20161103 Śrīla Prabhupāda Kathā

20161103 Srila Prabhupada Katha - Udupi, India

The following is a talk given by His Holiness Jayapataka Swami Maharaj, on November 3^rd, 2016, in Udipi, India. This talk was about Srila Prabhupada pastime.

mükaà karoti väcälaà

paìguà laìghayate girim

yat-kåpä tam ahaà vande

çré-guruà déna-täraëam

paramananda madhavam

sri Caitanya Iswaram

Hari Om Tat Sat

…1.16-24…. Two from here, there is an ancient Hanumän temple, certainly existing from Treta Yuga. A swayam prakash deity. That means a self-manifested deity, and every Saturday, the Swamiji from Sri Guru math, comes and personally does the puja. So this place seems to be a holy ksetra.

Treta yuga means it’s millions of years old.

So we did an abhisekh of the deity, and they send some tirtham, charanamrita.

If you all remember you can ask for a drop. They bathed the deity in honey, very sweet.

So tomorrow is the auspicious day when Srila Prabhupada went back to Godhead or maybe he is preaching in some other part of the universe. So, we are here trying to carry out Srila Prabhupada’s orders, and we are very grateful for all the help we are getting from all the devotees.

Before Prabhupada left, he was very concerned that the mission should go on. He had seen the Gauria Math, who was very vibrant and powerful fall apart after the disappearance of Om Visnupada Bhaktisiddhantha Saraswati Thakur. Although they were ordered to work under the collective body of the G.B.C, they made the G.B.C, but the after 8 years they decided to wind it up. So they elected one person as the acharya. Then the whole mission crumbled. So Srila Prabhupada was saying, “don’t make the same mistake.”

One time he was walking on the roof, and he said, “At least if we can conserve whatever I have done, I will be very happy. If you can increase I will be even more happy. At least preserve what I have given you.” So whenever Prabhupada left, he had 108 temples. Now there are over 700.

Just this morning one devotee left for a temple in Kharwar. He was previously the president in Goregaon, far north of Karnantaka. Now he is a president in Kharwar, which is …08.10… one of main Naval bases. It’s my zone, and I didn’t know that there was a temple there. How many of you knew that we had a temple in Kharwar. You should know because it’s nearby. Three hours drive.

But not everybody raised their hands.

So like that this one is expanding more and more. By the mercy of Prabhupada we are staying together with the principle of the G.B.C. Srila Prabhupada said that, he felt that any one person could deviate. With that, the majority of the G.B.C would not deviate at the same time. So this principle of the G.B.C is one of the essential principles that Prabhupada left us.

Since it is Kali Yuga, there is this tendency to get contaminated. So therefore we have to be very careful to follow Prabhupada, and to stay together.

Srila Prabhupada wrote so many books. At the same time, he preached all over the world. How was it possible? How could somebody write so many books and at the same time preach all over the world? And he did many other things also, like initiating many disciples, thousands of disciples, teaching all the devotees how to do deity worship, how to wear Vaisnava attire, and so many things.

I wrote a song – Yadi Prabhupada na hoita, to ki hoita. If there wasn’t Srila Prabhupada, what would there be?

So tomorrow is the disappearance day. So we are hoping that the temples would be making big preparations, we will be doing the …13.09… At the same time, like in Mayapur, they offered something like 2000 preparations. Here if we can a 108 or 56, I think it would be a big achievement. So clay pots, with a preparation each.

The initiated devotees, or those under Guru ashraya for a long time, and those who have been chanting 16 rounds for a long time. Those who are initiated, but not cooking a big preparation, cook with a small preparation.

Those, who have been chanting 16 rounds for a long time and following the principles, can cook things that are fried, like murukku, …15.10…, such things. Those who are not initiated, and they may be following the principles, but not for so long, and they are vegetarian and they follow the principles and don’t chant 16 rounds, they can also offer some fruit or some nuts, dry fruits… each person. Like that if we get at least 108, may be more. The thing is we want to offer our hearts to Prabhupada. We do that by offering some preparations to Prabhupada.

In Shantipur, Shanti Sakha Goswami, the 13^th generation after Advaita Gosai, he showed me a bunch of letters from Srila Prabhupada, but Prabhupada said that if he didn’t get land in Mayapur, then he would want to make his world headquarters in Shantipur. So that was a big eye-opener. Prabhupada was thinking of various options.

In Caitanya Bhagavata, there is mention about the festival in Shantipur, the disappearance day of Madhavendra Puri. …18.20… Madhavendra Puri disappeared on Govinda Dwadasi. So, it’s said that Nityananda, who was giving garlands to the people. So He was putting sandalwood paste on their foreheads. Someone was bathing their feet. There was a kirtan party going on. There was a Bhagavatam class in the temple. Someone was hanging up flags. Someone was helping cut vegetables. Sita Thakurani and others were cooking rajbhoga… Sachi Mata. Then, it started describing the arrangements of Advaita Gosai. They didn’t calculate quantities and bags. They were calculating in small huts. So many huts of rice, so many huts of yoghurts, so many huts of honey and chini, so many huts of banana leaves, so many huts of dal, so many huts of vegetables.

Lord Caitanya saw this arrangement. He said, this is not possible for a human being. Advaita must be an avatar of Shankar or someone. Advaita Gosai is an avatar of Mahavishnu and Sadashiv. So Lord Caitanya as so happy to see the festival to see everybody chanting, dancing, cooking, eating. He sat down. He said, “Whoever in this place, on this tithi takes prasadam, they will get Govinda Bhakti.”

So Shakti Sakha Goswami said, “Where other places there are where you can Krishna Bhakti just by eating.”, so he asked us to take charge of the festival. So every year we go there. We distribute 30,000, 50,000 plates of prasadam. With the pastime, it’s very ecstatic. The world would also like to hear some of the waiting devotees, say something on the glories of Prabhupada.

Now we will do an abhisekh.   We will offer our lamps to Damodar. Then we will give puspanjali, thereafter prasadam. Then you have to take prasadam. So Prabhupada gave us the greatest blessing, that of Krishna bhakti. We should be very indebted to Srila Prabhupada for all that he has done for us.

He …24.13-17… easy staying in Mumbai then, not liberation. He took lots of risks. He was crossing the ocean, he had some heart attacks, he didn’t know if he would reach the other side. That night Krsna came in the dream and told him, that He would cross him over the ocean, and he saw Krishna being a boatman, mazhi, driving the boat across, and the ship captain said that, “the Atlantic which is usually rough became very peaceful.” He thought he was riding on the pacific ocean.

Of course Prabhupada said that he was ordered to preach in the Western countries. We heard that the deity in Los Angeles also told Prabhupada that he should preach in India, and Prabhupada wrote me many letters, saying I should become an Indian citizen which I am. (applause)

In fact when I came to India in 1970… I tell everybody that the price of petrol was 60 paisa. That was 60 paisa, and now it is 60 something rupees. A hundred times more. So let’s expect ...(inaudible) 2/3rds of my life in India.

Of course as an Indian citizen I was able to go around a few times and preach, and try to tell people how important Srila Prabhupada is.

So I won’t speak so long because we have tomorrow to get ready for.

Are there any questions?

Cooking for (inaudible) … for the Jagannath temple, cooking for …??... Radha Govinda temple, cooking for ??, cooking for …28.50-55…

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Transcribed by : Sadananda Krishnaprem Das (JPS)

Date: 02/28/2017, Mayapur.