20040401 Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta Ādi 1.62 on Vyāsa-pūjā Day

Following is a Vyāsa-pūjā class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Maharāja on April 1^st, 2004 at Śrī Māyāpur, India. The class begins with a reading from Caitanya-caritāmṛta Ādi-līlā Chapter One, Text Sixty-two.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ, paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande, śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāriṇam
paramānanda-mādhavaṁ, śrī-caitanya-īśvaram
hariḥ oṁ, tat sat

Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Ādi 1.62

sādhavo hṛdayaṁ mahyaṁ
sādhūnāṁ hṛdayaṁ tv aham
mad-anyat te na jānanti
nāhaṁ tebhyo manāg api

Translation: “Saints are My heart, and only I am their hearts. They do not know anyone but Me, and therefore I do not recognize anyone besides them as Mine.”

Purport: This verse appears in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (9.4.68) in connection with a misunderstanding between Durvāsā Muni and Mahārāja Ambarīṣa. As a result of this misunderstanding, Durvāsā Muni tried to kill the king, when the Sudarśana cakra, the celebrated weapon of Godhead, appeared on the scene for the devoted king’s protection. When the Sudarśana cakra attacked Durvāsā Muni, he fled in fear of the weapon and sought shelter from all the great demigods in heaven. Not one of them was able to protect him, and therefore Durvāsā Muni prayed to Lord Viṣṇu for forgiveness. Lord Viṣṇu advised him, however, that if he wanted forgiveness, he had to get it from Mahārāja Ambarīṣa, not from Him. In this context Lord Viṣṇu spoke this verse.

The Lord, being full and free from problems, can wholeheartedly care for His devotees. His concern is how to elevate and protect all those who have taken shelter at His feet. The same responsibility is also entrusted to the spiritual master. The bona fide spiritual master’s concern is how the devotees who have surrendered to him as a representative of the Lord may make progress in devotional service. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is always mindful of the devotees who fully engage in cultivating knowledge of Him, having taken shelter at His lotus feet.

Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta Swami Translation and Purport.

* * *

Jayapatākā Swami: This is from Ādi-līlā, First Chapter, Sixty-second verse, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Ninth Canto, Fourth Chapter, Text Sixty-eight. This verse, especially we chose it today because the Lord, it states that He wholeheartedly cares for His devotees. The Lord is free from all problems. If somebody has a problem, it is difficult for them to fully take care because they (have) take care of their problem first, then they take care of other people’s problems. But since Lord Kṛṣṇa has no problem, He can take care of everybody else’s problems. Also, since He is unlimited, He can do that unlimitedly.

But here in this verse it also, Prabhupāda explains in the purport, the same responsibility is also entrusted to the spiritual master. The spiritual master is also trying to care for the devotees. Especially he wants to see how the devotees can progress in devotional service. Those devotees that have surrendered to the spiritual master as a representative of the Lord, then he is personally responsible and concerned that they make progress. We saw that His Divine Grace Śrīla A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, he was always concerned about how his followers would advance in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, how they would get back to Kṛṣṇa.

So, he made different programs, like the daily temple program, like different devotional services. He wrote his books. he built Māyāpur, Vṛndāvana dhāmas, temples, and so many other things, all considering what is needed for his disciples, his followers, who are taking shelter of him, to get back to Kṛṣṇa. He instituted the guru-paramparā system – continued it, ordering his followers to also be gurus and take on the responsibility on his behalf.

Sometimes we would see Prabhupāda crying for a disciple who was misplaced, misdirected. Even we heard that in New York in 1967, there was a bhakta, kind of a visitor, that would come to the temple frequently. So, he was known as like a Bhakta Herry or Steven, I forgot his name, any something, in New York City, I forget. And somehow, because he was still not fully practicing, he became depressed because of some intoxication or something. For some reason, he stopped coming and the devotees heard that he could not give up his bad habits. He was feeling frustrated. He wanted to be a devotee. But then, somehow, he committed suicide in his frustration.

Prabhupāda one day asked, “Where is this bhakta? Bhakta Herry?” They said, “Well, he is . . . “, (Prabhupāda) He said, “Well, I have not seen him for so many days.” They told him what happened. He said, actually, Prabhupāda said, “Just pray for him.” And he prayed, “Kṛṣṇa, where is this Bhakta Herry now? Where has he gone? We wander in the forest. We beat our head against the trees and the rocks. Where is our dear Bhakta Herry? Please have mercy on him that he can take birth in a family of the devotees.” Prabhupāda was crying for this visitor, not taken initiation. He just came a few times. Prabhupāda said, “We failed. We failed this devotee because somehow, we could not get him fully into devotional service. Kṛṣṇa sent him to us, and we failed.” So, that is how compassionate Śrīla Prabhupāda was. Śrīla Prabhupāda kī jaya!

I was thinking that Śrīla Prabhupāda (has) sent me a number of devotees for whom I am supposed to care for. And the past few years I was doing as I was feeling since 1997 and as a Prabhupāda disciple, my concern, it should not be only whatever my individual responsibilities are, but I had to also seek for the whole ISKCON, to some degree, welfare, especially as a GBC, as a senior disciple. So, then for many years, since then, maybe since 1997, I stepped up a program for trying to care for any devotees that came.

But then in the meantime, there were many other disciples who took shelter of me, surrendered to me. They are feeling like that I am not taking enough care for them. And that was this last Janmāṣṭamī, Prabhupāda’s Vyāsa-pūjā, I thought, I have to start to balance things – my services to Māyāpur, to India, to my zone, to my disciples, and to all the devotees that were otherwise depending on me or looking to me for any help. So, I realized that Prabhupāda had given a practical system for caring for devotees.

In those days, all the devotees, most of them lived in the temples. So, the temple presidents and temple leaders and the few sannyāsīs and GBCs, they were mainly taking care of the devotees on behalf of Prabhupāda. And then if there was an emergency, you could always write a snail mail to Prabhupāda. In those days, there was no e-mail. And then eventually you would get a reply after a few weeks or months. Whenever Prabhupāda visited, and sometimes people would see him if there was an emergency. A few devotees, they would follow wherever Prabhupāda was, chase him around, which he did not always appreciate, but it was . . . anyways.

So, I think we are trying also that all the devotees that are either in a temple, or they are in a Nāma-haṭṭa, or a Bhakti-vṛkṣa, or a Counselor group, or they are helped by senior devotees. Otherwise, you can imagine, if everybody came to me one time and said, “I want a Question-and-Answer (session).” Like, yesterday somebody made a big thing, “I have to see the guru, I have had this question for one year, it is vitally important, stop everything.” (So, I said,) “Okay”, then he wanted to know, you know, some question about his brāhmaṇa thread. But you could have found out from any senior devotee, any other senior brāhmaṇa.

Which with time permitting, it is okay, I do not mind answering any question, but we will have a Question-Answer session tomorrow afternoon. But also, it was not a personal, highly personal question, maybe other people have the same question about their brāhmaṇa thread, I do not know. It was a funny question. But, how to, you know, actually I was thinking that I really need the help from disciples, and my godbrothers, and all the devotees. From the godbrothers and all the older devotees, I am also there to help them, whatever they need. But I need their help also, to help care for all these devotees who have taken shelter. Spread around a little bit the mercy. And from the older disciples, that they also guide the younger disciples.

Sometimes there is special opportunities when they get, like those who come on Safari, we have a lot of personal association. Sometimes, even sometimes those who travel with me, it is not always, sometimes it is so intense that they do not get so much time even to ask the question because travelling might be very intense. Sometimes Māyāpur is a difficult place, during Gaura-Pūrṇimā or Vyāsa-pūjā, people come from all over the world, so then I have to tell, “They have come from a long distance, I have to see them”, the rest of the year – the Māyāpur devotees, they have Nṛsiṁha-caturdaśī and Rādhāṣṭamī and Bhīṣma-pañcaka, Kārtika, (where) there are not so many outsider devotees. So, the locals get more of my time.

But I think this year I would like to give the maximum. I would like to make up because a lot of the local devotees here have not seen me personally. So, that is going to require also a lot of help and patience. Then I was thinking that, now we are starting the big temple, and I have to do more hands-on management with the big temple – designing or some fine-tuning of that, also making the exhibits. So, whenever you do something hands-on, that means you do not have time for other things. You have to just focus.

And then, a couple of years ago in India, they decided all the zonal secretaries have to be more hands-on, check the temples, spend more time in each temple. That is good for the devotees in those temples. But it also means sometimes when I am there, all we have to talk about management. It is not like all the time it would be just for the disciples. So, this is a big challenge. We want to take care. As it said, it is the responsibility also of the spiritual master to take care. But Kṛṣṇa can expand Himself into unlimited forms. Where a guru is just, of course, Nārada Muni can take ten forms, but I am still only one. So, it is going to require a lot of help from everybody, how to give association and help.

You know, sometimes devotees send e-mails. Sometimes I get two hundred e-mails in one day. It would take me three days to answer them. So, e-mail has become also like an impossible situation. And then people say, “I did not get an answer from my e-mail, so my guru does not love me.” Which is not the case, it is just I do not know how to deal with all this information. We have been working at it for a few years. We still do not have a formula. If anybody has any ideas.

I have been answering all my e-mails myself. Only getting help for drafting. Not a single e-mail is replied by a disciple in my name. Unless they get an e-mail themselves or some general thing where they write it. We can see it is them who is writing. But maybe that is not possible to do because just to sort through all the e-mails and figure out what is relevant, what is not relevant. Some people write to me, “Dear Jayapatākā Swami, when is Gaura-Pūrṇimā?” (laughter) So, then, if I have to answer all those letters, let me know that someone who really has a crisis, “Gurudeva, I am ready to jump out the window. I need this.” So, how to sort out and see which is the essential ones.

I may have to have everything go through a secretary first. So far it has not been like that. But then, I do not see all the e-mails either. So, in the modern day, we have these modern expectations and modern situations. And I will be spending more time in Māyāpur than how they . . . I was thinking somehow, we can set up on some web page and have worldwide iṣṭagoṣṭhīs where people can ask questions and answers on the internet. That may be one way. Use the modern technology. I heard they have such kind of user groups where at one time a few hundred people are online. Maybe that is – have some schedule.

Prabhupāda, He did not. He also had hands-on work. He was translating His books. He was, He had a very good system. No email. All the good secretaries who answered the mail. He would dictate, they would . . . Just to give a little indication what He wanted and then people would write back.

So, I think that was I thought I would be spending more time in Māyāpur to see more of the Māyāpur devotees and then we can also work on a system how to take care, and I have not given up – still trying. I need all the devotees’ patience and help also. Because now the most important thing that Prabhupāda asked me to help open the big temple of Māyāpur and that is coming up. That is definitely going to take some energy, when you are going to do something very nice.

At the same time, Prabhupāda told me many things. I am still going to be visiting people all over the world. I am still going to visit people all over my zone. Just a little bit adjusting the percentages – just trying. So, I need the help also from all the other devotees. So, first try to get your questions answered from senior godbrothers, godsisters, spiritual uncles, older cousins, brothers. Then if you can, sometimes you will feel like we will have a question and answer that you can ask to your heart’s content.

If you have the opportunity to ask, you can ask. Do not think that for any reason sometimes there is a delay like the last two months, I have not answered emails because I was in the middle of a festival and on Safari. Then only maybe ten emails I answered out of thousands. It is not that I do not answer emails. Maybe there are thirty thousand letters I write a year or so. But fifteen thousand. Sometimes I get thirty thousand, so fifteen thousand do not get replied. Something, I do not know all the statistics.

So, Bhaktisiddhānta said he had ten thousand disciples, and we heard that he had like a counsellor group type situation where every so many disciples there was a upadeśaka. One counselor, one guide. And for so many guides, there was a mahā-upadeśaka who would guide the guides. And then for all the mahā-upadeśakas, there was one mahā-mahā-upadeśaka who would guide them. So, all the guiding and taking care was going on through a delegated system. When some question came up, it would come that nobody else could answer, it would come up to him and he would give the answer. So, there are ways of doing things.

Prabhupāda, when He was here in Māyāpur, He would keep one hour or two hours a day with that open-door policy. Anybody could come and see him. Things like that. That is the personal association. Sometimes I want to speak alone. Prabhupāda said, “These are all confidential devotees. You can speak here.” There are all of us, all the, especially the gurus, it is their duty to take care of the devotees. I mean, and everyone who is like what you tend to order everyone to be a guru.

yāre dekha, tāre kaha ‘kṛṣṇa’-upadeśa
āmāra ājñāya guru hañā tāra’ ei deśa
[Cc. Madhya 7.128]

So, that means you all have to be responsible to help those who come to us for help. I am not making any excuses. I do not want to make any excuses. I want to say this is the challenge I am faced with and working on it. I think part of the solution is a lot of help from everyone, which I have been getting a lot. I appreciate that very much. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the senior godbrothers, godsisters, my godbrothers who have been helping my disciples and all the temple presidents. Sometimes it is a thankless task to give people counselling, to give them guidance. They do not always appreciate or follow. Some appreciate it very much. Somehow, we want to get all these devotees back to Kṛṣṇa.

You see, I was reading once the māhātmya of this Ekādaśī – Kāmadā Ekādaśī. And Yudhiṣṭhira came to Kṛṣṇa for guidance. He wanted to know what was the glories of this Ekādaśī. And then Kṛṣṇa told Yudhiṣṭhira, “Well, this was explained by Vasiṣṭha Muni in some other time to somebody.” And then he explained that there was in Gandharvaloka, another planetary system in the universe. There was a husband and wife, one beautiful apsarā called Lalit, a Gandharva apsarā and the husband was Lalit. Lalit or Lalitā? And they loved each other like anything, passionately they were attached to each other. They were intensely enjoying their family life frequently.

For some reason, the Gandharvaloka, there was a visit from another, from the Nāgaloka, another planetary system where all snake entities live. And Lalit was requested to come and sing for them. But he was so much passionately attached to his wife. While he was singing for this king of the Nāgas the head of the Nāgas, had supernatural power was not like some ordinary little slithering snake. It is a very developed mystically powerful personality, divine snakes.

So, while He was singing some well-known Sanskrit ancient song, He was blowing the verses, saying wrong. So, this man, because he had mystical powers, he checked out, “What is this, what is wrong with this Gandharva? Why does He not sing the songs right?” And then, like that, he is thinking about having, you know, relations with his wife. He is lusting after his wife, while he is trying to give me some holy song. This person is a really fallen person, because he had this mystic.

So, then he cursed, “You rascal, you are beating me, and you are missing out the verses, and you are just thinking about your wife. I curse you to be a rākṣasa, you will wander the earth, and you will be esteemed, and you will be married to a cannibal.” So, then, fell down from Gandharvaloka and was wandering around eating us poor human beings. I do not know, the Nāga should have thought about the human beings. You know, you curse someone to be a rākṣasa, but then he eats us. We get the downside.

So, his wife of Lalitā, knowing that because of her attachment to her, she was not able to make Him Kṛṣṇa conscious enough, inspiring Him more. Kṛṣṇa conscious, that is only inspiring Him on the material side. He got cursed, and now he is, now wandering around like a horrible rākṣasa and wandering around, and smashing people, and eating them, and doing weird, just to us. So, she was really unhappy.

So, she went to this, that same ṛṣi that was in the yajña for Lord Rāma, Śṛṅga, Ṛṣi Śṛṅga. Ṛṣi Śṛṅga Mahārāja’s āśrama. ṛṣis’ āśrama, Ṛṣi Śṛṅga, ṛṣi. And he sees the beautiful apsara transversing in his āśrama. He says, “Whose daughter are you?”

She says, “I am the daughter of such and such Gandharva. I come here from Gandharvaloka.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I have this problem with my husband because of a curse. He has become a rākṣasa, and I want to free him from this rākṣasa. What can I do to free him from this?”

And he said, “Well, there is this Kāmadā Ekādaśī. If you observe the fast in that Ekādaśī, you get free from all kinds of curses, all kinds of offenses. And you observe this fast, Kāmadā Ekādaśī, your husband will be free.” So, she observed it, and then the next day, her husband came in as an apsarā, freed from his rākṣasa birth.

So, this Kāmadā Ekādaśī frees us from offenses. I pray that if I am committed any offenses. Please forgive me. May this holy Ekādaśī, I get free from all the offenses, any curses. And especially to those devotees who are looking to me for help, and I feel that I have not been able to help them as much as they need, somehow, I need to get the list of people that need help and prioritize it. But I will keep working on that. In the meantime, do not personally go become a rākṣasa. (laughter)

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

[Aside: You are a manager here? Question-and-Answer time or should we stop? What is he asking? Good question. Jāhnavī dāsa.]

Jāhnavī Dāsa: What does it actually mean, when the guru takes care of the disciples, the disciples, I mean, what sense does the guru take care of the disciples? Does it mean He has to stay over there to be free? Or is it that the spiritual state, what does it actually mean that the guru takes care of the disciples?

Jayapatākā Swami: Well, one thing is that there are some standard things like as far as when to take the shelter, all those kinds of things. How to brush your teeth, those are pretty standard. The guru teaches one disciple and that disciple can teach everybody else. Prabhupāda taught somebody how to put on a dhotī, it was like He taught every single disciple how to put on a dhotī. It was a kind of percolation effect. How to elevate and protect. Protecting the disciples from deviations, protecting them from Māyās, guiding them so that they can – so much of that is done in group format.

Prabhupāda, He made programs how His disciples could progress in devotional service – chanting sixteen rounds a day, following the four principles, distributing books, so many things. Prabhupāda always was coming up with ideas how to help the disciples. I have to think of some programs to get the immediate facility for disciples to get that question answered. Since the spiritual masses are concerned, it comes as a surprise like in some other missions. They ask the guru, “How do your followers, how are they supposed to practice devotional service best?” Even after their initiation. Prabhupāda said, “No, it should be their concern.” They were trying to create a city for the devotees to come and stay here so they can be Kṛṣṇa conscious. It will be an example for the world. All these are the Prabhupāda’s concern for the movement and all his concern for the devotees. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Nṛasiṁhadeva kī jaya! Prahlāda Mahārāja kī jaya!