20250502 Address to ISKCON Kolkata

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

Jayapatākā Swami: Hare Kṛṣṇa! How many of you know Bengali? How many do not know Bengali? I came from Māyāpur to Digha and in Digha we had the prāṇa-pratiṣṭha ceremony of Lord Jagannātha, Baladeva, Subhadrā in which I was present. Balarāma dāsa is our devotee, who is making an irrevocable agreement with the West Bengal government that ISKCON will do the pujas and that ISKCON will have responsibilities there. But ISKCON does not have any responsibility with regard to the money/finance situation, at least with regard to expenses as of now. Here in ISKCON Kolkata, Rādhāramaṇa dāsa has worked a lot for this Digha temple arrangement. In any case, there is the Chief Minister overseeing the management. But we have our desire to serve Lord Jagannātha, Baladeva, Subhadrā and Rādhā Madana-mohana. But what will the situation be with regard to the politics outside, I don’t know. But the service to Lord Jagannātha and the running of the temple is what we will take care of.

I had some work in Kolkata, and I wanted to come here the day I returned from Digha but that day it got late, in the night and I could not come here. I finished my work and have come to the temple here to take darśana of Rādhā Govinda, Mahāprabhu, Jagannātha, Baladeva, Subhadrā. That so many of you devotees will be here, I did not expect!

Our only goal in life should be to serve Kṛṣṇa. And generally, people want to do sense gratification and keep going around in the cycle of life and death. But we do bhakti-yoga and keep the Lord in our hearts and want to stay with the Lord at the end of our life. How blissful that is – there is an adhivāsa-kīrtana we sing – ānandera sīmā nāi, to serve the Lord, to be a devotee of the Lord, the bliss that we experience doing this, there is no limit to it!

I have to end my short talk here as I have to leave for Māyāpur now.

Śrīla Prabhupāda had in a lecture in London in 1973 said, that gṛhasthas should all become paramahaṁsas. That means you are always thinking in your heart how to give pleasure to Kṛṣṇa. And he said that Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura was a gṛhastha, he had a child who was an ācārya, our guru, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura Prabhupāda. He said that gṛhasthas should try to have ācāryas as children. Because we need many ācāryas!