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Bhakta Programme at Bhaktivedanta Manor
Dear Devotees, I am writing to you on behalf of the Manor Training and Education Department [MTE] to join us for our next Bhakta Programme - introductory education in Krishna Consciousness philosophy and practice.
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Krishna Kathamrita Bindu #173 - Online Version
This issue focuses on the appearance and pastimes of the wonderfully munificent, wonderfully merciful, wonderfully magnanimous Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, in honor of his upcoming appearance day.
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Our humble obeisances!
Jaya Sri Sri Guru Gauranga!
You will find embeded below issue #173 of Sri Krishna Kathamrita Bindu.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~ IN THIS ISSUE ~*~*~*~*~*~*~
This issue focuses on the appearance and pastimes of the wonderfully munificent, wonderfully merciful, wonderfully magnanimous Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, in honor of his upcoming appearance day.
* “Always Give up Bad Association” — A first time translation done especially for this issue of Bind of a letter from Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupada. Our thanks to Sri Madhavendu Prabhu for his kind help with translating.
* “Kirtana Should Not Be Stopped” — His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada instructs one disciple as to what is his first and foremost business.
* “Appearance of the Son of Mother Sachi” — Srila Lochan Das Thakur tells the story of the appearance of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
* “Nabadwip Pastimes” — Some little known stories about Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu from Srila Narahari Chakravarti’s, “Bhakti-ratnakara”.
* “O Mind, Chant the Names of Gaura And Govinda!” — A song from the Gaudiya Poet Premananda Das
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COMING IN OUR NEXT ISSUE:
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Issue 174 of Sri Krishna Kathamrita Bindu will include an instructive story told by Sri Srimad Gour Govinda Swami Maharaja titled, “The Grain as Big as a Hen’s Egg”.Vaishnava pada dhuli o kripa prarthi, Madhavananda Das, editor
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Live from Sri Mayapur Candrodaya Mandir! Mar 6th
By Ananda Tirtha das
March 8, 2008 (Disappearance day of Tamal Krishna Goswami) Verse: Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.13.17 Speaker: HH Sivarama Swami ( transcript and audio )
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Date: March 8, 2008 (Disappearance day of Tamal Krishna Goswami)
Verse: Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.13.17Speaker: HH Sivarama Swami
By Ananda Tirtha (das) PVS (Mayapur - IN)
You can download the audio file from here or start the player below to listen
_______________________Sivarama Swami: As today we are observing the disappearance day of His Divine Grace Tamal Krishna Goswami Maharaja which took place in 2002, that makes it six years which is a long time, in addition to speaking about this verse, I was requested to speak something about Tamal Krishna Maharaja as, for instance, Radhanath Maharaja did on Bhakti-tirtha Maharaja’s Vyasa-puja.
I guess I have to preface by saying I didn’t so much like to do that for the reason that I find these types of occasions, Srila Prabhupada’s appearance, Srila Prabhupada’s disappearance, or appearance and disappearance ceremonies of friends, acquaintances, loved ones, because the fact that it is public is sort of contrary to the very nature of a personal observance. Either sad or happy occasions when they are deeply personal then it becomes difficult to express in an official circle, a circle of greater Vaisnavas where generally we do things in an official way, we do things in a sober way. I’m just mentioning that because the only way I know how to balance that is to make things that are very personal or that have personal impact, ordinary, so it is easily voiceable. I don’t know if other Vaisnavas have the same difficulty or find themselves in a similar situation.
In one sense this day was the most dramatic day of my Krsna conscious career, which means my life. Krsna consciousness is extremely exciting which you may have experienced in different ways. Sometimes the excitement was not the type of excitement that you want, but it is a very exciting movement. Rarely are people bored in Krsna consciousness. If you are, then you can just volunteer you to sit on the GBC. [laughter] I can guarantee you’ll never be bored. There’s always lots of exciting things going on.
Of course the most traumatic experience without comparison was Srila Prabhupada’s disappearance. But it was different from this as I was far away in Chicago. After hearing the news I sat in a room and looked at the wall for three days. There wasn’t really much else going on except for that feeling of separation. As usual Tamal Krsna Maharaja made things very exciting on this day. It was a very exciting event. It started just as we were sitting down after Tulasi-puja to chant Gayatri. There was an accident; I’m not going to get into the story, you all know what happened.
It was a long day, an extremely exciting day, it started with convincing Jayapataka Maharaja that he shouldn’t chant Gayatri when I was trying to talk to him. Then getting a car, all of us packing into a car and going out not exactly knowing where, just somewhere beyond Shantipur on the road. Finding the car and then figuring out where he actually was and then discovering that he had already departed from this world. Parallel with that there was also Kalasamvara Prabhu’s wife. Myself and him were chanting to her as she was leaving her body. Then trying to convince them to let the body go, not to do an autopsy. Then once everything was finished, then trying to negotiate with a sea of Bengalis who had heard that the saint had just left his body and they weren’t about to let us take him out of the hospital mortuary unless they got darshan of him. They weren’t about to let us go.
And then of course coming back here, the whole ceremony in the temple room; it was a long day. Who was here at that time, which devotees were here? [show of hands] A lot of devotees. It was a real extraordinary occasion. As I mentioned, perhaps one of the most memorable in a sad way. I’ll try and intersperse a few things about Maharaja. Anyway let’s read the verse and see what Srila Sukadeva Goswami also has to say today.
srjato me ksitir varbhih plavyamana rasam gata
athatra kim anustheyam asmabhih sarga-yojitaih
yasyaham hrdayad asam sa iso vidadhatu meTRANSLATION: Brahma thought: While I have been engaged in the process of creation, the earth has been inundated by a deluge and has gone down into the depths of the ocean. What can we do who are engaged in this matter of creation? It is best to let the Almighty Lord direct us.
PURPORT: The devotees of the Lord, who are all confidential servitors, are sometimes perplexed in the discharge of their respective duties, but they are never discouraged. They have full faith in the Lord, and He paves the way for the smooth progress of the devotee’s duty.
Sivarama Swami: This is a famous verse, famous in the sense that, I don’t know how current it is, but even before I was a devotee, this Lord Varaha’s fighting with Hiranyaksa used to be on one of the Radio Krishna tapes. And I remember this word for word: “What can we do, who are engaged in the matter of creation?” There was Venu-gita and Sudama Brahmana. For some time, I think it was Mukunda Maharaja who had arranged on some radio station there was the airing of Krsna Book. That was also recorded and we used to listen to these and this was one. That’s why this verse is very familiar.
Here Lord Brahma is thinking, and interestingly enough although Srila Prabhupada doesn’t include it in his translation, it is in the purport, yasyaham hrdayad asam, it says born from the heart, aham. I take this refers to Brahma being born from the heart of the Lord, which indicates Lord Brahma’s extraordinary or unique position. He is the first created being, the first living entity. Although he is appearing on a lotus, his actual origin here is being described to be directly manifesting from the heart of the Lord.
Of course in a realistic way, all living entities are born from the heart of another. Srila Prabhupada, in describing the principle of garbhadhana-samskara, points out it is not simply the intercourse between man and wife which is the cause of birth, but rather the consciousness of the two, which means the condition of the heart, whereby a living entity is attracted to take birth by that type of union within the womb of a lady. And then from there he appears in a particular family.
Lord Brahma is born, but he has no mother, he is born directly from the Supreme Lord. So sometimes he is called aja, he’s not born like we know living entities to be born. Srila Prabhupada made this comment that, “Yes, our Tamal, he is also a little like Lord Brahma.” Prabhupada was using the example, he said, “Just like Lord Brahma likes to control, similarly Tamal likes to control his environment.” That was just a parallel between today’s verse and the personality we are speaking about, Lord Brahma.
That is not the only parallel. Lord Brahma is known for his great intelligence. Devotees in the Krsna consciousness movement whatever interaction or relationship they had with His Holiness Tamal Krishna Maharaja, they all appreciated his very extraordinary intelligence, very unique intelligence, very analytical, very pointed. Srila Prabhupada very much appreciated that intelligence and when he saw that intelligence applied to understanding Krsna consciousness, here in Mayapur, in the other temple room, when Srila Prabhupada had one of his Godbrothers come and visit, he asked Tamal Krishna Maharaja to give class. He said that, “He has grasped our philosophy, our siddhanta.”
Like that, there are things in common between Tamal Krishna Maharaja and Lord Brahma. I can’t even remember the dates anymore, unfortunately my memory for history is not very good, but some time back in the late, when did the incident happen with Jayapataka Maharaja? Cudamani? What year was that? 1988. We were traveling around through England, and he had come to England at that time to visit and he found out that I was writing a book on creation. Coincidentally he was writing a book on creation, which meant that we had to write a book on creation. There couldn’t be two. It never actually got published. I never finished it, but it would have been curious to find out who “we” meant if it actually ever did get published. He did actually finish it, I just sort of left it; I thought “Anyway, it’s already going on.”
Anyway we travelled around England. I was doing my GBC duties and he felt we should travel together and look over our manuscripts and work together and see how things were working out. I remember one day him going into this isvara-bhava, in a theistic sense, not in the way Krsna mentions it in Bhagavad-gita, the controlling propensity Tamal Krishna Maharaja had, and how with his intelligence he had the ability to actually control himself. That was very important [chuckles] because no one else generally could control him, aside from Srila Prabhupada.
So we were in Liverpool and there was some disagreement. We were staying in my little motor home and I had a rule that you couldn’t use the toilet because my Deities were there. That was very uncomfortable for him. We had an argument about this, that this was ridiculous not using the toilet in the motor home. What that meant was in the evenings we were parked in some park in the middle of Liverpool and he would have to go outside in the park to pass. So we had some disagreement about that. And at one point he really started chastising me. At that time our relationship had developed to the stage that if things got a little out of hand I would just start smiling and laughing. Then he controlled himself and said, “I’m sorry, I apologise. I got used to being an acarya for such a long time it’s hard to give up the habit.” [laughter]
He was very honest, we had a very honest relationship. Anyway, but we didn’t use the toilet. [laughter] He had to either choose the park or wait till we drove back to the temple. I didn’t inspect to find out which it was.
Tamal Krishna Maharaja was like that, and here we see Lord Brahma is making this particular statement that although he was engaged in the service of the Lord, in the process of creation, he’s doing his service, Srila Prabhupada points out that even while engaged in service, devotees become perplexed, “What is my duty, what is it that I’m actually meant to do?”
The source of perplexity is many branched and has many causes. One is we are in the material world. Not only are we in the material world, we are in Kali-yuga. If anything can be difficult at any time it is in the material world during this particular age. It is extremely difficult to understand what to do, pravrttis ca nivrttis ca. Although Krsna says not knowing what’s right and what’s wrong is the characteristic of a demon, but actually to be very clear on what the right course of actions is. . . . Well, there’s this little book, Krsna-bhajanamrta, not Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakur’s maha-kayva, but a very small book which talks about guru-tattva. And Narahari Sarkar begins by introducing it saying that in this Kali-yuga, pure devotees, even great devotees, become sometimes bewildered as to what actually the principles of dharma are.
It’s not an usual thing not to be particularly clear about what to do. And here Lord Brahma is admitting, he’s not clear what is it that I should do? I was doing one thing, and meanwhile a calamity occurred. We know what that calamity was, it was due to Hiranyaksa exploiting the earth and therefore causing the earth to fall into the Garbhodaka Ocean. What to do, he didn’t know what to do, he didn’t have a solution for that. Not only is it because we are in the material world, but perhaps sometimes such mistakes come as a result of defective service. In any case, Srila Prabhupada says sometimes a devotee is “perplexed in the discharge of their respective duties but they are never discouraged.”
It’s very difficult when you are manda, sumanda, manda-bhagya. Srimad-Bhagavatam begins like this by defining the disqualifications or effects of this age, repeating something, especially repeating it with different qualifiers means that it’s very important. Suta Goswami therefore says that in this age people are very disturbed, they are always unlucky. But they are always using this word, “manda”. So we are already at a disadvantage, therefore not knowing what to do is not surprising. And it’s not surprising even for great souls. Later on in the First Canto when Bhismadeva is lying on his bed of arrows, in his abridged, because Srimad Bhagavatam gives an abridged version of the very long siska that Bhismadeva gives Maharaja Yudhisthira, he says:
na hy asya karhicid rajan puman veda vidhitsitam
He says, “One thing, Rajan, you should come face to face with is that in the matter of knowing just exactly what is the Lord’s plan even the very learned personalities, they become bewildered.
Neither is it black and white, how to conduct oneself here in this world, it’s not an easy thing, neither is Krsna’s plan readily visible, as for instance we see in the nature of this particular lila, but in every circumstance what should happen? Here he says “sa iso vidadhatu me,” I should be directed by the Supreme Lord. That’s the nature, Srila Prabhupada here says, of faith. A faithful bhakta, or a devotee of pure faith, as was described earlier, in the class by Romapada Maharaja, a devotee of pure faith means he has only Krsna to turn to. He depends solely and wholly on Krsna. He has no any other shelter. He’s not taking shelter of his material abilities, he’s not taking shelter of the demigods, he’s not taking shelter of even other personalities. Exclusive dependence on Krsna, krsna eka-saranam.
This is the prime focal quality of a Vaisnava. And Krsna then directs a devotee, and he directs a devotee in many ways. In this case, personally Lord Varaha will appear to do the needful. In Bhagavad-gita, Krsna gives a more general way in which he gives us direction:
dadami buddhi-yogam tam yena mam upayanti te
He gives us a particular type of intelligence, Srila Prabhupada says spiritual intelligence by which we can come to him or by which we can actually take his direction.
I refer to Tamal Krishna Maharaja as someone very intelligent. My experience with him is that he was intelligent by birth, but his intelligence was very much trained by Srila Prabhupada. His sense of association with Srila Prabhupada allowed him to have this type of dadami-buddhi, which is the type of buddhi that was given by Krsna through Srila Prabhupada. It was that particular training that I was always inclined to, that I wanted to actually learn from him. That is the main reason I was attracted to him and particularly asked him to explain or describe how it was that Srila Prabhupada was, how Srila Prabhupada had personally trained him. This was one of Srila Prabhupada’s methods of guiding his disciples, he wanted to train his leaders. At that time Srila Prabhupada would have his GBC men, the idea was everybody came one month a year to be trained by Srila Prabhupada.
Tamal Krishna Maharaja had a lot of association with Srila Prabhupada in Los Angeles when Srila Prabhupada was there in 69-70 when Prabhupada sat in LA, and that was sort of his training headquarters. He had a lot of association with Srila Prabhupada at other times and we know that that last year when he left New York, left Radha Damodar party, and he came to be with Srila Prabhupada and really put that extraordinary intelligence to Srila Prabhupada’s service, to take care of Srila Prabhupada.
From the feedback that I have had from other devotees who were with Srila Prabhupada at that time, Bhakti Charu Maharaja and Abhirama Prabhu, Srila Prabhupada so much trusted Tamal Krishna Maharaja that he literally speaking put himself in Tamal Krishna Maharaja’s hands. He knew that not only is this person sincere and faithful, but he’ll do the best thing. He’ll do the thing as Srila Prabhupada would want to it because he was trained that way.
That is unfortunately a real lack today that we don’t have the opportunity to be directly trained by Srila Prabhupada as some devotees were. And even Srila Prabhupada’s disciples are more trained than others because we were trained, if not by direct association, but at least through others or by a culture or a tradition that represented Srila Prabhupada’s very forceful presence, physical presence, vani presence, that was there in those years between 1965 and 1977 when Srila Prabhupada was with us.
This type of spiritual intelligence is not an ordinary thing, hearing Krsna. “How do you know,” devotees ask, “What Krsna wants from you?” It requires purity of heart. Just recently I was speaking with one devotee, we were debating an issue whether a devotee who loses his diksa-guru does he actually need another spiritual master, either diksa or siksa, or can Srila Prabhupada or someone else fulfill that role? The argument was even made that “Well, why can’t Supersoul act as the guru?”
I replied that “Is the person pure enough to hear the Supersoul? I can hear a Vaisnava speaking to me, and even then we have a difficulty in directly understanding or sometimes we have to interpret what people mean. But is someone that pure in heart that they can actually hear the Supersoul? And although he is the antaryami, although he is the guru within the heart, is someone that pure in heart that that they can directly hear him all the time without interpretation?”
What to speak of Supersoul, even Srila Prabhupada, he is certainly living forever in transcendental sound, but unless a devotee is also situated on the spiritual speaking, does he directly hear what Srila Prabhupada is speaking in the same way as the Supersoul is speaking? Anyway, I don’t want to get into the argument, but to have that type of buddhi, that type of directed intelligence, one requires a great degree of purity of heart, indeed a pure heart. Circumstances are something that ultimately establishes Krsna’s will or tells us what is Krsna’s direction, what is it that Krsna wants. And of course direct appearance. Here what we’ll see is Lord Brahma is contemplating, and while he contemplates, as a consequence of his faith, Lord Varaha appears within his nose.
It’s pretty extraordinary, you don’t usually expect God to come out of your nose. Not only is he not coming out in a four-armed form or a regular Syamasundara form, he’s coming out as a boar. It’s extraordinary, it’s something really very unusual. As Vaisnavas, as devotees, we have sufficient tradition to warn us that Krsna also doesn’t necessarily act in very traditional ways, in very predictable ways, he’ll act in extraordinary ways, in ways that are inconceivable. His ways are inconceivable and also his purpose is inconceivable. What’s the connection between a boar coming out of Lord Brahma’s nose and the earth falling into the Garbhodaka Ocean? Time will tell, but it requires that time to tell before Lord Brahma and the demigods put two and two together and they understand that the Lord has appeared with this mission of rescuing the earth.
This concept of inconceivability or the Lord’s extraordinary behaviour stretches the imagination to the extent that modern Indologists, scientists, people who study Indian culture, or even those closely connected with our Vaisnava tradition tend to label all of these things as mythology. Everybody knows that boars don’t come out of human noses, and that boars don’t then all of a sudden expand to universal proportions to then fight with demons. It’s a nice story, it has allegorical value, but it can’t be real.
Why it can’t be real is just because people don’t have experiences. Very often we see the so-called proponents of science who say that it is not scientific don’t particularly give very scientific reasons why it can’t be so. Ultimately the onus is on them. We are establishing something on the basis of a parampara tradition in which literally you can say Brahma saw Lord Varaha. He was the witness, and as an honest person he communicated that knowledge through a line of unbroken disciplic succession, witnesses, who are to telling us to this present day telling us this boar was seen. This is good evidence. This is the kind of evidence they accept in court. If you have an eyewitness or at least a reliable chain of eyewitnesses, you’ve got a strong case. And if someone says I don’t believe in it, that’s all right, but then you give the evidence why you don’t believe in it.
Just recently in my writings I was using reference material and wading through this one particular book, wading through because it’s so unpleasant to go through scientist’s readings, and this person was an Asian Studies professor and he wrote this very, very long thesis on the holy places of Vrindavan. I was using that research. Anyway, one particular point he was dealing with was one stone in Mathura which is called mutra-sthana. Mutra means urine.
The history of this stone is that when Vasudeva was carrying Krsna from the jail to Gokula, then Krsna was a baby so Krsna just started passing water on him. Of course parents are overjoyed when these things happen. Caitanya Mahaprabhu says the mother considers the stool of her child like sandalwood paste. So Vasudeva was very happy, but he put Krsna down on a stone. Then Krsna continued to pass urine.
There Caitanya Mahaprabhu visited this place and both Murari Gupta and Locan Das Thakur who are contemporaries of Caitanya Mahaprabhu and wrote about Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s parikrama, they describe how Caitanya Mahaprabhu saw this stone where Krsna passed urine and the stone has this yellow trace on it as a result of Krsna’s urine. Unfortunately that stone’s gone, it’s not there any more, someone stole it or something happened to it. Of course the scientist says this is just mythology. And then he just goes on to speak about other things without explaining why it happens to be mythology, why Krsna’s urine cannot stain stone. He doesn’t disprove it, he just says “of course, everyone knows. . . .” because his urine doesn’t stain stone, or other ordinary persons’ doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean Krsna’s doesn’t. And we also have evidence.
So these things are inconceivable. Another category, again the stone thing, which scientists really discount as being hearsay, fabrications, imaginations, and devotees see when they go to Vrindavan is Krsna’s footprints in stone at different places, carana-pahari. Krsna played his flute and the stone melted. This doesn’t make sense in the modern sense. Stone melts at a very high temperature. If you’re standing on stone at such a high temperature, you are melting also. They don’t have this type of experience where stone will melt. Of course for Krsna, high temperature, low temperature, it doesn’t matter. But even then there is also the cow’s hoof prints. Cows may not be so immune to heat. But the cows hoof prints are also present, Srimad-Bhagavatam describes, the gopis describe that when Krsna plays his flute then moving things, the Yamuna, animals, they become inert and inert things like the trees, stones and mountains, they begin to melt. It doesn’t make sense, it’s mythology, it’s a story to them. For us, it’s dharma. Sastra says it, there are also eyewitnesses who saw it.
One such eyewitness account of such an event is in Jagannath Puri temple. For those devotees who go into Jagannath Puri temple, by the foot of the Garuda Stambha, there is Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s footprint. You’ve seen it? There is a personality who we don’t necessarily quote or an authority in our line, but still he is a commonly well known Orissan Vaisnava and was a contemporary of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. He writes in one of his books that Caitanya Mahaprabhu was there and he saw Lord Jagannath, he was in ecstasy and he says “I saw the stone melt.” The stone melted right in his very presence. How much more scientific can it get? You’ve got an eyewitness who sees that stone melt. And just because scientists can’t do it now, doesn’t mean that they can’t do it in the future because they are doing so many things now that no scientist could imagine a hundred years ago, even twenty years ago. Computers, telephones, all of these things, who could imagine this?
I was speaking about inconceivable things. This was inconceivable, Lord Varaha coming out of the nose of Lord Brahma. But we have faith, acintyah khalu ye bhava, we have to have faith in the inconceivable potency of the Lord, otherwise, we actually don’t have pure faith in Krsna. And not only do we have faith in Krsna’s inconceivable potency, but we have faith in the inconceivable potency of Krsna’s pure representatives. Things that sometimes don’t make sense.
Like one example, in either Seventh or Tenth Canto of Bhagavatam, Srila Prabhupada is talking about book distribution. He makes this very strong statement. He says that our Krsna consciousness movement is being maintained by the distribution of books. He says fifty percent of those funds are meant for printing books. As long as the members of the society maintain that principle, they will never be in financial want. But if they give less than fifty percent, there will always be shortage, there will always be want and there will be financial difficulty.
That doesn’t immediately make sense. For instance, economics may determine, “All right, today our sankirtan devotees brought in one hundred dollars, and fifty of that goes to BBT. But actually our expenditure is seventy. So if we give thirty to BBT and keep seventy then our finances will be solved.”
But Srila Prabhupada says no. That may be an immediate problem, but seeing from a long term perspective whereby Krsna, Srimati Radharani, is actually sending funds for this Krsna consciousness movement. “You just stick to this principle and have faith in it.” Don’t worry about modern economy. Don’t worry about what makes sense to our little minds. Distribute books, fifty percent of book distribution should go to BBT and you make do with the other fifty percent.
Of course the other fifty percent, equally controversial, or maybe it’s even more, is grhasthas’ fifty percent, about fifty percent of your income is going. “It is not practical. You can’t make a living.” That is the small scale argument that sometimes Temple Presidents or GBCs also say, “It’s not practical.”
But a boar coming out of your nose isn’t practical either. But it happens. Similarly, when we have faith in the inconceivable potency of the Lord, and that he makes the impossible possible, and what’s impractical becomes practical, and what’s inconceivable becomes conceivable, then we see that yes, anything can happen. Krsna’s will shall manifest if, as Srila Prabhupada here states, we are never discouraged. We may become perplexed, but don’t become discouraged and have full faith in Krsna and Krsna’s will.
How long does this class go until? Nine o’clock, oh? Which nine o’clock? [laughs] I don’t usually go over. This is the note: “Please announce that today is the disappearance of Srila Jagannath dasa Babaji and disappearance day of Srila Rasikananda Prabhu.”
OK, let me just close. I was going to give another inconceivable example. This is also a controversial one. Read on Folio, Srila Prabhupada tells farm managers, keep cows. Have as many cows as possible. This is real economic perplexing problem, maintaining cows because cows give milk. And we are supposed to be maintaining our temples, our Deities and naturally the milk is meant to go to our city projects. But milk doesn’t cost what you pay for it, milk costs at least three times what you pay for it, because milk is all subsidized as most produce in modern society is subsidized.
The type of economy that Srila Prabhupada is talking about, the type of economy by which Nanda Maharaja had 900,000 cows, it is very difficult to maintain that in isolation of the rest of the whole society that you are living in. It has to happen because Srila Prabhupada said keep as many cows as possible, but without the spiritual intelligence to manifest Srila Prabhupada’s instruction, we have also had many disasters of not being able to properly care for our mothers and therefore sometimes the answer is it’s not practical. It is practical, it’s just a question of how it’s practical. We can’t say anything Srila Prabhupada said is not practical. The problem is we are not practical enough to realize it and make such things happen.
Circumstances determine what Krsna’s will is. Tamal Krishna Maharaja was a person who was always very much concerned about controlling, not just the people in his immediate vicinity, but circumstances as well. I remember a day or two before he left here, I never got to see him. We were having kirtan in the other room and he got up at a certain point and went to pack and got ready. He left really early in the morning, 3:30.
The day before. . . Tamal Krsna Maharaja was always very concerned about getting feedback, particularly from his Godbrothers, much more than many devotees, or the average devotee. He would call these meetings with devotees and sit down. He was writing his PhD, he was actually finishing it. And the topic was, which we were discussing, because I was in England still at the time, so I would regularly visit him first in Cambridge, then Oxford, so the topic of the discussion was what was he going to do after his PhD? Come here, start a college in Mayapur, that was one idea. There were so many ideas. Travel and preach, is the society ready for him to get back into the type of management that he was doing before? He was always feeling homesick for the little Radha Damodar days of managing sankirtan and book distribution.
So he called a meeting. I wasn’t there but afterwards I talked to him. I asked him, “What are you going to do, what is the conclusion?” He says, “No, conclusion, I’m waiting for Krsna to give a sign.” He couldn’t figure it out from his intelligence, Krsna wasn’t directly manifesting it to him, he wasn’t hearing it through his Godbrothers, but then circumstances determined, or Krsna manifest through circumstances, Krsna directed circumstances that on the road past Shantipur, then all of a sudden Krsna had his own plan.
And his plan was that he wasn’t going to do a college, he wasn’t going to do any more sankirtan preaching here, he wasn’t going to do some other things, he just manifest his will, it must be his will. Na hy asya karhicid rajan, if you want to know why it happened like that then join the ranks of the perplexed, because puman veda vidhitsitam, many people inquired and still they are bewildered. But it happened, it certainly happened like that.
And a person who rendered so much service to Srila Prabhupada and dedicated his life to Srila Prabhupada, who Srila Prabhupada compared in certain ways to the Lord Brahma of ISKCON, Krsna had a particular plan. That plan may not be clear to us. It’s probably clear to him by now why it happened like that because he’s now continuing serving Srila Prabhupada and Krsna in the capacity that Krsna wanted him to. That’s our business, always maintaining faith, never becoming disturbed even through difficulties and having that conviction that one way or another Krsna manifests his will through his devotees.
My apologies for going so late. Srila Tamal Krsna Goswami Maharaja ki jai! Srila Prabhupada ki jai! Srila Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaja ki jai! Sri Rasikananda Prabhu ki jai! Nitai gaura-premanade, hari haribol! [applause]
Basu Ghosh (das) ACBSP (Baroda - IN): HH Bhakti Charu Maharaja had a heart attack yesterday, but is now in “stable” condition at Apollo Hospital, Indore.
Apparently he has “arterial blockages” and will undergo “balloon angioplasty” today.
He had intense “angina” (chest) pain yesterday, but it’s subsided… he’s able to talk to whomsoever he desires to over the phone, but his calls are being screened by his secretary: he’s not answering calls. He’ll have to stop traveling for sometime, and go on a diet and exercise regimen…
All we can do is pray for his health and well being…
Bhakti Charu Maharaja: I am sorry to have caused so much anxiety to so many of you. I think the doctors develop a natural apprehension whenever they hear about a chest pain and its spreading to the left arm. On top of that the ECG report and the blood test showing abnormal excretion of heart enzyme indicating some damage in the heart caused them even more concern. All that lead to hospitalizing me and taking an angiogram. Generally in situations like this, I was told, they get themselves prepared for an angioplasty to remove the blockage of the heart. However, by Krishna’s mercy, my angiogram showed that the blockage that I have in my heart is not that serious.
I was told that out of the three main arteries in the heart, two that are on the left are most important and one on the right is not that important. The good news is that my damage is on the right side and that also is not on the main artery, but on a branch of the artery. They felt confident that there would be no need for angioplasty and the damage can be rectified by medicine.
It was a nice warning for me. All my life I have been quite careless with my body. This is the first time ever that I went to a hospital as a patient. Now, I can see the need to take care of this body for the sake of my service to Krsna and the love of the devotees.
I felt extremely grateful to Srila Prabhupada that he prepared me to fearlessly face a situation like this. At a time like this, I think, the thought of death naturally crosses one’s mind. And I could clearly see that I was not afraid. Rather I felt happy with the prospect of getting a new body. I was reluctant to go to the hospital or take any medical treatment. A wonderful realization came to my mind - I considered that it is a poor man who tries to use his car until it becomes completely useless. Whereas, a rich man changes his car the moment it starts to show some problem, for a newer and better model. Of course we are neither the poor or the rich man, but a chauffeur of the richest Man. We are driving His car for His sake in His service. Let Him decide for how long I, as His chauffeur, will use this car that I have in my custody and whenever He wishes to change it I will be delighted to comply to His Will.
My only prayer to all of you is, “Please bless me that I can use this body in the service of my Lord and Master as long as I have it.”
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