20081001 Evening Lecture

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on October 1^st, 2008 in Hong Kong.

Jayapatākā Swami: Very happy to see all the wonderful devotees here. The last minute there was some important, this kind of work which seemed like it might become an obstacle to come but Lord Kṛṣṇa’s mercy, I am here, everything is okay. I am very fortunate to have all of your association. Today is, I am told it is a special Hong Kong day where they will be having fireworks. We have permission to do Harināma for one hour and fifteen minutes. So, I have to complete our talk also, before that by about seven so that we can go and take our positions. Last year when I was here, we had also one of the Harināma. Someone made a video showing the Hong Kong Harināma and how all the devotees were dancing so enthusiastically and how the local people who were in the streets on this special day they also were reciprocating. So, we flew with a devotee all the way from Hungary and Austria. Hema-lāvaṇya dāsa filmed the Harināma. Hema-lāvaṇya dāsa, yeah, he is a Hungary Austrian, Hungarian Austrian.”

Lord Caitanya, He went to Gayā. Have you heard of Gayā? There is a temple there which is said to be many thousands, many millions of years old and the Deity there is a footprint of Viṣṇu. Viṣṇu’s footprint is not like anybody else’s footprint. It is a very special footprint. This footprint has many different markings on it. I do not remember all the markings but maybe about ten, fifteen markings roughly I can remember. It is like a lotus flower, cakra, lightning bolt, many different markings.” This is the real foot of Viṣṇu was put there and melted into the rock. It melted and left the different markings.

This is a temple especially for sending packages of good merit and good karma to the forefathers. Every one of us has forefathers. Without our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents we would not be here. So, in the Vedas, it describes that there is reincarnation and sometime a forefather may end up according to the laws of karma in some unhappy place. This may be called even a hellish place. In Sanskrit hell is called put and heaven is called svarga. So, it is said that a very good son or a very good daughter is someone who can deliver their forefather from hell, putra and putrī – put is hell and tra means to deliver, to liberate. Just like mantra – man means mind and tra means to deliver one’s mind, liberate the mind by chanting.

So, Caitanya went there as a good son to perform the ceremony to deliver His departed father. There He met Īśvara Purī, a very dear disciple of Mādhavendra Purī. Īśvara Purī had visited His house and talked to His father and was a very wise guru and sannyāsī. He thought, “This is a worthy person to be My guru.” So, Lord Caitanya fell at his feet and begged, “Please accept Me as your disciple. Give Me the mantra.” He said, “No, You are a very great scholar. You are Nimāi Paṇḍita, I am not qualified to give You the mantra.” Then Lord Caitanya said, “If you do not give Me the mantra, how will I live? How will I get back to Kṛṣṇa if I do not have the mantra from a bona-fide guru if I am not initiated?”. So, because Lord Caitanya was so desperate then Īśvara Purī eventually agreed, “Okay, I will initiate you, accept You as my disciple.” And Lord Caitanya got initiated, He started to express, manifest transcendental ecstasy and love of Kṛṣṇa. He began to dance and chant in the temple of Viṣṇupāda Gayā.

So, the priests were watching Him, and they were surprised. “How is this person dancing and He is crying, and tears are squirting from His eyes.” He was very... they were very surprised. When Lord Caitanya saw everyone was looking at Him, then He slowed down and He said that “Okay, let us do the ceremony for My father.” So, there are two parts – One part is you have to worship the lotus footprint of Viṣṇu with milk and yogurt and ghee and honey and sugar water. So, then what Caitanya went, and have you been to Gayā?

There are actually many Gayās all in one area. Bodh-gayā, Viṣṇu-gayā, Śiva-gayā, anyways, it is about eleven Gayās. Same place within ten-kilometre area. I took a... after Gaurā-pūrṇimā, I take a safari out with about two hundred devotees. One year, we went up to Haridvāra, Ṛṣikeśa. And on the way went via Gayā. So, we went to the Bodh-gayā where we saw Buddha got his enlightenment. Then went to Viṣṇu-gayā where Lord Caitanya was initiated. And when this sacrifice for the forefathers is performed. So, there is a circle in the middle of that, there is the lotus footprint of Viṣṇu. So, we went there. Then, they were offering tulasī leaves to the feet of Viṣṇu. They gave Me one bowl of tulasī. [Aside: Jaya Gaura- Nitāi kī jaya!]

So, we were offering,

oṁ nārāyaṇa namaḥ
oṁ viṣṇave namaḥ
oṁ gaḍhāharāya namaḥ
oṁ govindāya namaḥ
oṁ vasudevāya namaḥ

And like that, we were offering one after another, chanting the holy names of Lord Viṣṇu. This was the same place Lord Caitanya was sitting five hundred years before.” So I was feeling something very special. So, when Lord Caitanya offered the milk and the yogurt and the auspicious articles, He started crying in love. He was feeling so blissful to be doing a direct service to the lotus feet of Viṣṇu. And then He offered a plate of bhoga, food item. Then He offered that prasāda to His father. It is for the departed souls. This one is the basic ceremony, there some other ceremonies also they do – piṇḍī, śrāddha, after doing all the rituals to offer this prasāda and worship. So, the benefit from that goes to His father. Would that be a popular kind of ceremony to do, to send merit and spiritual blessings to the forefathers for the Chinese people? How many think yes, it would be a good program? A program that the Chinese people would like. Anyone? Because this is a little different than worshiping your forefather.

But this actually worshiping Viṣṇu, worshiping Kṛṣṇa and sending the blessings to the forefather. Say they have cancer in the next birth someone is offering this viṣṇu-prasāda to him. “Oh! My cancer is cured! I did not even take the chemotherapy!”, they become spiritually enlightened because of the ceremonies. Lord Caitanya was completing His sevā for His father.

Then, after the viṣṇu-pūjā, He was ecstatic chanting Harināma. He decided He wanted to go to Vṛndāvana. From Māyāpur to Gayā to Vṛndāvana it is little less than a half, almost half. So, He decided, “I am going to Vṛndāvana! I am going to Vṛndāvana!” Vṛndāvana-bihārī Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa kī Jaya! He started running off towards Vṛndāvana chanting,

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

Then there was a sound. There was a voice from the sky, from the angels, the devas, “Wait Gaurāṅga! Now is not Your time to go to Vṛndāvana. You have to go back to Navadvīpa, to Māyāpur and there You have to start the harināma-saṅkīrtana movement.” HARIBOL! Lord Caitanya was reminded about His script – what all He had to do in His līlā. Then He headed back.

When He reached Māyāpur, He went through the love of Kṛṣṇa. He was a famous professor, teacher of His own Sanskrit school but now He was teaching His students, “Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa! Worship Kṛṣṇa! Spread the teachings of Kṛṣṇa! This way your life will be successful.” Some of the students were doubtful. “Our master, our teacher, professor, He was… He is the greatest debater about logic, about Sanskrit, about philosophy, about Vedas. Why He is now just telling us about Kṛṣṇa?”

And so, one day Lord Caitanya took all the students by the side of the Ganges. He told them, “You see, when I went to Gayā, I got initiated and I realized that Kṛṣṇa is Absolute Truth, paraṁ brahma, I have always trained you in the best I have. So, if I realised that Kṛṣṇa is Absolute Truth, paraṁ brahma, The Supreme Absolute Truth. How can I give you less? How can I give you a lesser truth?” What do you think, my dear listeners? A master should give the best he knows or just give... Who thinks best? Who thinks less? Nobody thinks that. How many you want from your master the best that he knows?

So, that is what Lord Caitanya said, “Now that I realized Kṛṣṇa is Absolute Truth, how can I not teach you about Kṛṣṇa and just teach you ordinary things. So, what I am telling you, I can free you. You want to go to some other master, you can but if you stay with Me, I am going to teach you the best I know. I am going to teach you about Kṛṣṇa. I am going to teach you about Absolute Truth. I am going to teach you about the chanting of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra, which is the yuga-dharma.” [Aside: Do not spill it on the camera, please]

The best student stood up, “Master!” [Aside: They were not leaning back like here, they were all crying] (laughter) “You have always given us the best knowledge. Our school, our academy is the best in Navadvīpa. Now, if you say that chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa is the best thing we can do and Kṛṣṇa is Absolute Truth. You want to teach us? Why we should leave You? We want to continue to get the best spiritual education from You”, and like that all the students cheered. “Yes! Jaya Gurudeva!” (laughter)

So like this, but then they said, “But You never taught us the harināma-saṅkīrtana before. So, You cannot blame us if we do not know.” [Aside to the translator: The student told Caitanya, Nimāi Paṇḍita that, “You did not teach us before about chanting so…”] “Please teach us! Bring the devotees – please teach us!” They brought Śrīvāsa Paṇḍita and other devotees who taught them how to play mṛdaṅga, karatāla, sing, dance. It was a big surprise for the citizens of Navadvīpa to see Lord Caitanya with all the students chanting and dancing Hare Kṛṣṇa. Somewhere there who criticized. (audio abruptly stops)