20060502 Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 9.20.33

(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 May 2, 2006 – in Coimbatore, India. The lecture begins with a reading from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 9.20.33.

After hearing the prayer of W. Kas and Sakar Malik, R. Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, My dear Wikash, you two brothers are my old servants. My dear Sakar Malik, from this day your names  will be changed to Śrī Rūpa and Śrīla Sanatan. Now please abandon your humility for my heart is breaking to see you so humble. Actually this is Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s initiation of Dubir Kas and Sakar Malik. They approached the Lord with all humility and the Lord accepted them as old servants, as eternal servants and he changed their name. It is to be understood from this that it is essential for a disciple to change his name after initiation. Shanka Chakra Dyur Dhvapundra Dharana Lakshanam. After initiation the disciples name must be changed to indicate that he is a servant of Lord Vishnu.

The disciples should also merely begin marking his body with Tilak Urdua Pundra, especially his forehead. These are spiritual marks, symptoms of a perfect Vaishnava. This is a verse in the Padma Purāṇa Uttarakhanda. A member of the Suhachya Sampradāya does not change his name. Therefore he cannot be accepted as the Gauḍīya of Vaishnava. If a person does not change his name after initiation it is to be understood that he  will continue in his bodily conception of life. So how many are initiated here? How many got new spiritual names? How many want to be initiated in the future and get spiritual names? How many don’t know English? How many know English? So where’s that translation? You go in the back then and tell those. All the devotees are important to us. Whether they know English or know Tamil or whether they know Malayalam or whatever.

So we want everyone to be able to understand the classes. So we’re very pleased if you always organize translation. So this verse tells us in Padma Purāṇa for initiation we should wear tilak. We can wear tea lock before initiation also. But. If someone’s vegetarian following the principle, wearing tea like means making the body like a temple of Vishnu. Vishnu as paramātmā is living in the heart. So you can concentrate your body as a temple. If someone’s working outside and they can’t wear tea that although india I don’t know, In the west and Middle east it’s difficult for men to wear tilak. Sometimes ladies can wear. Because ladies wear so many things on their forehead. Cosmetics, dots, bindis, a little T lock, nobody lions. They don’t know any. It’s a ladies thing, they think. But if the men wear tea like.

One businessman told me, if I wear tea like then the other businessmen try to cheat me because they think that I am a softie. I am a sadhu type. So this is modern India. Eventually we want that even the high court judges wear tilag. We’re to speak of the businessmen. Some businessmen wear tilak, some don’t. At least we should put it on with tilak. Shanka chakra, Urdhva Pundra Dharana Lakshanam. Some Śiva Ashnavas put Shanka chakra. You can also put the mark either by T lock or by branding. Urdhva poundra means t lock rising up. We don’t use the T lock that goes horizontal. Sometimes people have already spiritual names. There was one disciple, Prabhupāda. His name was Shamma Sundar. That was his birth name. So then what to do? The Prabhupāda said, it’s the rule, I have to change your name.

So since you already have a spiritual name, I will change it just a little bit. So he gave the name Shamma Sundara Ananda. Here in South India, many people have spiritual names. Lakshmi Rādhā, Venkateswara Balaji. But some little change we have to do. That’s the system. So Rupert Sanatan, he said you are Pur rahtans. You are eternal servants. They were actually devotees from their previous birth. Now they are being saved by Lord Caitanya, brought back to his service. Many of you are servants from before. By surrendering to Kṛṣṇa, then you will remember your eternal service. Actually everyone in one sense is eternal service. But we have forgotten. Said by remembering the six Go Swamis, all obstacles are overcome. There also Vigna Vinashas for the devotees. Which verse. 28 To 32, text number 33. The dynasty of Peru.

When Maharaj Bharat performed the sacrifice known as Mashnara or sacrifice in the place known as Mashnara, he gave in charity 14 lakhs of excellent elephants with white tusks and black bodies completely covered with golden ornaments. Maintaining one elephant is headed tough. 14 Lakhs. 1,400,000 Elephants. How opulent was Bharat Maharaj. That’s what he gave away. Bharatasya Mahat Karma Napur Vena Par Naivur Naiva Prabhu Bahubhyam Tridivam Yatta. As one cannot approach the heavenly planet simply by the strength of his arms. For who can touch the heavenly planets with his hands, one cannot imitate the wonderful activities of Maharaj Bharata. No one could perform such activities in the past, nor  will anyone be able to do so in the future. Kirata Hunan Yavanan Pondran Kangkan Kasan Chakan Abrahmang Malechan Ding Vijay Kiran.

When Maharaj Bharat was on tour, he defeated or killed all the Kiratas, Hunas, Yavanas, Pondras, Kankas, Kashas, Sakas and the kings who were opposed to the Vedic principles of Brahminical culture. Jitva Pura Suradevan, Yerasaokang Si Beijire Devastriora, Samnita Panidhi Punaraharat. Formerly, after conquering the demigods, all the demons had taken shelter in the lower planetary system known as Rasatullah and had brought all the wives and daughters of the demigods there. Also, Maharaj Bardhava rescued all those women along with their associates from the clutches of the demons and he returned them to the demigods. Sarvan Kaman Dudu Hatu Prajana Muntasya Rodasi Samastri Navasah Śrīr dikshu Chakrama Vartayat. Maharaj Bharat provided all necessities for his subjects both on this earth and in the heavenly planets. For 27,000 years, he circulated his orders and distributed his soldiers in all directions. Sabharat Maharaj.

Was not only ruler of this planet, but his dominion spread around the universe. At that time, Earth Planet was capital of a gigantic interplanetary kingdom empire. Sasamra lo Kṛṣṇa palakyam Ay swariya. Here we go. Here we got right son. Sam. Aishwaryamadiratriyam. Sasam raloka palakyam aishwaryamadiras. Men. Ladies. Who’s gonna go? Sam. Ladies. Janet. As the ruler of the entire universe, Emperor Bharat had the opulences of a great kingdom and unconquerable soldiers. His sons and family had seemed to him to be his entire life. But finally he thought of all this as an impediment to spiritual advancement and therefore he ceased from enjoying it. Purport. Maharaj Bharat had uncommon opulence and sovereignty. Soldiers, sons, daughters and everything for material enjoyment. But when he realized that all such material opulences were useless for spiritual advancement, he retired from material enjoyment.

The Vedic civilization enjoins that after a certain age, following in the footsteps of Maharaj Bharat, one should cease to enjoy material opulences and should take to the order of Vanaprastha. Thus ends the translation and purport to the verses. 28, 33 Of chapter 20 Canto 9 of the Rmad Bhāgavatam the Dynasty of Puru. Adihiom tatsat. We know about Bharat Maharaj after he renounced, How he took three births, how his third birth he achieved perfection spiritually. Now were hearing about his former life before all this renunciation. He was so powerful. That he was ruling higher, middle and lower planets. He went to Rasa Tala and freed the Devas wives and children from the clutches of the demons. He ruled. It was Satya Yuga when people lived hundred thousand years. Said he ruled for 27,000 years.

That’s not incredible because Satya Yuga people live 100,000 Tretā Yuga 10,000 Dwarpa Yuga 1,000 Kali Yuga 100. The archaeologists think that the human civilization is only 3,4000 years old. But from the Purāṇas we find that human civilization goes back to the beginning of the universe. Every manufacturer creates progeny. Of mankind. They’re the progenitors of human beings. So we’re descendants from Manu. Some archaeologists want to say that we’re descendants of the monkey. But according to the Vedas, who are descendants of Manu, your grandfather is not a monkey. Says our grandfather is Lord Brahma. And our great grandfather is Lord Kṛṣṇa, Lord Vishnu. So this universe has a great history to it. We can look at bones and fossils and get one picture, but that’s a very limited view. You won’t get the human picture so well because the civilized human beings would cremate the dead.

So what fossils you will find, you won’t find the human bones unless there was some accident. Someone died in an accident, very rare case, or somebody’s tribal. They have some other system. But all the civilized people were being cremated. Even in great battles. It says after the battles the bodies would be burned. So if you depend on bones, you’re not going to find the bones. Rather than looking at bones, just recently they found a stone which had the markings of Indus Valley civilization here in South India. But unfortunately people think that the Indians are descending from Aryans who came from Europe. But what we understand is Aryans came from India. India is the source of Aryan cult. Dravidian and Aryan culture. They were both following the Vedic culture when Parshuram was eliminating rebellious Br. Kshatriyas 21 times. Many Kshatriyas fled India and went to Europe.

That is our version. Why European language is known as Indo Sanskrit language. It has many words same as India. They’re saying some scientists that they came from Europe to India once I met the Chief Minister of Assam, previous Chief Minister, Mr. Saikia. He said that I am a Mongolite, but you are Aryan. And like that he was promoting this theory. It’s the popular theory that people have. They don’t listen to the Purāṇas. So our planet is known as Bharat. Because Bharat was such a great king for a long time. Now our prime minister  will serve for maybe five years, maybe 10 years. Who is serving for 27,000 years. It’s inconceivable for us. We’re saying civilization didn’t even exist before 4,000. It was the Stone Age, This modern archaeologist.

But here it says no, that there was civilization, there was interplanetary travel, there was a vast dominion and there was Vedic culture established everywhere. That’s why like it says the Huns, the Kirats. There’s a book in Russia called Russian Veda. You heard of it? Probably because it’s written in Russian. But the Russian Veda has so many teachings from the Vedas written in ancient Russian. There are deities of Kṛṣṇa, of Durga, of many different devas in Russia. Because the Vedic kings they went north and their dominion spread over Russia. Also. Even they found deities in South America. They found that one of the ancient languages, the Māyā language is very similar to Kannada, I heard. So. One day the Vedas  will be used as reference books to understand what is the history of the world. That is what Purāṇa Itihasa means. It’s the history.

If we want to find out what is the history of our planet, instead of looking only at bones, we should look at the ancient literatures. They are having the many secrets. So most important thing here is that Bharat, when he got to a certain age, he decided that he wanted to go into spiritual life. There’s a verse that says Pancham urdvam banam brajit. When we get over 50 years of age, we should take run up rest. We should focus on our spiritual life. So some people say you should wait till you’re 75. But we shouldn’t wait till we’re too old that we cannot function. Yesterday in Vizag, one businessman told me that he’s now retired and handed over his business to the temple or to his son. And now he’s come with his wife.

They want to do service to build a new temple in Vizag. He’s a retired architect, marine architect who served overseas. Very qualified man. What’s important though is we have very short lifespan. We don’t know how long we’re going to live. There should be A parallel. While we’re trying to achieve our material goals, we should do that in such a way that we stay connected always to Kṛṣṇa. One wants to have some economic stability, wants to send their children to higher education, wants to do many things. But also we want to send our children back to Godhead. At end of life they should go back to Kṛṣṇa. They shouldn’t have to take birth again and again. So Chaitanya Mah Prabhu recommended that we should chant Hare Kṛṣṇa even while we’re at Grihasta. You will be grihasta.

Or you will be a Brahmachari or Bana Prasti whatever you be. But everyone should chant Hari Kishna Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa. I hear that now in exhibition area they’re having exhibition on cars. It’s very common in Kali Hyuga that people have hobbies. Those who are rich, they have big hobbies. They will buy fancy cars. One of the chief, one of the prime ministers in the Middle east has got 500 cars. Seven gigantic air conditioned hangars as big as this for his cars. My disciples in charge of the maintenance of the cars, 500 cars. We heard that Mrs. Marcos, she had thousands of shoes. Her hobby was collecting shoes. So when she was taken out of being the first lady in Philippines then they discovered that she had thousands and thousands of shoes. Some people save coins, some people save stamps. So many different hobbies in America.

There’s one man, he has the largest collection of tin cans in the world. You can pay 500 rupees. Five dollars. How much is that? 250 Rupees. And see his collection of tin cans. Thousands of tin cans. One man has collection of hats. Every kind of hat around the world. Someone has collection of guns. All kinds of guns, ancient guns. This hobby is very. There was one person in Chaitanya Mahapra when he visited Andhra Pradesh. Śrī Shailas in Andhra Pradesh on the way to Śrī Shaila. Don’t know whether it’s exactly Shri Shaila is in Andhra. But whether the Sadhu was Brāhmaṇa was in Andhra or just at the border. Śrī Shaila is by the border, right? I never went. Could be Andhra or Karnataka, Tamil Nadu. I am not sure exactly where it is, the geography. But somewhere near Śrī Shayla he went.

And this man was a collector. But he was also a devotee of Lord Ram. He would always chant the name of Ram when he was serving Lord Caitanya Prasadam he would say Rāma, you want more? Rāma is enough. Rāma, Rāma everything Rāma. His main means of communication was Rāma. Then Lord Caitanya he said why don’t you chant Kṛṣṇa? And then he revealed that I know in Shiva Puran it says that Sahastra Naama Tuda Vis Eka ramana Vradi that 1000 name of Vishnu equal to one name of Ram and 3000 name of Vishnu equal to one Name of Kṛṣṇa. But Rāma is my Ishta Devata. He is my worshipable Lord. Although I know that Kṛṣṇa Ram is better, I collect verses about the glories of the holy name. So he was the collector of verses glorifying the holy name. Another kind of collector.

They said but I can only chant Rāma because I just love Rāma. Next time when Lord Chaitanya came back from Śrī Shaila after meeting Lord Shiva there and discussing Harikuta, he came back went at the same Brahmin’s house. Now the Brāhmaṇa was chanting. Lord Chaitanya was surprised. Before you could only chant Ram. How you are chanting Kṛṣṇa. So that’s all you are blessing. I think you must be Kṛṣṇa or something. I don’t understand. After seeing you now I became attracted to Kṛṣṇa. Before I could only Ram would come in my mind. Now Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hari Ram are coming in my mind. So it’s all your blessings. So the collector of the Holy name always chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa. So we want to see that we should do some Seva especially chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. How many of you are chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa?

How many chanting 16 rounds. How many chanting 8 to 15 rounds. How many chanting 1 to 7. Oh, I didn’t see the Tamils. 8 To 15, 16. And how many have taken initiation or shelter? So Allah didn’t take shelter. How many chanting 16 rounds everyone. So it’s important we all do some seva. Actually here in this temple we don’t have so many full time Brahmacharis. We need to have more initiated devotees that give some time. In some temples there are initiated Brahmanas. How many here in the congregation have second initiation? Nobody. People can come and do helping the Pujaris. Now it’s Chandan Yātrā. Everyone needs to come and help making Chandan, right? Where’s the Chandan? In Māyāpur we keep out the Chandan and the people make the Chandan all day long. In Māyāpur they have four, five Chandan grinders.

Because in Māyāpur we have over Narasiṁha over Kṛṣṇa. So we need two buckets. I was just at Singha Shalom. There they had covered the Baraha narasingha deity with sandalwood 45 kilos. That’s about four buckets, right? 7, 15 Kilos a bucket 3, 4 buckets the erstwhile king of the descendant of the king of whatever the royal family there he brought one log of sandalwood to be offered to the Lord for grinding Here we don’t need so much how much you need one cup how much? Koto sandal, Chandan, Lagi, char cup, egg cup four cups for the four different deities Gorni, Thay small Jagannath, Bala Den Subhaja that’s more than four. It’s five Anyway, four cups he’s the expert so how many of you can grain Chandan. So many ladies are men can also do no problem. Nice if the devotees.

If you have a seva that you offer to the temple for those who are big businessmen, industrialists they can offer big donations we also accept so we can develop the project but others they may offer whatever their capacity from their work and everyone can also offer some seva. Whether those who are initiated they can help maybe in the cooking in the kitchen In Māyāpur we had so many ladies for feast days they’re cutting sabjis 45 ladies come and cut sabjis on feast days. And then during the big festival days we have this is. Kitchens Kitchens get certified and people can cook for the deities those people that don’t have cats and dogs and nice clean kitchens and they’re initiated follow the principles so that hundred and eight, 508 different lots offerings can be made to the Lord.

Idea we should all get in the habit of doing seva we do seva these are the community deities Everyone should be serving Jagannath, Bala Devadragorni time Narasinga, Shala, Gram Sila One may also have house deities that they worship and then in addition they should all come together to do some seva for the community leaders. That way our consciousness is kept in the right mood by always doing seva so our hobby as we know our hobby is serving Kṛṣṇa instead of Everybody wants some diversion Instead of car racing we are racing back to Godhead we want to help others to get back to Godhead if we can help anybody to get back in a car race sometimes they smash up their cars and people die and who goes ahead? They win but they’re not supposed to cheat.

So they’re one winner Everyone else is then second place, third place. But in our spiritual race to get back to godhead it’s not like that if I push someone else down I also can’t go being envious Trying to pull people down  will stop our spiritual progress. Or if we help others and we facilitate others to be Kṛṣṇa conscious, if they go back to Godhead, we also go back. Like in the team, one’s a winner, all a winner. So we’re all one team serving Kṛṣṇa. So we need to develop that team spirit. We have Bhakti Bhikshas or Navhatras here. How many are members of Bhakti Bhiksha cells Cell member. More ladies. Hyderabad they have made about 15. 15, 20 Cells. So all the cells, during festivities, they each take up some seva.

And the cell leader keeps track of the spiritual progress for all the devotees in his cell. We call sa Bhakti Bhiksha groups because just like a tree grows from one branch and makes many, Bhakti Bhiksha grows from one branch and become many branches, many duplicates devotees. So that all the devotees should all have time for their family, have time for their studies, have time for their work. But they should also give time for their devotional service, their personal service and the community service. In this way. We will be following Lord Caitanya’s instruction. He said Balakṛṣṇa, Bajra, Kṛṣṇa, Korakshna, Seva Koro, Kṛṣṇa Shiksha, worship Kṛṣṇa, serve Kṛṣṇa, read Kṛṣṇa’s teachings and chant Kṛṣṇa’s name. So serve or worship Kṛṣṇa. It’s part of it. So Bharat Maharaj, he gave up everything and left his whole kingdom. That’s the Varn Ashram system.

But most people are not able to do that. And even he did that, he faced some trouble. So in Kali Yuga, it’s recommended side by side. While we’re doing our other services. When there were students, how many are students? Who’s a student? You going as a student? Hey, you a student? Why not? You’re not student? Raise your hand. Who’s a student? The students should chant. What should they chant? And who’s a grihasta? Who’s living in their house? Married or unmarried, Living in the house. So Lord Chaitanya, you’re living in your house. You live in a house or the forest. So everyone who lives in a house, Grihei Tako. If you live in a house, then you should chant. Then bone Tako. That means living in the forest or in the ashram. No, we don’t live in forest. We live in ashrams.

Just like we have ashram here. How many are Brahmacharis Sannyasis? Living in the ashram, you live in the ashram. Even we have some Grihastas. That Live in the ashram, sometimes some Brahminical type. So but generally it means the renounced people. So you should also chant. Everybody should chant and serve. We find that when you serve Kṛṣṇa, you feel happy. People don’t realize there’s so much happiness in serving Kṛṣṇa. When you make that chandan, then the pujari puts on the deity and you see, you know, I did that. I ground the chandam, I did this savor. You feel very good. A lot of services like that. Even in Māyāpur, the children, they are making chandan. So starting day before yesterday was chandan yātrā for 21 days. So you got 20, 19 more days to make Chandan.

And not only so many sevas around the year, there are services in South America, they have. In Santiago, Chile, they have the Gornitai deities. So they have Gornitai club, who’s electricians, plumbers, sanitary engineers. Who is the carpenters, who’s the business that each of them offer. Some of them offer. Usually businessmen offer money because they’re busy making money. But the others, who are like employing people, they offer in a month, how many hours they will give 10 hours, 20 hours. And they come and they do some seva every month. And it’s recorded. They say that they’re their ideas that not everyone can give money, let them give time. So they’re the members, because usually all the donors get recognition, but others don’t. So there they keep track. They have little, you know, red book hat kocha, what do you call it?

And they keep track whenever they come, how many hours they’re doing seva, so that they get in the habit to offer a seva. So all their electrical, plumbing, painting. Did some painting here. A lot of that is done by the congregation. Come in, cut sam jis and things they don’t have. Like, india, you can hire people sometimes, but there you can hire people also in the west, where extra and everyone should give some time for the cell groups, Bhakti rickshaw groups, So we can keep track of how everyone’s being nicely cultivated. So I am here for today and tomorrow. We want to promote that cooperation amongst all the devotees that anyone needs to see me. We want to see how to. Make a very cooperative spirit in the congregation and temple. If anybody wants to offer service, but they’re not getting that.

They don’t know how to do it. They don’t know how to coordinate it. Things like that. Contact. Bharata Mahārāja’s service was being king of the universe, did everything following his father Rishabh Dev, the great avatar. Tomorrow even he had problem with the children. He didn’t get a good child. Sat here. He has good children, but some problem with his son. Then he finally got a good son. Always some complication in material life. We want to see how to make Kṛṣṇa consciousness relevant for the students, for the modern people, for the traditional people. Have different programs for different kinds of people. So that everybody can get back to Godhead. In this lifetime.