20260412 Sunday Feast Address

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

Jayapatākā Swami: Hare Kṛṣṇa! Svāgatam for all here! Nanḍri! Thank you! I was allowed to take this stage because of my connection with Śrīla Prabhupāda! So, I think that we all want to be in connection with His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Śrīla Prabhupāda! I was very fortunate, every year I had a month and a half or two of association with Śrīla Prabhupāda! But all of you can also have association with Śrīla Prabhupāda! When he left in 1977, I was feeling great separation. So I read his books again and again! Eventually I got the Bhakti-vaibhava, Bhakti-vedānta and Bhakti-Sārvabhauma degrees. So, all of you can also have the association of Śrīla Prabhupāda by studying his books and getting the degrees!

Today is the disappearance day of Śrīla Vṛndāvana dāsa Ṭhākura. He is said to be the Vyāsadeva of caitanya-līlā. Because he said the history of the early life of Lord Caitanya in great detail. And he is a great inspiration! He made the presentation more sweet! So, these books were available in Sanskrit and Bengali. Some of the books were translated into English by Śrīla Prabhupāda and from English they were translated to Tamil and other languages. So all of you can read those. Haribol!

During my Vyāsa-pūjā I gave some ideas, have you heard those? The main thing is how chanting of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra is so effective for us. Even in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it states that Kali-yuga is an ocean of faults: kaler doṣa-nidhe rājan asti hy eko mahān guṇaḥ – but there is one good quality. But that good quality most people do not take advantage of, kīrtanād eva kṛṣṇasya mukta-saṅgaḥ paraṁ vrajet.

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare!

There are many verses in the Vedas which describe this. And in every yuga, Satya, Tretā, Dvāpara and Kali there is a sacrifice recommended. Meditation, yajña, temple worship, they were all recommended in the previous ages. In this Age of Kali, the only way is to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa! Lord Caitanya, He went to the Śiva temple, Devī temple, Murugan temple, Gaṇeśa temple, any temple – and He would chant Hare Kṛṣṇa! In the Kali-santaraṇa Upaniṣad reveals this Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra. So I asked what is the history of this mantra. And I was told that Nārada Muni asked Lord Brahmā I have to travel throughout the universe, how do I stay free from the influence of Kali? And Lord Brahmā said, Caturmukha Brahmā said, there is a sacred mantra. So Nārada Muni asked, what is that mantra? Do you want to hear – it is a secret?! And Lord Brahmā said:

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare!

iti ṣoḍaśakaṁ nāmnāṁ
kali-kalmaṣa-nāśanaṁ
nātaḥ parataropāyaḥ
sarva-vedeṣu dṛśyate

So, it is very important that you chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra. You probably heard this before but you can hear again. I saw that only some of my disciples have taken the Gāyatrī mantra. But then I was reading the śāstra and I saw that it said that those who do not have the Gāyatrī mantra they can chant another mantra 108 times during the tri sandhyā. What is that mantra? That mantra is:

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare!

I am so glad to see many devotees with tilaka mantras. That reminds me of vaikuṇṭha-vāsīs! So, we have been making some different videos. And we want to make many more. Now is the digital age. So, the latest one I made was on the Vaiṣṇavī housewife. How many of you are Vaiṣṇavī housewives? Housewives? So, here I don’t know if there is a way to show it to you, it is less than five minutes. But in this age, we have Vaiṣṇavas, Vaiṣṇavīs in various employments – doctors, professors, politicians, businessmen and women. How to do those things for Kṛṣṇa? So, we want to show that. It is a type of daiva-varṇāśrama, Kṛṣṇa consciousness in Kali-yuga. Now, there are quite a number of things mentioned. How, gṛhasthas, they should, if they are not doing direct service for Kṛṣṇa, if they are making some salary or profit, they should donate or spend from their salary, income, profit for the service of Kṛṣṇa. So I was recommending that as a salaried person, you give 11%. And for business persons, 11% of their profit or more. This is the arrangement that you can have with Kṛṣṇa, not something we are legislating. And that may include the service that you are doing, your personal expenses in devotional service. Maybe include your dīkṣā and śikṣā-gurus. You may include the local temple. May include Śrīla Prabhupāda’s personal projects. Just like if you have to buy his books, that is also a Kṛṣṇa conscious expenditure. Every work you do, you should consider that you are doing it for Kṛṣṇa. And as a part of that, you can give some percentage to Kṛṣṇa. So like this I was giving some advice to my disciples and devotees at the Vyāsa-pūjā celebration in Māyāpur.

Because śāstra says one who becomes a mother, father, husband, worshipable demigod, guru, they should deliver their children their wife. Guru has to deliver all his disciples. So I was thinking that I have to deliver all these people from the cycle of birth and death! So, to do that it is possible if they follow me! It is not that take initiation, your job is finished! Initiation is considered as birth. Birth is not the end, it is the beginning. So we want to see that people are freed from the cycle of birth and death and go back to Kṛṣṇa! How many want to take birth again and again in the material world? How many would like to serve Kṛṣṇa eternally? So, that is the purpose of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. So Kṛṣṇa has given us various facilities that we can easily practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness. If we chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra, practice bhakti-yoga, then we can easily achieve Kṛṣṇa’s lotus feet!

śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda
śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda

By the mercy of Lord Caitanya, we can achieve Kṛṣṇa’s lotus feet! So who of you would like to pursue this path of bhakti-yoga? So you all are bhakti-yogīs and bhakti-yoginīs! And that means you are very serious about practicing bhakti-yoga! Māyā will test you! She may give you suffering, she may give you enjoyment! We don’t know how she tests, but she will test, if you are really determined to serve Kṛṣṇa! So, by the mercy of Lord Kṛṣṇa, Lord Caitanya, guru and sādhu-saṅga, we can pass all the tests! Some disciples write to me, for permission to accept a śikṣā-guru. So, instead I say all my disciples must have śikṣā-gurus. Śikṣā-guru may be someone who is very elevated or someone who gives relevant instructions. But everyone will have śikṣā-guru. Like, if your parents are devotees, they may be your śikṣā-gurus! Like here in Chennai, His Holiness Bhānu Mahārāja is here, he may be someone’s śikṣā-guru. Similarly, many devotees may be there, at least three to five who are advanced and giving relevant instructions. There is one dīkṣā-guru, but there can be many śikṣā-gurus. But the dīkṣā-guru is taking the responsibility of taking you out of the cycle of birth and death. As long as the śikṣā-gurus do not speak against the dīkṣā-guru or their instructions, then they are helping! So like that, Śrīla Prabhupāda said that GBCs should act as śikṣā-guru, not that this is just a formal title, but they should be like that. So you should all read the Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Caitanya-caritāmṛta and different śāstras. So naturally, we want to see everybody become very strong in their spiritual life. Gaurāṅga! Nityānanda!

Any questions? On the class?

Question: How the students can do everything for Kṛṣṇa?

Jayapatākā Swami: The students can naturally offer their service to Kṛṣṇa! If they are studying for Lord Kṛṣṇa, they are trying to attain knowledge which would be useful in their lives. And they want to utilize all this is as a service to Kṛṣṇa, so why only students, everyone!

The other question was very long, had a, b, c, so you can give that to me on email.