19821128 The Iron Medal Award

(Disclaimer: The following is a machine-generated transcript and may contain errors or inaccuracies. It will be reviewed and verified against the original audio soon.)

The following is a lecture on The Iron Medal Award given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on November 28, 1982 – in Bengaluru, India.

Giving the answer. If they get the right answer, it says yes, they win a booth to get a prize. No, they can go on to the next booth and ask another. They win the real prize, they go back to godhead. That’s a good idea. We could have someone stand there. We’re giving out 50,000 pieces of literature during the mellow. Printing up special issues to give out and then special procession is organized for the second. We expect 25,000 people to be marching from Mayapanda Doya Mandir to all the temples to the Jagannath Mandir in the main gorge to be given prashad simultaneously. There’s two non stop kirtans with over 30 groups going on. One on the stage and one in the temple. The plan, if I go there, it may happen. That’s what I am worried about.

Otherwise Pardayam Prabhu was saying utum stoke and others see, before I was always just coming when I had like last time I spent a whole month in South India. But they’re saying that when you stay one week better you come twice more often than four days. I don’t know, depending whichever way you like it. More frequently or more long time. Both. Both that you have to teach me some mantras for making the multiple forms. Doing pretty well on your own. But I think I will adjust for more time. Any other news? What’s the latest developments here? Immediately go off and because the elections are coming up and there’s going to be a whole political premiere. Can I just went to Delhi real quick because the elections are speed up earlier than they previously climbed the assembly elections of Karnatak. Yes. I don’t understand this.

That means that he has to go and do all this and that to get his favorites, get all the seats, things like that. Those people from Prabhat Kalavud, they have their Chaitani script dance group. They wrote a Chaitanya script. They wanted you to see if it was all right. It’s about two hours. Take me two hours to read it. It’d probably take you two hours to listen to it. Maybe first my confidential secretary Manu Salami could clear it. If he thinks of something. I should even raise a few eyebrows. Pretty nice. The next one is on abortion. Why don’t listen don’t. I mean why don’t you space one, you know, one heavy, the next one a little lighter. Otherwise people, they will just be afraid. Okay, we can have a next one to be the. The meeting of our father.

Yeah, space them out one, you know, heavy weight. Otherwise there’d be people, you know, they will be afraid to take money. I mean, this is necessary. People should know. Should we say somewhere here about talking about chanting and everything? In other words, it’s really nice in the end, at least somewhere there should be like a blurb for come to the temple, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa Sunday feast. This is the first one. That’s very nice. That’s good. Very good. Step in the right direction. Nice. Bangalore is top four central activities. One of the most fast moving cities india. A lot of cities are competing for that. For that gold medal Iron Age Kaliuga. We should give out the iron medal. South American tour was very nice. That’s your zone. It was like a 21 day nonstop festival. Even not in my zone. Even in Colombia.

When I arrived there was 300 devotees. Not that many late. And there was maybe 100 devotees at the airport. And somehow they get through all the immigration custom. They go right up to the airplane and escort me through. And they don’t have to go through any of the things. They just take it to its stamp. And people like all the devotees throw flowers. It’s a whole big thing. The whole airport just stops. Then last time I went there, they had a whole like they just went wild right in the street in front of the temple. But all the neighbors got so upset that because they just stopped all the traffic. It just went wild for some reason. It’s not even my zone. It’s just they’re very enthusiastic in that particular place.

So this time they kept it within the temple and I went there and what they do, we had one. There was of course a few devotees there. I have some disciples. I gave some initiation, but it’s not my official. Just a few. Sometimes someone wants initiations. They give a big basket of fruit. Then I give a piece to all the devotees. And then whatever left is distributed by throwing it. They very enthusiastic to say the least to get the fruit. I think that could be one of the next Olympic sports. Somewhere between outfielding cricket plus rugby, summer and goalie in the soccer. They do the flying catches for. Anyway. Main thing of course everyone there, South America, 80% of the devotees all do Samkirta. I think that’s the secret for their enthusiasm. Because they don’t have any other source for income one hand.

On the other hand, just somehow it’s always been geared that way. So they all go out and do the micro bos. And even in Peru, some of my South America there are not so many women distributors. But Kṛṣṇa has blessed Me by bringing some very enthusiastic women distributors. I know that one was training nun, but she came in contact with Prabhupāda’s books and then became a devotee. Even the nuns were coming, trying to get her to leave the temple. Coming in the temple and requesting. And she was doing some incredible amount of books. Something like. I forget the exact number in books. I Remember it was 100,000, 120,000 SOLAs worth of books which there in one day, which is 800 SOLAs per dollar. But there it’s like rupees solas is like a lot more. You can live on very little.

So there’s a lot of solas. And just in books that caused, practically speaking, 400 or something like in hundreds of books in one day. Bhagavad, Gītā, Libro, Phuket. And there are many devotees like that. So the men and women have. No, I said, you can do a competition. See that from the manner of the women Sankirtan who does more books. And actually the men are holding up pretty good. Women do more, but there’s more men and they’re more steady. So that way it’s still doing good. When I arrived there, they rented about three, four buses. These big tourist buses. Of course there they also had some regular public buses. Look just like the buses run from Kṛṣṇagar to Navati. Did you hear that? They’re starting a state bus from downtown Calcutta directly to my airport starting January 1st.

Twice a day you can just get down and just get off the train, go to the bus stop and directly go right to my airport in front of our gate. Right in front of our gate. Go straight to the. Never get off of which train in the street. Robust Indian Railway. So then there they had. All the devotees were outside. But for this time I got off the plane. There was nobody in sight in Peru. And then I waited in the line, custom line. Some two policemen came up and looked at me and walked away. Then four came up and they stood there, looked at me. And one walked up to me with a little piece of paper on his hand and it had my name written on it. And he said. And I said, see?

And he walked away again, left two policemen standing next to me. I thought, well, maybe I didn’t break any law. So I didn’t know what. Then again they came with eight. This time with gardens and everything. Please come with us. But it wasn’t. It was. Of course, it seemed like that there’s nothing wrong at all. Actually they were taking me to the VIP lounge. They just wanted to make sure they had the right person. And when I arrived in the VIP lounge then there were all cameras and movies that television was there two television stations, Station 7 and Station 11. I did a whole interview right there in the air that what is your message for the whole country, all the youth. And that time they’re having the world Women’s Volleyball Championships in Peru. Peru is the world sub champion of volleyball.

So all the people are volleyball countries. So it was nice though that right after the volleyball tournament they broadcasted my message to the countries. So most of the people were glued to the tube anyway. And so they all heard the message, which was that they should chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. I said the whole mantra and I gave. And both the stations broadcasted separate messages and discussion and all the newspapers covered it. And every day they had one day was a program at the National Library with about this place was completely packed up. The next day was in Peru, in Lima. They had an art society. All art connoisseurs and art experts were there. One spiritualist society. They asked me to lecture on how to protect yourself from the influence of phantasmas, ghosts and evil spirits by Kṛṣṇa consciousness. I gave a lecture on that.

That’s what they wanted to hear. Then that was so packed that people were just leading everywhere to hear. So next time they said they wanted to have a big auditorium. It was a medium sized place. Then the next day we had an initiation at temple. The television came and shot the whole initiation and broadcast it over the whole nation for just about 10 minutes, top shots. And then the other station became jealous that station had shown. So the next night they came for the wedding ceremony which was after the National Library festival. So what we had Is up till 9:30 was at the National Library. We came back in from 9:30 until midnight had wedding. So I just give the lecture. I wasn’t for that.

But the television came and they at one o’, clock, they waited till 12 o’ clock and then they came at 12 to photograph the last part of the wedding. It was like the last day before I was there. So because everything had to fit in public program, wedding, television. And from there we flew off to the second city, Arequipa. So the television and everything had created such a mood in the country that the governor formally welcomed me to the province and hope that, you know, such a. That my visit would bring peace and spiritual understanding to the people of his province and that there would be no difficulty. And he offered all facilities. They provided me with a big black limousine with a Peruvian and Indian flag.

On the front and two police motorcycle escorts in front that had their sirens blaring the whole way. And as they went, they chose the heart of the town and the right during that rush hour. And they also provided one big super tourist bus for the devotees. One of these really, you know, the big windows with a big sign on it, welcome Van Benida Acharya. And then went right through the heart of the town, and they just stopped all the traffic. It was like a procession. Took us to the temple, had a lot of nice programs. Then next day in the park, whole day in the park. They had dramas and festivals. I mean, it just went on like in Chile. It was the same way. I was on television. Dharmananda came. He was with us on television there. I think he’s with Bhagwanalita Dharmananda.

Did he come through here? Did he want to enjoy? And everywhere, people, they’re actually looking for answer. They. They realize that they have plenty of problems, but the answers are not the answers they want. They’re just the temporary answers so they actually want. And so Kṛṣṇa consciousness, of course, here india, is different. Here, everybody thinks they already have the answers. The thing is, they have answers, but then to sort them out and put them in the proper order, that was Prabhupāda’s special strength, that the answers are definitely here india, and people have those answers. But problem is that many don’t believe the answers. Even if they have the right answer. They’re not sure it’s the right answer anymore because they heard so many other things that they’re a bit indecisive.

And most of the people, they already imported other answers from abroad or from some unclear answers. And so they’re not quite on the perfect focus or they’re even just on the wrong path. They have been misled. So that way, even India, they have every opportunity. Answers are there. It’s not that Prabhupāda presented something that’s not already there indian philosophy and the Vedas. It’s all there, perfectly authorized. But he’s just brought it into perfect focus for the present day, maybe. So that way, I felt, of course, that they’re offering a lot of respect and facility. When I was traveling this time in some places, some fame, infamy, you get everywhere, different degrees. But I took it. It was simply somehow Prabhupāda’s mercy that we’re getting this facility to preach. And here india, we also have the great facility that we can preach.

People want to hear about Kṛṣṇa, so We should try to use every moment just like Prabhupāda used how to give out the maximum amount of our energy to Kṛṣṇa through preaching, through bringing Prabhupāda’s books to the people. Because time is so short, by a little extra effort we can bring it to another 5, 10 people. Even I want to speak of 2000s. Then so many more people can come to Kṛṣṇa. Otherwise they’re not getting that opportunity. They may have to take so many births to get it. Hare Kaeye.

(Side B of the Cassette)

Tejas Prabhu told us that one time Śrīla Prabhupāda called up a temple and didn’t answer the phone and he said why they have closed down the temple. That were thinking the past two days that maybe Bangalore was closed down because there was no answer. Anyway, glad this day is still open and all the devotees are here. There were more devotees last time. Some of them went on different parties or something. Yeah, they come and go split in the middle of the night. But anyway, go sign they were here before were here. They were. So they’re still in the family? Yes. How are you? Last night there were people waiting for me. I think somehow the Bengal is a flex squad, you know, we never can get together to make a nice reception for you.

Somehow the last night everything was together but you didn’t come. That’s impossible to make it. And Hyderabad he had a very nice meeting with the ISKCON Krishikorakshatras. It was very nice meeting. It ended on a very positive note. Just trying to fulfill Prabhupāda’s dreams and it ended too late. I was saying that I would not be 10% sure I could make it on Sunday night depending on when the meeting was over. So the meeting would end early. But then we took them out to the and they saw the prashad feeding. About 300 people were taking Prashad and we gave them all the trouble. Some Prashad seem to have a moving effect on everyone’s heart there. All the local villagers, they’re all trained up, they all yell Hare Kṛṣṇa.

And just like when in Māyāpur Navadip you drive in the car and all the kids yell Hare Kṛṣṇa. This morning when I was walking over the fields the kids in the distance were yelling Hare Kṛṣṇa. And they knew the whole mantra. They were saying Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hari, Hari, Ram Hari, Ram, Ram Hari. In fact, Mahesh was having a contest with them over the about half a mile. So in that sense things looking up the Tattva tells me 21 devotees are there now including everybody big and smile. Actually Paradeva could have told you that I was going to go directly to Hyderabad but then I got tied up because Prabhu Swami came and made me go all the way up to Delhi. Yeah, so that’s what also I missed the flight out of Delhi so I arrived in Hyderabad a day later.

So that’s why otherwise things might not have been exactly like you could have finished earlier. Then I gave a lecture in A Delhi panel. They had a huge panel. Was nobody there? Well, for me they came. There was about 500 or a thousand people. I mean, they have chairs. So it looks like what half the panel was chairs and it was two thirds filled to the lecture. But for the Leela drama, after it filled all the way up, it was quite cold. But I think that we have more enthusiastic people in Bangalore and in Calcutta, Madras. I heard for Rath Yātrā they came out. But for the Ramlila they came out. But for lecture they weren’t so interested in south they will come for the lecture. They want to hear the philosophy. They may or may not stay for the drama but for the election.

So in that sense that’s good because then we will have to read Prabhupāda’s books better know the philosophy to give nice lectures. I was with Vrindava when I saw Harikesh Maharaj. He showed me all the pictures of your Nirshinya installation there in Germany. Well, yes, but you were the maestro, the Master of Ceremonies. 3 days non stop yagya or something. Anyway, they were. They liked it was great. And apparently they made a few breakthroughs in distributing a lot of books in Russian language. Recently, actually recently, like in Madras, I just gave a whole rundown of my whole world tours. I don’t want today about the fifth time I told him, but some of the highlights. Basically England is really doing very well now. They started a marathon in November, of course, I reached there in August. But even then the devotees were very enthusiastic.

They all went to the France festival. There were about a thousand devotees came to France. It was practically as big as the Mayapa festival in terms of, well, European attendance, huh? Numbers. Well, not in terms of total attendance of course, but in terms of, you know, that part it was definitely very big. And Vishnupada Bhavananda was there and Śrīla Ramashwar, myself and Śrīla Gurudev Bhagavān Goswami. It was very nice. I had a whole temple built for Śrīla. Prabhupāda offered a very big pūjā for Prabhupāda for about two hours. Offering flowers. Every devotee offered flowers. And Narafana big procession and the program continued non stop from nine in the morning until two at night. And every hour they were asking whether you wanted to stop. Of course they did stop at 5, just for one hour to take a little prashad.

They made vegetable pies, all French vegetable pies au gratin. I personally like the regular kanna. But anyway, nice prashad you know, dal rice, chapati, whatever, idlis, dosha. But it was nice. It made many like showing how around the world there’s also many varieties of prashad that can be prepared for the Lord. So it’s all absolute. Then we everybody rushed back and it went on till 2. Then they asked it whether people would like to stop. They said no. So then at 2 o’ clock they had a kirta until 3, then they had a drama until 4. Then they all went to Mangalarthi. All this 24 hours, no sleep, nothing. So we’re not going to incorporate that in the Māyāpur festival because we will maybe adjust it to end still at 9 o’ clock at night.

But we’re going to have some of the ceremonies and things that some of the highlights I am trying to pick up going all the different festivals. I was in the Washington Rathayatra, Los Angeles Rathiatra, New Vrindavan Festival, New Orleans Rath Yātrā and several other festivals. And so I picked up a few ideas to try to make our this year’s Māyāpur festival very unique. Many simultaneously, 28 classes going on at one time. You just go like a bee and take the nectar from all the different flowers. And then all the leaders greeting all the devotees. A few ideas we’re hoping will come out. Some award ceremonies. And then in the evening, the whole evening program they improved a lot. So I got some ideas traveling around. I sent a couple postcards here. I don’t know if you’re gonna.

We’re doing Harinam in Tokyo, Shinjuku, the Times Square of Tokyo. And we had a. I brought out the big cartels. Very nice for Sankirtan. Apparently normally people don’t stop much but even those kartals were able to slow down the Japanese a little bit. And actually people there, they quite easily taking books and handouts. Very nice Sunday feast they had from that meeting. A couple came to the temple, then they flew to Nepal. And just by Kṛṣṇa’s arrangement, the day that I arrived in Nepal they were in the temple. So like that Kṛṣṇa, you can see how he acts and you know, over thousands and thousands of miles still without any pre arranged thing, it just works out that way. So in this way also we’re brought together. Now sometimes we’re brought together and we have to go do our different services.

So Prabhupāda of course he is always with us by following his instruction. The spiritual master is always with us by following his instruction. So in this way, at least on this material platform, when you’re I mean when on the material platform you’re separated, there’s a kind of real separation. But on the spiritual platform there’s still always a unity, always a connection. Because even if we materially we’re separated because we’re in touch with the spiritual master and Kṛṣṇa, two things in physics or mathematics, two things equal to the same thing is equal to each other. There’s a law like that. So in the same way, if you’re in connection with the same person and in this way there’s a connection with each other. So by being in connection with Kṛṣṇa, with Prabhupda, with the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, this brings us in connection with everyone.

So this is Prabhupāda’s special mercy that in this way he’s created a house which can actually house the whole world, bring everyone in a real spiritual connection. Someone was asking a question that unfortunately people don’t understand the spiritual connection. What’s the body, what’s the spirit? This is the unfortunate thing. Prabhupāda is not only giving us the connection but also giving us the actual understanding or knowledge for us to really understand what is spiritual life, what is spiritual connection. So that’s the unfortunate thing that people that are not in contact with RLA Prabhupāda, his books, even their great pandits, somehow they fail to so called great pandits, they somehow fail to understand even basic principles of spiritual life.

One pandit asked the question that since you plant a mango seed, you get a mango tree, you plant roots, whatever, any other seed you get that particular plant. So that means when a human body dies, it’s coming from the human seed. Then again he will only be born as human being. How it can be that the human can be born as animal? Very great thinker, but the point is he doesn’t understand it. It’s not that the human doesn’t die. I mean the body dies. The soul is living on soul is going to body. Somehow they just have this very superficial external vision of who we are. All over the world, even india now, people have this bodily consciousness. People are crying with joy over winning the silver medal and they’re crying in sorrow over losing a medal.

You see in the present day games and all that. But after you see a short time, who’s going to remember even now how many people actually care? Few may care, but people are living and dying. They’re putting so much energy into very transient goals which have nothing to do with really solving the problems of the world or even the real Things they should be achieving, the real goals they should be achieving. They don’t have the slightest idea, you see, building up the body for lifting the 350 kilos or 500 kilos, whatever they lift, it’s very nice. But they put so much energy, if that much slight energy could be put into becoming God conscious, Kṛṣṇa consciousness, into realizing their real spiritual identity.

Because even though they build up the body, after it’s 30 years, 40 years, they can’t even go in the athletics field anymore. They’re already over the hill. Just like so many great heroes. Sometimes they have these medals and they’re trying to find someone to buy it. So they can just get a day’s bread they can eat. So the real problems of life, of course, are those problems that when they’re solved, there are no more problems. We create problems, we create goals, we create objectives, which even when we achieve the objective, it’s just something we have created, still it doesn’t mean anything. Again, so many more objectives are there. Just to give us an artificial feeling that we are successful. So at least in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, our objectives to make people Kṛṣṇa conscious. To bring people to their real understanding of who they are.

To actually create a connection amongst all the people. When we achieve that, it’s fully satisfying and we don’t have to ask for anything more. Progress. Someone in the farm was saying that why you bought horse? Now we have motorcycle. Horse. We have. We didn’t buy horse. It was gifted. They got a horse gift, one of the champion horses. So they’re saying that horse is old fashioned, this is aristocratic. Nowadays everything is motorcycle. So what do you need horse for? You should get rid of it, get a motorcycle. Maharaj was convincing that the motorcycle can’t go through the weeds and over the hills in the valleys. We have a big farm, so horse is more convenient. So now we have progress, we have the motorcycle. So this is part of our progress. We can’t hear when we speak, so at least. But we felt relief.

So this is the whole thing. We will be sitting here and then the noise will come and we will think that this is a disturbance when it goes away. Relief. This is material life. We work to achieve something material. When we achieve it, then we think, oh, now that’s much better. But actually it’s relatively better. But it’s still not that. It’s the ultimate thing, that really to solve all our problems and to bring us to the ultimate, bring us to Kṛṣṇa. So that’s the wonderful thing that Prabhupāda has Given us his books, his teachings, his life. So that now we can give the people. Like he was sitting one time in the airport here india. Watching all the people going back and forth. He said, my vision. They’re all corpses. They’re all dead. Walking dead men. They have no goal.

What’s their objective if they’re not trying to achieve eternal life, if they’re not trying to achieve Kṛṣṇa, that means they’re dead. They’re living to die. They’re all dead men moving here. So now some dead men are moving faster and some are moving slower. But if the objective is only to die, then it’s all the same thing. So in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, our objective is to live. People sometimes say, you talk so much about death. Because death for us is just like talking about going from this room to the next. It’s not a distasteful thing. Because we’re not living to die. We’re living to live. We’re dying to live. And we’re living to live. Other people, they’re living to die. And when they die, they’re also going to be reborn to again die. Unless they take up Kṛṣṇa consciousness, take up practice of self realization.

So I thank all of you for taking up Prabhupāda’s mission. He wanted that South India Kṛṣṇa Consciousness should be brought. We’re a little late in bringing it here now. Time is short. Māyā is moving full speed ahead. We have to be very careful that we don’t drag our feet in any way. That we take every opportunity Kṛṣṇa gives us. To give every soul brought into our association the opportunity that we can’t force anyone. We can only offer the opportunity that they can chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. That they can realize their real spiritual identity. That they can realize their relationship with Kṛṣṇa. And that they can actually get that service attitude. To want to serve Kṛṣṇa and to help others to also come to the Kṛṣṇa conscious platform. Hare Kṛṣṇa. I got your sweater. But my secretary by mistake left it in Calcutta or my airport.

But I was say it correct. He could say, but I tried it on. But I can’t remember. Just now we tried it on, right? You remember, in Vrindavan. In Vrindavan, yeah. Oh, you gave it to be brought. Oh, he gave it to be brought. Because I asked him for it and he said he left us. It’s coming. That was very rushed. I was in Vrindavan three days. I had a total of three hours of sleep. Met with 50 people at least. How are you? Who is this guest? John is from San Francisco. San Francisco. He was in South Africa for a while with the devotees there. I joined the movement during Rath Yātrā and San Francisco. And of course, Maharaj spent some time in South Africa. So many old friends. Two nights, two nights or two nights, two nights.

Today’s the night, tomorrow’s the night. You’re leaving next. In the first, I promise to be in Māyāpur for the Ras Līlā festival. There will be about 200,000 people coming. I commissioned about five or 10. I don’t know how many they will be able to do or if they can even finish one. Some little computerized display, exhibit, question and answer, type writing, computer. I mean some integrated circuits, five by five, one by ones, different, untidy into this integrated circuit. So now you go and it has different questions. You push the right answer and it lights up accordingly. Let’s see if it works india. No, no, that won’t do that. It works. It’s quite inexpensive. 150, 200 rupees for one display. And that way the audience can participate by asking questions.