20240225 Question and Answer Session

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-gurun dina tāriṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram
hariḥ oṁ tat sat

Question: In the pastime of Kamalā-kānta Viśvāsa Advaita Acarya’s secretary Advaita Acarya lamented when Lord Caitanya said He never wanted to see the secretary again. He said that the Lord had never showed, His devotees such special mercy by punishing them so. How can we in a similar manner understand that even an apparent punishment by the Lord or His devotees in our lives is a mercy? In such circumstances should we feel grave or remorseful or should we continue to execute our service jubilantly?

Jayapatākā Swami: You see, Mahā-Viṣṇu is the husband of the Goddess of Fortune. So this secretary, he was saying how is the Supreme Lord is asking for donation! So that is kind of a rasābhāsa, unauthorized activity. Lord Caitanya, Lord Nityānanda, Lord Advaita, They came down as avatāras. But They are not telling people that They are Bhagavān. So if He is God, He doesn’t have to do that. But if He does, it is His līlā. Lord Caitanya and Advaita Ācārya have a unique relationship. Advaita Ācārya, He was the one who brought Lord Caitanya down, by worshiping Him and by praying to Him. He knew that Lord Caitanya was Kṛṣṇa Himself and therefore Advaita Ācārya smashed Him. So this is all secret. Lord Advaita, He thought the Lord is not punishing Me, He treats Me as a superior. Because Advaita Ācārya, He was being respected for His external situation. He wanted the Lord to treat Him as an inferior. This is a pastime of Advaita Ācārya, He was once chased by Lord Caitanya. And He was so happy! Anyway, we cannot imitate Advaita Ācārya or Lord Caitanya, Their relationship is very special. You should just follow your spiritual master and Śrīla Prabhupāda, and don’t try to imitate the secretary of Advaita.

Question: One of the Deity form is the mind, similarly can we feel the presence of the spiritual master by meditating on his transcendental form in the mind?

Jayapatākā Swami: Why not? Today I was seeing some photos of Śrīla Prabhupāda. In some he looked very serious, in some he was smiling, and I was very happy seeing all these different pictures of Śrīla Prabhupāda. I was thinking that I am very fortunate, here in Māyāpur we had so much association with Śrīla Prabhupāda. We were just seeing the photos and still Śrīla Prabhupāda was there.

We just had a meeting on our Scientific Museum of the Vedic Planetarium. Śrīla Prabhupāda said we should defeat the material atheists, we should show how wonderful is the cosmology of the Bhāgavatam, and that it is very scientific. He said we should also show the four dhāmas mentioned in the Brahma-saṁhitā. Devī-dhāma, Maheśa-dhāma, Hari-dhāma and Goloka-dhāma. Our Financial Advisor is saying it will cost too much to maintain. So he wanted to cut it down half, what do you think? I told him I would beg door to door, but I just want to do what Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted. What do you think? We should cut it down or do the whole thing? They showed some museum in Bihar they would have average of 1000 people a day. But I was thinking, in Māyāpur we get so many people taking prasāda and other things. So how many people will we get into this museum? What do you think? 1000, 2000, 10,000. 10,000? You have to help me also! You should get Chinese Yens!