20041217 || Caitanya Caritāmṛta Ādi Līlā 1.46 || Balarāmadeśa #JayapatakaSwamiArchives

K Sam Katoma Devasude Nana Baby as myself and never disrespect him in any way. One should not envy him, thinking him an ordinary man, for he is the representative of all the demigods. I request you to switch off your mobile telephones or put in silent mode. This verse appears in Chandra Aditya 146 his living grace as it says here. This verse appears in chaitanya chenamita ali leela 1 46. Subhanahu wa has commented on this verse as follows and every paragraph has a quotation mark all the way through to the very end. This is Prabhupada's own writing. The first most important thing for everybody in spiritual life is to get connected to bona fide disciplines. Next session. The first thing is we should understand how great this divine grace AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada is. Rupha has presented this very complicated, elevated, confidential information about Guru and Guru Tattva in a very simple, clear way. That was Prabhupada's speciality. He would be able to present elevated spiritual concepts in a very easy to understand sangsang. Clear like the mineral water. That's the Prabhupada's wonderful quality. Remember in South India there was some Gana Yaga Gita, Gana Yagya going on by one Sannyasi and so many people were coming out from the lecture. So one devotee happened to be passing by, met a friend. Oh, you know, it was a friend of the temple donor, life member or something. What's happening? Oh no, I was thinking again. So how was it? What did Swamiji say? At first he said, well, how was it? Oh, it was fantastic. Swamiji, such a great speaker. It was a wonderful, wonderful Moji. What did Swamiji say? And the friend said, what did he say? I am an ordinary person. How can I understand what a great Swamiji say? I can't understand anything he said. But it really sounded wonderful. This is usually people speak in such a way that it sounds very intellectual. Nobody can figure out what they are talking about. But Srila Prabhupada, he brought the science sensible to us. We could understand even foreigners who didn't have any previous contact with Vedic culture, they could understand. Want to speak of the Indians. For them, I'm sure it's easier to understand. We're trying to encourage is that Prabhupada, you read this definitions of what an Acharya is. First of all, he was a great Crya. He lived by the Vedas. He taught The Vedas he practiced the Vedic knowledge. He could explain it easily understandable way in so many ways. Whatever the definition here of a Acharya, he was a great Acharya. So what we're trying to encourage is that everyone should first really be committed to wanting to serve Srila Prabhupada's movement in search of Srila Prabhupada. Prabhupada has many followers. Prabhupada had a vision of a worldwide movement which would be fulfilling the prediction of O Chaitanya to spread Ka consciousness in every town and village around the world. That's in Bengali. You have to translate that in English. In every town, village of the whole world, my holy name will be Sun. So Prabhupada did his best to bring Ka consciousness to every town and village. At least he brought to all the continents, most of the countries. But he left some work for all of you and all of us to bring Ka to more people. There are still a few villages left in India. I want to speak of other places. So we're trying to least note the last, every village. So by you being Krishna conscious here, later when you go home to your village, some of the villages are Bangalore, Calcutta, Mumbai, Chennai, Tiruvanan, Tempuram, Chichur, Belgar, so many other places. But some are actually villages too. Some people live in small places, homes, villages in one sense, by our innocent here. We are hopeful that this will spread to many, many places in the world. Some people migrate to Canada, to Australia, to other places from here. And when they go, they also bring this message with them from the Middle East. One couple went to Toronto. They set up six bhakti miksha groups. They're already one of the council members on the temple council. So we hope that the devotees here, we know they can get their mercy uproot. You know that by being a devotee and practicing in a country like this, where it's a bit difficult, you can get up to a thousand times more benefit. Some of the risk factors, you get extra bonus benefit. First of all, some people, look, who is my guru or what I should do. The first thing is to be committed that I will follow Shruta upon this divine grace. You see here, Prabhupada comes in a line of masters. His guru, his param guru, his guru's guru's guru. You know, until the Lord Caitanya, until Lord Vyasadeva, Madhvacharya, Nasudev Naad, Muni. So connect with the parampara. That's the first Thing in this time there are many Sampradayas, there are many groups. But it is really Prabhupada that brought us back to yoga for the comment do can and say that, okay, there Prabhupada has his different followers. Which follower inspires you? Which of his followers is giving you that determination, dedication to information which you can also clearly understand. That's each disciple's decision who they want to take. But first we decide the parampara, then we the Sampradaya, then we decide, okay, Prabhupada, his system. Any one of his disciples can potentially followers can potentially be a guru. When somebody in ISKCON is recognized as a guru, that means. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't test them and you shouldn't be sure yourself because they're just authorized that okay, you can perform this service. There's no like Ph.D. they have to go through or there's no. There's ready minor accreditation that they following. For 10 years they've been at least, maybe much more. But then they know that they know the basic philosophy up to a certain level. They preach in a way. Nobody's found anything unusual about their preaching. There's no major objection came up because we live and everyone has the right to be a guru if they have the basic qualification. After that, you have to decide which is your guru, which follower of Prabhupada do you want to serve. The idea of being a disciple is I want to serve Ka through the guru Parampra. If we don't serve Ka through the discipline of succession, we're not going to make advancement. Right? Because Prabhupada describes that this Anat and Sana. Someone who doesn't have a parent is called Anat the orphan, no protector. So not having a guru is like, I have no protection. If I go off, nobody cares. Nobody guides me. Nobody tells me I don't have anyone I can go to. So we need to take shelter of a mortified spiritual master. If you have any doubts or any questions, then we clarify from you someone who takes responsibility. So Prabhupada here he explains that just like children need a parent, devotees need the loving care of a spiritual master. Jiva Goswami said, if someone doesn't find someone, I see yourself Acharya. And if they find someone, they see like an Acharya who is very merciful, then serve Krishna through that person. But we should always be in the mood of servant of the servant of Kaja, devotee of Krishna. I serve Krishna directly. I don't mean a guru that's considered offensive. We need to always serve Ka through his devotees. Even one Caitanya. When he was asked, who are you? He said, and the servant of the servant of the servant of the servant on and on of Lord Krishna. Who's the husband of evolving. That's our principal. We're the servant of the servant of the servant. We're serving to the disciples. Succession. Sam. There was one riddler chariot. But initially he didn't have a guru. He was a son of devotee. He decided he'd go to Jagannathuri from Bengal 500 years ago to meet Lord Chaitanya. And he would take initiation and he would learn the Srimad Bhagavata temple. His name was Srinivas, Srinivas Das. Maybe somebody here has named Srinivas a very common name in Shriniv. He got to Jagannath Puri and there was a big festival going on. He said, what's happening? He said, oh, you don't know. Lord Chaitanya left the world yesterday. Today is the festival. He couldn't believe it. He's been walking for over a month. Whole life. He's waiting for the day to meet Lord Chaitanya. His father was a very ardent disciple and devotee of Lord Chaitanya. But he had somehow delays and he didn't go earlier. And now he reached there and Lord Shaitanya was gone. So he pulled his hair and he was like, man, no, no, no, no. Who's going to teach me the Bhagavatam? How will I learn the script? And he thought, maybe he should commit suicide. What's the use of living? His whole life was a waste. The Lord Chaitanya appeared to him in a vision and told him, you can't take your life because your life belongs to me. So don't think about this. You go to seek a God. Ha. PR he will guide you. He'll help you. So one of the Sancha Tatra here, the Lord Chaitanya beside Nityananda, Advaita. The other side is Gadara and Shiva. So Gadara Prabhu, he was taking Jagannath Puri there. He said, it will be incarnation of Radharati. So he went to see Garadha Prabhu and Ganadhar Bhu. Because he just watched the time he left. He was crying and he was in separation. He wasn't seeing anybody. But when he heard the name Shrinivas, he said, okay, send them in. As he had heard that Shrinivas was going to be the future Hope for the discipline, succession. He was going to be an important servant of Lord Chaitanya. So he brought Shrinivas came in at I want to learn from you the R. Bhagavatam. I want to be your disciple. He said, well, I can teach you the Srimad bhagavatam but my rmad bhagavatam is spoiled. And he showed that updates of 500 years ago. Bhagavatam is handwritten on this palm leaf. And the ink was not waterproof. Ink was not ballpoint. It was written by some pluma or some feather or something. So one day when we read the Srimad Bhagavatam we get so ecstatic and love for Krishna we cannot help but to cry and see the whole. The words are washed away by their tears. There's so much love. When they would read the Bhagavatam we read. I didn't. I know none of us were crying. The Bible of this paper also is quite waterproof. Not fully, but somewhat. But they were so much in love with Ka that by reading they couldn't help but cry. So so much of the Bhagavatam was washed out and they couldn't study it anymore. So then Srivasa go back to Bengal and get some pundits to copy a new Bhagavatam. 18,000 verses. Those days he wanted to get a book. He had to get someone to sit there and copy it from the original. Buying a book was a big deal. Not like now. On Internet you can, you know, anywhere you can get some book. So then he took the blessings of Vedanta to go. And then he went back to Bengal, got the Bhagavatam written, packed it up in his. However they packed it up and then again he walked back down to Jagannath Puri. When he got there, there was a big festival going on. He said, what's the festival? You don't know? The Dhar Pandit left last night. No, don't tell me that. No, no. Who is going to teach me this? Siva Bhagavata was ignoring. I don't know why you're laughing. He was crying. He was devastated. Didn't know what to do Again he was like he really wanted. Maybe I can't dramatize this properly. But he was really upset and really, really devastated. Then he was told to go back to Bengal. Another vision of Gaddaf has to go back there. You'll find was it Nithyanand? He can help you. So he went back to Bengal. Walking again he Got there. Then he found Mr. Nanda. Prabhu had gone, left the world. After Lord she Tavera, everyone's going back. Going back to the spiritual world. Not anybody staying by. So again he was devastated. This time someone came and said Ayurveda Srinivari. He said, Sita, I mean Takurani, she wants to see you. Takurani, the widow of Lord Chaitanya. Vishnu Priya. So he went and prayed his obeisances. And there in the house where Lord Caitanya grew up and lived. And there Vishnu Priya, she was fasting, just taking. And every time she would chant Hare Krishna. She would take one grain of rice. That many grains of rice she would eat in a day. How much? You can chant. How much? So she's very thin. And she wasn't caring for her beauty, for her personal upkeep of her hair or anything. She was very much in separation of her divine husband, Lord Chaitanya. But even then Srinivas could see that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was definitely. She was a Lakshman. She was out of this world. She was playing this pastime. She paid his obeisances prostrate. She said, I'm not seeing anybody. No. But last night in my dream. What? Chaitanya came and told me you were coming. That I should. You're going to do some important service for him. That I should tell you to go to Vrindavan. And there Rupin Sanatan Goswami can help you. And she explained how Lord Chaitanya sat next to me with his arm around me. Told me, a Shrinivas is coming. Give him the mercy. So like the Srinivasa is getting a lot of encouragement. But he was the giving a guru. This time in Brahmapadin he met many devotees. Then he went off to Vrindavan. Vrindavan is a long way. In those days you had to walk alongside the Ganges by train. It's 1400 kilometers from Haura station to Delhi. Vrindavan's 100 before that. So. But walking, you know, on the side of the Ganges, maybe 2000. I don't know how. It's long waiting. The Ganges doesn't go like this. This is moving. Anyway, 1500 plus, something like that. How many of you have walked 1500 kilometers? We fly it. We all got here by flying. It's like walking from Mumbai to Dubai, right? So excuse me. Anyway, he went off again after getting many blessings from Vaishnava, went to Vrindavan. There in Vrindavan he was taking a bath and Akura is Kunda. And he overheard some Ramanas walking by. No, Brindavan isn't the same anymore. Yes, since Rupin Sanad left, it just isn't the same. He ran out. You know, this was his gamsha. What did he say? Rupin Sanatan left. Don't tell me. Yes, having the festival now in Ravana Govinda Ji temple. They're gone. They both left and burned. No, no, no, no, no. We were running. And when he got to the temple, they told him he's not gone. He just collapsed in the back. It was like too much. Where to go from here. Everywhere he was going, everyone leaping back to the spiritual world. No one staying to teach him. Then somebody woke him up, say you Srinivas. And he said, yes, Sri Lanka. Jiva Goswami Bhubhen Sandhyatan told me that you will be coming, that you should take initiation from Gopal Bhatta Goswami. Gopal Bhatta Goswami is the son of Venkat Bhatta, the head priest of the Ranganath temple in Tamil Nadu. Conversely, was initiated by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and he went to Vrindavan as one of the six Goswamis and Jeeva Goswami said, I am supposed to become your Siksha guru. He'll give you initiation and I'll give you instruction. There's two kinds of spiritual master. There's the one who gives initiation. There's one of those. He is also a Siksha guru. For his disciple, he also gives instruction. He is normally considered the primary guru, but some cases are the exceptions. Then there are Siksha gurus who are instructing spiritual masters who guide and help the Diksha guru to get her disciples back to Krishna. There may be many of the Sikhsha guru. So now finally Shrinivas Acharya, later he became given the title Crya. Shrinivas achieved his spiritual shelter. The way he was so eager and so determined to forget a spiritual master to get the guidance that he needed to get back to Ka. It's a good example for all of us. Sometimes we don't realize how. I know. I met some devotees who said that they were with Prabhupada. They saw him, they were getting his association, but they were delaying. You know, they weren't chanting 16 rounds, but they were chanting. But they were thinking, I'll take later initiation. Then all of a sudden, 1977, November 14, 7 o' clock at night, Prabhupada went back To Godhead. And they were shocked. He's not with us anymore. Now who's going to be my teacher? Who's going to initiate me? To get back to Ka, we need to have initiations. Normally of course, some rare cases you can get back, but normally be sure about it. It should be sanded. It's not just enough to be initiated. We should actually want to learn the science. Just somebody's initiated, they don't learn from their spiritual master and his representatives, Krishna consciousness. And that won't be very perfect. Called initiation of spiritual birth. So from birth we have to learn so much. It's important that we take as our priority. How are we going to get proper shelter, proper understanding, proper development. Because people that take initiation are not little babies. Maybe spiritually are, but materially there are adults, they're at least 12 plus. Most people are middle aged already. It's up to them also to ask questions of the spiritual masters to get the proper understanding about Ka consciousness. Once we are under the shelter of a bona fide spiritual master, we offer our service to Ka through the guru, to rla Prabhupada, to the simple succession of Ka. That's the system. If I offer a service to Krishna, how do I know if he's accepting or not accepting? Maybe my service is not good enough. Maybe he won't be accepting it. Maybe I'm offering it in the wrong way. But we know that whatever Lord Brahma offers to Ka, he's accepting. So through the para pra, each guru accepts from his disciple. You know that we offer the Srila Prabhupada that his disciples offer that he accepts. Then he offers to his guru after his guru. This way it goes up. So we need to get a link for the disciples accession to be sure that our service is accepted and gets there. Sometimes someone may offer service and the guru is there to guide. He has to fight the faults. You shouldn't do like this. Why? Your fingernails are dirty. They're not fighting you at all. Whatever. He has to find out some faults. The tyranny irony is a stunning. That's an unfortunate job that he has to be guiding and encouraging. When something's right. Your c stand up. Those little words of encouragement we got from Srila Prabhupada, they were so important. When he was saying that something was good, you know, it was like a real confirmation, okay, I did something right. And then he said that something wasn't correct. It was also very serious magic. The disciples are very much focused on trying to please the spiritual master. Some unscrupulous amount of non bona fide spiritual master like we find in Bengal. One of my, one of our members of the Nawhaja told us that before they had a mukul guru and the guru would visit the house and they gave him nice Krishna Prasad said what is it? Why are you not giving me fish? So no, we are going to the Hare Krishna Navaja and he told us that guru it is vegetarian, this is cheap food, fish is expensive. You must give the best to the guru. Good fish, they're demanding like this. He said I'm not going to come here anymore if you go to this Hare Krishna. He went off. So they joined and said, you know, you can see that he's not even vegetarian, he's not following. So some gurus are like that, they don't follow, they're demanding. You have to serve. True guru should be practicing what he preaches. He said devotees they Sri Ramakrishna for silence should follow what we call Sattvik Ahar and Sattvik Achar behavior in the mode of goodness. Everything should be offered to Krishna. Like Rahmat said, the life of a spiritual master is a transparent thing. Everything is dedicated in KA's devotional service. Krishna doesn't leave this so the guru doesn't eat. A Krishna would have eaten fish, we would eat. He doesn't eat so we don't eat someone else. Maybe they're not able to be vegetarian. Maybe they ate fish for their chance. It's alright, they're not claiming to be a guru but if somebody was a guru or claiming to be a guru then they have to practice Acharya means they have to be a good example that followed by Naruto. You know that some people, it may take them time to be fully a vegetarian reject their service when you try to engage them. But to be a guru and take the responsibility for people's spiritual life then you have to practice very carefully the principles of devotional service. So Prabhupada was such a person. We're trying to follow his footsteps. Very difficult because his footsteps are so gigantic. But in a spiritual sense we're trying to follow, we're not imitating, we're trying to follow in his footsteps, follow his instructors. And in ISKCON we're all dedicated like that to following from all prayers. You have to see who you are inspired by. You not already initiated, get some shelter, get some encouragement for your spiritual life. As I say you may have one diksha guru. You may have many Sikhsha gurus who are Also guiding you. We need everybody's help. The older devotees, the older disciples help the younger devotees, the younger godbrothers, God sisters, everyone helps the guru that he may be done. Today we had initiation. Some people took initiation and took that responsibility to serve the spiritual master. And the spiritual master took the responsibility to guide and protect the disciples. So we need help especially now because there are so many disciples around the world that we take care of in the future. We need that you all become qualified and many of you also become spiritual masters in this kind. We envision that there will be thousands and tens of thousands of spiritual masters in the future. Different parts of the world, different languages. It's a little bit of a mix here we have some disciples of other spiritual masters. So we're a spiritual family. Usually one takes from whoever they get more training and instruction from. If you have any questions on the topic tonight, please tell me rest us topic today from today's verse. If you want to ask me another question from Mahabharata or something, Bring me the Mahabharata. Show me the bird. Sometimes, maybe a six year, maybe one gets initiation like in the olden days. Now there is email, there is telephone. There's many methods as jet flight. Someone gets to see the guru. But in other old times, sometimes they were initiated, then they were under the care of a Siksha guru. Sometimes they never saw their diksha guru again. So just in practical terms that Sikhsha guru was more prominent in their life. Like someone if they don't see their father and they're under the uncle, maybe still the father's father, but uncle is more. He's like a father for them. Something like that, that kind of. But what is a guru may authorize someone that you can be under the care of the Sikhsha guru whenever he says take advantage. There are different kinds of levels of Sikhsha gurus. There are some who give us practical guidance on a day to day basis. But they're not like we don't take them on the same level as the guru, but they're also a kind of Shishar guru. And there's someone who's actually considered like on same level as a diksha guru. This is two kinds of addiction Guru. So sometimes the guru by means temporarily says that okay, I'm not able to. You're some will say maybe in Africa and Prabhupada is not going there. He would write them a letter to be under such and such guidance of such and such devotee. Take him as you Sikh guru. Few cases later on Sikhsha Guru may withdraw that. Okay, now he's not your Sikhsa Guru anymore. He doesn't give blood seizure. There's a few cases like that. Is it clear? Any other questions? Maharaj, if a person wants to take a shelter before that he thinks that he is not so committed or not so serious. So let me become more committed then let me take shelter. At the same time there is another thought. Okay, let me take shelter. Then automatically the commitment will come. So which we should follow? What is the clear we need leaders like Vishala Prabhupada. He was under shelter of his spiritual master Bhakti Omnishtrupad, Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Tagore for like 11 years. But he was never taking initiation because he was always thinking that I should become. I want to, but I take initiation. I don't want to be like a burden for my spiritual master. I want to be pure. I want to be. So he kept trying to get purer and purer and some older godbrother talked to him and said look, you're never going to be 100% pure. If you're 100% pure, you won't need a guru. Then we take a guru because we want to get purified. We want to get his guidance, his protection. So you just have to be up to a certain level that you're fairly sure that you are able to follow his instructions before taking initiation. And if you wait until you get 100% pure, you defeated it. Why didn't you take initiation to become pure? That's the whole point. Maybe you can get some for your answer to your question is probably somewhere in this the problem really understood it took initiation in Allahabad and was it 1933? 32. Last year was, must have been 33 because last year was the centennial of Prabhupada's initiation. No. 70th anniversary. 70th anniversary I went to Allahabad and there the governor was there at that time was when we are this gum, we made it like steps. If somebody has been around in the movement for around a year so they're fairly mature even if they have already idea that I want this person to be my future guru then they can take the blessing of being aspirant. Take the guru as your Siksha guru who they're aspiring for having as their future DK guru, it's like a pre shelter so they can start to develop more of a personal relationship with the spiritual master, start a correspondence, start to develop a type of guru disciple relationship. Then if somebody chanting 16 rounds for six months. And they pass a basic exam, about 13 questions of the philosophy. Then it's considered they want to take shelter of a guru, and they can take shelter. This is before initiation, but this is considered like a trial for initiation. Now they act with the guru, just like a disciple. They're a disciple, but they're not initiated disciple. Both levels are, but the aspiring is even more neophyte and this shelter considered more mature. So that's the time when they get to work out these kind of doubts and these kind of hesitations. We want to put it like this. We don't know how long we're going to live. Also, we don't know how long the whole situation is going to be the way it is now. Suddenly, you know, local. Maybe there's no such support. So it's better to, you know, get all the spiritual support you can while you have the opportunity. You never know what the future holds. As we saw with Chernima's chariot, every step was a surprise. Being surprised was becoming the norm for him. So if somebody. What was that? There's something in between. You know, you don't want to be. It's not that you're going to be 100% pure. It's not that you should be like completely fallen. Obviously you had to get a machine or to get even shelter. You have to be following basic four principles. Sometimes there's devotees who. They're like vegetarian, but maybe they have to eat in a mess or something. In the mess, they slip in some onions in the food. So, like out of their own free will, they had the in onions. They don't really want to, but they don't have any other alternative. So sats people when it's like in a situation, they're not really qualified for being initiated, but they're trying to do everything for initiation for six months. So we got them get shelter if they want. But before they can actually take the initiation, then they should solve that problem like the shelter. We hope they get more support and more strength. Definitely some strength that comes by taking spiritual commitments. I don't know. Did that answer your question? 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.