20140406 Three Births and Spreading the Message of Lord Caitanya

Three Births and Spreading the Message of Lord Caitanya

Type Of Talk:

Initiations

Location:

Tirupati

Andrapradesh

South India.

Date:

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Collection:

Needs enhancement

Conversation

Guru Maharaja : So what have they heard up till now? Have they taken their vows?

A devotee : Yes, Gurumaharaja.

Guru Maharaja : Who took their vows? Have they taken the disciple course?

Gurumaharaja's Lecture

In the Brahma vaivartha purana, Lord Krishna predicts that he will send someone who will bring a golden age into the age of kali.

When everybody will chant the holy names all over the world. So that was written 5000 years ago. If anyone else knows of any mention of it in the puranas, please tell me. We know that Krishna predicts he will come and he will preach in India and establish the system of the chanting of Krishna kirtan. But we only saw it mentioned in one place that he would also send someone who will spread it around the world. And in Caitanya Mangal –within about 500 years ago– Lord Caitanya predicted that he would send someone who would spread the message around the world, in those countries where he doesn’t go. And Bhaktivinoda Thakura, 200 years ago, talked about someone who would easily go from one country to the next. Two hundred years ago, it was not easy to go from one country to the next. One has to go by ship and it would be very difficult. And when that quote was read to Prabhupada, he said, "Maybe he is talking about me." And then he changed the subject. We heard, about 80 years ago, that Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, made a prediction. He said, "My next disciple to go overseas, will send devotees from all over the world to participate in Navadvipa Parikrama. So, like this, there are various predictions.

Prabhupada would tell us, "My gurudev has just told me to preach in the western countries." We heard from Bhramananda Prabhu that the deities in Los Angeles had told Prabhupada to also preach in India. So he also he preached in India. He said, "How can I go around the world preaching the glories of India when the Indian people are giving up their culture for the western ways? So Prabhupada cared about the devotees, he cared about the people of India, he cared about the people all over the world– he cared about the Chinese. He used to say, "People in these materialistic countries are burning! They’re burning! We have to help them!

Sometimes I talk about spreading the message of lord Caitanya and the golden age in my lectures. And then they ask, " Who is going to bring in the golden age? When will it come? I will take a nap and come back." And I say (laughing), "You! We have to bring it back, we have to bring in the golden age. That is our service to Srila Prabhupada. It's a great, great ,great opportunity that we get to do this service. Krishna, in the eighteenth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, says that this is the most important service : explaining the Bhagavad Gita to my devotees. This is what Srila Prabhupada did all over the world. And we have learned Bhagavad Gita from him. So Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura also said that those who help Srila Prabhupada will benefit. So this is a great chance to get some spiritual benefit, to help others understand Bhagavad Gita ; not to sleep till the Golden Age, but to be actively bringing it in. Everybody should try his best to spread the message.

Lord Caitanya, told one devotee, " You should make a disciple.

Conversation

One devotee : Saranga Thakura.

Gurumaharaja : Ahh… Saranga Thakura.

Lecture Continued:

Again and again He told Saranga Thakura, "Make a devotee, make a disciple." So then he decided okay , tomorrow the first person I meet, I will make a disciple. So the next day, he thought , "Well, first I will go and take a bath and went down to the Ganges, he took his bath, and something bumped into him. Oh, it’s a body. The first person I saw, so he gave the mantra in the ear : HARE KRISHNA HARE KRISHNA KRISHNAKRISHNA HARE HARE/HARE RAMA HARE RAMA RAMARAMA HARE HARE. And the dead body came back to life.(devotees respond with "Haribol!") I can't guarantee the same(laughing). Saranga Thakur was very powerful. That person had been bitten by a snake. And it was the custom that if someone was bit by a snake, you just let the body float down the Ganges. And maybe some siddha, some yogi will see the body and take out the venom. So this body, he brought back to life and he gave the name murari Caitanya. So there was no fire sacrifice(laughing),no formalities, just got the mantra and chissh.. . he is ready to go.

Murari Caitanya's parents came back and said, "We heard you are alive; we have come to claim you."

The son said, "That life is over. Now I owe my life to my guru. So I will be my guru’s servant."

"Oh, please come home."

”Sorry.”

Since he had already died come back from death, he was fearless; he would ride on a tiger’s back. He would go into a village,"Everybody chant Hare Krishna. Everybody chant (laughing)! Like this, he made thousands of disciples. His Guru made one disciple and that disciple made thousands. So we don’t know what capacity each of you have but you should try to give out Krishna as much as you can.

In Andhra Pradesh Lord Caintanya gave the order “jaredekho tare kaho Krishna upadeshamaraajnaya guru hoya tare ei desh (Whomever you meet, tell them the order of Lord Krishna. My order is that you become a guru and you deliver your country, your desh). So Lord Caitanya wanted that the message of Krishna be preached to everybody.

Prabhupada, wanted a mrdanga from Bengal to start but no one would send him. So he got a small drum and that was broken on one side and he hit that and he chanted. Somehow or other he chanted the holy names of Krishna, and people chanted and danced. So, don’t worry that this is not right ,thats not right and I should prepare and read for 10 minutes, just whatever you can do, do it.

Of course, Prabhupada left his books so you could read them. And he also has courses: bhaktishastri, bhaktivaibhav, bhakti vedanta , bhakti sarvabhauma. Whether or not someone has these degrees, they should try to spread Lord Chaintanya’ smessage. Once a grhasta couple came to see me and apologized, "We didn’t do so much last year, we only made 72 devotees." Well, they were serious ; they thought they could do much more. So I see here bright brahmacharis who can give their whole time. And we are very grateful that they have dedicated themselves like that. And we know that grihastas have so many things to do. They have their work duties, spouse duties, children duties, in-laws duties, also the political party duties… duty after duty. Well, we are so grateful to them if they do their Krishna duty, and they chant Hare Krishna, and they also try to distribute the books and distribute the message of Lord Caitanya.

This taking of initiation is not only taking vows, doing personal practices, but also to dedicate and try to do the service to Lord Caitanya as much as possible. We are very fortunate that we have Prabhupada to serve and he was sent by Krishna to spread this message all over the world. So we are coming in the line of Prabhupada and previous acharyas and we want to try to do something so that Prabhupada will be proud of us. So thank you very much, thanks to the parents that who gave birth : your first birth is your human birth and the second birth is the guru janma, the birth given by the Guru. The third birth is also by the guru to perform yajnas and deity worship. So we appreciate births, we have many births. Ordinary people have only one birth, but we have first birth, guru-janma, yajna janma- three births. Sannyasa is a civil death, but we are not observing that today. I was appreciating how Andhra Pradesh is such a pious place. All the people here are also so pious. They should be very careful not to lose their spirituality. And I live in the dham of Navadvipa, but I also feel somewhat at home here, because this is vaikuntha on earth. Navadvipa,Vrndavan is goloka on earth and this is Vaikunta. So it's all spiritual. By doing service here, you get multiple benefits. This is a very auspicious place, and here we are just by the Venkatadhri hill, in the Radha Govinda temple. So this is a very auspicious place to realize ei atma nivedana. There are many types of nivedan : pushpanivedan, multiple offerings nivedans, deepanivedan, but today is a special nivedan, atmanivedan. Hari om tat sat.

Transcribed by : Anuradha Madhavi devi dasi (Avataridesh)