20220820 ISKCON Secunderabad, Śrīla Prabhupāda Kathā

The following a Srila Prabhupada Vyasa Puja talk given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on August 20th, 2022 in Secunderabad,India.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānandaṁ mādhavaṁ śrī caitanya iśvaram

Hariḥ oṁ tat sat!

Jayapatākā Swami: So I will speak a little bit about Śrīla Prabhupāda. Someone should repeat what I say as part of my face is paralyzed. We have seen how there is a new mūrti, Deity of Śrīla Prabhupāda. This is a very beautiful mūrti. Simultaneously, there is an abhiṣeka going on. And some of the Vaiṣṇavīs showed me a 108 preparations that they offered to Śrīla Prabhupāda. I have never seen so many murukkus in my life! And til-laḍḍus! Anyway, Śrīla Prabhupāda, he was very expert in travelling around India. When I was travelling with him on the train, he would know that in this station there is a person selling puris and sabji. So everywhere he would go he would see the Deities, make comments, to instruct his disciples. In Benaras, they have very Deities on the street. Śrīla Prabhupāda said they should not keep the Deities on the street. Mūrtis should be protected in glass. He said he saw some political leaders’ statue in the holy place. Then a sweeper would come and hit the leader’s statue with his broom to wipe off the pigeon stool. It is not the way to respect an important person like Kṛṣṇa.

I was telling in ABIDS how in Tirupati there was a three-year drought in Andhra Pradesh and how they had a 108 kuṇḍa fire yajña. The priests were doing karma-kāṇḍa sacrifice for rain. They produced lot of smoke but no rain. Śrīla Prabhupāda he came to the twin cities and started the harināma-yajña. That is the yajña recommended in the Vedas. Then it rained for seven days! Śrīla Prabhupāda kī jaya! So, like this, Śrīla Prabhupāda came to Hyderabad and the twin cities, he was very impressed by this city. I saw the Deities here of Rādhā-Gopīnātha, Gaurāṅga and Jagannātha, Baladeva, Subhadrā, Sudarśana and Śrīla Prabhupāda. The president is doing a very nice job! We know that many years he is working to have a very luxurious temple here. We know that here Lord Caitanya taught: gṛhe thāko vane thāko sadā hari bole ḍāko. So, the devotees here whether they are gṛhasthas or vairāgīs they should help to see this temple grows up. I came to Montreal to see Śrīla Prabhupāda. Three gṛhasthas couples they came to Montreal to see Śrīla Prabhupāda to take his blessings and went to London. And he was very pleased that it came up in the papers in London – “Hare Kṛṣṇas rock London!” He was explaining how his gṛhastha couples did in London what his gurudeva’s sannyāsī disciples could not do.

I was with Śrīla Prabhupāda in Allahabad for the Ardha-Kumbha-melā in 1971. And he was explaining how practicing bhakti-yoga is the topmost yoga system. By doing bhakti-yoga one has already gone through all the rituals and saṁskāras of the Vedas. One American citizen, a disciple of Śrīla Prabhupāda, he said Śrīla Prabhupāda look at my life, I did not do anything pious, I did everything sinful, how did I get the mercy to do bhakti-yoga? Śrīla Prabhupāda said, I have made your good fortune for you!

So, Śrīla Prabhupāda was ordered by his gurudeva to preach in the West. But when he was in Los Angeles, the Deities of Rukmiṇī Dvārakānātha spoke to him. You have to also preach in India. How many of you want the mercy of Śrīla Prabhupāda? So like this Śrīla Prabhupāda, he translated the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Bhagavad-gītā, from Sanskrit with purports, very easily understandable. And in South India someone came out after hearing a lecture by a Māyāvādī sannyāsī. And so one ISKCON devotee asked the person, how was the lecture. Very nice! Very nice! What did he say the devotee asked. I don’t know what he said! How can I understand what a great sannyāsī speaks?! That is the difference – when Śrīla Prabhupāda spoke his idea was communicated, hits the rock.

There are about 400 versions of the Bhagavad-gītā. So Śrīla Prabhupāda was asked which version do you recommend? I cannot recommend any version he said. In every version the writer changed something. But we have Bhagavad-gītā As It Is. Last year something like over two million copies of Bhagavad-gītā were sold in the month of December. So, Śrīla Prabhupāda he spent every night staying up, translating Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, Īśopaniṣad and many other books. How many of you would like to have Śrīla Prabhupāda in your house? If you have Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books in your house, then you have Śrīla Prabhupāda in your house! So we also recommend everybody to read the books of Śrīla Prabhupāda.

Śrīla Prabhupāda was asked, what is your goal? What is your purpose? He said I want to change the way that people think. Because everybody thinks I am the body. Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted us to think, I am an eternal soul, a servant of Kṛṣṇa. In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Ajāmila was born a brāhmaṇa, but he became a sinner and left his wife and started living with a prostitute. But because he had Kṛṣṇa in his heart he named his youngest son as Nārāyaṇa. And Śrīla Prabhupāda explained that he was very affectionate to his youngest son, and he would always call, “Nārāyaṇa come here, Nārāyaṇa sit here, Nārāyaṇa eat with me.” When the Yamadūtas came and they had rope of leather in their hands and they were going to take Ajāmila’s soul, ātmā to hell to punish him. Then he called out his son, Nārāyaṇa! And he remembered the original Nārāyaṇa! Immediately the Viṣṇudūtas came. It is said that if someone does some sevā for the deity, even gives a brick or gives land, they will eternally go to the spiritual world. I hope the donor is very happy to see so many of these devotees to celebrate Śrīla Prabhupāda’s festival. Like this, Śrīla Prabhupāda was recommending everyone should chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, worship Kṛṣṇa in their house and read Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Are you doing that? Thank you! Kṛtagyatalu!