20250630 Question-and-Answer Session

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

So after dialysis I had a meeting today and so I reached here a little late. I will stay until 10 pm, so you can ask your questions. Please write your questions on a piece of paper. If the question is written in Bengali, I will answer in Bengali and if in English I will answer in English.

Question: How to do services without pride in our hearts and what is the mood to carry while doing services?

Jayapatākā Swami: We should be very humble and ask for forgiveness for all of our offences. And anything that we are able to do right is by the mercy of the guru.

Question: When we get two types of service – one is serving the local devotees and one serving the senior devotees – which service should we give more importance to? Because it happens sometimes that serving the senior devotees, the local devotees get upset.

Jayapatākā Swami: So, it is hard to say why would a devotee get upset while we are serving a senior devotee. That is why, Lord Caitanya says that we have to remain in a humble state of mind. More humble than a blade of grass. More tolerant than a tree. This way, Lord Caitanya says that if one remains in such a humble state of mind, then you are qualified to constantly chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Question: I have recently joined the IT sector, and I am finding that the corporate environment is very materialistic, full of distractions, competition and focus on sense gratification. In such a setting how can I stay spiritually strong and always remember Kṛṣṇa throughout the day? Kindly guide me how to balance my professional life and spiritual practice without losing my bhakti.

Jayapatākā Swami: As this question was from the day-before and the devotee asking the question was not present, the question remained unanswered.

Question: When I travel somewhere, people sometimes come to me and say, you are wearing tilaka, kaṇṭhi-mālā. Nowadays we do not see young girls like that. Somehow, they are impressed by tilaka and kaṇṭhi. But Guru Mahārāja, I have this weakness of being introvert and shy, I just listen but I don’t know how to preach and talk to them. Could you please guide me?

Jayapatākā Swami: You can ask them a question, do they know the meaning of tilaka? Tilaka means, we are making their body into a temple of Viṣṇu. Each tilaka has a mantra we have to say. Oṁ Keśavāya namaḥ, oṁ Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ, oṁ Mādhavāya namaḥ, oṁ Govindāya namaḥ, etc. I looked here and don’t see many ladies wearing tilaka! I saw one! Many are not. So if someone asks you what the tilaka means, you can ask them this, even though you are introvert. We have to become extrovert. Yāre dekha, tāre kaha ‘kṛṣṇa’-upadeśa āmāra ājñāya guru hañā tāra’ ei deśa [Cc. Madhya 7.128]. Otherwise, you can be an introvert. But if there is an opportunity to glorify Kṛṣṇa, then that is alright!

Question: How can I increase faith and surrender to guru and Kṛṣṇa?

Jayapatākā Swami: Bengali or English? Here Lord Jagannātha has come and is staying in his Māsir bāḍi with Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. So you can say a prayer to Lord Jagannātha that you want to be forgiven for all your offences. And, you can take the shelter of Kṛṣṇa. Like this, you can take the opportunity to surrender to Kṛṣṇa. You can also take the shelter of your guru.

Question: I want to distribute books and preach, and I feel awkward to speak with people. How to overcome this?

Jayapatākā Swami: He or she? He, so you know, if you got a book some years ago and someone preached and gave you. Like that, you give a book to some person, is a very nice service! So, you know one may be shy to sell Wall’s Ice cream in front of this pandal. Many people sell ice cream, they are not shy! You say you are shy to sell ice cream, they we don’t mind. But if you are shy to give out books of Śrīla Prabhupāda, you want those persons to rot in this material world for good? So we give up our shyness and self-consciousness when we give out books. Kolkata sells books? So many people are coming here, why they have not come? I am coming directly from the hospital.

Kṛṣṇe matir astu! Hare Kṛṣṇa!