Timeline of His Holiness Jayapataka Swami's Life - 1991-2000

My dear spiritual children and well-wishers, Please accept my blessings and best wishes. All glories to Śrīla Prabhupāda!

Taraganj

My touring in Bangladesh continues. It's morning. I hear the maṅgala-ārati going on in the temple. I'm late. Time to get up!

The sky is lighting up gradually. I see grass huts around the yard of the house I am staying at. Maybe this house is the only brick house in this village of 163 households. The aspiring disciple in whose house I am staying is Chief Police Officer of a police station in South Bengal and has come up to receive me, but asks permission to return to his station this morning as he is on active duty.

Around the house I am in there are two jackfruit trees, one neem tree and four papaya trees. Another building serves as a kitchen, and he also has a small 5-meter temple and a tulasī stand. A tube well with an open area urinal nearby is 10m from the house and an outhouse toilet is about 25m from the house at the far end of the plot. No running hot and cold water here. Running tube well hand-pumped water! I take my open area bath from a half drum of cold water. Pouring water from a mug, I shout Gaṅgā again and again! Three brahmacārīs come and start pouring water over me as well.

I say my gāyatrī. Chant. Meet the local leading devotees. Now I have to get to the work at hand. The Temple's PA system is broadcasting beautifully rendered bhajanas and kīrtanas sung by devotees. Here in Gaura-maṇḍala-bhūmi, I am moved to remember Lord Gaurāṅga's pastimes in east Bengal, His mercy towards the fallen souls. GAURĀṄGA!!!

Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted us to preach here in Bangladesh. He said we can get thousands of times the benefit compared to preaching in other places. This is now a Muslim country. Hindus are a small minority of 12% to 20% at most. The government doesn't publish the true figures so it is hard to be exact. The Muslims are quite gentle here. The Hindus are so devotional it defies description.

ISKCON is in the forefront of preaching in this country, but the work to be done is much more than our capacity. We need so much help. So many preachers could be engaged. Śrīla Prabhupāda personally, for many years, gave money every month from his guru-dakṣiṇa to maintain the preaching here. It was so important to Śrīla Prabhupāda. Now we have hundreds of Nāmahaṭṭas and thousands or tens of thousands of devotees.

The sky is filled with clouds. The government turns off the electricity. Local villagers say they are afraid that a storm will cause lightning to hit the high-tension wires and trip the power trans formers. So now I have to stop. I am on battery power again. Might need it for other urgent matters. Haribol! I go to Govinda darśana ārati. The small Rādhā-Govinda Deities are very merciful, accepting worship in a simple manner. The temple is clean, simple but well maintained. I look around and see all the devotees. Ever since this year's Gaura Pūrṇimā my heart has gone through many changes. Seeing the devotees... how wonderful the ISKCON Nāmahaṭṭa Kṛṣṇa devotees are! Their bright faces, decorated with nicely applied tilaka, shining like moons. How fortunate I am to be with Kṛṣṇa's devotees!! How merciful Śrīla Prabhupāda and Nitāi Gaura are!!! I can't control the tears from swelling up, my heart is overwhelmed... I circumambulate the Deities and try to control myself. It starts lightly raining. I take shelter again in the house to complete the interviews.

I am not going to make this read like a travelogue. Watch the videos for the visual effects. The filming assistants, the secretaries, the video ministry staff (Jita Krodha Prabhu), and many others work to bring the videos to you so that you can spend time with me by watching the videos. It is frustrating that in spite of all the efforts to produce the videos, most disciples who have television sets don't have all copies of the videos. I have a TELEVISION TAX for my disciples and followers - if you have a TV then you have to have all my videos, or at least be regularly receiving them, and watching them too. That doesn't mean I give a licence to watch māyā shows. No māyā please. Essential use and KC videos. That's all.

I am completing the personal interviews with initiation candidates. After some time, just as we are completing the interviews, a heavy tropical storm hits. I can't talk to anyone since the torrential rain hitting the tin roof is making a tumultuous sound. The verandah of the house where I am staying gets hit by strong winds which literally drive the rain on everyone. So they all come into my room. While I am writing this in the dark room, 35-40 people are crammed in here waiting for the storm to break and the yajña to begin. Water gets sprattled on us from somewhere and we get a little spray. Apart from that we are dry and seemingly okay.

10:30am: Storm tones down and now the rain is normal without heavy wind. The devotees leave my room and go to the kirtan hall for starting the initiation ceremonies. I take breakfast and finalize the names.

11:30am: The 10 offenses to the Holy Names are preached on and yajña is begun for initiation.

We finished the initiation ceremony. Many also took shelter. After a simple lunch we started off to the next stop which was more than 200km further north.

The next stop was at Syedpur where we are supposed to get an airplane tomorrow. The airlines informs us that our ticket is valueless and there is no place. No hope to go. I try to log onto internet, but no one has heard of such a thing. No public phones except one government one and they won't allow me to hook my computer to their wires. So I can't send out this message until I get back to Dhaka, the capital city or somewhere with a phone jack or direct dialing facility.

Syedpur

After wasting a half hour trying to log on we headed north. We reached the destination at 5:30pm - just before sunset. About one thousand devotees were there waiting. They had come a kilometer ahead to walk us in by kīrtana, but since we were already so late, we did the very hard-hearted thing of driving through the group of 50 devotees and heading to the āśrama after offering them our blessings. What to do? It would have taken 20 minutes to get past the last kilometer.

This āśrama is on an acre or so plot and has a small temple and several half-completed brick structures with tin roof as temporary cover until they get enough money to finish the concrete roof. The whole āśrama was decorated with flags, banners, colored cloth and decorated gateways. It looked really attractive although in reality it is a very simple facility.

I told Jagannivāsa dāsa to get out and video the reception. Hundreds of devotees swarmed around the car. I asked that they make a cordon and not have people touch my feet. They tried. I got out of the car. People went wild. They all dived for my feet. Jagannivāsa dāsa couldn't film because he got thrown over practically. I was dragged by two senior devotees. A group of brahmacārīs did the best they could to guard the flanks, getting me through the crowd to the seat prepared for me.

Guru-pūjā and foot bathing was done. Things went smoothly. I went to the room. No electricity. Bare, unplastered brick walls. Clean. A big bed with clean cover for me, in case I wanted to rest. This night was not meant for me to rest however.

I hope that this finds you in good health and blissful in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness.

Your ever well-wisher,

Jayapatākā Swami