19920606 Ratha-yātrā Talk

So many kings and kshatriyas, and elephants, and chariots, and all the Kshatriya emperors went there, Lord Krishna also went there. And so many big VIP’s were also there. There, was a simple village folks of Vrindavan coming to Kurukshetra, to see Krishna and Balaram. So, when Krishna met the residents of Vrindavan, the first thing, He saw was Srimati Radharani, that was a very emotional occasion. And Lord Caitanya, He was absorbed in this very deep sentiment. He was very happy to take Jagannath on this procession, because He was meditating that I am taking Krishna back to Vrindavan.

He was thinking of Radharani and all the residents of Vrindavan, how happy they would be to again be rejoined with Krishna, be united with Krishna. So, in this mood of unifying long separated lovers, long separated loved ones. Lord Caitanya, He participated in the Ratha yatra in a very excited mood, and sometimes He would become so absorbed in thinking about all these very high thoughts, that He would not be able to speak the words Jagannath. His saying, from his mouth would come the vibration, jaggaa mammaa jaggaa mammma and other similar voice, sounds coming out, because His voice was choked in love of Krishna.

Sometimes, Lord Caitanya would dance so fast, they would appear like a fire dance singing, and practically he would become almost invisible, you would just see a blur. He was speaking so fast, and jumping sometimes so high. People were amazed to see, he was even in so much spiritual ecstasy that the expressions, through His dancing, chanting, were something indescribable, incomparable.

So, five hundred years ago, Lord Caitanya observed this cart festival in Jagannath Puri, when he was here in this planet. Remembering this pastime of Krishna, five thousand years ago, when he was in this planet being with the residents of Vrindavan. Sometimes there was also very esoteric understanding, which was a very deep kind of melancholy and almost a tragedy. When Krishna finally met Radharani, Radharani is saying, Krishna is not the same Krishna, neither the same Madhava, this place is not the same place. This is battlefield, Kurukshetra, holy pilgrimage place, you are wearing yellow garments and so many royal people around here, my heart goes back to Vrindavan. You should come with us back to Vrindavan, that’s where you will really be happy.

You will be happy in Vrindavan under the Kadamba trees, by the side of the Yamuna. All these pastimes are very deep, Lord Caitanya when he meditated, he started to cry in ecstasy. He is showing the glories of pastimes in Vrindavan. And, so, while the Rath Yatra festival is going on, you will find that the pandas, the various priests of the Jagannath Puri, they go on three carts, usually Baladev at first, then Subhadra, then Jagannath is in the rear, so they always go in the front. So, Lord Caitanya would love to be at the rear, where Lord Jagannath was. He would dance, especially in front of Jagannath. So, different devotees are having different moods.

But the Ratha yatra is beneficial for everyone, in fact even someone who doesn't know anything about the Ratha yatra. He just happened to see the Rath, just stand and watch it, by just standing and watching, they are getting some benefit. They are getting so much benefit, that they according to the Puranas can be transferred to the spiritual world at the end of their lives, sometime in the future. If somebody pulls the Rath, that’s even better. Pulling the Rath is a very intimate service to Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra, one gets even more benefit.

So, like this even very simple people they can get derive unlimited benefit by this service. In Calcutta, we have, sometimes, one million people, or even two million people come for the Ratha Yatra and at that time people fight to just touch the rope. They know the secret that if you touch the rope of Lord Jagannath, to pull Lord Jagannath, you get a very special mercy, very special benediction. So, I am very happy that this festival of India at New Panihati, Atlanta, ISKCON, the Ratha yatra festival has been included, so these ways more devotees have the opportunity to participate in this festival, in this special intimate service to lord Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra.

Since, it seems that everybody is, majority of the people here are devotees, so, they understand the basics of who Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra are. If there is any questions, of course, any other guest may ask, any other devotees who wear tilak, they can even tell you more, or they can direct you to someone who can. So, Lord Caitanya, when he was performing the Rath Yatra pastimes, at that time, the King of Puri was known as Prataprudra Maharaj. He was a great devotee of Lord Jagannath and also, he was also a very great devotee of Lord Caitanya. So, he eagerly wanted to meet Lord Caitanya. But he was not able to meet Lord Caitanya, because Lord Caitanya, as a Sannyasi in the renounced order, he had taken a vow, not to associate with materialistic people.

So, that case down to a king or a politician, who are a materialistic person. So, as a great, great spiritual leader he refused to give an audience to PratapRudra Maharaj. Maha PratapRudra Maharaj was actually a very great devotee. He was not attached to his position, but he was doing enough out of his sense of duty. So, when Lord Caitanya came to the Rath Yatra festival, he witnessed that PratapRudra, although he was a king, at the beginning of the Rath, he took a golden broom and he sprinkled rose water in the ground and then he swept the road in front of Jagannath. In India sweeping the road is usually reserved for the haridas, who sweep the road as a road-cleaners, generally kind of boy, so called social workers. Society, five hundred years ago was very highly structured, we can catch the similarity, sweeping the road was something beneath the dignity, practically for everybody, what to speak of a king. But he was sweeping the road as a demonstration of his service attitude to Lord Jagannath. His being a servant or servant of the Lord. So, when Lord Caitanya saw that, he was touched in his heart. Lord Caitanya reciprocates with the devotion of the devotees to Krishna. And immediately he wanted to give his mercy to Maharaj Prataprudra, he was so opulent. He is not a puffed-up materialist, he is a humble devotee, he was humbling himself in front of Lord Jagannath.

But the kind of situation, the public know that he is a King, he is a different king than other king, he is a devotee King. So, PratapRudra Maharaj after the inauguration of the Ratha Yatra, when the Ratha yatra began he was following the Lord in a side, and he was watching Lord Caitanya dancing. He saw Lord Caitanya expanding himself into seven forms, that there was seven kirtan parties on all sides of the Rath. And Lord Caitanya was simultaneously dancing in every group. When PratapRudra Maharaj saw that, then he really could understand that it was definitely Lord Caitanya, he was in each group, but each group thought that only Lord Caitanya was in their group. But he was simultaneously in all the groups. So, PratapRudra was very much watching Lord Caitanya dancing, and singing and jumping in ecstasy. Just in front of him, was the great devotee from Bengal, Srivas Thakur and in front of the king was his eight men, the body guards and everything. So, the defend man, he wanted Srivas Thakur to move aside and let the king get a better view. So, he kept moving Srivas Thakur aside, trying to get his attention to move, then Srivas, he was so absorbed in watching Lord Caitanya that, he was watching, he was saying in mockingly, what is this happening, Lord Caitanya jumping, oh!! what a step. Look at Caitanya Mahaprabhu, mocking up boom!! Gauranga!! Gauranga!! And finally, in some way, he poked him higher enough, distracting and who is this disturbing my darshan, my view of Lord Caitanya. He slapped the guy. He turned around, looking at Lord Caitanya, with tender eyes. He was the general, the King, the emperor, the king of Orissa, you know, he got slapped. (devotees laughing) You know, you are going to, the people of Orissa, people are in citation, they did not have to give any citation (devotees laughing), just arrest him, and they were so angry.

They really started to take some action. But the King tells them suddenly to stop. He understood that Lord Caitanya’s devotees while observing Lord Caitanya was in, they are so absorbed, you cannot hold them responsible them to be responsible. If somebody pokes them, they get angry. They were so absorbed in their Krishna consciousness. So, like this, in many different ways of Lord Caitanya gave blessings to Maharaj Pratap Rudra.

 Actually, this is the custom, we would like to have many places, many different people in fact like the mayor, the minister, some. I was thinking this morning actually, to invite the local minister of this area at least, to inaugurate the Rath and sweep the road. Every time, we really enjoy, to inaugurate in fact, in Calcutta, we had council of general friends, Soviet Union, various government ministers.

 And at one time, it so happened, we had the vice president of India, as a special guest to inaugurate the Rath yatra in India. And then I remember the president of temple announced that in furtherance of the cultural tradition, that the king PratapRudra used to sweep the road before Lord Jagannath, so we would request the vice President of India to sweep the road before Lord Jagannath. We don't know exactly why the Vice President did what he actually did, he did because he was a caste brahman, or the particular view, we don't know exactly why. But he stood up, he declined. He said, I refuse to sweep the road before Jagannath. Because this is the tradition of monarchy and, now we are a democratic country. And all the newspapers writing down, that, the heading next day was, the vice President of India, refused to sweep the road before God. (devotees laughing).

There was a whole, everyone did not know what to do, no one could go forward, everyone was shocked, to face him, the journalist, nobody whether France, Germany, USA, San Francisco, Vancouver, everyone had questions. So, the first one was questions, so, somehow or other, I prayed to Lord Jagannath, what to do, Lord Jagannath gave me an idea, I took the mike over and I said that, yes, it’s true, that now the democracy of the government for the people, of the people, by the people. So now the people are the kings, so now I request all the people to sweep the road in front of Lord Jagannath. In the video, the people are requested to do that and the vice-president of India to be the first (devotees clapping, roaring, HARIBOL!!) So, all were scratching, touching their head, hair on the broom, what to do. (devotees saying Haribol!!). So, then, like that just to conclude that the sage, whatever PratapRudra Maharaj did desire, Lord Caitanya to be fulfilled.

So, finally Lord Jagannath reached the Gundicha temple, he was taken inside the temple. Lord Caitanya after dancing for miles and miles, here we just took a short tour for long hours. In the future, I hope we have a longer tour, give us a chance to chant longer and longer in front of Lord Jagannath. In Jagannath Puri, sometimes they go for many, many hours, whole day almost, in front of Lord Jagannath. So, it’s a after the whole Rath Yatra, Lord Caitanya lied down in a garden in front of Gundicha temple, is known as a Vrindavan garden. There he was relaxing, and devotees were singing bhajans, sweet devotional songs. So, then the king, PratapRudra came and he took all the dust, then his soak cloth, and put on his simple white cloth and when he went in, he started to message the lotus feet of Lord Caitanya, sing sweet bhajans to Lord Caitanya.

 Lord Caitanya reopened his eyes, (laughing) of course Lord Caitanya know who he was, but now he was looking, he is the super soul, he knows everything. Without knowing, without the person saying anything he gave out the mercy, just because of the humble service he did before Lord Jagannath. He could touch the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, because of doing this humble service.

So, we can understand how doing a little service for Lord Jagannath got unlimited value. And it is a very good opportunity especially when Lord Jagannath is here, once when he is on his chariot, to offer our prayers to Lord Jagannath, to offer our prayers to Lord Jagannath for his mercy and his beauty. And request his mercy, so that we can also have the mercy of Lord Caitanya, to have love for Lord Krishna. So, this is the special benefit of worshiping Lord Jagannath. This is a very special, this is a very holy occasion. In this way, we can get easily some benedictions, for advancing in our spiritual lives, in achieving self -realization, for pure Krishna consciousness, for achieving love of Godhead.

 So, thank you very much for making the Ratha Yatra festival success, for your enthusiastic participation and All glories to Jagannath swami ki jaya!! (devotees Jaya!! Jaya!!) Baladev ki jaya!! (devotees Jaya! jaya!!) Subhadra devi ki jaya!! Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!!(Devotees jaya!! Jaya!!) (devotee Srila Acharyapada ki jaya!! Jaya!!) Hare Krishna!! (devotees Hare Krishna!!) Any question on Ratha Yatra? Yes.

Devotee: What it means when a devotee (19:27 – 19:38 not clear)

Gurumaharaj- So, you call it risky, it is just a prayer, a kind of a prayer, prayer for safe voyage for Lord Jagannath. Auspicious, inauspicious, beginning take away all inauspicious, of course there is nothing inauspicious but devotees, many other pastimes, just like we give a fan to lord Jagannath, or we provide a blow, Lord Jagannath is transcendental. The pastimes are, of course we are taking care of Lord Jagannath, as a person and providing him all the services. So, it’s a custom in India, when you go for a voyage you do these things, sometimes they put a lemon under the wheel, sometimes they break a coconut, so these are different kinds. So, this is a South Indian tradition. Somehow, we have been doing it for many years in ISKCON, and it is also, it is, this marks the final time of, when everything is ready to pull the cart. The last thing we do it is to do the addresse.

Any other question?

Yes

 Question: (21:05 – 21:13 not clear) giving the coconut, they are same or are they different?

Gurumaharaj - The strict brahmana is not needed, but then sometimes, somebody was (devotees laughing). Nothing goes to ….

Yes

Question: (21:32 – 21:47 not clear)

Gurumaharaj - Ratha yatra is around the world, some inlands. Well, so, this last December, was my first visit to South Africa and the, they have, previously they were doing the Ratha Yatra, because of the partime system, because we have no interracial, so, that was not a difficulty. They wanted everybody, people from different races to pull the Rath, they were to make four ropes for different races (devotees laughing). So, it was giving some difficulty, I think they stopped it for couple of years. Because the government won’t give permission or something. So, when they, that was two years ago, they again started the Ratha Yatra, if I am correct. So, now they have a big Ratha Yatra festival right at the beach of Durban and it was about a seven-day festival of India and the highlight is the Ratha Yatra festival. Of, course here we have highlighted, it is, on the occasion of the Panihati festival. The festival is small but this also highlights, so many highlights. So, there the highlight was of Ratha Yatra.

So, they have about 50 thousand or more people pulling the Rath, along the beach side, some on the road, then on the beach, upon the road, on the beach shore, three four miles it almost took two to two and half hours and lot of people were there participating, maybe it was 100 thousand. I heard that over the seven-day period, they have distributed 2 hundred thousand plates of prasadam. And that was equal to 25 tons of food (devotees Jaya!!), and it was something new even for the government people. Because in a queue, in the line for the prasadam,all the people from all the different races were standing Indians, so were they called there, Indian,coloured, blacks and whites, so they are placed in the same line with the American boys in a row, South Africans also stand.

So, it was not a pioneer, even when the parapet was given, we did not follow the rule. We always have multiracial in our temple hall. It is for the, we don’t follow their things, rista, the law and everything. So, that’s why in West of Africa they appreciate ISKCON, because we always stood up for reliefs, and how all people, all living entities they have got the same spirit soul. We are basically spirit soul by nature, so the bodily differences gone, make any difference in our spiritual relationship that’s all, related to all brothers and sisters to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Supreme father.

So, I was wondering it is one of the interesting Ratha Yatra I attended, but the, outside of India, in Malaysia it was about only 30 million people I believe, but anyhow about 8 Ratha Yatras in a year. So, they are averaging about one Ratha Yatra, for a year they have people of over 50 million, total is 2 hundred 50 million people. So, they should have 150 Ratha Yatras (devotees jaya! Jaya!) hats off to Malaysia. So, we see that what they did is, they have a Ratha yatra cart, slightly bigger than this one, but similar in size, they design it in a way, that the wheels are moveable, and they take the Ratah Yatra cart all over the country, the country is not that very big. But they can drive, I mean the potential western part, there are two parts in the country, east and west, so this is the western part, so they can drive for one side to other, so this is the idea, it is about twelve hours. So, as we are here how big is this twelve hours, fifteen hours talked about.

So, they do the Ratha Yatra, they pull the same Ratha Yatra cart all over different places. It is not very big, but big enough, over 5 to 10 thousand people come to the Ratha Yatra festival. See, we recently had some Ratha Yatra for South- East USA, North-East USA, in the middle east, something like that covering various cities. So, they have many more Ratha Yatras and they have temples, their area has two temples, that have eight Ratha Yatras. Just like we have Namhattas In Agastya. In Malaysia, they have many namhattas. All the namhatta devotees they organize, went to all, they make flyers, they bring bunch of young people to volunteer. For you know, they have the whole Ratha Yatra festival there, I don’t know, if it is feasible here in North America, may be in the future. We have many Ratha Yatras even in each area, we have a national Ratha Yatra, we used to have, I don’t know, if we have that now, but that’s a big expense. But this Ratha Yatra here is low budget, high ecstasy (devotees laughing).

Then of course, this year for the first time we have the first Ratha Yatra in Mysore. Every year in india, they have many Ratha Yatras. Since Ratha Yatra in Calcutta, of course Puri, Bhuvhaneswar, ISKCON has its Ratha Yatra in Bhuvaneswar, Calcutta, Siliguri, in Delhi, in Bombay, in Hyderabad, in Bengalore, in Madras. And this year we had started two new Ratha Yatras in Coimbatore and in Mysore, and they also have in Chandigarh. I know, we have in few places in Gujrat, in Surat, Ahmedabad, Baroda, in few, in quite a few places, in Gujrat, right. I don’t know all of them, like this we have many Rath Yatras throughout the whole India.

This year in Coimbatore, Arup Jalotha came back, to inaugurate the Rath Yatra. He mentioned how he is an old friend of ISKCON and he felt very grateful, as ISKCON has given him a great opportunity to serve Krishna. So, he said that he dedicates all his time in Jagannath Puri especially for ISKCON programs. Then he gave autographs on about 108 Bhagavat Gitas, because people came about and bought many for his autographs. So, it was nice, he was a big book distributor for ISKCON. Then in Mysore, there we had different situations and now in India there is no more any hierarchy, but they still have royal families, but they don’t have any power, any retaliatory prestige.

So, the royal family of Mysore, all they have is a palace, they don’t have anything else, they don’t have any temple. But they are known as Maharaj with great affection. So, that the previous Maharaj of Mysore, he inaugurated our Ratha Yatra at Mysore. He said that actually he was very honored to be a part of this cultural heritage, and the Ratha Yatra, how was brought from Orissa and then was established in South India. In Mysore, he would come every year. He personally swept the road before Lord Jagannath and this time he had about sixty devotees from all over the world.

We also had devotees here from Atlanta, Georgia, our pujari here of Lord Jagannath, Nila Kamala Devi Dasi, she was there in Mysore, she was in the Rath. She was there in Mysore and many other devotees from South America, from Poland, from Europe, Australia, Malaysia, from all over the world they were there for this International Ratha Yatra festival. Like this I can go on, this Ratha Yatra is in Australia, some places in Tokyo, if not always. Recently there was a Ratha Yatra in Ontario, and people really loved it, in the airport just someone came up and said that, Sir your Ratha Yatra, I really liked it. They have Ratha Yatras in Mexico, in Canada, in fact I think in Canada, it’s cheap, the premier, the premier of British Colombia Ruler, he inaugurated the Ratha Yatra there, I believe the last year. And they had in Toronto, Montreal, in London, we have Ratha Yatras, four five in UK. All over the Europe, Italy, in different parts of Europe, in France, we have Ratha Yatras, in BarceLona, Spain. In, so, Ratha Yatra, is a worldwide festival for all of us, everywhere it has got its own flavor, its own ecstasy, Lord Jagannath, he showers his own mercy to all the devotees, this is what we are hungry for, the mercy of the lord and this is the opportunity to serve, this is what we get, I hope you also have many other programs. I am already late, you all have to wait for the next program. So, then we have the cultural programs, so, I hope you enjoy the cultural program, the spiritual association of prasadam, and all the mercy of Lord Gaura Nitai and Jagannath, Baladev, Subhadra and Srila Prabhupada are giving to all of us! Hare Krishna. (Devotees Hare Krishna)