Mukha karoti vaachaalam…
So three years have passed by and now again the Purushottam month is about to be observed. This is the one month that is especially recommended for worshipping Radha and Krishna and to chant Hare Krishna.
(broadcast interrupted).. and they were in the Lotus park. So they were showing Prabhupad a drama. A drama called Dacaithi – Armed Robbery. In India this is known as Dacaithi. So they were dancing around waving their sticks and some of the actors put kerosene in their mouths and they would blow out the kerosene and spit fire at some distance. So the drama went on for about half an hour spitting out kerosene, dancing like wild men, spinning their sticks. Prabhupad, he accepted all these things and thus he was engaging the stick fighters in Krishna’s service. So when they finished the drama he thanked them all. I don’t know if you have seen stick fighting but it is quite impressive to see the way they spin their sticks around. So that was the drama put on by the local villagers.
They invited me to come for a kabaddi game. They have two sides and one side tries to touch the other side and he is alive as long as he chants, so they would say, kabaddi, kabaddi. So I asked them why don’t you chant the name of God? They said, that is too much air. Hare…ha! So I spent some time thinking what could they chant and I came up with a name of Krishna, He would play with the cowherd boys and the sound was almost like kabaddi, it was Gopati. So we tried it out Gopati, Gopati, Gopati! And it was more or less the same as kabaddi, kabaddi. But they chanted the name of Krishna.
Prabhupad he was quite liberal. He said, that the Muslims can stay here and they can chant their namaaz. But they should attend mangala arati and chant japa. So some of the local community members took Prabhupad’s invitation and they stayed in Mayapur. And they did their namaaz and they chanted Hare Krishna. Srila Prabhupad he was chanting the jaya dhwani after the arati and there was one man standing up wearing a lungi and Prabhupad said, get down, get down! So he would have everybody bowing down at the end of the arati. He would go around the deities and ring the bell. Sometimes I got the privilege to ring the bell and we were all jumping and dancing, Prabhupad would circumambulate the deities three times. So this was very ecstatic.
Sometimes Prabhupad would take his morning walk inside the campus and sometimes he would go outside. So while walking if he saw some paper or refuse he would say, pick it up. He was training us, wherever there is a brahmana there should be cleanliness. There was a GBC who had just flew in from overseas. He saw Prabhupad walking and he rushed over to the group. At that time, we had a bathroom complex. Inside was the ladies’ bathroom and outside was the men’s. So Prabhupad, he knocked the door open using his cane and he saw some night soil. The person who had used the bathroom should have cleared up after his use. Prabhupad, he said where there is a brahmana, there is no dirt. Like this, he was teaching all those present. This GBC who had just flown in had a big smile seeing Prabhupad who was giving his instructions to all the devotees. Everyone was very serious but this one leader, Prabhupad turned to him, you call yourself a brahmana, what is this dirt? He was like, me? I just arrived! But when Prabhupad would teach, it was for everyone and so he sharply instructed this leader who failed to understand the mood. So of course, I was getting the instruction many times and I knew how to accept but this leader, he took it personally and he did not understand.
Prabhupad said that when he left his body if he left it in Mayapur he would have Pushpa Samadhi in Vrndavan. If he left his body in Vrndavan, he would have Pushpa Samadhi in Mayapur. In November October it was arranged for him to go to Mayapur in 1977 and three Mercedes Benzes were booked but somehow all the three suffered breakdowns and then Prabhupad said he would stay in Vrndavan. We were all waiting for him to come to Mayapur. But that wasn’t to be.
So these are some of the pastimes and we will see what they send over from Mayapur. Are there any questions?
Question: Guru maharaj, yesterday you were talking about how we should get out of niskinchina, akinchina how only a devotee is pure and is detached. So my question is there is also this idea of dovetailing all our desires in the service of the Lord. So when we try to do that how do we understand whether we are doing it for the Lord or we are just masking our desires by saying we are doing it for the Lord?
Guru maharaj: Like that we can doubt any service by masking the masking, the masking of the masking, to mask the thing. We just have to be simple and straightforward. If Krishna and guru have said what we should do, we should do that. And don’t worry if you are masking or not. Prabhupad told me to stay in India. So I wrote to Prabhupad, you are asking me to do something that I like to do. I like Indians, I like to stay in the Dham. Prabhupad said, whether you like it or not, you should do it. Not because you like it, you don’t do it. So we don’t do things because of some masking, we do things because guru and Krishna have asked us. And if it happens that we like doing that then Prabhupad said, we are lucky. Whether you like it or not, you should do it and just because you like it, is not a reason to not do it.
Question: Gurudev you had studied Buddhist auras, chakras and energies before coming in touch with the sublime philosophy of the Srimad Bhagavatam and Srila Prabhupad. How should devotees guard themselves against these new age methods and processes?
Guru maharaj: I asked Prabhupad that I am seeing auras and so on and so forth. He said, don’t worry, that will disappear. You will have a higher spiritual vision.
Hare Krishna!
15 May 2018
JRDD