19910926 Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya 10.55-61

(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 given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on September 26, 1991 – in Russia. The lecture begins with a reading from Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya 10.55-61.

Breaking peanuts with a shalagam shua Peanuts. In India one time there was. There was. A. A man born in a Brahmin family who had no faith in God. He didn’t believe in God alone, didn’t believe in the deities. But he couldn’t find a job. So since his father was a Pujari, then he thought of me also. I will do pūjā just to make some money. So he became a professional pūjā and one rich man’s personal temple. Although he didn’t have any belief in Kṛṣṇa, Just, you know, somehow doing the pūjā. So one day a man came and offered a bag of peanuts in the shel. M. My favorite peanut. I said dog eye and peanut, my dear. Peanuts. He loved peanuts. Favorite food. He didn’t want to wait to eat the peanuts. Actually he’s supposed to offer to Kṛṣṇa everything. Closed the temple door.

How to break open the peanuts. So sometimes they break peanuts. You take a stone. On the altar. He took the shalagram off the altar and start smashing this how the owner of the temple came. He looked through the window. What is the sound like? Oh no, you demon. You atheist. How can you do this? You are using the shalingam to break penis. Is the thing I was saying. Means peanuts and banga means breaking peanut with shalima. You understand the purport of that? Would you say example that somebody wanted to use devious property for their own sanctuary. You want to break the peanuts with the sharia. You want to take Kṛṣṇa’s property and enjoy it and not use it for its service. All of you are so fortunate you have been able to circus him.

Of course you must always be careful to use everything that’s Kṛṣṇa in Kṛṣṇa service. You don’t want to take anything that’s Kṛṣṇa as far away. Even if somebody’s working for the temple or householders doing some collection or something. How much they take is already arranged with the temple authority. They should never take more than what was agreed upon. Then. Always be free of karmasama. Now everything we do we want to do as a devotion. We know that Kṛṣṇa is sending us so many opportunities to serve him. Every time. One opportunity we have is to expand the number of devotees. Increasing the number of devotees always. Now we know that hundreds and thousands of people can’t live in our temple. Usually, of course, here it looks like over 100. Is anybody here congregational?

So what we can do though is we can increase member of congregation unlimited. Temple of the Lord is being increased as much as feasible. And I may the Lord Goes out on book distribution or shop distribution or who meets the public. They may meet contacts of favorable people and they can note those contacts down. Everybody that we meet was favorable if were able to cultivate them and bring them closer. How many more devotees do we have? How many of you meet favorable people in the course of your daily activities? Sometimes. How many of you ever in your life have met a favorable person? How many have met someone who’s favorable but failed to take their name down or follow up on it? Right. So we want to become more efficient to meet favorable people. We get their names and addresses, we follow up.

Every devotee should be able to make another devotee or two or three or five. Children. We should all think, I must do it. The Lord ordered all human beings to take up to accept Christian consciousness and distribute it everywhere. So then after we have all these good contacts, When they come to the temple, somebody welcomes them. Hello, how are you? Take some time every time. Be happy. So. Or you may visit them in their homes. Now all this requires a kind of team effort of all the devotees. As we say. I really want to come in contact with someone that we should try to bring closer to Kṛṣṇa. This is a service for everybody. Sometimes you might just say an encouraging thing that somebody knew and that may help them to reach back to Gandhi. Dhruva Maharaj’s mother just told him, look for daughter.

Sukareva. Temple has such a wonderful summer camp and congregational devotees come from all over fsu. This, This was the first temple I came to. So I still like to come here. The good association of the wonderful devotees that stay here all year long. Actually. Happy to hear that you’re standing or preaching in different ways. After the Sukhoila festival, I went to festivals in Croatia, in Yugoslavia and different parts of the world. Like that. So there may be even that. There can be many different opportunities to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness through different facilities, blah. But we always need to use our own intelligence how to do it. Then we can come up with different ideas how to expand Kṛṣṇa consciousness. If you ever have any good idea, I am always eager to hear about it.

You know the story about a disciple and a guru riding on a horse? What’s the conclusion of the story? The question of what? Intelligence. Intelligence. But he was following instruction, Actually devotional service. We have to always do more than what makes the eye do more than the minimum. In another. Devotees. Love them, but they would do anything for the pleasure of Lord Chaitanya. But they didn’t want somewhere very austere for Their own personal maintenance. Some were very austere in their own personal dealings. There was one devotee, very renowned. He used to live in a small grass hut. On every day he would go begging from five houses. He cut the. With his begging bag. Begging bag. Whatever he would get from five houses, that’s what he would eat. Sometimes he didn’t get much, so he didn’t eat much.

Whatever five people gave him potato, some rice. That’s okay. One day he is walking with his vein chanting. So. Lord Chaitanya son walking down the road, He went over to the soap. So watch it. And he said why are you bringing in your bank? What have you brought for me mama? No, this. This is not worthy for you. This is the things I begged for. If it’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for me. To see what you have. What is Want to think something. But. So they wouldn’t let him think. This is not good enough for you. We should have something much better. Oh no. Just let me taste a little bit. He forced his hand into the bag and took out some chip rice. So why are you taking this? Not good enough for you?

For himself he was  willing to take this simple food. But for the Lord he wanted to give him something optimal. So because of the sincere dedication of such devotees I took from Bharvamachary they won over the heart of. How much he loved his devotion. All this, Everything every one of you are doing and they appreciate all the good service you’re doing. So just take this opportunity to thank all of you for serving Gorgeous. Any question. At his home. But what he got was not very good. When he was banging people would give that lousy thing free, you know, Half rotten potato. So wasn’t very. You didn’t feel it was good enough for logic time. I didn’t want to give the flat race for Lord Kṛṣṇa. That’s why. Can you about the rules and regulations? First one to get them a task.

Kṛṣṇa once I pass and grant me to this. So. What  will be the program tomorrow morning? When one surrenders unto the lotus feet of the Lord he does so with everything in his possession. His home, his body, his mind and whatever else he possesses. If there is any obstruction to this surrendering process, one should immediately give it up without attachment. If one can surrender with all his family members, there is no need to take sannyas. However, if the surrendering process is hampered by so called family members what should immediately give them up. To complete the surrendering process.  will remain at your voter’s feet to Others immediately and attend to your orders and serve you. Say I Dibe My dear Lord, please consider me your relative. Do not hesitate to order whatever you desire at any time you desire it. In the hatim.

See, Caitanya Mahatra accepted Bhavananda Rai’s offer saying I accept without hesitation because you are not an outsider. Birth after birth you have been my servant along with your family members. Who wants to be a certain it Even birth after birthday. Is coming within five to seven days. As soon as he arrives, my desires  will be fulfilled. I take great pleasure in his company. She is pettish indeed. Having said this. In the life, the Lord then touched the heads of his son to his Lord’s feet. Mahabharu then sent Bhagavad on the Rai back to his home. And then he kept only Patha Mayaka in his personal service. It. What’s the next one? Actually many Americans, they don’t chant Rāma, they chant Ram, Ram. Generally the pronunciations are quite nice, But there are a few devotees that are missing. Missing words.

Or sometimes people, they rush the Haris and so part of the Hari gets left out. Is this the same? So we may think that we’re chanting the two names, but actually we should pronounce more carefully. If I can’t hear it very clearly after 2, 3 mantras, I have to move on. So then I am telling you that it’s not clear. Five minutes a little faster. That is a tendency to misword. So it’s not to go too fast. Some people were chanting. So this one thing I decided to do a tip before we do. Position. Even if you do one breath per mantra, it’s also a lot of reading.