20080807 Nāmahaṭṭa Festival Address

Following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Maharāja on August 7^th, 2008 in Altai, Siberia.

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

Jayapatākā Swami: Hare Kṛṣṇa. So, everybody is enjoying the Altai festival. I was very sad last year because I was not able to make it. So, my whole year it was not complete because I missed your association. So, this year by Kṛṣṇa’s mercy I could come. Russia is so big. To get from Switzerland here took me 30 hours. So, today I will speak for a little bit when I was thinking to show you what some of the things going around ISKCON and from my world tour that I made, the world tours I made yesterday last year, 2007 and 2008. Who would like to see that? If you mean to say yes, say Gaurāṅga. Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga! Okay. I got a message from Caitanya Candra Caraṇa dāsa that his father has just passed away. So let us chant three times Pañca-tattva and three times Hare Kṛṣṇa for the welfare of his father.

śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda
śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda

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

He also invited that his disciples, followers, well-wishers if they wanted to, they could also chant one round sometimes for the welfare of his departed father. And when my world tour ended so also that my mother, she departed from this world. She used to chant four rounds a day. She served different ISKCON temples for about seven years. She met Śrīla Prabhupāda, personally served Prabhupāda with flower bouquets. I came in the room once and Prabhupāda was talking to her, preaching to her. She went to Māyāpur twice and met Prabhupāda in Māyāpur. Prabhupāda said, “You are not the body.” Ever heard that? (laughter) “You are the living force that is in the body? Everybody has a living force. We are the living force. We are not the body.” So, like this, Prabhupāda was personally taking the time out to explain the basics of Kṛṣṇa consciousness to my pūrvāśrama mother. She also passed away during the GBC meetings.

It is also an important thing. We should all be prepared. Some of our friends, loved ones, relatives, parents, grandparents, they are sooner or later going to pass away. Do you know what to do? Will you be ready to step in and do the most auspicious things for taking your loved one, your dear one, your related one, back to Godhead? Because at that time most people, they do not really, they do not have so much self-control. They are very much overwhelmed. But we know that person is not the body. So, we have to do something for the soul – sprinkling Ganges water, putting the garland of the Deity, even caraṇāmṛta, writing the name of Kṛṣṇa on the body with sandalwood or tilaka. Those are the basic things. When the body is going to be cremated. You can put a tulasī twig because if someone is cremated with tulasī, it is considered that all the whole… the one who is cremated on the funeral pyre of tulasī logs, and they are taken back to Goloka Vṛndāvana. Your auntie, your uncle, they can go back to Goloka Vṛndāvana, even if your mother, your father, even if they may not otherwise be qualified.

There are histories in the Padma Purāṇa that say just by sprinkling Ganges water, even meat-eaters have gone back to Godhead. Even if they are not being cremated, you can sprinkle Gaṅgā water. Just say it is holy water. All the churches have holy water, right? And in India they call śānti-jala — peace water. So, when you see a dead body, it is not the same as a live body, but we can help because even the dead body is connected to the ātmā and even by putting Ganges water on the dead body, that soul can be freed.

A story in the Padma Purāṇa about one brāhmaṇa who would go every day and bathe in the Ganges. And he would take a bucket of water back with him to his house to sprinkle on the heads of his wife and children. While he was bathing in the Ganges, there was a politician. He was born in a brāhmaṇa family, but he was a dishonest politician. There are honest politicians and sometimes there are dishonest politicians. But probably here in Russia everybody is honest. So, he had done some wrong things in his life. Although he was a brāhmaṇa by birth, he was a non-vegetarian. He more or less arranged to murder some person who was his enemy. He had taken money illicitly, illegally. He had a long list of credentials. So, he was on the wanted list for the Yamadūtas.

He was walking down the road. There was a big bull lying across the road. Bull means lying on the road. In India bulls are walking, they are lying. What is a small road? What is a big bull? So, he blocked the whole road lying down, getting the sun. So, this politician, brahma-bandhu, he was angry. “What does this bull think he is doing? Blocking the road. He should let people walk by.” He saw there was a branch on the side of the road from a tree. He picked it up and started beating the bull. This was not a peaceful bullock. This was a ferocious bull. He got very angry. “Why is he being beaten?” You know bulls, they start to kick, kicking the dust, putting their head down, put their horns down and charge that brahma-bandhu. And he gored him with his horns, threw him up in the air. He fell-down on his back and the horn had pierced his heart. He was spot dead. At that time, the brāhmaṇa, the real brāhmaṇa who was bathing in the Ganges, he came back. He saw the bloody mass, this brāhmaṇa lying on the ground, his heart open, blood everywhere. So, what a sad situation. He took some of his Ganges water and sprinkled it over the body. Oṁ gaṅgāyai namaḥ, and he was walking towards his house. Sometime later he sees Yamadūtas, wounded Yamadūtas. [Aside: wounded means cut, hurt, injured.] Some had arms bleeding, heads bleeding, bodies bleeding. Some even had their hands cut off.

“So what happened to you? Why are you all cut, injured?”

“You do not know. You are the cause of our injury.”

“I did not do anything.”

“What do you mean you did not do anything? You did everything. You are the responsible one.”

“What did I do?”

“You sprinkled Ganges water on that sinner.”

“Yes, so what?”

“Aree! You do not know? He was on our top wanted list. We were going to burn him. We were going to really torture him in hell. When he died, a big group of us came up to drag him back to hell to burn him but you ruined everything. It is your fault. You spoiled it for us. Suddenly when you sprinkled that Ganges water there appeared some brilliant blue-colored, four-armed men. They had conch, lotus, club, and cakra. They claimed they were messengers from Viṣṇu — Viṣṇudūtas. We were busy pulling out the subtle body from the gross body to take him down, to get tortured in hell, and they cut our ropes. ‘No. You cannot take him. He belongs to us. We are taking him back to Godhead.’”

“Back to Godhead?! This man is a sinner. He is a murderer. He is a thief. He is a liar. He is a cheat on the list of mentioning what he has not done, he belongs to us. We have a special program for him.”

“No. He was sprinkled by Ganges water. He is purified from all his sins.”

“Oh, come on,” said the Yamadūtas. “Oh, little water sprinkle! He is a sinner. We are going to get him. Now is our chance.”

“You people are so offensive. You do not know better”, said the Viṣṇudūtas. This Ganges water is the caraṇāmṛta of Viṣṇu. It washed the lotus feet of Lord Viṣṇu. If you touch that, you are freed from sins. He was bathed with this Ganges water by that brāhmaṇa. Whatever he did, it is gone. So now he belongs to us. He is a sinless person.”

We said, “No! No! We cannot accept this. We are going to take him anyway.” That was a very big mistake on the part of the Yamadūtas. They did not know who they were playing with. So, they actually attacked the Viṣṇudūtas who had no choice. They had to defend themselves. So, they released the cakras. And the cakras, like saws, cut arms. Very soon the Yamadūtas realized this was not a winning program. So, they headed back to Yamaloka, wounded, injured. And the Viṣṇudūtas took back that soul back to Godhead because some Gaṅgā water was sprinkled on it.

“See,” said the Yamadūta to the brāhmaṇa, “You did it all. You sprinkled that water. Look at us, we are injured, we are bleeding.” Of course, it was their fault, because they attacked the Viṣṇudūtas. The brāhmaṇa looked at his bucket of water. “How much power is in this bucket?” That bucket of water liberated a great sinner. He went back to the Ganges. He offered a hundred prayers, again put the water on his head from the Ganges, the deity of the Ganges, Gaṅgā Devī, she came out riding on her vāhana, her carrier. Her carrier is a Gaṅgetic crocodile.

On our safari this year we went to Bangladesh and went to the crocodile reserve. And we saw the crocodile – they have very long and narrow heads, long bodies. Some crocodiles in other parts have wide heads. They have long heads — Gaṅgetic crocodiles. So, they are a special kind of crocodile. And Gaṅgā rides one of them as her own carrier. Who is the carrier of Viṣṇu? Garuḍa. Carrier of Śiva? Nandī, the bull. Carrier of Durgā? Tiger. Carrier of Skanda? Peacock. Yes, and carrier of Gaṇeśa? Mouse. Yes and the carrier of Indra? Not horse, elephant – Airāvata. He is in the Bhāgavatam. Airāvata bathed Indra with Yamunā water.

So, like that, she [Gaṅgā Devī] came out with her crocodile. She was carrying a bottle of, not a bottle but a vase of nectar and a lotus flower. “I am very pleased with you. What blessing do you want?” “Well, if I have your blessing to go back to Kṛṣṇa, I would like to do that. But if that is not possible, that I can be born in a family of devotees. When I leave my body, I can be touching your waters.” Jaya Gaṅgā-mayī kī jaya!

How many like to take a Gaṅgā bath? It is said if you say “Gaṅgā” three times, you get a bath. “Gaṅgā! Gaṅgā! Gaṅgā!” Let us offer to Caitanya Candra Caraṇa’s father again – a Ganges bath. “Gaṅgā! Gaṅgā! Gaṅgā!” When we read the Bhagavad-gītā, the Ganges touches the lotus feet of the Lord, but the Bhagavad-gītā touches His lotus mouth. We would like to bathe every day in the nectar of the Bhagavad-gītā.

sarva-dharmān parityajya
mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja
ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo
mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ
[Bg. 18.66]

Again, it is a Bhagavad-gītā bath. We can also take a mantra bath. Tomorrow there are initiations. We take everybody for a mantra bath.

oṃ apavitraḥ pavitro vā sarvā­avasthāṃ gato ‘pi vā
yaḥ smaret puṇḍarīkākṣaṃ sa bahyā­bhyantaraḥ śuciḥ
śrī-viṣṇu śrī-viṣṇu śrī-viṣṇu

So, we give them a mantra bath — purification. So, there are different ways of bathing. Every morning, we take water baths. Some take two times a day, some take three times a day. Some here are taking all day lying down by the river. So, the idea is we want to purify our consciousness.

We attend the Bhakti-vṛkṣa meeting and we discuss about Kṛṣṇa. We hear about Kṛṣṇa, we chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, they are also purifying our consciousness. How many are members of a Bhakti-vṛkṣa group? About 25%. And how many want to be in the future, get that purification. Haribol!

Lord Caitanya would go every day and bathe in the Ganges? When He was in Navadvīpa dhāma, He would also teach His classes to His students as Nimāi Paṇḍita next to the Ganges. When He went to Jagannātha Purī, where would He bathe? In the ocean, Mahodadhi and where did Haridāsa Ṭhākura bathe? In the nectar of the holy name. Yes. So, when his dead body was bathed by Lord Caitanya in the Ganges, Mahodadhi — so whenever you bathe in the ocean, like that if you go bathe in the Black Sea, you can remember Haridāsa Ṭhākura because he has purified all the oceans. Every day we do our japa. We bathe our minds by the mantras of the Hare Kṛṣṇa.

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

Also to associate with the devotees, to come to festivals like this. This is a great opportunity to get purified. It purifies us, inspires us - we are getting sādhu-saṅga,

‘sādhu-saṅga’, ‘sādhu-saṅga’ — sarva-śāstre kaya
lava-mātra sādhu-saṅge sarva-siddhi haya
[Cc. Madhya 22.54]

The association of the sādhus, of the pure devotees, even for a fraction of a second, we can get all perfection. Therefore, we want to associate with the devotees.

Once we asked Śrīla Prabhupāda, why does he come to the Kumbha-melā? Kumbha-melā we have in Allahabad, once every twelve years, the last Pūrṇa Kumbha there were thirty-one million people. We asked Prabhupāda why does he go? And he said, to associate with the sādhus. We thought it was that he could give association to the other sadhus, but he was humble. Every day he would go on his morning walk and salute all the sādhus, and they would salute him. So, I come here also to get your sādhu-saṅga, to associate with all the auspicious sādhus here. This place is called Śivīr, right? And Śiva means auspicious. Śivīr must mean auspicious. So many devotees! One of Rādhārāṇī’s names is Śivagati — that She always moves in a very auspicious way. [Aside: Ready?] Do not underestimate. Look at what that one brāhmaṇa did. Just sprinkled some water and liberated a sinner. [Aside: Go again. Look under documents. Go to the start. Word doc.]

So, I go all over the world. My home is Māyāpur. I live in Māyāpur. I spend more time in Māyāpur than anywhere else. There in Māyāpur we have Pañca-tattva, Rādhā-Mādhava Aṣṭa-sakhī. Everyone turn now, look at the picture. Can we get this line of lights off? Here are my deities also — Prahlāda-Nṛsiṁhadeva. At the end of the show, I would like to give you all some Nṛsiṁha oil, which is oil caraṇāmṛta from His appearance day, Nṛsiṁha Caturdaśī. We bathe Him with oils. The problem is, it is not so strong. It only works for about ten feet. If I move over there, it will work. Part of that traveling is spending a lot of time in airplanes, jets. [Aside: What happened? What happened to the projector? Maybe somebody unplugged it, next.

So the first thing we do is, in a year we have a Gaura-pūrṇimā festival. And part of that is to go on Navadvīpa-maṇḍala parikramā. So here we are going. In the Navadvīpa parikramā we have our Gaura-pūrṇimā. We bathe the Deities. The last bathing is the puṣpābhiṣeka, where we bathe the Deities with flowers. Haribol! Then we go on safari. Last year we went on the South Indian safari called divya-deśa Safari, where we visited thirty-five of the 108 divya-deśas. These are the most holy places in the Śrī-sampradāya.

We have the videos, DVDs of the safari of 2007. It is in Russian, made by Tarinī Caitanya and Vanamālī Nṛsiṁhadeva. In Moscow we have a loudspeaker for that. Okay, next there is the Vyāsa-pūjā, Ekādaśī after Rāma-navamī — Ujjain, the place where Kṛṣṇa went to school.

Bhakti Cāru Mahārāja made a beautiful marble temple there. Okay. Durban, South Africa. There is Gosvāmī Mahārāja for the inauguration, breaking the coconut. It is called removing dṛṣṭi to give a good departure for the Lord. Haribol! In the temple of Durban, South Africa, beautiful Rādhā Rādhānātha multi-million-dollar temple. Very beautiful, very peaceful, very nice. But here the mood is different than in West Africa. West Africa, the Rādhā Govinda temple, they have their own mood of kīrtana here tonight. [Aside: Change] West Africa. Want to see that one again? One more time!

Went to the manor for a congregation... I went to the UK for congregational retreat. Next in Leicester, we had the retreat for the Midlands. And then we go. This is Mathurādeśa where Prema Padminī is coming from. They have thousands of devotees there. Now they are taking a little break. This is in some farm in the oasis in the desert. Haribol! Seoul, Korea. The congregation has made this temple mainly Indians and Bangladeshis but also some Russian devotees. We have an orphanage in Sri Lanka. Over 200 orphans – boys, maybe 130 girls and 70 boys. So, they are from the war in Sri Lanka. Also, from the tsunami.

We are working on the design for the Māyāpur big temple. Nṛsiṁha Caturdaśī kī jaya! Śrī Nṛsiṁhadeva kī jaya!

śrī nṛsiṁha jaya nṛsiṁha,
jaya jaya jaya śrī nṛsiṁha

Once a year we do abhiṣeka. This is another congregational congregation in the Middle East. Then, we went up to Russia for the congregational retreat last May. Aṅgirā Muni can tell about this one. We have another place in the Middle East called Balarāmadeśa. We all have code names for these different countries. Chicago with Candramauli Swami. Haribol! New Vṛndāvana Festival of Inspiration. The youth are chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. Haribol! New Orleans temple, they recovered from the Hurricane Katrina. Haribol! New Tālavana is a farm with 500-600 hectares. New Tālavana at FERMA. 5,600 hectares. That means like 5. It is like 3, 3 kilo meters wide by 2 kilo meters long.

Miami Jagannātha Temple. Mexico City Ratha-yātrā, Mexica... The ladies are dancing like anything. They are giving competition to the Russian ladies. We are having a congregational retreat in Argentina where 200 devotees came, about 30 Bhakti-vṛkṣa groups. I am making the Pānihāṭi Cīḍā-dadhi festival in Atlanta. Six hours – I am mixing. New Vṛndāvana for the GBC meeting, Prabhupāda Palace. Ratha-yātrā. New York City Manhattan Ratha-yātrā. New York Manhattan. Over 10,000 devotees. More, more youth chanting in front of the Jagannātha ratha. Wedding in São Paulo. Nova Gokula temple. Nova Gokula. We want weddings are by fire sacrifice, means you are taking commitment to stay together your whole life. If you do not stay together, it is a kind of a fall-down.

Chile temple, Santiago next. Auckland, New Zealand. That painting of the Pañca-tattva is by a Russian artist. Haribol! Over the Sydney youth group Pāṇḍava-senā. Mumbai - another wedding ceremony, he is a disciple of Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja and my disciple. Another place in the Middle East. They meet in the hall. They do not have any windows in the hall. Makes it very soundproof. Outside on the street it is Salām Alaikum, inside Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Serbia camp. They have a camp like this, 300, 400 devotees. They have a unique system. Everyone brings their own house Deities to the festival. My first visit to Bulgaria and Gaura-Nitāi Deities of Selvia country. Czech Republic. Maybe four or five hundred devotees. Haribol!

There is the samādhi of Bhakti Tīrtha Mahārāja. He came there and requested me to help his disciples to go to West Africa and also to go to Gītā-nāgarī for festival. Tripura, this is Bhakti Svarūpa Dāmodara Mahārāja’s disciple, temple president of ISKCON Tripura. He made a restaurant. He is from Italy. Guess what kind of restaurant he made? Hare Kṛṣṇa. Italian restaurant. If you want a good pizza go to Tripura.

Johor Bahru. This Johor is next to Singapore. Big Ratha-yātrā. We have a medium-sized Ratha-yātrā. They have many Ratha-yātrās in Malaysia, maybe about 25. In Moscow this year we had winter Ratha-yātrā. Bangkok Ratha-yātrā. At the end, they had the Thai ladies dancing. This is the lotus dance. They are offering the lotus to Kṛṣṇa. Calcutta Ratha-yātrā. They have three big rathas, over 200,000 people. This is the Subhadrā ratha. Subhadrā ratha they have ladies chanting. I visit all the rathas.