20251213 Evening Address

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: Is there any book of Śrīla Prabhupāda? Any verse? Or I just speak? So, I am very happy to be here today! Śrīla Prabhupāda, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda established our ISKCON in Bombay. His idea was that Bombay is the most westernized city. Also, it is the economic hub of India. His idea was that if we make Bombay Kṛṣṇa conscious, then we can make the whole of India Kṛṣṇa conscious! Thank you for cheering! But this is also a great responsibility for all of you! That you have to do it! I am an old man, I joined when I was 19 or 18 years old. I visited San Francisco, New York and Montreal temples – all the temples in ISKCON then! But now it is not so easy. There are 800 to 1000 temples. In India alone, big and small, you have 500 or so! So every person you meet, Lord Caitanya said, “You should tell them the message of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Yāre dekha, tāre kaha ‘kṛṣṇa’-upadeśa [Cc. Madhya 7.128]. Whoever you meet tell them the message of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Lord Kṛṣṇa spoke the Bhagavad-gītā. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is about Kṛṣṇa. And Caitanya-caritāmṛta is about Lord Caitanya. Now, in Dvārakā, Rukmiṇī devī told Lord Kṛṣṇa, “You know everything. You know what Brahmā is doing in Satyaloka, what Lord Śiva is doing in Kailāsa, what is going on in the unlimited universes. But there is one thing You don’t know. I know, Rādhārāṇī knows, but You don’t know.” So Kṛṣṇa was amazed! No one told Him there was something He did not know! Rukmiṇī said, “You have no one above You. You are the cause of all causes, You are the Absolute Truth. But there is one thing You don’t know.” Kṛṣṇa asked, “What is that?” Rukmiṇī said, “You don’t know how much Your devotees love You and in what way we love You!” So then Kṛṣṇa said, “I will come as My devotee in Kali-yuga.” He said it three times – “I will come as My devotees, I will come as My devotee, I will come as My devotee.” And that is Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu. Kṛṣṇa combined with Rādhārāṇī and produced Lord Caitanya! Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga! Gaurāṅga!

So Kṛṣṇa brought the storehouse of love. But He was very restrictive in giving out the love from His treasure house. And He gave it to those who were fully surrendered. But when Lord Caitanya came, Kṛṣṇa as a devotee, He looted the storehouse of love of Godhead! And He gave out all the contents to whoever who wanted it! Who here wants love of Kṛṣṇa? People, in the West people say, oh I love my dog, I love my child, I love this and that! I love my country, I love my whatever, anything material. Do they say that in India? I love my cricket team, I love my Bollywood film! Do they say? So, our program, International Society for Krishna Consciousness, it says Kṛṣṇa consciousness. You could also say, “I love Kṛṣṇa!” I don’t say prema or anything, but we want people to love Kṛṣṇa! Kṛṣṇa is wonderful! He is someone that we should love! And He is most beautiful, most powerful, most wealthy, most knowledgeable, most famous, someone knows Him as Kṛṣṇa, someone knows Him as Viṣṇu, someone as Nārāyaṇa. Someone knows Him as God, Allah, Jehovah. And So He is the most famous. And He is the most renounced. He creates the whole material world for you to enjoy because you wanted to be separate. So this material world is eka-pāda vibhūti which is one fourth of the total energy, and three fourths vibhūti is spiritual world. So this human life is a rare opportunity to go back to the spiritual world. Lord Caitanya came to deliver the patitas, the fallen souls! Many people love their country, their cricket team, different things, but we want them to love Kṛṣṇa! Someone likes Kṛṣṇa because He dances so nice, He is very humorous, He is very knowledgeable, and He spoke the Bhagavad-gītā. Our Honorable Prime Minister gave the Bhagavad-gītā in Russian to President Putin of Russia. I know little Hindi, but I give lectures in Bengali more. So my Hindi is a little with a Bengali accent! Anyway, we are the International Society for loving Kṛṣṇa.

Now, when you meet people, they say love this and love that. You want to tell them to love Kṛṣṇa! This is material nonsense stuff, I love my pet, I love my this and that! But that is alright. But there is one thing you should also love, love Kṛṣṇa! Now, Kṛṣṇa, through His expansions, He gives birth to Lord Brahmā, He creates the whole material world. And there is no limit to what He does and what He can do! In the Brahma-caivarta Purāṇa it predicts that 5000 years after the beginning of the Kali-yuga, for ten thousand years there will be a golden age when everybody becomes God conscious. His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda came 5000 years after. So, now is the time for the golden age to start! Everyone of you should make this prediction come through. When you meet people tell them to love Kṛṣṇa! But do this gradually, tell them they are not the body, they are the spirit soul and that you are eternal. Your body dies, there is a 100% guarantee – everybody that is born has to die. But the ātmā never dies. If you love material things that, you can take birth in the material world again and again! If you love Kṛṣṇa, then you go back to the spiritual world!

So, Lord Caitanya established the saṅkīrtana movement where we chant the holy names of Kṛṣṇa! Now it is December, when Kṛṣṇa spoke the Bhagavad-gītā. This month we observe as the Śrīla Prabhupāda Marathon. And Mumbai, Juhu, is one of the best book distributors in India and the world! We are waiting for all of you to help. One person in Delhi, he works out a couple of months ahead, he gets everyone to pledge how many books the devotees will distribute. One elderly man he took a pledge to distribute 5000 Bhagavad-gītās! One person! Now some may distribute 10, some 100, everyone takes a pledge. Sometimes Delhi was beating Māyāpur and usually Mumbai is third. So I told Māyāpur, everybody has to distribute books, they should take a pledge. Then Māyāpur became no. 1! But I am telling you the secret! I am a BBT Trustee, so I want more of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books distributed. Mumbai should beat Māyāpur! Anyway, Śrīla Prabhupāda was saying if you distribute my books, you will be happy! If you read by books, you will BE! So if people don’t read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books – Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Caitanya-caritāmṛta, etc. they will not be Kṛṣṇa conscious. How many of you have read all of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books? So, we want people to read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books. Before I took first initiation Śrīla Prabhupāda told me I had to read Bhagavad-gītā ten times! Of course, at that time, we had the McMillan Gītā. It was not as big as our present Gītā! But we had to read it ten times. Then after that I read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Bhagavad-gītā may be another ten times!

So I wanted to get the degrees, Bhakti-vaibhava, Bhakti-vedānta, Bhakti-Sārvabhauma. So the Māyāpur Institute told me they would give me the degrees honorary. I told them I don’t want it. I will take the test. I wanted to inspire the disciples, devotees to read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books. So I took the test, I got my Bhakti-vaibhava and Bhakti-vedānta. Now I am almost finished with the Bhakti-Sārvabhauma! They told me that for the last, almost last exam, I choose three of the verses of the Śikṣāṣṭaka and describe them with purports. So I wrote to Atula Kṛṣṇa Prabhu, “Can I give all eight?” He said, “That is alright!” So, I want to encourage all of you to read BBT books! I saw with my own eyes, Śrīla Prabhupāda at one or two in the morning, he was translating his books in Māyāpur! I mean, he went through so much difficulty to write his books and now you can have his association by reading his books. I say that to take second initiation you have to have Bhakti-śāstrī. Only ten or eleven per cent of my disciples have second initiation. Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted his disciples, his followers to be Kṛṣṇa conscious, to know the philosophy. Now, we have the ‘Transcend App’ where you can listen to the books. Read, the books, they have in all the Indian languages. Marathi, they have? Yes! Hindi, Odia, all languages. Bengali, English. So read the books, I am begging you! I am not proud but that is our duty!

So these temples are places where people come and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and listen to the messages of Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and Caitanya-caritāmṛta. Every age there is a sacrifice prescribed. And in this yuga, the sacrifice is chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa! harer nāma harer nāma
harer nāmaiva kevalam
kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva
nāsty eva gatir anyathā
[Cc. Ādi 17.21]

No other way! So everyone I meet I give a card. And request them to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. So, in my old age and physical ill-health, I go to many hospitals. All the nurses and doctors I meet, I give them a mantra card. Some of them I give a clicker. I say chant every day 108 mantras. This is the bliss that we see in people chanting! It doesn’t take much trouble to chant. Kṛṣṇa’s name and Kṛṣṇa are not different. So, if we chant Kṛṣṇa, we can be associating with Kṛṣṇa. Lord Caitanya told that gṛhe thāko vane thāko sadā hari bole ḍāko! Whether you are a gṛhastha or in the renounced order, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa! We hope that everybody is getting the bliss to chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. If they learn to love Kṛṣṇa, then naturally, they will taste transcendental bliss! What happiness they get from cricket games? They win, they rejoice! If they lose, they are suffering! In comparison, Kṛṣṇa is someone you can love! Maybe people think we are crazy, that we love Kṛṣṇa. Prema is a very high, I am not saying prema, that is a very elevated stage, but in the normal way it is love, pyār. So if we love Kṛṣṇa, then that is our system, bhakti-yoga. And He is someone that is worthy of that, He lifted the Govardhana Hill when He was just a young boy, on one finger, He danced on the heads of the Kaliya demon. The dancers complained that the stage is not even. But Kṛṣṇa is dancing on the moving heads of Kaliya! Kṛṣṇa is wonderful! And that is our craziness that we want to love, and we want everyone to love Kṛṣṇa!

I am very glad to be here in Juhu! I wanted to visit our Kharghar temple but somehow by Kṛṣṇa’s arrangement that became possible. In Juhu being wedding season, all the rooms were booked!  And my doctor told me that the dialysis system in Juhu is not good. So, I ended up in Kharghar! But I hope to come back in April or may be earlier and stay here.  Kharghar is a nice temple, but I was missing all of you!

Alright, I can take two questions, one from men and one from ladies.

Question: When do we come to know we are chanting offenselessly the holy names?

Jayapatākā Swami: You try to avoid all the offenses. And naturally when you chant, if you are offenseless, then you will feel bliss! Even if your offences start to reduce, you start to feel bliss. If you are not feeling ecstasy, then you can think, what offense am I doing? Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, he was reading the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam or something and was laughing in ecstasy. And a crippled devotee went by and he thought that Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī was laughing at him! And he felt offended. So Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī lost his ecstasy. So he asked Śrīla Sanātana Gosvāmī, “Why is this?” Śrīla Sanātana Gosvāmī said, “You must have committed some offence.” The worst offence is Vaiṣṇava-aparādhā. So, Śrīla Sanātana Gosvāmī gave a system by which to find who you had offended. So we have to be very careful living with devotees that you do not offend anyone. One of the qualities of the uttama-adhikārī is not criticize anyone. Of course, a guru has to find faults in his disciples. I am failing in this regard!

Bhīma Prabhu if you want to say a few words.

I used to come here when His Holiness Gopāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami Mahārāja was here and I am now missing his association. At least I have some association with His Grace Bhīma Prabhu. Today I met His Holiness Girirāja Mahārāja and that was very nice! He was one of the founding fathers of ISKCON Mumbai. I told him that you showed the way that people who became life members, you made them devotees. It is not the donation, it is the relationship by which we make them Kṛṣṇa conscious. Next time if I ask who has read all the Śrīla Prabhupāda books, I hope to see hundreds of hands up!

Question: How to preach Kṛṣṇa consciousness to family members who are disinclined or not favorable to hear about Kṛṣṇa?

Jayapatākā Swami: It’s a good question. This can be an obstacle in one’s Kṛṣṇa consciousness. You know your family members better. I mean, if they are real well-wishers, naturally they want to see you happy! I mean when the Panam jet crashed somewhere over the Arctic. The Chinese parents were lamenting then. That our son died. We spent so much money on him that he would get his education in America and in our old age he would work and earn money and maintain us. We lost him! So they were not lamenting that their son, untimely died! They were lamenting that they did not get his money. Are they real parents? If they are real parents, they will be happy to see you happy! Right? Anyway, it is not one size fits all, not one medicine for all! You can write me a letter, I don’t know what your family members’ weakness is. And how you can actually penetrate them. But it is possible, you have seen in the Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa says who has not accepted Kṛṣṇa. There are four types of people and there are four that accept Kṛṣṇa, who want money, who want to be saved from difficulties, who are inquisitive and who are knowledgeable. They accept Kṛṣṇa.

Alright! Thank you very much! Kṛṣṇe matir astu! Blessings to you!