Nama Om Vishnu paadaaya..
Hari Haraya Naama Krishna …
Nitai Gauranga, Nitai Gauranga
Jaya Rasabehrai Rsabehrari Radhe
Jaya Lalita Visaka, jaya Lalita Visaka
Jaya Sita Ram Laksman Bhakta Hanuman
Mukham karoti…
Haribol! So we have become more elevated, up to the second floor! So what should I speak tonight? Narottamadas Thakur he was at Kheturi gram. He was a crown prince but he abdicated the throne. So his cousin brother became the king and he stayed as a devotee. He had his ashram in the outskirts of the town of Kheturi. One time, he asked Srinivas Acarya to do him a favor. Ad he said that he wanted to celebrate Lord Caitanya’s appearance on Gaura Purnima. But Srinivas should invite all the existing associates to come. Already Lord Caitanya and many of His associates had left. And Srinivas agreed, but afterwards he thought it wasn’t so easy. Because everyone was in great separation of Lord Caitanya. So whether they would come or not wasn’t sure. So Jahnava devi, the consort of Lord Nityananda was still present. She came and then many came. Acyutananda, the son of Advaita Gosain also came. So many acaryas, many devotees came. So Narottamadas Thakur, he wanted to install Nitai Gaur deities and various deities, Radha Krishna. So he was leading the kirtan. But then he started to sing in such separation that everyone felt they were dancing in ghee, like four feet ghee, they were in slow motion! And the mood was very thick. So the deities started to emit transcendental fragrance, and everybody was overwhelmed in love of Krsna. They were rolling on the ground, they were crying, they were overwhelmed with transcendental emotion and Jahnava devi she was behind and she indicated that Srinivas could do the arati. So he did the arati after the deity installation, everyone was chanting and dancing and overwhelmed in spiritual love for Krishna. How many would like to be in that spiritual mood? Haribol! So they felt the presence of the Lord on that occasion. And everyone was singing and chanting and dancing. So the Gaura Purnima festival was transcendentally successful. We observe the Gaura Purnima festival every year. I am sure all the temples throughout Iskcon observe it. And for us in Mayapur, it is the biggest festival. We are very grateful that all the devotees come from different parts of the world. I mentioned that we had the parikrama with six parties, and one of those parties is Hindi language. I don’t know how many come from Bombay to participate in the Hindi party or the English party? Any one of you attended? Not too many. We get lots of people from Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, North India. But we are open to west India also! Next year we are told we have seven camps but only six parties. The Tamils said they want to be the next party. So we may have a Tamil party. We will see if they can pull it off. So may be from South India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore and few Tamils from all over India. They say they should have seven to nine hundred, let us see! We many have to make eight or nine camps! To accommodate different languages. Who knows maybe there will be a Marathi language or Gujarati, kem cho? Or maybe Spanish. That is for Spanish speaking devotees. Now we have a Russian party, Hindi party, International party. Every year more and more Chinese are coming. So far we have one or two hundred Chinese. Any way this Gaura Purnima festival was started by Narottamadas Thakur. Lord Caitanya had gone as Nimai Pandit to east Bengal and He bathed in the Padma river. The Ganges divides into two and one goes into East Bengal, which is now known as Bangladesh, which is known as Padma river. The Ganges goes south as Bhagirati and meets the Bay of Bengal at Sagar island where Kapila muni had burnt the sons of Sagar maharaj. So we have the Ganges flowing by Mayapur dham going through the middle of Navadvip dham and dividing the nine islands into two parts. One of the islands is called Jahanudvip and one of the names of Ganges is Jahnavi because she flooded the ashram of Jahnu muni and he was so angry that he drank her up. And Bhagi maharaj looked that Ganges had gone, where did she go? Where did he lose her? When he found out that Jahnu muni had drunk her, he asked him to please reproduce her, so that his forefathers could be delivered. He said, sorry, I digested her! If you are able to swallow her, then you will also be able to reproduce her. So then out of his knee came the Ganges. She was known as Jahnavi who came from the knee of Jahnu muni. So the Ganges went a little bit and she stopped and then Bhagi maharaj of course, he didn’t understand what was going on. he was trying to take her down to deliver his forefathers. Sometimes she disappeared, sometimes she stopped. So he went into meditation, trying to understand why did she stop? Does anyone know? Why did she stop? Because Gaura Purnima festival was approaching, and she wanted to be in Mayapur for the Gaura Purnima. So the place where she stopped is Ganganagar. It says that it is more or less near our ashram One who bathes in the Ganges in Ganganagar on Gaura Purnima, gets the blessing of love of Godhead! Haribol! Gauranga! Gauranga! Gaaauuuuuuranga! GAuuuuuuranga! Haribol! So after Gaura Purnima she continued on to the Sagar island. And Sagar island the government of West Bengal has given us two plots of land. One is a guest house, 30 years lease, renewable and one piece of land to build a temple. It is for 99 years and renewable. So the guest house, we have to give some percentage, if we make any profit. But the land for the temple, it is free and clear. We have been getting a lot of facilities from the current Bengal government. The land ceiling in Mayapur was 23 acres. They increased that to give us 750 acres! So we are very grateful to the Trinamool Congress and the most honorable Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee. Prabhupad said that Mayapur was his united nations of the spiritual world. That was his place of worship and Mumbai is his place of office. Vrndavan is his residence. So Bombay is also one of the three places that Prabhupad expressed his great desire to develop and to be in. So I am very fortunate sometimes I came from Mayapur and Prabhupad would be walking on Juhu beach and he would engage in some discussions with some other people on the beach. And he would give his Krishna conscious viewpoints. Sometimes, at that time there were different houses and tenants, this building wasn’t there at all. Prabhupad would sometimes be on the roof and give darshan and he would speak and just having his uttariya or chaddar on. Are the devotees going back to Baroda? Let us given them a big Haribol! Haribol! Haribol! Come again! Baroda is very near to Dwaraka. Krishna spent His time, and latter pastimes in Dwaraka. Please help the people in Gujarat and Baroda area to be Krsna conscious. We want this to happen. Kem cho? Gauuuuuranga! Nityananda! Haribol!
I think the Brihad Bhagavatamrita tells one pastime in Dwaraka. That there, Krsna was in His quarters because He was not feeling well. So then Rukmini, Satyabhama, Rohini, Balaram, They were there and discussing how the devotees in Vraja were feeling such separation from Krsna, and Krsna, not seen by the others, He came out and was listening. Then they spotted Him. He asked Balaram, is it true, you were just there in Vraja? Balaram said, yes, it is true. Some devotees were feeling such separation that they left their bodies and others were just hanging on to your words that you will come back. And Krsna started crying. When He cried, everyone cried. Pretty soon there was a loud crying sound So all the Vrshnis from the Raj sabha came running, what is happening. They say Krsna, Balaram and all the queens were crying, they were crying. They started to cry. And then from outer space, Lord Brahma saw that there was something happening in Dwaraka. So he came down and when he saw Krsna, Balaram, the Vrshnis, the queens all crying, his first impulse was also to cry. Audio break there was a deep forest. Audio break could hear the ocean waves hitting the shore, He thought it was the Jamuna. So He went to the shore, then He saw Dwaraka in the distance, then He realized that I am not in Vrndavan, I am near Dwaraka. So then He came back to His normal consciousness. So there are so many pastimes in Dwaraka which are in relation to the Brajawasis. So in the spiritual world everything is in the platform of loving exchange. In the material world, it is more like a business deal. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. But in the spiritual world it is love. So any way, any questions tonight? If you can write your questions.
Question: Hare Krishna guru maharaj, When Prabhupad was on the planet you were there personally at that time. How did you develop such attachment and love for Prabhupada that you were ready to surrender and for every moment you wanted to please Prabhupada in word and deed. And even now after 50 years, we can see so many spiritual masters having that kind of surrender and moment to moment to please their spiritual master. How can we hope to develop such attachment to spiritual master?
Guru maharaj: When I realized how much sacrifice Srila Prabhupada did to help me, and where would I be if I did not have Srila Prabhupada’s mercy. I can’t help but feel eternally indebted. I can’t repay the debt. But I try to do whatever I can. But I don’t think it is enough. Hare Krishna!
Question: How to be humble with people who abuse and humiliate us, if we cannot ignore them?
Guru maharaj: Anonymous. If someone humbles us, we thank them. We want to be humble. So they are doing us a service. They are humbling us! As far as someone who abuses us, that is not nice and certainly we would like to protect such devotees from any kind of abuse, but this material world is such a horrible place that some people get pleasure abusing others. This is happiness in the mode of ignorance. Some people like the suffering of others. Like Mrigari the hunter he used to half kill the animals. So Narada muni asked him why do you half kill? I have been taught by my father that to half kill them and leaving them to their suffering is very blissful, very enjoyable. Narada muni then gave him this personal vision that the animals he had half killed had come and killed him. So then he realized that what he was doing was very bad. So then Narada muni gave him the Hare Krishna mantra and told him to chant before the Tulasi and that people would bring him food. He did not have to worry about his maintenance. So he chanted Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. So Lord Caitanya said we should be more humble than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree, offer all respect to others and not expect any respect for yourself. In this way you can always chant the Hare Krsna maha mantra. So we see that this situation happens in our life. So then we have to be humble, tolerant. Prabhupada explained that when we step on grass the grass bends over, but when you walk on the grass gradually comes up again. So like that we have to tolerant and resilient. Even if someone verbally abuses us and humbles us, we don’t stop our devotional service. I remember once I went to see some life member candidate. And I went to his office and I wanted to show him pictures of food for life and other things we were doing. But he started to blast me, abuse me, you people are all cheaters, you just want money and on, and on. So all lies! Then after he finished, he said, no it is not true, it is not a lie, you are actually helping people. I showed him the pictures. He was surprised, he thought that he had blown me away! He said, I was just testing you. So how much does it to take to make a life member? Ha! So when you are preaching, you get used to being abused. Prabhupada said that to make a devotee, you have to spend buckets of blood. You had expect to be abused and we are not running a popularity contest. We don’t expect people to give us a great praise or welcome us and say, oh, I want to give you money! I cannot remember one person saying that. It was always, I will talk to my brother, talk to my mother, my wife. They give every excuse in the book. The worst is when they also criticize you and abuse you. But this is all in a day! You learn to tolerate. Those who take initiation, you are supposed to take guru dakshina from five people or more to teach them humility. When you beg, bhiksham dehi, some people may ask why you want money, get a job! So you can learn humility. But actually usually people are very kind. Sometimes you get a hard time.
Question: Hare Krsna guru maharaj. In Caitanya lila Visnupriya was allowed in Rasa lila but the original Laksmi devi was not allowed in K lila. Your servant Vimalangi devi dasi
Guru maharaj: I don’t know any Caitanya lila where Lord Caitanya participated in Rasa lila. He took the mood of Radharani. So He did not enjoy Rasa lila like Krsna did. But Gauranga naagaris they portray Lord Gauranga as enjoyer of women. But they are considered as apasampradaya. Lord Caitanya when He was a grihastha, He was a proper grihastha with His wife, but He didn’t talk or joke with other ladies. So He was very strict like that. And when He took sanyas of course, He did not have any contact with women. So the reason why Laksmi was not admitted in the Rasa lila is that she worshipped Narayana in the mood of aiswarya, opulence, majestic, but the mood of the rasa lila is madurya and that madurya rasa is not present in Vaikunta, only in Krsna loka in Vraja. So therefore Laksmi was not allowed to enter into the rasa lila because she had a wrong mood.
Do you have any sweets prasadam?
Transcribed by Jayaraseshwari devi dasi
23 April 2019