20250102 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

Jayapatākā Swami: So I have not been so great after the various functions - New Year’s eve, initiation, I had a slight fever. But the doctors say that I have a lung infection. So, Mahā Varāha wanted to cancel the class. But I have no fever and gradually recovering. Many people have questions not according to the class. Today I can take some questions.

Question: We have been reading in the Caitany-śikṣāmṛta and other scriptures that devotees reject four types of liberation but may sometimes accept liberation like sālokya. However, Śrīla Prabhupāda instructed us that our life’s goal is to go back home back to Godhead which may be technically interpreted as attaining Kṛṣṇa’s Goloka abode. How can we explain this especially while preaching? The devotees do not aim for these four types of liberation, even attaining the same abode as the Lord, sālokya, but we still strive to go back to serve Lord Kṛṣṇa in Goloka Vṛndāvana.

Jayapatākā Swami: Our goal should be to serve Kṛṣṇa, we just don’t want sālokya, then we go to Vaikuṇṭha and become a tree or something. So we accept those types of liberation sālokya, sārūpya, sāmīpya, sārṣṭi, to serve Kṛṣṇa, but our real goal is to serve Kṛṣṇa. Actually, serving Kṛṣṇa wherever you are, it is very blissful. So if you please, you get back to the spiritual world there is no service there, serving is the activity in the spiritual world, serving Kṛṣṇa. If someone just wants to serve Him in the śānta-rasa or dāsya-rasa, you go to Vaikuṇṭha. This world is horrible, there is no doubt about. Many people may want just to be in the spiritual world but the activity in the spiritual world is serving the Lord. But if you love Kṛṣṇa, if you are serving Kṛṣṇa, then you can go to Kṛṣṇaloka. You have to have a desire to serve Kṛṣṇa. Dāsya-rasa like Hanumān, he is in the Vaikuṇṭha region. Maybe Lord Rāmacandra is in the last part of Vaikuṇṭhaloka. After that it is Kṛṣṇaloka. Who you are attached to, that determines where you go. If you are just detached from the material world, sometimes you could end up in the brahma-jyoti! That is where the demons go also, when they are killed by Kṛṣṇa. The jñāna-yogīs, they go there, but they are never accepted by devotees. Sometimes they accept the other four types of liberation if it includes service to the Lord. Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga!

I think I had such a low fever it was 100.3, now it is broken because of your prayers and prayers of all the devotees. Kṛṣṇa is so wonderful, Lord Caitanya, Pañca-tattva, They are very wonderful!

Question: I want to come to the dhāma on safari and live in Māyāpur to be near you and attend your lecture. But I struggle that I am not qualified to be even able to live in Māyāpur. Please advise me what is the best way to proceed? There are services in the city, I am doing Harināma. But I want to be near you. What do I need to do? – Jugala Sevā Devī Dāsī from St. Petersburg.

Jayapatākā Swami: St. Petersburg! A very historic city. They wanted me to give a 100 thousand dollars donation to establish a permanent center there. Some Russian lady gave me twos apartments which was worth two hundred thousand dollars, so in this way I am connected with St. Petersburg! I mean, now I am staying in Māyāpur and so devotees come to my class every evening. And I go once a day and I am happy to see the Deities, to be before the Deities, darśana of the Deities is two ways – you appear before the Deities and you see the Deities. So, if you stay in Māyāpur this is how you can see me. And sometimes I leave Māyāpur. And then you can see me on the internet! Ha! Like the rest of the world! And the important thing is to want to serve guru and Kṛṣṇa all the time. The other day there was a married couple from Japan, and I gave them a request to please form a two in one army to make more Japanese devotees as there are some, not many Japanese devotees. It is not that people who are serving in other places are not serving me, are not close to me. I would like to receive your reports wherever you are. I got some reports from Bengaluru and different places around the world. Those are very encouraging to me. But if you want to stay in Māyāpur, just pray to the Deities and Lord Narasiṁhadeva, to remove all the obstacles, pray to Pañca-tattva  so that you can live in His dhāma. Pray to Rādhā Mādhava for their mercy because you want to serve Them by being in the dhāma. I heard that yesterday Māyāpur had 1,05,282 or so devotees visiting Māyāpur, that is a lot of people. How many people visit Japan, Tokyo? How many visit Moscow?

Anyway, anyone anywhere in the world is serving. Here in Māyāpur it is great that people are coming here! We have an opportunity to preach to them. Tell them how, wonderful is Kṛṣṇa consciousness, how much bliss is there in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. I was wrong, Bengal is now in the second place now, Nagaland got first place 99.8% non-veg, and Bengal is 98.3%. If everyone who comes here if you can convince them to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and advise them to eat kṛṣṇa-prasāda, maybe we can reduce that number!

Kṛṣṇe matir astu! To all of you! Hare Kṛṣṇa!