19900930 Talk On Ratha-yātrā

The following is a talk given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on September 30th, 1990 in Atlanta, Georgia. The talk was given on the Ratha-yātrā festival.

oḿ ajñāna-timirāndhasya jñānāñjana-śalākayā
cakṣur unmīlitaḿ yena tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ

nama oḿ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine

namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe

jaya śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu Nityānanda
śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī gurum dīna-tāriṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram

Jayapatākā Swami: So, we take this opportunity of thanking everyone for coming today on this transcendental festival of Jagannātha Ratha-yātrā festival of chariots, and especially we like to again thank His Holiness Kavicandra swami Mahārāja for taking the trouble to come here from his busy, preaching tour and giving us very nice explanation of some of the significance of  the Ratha-yātrā festival. Especially how Śrīla Prabhupāda, our Founder Ācārya, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, his relationship with the Ratha-yātrā festival and how the Ratha-yātrā festival unfolded.

Lord Jagannātha a is coming specially to give mercy to the conditioned souls. He has several wonderful aspects to His presence. Jagannātha is Lord Kṛṣṇa. He is with the wide lotus eyes and the smiling face. He is on the right, and in the far left is Lord Balarāma, His elder brother, and in the middle His sister Subhadra Devī. So Kṛṣṇa was present 5000 years ago in India in this planet. And He went with his brother and sister from Gujarat—today what’s known as Gujarat—from Dvārakā, where He had his kingdom in an island, a massive paradise island off the shore of what is now known as Gujarat. He went by boat to the mainland and with his many associates and some army, they went to Hastināpura, which was the capital of India. We’re now in the vicinity of New Delhi. Then from there they went to Kurukṣetra where the Bhagavad-gītā had been spoken some years before by Lord Kṛṣṇa to Arjuna. That time Kurukṣetra was a battlefield, but Kurukṣetra also is known as dharma-kṣetra, a place of spiritual sacrifices and religion. So when there was a solar eclipse, to counteract the negative effects and to take advantage of that astrological moment, they all went to the holy tanks. There is some manmade lakes in Kurukṣetra, and everyone goes and bathes there when there is a solar eclipse. So at that time Kṛṣṇa met with his childhood devotees, and friends, associates, who came from Vṛndāvana.

So Lord Caitanya, He would participate in this festival with a mood of bringing Kṛṣṇa back to meet His friends, His devotees from Vṛndāvana. Bringing Kṛṣṇa back to Vṛndāvana. These all kind of mysterious things. But each has got many esoteric meanings to it. That Kṛṣṇa came down from spiritual world to this planet, to display to people that in the spiritual world the basic bond between everyone is pure love. And He showed through His loving relationships with His different devotees, how pure is the love between the Supreme Personality of Godhead and His devotees. Now I just came from India, enroute I stopped in Rome. And we want to build one of the biggest, if not the biggest spiritual monuments in the world for Lord Chaitanya Mahāprabhu in Māyāpur, in the centre of the spiritual city that His Holiness Kavicandra Swami Mahārāja mentioned. So we wanted to see again. I went with an architect and a designer to see the Vatican, Saint Peters, and as well as the Pantheon and few other monuments in Rome. So there in the Vatican, the idea about God is a old man in the sky, someone who is very old because He is still around. So, if anybody’s been around that long, he must be pretty old. So anybody old is wrinkled with white hair. This is what we normally think of. In the West, when we think of God, or we may think of some light or energy.

But Kṛṣṇa came to dispel all these doubts, to show what He is really like. That He never grows old. He is the oldest but He does not grow old, because He doesn't have a material body. He has spiritual body. A spiritual form which is eternally youthful. And He doesn't really have to anything to do. We have to work hard in the material world. So, He instructed in the Bhagavad-gītā that the purpose of human life is to achieve self-realization, to realize the self, to realize Him through yoga, and to wind up this material life. So, after this life when we leave this body, we the spirit soul, the living force in the body, we can return back to the spiritual world. Well, many times, people ask, “What will I do if I go to the kingdom of God? What does anybody do?”, and generally speaking nobody can answer that. But Kṛṣṇa, He came to show what are the kind of things to do by engaging in, bringing with Him hundreds and thousands of his eternal associates from the spiritual world, and recruiting many new devotees. Many devotees are waiting here to be brought back into the spiritual world. They joined up with His pastimes in this universe, and from here He sent them back them to the spiritual world. Then He went on from this universe, and now He is in another universe somewhere else in the material creation. His pastimes are always going on in one universe or the other. And also, beyond this material world there is a spiritual world which is beyond the time factor. There is no death, there is no birth, there is no disease, there is no old age, there is no anxiety, there is no fear, there is nothing negative at all there. Not even a tinge. So, the perfection of human life is to be able to return to the spiritual world, and while we are living in this world, to be able to live in that atmosphere. So what Kṛṣṇa showed that the basic fibre or the basic mood in the spiritual world, especially in Goloka Vṛndāvana - the highest planet, is pure love. How we can get pure love? - Golokera prema dhana Harināma-saṅkīrtana

That pure love of Kṛṣṇa has come from the spiritual world in the form of Harinām saṅkīrtana, in the form of chanting of

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

By chanting this mantra not only can one achieve all kinds of perfection, even of liberation, but the ultimate perfection of pure love of Kṛṣṇa can be achieved. So therefore, anyone who chants and hears attentively, after some time they start to feel very good. They start to feel some attraction for Kṛṣṇa. As their conditioning for material nature becomes cleansed, and their natural propensity to love becomes awakened.

So as Mahārāja has mentioned, normally these temples in India, they are not open to the public. Only to the devotees. And especially Jagannātha Purī temple, still they are very rigid on this point. They have very narrow view on what a devotee is. But still, for nine days every year, Lord Jagannātha comes out on the street and He makes Himself available to everyone. And one of the features of Jagannātha festival is Jagannātha wants everyone to takes his specially sanctified food. Simply by even a drop of that food one can experience spiritual bliss, one can achieve unlimited perfection. So, we want that everyone will participate in this love feast today and take Jagannātha's mahā-prasādam. And just when Lord Jagannātha arrived, you probably noticed that there was a cloth put in front of Him and some bells were ringing. The devotees prepared the food following a particular bhakti-yoga meditation, and then they offer the food to lord Jagannātha who eats it by glancing over it. And anyone who takes that food, it’s a type of spiritual food. They are immediately given spiritual energy just from that food. So, one of the special desires of Jagannātha and His devotees is that everyone should taste his prasādam.

Lord Caitanya, He had all of His devotees chant at the Ratha-yātrā festival. He had seven different kīrtana groups. Some were in front, some were behind, and some on the right side, some were on the left side of the chariots. While they were all chanting, then Lord Caitanya would visit each of the kīrtana groups and be chanting and dancing with each one of them. There was a king of that country of Lord Jagannātha’s land in Orissa, the Gajapati, the King of Orrisa. At that time his name was Pratāparudra. So, he was on his top of his palace watching this kīrtana. Then he saw that simultaneously Lord Caitanya was in all of the seven different kīrtana chanting groups, singing and dancing. So, He was astonished that He was seven times duplicated at the same time. But each group thought that He was only with us. So, Lord Caitanya is also the Lord, but He came as a devotee in order to teach us how to worship Kṛṣṇa, how to experience the perfection of yoga, the perfection of life in this human birth. So, Lord Caitanya had predicted that in every town and village throughout the entire world, this saṅkīrtana movement would be spread.

And His Divine Grace Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, our beloved spiritual master and founder, he brought this message of Lord Caitanya to the Western world 25 years ago. he landed this month in North America in Boston 25 years ago, I believe on September 17 or 18. So, this is the historic movement, the 25th Anniversary jubilee, the silver jubilee of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s arrival here in America. And soon after Jagannātha also came. Lord Jagannātha is a form of Kṛṣṇa which is very merciful. He is very merciful. He doesn't take offenses very easily. There are several stories how these Deity forms came to be.

One famous story how the great sculptor from the higher planetary system – Viśvakarma, he agreed to carve Deities of Kṛṣṇa and His brother and sister for the emperor at that time. But on the condition that no one would disturb him until he was finished. So, he was working for many days, and the King would hear him carving behind closed doors. Then after some time he didn't hear any more noise. So, he wondered what was happening. So, then after several days of not hearing any sound, he opened up the door of the workshop, and there all of a sudden Viśvakarma turned around and said. “You have interrupted me. Now I am not finishing”, and he left. And these were the Deities which appear to be incomplete forms of Kṛṣṇa.

Then there is another story that explains another explanation, that these are actually forms of Kṛṣṇa in ecstasy. That when Kṛṣṇa was 16 years old, then He left his mother and His step mother and father and childhood friends, and went to rid the world of various evil. Went to Mathurā, Went to Dvārakā. So, He was always remembering His childhood friends and devotees. And whenever He would hear about them, He would feel intense love for them and separation.

So when he was in Dvārakā, no one would discuss about his childhood friends and pastimes because Kṛṣṇa would become too emotional, too affected due to love for them. So, one day Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma had gone out. So all the queens of Dvārakā requested Rohiṇī, the mother of Balarāma, to please tell us about Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma’s childhood pastimes. We want to hear what they did when they were in Vṛndāvana, when they were playing like cowherd boys. Playing on their flute. So, then Rohiṇī said, “Alright, but so long as Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma cannot hear it. In case they come back, someone has stay at the door and watch and warn us. So they had the sister Subhadrā standing outside the door to give a alarm in case Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma came back. And then Rohiṇī she started to explain to all the queens of Dvārakā all the beautiful loving pastimes of Kṛṣṇa. Meanwhile Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma came back and they went up to the door, but Subhadrā was so busy listening through the door, that Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma they also put their ears and they were listening. And when they started to listen and heard about all the devotees of Vṛndāvana and their pastimes, they started to become choked up and feel separation, and be overwhelmed with the highest ecstasy of Kṛṣṇa-prema, of pure love. So, they started to retract the limbs of their body. Feeling such intense ecstasy that their head and their arms enter into their body, and they became like frozen in this kind of a unique tortoise position. Subhadrā being between them. She was also similarly affected by this ecstasy. So, that is another explanation why Lord Jagannātha is in this special mood. That He is actually in the mood of extreme ecstasy for His devotees while in Dvārakā.

So many people, they feel that the Supreme Truth must be impersonal. Because we are all persons, and when we are living in this world, we have a lot of personal clashes. So, we think that perfection must be with no personality. A light. An energy. But this is an incomplete understanding. So, Lord Kṛṣṇa came from the spiritual world to show that in the spiritual world there is a personality, but it's not material. There is no inebriety, there is no deficiency, there is no old age, there is no defects that we find here in the material world. He came to firmly establish the Personality of Godhead. That He is a person. And the light which great yogīs and seers of the truth are fascinated by, that light is simply His personal aura which He expands all over the universe, on the subtlest platform of spiritual energy known as Brahman or brahma-jyoti. So you have all been participating in this pastimes of Lord Jagannātha. He has come here also in the Deity form and allowed us to tak Him on this procession, to chant with him, to pull His chariot, and by doing that you have all become very close to Him. He is very grateful for all your service. He will never forget you for that, and we hope that you continue to develop in this relationship with Lord Jagannātha, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and continue to chant

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
 Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

Whether here in the temple or in your home or in the street or wherever you are. Always keep Kṛṣṇa in your mind, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and be happy.

Thank you.

Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Srīla Prabhupāda ki

Devotees: Jaya!

Jagannātha Baladeva, Subhadrā ki

Devotees: Jaya!

Caitanya Mahāprabhu ki

Devotees: Jaya!

Jagannātha Ratha-yātrā mahā-mahotsava ki

Devotees: Jaya!

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