Questions And Answers: Material World / Kali yuga

By such good fortune we have received the easiest process of deliverance (chanting) in this most fallen age. Yet we lack enthusiasm to take it seriously, why?
Questioner: Keya Rani
Date: 2022-10-15
Jayapatākā Swami: 2. Because the people of Kali-yuga are very fallen, 
therefore sometimes it is difficult for them to chant. 
But we should understand that by chanting, 
we can achieve all perfection. 
So, we should chant, and thus become fortunate. 
And just take it that, if we find difficulty in chanting, 
it is because of our being very fallen. 
So, pray for the mercy of the Pañca-tattva, 
our gurudeva, 
guru-paramparā, 
and thus we can achieve the mercy of the Lord, 
and chant His holy name. 
Haribol! 
Category: [Material World / Kali yuga], [Sādhanā], [Sādhanā / Chanting (Japa)], [Śrī Caitanya-līlā / Lord Caitanya]
How is it possible to attain the Supreme Lord in Kali-yuga?
Questioner: Anon
Date: 2022-08-04
Jayapatākā Swami: (Spoken in Hindi – Translated here – Kali-yuga me nāma ke dvāra.
Kalau tad-dhari kīrtanāt.
Nāma ke dvāra bhagavān ko bahut jaldī prāpta ho sakte hain.
Hare Krsna.
Mūrti pūjā dvāpara-yuga me. (The Lord is easily attainable in the Kali-yuga by chanting of the Holy Names)
Category: [Kṛṣṇa (Godhead)], [Kṛṣṇa (Godhead) / Gaurāṇga], [Material World / Kali yuga], [Sādhanā]
If there is no need to go to secluded places and meditate anymore, why did people do it in the past?
Questioner: Anonymous
Date: 2022-07-30
Jayapatākā Swami: I said, there are two paths.
There are two paths.
That even if one goes in the forest, unless his senses are properly trained, even there he can fall down.
But this process is such, so powerful, that this other process I mentioned, one cannot practice.
The process of aṣṭāṅga-yoga in the family, in the house, while the refrigerator is chugging,
and air-bus is going overhead, and the lorry is going outside beeping the horn,
and the rickshaw-wala is fighting for two paisa more, and he is trying to mediate in his front porch, never can he get samādhi by that form of meditation.
He has to go off in a quiet place, where you’ll find a quiet place today?
Even over the Himalayas Aeroflot is going, you see.
So, we are chanting.
Outside the lorry could be going, air-bus can be going, but when the hundred and fifty people were all singing Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, that mantra is cinmaya śabda, śabda-brahma.
That vibration itself is shielding everyone into the transcendental atmosphere.
Then automatically, as we are concentrating on that vibration, that śabda-brahma, then we are actually in the Brahman consciousness.
And the more we can focus ourselves in the chanting, the more the dust is taken off of the cetanā, consciousness, and pure vision comes.
In the past, in Satya-yuga, there was dhyāna.
kṛte yad dhyāyato viṣṇuṁ - In Satya-yuga, the dharma was, yuga-dharma was dhyāna.
Because Satya-yuga means peaceful.
tretāyāṁ yajato makhaiḥ - In Tretā-yuga, there was the home yajña, agnihotras.
dvāpare paricaryāyāṁ -In Dvāpara-yuga, the process was temple worship, paricaryā.
That means arcanam.
Kalau tad dhari-kīrtanāt - In this Kali-yuga, the system is Hari kīrtanam.
In each yuga, there is one yuga-dharma.
In this age, the process is Hari-kīrtana of the nine-fold bhakti, śravaṇa, kīrtanam, the first two mentioned.
We are not saying other process is not bona fide, bilkul ṭhīk - definitely bona fide.
But, for Satya-yuga, Tretā-yuga, Dvāpara-yuga; not for Kali-yuga.
Kali is too difficult, but in Kali-yuga, if you chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, in a short time you will find perfection,
just as you would find in Satya-yuga by dhyānam, you get in Kali-yuga by nāma-saṅkīrtanam.
Just like if you go in the drug store and you say that, “My dear druggist, give me one good medicine.”
The druggist will say, “What type of medicine you want?”
“I want a good medicine.” You see.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Never mind what’s wrong with me.
You give me a good medicine.”
He’ll say, “You are a nut.
All my medicine is good.
One is for the head, one is for the foot, one is for the skin, one is for the belly.
What’s wrong with you, my friend?”
“You don’t bother with what’s wrong with me.
You give me a good medicine.
That’s enough.”
He’ll say, “Get out! I can’t give you anything like that! Because all my medicine is good.”
So, in the dharma, all the dharma is good.
But what is our disease?
That is what happening today.
Different dharmas are saying, the other dharma is bad.
That’s not correct.
How can dharma be bad?
Dharma must, by definition, be good.
The only thing is what dharma in this day and age, in this circumstance, will be the most effective for us.
So, we are not saying any dharma is bad.
We are not saying dhyāna is bad, we are not saying worship of this or that one is bad.
Each has got its own value, but in this particular day and age, we have got, just like now we have got such a strong disease.
We need a special booster shot.
Even Vālmīki, he was dasyu.
Dasyu means Dasyu Ratnākara.
He was given Rāma nāma– “marā marā marā” he was chanting, which came out, Rāma Rāma Rāma, by Nārada.
And by chanting Rāma-nāma, although he was such a violent man, he was purified.
So, this is not a new process.
Mṛgārī the hunter.
He was like half-killing animals, he was given only the name.
This name is the most powerful purifier.
From yugas, it is there; not only this yuga, but in other yugas, other processes were also effective, so people were more inclined to do that.
But in Kali-yuga the other processes, they won’t even give you the result.
No guarantee of any effect.
So how can you tell if the medicine works?
If there’s epidemic, and you give the medicine in epidemic, if the people get a cured, then you say that medicine is good.
So, where is the worst materialistic epidemic?
Then in Western world, the full epidemic.
Everyone is diseased by materialism.
How many souls are being delivered?
That proves the medicine works.
Everyone who is taking the Harināma medicine, they are getting cured, that’s why this is known in the Vedas as mahouṣadhi, the great auṣadhi for the Kali-yuga disease.
Category: [Material World / Kali yuga]
In this age of Kali Yuga, How did you become unattached from material things?
Questioner: Devotee
Date: 2022-12-09
How did I become?!
How did I become?
Well,
material desires are always there,
they are coming in the mind.
I don’t allow any time to address those.
I keep busy.
Who can say that they have no desire comes?
Desires may come in the mind.
So we go back to Kṛṣṇa and we have the material body desire may come,
but that desire we dovetail it in Kṛṣṇa’s service so we reject it.
Even Prabhupāda one time someone said,
"I have no lust,
Srila Prabhupāda,
I have no material desire." So,
Prabhupāda said,
"really!
what’s wrong with you!
(devotees laugh) I have material lust but I have no time to address that.
I have no time for that.
I am too busy in Kṛṣṇa’s service." You see,
the point is that it's already,
nobody can say that in the material world,
even if they were desireless,
they shouldn’t say that.
Because that would give,
even if someone was a nitya-siddha,
they have no desire,
which is very unlikely to find such souls in this world.
But even if that were the case,
they should,
supposed to take the role as a conditioned soul to teach by example others.
Even if one has some desire comes in the mind,
the desire is either dovetailed,
seen if that can be used for any Kṛṣṇa conscious purpose.
If it is totally material,
then it’s rejected with appropriate disgust,
according to the nature of that particular thought.
We stay so occupied in Kṛṣṇa’s service that there is no chance for Māyā to come in.
That is the secret.
Category: [Emotions / Lust], [Emotions / Greed], [Anarthās], [Sādhanā / Philosophical questions], [Sādhanā], [Material World / Kali yuga]
Is chanting the holy name yuga-dharma for every Kali-yuga? If yes, does Lord Caitanya always come to establish the yuga-dharma?
Questioner: Śānta Gopī Mātājī
Date: 2022-10-17
Jayapatākā Swami: Lord Caitanya comes after Kṛṣṇa, sometimes.
And Kṛṣṇa comes once in a day of Brahmā,
in the 27th Dvāpara-yuga,
and sometimes Lord Caitanya comes after Him in the next Kali-yuga.
So the four yugas are 4 million 320 thousand years
and Satya-yuga, Tretā-yuga, Dvāpara-yuga, Kali-yuga are 4, 3, 2, 1 [in that ratio].
So Kali-yuga is one tenth of the other yugas.
So that that is why Kali-yuga is 432,000 years
and we have already been through 5,000 years
and now we have 427,000 years left.
What is the yuga-dharma of the next yuga,
that will be revealed in the various śāstras.
But even if it is Harināma,
some other avatāra of the Lord will initiate this.
In Satya-yuga there was meditation, Tretā-yuga there was yajña and in Dvāpara-yuga there is temple worship.
So that is still 4 million years to the next Kali-yuga.
So you can tell me what is the next yuga-dharma.
Category: [Kṛṣṇa (Godhead)], [Kṛṣṇa (Godhead) / Gaurāṇga], [Material World / Kali yuga], [Sādhanā / Chanting (Japa)], [Sādhanā / Philosophical questions], [Śrī Caitanya-līlā / Lord Caitanya]
Is the special benediction of going back to Godhead simply by chanting the holy names applicable to every Kali-yuga or only the one where Lord Caitanya appears?
Questioner: Vraja Kṛṣṇa dāsa, Māyāpur
Date: 2022-10-04
Jayapatākā Swami: It is hard to say,
how is the situation in other Kali-yugas.
Previous Kali-yuga was about 4 million years ago.
So, it is hard to say
and we know in this Kali-yuga,
we chant the holy names
and we go back to Godhead.
Please don’t delay.
The next opportunity,
if it is in Kali-yuga,
it is four million years from now.
Lord Caitanya doesn’t come after every avatāra of Kṛṣṇa.
And Kṛṣṇa only comes once in the day of Brahmā.
And a day of Brahmā is a thousand catur-yugas.
And he has an equally long night.
Then he rests.
So, better to take advantage of this opportunity.
Category: [Kṛṣṇa (Godhead) / Gaurāṇga], [Kṛṣṇa (Godhead) / Spiritual World / Dhāma], [Material World / Kali yuga], [Sādhanā / Chanting (Japa)], [Sādhanā / Philosophical questions]
What is the duration of Kali-yuga?
Questioner: Anonymous
Date: 2022-07-30
Jayapatākā Swami: (Four million…) 432,000 years.
We are 5000 years going now.
Another 427,000 years to go.
Then Satya-yuga.
Listen, after 10,000 years from now, Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s movement will already have reached the peak and will start to decline again by the powers of māyā.
So, you should not think about 400,000 thousand years.
You should finish up within this next 10,000 years, all your re-birth and go back to Kṛṣṇa,
because after that, you see Caitanya Mahāprabhu, He is delivering very quickly.
With Caitanya Mahāprabhu, there are five associates Nityānanda, Advaita… Advaita is Mahā-Viṣṇu and Sadāśiva combined in one.
Even Śiva is there in the līlā with Caitanya Mahāprabhu. 
Category: [Material World / Kali yuga]
Would you still consider someone who commits a mental offence towards a pure devotee as your servant?
Questioner: Annu Prasad
Date: 2022-10-15
In Kali-yuga, one doesn’t get a reaction 
for mentally creating some offence. 
You have to do that practically. 
Since the mind is not very easily controlled in the Kali-yuga, 
it may think many weird things. 
So Gadādhara Prabhu, 
He was thinking that Puṇḍarīka Vidyānidhī 
was a materialistic, 
later He realized that he was a pure devotee. 
So therefore, He accepted him as His guru, 
because the guru always forgives his disciples’ offences. 
So, if someone offends a guru mentally, 
and later surrenders and becomes the guru’s disciple, 
that is authorized in the process, example set by Gadādhara Prabhu.
Category: [Anarthās], [Aparādha (Offenses)], [Material World / Kali yuga], [Material World / Mind / Intelligence]
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