20250702 Ratha-yātra Pandal Address Day 5

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: Respected devotees, Hare Kṛṣṇa! Are you enjoying this Jagannātha Ratha-yātrā festival? We are very grateful that you have all come! Gaurāṅga! We are all in Gauradeśa.

śrī gauḍa-maṇḍala-bhūmi,     yebā jāne cintāmaṇi,
tā'ra haya vrajabhūme vāsa

You are all within Gaura-maṇḍala-bhūmi, that is why you are all in Vraja too! Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu came to deliver all the people. But there are different ways. Some do karma-yoga, and that is for getting a higher position or go to heavenly planets. There is Bhuloka, Bhuvarloka and Svargaloka. They desire to go to Svargaloka. There the sense gratification that is available in the material world is available in a higher state. But, when the good karmas have ended, they have to come back to the material world. This Bhuloka is where we are with human life. Here there is both happiness and distress. But here there is the opportunity to advance in spiritual life. The Svargaloka is so full of sense gratification and the enjoyment is so much that the mind is not determined to do Kṛṣṇa bhakti or devotional service. Now they say that the only inconvenience they have in that loka is that the demons now and again attack them, especially those who do jñāna-yoga. They want to merge in the impersonal Brahman there. And that is why they remain devoid of knowledge like the trees. But there is no other problem in that loka. There is more joy in the brahma-jyoti than material world and some do aṣṭāṅga-yoga. There they do haṭha-yoga and other yoga practices. And they wish to see the Paramātmā. And they do a lot of siddha-yoga.

kṛṣṇa-bhakta—niṣkāma, ataeva ‘śānta’
bhukti-mukti-siddhi-kāmī—sakali ‘aśānta’

[Cc. Madhya 19.149]

Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu came, and He gave the teaching that doing kṛṣṇa-bhakti or devotional service is the highest perfection of life. And when we do kṛṣṇa-bhakti, then we can advance steadily. Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu said that devotion to Kṛṣṇa is possible but Kali-yuga has many defects. But it has one very great quality! That is chanting Harināma. In Kali-yuga if you do Harināma, then you get the association of the Lord. In Bengali, we sing an adhivāsa kīrtana – ānandera sīmā nāi, ānandera sīmā nāi, nirānanda dūre jāy, nirānanda dūre jāy! If we do kṛṣṇa-kīrtana we get immense bliss! And by bhakti-yoga if you do Harināma then you advance very quickly in spiritual life. Generally, people do not do any yoga practice. But if they do sinful activities, they go to hell. But you have all come to the festival of Lord Jagannātha Ratha-yātrā, so you do not need to go to hell! If all of you sing Hare Kṛṣṇa kīrtana and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, they you will be following the dharma of this Kali-yuga.

Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga! Jaya Jagannātha Svāmī!

If you have any questions, I will try to answer them in the Question-and-Answer booth.