20240807 Question-and-Answer Session

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram
Harihi oṁ tat sat

Question: Usually we worship Gaura-Nitāi as gṛhasthas, with luxurious outfit and jewelry. Can we worship Them as Lord Caitanya being sannyāsī? With Lord Caitanya wearing simple saffron clothes – no jewelry and hair?

Jayapatākā Swami: You see, Śrīla Prabhupāda was telling us we don’t actually like to see Lord Caitanya as a sannyāsī. He is the Lord, why should He have to do some austerities? When we see the Lord as a sannyāsī, we are thinking why is He doing austerities? So, our thinking is that it is better to worship the Lord opulently.

Question: What about offering peacock feather to Lord Caitanya?

Jayapatākā Swami: You see, Lord Caitanya is Kṛṣṇa. So if you want to offer Him peacock feather, you can.

Question: After we try to preach and connect devotees to our congregation, we see even after a year or so, they are inconsistent, how do we overcome this in our congregation and develop the congregation?

Jayapatākā Swami: You see, I have physiotherapists, they come every morning, they do something nice, I say wonderful, wonderful! Very good! If I don’t say, they wait till I say something nice. Then they will shower praise. So I guess this is a way of physiotherapy! Anyway Lord Caitanya in the third verse of Śikṣāṣṭaka, He said, that you offer praise to others and don’t expect any for yourself. So, you don’t think what are the defects in the sādhana of the new devotee. If they do something nice, praise it. In this way you can preach to them, if you fire them, then the possibility of them advancing is quite bleak. Oh, you are in māyā, you are not doing very good! You don’t say that. If they do something, you say very good, very good! Should consciously encourage them.

Kṛṣṇe matir astu!