You have any realizations? Does anyone want to say something? You went to Katwa, Jajigram, Srikhanda? Any one wants to say anything? Shanta Gopi devi dasi?
Tomorrow there is a special class in Prabhupad’s samadhi auditorium. Everyone is welcome to go. Bhakti Dhira Damodar Swami, Nrsimha Swami, Bhakti Nitya Swami will give a special class on vaishnava etiquette.
Shanta Gopi – We went yesterday and we came back today. But before that we saw so many wonderful pastime places. And my realization was how it was during Lord Caitanya’s time, how transcendental was it and certain pastimes took us to that time. Where one time Raghunandan das Thakur was offering bhoga and the Lord came and ate. And another time when he was doing kirtan, dancing with Abhiramdas Thakur, his anklet broke and it fell far away in the Nupur Kunda. Like this very transcendental, amazing pastimes of Lord Caitanya. So my realization was that I was hearing it and one fine day we will all have possibility of entering into these pastimes! That was our prayer, our hankering.
Guru maharaj: We should all want to participate in the Lord’s pastimes. Someone else has realizations? Someone can translate?
Hare Krishna guru maharaj! Hare Krishna guru maharaj said. (Chinese devotee spoke in Mandarin probably). I feel very, very fortunate that by guru maharaj’s arrangement, we could visit all those holy places that 500 years ago Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu and His associates, They performed different kinds of pastimes. So we are feeling very, very fortunate. She learnt one Bengali word. During the day all the prasadam made by the devotees are “khoob bhalo”!
Khoob bhalo! How How! Guru maharaj said.
Devotee: Yesterday, Marici prabhu announced about Harinaam. He said, maybe 15 minutes, a short Harinaam, but Krishna arranged for more than two hours Harinaam by the maharajas! And the devotees, especially the Chinese group inspired us very nicely, my name is Shuka.. das name not clear. Devotees distributed over 500 books! Prabhupad ki jai!
Guru maharaj: Only two hours of Hari naam! It is so short! You should see what a long one is! We went to Rajahmundry Ratha Yatra, it was six hours. How long was the kirtan in Tirupati? Ha! Eight hours! How did the people of Katwa receive your kirtan?
Devotee: Very nice guru maharaj. They were very happy because they have a different way of calculating distance. Narottam prabhu, organizer of the program in Katwa they said, only maximum two kilometres but actually we went over seven kilometers! Ha! So we were elevated! Because they wanted to take us through the entire town so everybody could get the benefit to hear the holy name. I also have this realization guru maharaj that in such holy places for everyone, devotees who come from around the world, as well as from India, everybody so much appreciates Katwa, they say that it is Katwa dham. In the future we can have different activities so that devotees can go on pilgrimage as it is very close to Mayapur. How many eternal associates of Lord Caitanya were there! So many! Guru maharaj, Srila Jayapataka Swami, he recorded some messages that we broadcast to everyone. The most special place I felt was in the town where they have a tree where Lord Caitanya was shaved, all the beautiful long hair of Lord Caitanya, they made into a samadhi and the original samadhi is there! It is something very amazing! So the place that He took sanyasi initiation, the samadhi of His guru. That places is so charged with spirituality. Besides this we visited so many places. We only have gone one day in safari but we visited so many places, as though we travelled for one week! It was better to sleep there one night in Katwa because the devotees if they have to go and come back the same day, you can visit the places but we may not get sufficient time to hear the katha in these places. It was very, very wonderful, the lectures by the maharajas. The safari devotees, it is full of love, the way they are cooking, the way they are singing, many of them they cried, so many cried when they saw the devotees from all over the world. It was very touching, very, very much!
Guru maharaj: I was thinking that we should do some cultural program in these cities, even if I have to pay for it, because it is an important thing that the area around Mayapur we should cultivate, and there are so many holy places, so many associates. Even to the devotees of Mayapur, you should announce that they can go to one place and come back. So they can pay a little bit for that, whatever the cost is. Once I was going from Kolkata to Mayapur just after Balasore there was a family who said, please visit our house. I said, we don’t have time. Ekta second, ek second, EK SECOND! GIVE ME ONE SECOND! I found out that one second was 22 minutes! Ha! So if they say two kilometers, ha! We should first go and check out! I thank all the devotees that are here, how the Katwa devotees were crying when they saw all these devotees. That reminds me of Bangladesh, we went to one village. There is an island we were surrounded by water. Atnd we showed them the Yadubara film –Hare Krishna World – how people were practicing Krishna consciousness all over the world They said prabhu, Maharaj, you saved our life. We were told that Mohamed Ali is the President of the United States! The whole world will become Muslim; we are only one village holding out. So we should convert. But now we see that Lord Caitanya’s movement is all over the world. You have saved our lives! Gauuuuuranga! We are not against any religion, but false news should not be the source of people converting. Any way we don’t convert anyone. Prabhupad said we convince, we don’t convert. Anyone else wants to speak about their visit to Katwa, Jajigram or Srikhanda?
Devotee: We visited the place of Jagai Madhai. Because I see my life before, it was worse than Jagai and Madhai but I did not become a great devotee like them. So if it is possible for people like Jagai and Madhai to be elevated, then it is possible for a normal person, a materialistic person in this world to become a devotee. Because Lord Caitanya has come 500 years ago but still you know even after so many years our hearts, my heart is still very hard, still cannot become soft and become a devotee.
Guru maharaj: It is so blissful to hear about their character. Like Raghunandan Thakur, when he was a small boy, his father gave him the upanayanam, sacred thread and his father had to go out to see some disciple. So he told the son, please give the bhoga to the deities, deities will eat it and then take it back to your mother. So he went with a plate of laddoos to offer to Laddoo Gopal, but the deity was not taking it. He started crying. The deity asked, why are you crying? My father said You will eat but You are not eating. The deity asked, if I eat, will you stop crying? Yes. Then He ate. Then he gave empty plate back to his mother. Mother said, where are the laddoos? Gopal ate, he said! Ha! Ha! Ha! This was going on every day. The mother told the father when he came back, Mukundananda. I will hide in the deity room and see what is really going on. Then he heard his son tell the deity, please take this offering. He didn’t hear anything. Then he looked out of the back of the deity room. The deity was eating! As soon as he gasped the deity stopped. He walked up and said, I caught you red handed with a half-eaten laddoo! Ha! Ha! And the word spread everywhere that the deity was eating from the hand of Raghunandan! So Ram Abhiram wanted to see this. But Ram Abhiram was known to be a great devotees that when they bow down in front of Shaligram shilas, if they were not bona fide, they would break. So somehow the children of Nityananda were not worthy to be His children so they died. They were afraid that Ram Abhiram, if he bowed down to Raghunandan, then he would die. So they didn’t tell Raghunandan that Ram Abhiram was coming to see him. They sent him away to some relative. But Raghunandan heard that Ram Abhiram was coming. So when Ram Abhiram came, they said, no, our son is not here. So he went to this one mango orchard and sat down there frustrated and he had come all the way to see Raghunandan and he could not see him. Raghunandan came there and bowed down to Ram Abhiram. So that is where Ram Abhiram picked up Raghunandan, they embraced and they danced. That is where the nupur, ankle bells, broke off and flew into the pukur. So these pastimes and places are very steeped with transcendental energy. So I just told this for the benefit of the others who did not go on safari. I am sure that those on safari heard this before. That Laddoo Gopal is still famous that He directly ate the laddoos from Raghunandan Thakur. Why don’t the deities eat from our hands? Because we think the deities are stone, they can’t eat. But Raghunandan did not have such thinking. He had complete faith that the deity will eat. So the deity reciprocated and ate. So if you have faith like that, the deity can reciprocate with you directly. Haribol! Nitai Gaur Hariiiiiiiiiiiiiii bol!
A devotee Jivana Gaura Haridas from Chennai: Guru maharaj I want to share three points. Bhakti Vinod Thakur says Gauranga jei soba sthaane korolo ranga brrange, sei saba sthaane heribo ami pranahi bhakta shange. Bhakti Vinod Thakur says, wherever my Lord Gauranga has performed the transcendental pastimes even for a second, I want to visit those places with loving devotees. So this Gaura Mandal Parikrama has given that wonderful opportunity to see that wonderful transcendental pastimes of Mahaprabhu. The second point I want to mention is that in the Caitanya Bhagavat, Vrndavandas Thakur says the eternal associates of Lord Caitanya are very powerful. Just by uttering Their name they are capable of delivering the entire universe, all living entities, so by doing the Gaura Mandal Parikrama, it is giving us an opportunity to visit those eternal associates’ residence, samadhis and all the pastimes and apart from that, personally after doing Navadvip Mandal Parikrama, I do maanasik parikrama daily and last year I had the opportunity of going to Bangladesh and now you have given us this wonderful gift of Gaura Mandal Parikrama where it can remain in the heart and the heart gets transformed. And we can also do maanasik parikrama from home daily. So I beg at your lotus feet guru maharaj, by meditating, contemplating and absorbing in these pastime places, the stone hearts can melt and for what purpose Mahaprabhu has come here to give pure love of Krishna, let that be attained by the mercy of guru and Gauranga! Hare Krishna!
You went to Jajigram and saw the temple of Srinivas Acharya? He was the king’s guru, the king of Bauna Vishnupur. After he left, the kings that followed, were all devotees of Lord Caitanya and there was a deity of Madanamohan and each king established another Vishnu deity or Radha Krishna. So after some century or so, there was a bandit warlord, his name was Bhaskar Pandit and he had a huge army, like ten thousand soldiers and he defeated many kings. And he went to Jajigram and especially liked to torture and massacre vaishnavas. So when he came to the kingdom of Bauna Vishnupur with his army, the king called the people, we will fight him tomorrow and that just everyone should chant Hare Krishna tonight. Do not fight him. At night he heard some cannon shots, boom, bom, bom, canon firing like machine guns. But machine guns had not been invented yet. He said, who disobeyed my order? He went out and saw that the complete army of Bhaskar Pandit was killed, and there were two canons smoking, red hot. There was an old man there and he asked him what did you see? He said, I saw the deity come out and hold a canon in each hand and shooooo.. fired and killed all of Bhaskar Pandit’s soldiers. So the king went to the deity room and there was gun powder smell in the deity room! Ha! So the canon is still there. Unfortunately, we won’t be going there, there are so many things to see in Gaura Mandala bhumi.
So anyone leaving tomorrow or any question?
Question: Someone was asking what time is the seminar tomorrow? It is 10.30 to 12.30 tomorrow.
When will they take prasadam? After the seminar.
When do they take breakfast? 9 to 9.30 am.
Any other realizations?
Transcribed by Jayaraseshwari devi dasi
25 March 2019