20231207 Addressing EIDC Youth Preachers Group

The following is an address given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on December 7th,2023 in Śrī Dhāma Māyāpur, India. The address was given to the EIDC youth Preachers.

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

Hariḥ oṁ tat sat!

Jayapatākā Swami: Susvāgatam! Very glad to welcome you to Māyāpur! This youth preaching is something that Lord Caitanya, He started. Actually, He was in Navadvīpa up to the age of 24. That means that He was doing a lot of youth preaching! He was known as Nimāi Paṇḍita and He had a school. And He also worked closely with many educated boys. But because He was young Himself, sometimes the educated boys did not appreciate Him enough. And He thought I came to deliver all these people, but they are being offensive. That sounds like it is not going to be helpful for them. At the age of 24, He took sannyāsa, at Gayā. Anyone here from Gayā? During my last visit I established the lotus footprint of Lord Caitanya. Lord Caitanya, He went to Viṣṇu Gayā and He also received initiation in Gayā. When He came back from Gayā, He started the saṅkīrtana movement. I would say that in Bihar, Lord Caitanya first manifested love of Kṛṣṇa.

Anyway, Śrīla Prabhupāda, he was encouraging that we should get intelligent boys and girls, we should preach in the colleges. And he wrote a letter to his disciples saying that when you preach to college and university students, you should have them do what they like to do for Kṛṣṇa. If someone is a farmer, he likes farming, if someone is a computer whiz, he likes white collar job. So like that, Śrīla Prabhupāda was saying to engage the boys in something that comes easy to them. In this way of course, many boys and girls joined ISKCON. So, Lord Caitanya’s movement which was brought by Śrīla Prabhupāda all over the world, had many youths. Of course, not everybody was youth, but most of them. So, Śrīla Prabhupāda was saying that if we can attract the intelligent youths, it would be very auspicious. We see here like in Māyāpur, all kinds of people come. Families, youths, all kinds of people. The youth preachers are going out and having programs in universities and colleges. You have to be very expert how to make Kṛṣṇa consciousness interesting. Śrīla Prabhupāda was advising that we don’t have to like shave them up right away, let people come and naturally take part.

Anyway, Śrīla Prabhupāda gave great importance to the youth preaching. And that is why I want to thank everybody for doing this. We don’t mind if people are brahmacārīs or people are married. But the important thing is that they should do devotional service. By devotional service they will get purified.

Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityānanda, They descended to deliver the sinful people. No one can claim in the Kali-yuga that they have not done any sin. Lord Caitanya assisted by Lord Nityānanda and others, They were delivering these sinful people. Lord Caitanya did not discriminate that he is qualified or he is not qualified, He gave out the mercy freely to everyone. So like this, They offer Kṛṣṇa to everyone. Some will accept and some may not. But we go on! We find in the West, I don’t know what it is like in India, you can tell me later about that, we find in the colleges, that students are very friendly and approachable there. The youth preachers, they tend to be like that, very positive. I gave some classes in the Cape Town University in South Africa. So our devotees, they had booths where they gave out prasāda. So, they were so much appreciative that the university gave them a room to have their office. Full time room! In some places they were chased away by the university guys! Here, they were given a room! And so they had a room that they could read and could also get an empty class room for their weekly meetings.

I met some of the students in North America who were devotees and they got accredited by the universities. The students could approach them and wait for the university functions and lectures. However, also I was also teaching an accredited course in (my own) Brown university, I had a job after college. Then I joined the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. I was reading the Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīla Prabhupāda would not give us initiation unless we had read the Gītā ten times. I had read the Gītā so many times, so the university gave me, I could teach an accredited course, two credits. I also taught a course Duke University but there was no credit. Who wanted, they came. So, this was when Kṛṣṇa consciousness was very new.

Actually, in India, to some extent ISKCON has a very good name. We have been invited to various programs. I always go every year after the Gaura Pūrṇimā festival, with a group of Western devotees, boys and girls. Sometimes we have 40 different nations. People like to hear and see them perform. Somewhere in Assam, they had the Governor of Assam watching the Russian ladies playing rāma-līlā! And afterwards he came up on the stage and said, thank you very much! Thank you and all that! Next year we are going to Vṛndāvana. We are going to establish the lotus footprints of Lord Caitanya. Like we did in Gayā. In 2025 I am not sure, we have not fixed the place yet. If any of you have any suggestions, we can consider. Anyway, we are very glad that you have come here to Māyāpur to have your get together retreat. It is very important to stay enthusiastic. People, they respond to friendship and enthusiasm, and it is a good time to read the books and attend the courses, that can also have some deeper effect. But some of the students, they are attracted by catchy titles and you can see what works. I don’t know how many days you are there, I hope that you will be comfortable.

This is known as audārya-dhāma, land of mercy. Here any service you do, you get a thousand times the benefit. Even if you lay down it is like offering praṇāmas anywhere else. Someone asked me, why can I not lay down all the time? Because we can get more credit if we do some service. Even for nothing like lying down you get credit. If you jump up and down and chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa then you get more credit.

Here we have His Holiness Bhakti Vijaya Bhāgavata Swami Mahārāja, he is one of our most enthusiastic book distributors. He has formed different saṅkīrtana parties, different programs. Would you like to say something about it?

Bhakti Vijaya Bhāgavata Swami: I already spoke two hours.

Jayapatākā Swami: Any questions?