20231127 After Class Story Narrated by His Grace Marīci Dāsa Glorifying Lord Jagannātha And His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja

Marīci dāsa: Hare Kṛṣṇa dear devotees! Today we have a very important announcement to make. We are going to tell an amazing story of Lord Jagannātha and Guru Mahārāja. This story is called “The Jagannātha Purī and the Victory Flag”. How many of you want to hear this story? I am going to show a photo of Jagannātha Purī temple, you can see the flag on top, the moon and the Dhruvaloka. Very beautiful! Here you see this story happened during the time of the Purī parikramā organized by His Grace Naru Gopāla Prabhu during Akṣaya-tṛtīyā a few months ago. What happened is that Naru Gopāla Prabhu took all the devotees in the parikramā inside the temple, where there is a Kalpa-vṛkṣa tree. He was explaining the glories of this tree, there it is called Kalpa-vaṭa or vaṭa in Odiya or Bengali. This Kalpa-vṛkṣa tree has a story in the Purāṇas. In the Brahma Purāṇa and Skanda Purāṇa that it is the only desire tree inside Jagannātha Purī temple. This particular tree, Guru Mahārāja, they said that the leaves are very special. They say that Lord Kṛṣṇa in the form of Gopāla, He has slept on the leaf of the tree. If you want to worship Lord Jagannātha, you need the blessings of this Kalpa-vaṭa.

So five or six days before Akṣaya-tṛtīyā day they were having darśana and they observed the flag raising ceremony of the Jagannātha Purī Temple. You know on top of the cakra there is a flag. One mātājī had a desire, she said, “Wow and looked at the flag raising ceremony. Wow, it will be so nice if we can sponsor this flag in the name of Guru Mahārāja and raise it on top of the cakra on Akṣaya-tṛtīyā day,” that was her desire. When this desire is there in the heart, two leaves from the Kalpa-vaṭa tree fell down. Here are the leaves, Guru Mahārāja. This is a banyan tree, the Kalpa-vaṭa tree. Then she asked the pūjārīs, “How can I sponsor this flag in the name of my Guru Mahārāja?” All the pāṇḍas said, “It is impossible.” But finally, she found out that there was an office inside the temple, a special sevaka only for the flag raising ceremony. So she went to that office and there were many flags you can sponsor. You can sponsor flags, they go by the size – it would be like two hands, three hands, four hands, etc. The longest one is 14 hands. So, this is the one which goes on the top of the cakra. So she said she wanted to sponsor the 14 hands long flag. They said, “Okay you can do it but there are hundreds of people sponsoring this flag on the Akṣaya-tṛtīyā day. We don’t know which flag will go on the top, only Lord Jagannātha will choose the flag.” So she agreed. She got the receipt says ‘HH Jayapatākā Swami’.

 So what is the system? This is the interesting part of the story. So she had to come on the Akṣaya-tṛtīyā at 9 am in the morning exactly. If they are late by a minute they are not allowed to enter. And they have a setup of many chairs put up for the sponsors of the flag of 14 hands long only. For the other smaller flags, they are not allowed, and they give a small donation only. So because she was in the parikramā and that was the last day of the parikramā, she managed to get permission and managed to arrive just 5 or 10 minutes before to the temple. But that day there was a long queue in the temple, like in Tirupati where this a winding queue, miles long. Impossible to enter. She talked to the guard and asked him but was not allowed. So she went to the next gate, the same thing, there were so many people there. So she went to another gate and many people were there too. It was impossible to get it. Finally, she managed to get into the queue, begging someone to let her in and got inside the temple and exactly when she arrived there the clock struck 9! So she got a seat. What happened then? The receipts are pink in color and have them all in a box, they are very small, and you can see only the small pink paper. So the pūjārī would call one person from the public to pick up one pink paper to make sure there is no cheating here. So Lord Jagannātha is going to choose. So the person picked up one paper and gave it to the pūjārī. The pūjārī opened the receipt and he looked at it, trying to read the name, very complicated name for him! So he said, “H H (Guru Mahārāja: Ah! That’s my name!) Actually, the pūjārī could not pronounce the rest of the name, but the mātājī who was there, her name is actually Saptaparṇā mātājī. She shouted, “Jayapatākā Swami!” And everybody looked at her because she shouted very loudly and immediately fell to the floor and started crying. She could not believe that this was happening! Everybody was talking about Jayapatākā Swami inside the temple. The pūjārīs told her that okay because the flag of Jayapatākā Swami was selected, now you have to again go to the office. You can see the pink receipt - the name and number are on it. She had to go again to the office because the pūjārī has to climb – normally there are flags going to the levels below, thousands. But to go to the topmost part there is one pāṇḍa from one family – you must understand that in Purī one family will do this service for many thousands of years. Maybe one family does the cutting vegetables only for hundreds of years. So, she had to again pay another amount for the service to go up. Maybe about 500 rupees. So they said that she had to come at 4 pm on the dot with the two receipts! If you don’t have the two receipts, you cannot do the saṅkalpa they told her. This is very important. So what happened, she comes half an hour before but the moment she entered the temple and went near the Kalpa-vaṭa tree, the story gets very interesting, a monkey came and stole her bag. And he climbed the Kalpa-vaṭa tree and was on top of the tree. What was in the bag? Her japa bag. It was not the one she always used but it was another japa bag with all her money. But she did not really care for the money as it was not a lot anyway. But the two receipts were there! And the pāṇḍas with a long bamboo stick were trying to get the monkey to drop the bag but the monkey climbed higher and higher and went from one to another dome. Again to the tree, then suddenly he opened the bag. He first took out the japa and he just rolled it on a branch and kept it there. Then he took out the money and threw it and people were picking it up. She was not even interested in that, she was only thinking about the receipts. The monkey was an amazing monkey! Finally, he took the receipts and bit a corner of the receipts (he shows the receipts) and finally dropped the two receipts to Saptaparṇa mātājī! This is really amazing. 4.30 to 5.30 pm would be the flag raising ceremony. So she took the saṅkalpa, no money even for the rickshaw. She had to rush to the train station to go back to Kolkata. The train was leaving at 7 or 8 pm.

The story does not finish there. She told me, I was in Malaysia, but we were in touch from a few days before about the flag raising ceremony. Then I asked what happened with the flag? She said, “I did not think about the flag.” I said, “No, no, we want the flag because this is the flag of Guru Mahārāja. How to get the flag?” So when she reached Kolkata I gave the contact of a pāṇḍa there the ISKCON pāṇḍa, she called. He said it is impossible to get this flag because this flag on the Akṣaya-tṛtīyā day is sponsored many, many, months before. She tried to find the number of the office and finally she found the number of the sevaka office. She called repeatedly many times but there was no response. Finally, they called back to her! She asked them, “How to get the flag?” Again, the same thing, it is not possible, this and that, so many excuses. Now we are cutting short the long story. But what happened finally he agreed. Then how to send the money. I called Acintya Nitāi Prabhu, he called and friend and then arranged to pay by ‘Phone Pe’ to pay for the flag. She never knew why she bought two tickets to Purī, she bought on that day for the parikramā and then she got another ticket to go with her father four days later. She came back so the ticket was there. So they asked, “How are you going to collect the flag?” She requested them to keep it as she would return to Purī in four days. So after four days she went back to Purī and collected the flag!

So this flag, of Lord Jagannātha, the name cannot be on the flag, they don’t put any name on the flag of Lord Jagannātha. But the receipt number is on the flag. So that flag is the one on Akṣaya-tṛtīyā, this the Victory Flag that Lord Jagannātha chose to fly on Akṣaya-tṛtīyā. Srila Guru Mahārāja kī jaya! So we have this flag to present to our Guru Mahārāja and I would like to request Saptaparṇā mātājī to come and we can present the flag to Guru Mahārāja. Don’t go, the best part is coming after we present the flag. (Guru Mahārāja blessed them with the Jagannātha stick).

This flag, they have two parts – the big flag which is 14 hands long. We are going to open the flag which has a moon and is pretty. The most important is that on the tip of the flag there is another piece of cloth attached. (Saptaparṇā Devī Dāsī: Guru Mahārāja, this part of the flag as explained by the pūjārī is called śūnya-gati because all these knots which are seen formed automatically at the top of the temple dome and forms in the air. Due it being formed in the air it is called śūnya and because it forms a knot it is called gati.) They said that nobody makes it and the knots are hard. Before it was one piece of cloth, now it has become like horsehair. So this one they say you take a glass of water and put the śūnya-gati into the water and take it out and drink that water then any illness you have, anything, long disease will be cured!

Jaya Guru Mahārāja!

Guru Mahārāja can walk again and travel all around the world!