Govardhan Retreat: concluding words and the video of the wonderful drama presentation

By Adi Purusha das
Dear Devotees,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Hare Krishna!

You can see the videos of the wonderful drama presented at the retreat below or at the following link:

http://www.radharani.com/radha%20kunda_024.htm

(kindly filmed and uploaded by HG Mayapur Candra Prabhu).

Also all the recordings, thanks to Mahabhagavata Prabhu, Devaprastha Prabhu and other kind souls, are now available for download at

http://vihe.org/audio_lectures.html

Just open the page, scroll down to the line saying:

“HH Sacinandana Swami, HG Bhurijan Prabhu, HG Jagattarini Mataji Seminars on Holy name, Bhagavatam and Dhama”

then click on the “Retreats” to unfold the separate years, then click on 2011 and click to listen or right-click to download the recordings.

Your servants at VIHE and Adi-purusha das

……………………….
Madhavananda Pr.:

When the Govardhan retreat began, I was happy to see the faces of many friends we saw a year before or did not see for the past few retreats. As we were preparing our presentation on the Kaliya-damana-lila we had some questions we did not know answers to, and we thought of putting them to you. Then, walking by the Giriraj, I got a thought of an answer and I thought of presenting it to you.

Kaliya is used as an example of someone who really got the mercy of Krsna. But Krsna sent him out of Vrndavan, so how was that mercy? Two points came to my mind. One is that Krsna sent him back home, Ramanaka-dvipa, where he took birth. By the mercy of mantra he was able to stay in the Yamuna for many yugas. The other point is that Krsna danced on the heads of Kaliya, leaving His footprints there. So Kaliya became a tirtha.

As we hear in SB 1.13.10: bhavad-vidha bhagavatas tirtha-bhutah svayam vibho tirthi-kurvanti tirthani svantah-sthena gadabhrta My lord, devotees like your good self are verily holy places personified. Because you carry the Personality of Godhead within your heart, you turn all places into places of pilgrimage.

Kaliya has become a moving Vrndavan.

We also come for the retreat and then go back home. We want to make our heart like Vrindavan, but Kaliya is poisoning this Vrndavan, killing its residents. If we want to establish Vrndavan we should learn to love devotees.

One devotee was disturbed when we said this during our seminar in Ukraine, and objected, “Isn’t love only for Krsna?” So we tried to research this question.

SP says:

That is the second platform of devotional life. In the second platform, not only to love God, but to make friendship with devotees who is loving God. That is society. Our Society is devotees. We should not only practice to love God, but we should make friendship and love the devotees also. Ref. VedaBase = Sri Isopanisad, Mantra 1 — Los Angeles, April 30, 1970

We should learn to love devotees, our children, our husbands and wives, to do kirtan and hear katha with them. Then we can establish Vrndavan.

I was worried that I am like Kaliya, so Krsna may drive me out of Vrndavan. But Krsna has marked Kaliya. So wherever we go we should carry these marks of the retreat and of Krsna.

—————— Jagattarini Mataji:

This retreat has been very strenuous to me, to keep ahead of the classes and presentations. I came with the desire to share something that was my own meditation. At the evening at the Krsna-kunda I saw the rippling reflection of a three-dimensional tree and how easy it is to disturb the clarity of the reflection. So I wanted to encourage all to move from the bottom of the tree to the real tree.

At the 1st of Vraja-mandala-parikrama we visited most of Vrndavan forests and then, when some were missed out, it was suggested that all of us Western parikramis should cross the Yamuna, holding our dhotis and saris, to Bhandiravan. Then we had to walk back when it was already dark.

There was the sparkling Yamuna water and darkness and we were walking along the field’s ridge, all I could see were the feet in front of me. And if a person in front of me exclaimed in pain, I would know, don’t step there, there is a thorny patch. And it did not matter whether the devotee in front was big or small, the only thing that mattered was to see the feet of the devotee in front and move quickly, because there is someone following your feet. So we should follow the devotees in front of us, “big” or “small”, and lead on the same path.

Thank you for your patience and encouragement. I hope you will come again
(maybe more often) and we will meet here again.

—————- Bhurijan Prabhu:

When Urmila Mataji was speaking about the “big devotees”, Madhavananda Pr. thought, “It must be the Prabhupada disciples”, Jagattarini M. thought, “It must be the men”, I thought, “It must be the sannyasis”, Sacinanandana Swami thought, “Giriraja Swami is the most senior here”, and Giriraja Swami passed it on to the greatest devotee – Giriraj Govardhan.:)

In 1976 I had a great fortune to be in Sri Mayapur. I put up a little tent right between two trees, I listened to Srila Prabhupada’s lectures very carefully and took notes. My consciousness was focused and therefore I could perceive something that I never noticed before or later – that his words are descending from the spiritual world into my heart. And that SP was so powerful that there could be hundreds and hundreds of devotees and each could experience that SP speaks to him individually. Thanks to the Vedabase I can read a segment from those lectures to you now and answer the question: is it posssible to take a mysterious experience, or the Govardhan retreat with us?

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