20250330 Guru-ājñā Morning Lecture

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: Gaurāṅga! Nityānanda! We thank CDM for this nice App. And of course we thank Balarāma Govinda dāsa and his family for their nice hospitality. I see that his family, his sons, his daughters-in-law, everybody are busy! I am very grateful also to Śaṅkadhārī dāsa for his blessing. This apparently, is the biggest hall in Madurai. But it is not big enough! There are people who are watching the program from outside! Also, in the prasāda hall, they have a big screen, and what is played here, they can see there. Anyway, this is an opportunity, if there is any temple which has a bigger hall in the city, they can also invite us to come! But it not only takes a big hall, but it also takes a big heart!

So, Caitanya Mahāprabhu, He travelled throughout South India. So we are trying to establish Lord Caitanya’s lotus footprints wherever He visited. And people should know that Lord Caitanya was here! So I thank the Safari devotees for helping to make this possible. We have somehow taken birth as a human being and those who have taken birth in India are very fortunate. These bodies eventually die off. But we are a spark of life within the body. In the Upaniṣads they state that the soul in the human body is one ten thousandths of the tip of the hair. Take one hair and divide it into hundred parts, and take the 100 parts and divide them again into another 100 parts. Very small! But it is eternal! One doctor in Montreal, he was in McGill University. He said there is something in the heart that activates the blood. He called it the ticker! Tick, tick, tick, tick! We call it the spirit soul! You all look beautiful because you have life. That is the soul which has consciousness. And this consciousness is spread throughout the body. But most people do not know that they are eternal. The body is temporary. The spirit soul is eternal. So, you have this transcendental knowledge.

By Lord Kṛṣṇa’s mercy, Lord Caitanya’s mercy, you can go back to the spiritual world. And you will have a spiritual form. Depending on your relationship with the Lord, you will have a particular form. So there are five main relationships. Neutral, like the trees, cows, the people who just appreciate the Lord’s greatness.

Then there is servitude. Like Hanumān, he was a servant of Lord Rāma. And he was a bit simple, he said why does Sītā Devī wear kuṅkuma on Her forehead? He was told that it pleases Lord Rāma. So he said, kuṅkuma pleases Lord Rāma, then he covered his whole body with kuṅkuma! So have you seen Hanumān completely red colored? He has seen! She has seen! How many of you have seen?

Another relationship is as friend. In Vaikuṇṭha, friends are respectful. In Goloka Vṛndāvana, friends are very familiar. So, Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma, They play with all Their friends. When They are sitting in the forest eating their lunch pack, each cowherd boy thinks Kṛṣṇa is looking at him! It is not possible normally, to be looking at every devotee! were wrestling with each other. Whoever would lose, he had to carry whoever beat him on his shoulders. So at that time Pralambhāsura had taken the form of a cowherd boy. Balarāma defeated him! So, he took Balarāma on his shoulders. Then he ran off with Him. And then he expanded his size. Balarāma was absorbed in this mood of a cowherd boy. But, the demon had become big! So then, He thought that now this cowherd boy is a demon! Then He was worried whether Kṛṣṇa had another demon on Him? But then, He hit the head of Pralambhāsura and that demon died. This is a day in the friendship of Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma. All the friends, they congratulated Balarāma and embraced Him that He had somehow escaped! I mean, Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma – Kṛṣṇa is the Original Supreme Person and Balarāma is the first expansion!

Then there is the relationship of parental mood. Like, Yaśodā and Kṛṣṇa. We have the Dāmodara month where we offer lamps to Kṛṣṇa. And Mother Yaśodā, she tried to tie Kṛṣṇa! But no matter how many times she tried, the rope was always two fingers too short! Anyway, because of her great devotion and her vigorous attempts, Kṛṣṇa allowed her to tie Him! So, for that reason, Kṛṣṇa is known by the name Dāmodara!

Then there is the fifth rasa or relationship and that is of the gopīs in Vṛndāvana and the queens in Dvārakā. So, in the spiritual world they have all these relationships. But in the material world we only have distorted or perverted relationships.

So, there are nine practices of devotional service. The first two are hearing and chanting. By practicing this in Kali-yuga we can awaken our pure love for Kṛṣṇa. Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga! Nityānanda! Nityānanda! Nityānanda! So, by practicing devotional service, we can get established in one of these rasas. I promised I would answer some of the questions given yesterday.

Question: We see many devotees talking about evil eye, nazar in Hindi. This makes even devotees lie or hide the truth. How can devotees think that other people’s jealousy can cause harm when Kṛṣṇa is the controller?

Jayapatākā Swami: It says that when we surrender to Kṛṣṇa, we can be fearless. Because we are under the shelter of Kṛṣṇa. Prahlāda, he took full shelter of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. His father, Hiraṇyakaśipu, told his soldiers to kill him. They threw weapons at him, the weapons when they touched him, turned into blue lotus flowers! They fed him poison, he offered it to Kṛṣṇa and it became purified! So, like this, in the 7^th canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it says how Hiraṇyakaśipu tried to kill Prahlāda. We went to a temple about an hour and a half from Madurai, and they said Brahmā, Śiva and Viṣṇu met there. And they discussed how Hiraṇyakaśipu could be killed. So this way, it was decided that the Narasiṁha-rūpa would kill him!

Question: How to raise our children in Kṛṣṇa consciousness? We see it is a daily struggle for children and parents to practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness be it chanting one round, having prasāda, restricting from seeing movies, etc. The influence of non-devotees is more than us. Sometimes, we feel they are the ones getting more stressed. Kindly suggest, Guru Mahārāja.

Jayapatākā Swami: Jagadīśa Prabhu, he collected all the quotes of Śrīla Prabhupāda about gurukula. So, he mentions various things on the psychology of children. And how little children cannot understand our Kṛṣṇa conscious philosophy. But, they can understand the difference between body and the soul. When I went two or three days ago, I was taken to one Śrīla Prabhupāda’s school, here, Jaya Śrīla Prabhupāda Śikṣālaya. There, they were giving academics and Kṛṣṇa consciousness. This is not a small question! Some people make it their whole life! If you are going to be a mother or a father, then you should see that your children do not take birth again! But gṛhasthas may have a better idea about this question. So I have been told to end my question-and-answer session.

It says here it is the Ugādi cake!

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

Happy Kṛṣṇa conscious Ugādi! Ugādi dina subha kāṅkṣalu! Guru Mahārāja kī jaya jaya!