19821017 Arrival Address

The following is an arrival address by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami, on October 17th, 1982 in Orlando, Florida.

Jayapatākā Swami: … if you have a small temple that has… a lot of… many times devotees like to go to big temples, but in many ways, small temple is very nice because it encourages everyone to take more and more of the responsibility to do different services, where in the big temple sometimes a few people can take on more load for the others, so some can gradually find ways, not really getting into the fire of service.

That way, we find that Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, He used to give assignments to different devotees, not that every devotee had the same assignment and different devotees had also different qualities. It wasn't that every devotee had the same quality, rather, just the opposite, we see then, and Lord Caitanya’s associates, each devotee has got different qualities. It is like Rūpa Gosvāmī and Sanātana Gosvāmī, they were examples of humility.

Just like how they approached Lord Caitanya, even though they were the prime minister of the Hussain Shah, the finance minister, at that time, they approached Him with a straw… a piece of grass in their mouth, and from a distance, they offered their obeisances. The Hussain Shah was the emperor of many many kings, and they were… they were more powerful than many kings, being completely in charge of the whole empire, as his prime minister. They were… they’re… although they may not have been a king, in terms of the exact name, but in actual power they were running the whole empire of say several hundred thousand people… hundred million people, which went say over at least 1/3 of what India and Burma and Bangladesh, today.

So, but they approached Lord Caitanya just like that, in such a humble way, and Lord Caitanya, “So humble.” It’s the sign of a devotee. They didn’t come, you know “Here we are… the prime minister. We’ve come to see you.” So humble. So, they’re the example of extreme humility.

Then, like Raghunātha Dāsa of course, was the son of, well what we call a Zamindar in India. It would be maybe in European context like a Count or Earl, a big landlord who actually has his own army, has… it’s like a miniature king, but it’s not actually a king. In other words, he’s under a king, but he’s… there they’re called Zamindar, but it’s like an Earl, or something like a Count in the… in the European context. Actually, nobility, like kind of like… little less than a king. So he had all opulence and everything, every facility, but then, he was so renounced.

He used to live in the Rādhā-kuṇḍa, just you know the story about how he was just eating the remnants, thrown from the Jagannātha Purī temple. Finally Lord Caitanya… He finally came… was just eating even the chunks of rice after they were rotten and no animals would eat them, then he would take… break them open, take the good part from the center, and eat that.

Then, Lord Caitanya had chased after him and then, just forced him, He said,

“What do you have, there?”

“No no.” 

“I want you… to taste your prasādam.”

“No no no, no. This is not fit for You. I cant…”

He says, “What do you mean?”, and by force, just grabbed the prasāda from him, and said, “Ah!, This is the greatest prasāda I ever had, wonderful prasāda.”

So, like Raghunātha Dāsa, he used to… he used to bow down a fixed number of times every day. I forgot… I don’t know exactly the number but, maybe 108 or 1008, or some incre… quite a significant amount of times, and he would do that as a… like we chant 16 rounds, he would also bow down, so many times just to remain humble. He was the epitome of humility.

And then, of course (), Rāmānanda Rāya, he was the perfect example of just completely not being agitated at all by sex desire. He would be training up the… the young girls how to dance for Lord Jagannātha and in spite of intimate training of them… he would not… he would never become agitated at all. Completely fixed in his constitutional position, svarūpopalabdhi, as an eternal servitor of the Lord, Hare Kṛṣṇa. So like that, every devotee has a particular quality, even of Lord Caitanya. In the pastimes, we see that. We see, subsequently, Narottama Dāsa Ṭhākura, he wrote a… a little song which of course we… which… it’s not really sung as a bhajana, but it’s like a poem more or less, a little song, where he was glorifying Lord Caitanya is Himself the Lord, He’s the source of so many spiritual energies, so some of these energies are engaged in publishing, writing different transcendental literatures and some of them are engaged in distributing those literatures.

There's… it’s like Rūpa and Sanātana, they’re engaged in writing the literatures, and Śrīnivāsa Ācārya, he’s distributing them. Śrīnivāsa Ācārya was the first book distributor in the movement of Lord Caitanya. Up to that point, everyone was writing the books, but no one actually had taken them, and saw… and established them and… It was actually Śrīnivāsa Ācārya, took the books and challenged the different panditas in the court of , Vikram Vir Vikram Shah… Shah, the king of Visnupur.

Of course the books had been stolen, but nonetheless, he was establishing the books and he actually converted that king into a pure Vaiṣṇava. Later on the king took initiation, also became known as Caitanya Dāsa… Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Dāsa and his wife also too… the queen also took initiation. In this way, the book were established as actually authoritative, sources of spiritual understanding.

So, Narottama Ṭhākura was also glorifying the difference of qualities that some were writing books and some were distributing books. Of course, in that way, Śrīla Prabhupāda is unique because, he's… everything… you can find almost all the qualities. At least I can’t think of any quality you can’t find. I’ve never tried to. But, every quality I try to find, I always find it in Śrīla Prabhupāda. It’s so amazing.

He wrote the books, saw that they… pushed that they get published. Personally went to Dai Nippon, tried to make their initial deals so even with MacMillan to see that his books were published, and then trained the devotees how to distribute them, personally was distributing them when he was in Delhi, himself, and that way, writing, publishing, distributing. Prabhupāda was empowered by all the qualities, but of course, that’s unique.

Generally, a devotee has some qualities, maybe not all of the qualities. Maybe all the qualities, in some part, but specifically one quality, more. So, that way, in devotional service even if we can do one thing perfectly, whether it's writing, or distributing books or just cooking for the deity, or serving or cleaning or whatever it may… one particular service,if we can do it very nicely, actually that’s our ticket to pure devotional service.

That's all we have to do, is just even do one service perfectly, and of course if we can do more, just like the nine practices of devotional service. The example is given of those nine different devotees: Hanumān and Parīkṣit and Śukadeva, you know that how Mahārāja Ambarīṣa for the… some devotees, just by doing one devotional service perfectly, they achieve liberation, or they achieve perfection of devotional service, and of course, Ambarīṣa, he did all… he did, of course self-surrender which includes many devotional services, but some devotees may be expert in one, or four or six or eight or all nine, and even one is enough.

Even one is enough to take us to the perfectional platform. So, that way we should try to not be like a… in the terms of devotional service, a Jack of all… you know, the nine, at least we should try to be steady in our and and … in a particular service, and steady if we’re doing a little bit of every one, that’s alright also, but at least to be always steady to actually be concentrated in an unbroken devotional service, as is described in the Bhāgavatam (ŚB. 1.2.6):

sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo yato bhaktir adhokṣaje 
ahaituky apratihatā yayātmā suprasīdati

Ahaituki apratihatā: It’s unbroken. If we can keep the unbroken chain with just doing one service, well that’s alright also. Of course, some… might be difficult just to speak. Like, if you’re Parīkṣit Mahārāja, you can just sit without sleeping, eating, 7… day and night just completely hearing and then leave your body right afterwards, well then… hearing… just by hearing, you can achieve perfection but then if you also in between hearing, you’re going to do other things, or then you start doing other devotional service, in this way you fill up your day with the nine practices of devotional service, so that there’s no gap, there’s no space when you’re doing something which is not connected to Kṛṣṇa.

It’s a continuous meditation, continuous link with Kṛṣṇa through devotional service.

So, what’s wonderful in the… in the present context is that Lord Caitanya is giving out His mercy to the fallen souls, and that mercy is so inconceivable, although Kṛṣṇa has His plan that those who are narādhamas, who are… who are the lowest of mankind, and demons and who are… have their intelligence stolen by the material nature, and who are foolish like the asses, generally speaking, they never can understand Kṛṣṇa. They can never become liberated. We don’t find such people generally achieve liberation, still, Lord Caitanya’s such an intense merciful incarnation, descent, that by His mercy, even these four classes of people find a hope to become delivered, just like Lord Nityānanda delivered Jagāi and Mādhāi who were definitely narādhamas, were definitely the lowest of mankind, but by the mercy of Lord Nityānanda, He was able to deliver them, so while Lord Caitanya’s mission is in this. His pastimes are still going on, this gives, not only the greatest opportunity for all the narādhamas who are in complete ignorance about their constitutional position, at the same time, it gives all of the devotees an opportunity to engage in this preaching activity which itself is purifying.

Just like, even the four Kumāras, when they came to see Mahārāja Pṛthu, and Mahārāja Pṛthu received them, gave them a seat, bathed their feet and did all the ceremonies, and then he asked so many wonderful questions: What’s the purpose of life? What’s the ultimate good that can be done for all mankind? So on and so forth. The Kumāras thanked him that by asking these questions, you are not only doing yourself, you know, a favor, but you’re actually doing us a favor because you’re giving us an opportunity to be able to explain these topics. Both the listener and the speaker become purified because both are fixed in the Absolute.

So, in this way, the opportunity that even, say relatively neophyte people may be engaged in devotional preaching, and actually taste the nectar of being an instrument in the hands of Kṛṣṇa, and thus become actually spiritually opulent, spiritually qualified and become actually very fixed, niṣṭhā, devotees in a very short time is also one of the special mercies of Lord Caitanya which, even in India, before Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura was not emphasized or understood as deeply, I would say, that he actually broadcasted this particular aspect of preaching. In the modern recent history, it kind of rejuvenated that which was existing during Lord Caitanya’s original pastimes, and the pastimes of His immediate following ācāryas like Narottama and other… who are always engaged in this preaching nectar, because originally… I mean, the immediate associates of Lord Caitanya were, of course, many of them were eternal associates of Rādhārāṇī and Kṛṣṇa in Their Vṛndāvana pastimes, and some were there to assist Lord Caitanya in His external pastimes, and some were there also to assist Him in His internal realizations of pure love of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa in Vṛndāvana. Immediately after that, then the ācāryas who came, their main… Because Lord Caitanya left the world, their task was establish the mission of Lord Caitanya in its actual full preaching form, just like Jīva Gosvāmī and Narottama, Śrīnivāsa, Śyāmānanda Paṇḍita and so many others, Viśvanātha Cakravarti Ṭhākura.

So now, again, in the modern context, because Lord Nityānanda predicted that the movement of Lord Caitanya would also go through a certain eclipse, a certain change, now we see there’s like a whole renaissance of Lord Caitanya’s movement all over the world. And so, now the need is to establish, very strongly, this whole mood of preaching and cooperation and Śrīla Prabhupāda has actually brought this now, into the whole international world context, and has made it so easy for everyone to engage in preaching, even if the person doesn’t know the philosophy very well.

He can distribute the books, and of course Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted the people who distribute books should also know his philosophy, so while they’re preaching, and while they’re reading… I know my personal experience was… when I was distributing Back to Godheads in Canada before I went to India… that’s all the books we had.

We didn’t have big books or anything, just had the Back to Godhead, so then I would… continuously by preaching, giving out… sell… trying to sell the Back to Godheads, I would find people would ask me questions which would force me to go back and read the books. I don’t know nowadays if people ask questions, be I would imagine they still do, and in that way I was forced… stimulated to always be reading and trying to understand the philosophy better and better in my initial days of sādhanā, by actually preaching and by preaching, I… I found that Kṛṣṇa would supply intelligence.

The things that I had read seemed to then suddenly take a new form, and I was able to repeat those in a way which the person could actually comprehend by the mercy of Kṛṣṇa and Śrīla Prabhupāda, so in this way, this whole preaching movement which Lord Caitanya started and which has been brought all over the world by Śrīla Prabhupāda and is being continued by his followers, is actually the greatest opportunity to develop each individual’s special devotional quality to its fullest and to also not only enable one to develop himself… oneself and to actually become an instrument in the hands of Kṛṣṇa, but to be instrument of giving mercy and see the actual development of and the welfare its doing to other people, right before your eyes.

If some sincere soul comes forward, you give them the opportunity of linking up with Kṛṣṇa, you give them the opportunity of doing some devotional service for the first time in maybe in their whole existence.

How a little devotional service means a lot is exemplified in a… in a type of very little known pastime of one deity in India. There’s a deity that's called Perumal deity?

Devotee: Tirupati?

Jayapatākā Swami: Not Tirupati, not Tirumala… it’s like Perumal or something like that. Anyway, with south India names, I… It’s a Viṣṇu deity, Kṛṣṇa deity in His Nārāyaṇa form, at the place where Mohinī-mūrti gave out the nectar to the demigods. It's near 5 kilometers or 2, 4 miles from Madurai which is the heart of the south of India, just right in the middle of south India, and... there’s… and… In Madurai, Mīnākṣī, which is a deity of mother Durgā, and Sundara… Sundaranandam… Sundareśvaran, the deity of Lord Śiva… There's a whole pastime where this Mīnākṣī married Lord Śiva, just to make a long story short, and during that time, Lord Viṣṇu gave Mīnākṣī in marriage. He was like the best man, or He was the one who gave her in marriage, or was like the best man, He was like officiating… or officially… or officiating the whole ceremony of wedding Lord Śiva and Pārvatī in this particular pastime. So as a result, this particular deity every year comes during the festival when Mīnākṣī and Lord Śiva are married, for thousands of years. These deities are very, very ancient.

Temples are gradually decaying, they’re rebuilding. Present day temples that are there now are literally thousands of years. There’s also a very big Viṣṇu temple in the city of Madurai. I can tell you about the reception they gave me one time, with elephants, coconuts and… everything was wonderful, but that’s another story. So, this deity some, considerable time ago… I don’t know if it was Kali-yuga or Dvāpara-yuga, or when, these deities are very old… He was coming, came to the wedding, and then was going back.

On the way back, a dacoit, a robber… armed robber attacked the party of the brāhmaṇas that were carrying the deity. Now, the deity was decorated… just filled with diamonds, gold, and everything… so, this dacoit, he didn’t… you know, Kṛṣṇa said ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham (Bg. 4.11). However you approach Him, He’ll reciprocate with you. So, he just like people come up to our Śrīla Prabhupāda deities, and then they look there and say, “When is he going to talk?” I mean… India, it happens all the time. They say, “He’s really in samādhi.” They don't think at all that it’s a deity. So this thief didn’t at all think He’s a deity, he just thought, “Here’s a person being carried in a palanquin, he’s loaded with diamonds.”

He went up to Him and said, you know, “I want your jewels. Will you give me your jewels?” And because he just, you know, went right up the deity and started talking to Him and was expecting you know, he was talking, so the deity reciprocated, He said, “Why do you want to steal from Me? I’m just coming back from a wedding. It’s an auspicious occasion. You don’t want to steal from a person coming back from a wedding, do you?” The thief thought about it. Said, “I don’t really have any qualms about stealing from anybody… a wedding or whatever, I want your jewels.” (laughter) He said, “No.” He says, “You gonna… You’re gonna fight, or You’re gonna give me the jewels?” He says, “Oh, if you wanna… if you want… if you are determined to steal the jewels from Me, then I won’t fight.”

He says, “Alright.” You see, then… so, the… the (indistinct), the thief, he took… he took faith that, “Well, he’s not going to fight, alright.” So, then he’s… you know, he pulled his bag out, and he said, “Will you just hold my spear, while I load up the jewels?”, and he handed his spear to the deity, and as soon as he gave the spear to the deity… took the spear from him, he had given something to the deity, even just loaning it, you know. He had actually done the act of actually giving something to the… handing it to the deity, for whatever purpose.

Because he did that little bit of devotional service, his whole narādhama attitude of just being completely… not at all recognizing, disappeared, and he got the sukṛti to understand that this was the deity of God. This was actually… God was right there, and immediately he became a devotee right on the sp… he realized that he was just talking to God. He thought about it, was completely amazed, was going on, and then that person bowed down, and after that he actually became a great saint. The deity is glorified for that pastime, also.

What effect these people are gaining by doing a little service, as long as whatever they give… whether they’re getting literature and that money’s being used for the service of the deity, even if they're getting ajñāta-sukṛti, they get so much benefit in the future. So, in this way, devotees are actually changing the destiny of the karma of the people, and the more that we can get devotees to preach, to help in bringing the people into more and more devotional services, and to appreciating Kṛṣṇa consciousness in a favorable way, that’s doing the greatest welfare work. It’s all by the mercy of Śrīla Prabhupāda. Now, Śrīla Ācāryadeva is bringing more of these Bhāgavatam to us also, for which we’re very grateful.

In this way, every devotee, whatever service he may be able to do, just try to do that in such a way to please Kṛṣṇa and to bring people closer and closer to Kṛṣṇa. That’s the perfection.

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

I’d ask for questions, but maybe tonight we’re going to have a darśana or something. 

Devotee: Oṁ Viṣṇupāda Paramahaṁsa Parivrājakācārya Aṣṭottara-śata Śrī Śrīmad His Divine Grace Śrīla Jayapatākā Swami Ācāryapāda kī… Jaya!

Devotees: Jaya!

Devotee: Śrīla Ācāryapada kī…! Jaya!

Devotees: Jaya!

Devotee: Śrīla Ācāryapāda kī…! Jaya!

Devotees: Jaya!

(momentary clip of ‘jaya rādhā-mādhava’ kīrtana)

Jayapatākā Swami: You read that poem by Śrīla Prabhupāda worshiping Kṛṣṇa in Vṛndāvana written in Bengali?

Devotee: (indistinct)

Jayapatākā Swami: No, he wrote this while he was still in Vṛndāvana. Just had it translated, now they’re doing a pur… they actually did purports of this in one poem of Bhaktisiddhānta to make a dra… nice. 

nitya-siddha pārṣada saba rādhā-kṛṣṇa smare 
tāṅdera smaraṇa jīvera sarva-pāpa hare 
anukaraṇa kari yadi sei bhāva dhare 
māyā kavalita haya saṁsāra nā tare

pracāra karaha sadā jīva ghare ghare 
saphala haibe jīvana pracārera dvāre 
śrī dayita dāsa prabhu dena ei sikṣā 
kara ucchaiḥ svare nāma ei tāṅra dīkṣā

(Vṛndāvane Bhajana - Part 25) 

That the eternally liberated associates of the Lord, they always remember… are in the remembrance of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, every moment, and simply… but the living entities… the conditioned souls remember those eternally liberated an… associates, then they lose all their sinful reactions. They’re so pure.

So, if someone tries to imitate them, putting on a show as also being eternally liberated soul, like cause, just living in Vṛndāvana or something, like these bābājīs trying to say they’re already paramahaṁsas and so on, so Śrīla Prabhupāda said māyā kavalita haya saṁsāra nā tare, that actually they’re all under the… under the , control of māyā, and they’re not able to get delivered from the repetition of birth and death, what to speak of pure devotion?

So, then he says that all the conditioned souls should simply always perform preaching, pracāra, door to door. In this way, their life will become completely perfect by preaching activities. And he says that my master, śrī dayita dāsa, Śrī Dayita… Vārṣabhānavī dayita is one name for Bhaktisiddhānta, that he has given this teaching, loudly chant the holy name.

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

This is his initiation. One should loudly chant… mean broadcast the message everywhere.

So this is… Śrīla Prabhupāda had quoted this in some of the other verses criticizing karma. People taking shelter of the dhāma who don’t do any practical service, who just put on a big show and then don’t preach. He complained how the Christian priests coming to Vṛndāvana criticizing Kṛṣṇa’s pastimes, and here these so-called liberated souls, they don’t even defend Kṛṣṇa. They could easily defend Kṛṣṇa. They could protect His good name. Instead, because they’re so exalted, they don’t do anything. Śrīla Prabhupāda, he didn’t like that at all. He said they’re not even… they’re not even… they’re kaniṣṭha-adhikārī. They’re not at all advanced. Okay.

So, in that context he’s saying what is the actual position of the six gosvāmīs? Someone might say, “Well they didn’t preach?” And then go, “They didn’t leave Vṛndāvana and preach, so therefore nobody should leave Vṛndāvana and preach, right? Anyone who leaves Vṛndāvana and preaches is not very advanced.” Something like that. But, here Śrīla Prabhupāda is saying the difference was that they were ordered by Lord Caitanya to go there… they were eternal nitya-pārṣadas, nitya-siddhas, so their being in Vṛndāvana is… by their being there, everyone in the whole world gets purified, just by remembering them.

Plus, they also wrote and they did so many other things. Nonetheless, their position was so special, and these people, they may be Vaiṣṇavas, but they can’t claim that the whole world gets up… freed from their sins just because they remember them. They’ve not contributed anything to Lord Caitanya’s movement, yet they have this feeling that they’re… that the preachers are like low-class, whatever, they have some…

Prabhupāda said by imitating them, it’s actually simply… another form of māyā, another form of illusion, that the real nectar is to preach to everyone, house to house, person to person. Give them the message of Lord Caitanya, that this was the gift of Bhaktisiddhānta… mentioning this morning,his contribution, and by broadly preaching the holy name, fame and glory of the Lord, that is the real connection with Kṛṣṇa, and then Śrīla Prabhupāda goes on. He says:

kīrtanera aṅga śudhu nahe ḍhāka ḍhola 
ādhunika dhārāya nahe kīrtanera rola 
hari-sevāra anukūla sakalai mādhava 
tri-jagatera bhoktā haya ekalā yādava 

māyāra vaibhava yata ‘reḍiora’ śabda 
kīrtanera dvārā sadā kara tāhā stabdha 
māyāra kac-kaci saba saṁvādera patra 
kīrtana karaha tāhe jagate sarvatra

(Vṛndāvane Bhajana - Part 26) 

Ḍhāka ḍhola means that the kīrtana… the actual form of kīrtana is not just… pounding on a bunch of drums, here and there, but… and it… also, it’s not that, just because some machine recording or something is doing kīrtana, that that’s kīrtana, either, and there has to be a connection with the Lord, to the service of the Lord. Anything that’s in connection with the service of Mādhava, is Mādhava. It’s transcendental.

He said that, Śrī… the all-proprietor and enjoyer of these three worlds is alone Yādava or Kṛṣṇa, and all of these professional kīrtana singers, broadcasting over the radio is all simply the influence of māyā, and by real kīrtana, by real qualification the holy name, all this artificial chanting should be completely silenced. Stopped it. He said all the māyā kaca-kaci, all the māyā gossip is in the newspapers, so with the kīrtana and glorification of the wonderful qualities of the Lord, all the world should be flooded or broadcasted everywhere, through the newspapers, changed to actually glorify Kṛṣṇa.

Like that, Śrīla Prabhupāda was trying to encourage that everything should be used in the service of Kṛṣṇa. This is the mercy. This was written when he went to Vṛndāvana in, say 10 years before he went to America, roughly. 

He, Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted that people the glories of Lord Kṛṣṇa, but no one really had that vision, and when Prabhupāda used to tell them that Lord Caitanya wants this to be spread all over the world, then his godbrothers would say that, “Well, it doesn’t really mean… when He says pṛthvī… means the whole… all the villages in India. How can it be spread outside India? It’s not possible.” Prabhupāda said, “No.” and he says, “Pṛthivīte: it means… that means the whole world.”

But then, because they couldn’t understand… so, like that, Prabhupāda had to go and show what Lord Caitanya wanted, so that way if we also keep up the faith in the saṅkīrtana movement of Lord Caitanya, then by Prabhupāda’s mercy, we will also be able to do wonders, but you can’t have a stereotyped idea which in any way… would in any way limit the powerful potential of Lord Caitanya’s movement. So, it’s something... nice poetry that Prabhupāda was writing, then. We should make into a little booklet how many verses are there? 27. Each verse is one, two, three, four, five, six… eight. Bhaktisiddhānta’s verse (pages turning)… about 19.

Devotee: It’s a poem to Bhaktisiddhānta?

Jayapatākā Swami: No. This is a poem which is worshiping Kṛṣṇa in Vṛndāvana, or… and Prabhupāda traced out from the beginning, “I’m now sitting here alone in Vṛndāvana, please listen to me while I am absorbed in my meditation.”, and he describes how his family members left him. How he’s sitting there, and they’re laughing because he’s left his family situation, his money, his everything, his… you know because of his devotional service, money depleted. He says they’re all laughing at me. I’m sitting here. I’m laughing. (devotees laughing) They’re laughing, and I’m laughing. Only so-called loved ones. Where’s my mother and father, where are they now? Where have they gone? Where are all the old uncles and aunts? Where have they all gone? Devotee: I think there’s a little portion of that in the Lilāmṛta, of that prayer.

Jayapatāka Swami: Might be.

Devotee: The first… remember?

Devotee (2): The Vṛndāvane-bhajana.

Jayapatākā Swami: Vṛndāvane-bhajana. Wanted to translate bhajana to “bhajana'' to Kṛṣṇa. It could be just worship of Kṛṣṇa, but bhajana means… it’s really hard to translate the word bhajana… bhajana. Worship means pūjā. Bhajana is actually more intense, more deep, where one’s actually worshipping in a completely surrendered absorbed mood, with various types of services, not only…

So, you said you have other questions. 10 different questions?

Devotee: I heard sometimes people of Vṛndāvana, they have a special relationship with Kṛṣṇa, can’t understand… they say we can’t understand but when is it that they go back to Godhead, after this life, when their soul’s in Vṛndāvana?

Jayapatākā Swami: The Vrajavāsīs who understand their eternal servitude, relationship with Kṛṣṇa are above ordinary devotees, because… even sometimes they may not be as strict… or say, as a… as a… under sādhana-bhaktas, but because they’ve got some intimate relationship in terms of their being Vrajavāsīs, they… a lot of them can see themselves as servant of Kṛṣṇa. They’re very connected, that way. So, that way if a neophyte comes and starts to criticize them, then it can be an offense.

They may not be able to actually understand, and it’s not so much the neophyte devotees, but it’s the karmīs, they might not understand what’s special about… a very neophyte or karmī. They may not understand and they may criticize. Now, even the criticism might be to some extent just in some cases if it’s not their position, and then they’re not able to see actually what is the good… the good quality of the person, the person may… very very attached to Kṛṣṇa, but just due to the Kali-yuga is not , following everything perfectly, but at the same time, in the ultimate issue, is very much connected with Kṛṣṇa.

So, that way, Prabhupāda said that generally one is supposed to go to the holy-dhāma three days, because after three days, the glitter wears off, then you start finding fault with the dhāma-vasīs, and that can be detrimental to one’s advancement. I think that’s probably the rule that you were referring to.

Devotee: What was Prabhupāda saying there... that persons… people that go to Vṛndāvana, they’re caught up by māyā and they can’t escape, in this life? There’s some mention of that.

Jayapatākā Swami: Who can’t escape? What I just said, here? Yeah… there, I said… This is different. These are the people that go to Vṛndāvana, and imitate the six gosvāmīs, imitating liberated souls who are not actually on that level.

Bhaktisiddhanta Ṭhākura put it another way… said that Mādhavendra Purī was no doubt a great devotee, but he didn’t put on any of his emotions. He wasn’t putting on any show, rather he was trying to avoid it, public attention, but it was coming anyway. But, if someone tries to… He never cheated, to put on any false show, or even… someone else puts on some kind of show, imitating Mādhavendra Purī, it’s not only you know, bad taste, it’s very offensive actually.

So, that’s the thing that’s being criticized. Not people… in this particular sense, people that imitate the pure devotees, not someone who’s just a neophyte person who sits down and criticizes people born in the dhāma, or the dhāma, itself. Prabhupāda didn’t say they’re not devotees, just kaniṣṭha-adhikārīs. Kaniṣṭha-adhikārī normally doesn’t get liberation. Have to (indistinct)… preach for our maximum purification. Is that alright?

Devotee: Could you please describe to us a bit about the… the special qualities and glories of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī?

Jayapatākā Swami: …the time He went to South India, when he got to the Śiva temple, Venkaṭa Ramaṇa, the head priest and the head pujārī requested that Lord Caitanya stay there for four months for the rainy season. So Gopāla was the son of Venkaṭa, and he was given the service of serving Lord Caitanya, washing His clothes, bringing Him prasādam.

Devotee: He was just a young boy, then?

Jayapatākā Swami: Hmm, not particularly young. I mean… I would… I would have to guess he was in his 20’s, but off hand I can’t say exactly, might’ve been older. You get the impression that he’s young, but not from the… real… definitely a little young, but not just that he’s a little boy. He’s already quite in control of his faculties.

So, he was serving like that, and one day, he was meditating that, how he was seeing Lord Caitanya every day, as a sannyāsi, but how actually, he was very unfortunate that he was missed… he missed the chance to see Lord Caitanya in His Navadvīpa pastimes, and he was lamenting like that, that he… you know… when he was with so many devotees, big sankīrtana party… here, He’s just… Lord Caitanya was alone doing kīrtana, which was of course, very wonderful.

He was thinking like that. He kind of dozed off. Was only dozing, and he was like he actually found a like, a type of samādhi in his… in a dream state, and there he saw Lord Caitanya and Lord Caitanya was in His Navadvīpa-līlā, and there was Lord Caitanya, and there were the other devotees, big kīrtana was going on. He was just overwhelmed, he was paying his obeisances in this vision, he was just overwhelmed with ecstasy.

After a little while, Lord Caitanya disappeared, and Gopāla Bhaṭṭa suddenly woke up, and he became very very filled with separation, “Where is Lord Caitanya?!” and he called out, “Where is Lord Caitanya?!”, and he started running to find Lord Caitanya. There, in the distance he saw Lord Caitanya, ran and as he was running, he was crying because he was so eager to see Lord Caitanya. Just as he was approaching Lord Caitanya, Lord Caitanya assumed the form of Kṛṣṇa, playing on the flute.

When he saw that, he was immediately, completely stunned and he fell unconscious on the ground, and when he woke up… you know, when he came awake after a few moments, regained his consciousness, he said… looked up and saw, there was Lord Caitanya. Lord Caitanya put His lotus feet on his head, told him to take up his gear head off to Vṛndāvana. (devotees laughing) Said, “Gopāla,”… and then , then he went to Vṛndāvana. He met the other gosvāmīs there.

So, there he stayed mainly in Vṛndāvana as far as I can… as far as I know. Wrote literature, established the worship of one… Rādhā-vallabha? Or, I forget, one of the main deities he established, let’s see. Who’s… did Rādhā-Ramaṇa? He did Rādhā-Ramaṇa, maybe. I think he did Rādhā-Ramaṇa. He did Rādhā-Ramaṇa. He was worshipping 12 śālagrāma-śilās, and then tying them up in a tree every night, and he was feeling sepāration that he could never do any dressing, śrṇgāra of the deities, so one day, when he unbagged the śālagrāmas, there was 11 śālagrāma, and Rādhā-Ramaṇa. One śālagrāma had manifested in deity form, and Śrīnivāsa Ācārya took initiation from him. Also Jīva Gosvāmī gave him teachings. That’s the basic thing.

Devotee: What literature did he write, I mean, what are left?

Jayapatākā Swami: Well, he wrote the Śrī Saṁskāra-dīpikā and another book like that Ṣat kriyā… two books like that about the rules and regulations of vaiṣṇava-saṁskāras and that… ṣat kriyās for gṛhasthas and brahmacārīs and sannyāsīs and includes in it a complete… right from the garbhādāna-saṁskāra to the nāmakaraṇa, cutting of the first hair, the whole… everything, to the samādhi, taking sannyāsa, so he wrote that, though it’s not very big, it’s a bit smaller, maybe.

Then, between him and Sanātana Gosvāmī, the Hari-vilāsa… the Hari-bhakti-vilāsa was written. Apparently Sanātana Gosvāmī started, and he finished it, something like that. So Sanātana Gosvāmī got the credit for it, but then Prabhupāda said that some of the Hari-bhakti Vilāsa was a little bit influenced by smārta, that Gopāla Bhaṭṭa was influenced.

In this way that… In there it says that, best if your guru is a brāhmaṇa, that he should have these qualities, he should be… good features… like that, give so many materialistic qualifications, but of course in the end of that chapter, it says… but, you know of all of the above, that … main qualification… they should be pure devotee. If he’s a pure devotee, nothing else can… matters, (laughing) you know. But, so… because he put all these other things, it confuses people. That was just by the inf… you know, just to kind of pacify the smārtas, some of those things were there, but the… the actual pure devotional conclusion is also there. It’s just that the other thing is there to like… the ordinary kind of, more smārta idea is there, but then he transcends it.

Apart from that, I think we wrote a couple other books, but offhand I can’t say. He wrote (indistinct) books into pastimes.

Any other questions?

Yes? Questions Hari-bhakti… you… so… you always have so many questions. (Spanish, indistinct)

Question: (indistinct)… when our mind just… just goes away, then how can we… the mantra is supposed to control the mind, and sometimes it seems like it's uncontrolled. It goes…

Jayapatākā Swami: It’s not that the mantra controls the mind. It’s the mantra that purifies the mind. We have to bring back the mind by intelligence, again and again to meditate on the mantra, and as you’re meditating on the mantra, then it purifies the mind. It makes it easier to control. The louder you chant the mantra, that has the effect of also drawing the mind, but it’s not that the mind itself… that the mantra itself is… does everything. You have to bring it back.

Prabhupāda gave the example of… I just heard somebody give a nice example of a lota. A creeper tied to a stick, goes up. Intelligence is like the stick and the mind’s like the creeper. If you don’t put it on the stick it’ll go all over the place. You have to keep it… the intelligence, keep making it think of Kṛṣṇa. Arjuna said it’s impossible even for him to think of Kṛṣṇa always. He said he thinks it's easier to control the wind, you see.

So, then Kṛṣṇa said, “Well, My opinion is if someone practices and tries, then eventually he can control the mind.” So, it’s not that just by little chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa, immediately the mind is going to completely come under control, but by repeatedly bringing it back, again and again to the chanting, gradually, it becomes purified and it… will be able to control it. So, I know now everybody’s tired. Maybe we can start off tomorrow, then we’ll be fresh.

Devotee: We’re not used to it. 

Jayapatākā Swami: What? 

Jayapatākā Swami: You just, (indistinct)… too?

Devotee: Yeah well, or we all can. The devotees now can cook a little bit.

Jayapatākā Swami: Cooking? You cooked some of those preparations tonight?

Devotee: No, not tonight.

Jayapatākā Swami: Who cooked tonight?

Devotee: The mātajīs.

Jayapatākā Swami: The mothers, very nice.

Devotee: How about this kid you trained up, now? He’s doing better and better. In the beginning he was a little rough, but... (laughter) But just like you were saying, in a small center, everyone has to automatically take more responsibility, so it’s a nice opportunity. He was hiding in Miami for six months. No one even knew where he was.

Devotee: (laughter) ...every day.

Devotee: Now each student has to take a lot of responsibility.

Jayapatākā Swami: (In Spanish: Mui bien… Mui Bueno. Esta bien.) Hari Bol!

Devotee: All glories to Śrīla Ācāryapāda kī… Jaya!

Devotees: Jaya!