20230522 Question and Answer Session

Question: For mahā-prasāda, like Kālīdāsa, he had mahā-prasāda of all the Vaiṣṇavas, and then he got the mercy of Caitanya Mahāprabhu, is it okay for us to also have the mahā-prasāda of all the Vaiṣṇavas?

Jayapatākā Swami: There are no hard and fast rules. Once, someone was taking all the mahā-prasāda from all the guests. Śrīla Prabhupāda said, you said take from the devotees. If you take from new people and you get sick, it is not auspicious. Be a little selective!

Question: There are so many people suffering in this world, mentally, and they don’t exactly know what to do, they go to therapists, they try to receive various types of help, because they don’t know what they are going through. How can we connect them back to Kṛṣṇa?

Jayapatākā Swami: Lord Caitanya told Lord Nityānanda that We have descended to deliver four kinds of people who normally don’t get delivered – one of those was those who are suffering. You can preach to them how Lord Caitanya has come to take them all back to Godhead. To give them ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa, which will end their suffering.

Question: Last week your quotation of the day on May 18 said, actually to get chastised by your spiritual master is a higher blessing than getting a praise. Praise actually is not so good. Could you please share a little more on this?

Jayapatākā Swami: Is that in the verse today? Questions should be especially on the verses today. If anyone has any doubt or question on the verses today, otherwise it will just open up to anything. You have a question on the verse? I chastised you! Ha! Ha! So I answered your question. Ha! Ha! How do you feel? Ha! Ha!

Question: Regarding the dust of the lotus feet of the pure devotee, often we are encouraged to touch the feet of the pure devotee, especially our Gurudeva’s, but then we see that when Guru Mahārāja goes to public places it is not encouraged to let other people touch the lotus feet of Guru Mahārāja, so could you give a bit of an insight into why this distinction is there? Or should we also should be careful?

Jayapatākā Swami: When someone touches your feet, they give their karma to you. And we see that - Śrīla Prabhupāda, actually once the home minister of Bengal, who is in charge of the Police and things, he went and put his head on Śrīla Prabhupāda’s lotus feet, Brahmānanda wanted to punch him! Śrīla Prabhupāda stopped him, said it is their culture. Would have been a big mess to punch the Home Minister! There are different circumstances. And we see that some people, they want to touch the feet of the guru. Śrīla Prabhupāda, when they would touch the feet, he would touch them on the head, like giving them back the karma ha! but also they were taking the blessing. Sometimes the way devotees they prohibit people may be too much. You have to see the situation. I saw that in South India and different places, the ladies would pour the water and the husband would touch the lotus feet, that ladies should not touch a sannyāsīs, but they are allowed to pour the water. That was the system that was apparently practiced when Lord Caitanya visited South India. That the wife would pour the water and the husband would massage it. So it is very late now.

Hare Kṛṣṇa!