārakā, Mathurā, then Vraja-dhāma. So it says that Dvārakā is sweet. Mathurā is sweeter. And Vraja-dhāma is the sweetest. So Kṛṣṇa wants to understand what is the sweetness that Rādhā finds in Him.

Because Rukmiṇī in Dvārakā, She told Kṛṣṇa You know everything. You know what Brahmadeva is doing in Satyaloka. You know what Lord Śiva is doing in Kailāsa. You know in the ananta-koṭi-brahmāṇḍa, what everyone is doing. But there is one thing You don’t know. Rādhārāṇī knows, I know, You don’t know! The śakti-tattvas know but Kṛṣṇa doesn’t know! So Kṛṣṇa was surprised, no one ever told Him there is something He doesn’t know! He asked, “What is that?” Rukmiṇī, She told Kṛṣṇa, “You see, You don’t know how much Your devotees love You! You don’t know in what way we love You. Kṛṣṇa was surprised.” Then He said, “I will come as a devotee in Kali-yuga. I will come as a devotee! I WILL COME AS A DEVOTEE IN KALI-YUGA.” So that is the secret behind the fourth aspect of Goloka Vṛndāvana. Kṛṣṇa came as His devotee. Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga! So, He had the mood and color of Rādhārāṇī. But He was Kṛṣṇa. And that is how Caitanya Mahāprabhu came. Lord Kṛṣṇa in the Brahma-vaivarta Purāṇa, He said, 5000 years after the beginning of the Age of Kali, there will be a ten-thousand year Golden Age. Just now is 5,000 years. Lord Caitanya came after 4,500 years. And He was giving out love of Godhead very freely like Rādhārāṇī. He came in Karnataka. That is also true that He came with Nityānanda. You see, Lord Kṛṣṇa He also comes with His brother. When He came as Kṛṣṇa, He came with Lord Balarāma. When He came as Lord Rāma, He came with Lakṣmaṇa. When He came as Lord Caitanya, He came with Lord Nityānanda. Gaurāṅga! Nityānanda!

So, They wanted to give out love of Godhead throughout the world. This was the yuga-dharma. He also had a secret purpose. He wanted to find out the thing that Rukmiṇī had told Him. Why are you revealing the secret? So He wanted to find out how much His devotees loved Him. And in what way they love Him. Soooo! Secret! But You can find out because You being devotees, you love Lord Caitanya so much in a particular way! So normally in the material world we want to pray to the Lord in sakāma-bhakti. We want a house, a car, a good wife, a good husband, etc. etc. But, actually the most wonderful thing to have is Kṛṣṇa! And the most wonderful thing is to serve Kṛṣṇa. So that is what you are doing in this temple. Getting the great opportunity to serve Kṛṣṇa. As gṛhasthas, you can have Kṛṣṇa conscious children who can deliver their parents, their community. The name for a boy in Sanskrit is putra and the name for a girl is putrī. That means, ‘pu’ means hell, ‘tra’ means deliver. Putra, putrī is delivering your forefathers from the hellish region. I was thinking it would be very nice to have some of the devotees speak a few minutes and in this way we get some variety of spiritual instructions. I will just see how the different people speak. His Holiness Bhakti Pracāraka Parivrājaka Swami is originally from Bengal. Recently, he has been helping a lot in Northern India. He is the head of the ISKCON Bhāgavata Mahā-vidyālaya. He came here to participate in the prāṇa-pratiṣṭha of the Deities.

Thank you His Holiness Bhakti Pracāra Parivrājaka. I hope that this temple won’t have cockroaches! That depends on all of you. Is Narahari Caitanya dāsa Prabhu here? Come here. He worked very hard to build this temple. We heard from His Holiness Bhakti Pracāra Parivrājaka Swami how the temple has different purposes. So devotees are coming, doing pūjā, [audio break] So we would like to hear from His Grace Narahari Caitanya dāsa Prabhu how he was inspired to build this temple.

My chief secretary, Mahā Varāha dāsa, he went to Malaysia and he may come here tomorrow. So filling in for him is my senior secretary, is Mādhava Kānta dāsa. He is starting a new temple in Gangtok, Bhutan. It is a difficult place, very cold, there the people speak Nepali, which he had to learn. But he comes in different festivals, in different things to participate. Maybe he would like to speak a few words. I have to go back to my room now.