1994 || Pānihāṭi Festival Address and Ratha Yātrā || Atlanta, USA #JayapatakaSwamiArchives

It's. It's.

Swami Bohd. Just bless the commencement day of the Nuha Nadi festival of India. And seeing the whole festival grounds. I don't know what a good example might be, but you got the opportunity now you have the time, the opportunities. You know, eat, drink and be merry when you have a chance. But from the spiritual point of view, it means dependence.

Question.

Any other question? Yes, the holies and that time. So 500 years later, in this new parliamentary time, who the king is punished to organization? They're all just him. How could we organize such a festival as he's organizing? He's got the special mercy of Lord Nithyananda. So we don't think that we have that to be punished by Nityananda Prabhu, you have to be somewhere very special. It's not an ordinary thing to get a punishment from directly by the Lord. The Lord has got Maya baby to give ordinary condition souls punishment. A punishment by Krishna Parity Nanda himself means it's a special mercy. Anything to do with the Lord is very special mercy. There's a. There's an example given by that. There's two kinds of devotees. Some are like sweet rice and some are like cow dung. Now Mayabadi says sweet rice and cow dung, it's all the same because both come from. From the cow. So whether you get a plate of sweet rice or ice cream or get a plate of cow ground. Here we have the Save a Cow program giving out plates of cow dun the same as sweet rice.

Right?

Accept that. So they can become also in the Sriracha state at some points of time. So the guru tends to treat those people a little bit in the most still with kid gloves, so to speak, very carefully. She doesn't criticize them too much and you get too heavy with them, even make a little joke. Sometimes they go off naked. They don't want to do this and love me anymore. Somehow they think they may even reject the guru if it gets too heavy. So the guru doesn't just kind of deals real carefully with them and tries to encourage them. But then when a devotee is fully dedicated, the guru can even chastise the disciple and the Gandala disciples who are dedicated. So sometimes the guru will use that disciple as an example with each other and chastise even maybe the other person may be more at fault. They chastise that door because he can tame it. And the one who may be more at fault, chastise him. They'll crumble. So your original question was like that so like that, sometime we get special mercy of the punishment. So Raghunathas, he could take mercy of the Lord. He was completely dedicated. Whether the Lord said, I'm going to jump on you or anything, hit you with sticks, he would take anything. But Lord Nityananda said in a very loving way, okay, I'm going to practice you. But he actually put his feet out on. She really was giving mercy to Ramada. It was very joking. Had a very deep sense of humor. What? Nanda was very jolly. Sometimes Nitra run in the Ganges or swim across, swim back, play with the kids, come up. He was like that. Very, very exuberant person. Very overflowing with energy. In fact, one time Mother Sachi had a dream. And she woke up and she came to Lord Caitanya and said that I had this dream. I don't understand. In my dream I was preparing an offering for the deities of Ka Balaram. And I came in with the offering. And there I saw that there were little baby, you and each another. And Nithyananda was saying, I brought the offering, put it in. I went back to get more things. When I came in with additional offerings, the Nithyananda was chastising Krishna Balaram and saying, this offering is not meant for you. You are the Lord in the Barbara Yuga. And now I said, so this should go to Chaitanya, to Goranga. It's not for him. Mother Satchi could not understand what's going on. Then all of a suddenanda ran over to Mother Satchi. Feed me, I'm hungry. Then she woke up. What is it? And then she came. What does this mean? I can't understand. Well, I think that your deities are very active. And I think maybe Nitinanda may be hungry. Why don't we invite him for lunch today? Oh, she said, that would be wonderful. I said, invite him for lunch. So I'll go and write and we prepare the lunch for Shabbat. So then Lord Caitani went to find Nitinama. He had to go in the Ganges. He was swimming again by the Ganges. And then he called him.

Come on.

You have to take one shoe as a day for shower. Mother Sachi is cooking a special feast. Oh, right, guys.

So then he.

And they're talking. And then what? Goranga said to Nithyananda, but one thing. No funny business. Who, me? I don't do funny business. You're the one always doing funny business. I got them like this. You see, they were brothers. So they're very spiritual brothers. So they're having this discussion. Then they went back to the house of Mother Sachi. And she was very excited to see Lord Caitanya and Nithyananda. She had so much ecstasy. She went and put the plates down. She did one plate, two plates. She put a third plate down. Nobody could understand why. A third plate. There's only two of them. And she was so excited, just kind of beyond herself that she came and she. She put a big pile of rice with all kinds of wonderful vegetables and preparations around. And she went and picked more. When she came back, Lord Chaitanya Nithyananda was sitting there. Now they weren't sitting. And now there was little child Krishna and Balaram. They were sitting, taking down Prashad. And she looked. Krishna is Balaram. She fainted. It was too much. All of a sudden, more chicken. Mother. Mother, wake up. What happened then? Mother said she looked up and there was her son. Chaitanya looked and there's Nithyanandan. What happened?

Boom.

She just ran in her room and locked the door and wouldn't talk to anybody. The rest of the day too.

Did.

The switch on her and changed into Krishna and Balaam. So like I think Inanda Prabhu, he sometimes was very jollity. He had many pastimes. So like.

So.

That'S why Lord Chaitanya is very. Lord Gandhi was very daly and he went. His punishment wasn't like an anger, really. It was just an expression of his love. But he wanted to also teach. He did a little work for it. But it was really an opportunity for him to give the blessings. So we are following. We're trying to pray the Lord to Ragnath God Raja Goswami to empower us, to bless us so we can serve him and represent him and serve Lord Nityananda in the mood that he did. And that's not possible ordinarily, but by his cause of mercy as possible. And praying with Krishna and Balaram to go on in Thai to accept the offering. Devoting senses and preparing the different offerings and festivities. Because she's a mastermind and the most expert for all these things like this. Actually, we're simply trying to follow in the footsteps of these very great souls.

Yes. That.

Ordinarily the worship of the Lord was performed with very much awe and reverence.

And.

Because people were very much afraid that when approaching, lying, approaching the Lord, there's every chance of making a mistake, every chance of committing an offense and which would be spiritually harmful. So that's why many of the very intimate rituals or Intimate services are only performed by persons who are initiated and trained by the spiritual master. Because the closer we get, the more opportunity there is to serve. The more opportunity there is to offend. So there are certain services which are reserved. Like going into the deity room. Like cooking the offerings for people who are trained and who are initiated. But it was definitely much more close than it is today. Why it's opened up is because Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has opened certain avenues for everyone. Previously, people wouldn't chant the holy names freely. Because they were afraid that the names of God were so sacred that no one should say them. Even in the Jewish thing, only the rabbis would know the names of God. And other people wouldn't say the names. They'd say God is like a title, but the actual name, like Adonai. These names, they wouldn't be normally spoken by the general people. They are considered very mystic, very powerful. So like that there are also certain mantras which are completely secret. Only the priest can say those or the person who are initiated into them. And for a long time they also thought that, well, the names of Ka shouldn't be casually spoken or shouldn't be used. Except under very pure, controlled circumstances. Like if you're in a holy river. Or if it's a very sacred day. Or, you know, it's like very restricted. The Lord Caitanya, he said that in this age of that he's given a special dispensation. That the name of Krishna can be chanted by everyone. The name of God can be chanted by everyone. And if we chant his name first, then he takes the full responsibility that he's giving the order to chant the name. So there's no offense taken. We should try to avoid offenses. But if we sincerely try to avoid, even if there's some offense. And the way Lord Shaitanya has given us the permission to chant. So this chanting has especially been made available for everyone. Also reading the Bhagavad Gita as it is. Bhagavad Gita and the Srimad Bhagavatam. These have also been made available for everyone. As mentioned that this is especially for this age. For the simple people who are not great saints or anything. Any ordinary person, even a worker or businessman or man or woman, anyone, they can read these books. So this has special dispensation that Lord Chaitanya gave. And when he gave this in India 500 years ago, it was a very big thing. He was inviting thousands of people, people to come and all chant. And all the priests they were saying, what's going on here? This was like our monopoly. This was our thing. And now everybody's doing it. Well, he's going to ruin everything. We don't know whether some of them may have just been envious because it was losing their monopoly. And maybe some people, they were very orthodox and they really thought that it was bad, whatever they were coming at. But they opposed Lord Chaitani in the beginning and in various ways they tried to obstruct him. It even went to the Mohammedan government and complained and said that he's creating a disturbance in Hindu society so he should be banned. And the government placed an order banning the chain of the street on the basis of the complaints of these priests, hereditary priests. But then Lord Satania told his followers to disobey the ban. And then they disobeyed the ban and the government sent the police and they broke their playgrounds. Then Lord Sheytan used to go out again and this time the government, the local governor, he came and governor, not really governor, but like kind of a mayor or something, he came and banned it and he also said to stop. But this time Lord Chaitanya was really massive. Public demonstration of over 200,000 people marching on city hall. And they surrounded it, they were all shouting and with big torches in the night. So then it was a real tense situation. And the mayor came out and they had. And he broke the ice for us saying, why are you coming here in the angry wicking? We're old friends. Don't you remember your father, your grandfather used to call me as an uncle. And so that means. And then what you said, why are you keeping your nephew standing in the street like this, you know, as if he was a stranger. So they kind of broke the isa Moychi temple. And he sat down. Quiet everybody, let's see what happens. And then he came and taught him. And then it was a long discussion. But what happened was then the magistrate actually, he revealed that in a dream Krishna had appeared to him in this form as a lion, half land man, half lion and told him that you are obstructing my champion. And for that a very great offense. Normally I would kill someone but because your offense was not so great, I'm not killing you, but if you do it again, you'll be finished. He took his claws and went and ripped across his chest and woke up, he looked, there was blood on his hands. He had claw marks on his chest. Was I dreaming? How did I dream and how did I get. And he told us the Lord Shaytan and he opened his shirt and shot right along his chest. He had these claw marks and he was shaking. He said, after I did that and told you people to stop chanting. And I saw this. I don't know what to think anymore. Please give them Lord Shaitan to comfort him. And when he touched his. Touched his hand and immediately he became purified. And he started feeling great love in his heart. And then he said he had a very long philosophical discussion. And then he gave the order that no one will obstruct the Sankirtan movement in my area anymore. Even my descendants. I ordered them that they should also not obstruct the Sankirtan movement of chanting of Hare Ka. So that's the background that even boy Chaitanya from initial obstruction. But he's actually Krishna Cain himself. In order to open up this opportunity for everyone to chant Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna, Krishna. Actually he revealed that other kinds of religious activities. When we go to God to pray, give me something, give me good, give me money, give me a cure. Actually you see that we're just going really for our own selfishness. And it's very hard to do proper devotion for material interest to God and disadvantage. Because to really do that, you have to be very pure. But actually, if there's many rituals involved in doing that type of materialistic prayers to God. He doesn't just give anything. Anybody they want. They had to do austerities. They had to do like land used to be a big austerity. Different things are austerities people had to do. If they wanted to get some favor from the Lord. But when someone wants to serve the Lord. That's like a special category. That's not. It's like almost unheard of actually just wanting to give something to God without asking anything in return. So that's actually what Lord Chaitanya taught that we're all part of Ka. In other words, it's natural for us to approach. I mean, we're part of Him. We're all small parts of God. We're all small parts of the divine. We're divine sparks and divine spirit souls. And our soul is the same in quality as God. It's only worth like a small quantity, like an atomic part of Him. And he's unlimited whole, the total of everything. So he's taught that actually we have to approach Him. This is the real point of life. This is the real purpose of human life. And all the other aspects of religion and philosophy. Which don't really lead us up to a place approaching the divine really Our life is so short. There's so many obstacles in life. Life is anyway, in this time and place is generally filled with a lot of troubles. What we should really do, we only have a limited amount of time in our hands. Let's go for the topmost thing, go for it, go for everything. Go for both, as they say. Go for the supreme destination. And then you can't really go wrong because anything going towards that automatically, even if you fail, you get them all over things. But if you shoot for the topmost thing, then you're in the best position. And whatever spiritual progress you make, you don't lose it. You start off again, even if you don't finish. See, stress is very much that in this AIDS is that ideal AIDS for becoming close to the divine nature. It is so rotten materially. There's so much anxiety and stress and, you know, different kinds of prejudice and different kinds of. They call it dorniti. What's the English word? Graft, dishonesty and achieving and things going on. It's really easy to be detached from the material world. And with the chanting of Hare Krishna, it's very easy to attach to Ka. So this is a good time to spiritually awaken. And this is a special dispensation, a special offering and opportunity for all of us. Is that all right? Sin and pious activity Punya and Pa explain us. They actually are based on material bodily activities. They're based on material activities and they're the different kinds of reactions for those activities. So really the spirit soul is aloof from that. Even though we may change bodies, we may sometimes have a rich birth, sometimes a poor birth, sometimes be healthy, sometimes be sick. But the eternal soul is an effect of by that the soul remains eternally the same. But the soul is identifying with the mind and identifying with the body. Therefore the soul is, through this false identification, is also thinking that he's suffering or enjoying. When in reality the soul is really transcendental. It's like someone is dreaming. He may be thinking that I'm being eaten by a tiger or being scratched by a lion. But normally you wake up, you're not. You're just, you know, we're just in a dream. But that was the exception to the chankatsi. So it's like that the atma is not really affected, just like we're not normally really affected by a dream. But still when we're in the dream, it appears real to us. So for the soul it appears real what it's going through, but actually doesn't really change Its eternal situation. Now, material activities doesn't have anything directly to do with the divine. When we actually are doing something in relation with the divine in relation to Ka, then that has got some direct bearing on the soul. Any spiritual pacifist activity we do reawakens our original consciousness. We have an identity problem. Spiritually, we are identifying with the body. That's why we're suffering and enjoying it. Just like someone's in agreement until they wake up. Whatever is going on in the dream is their good. They might as well be happening to them because as far as they know what's happening to them. And once they wake up, then I say, well, it was only a dream. Why was it they're so upset until they wake up? You know, it's all like academic discussion. Until we wake up, whatever is happening in the material world, we really feel pain or pleasure. We think that we're suffering or enjoying how to get out, how to wake up. Waking up is what the whole spiritual process is about. Jijago. Wake up sleeping soul, this chanting, the whole festival, taking the spiritual food, hearing from devotee. This all starts to penetrate through the mind and through the intelligence and reach the higher intelligence of the soul. And then that wakens us up to our real ego, our eternal identity as a spirit, soul, as a servitor of the Lord. So that's from positive spiritual activities. Now an offense is kind of the opposite. That's something which is specifically against Krishna, out of Hindi. That has a spiritual effect of covering the soul. The soul wants to forget Krishna. Behave Krishna, you don't like Krishna, you want to blaspheme the name of the Lord or you want to harm the devotees of the Lord or something like that which is directly connected with Krishna with close, dear and near to ka. So what you're doing is you're really putting yourself in a position to spiritually be more and more alienated from Ka for a longer period of time. So, so the offenses and the sukriti, these spiritual activities do affect the soul position. I mean, the soul is eternal. But right now we're eternally locked up in this material world. We're prisoners. We saw the thing out there, prison service preaching. So we're in the prison of the material world and we want to get out of the material Drissenheim. So the more that you are favorably serving Ka favorly associating this, you get credits to get out of the prison house. And if you're just in the prison house acting material things doesn't really make any difference. You Have a fight with your next door neighbor. It doesn't really affect your status until you get to the point where you're fighting with the guards, fighting with, trying to smash the prison or them a prison, this person, no problem case, you know, little things amongst the prisoners, little other things going on, doesn't really make so much difference. It's a very crude example. I'm sorry for that. I just kind of got into it. But it's like that in a spiritual perspective. What we do in the material world doesn't really affect, you know, someone may be rich and they lose money gain, they get his leg broken, they get run over by a car, may use something this disaffecting his material karmas. When he gets in touch with the spiritual life, he goes into another mode. It's another, another spiritual development. And that overrides everything else in a much higher level. So there you have a separate calculation. It's not called sin and piety, it's called sukriti and aparat. I don't know the translation for stupidity. Like spiritual merit, you might say spiritual merit and offenses. These affect the spiritual standards. So those that's considered out of ignorance, someone out of a false identification with the body, they may actually commit something offensive to Krishna. That's why a preacher is requested or is ordered not to set up, you know, a person who may be in a false identification to commit offenses. We won't go to someone and start to tell, you know, someone doesn't want to hear what we have to say. You have to hear Ka is the only way you're going to go to hell. You know, accept Krishna laid in the mercy of Krishna. You don't do that because the person makes it bug off or kill. And then by committing that kind of an offense, it's harmful for them. So we have a totally different approach is that it's like voluntarily people doors open door policy that everyone come. If you don't want to hear it, well, we'll chant. Hare Krishna is about as far as it goes. Maybe you can't avoid that driving by here on the street or we're having Hare Krishna chanting in the center of big street avenue or something. Apart from that, we don't try to shove it down people's throat because if they reject it, that's harmful for them. We don't want to have people do anything harmful for their own spiritual life. So that's part of. That's one of the reasons we don't tell the glories of the holy Lord Chaitanya Specifically said, we can chant Hare Krishna to anybody, even, you know, word or bad, it's all right, but don't tell them. Even he said, don't tell them the esoteric meanings of the chanting. Because if they're not at that stage when they're ready to hear it, they don't want to hear it. It's aloof, but somehow it's accepting, it's identifying. Now, if you can fully understand, how does the soul do anything get. So we're at a big disadvantage to figure out what is it like when I'm awake spiritually. Right now we're still deeply hearing what it's like to be awake. And we're trying to get the soul to wake up to various mechanisms, if you can understand what I mean. So one of the things, it's not 100% feasible to fully understand what it is life when we're awake. Because if we understood it, to understand that we have to wake up fully spiritually, we have to become awakened. And as we gradually start to awaken, we start to feel the spiritual happiness, we start to feel the spiritual peace. We start to understand things more and more clearly. The identification with the material nature gradually dissipates. A gradual awakening. It's not, you know, at one point it's completely awake. And then you see, see, there's the material body there. And here I am in my spiritual glory, my spiritual position. When we get in that position, then we can see everything 100% clear. And we can understand, well, how did all this happen to me? But until we reach that position, we can't hundred percent figure everything out from the mind. But what we do know is that the body is accepted by the. So it's a false identification somehow identifying. And then by spiritual practice, gradually we become aloof from that more and more. Thank you. Okay, anybody would like a little cookie?

Mahal. Prashad. Sam. Ram. Ram. Sample. Sa. Ram. Sam. I took a sariyah. It. It's. It. Sam. Battery. Battery.

This is my last battery.

Last. I have it. It's Sam.

Very dear to Lord Jaganna, Baladev Subhadra in this world.

So.

The festival of taking Lord Jagannath is celebrated since practically time immemorial, since a long time. And it commemorates the voyage of Krishna and his brother and sister from Dwarka to Kurukshetra in Jagannath Puri. They see this sometimes in a superficial way that Lord Krishna is going to see his auntie Pshima, his aunt Kunti, the and the five Pandavas. And so Lord Jagannath goes from the Jagannath Puri temple to the Gundicha temple. And they call Gundicha Temple Masi Bhati. Or they call it the Auntie's house. But Lord Caitanya saw the Rath Yatra in a more esoteric manner. The Lord Krishna was going to reunite with his beloved devotees from Vrindavan. And Vrindavan was not very far from Kurukshetra, which lies in North India, north of Delhi. So the residents of Vrindavan, when they heard that Lord Krishna was going for the solar eclipse, they also took this opportunity to go and meet Krishna. Krishna had lived in Vrindavan for the first 16 years of his life, his pastimes on this earth. Of course, he's the supreme personality of Godhead. He's always existing. But just like the sun rises in the east in the morning and sets in the west in the night, doesn't mean that the sun is born in the morning and dies at night. Similarly, when Krishna appears in the world or when he leaves, it doesn't mean that Krishna began at his appearance and he ceased to exist at his departure. Krishna is always existing eternally. Therefore he is known as Nityana or the supreme amongst all the eternal. So Lord Ka, in his pastimes on this world, he demonstrated a very deep love and loving exchanges between his devotees and himself. So Vrindavan is the center of the very deepest loving sentiments and loving devotion for Lord Krishna. Krishna, when he left Vrindavan at age of 16, or apparently when he left then all the residents of Vrindavan were absorbed in very deep separation of Lord Krishna. When they heard he was coming so close, they all went to see him. When Krishna was there in Kurukshetra there were so many emperors and king. The emperor was there, Maharaja, so many kings and Shaktiyas and elephants and chariots. All because the Emperor went there and Lord Krishna went there. So, so many big VIPs are also there. Here were the simple village folk of Vrindavan coming to Kurukshetra to see Krishna and Balaram. So when Krishna met with the residents of Vrindavan, especially with Shrimati Radharani, that was a very emotional occasion. And Lord Chaitanya, he would absorb in this very deep sentiment. He was very happy to take Jagannath on this procession because he was meditating that I am taking Krishna back to Vrindavan. He was thinking of Radharani and all the residents of Vrindavan and how happy they would be to again be rejoined with Krishna, reunited with Krishna. So in this mode of unifying loyalty, long separated lovers, long separated loved ones. Lord Caitanya, he participated in the Rath Yatra in a very ecstatic mood. And sometimes he would become so absorbed in thinking about all these very high thoughts that he would not be able to speak the words Jagannath. Instead from his mouth would come the vibration. Jagga Mamma, Jagga Mamma and other similar were sounds coming out because his voice was choked with love. Ka sometimes Lord Caitanya would dance so fast incomparable. So 500 years ago, Lord Caitanya observed this car festival in Chagannath Puri when he was here on this planet. Remembering this pastime of Krishna 5000 years ago when he was on the planet meeting with the residents of Vrindava. Sometimes there was also very esoteric understanding which was a very deep kind of melancholy, almost a tragedy that when Krishna finally met Radharani and Radharani, he said, you're the same Krishna, I'm the same Radha. But this place is not the same place. This is battlefield Kurukshetra, holy pilgrimage place. So while the Rath Yatra festival is going on, you'll find that the pandas, the various priests of Jagannath Puri, they go in three cars. Usually Bala Dev is first, then Subhadra, then Jagannath is in the rear. So they all like to go in the front. Lord Caitanya, he'd like to be there in the rear where Lord Jagannath was. He would dance especially in front of Jagannath. So different devotees are having different moods. But the Rath Yatra is beneficial for everyone. In fact, even someone who doesn't know anything about Rath Yatra, if they just happen to see the rath and stand and watch it, by just standing and watching, they're getting some benefit. They're getting so much benefit that they, according to the Puranas can be transferred to the spiritual world at the end of their life sometime in the future. If somebody pulls the wrath, that's even better. Pulling the wrath is a very intimate service for Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadran and has even more benefit. So like this, even very simple people, they can get derive unlimited benefit by this Rath Yatra festival. In Calcutta we have sometimes 1 million people or even 2 million people come for the Rath Yatra. And that time people fight to just touch the rope. They know the secret. If you touch the rope of Jagannath to pull Jagannath, you get a very special mercy, very special benediction. So we're very happy that this festival of India here at N. Panihati, Atlanta iskcon, the Rath Yatra festival has been included. So this gives more devotees the opportunity to participate in this special intimate service to Lord Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra. Since it seems everybody is the majority of people here are devotees. So they understand the basics of who Jagannath, Bhalladeva and Subhaja are. If there's any questions, of course, any of the guests can ask any of the devotees wearing tea light and they can either tell you more or they can direct you to someone who can. So Lord Caitanya, when he was performing the Rath Yatra pastime. At that time the king of Puri was known as Pratapa Rudra Maharaj. He was a great devotee of Morjaga and he was also a very great devotee of Lord Caitanya. So he eagerly wanted to meet Lord Chaitanya. But he was not able to meet Lord Chaitanya because Lord Chaitanya as a Sannyasi in the renounced order, he had taken a vow not to associate with materialistic people. So at face value, a king or a politician is a very materialistic person, says a very great spiritual leader. He refused to give an audience to Pratap Rudra Mahars. Pratap Rudda Maharsh was actually a very great devotee. He wasn't at all attached to his position, but he was doing it out of a sense of duty. So when Lord Caitanya came for the Rath Yatra festival and he witnessed that Pratap Rudra, although he was the king at the beginning of the wrath, he took a golden broom and he sprinkled rose water in the ground and he swept the road in front of Jagannath. Now in India, sweeping the road is usually reserved for kind of the employees who sweep the road, the road cleaners, the generally kind of lower end of the social order. And in a society 500 years ago which was very highly structured with the caste system and everything, sweeping the road was considered like something beneath the dignity of, you know, practically everybody. But to speak of a king. But he was sweeping the road as a demonstration of his service attitude to Lord Jagannath, of his being a servitor of the Lord. So when Lord Caitanya saw that he was touched in his heart. Lord Caitanya reciprocates with the devotion of the devotees to Ka. And immediately he wanted to give his mercy to Pratap. He was soft in it. He is not a puffed up materialist He's a humble devotee, humbling himself before Jagannath. But it was a kind of a critical situation. As far as the public knows, he's a king. They may not know that he's a different king than other kings. He's a devotee king. So Pratap Rupda Maharaj, after the inauguration, when the rath Yatra began, he was following along on the side. He was watching Lord Chaitanya dancing. He saw Lord Caitanya expand himself in seven forms. And there were seven kirtan parties on all sides of Iraq. And Lord Chaitanya was simultaneously dancing in every group. When Pratap Ruddhanoa saw that, I mean, then he really could understand the divinity of Lord Caitanya. But each group thought that only Lord Caitanya was with their group. He was simultaneously in all the groups. Suprtab Rudda was very much watching Lord Caitanya dancing and spinning and jumping in ecstasy. And just in front of him from Bengal was the great devotee Srivast Thakur. And in front of the king was the king's aide de camp. He had his bodyguards and everything. So the aide de camp wanted Sivas Thakur to move aside to let the king get a better view. So he kept poking Srivas Thakur in the side, trying to get his attention to move. Srivas. He was so absorbed in watching that he just, what is this? Who's poking me? Look at Lord Chaitanya jambing. And, oh, what's this guy? Look at Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. And this guy keeps poking him. Go Ranga. Go Ranga. And finally, you know, the guy poked him hard enough that it, like, distracted him. And he got real angry. Who is this disturbing my darshan, my view of Lord Caitanya? He just turned around, pow, slapped the guy, turned around and started looking in at Lord Caitanya. And here's a general of the emperor, the king of, you know, Orissa, you know, just got slapped. And he said, okay, you're gonna get. You know, he's ready to pull out his citation book, right? You don't have to give him a citation. Just arrest him. And he's really angry. He's gonna really take some action. But the king tells him it's all right, it's cool, right? He understood that Lord Caitanya's devotees, when they're watching Lord Caitanya, they're so absorbed. You can't hold them responsible. If somebody pokes them and they get angry. They are so absorbed in their ka consciousness. So, like this, there are many different ways that Lord Caitanya gave blessings to Maharaj Pratap. Actually this is a custom we like to have many places in fact, a mayor or a minister or some. I was thinking this morning actually too bad we didn't invite a counselor of the local municipal area at least to inaugurate the rat and sweep the road every time. They really enjoy inaugurating. In fact, in Calcutta we've had the country Consul General of France of the Soviet Union when there was one of various governments ministers. But one time, it so happened we had the Vice President of India as a special guest to inaugurate the Rath Yatra in India. And then the president of the temple announced that in furtherance of the cultural tradition that the king Pratap Rudra used to sweep the road before Jagannath would request the Vice president of India to sweep the road before Lord Jagannath. We don't know exactly why the vice president did what he did. Because he was a caste Brahmin or because of his particular views. We don't know exactly why. But he stood out. He declined. He said, I refuse to sweep the road before Juggernaut because this is a tradition of monarchy. And now we are a democratic country. And all the newspapers are writing down. I couldn't believe it. You know, vice president headings next day where vice president refused to sweep before God. That's ridiculous. So there was like everyone didn't know what to do. They couldn't go forward. You know, it was like everyone was shocked because nobody, whether they're France or Germany or whether they're from. Even in San Francisco and Vancouver, everywhere, they always sleep, Nobody questions. It's the first one I ever questioned. So then somehow or another I was praying to Jaggernaut what to do and the Jagannath gave me ideas. So I took the mic over and I said, yeah, this is true. This was a tradition performed by monarchs. And now there's democracy which is government for the people, by the people of the people. So now the people are the kings. And I request all the people to sweep the road in front of Jagannath. And as a leader of the people, I request the Vice President of India to meet up first. So while he's scratching his head, we hand on the broom and then orange. Then the ceremony went on. So like that. But just to conclude the statement, actually, what about Pratap Rudra Maharaj's deep desire to meet Lord Caitanya? Will it ever be fulfilled? After Dan the longer foreign thank you for watching our videos. Be sure to subscribe to our channel. We publish new videos every day. And don't forget to like and share our channel.