Lord Chaitanya’s Pastimes (video)

(The below transcription is automatically generated by a voice recognition tool)
Okay welcome everybody we are going to go ahead and get started thank you all so much for being here thank you for watching swami for joining us thank you for all of the devotees and guests from all over the world um as always we have various esteemed guests in our presence our grace with me devi other disciples of sri lanka that are here we don’t can’t see everybody I only see 20 people on my screen but i’m grateful for all of you for being here my name is um i’m part of our online sango group here at the bhakti center and we are co-hosting this event event with a variety of other yatras in the northeast area of the united states which we will mention and recognize later um this is part two of a four-part series on shri chitanya mahaprabhu leading up to his appearance day at the end of this month uh we have this holiness sachin and swami joining us for all four of these series last week he spoke on the tatfa or the philosophical foundation of who is lord caitanya and today and next week he’ll be speaking about the leela of sritanya his pastimes which will of course of course be mixed with various lessons and and sweet stories um his holiness that you know swami i feel like needs no introduction but I will just take a moment to honor and share how he is a leader in the bhakti movement for several decades been a lifelong renunciate he travels around the world when there’s not a pandemic sharing krishna bhakti philosophy songs and kirtan as always I feel like i need to mention his infectious smile lights up the universe I have stories of people mars who who have told me that they’ve just simply seen your smile and they thought whatever that man has I know I need it whatever is causing that smile I need that in my life and uh we’re grateful that you’re going to be sharing a little bit of what you have with us a taste for chitanee mahaprabhu’s pastimes and lila with us mars will speak for roughly about an hour at which time we will pause and accept questions from all of you the uh the listeners um if you’d like to ask a question we’d like you to please type it into the chat to your show to de lau he will field all of the questions and ask them on your behalf you know there may be too many questions to get to but please please send your question we would try our best to answer them and without further ado we will turn it over to his holiness thank you so much maharaj we’re glad that you’re here and we look forward to being enlightened by you hare krishna hare krishna I would also like to affectionately welcome everyone on this call as taya guranga has informed us we are really trying here to build uh up towards the appearance day of caitanya mahaprabhu i think in order to really experience the avatar of gauranga we need to prepare our field so the field of our heart so that the seeds which we now will hear find their their root take their roots in our hearts information is like a seed and it is necessary that it grows into a plant which gives fruit this holds true especially in the spiritual domain we hear many things during these presentations but these are only seeds which we need to plant into the hopefully fertile field of our heart a heart is fertile when we are when it’s inquisitive really and then it can really develop into something wonderful thus I always consider such programs as therapeutic in a good therapy therapy something happens to the listener or the participant and something grows where there was an empty space before so before uh starting today I would like to guide all of you in a mantra which our magician vincata butter will put before us on the screen it’s a verse from caitanya tamarita and it is an obeisance to see chitanya mahaprabhu here it is I will say the verse and you please all repeat after me [Music] [Music] [Music] me [Music] we can take now the slide off and concentrate on what we are having ahead of us today I would like to talk about the wonders of caitanya mahaprabhu if you want to say miracles then this is also a good way to say it’s all these things where we hear how a divine personality acts outside the laws of nature and reveals his amazing influence on our heart in a spirituality you will find such revelations that take place outside the laws of nature for instance there is one a mountain in china it starts with v and up to this day those buddhists who go there see within a red uh circle uh buddha coming floating through the air the christians have this extraordinary events for instance they celebrate how jesus after the crucification arose the heavens the muslims they have a walk during the pilgrimage where they go between the two hills of surfer and marva and imitate hagar search for water in the desert and up till now water comes rushing out of the desert doing these things there are many many many examples which we could use where we can see extraordinary things that defy the laws of nature happening some of them are not so much extraordinary and if you know a little big magic you could also do this this without spiritual influence but what we will hear today is definitely an ex intrusion of a divine personality an appearance of a divine personality within this world making a breaking the laws of nature and doing something very extraordinary here in this verse which we have just chanted all together we celebrated lord caitanya mahaprabhu and nityananda rise like the sun and the moon over the sky and these are analogies for enlightenment when the sun rises um how does um the enlightenment happen which caitanya mahaprabhu brings into our life what is the divine miracle well when we contact him we come in contact with a spiritual knowledge the bhagavatam and we come in contact with saints any slight contact with caitanya mahaprabhu bring you closer to the bhagavatam and it brings you also somehow or other more into contact with divine personalities this is a divinely inspired bhagavatas anyone who has met the sankhya town party uh which where devotees go on the streets and sing has seen quite after some time quite quite soon these two miracles working he all of a sudden came in contact with the spiritual wisdom as it is narrated in the bhagavatam and he also came in contact with uh made a good contact with the with the bhagavata a person who lives it i i know that many of you who are on this call have started reading the bhagavatam and have met a pure devotee some of you are even initiated many of you so this is due to the ongoing miracle of lord caitanya’s divine influence even in this time uh so but today I want to talk on other things on on a divine mystery that reveals itself often in irrational or you could say trans-rational ways where the laws of nature that bind us ordinary human beings are superseded and left behind i always say when god comes he doesn’t have to follow the traffic rules of this world no need he he acts out outside this narrowing parameter well when caitanya mahaprabhu appeared in this world how was it well the scriptures tell us that he had not come the way you and me have come by the combination of the seminal discharge and the oven no 12 months before his appearance he appeared first in the mind of jagannath mishra and from there from the mind the enlightened mind moved into the heart of sachi devi and then took his residence in her sanctified womb he was born under a tree it was an open-air birth and therefore his nickname became nemai after the neem tree under which he was born this name was also given to him because six of his sisters who first took their birth had left the world right after seeing the light of the day neem trees are seen in india as having a very auspicious influence especially they are good medicines against ghosts so it was he was given the name of a tree uh nemai to uh have an auspicious name and auspicious uh atmosphere around him and he was also called goranga for something quite extraordinary those who are born in india have usually a dark complexion but a lord caitanya mahaprabhu defied all the rules of gene or logic geonola what is the virgin or logic g you know better you are from english-speaking countries he had a golden complexion and therefore he was called goranga the one with golden limbs his horoscope showed something amazing he would be an intellectual giant a world teacher and a savior of many people because in fact he was an avatar avatar means someone who comes from another dimension and crosses into our dimension and takes on a form in three-dimensional space and acts wonderfully on his body there were 32 science that marked him as a mahapurushika an or extraordinary personality for instance long long arms that reached below his knees but what was maybe most unusual was that his beautiful little feet showed imprinted signs of a thunderbolt a conch a fish and a lotus flower once when he was quite small his parents came into the room and they saw these footprints in the dust and from this they could understand their unusual son with these amazing footprints had walked over the ground um if you would look at your feet there would be only boring lines and signs of aging but you would not see these amazing footprints which are also found on krishna’s lotus feet and so on even as a baby the lord hinted at a mission which we will look at a little later that is to spread the chanting of the holy name often he would cry and his crying would only stop if the neighboring ladies who came uh would start to sing the auspicious holy names hare krishna hari so soon they knew the idea of the little baby the little baby would cry ah and they would come and they would start to sing the holy name and little nemai would raise his arms and smile so they knew yes he likes chanting one time an astrologer came to his house to offer his services to the residents at that time the lord was a little older and he came to the all-knowing astrologer that’s how he’s introduced in the sacred text it meant this astrologer could tell past present and future of someone and smilingly the lord asked him welcome to our house oh all-knowing astrologer tell me please tell me who I was in my previous life so the astrologer had received some informations from the parents and he immediately sat down to make his calculations and went into a deep meditation there in his meditation he saw the greatly effulgent body of the supreme personality of godhead and from his body came a countless divine viconta planets the astrologer was not prepared for that and he said speechless all of a sudden he heard again the question a police all-knowing astrologer you have become very silent but please tell me who I was in my previous life this shook the astrologer out of his trance and he said my dear a lord in your previous birth you were the supreme personality of godhead full of all opulences you are now the same the shelter of unlimited uh creations and to look at you produces an inconceivable happiness in my heart so as the brahmana spoke so highly of him caitanya mahaprabhu stopped him and said i don’t think you understand very clearly my past life for I know that in my previous life i was a cowherd boy i gave protection to the calves and the cows and because of this pious activity i have now become the son of a brahmana however the astrologer could not deny what he had seen he had seen a divine revelation and he said i’m sure that what I saw was correct it was full of opulence and ecstasy I saw the divine kingdom of god and then I saw from you emanating all the energies which built up creation if you make me now see something different it’s only your illusory energy whatever you may be or whoever you may be I offer my respectful obeisances unto you so when chaitanya mahaprabhu saw this great devotee of his who had made this astrological sign astrological telling or reading his heart melted and he reciprocated with the astrologer by giving him something that is so precious that not even the president of the united states says it but to speak of other people it’s love of godhead ecstatic abiding love of godhead which puts a personality immediately into his original clear state of being now being a part of of the lord and so this was the as androloger who who had seen this he had seen something that was confirmed by an itinerant brahmana there are these brahmanas or spiritualists who travel around some of them are on a pilgrimage they want to go to a holy place some of these mandicants are simply let us say at home only in their body they don’t have another house than their body this was a greatly exalted person who worshipped a little form of lord gopal and when jagannath mishra the father of caitanya mahaprabhu saw him wandering nearby he said please come please allow me to arrange that you can cook in our house so he got the vegetables the pots and made a fire and the itinerary and brahmana began to cook for his little deity while all the time chanting the lord’s holy name then the moment came when the food was prepared and he carried it on the altar and closed his eyes to say the mantra through which he offered the food but in the midst of offering he opened the eyes a little bit and he saw the boy the son of his host climbing up the altar and eating the food now um when you offer the lord some foodstuffs it should not have been tasted before by anyone it is for him he is the first taster and the first enjoyer and in this uh this regimen the uh uh offering was considered to be spoiled so the brahmana shouted oh no no now I have to do the cooking process uh again i anyways don’t like to cook so uh long but on the request of jagannath mishra he started cooked and when everything was off ready for offering and it stood on the altar again the little boy came so the and ate so the brahmana said alas alas it is already dark today i’m not meant to eat and gopal also wants to fast i’m not going to try a third time but at this moment an unusual boy the older brother of little nemai came he was a boy a prodigy he was still a little child but he knew all the scriptures by heart his name was vishvarup and he said no do not become subjected to disappointment try another time this time they took the nemai away they put him into a house with his mother they locked the house and juggernaut mishra with a stick stood guard before the door to make sure that this would not happen again so the brahmana although it was night started to cook again being convinced by the little by the brother of uh nemai and as he was placing the cooked item lovingly in front and was just in the midst of the mantras he looked again and again he saw the little boy and this was really too much for him he began to veil and to scream and all of a sudden a little boy began to speak to him as you were offering your food you were asking me to come and accept your offering so I have come you always wanted to see me so now look very carefully and I will reveal myself to you at that moment the child manifested a youthful lord shri krishna with his flute he had a wonderful eight armed form holding a disc a club a corn shell and a lotus flower in four hands in one hand he had a fresh lump of freshly churned butter and with the other hand he put the butter in a part of the butter into his mouth and with the remaining two hands he play he he played very playfully on his transcendental uh flute and now surrounding him was the beautiful vindavan forest the place of his most intimate pastimes with this loving associates the birds the trees the gopis and the cowherd boys and seeing all this the brahmana swooned in ecstasy when the lord touched him only then he regained his consciousness so then logic tanya in this divine form had a serious conversation with him he said o brahmana you have been my servant for many births when i appeared in nanda’s home in vendavan you were also there and you also offered at that time food calling me and when I came you lamented and complained said I spoiled your offering do you remember birth after birth you have been my servant persons who are now my servant now persons who are not my servants cannot see my form but no what I just now told you and what you saw is only meant for your ears and only meant for your eyes you cannot say it to anyone else [Music] so with this the lord disappeared this brahmana stopped his traveling he stayed in navadvip and he would live for the moment where the lord left his house and where he could lovingly uh behold his form my dear devotees and my dear especially skeptics on the chord this was not the only time when the lord showed uh or revealed divine forms there is the shutter here where for 21 hours in a large assembly of many many people the lord showed the various forms that corresponded to the ecstasy and the bhava and the love of his devotees there was for instance a greater ambakta murari gupta and the lord showed him the form of lord ramacandra with the greenish hue and the golden bow and he said murari i’m your lord and murari just just look a little behind you when murari looked behind him he saw the curled tail of a monkey yes you were hanuman said lord caitanya in your previous life in this way many forms were shown many extraordinary forms were shown the lord also alerted his various devotees to the time where he had appeared to them even before he had made his avatar see when you go back in your life you will see that there were a few arrangements where you said this could not have been accidental there was a plan behind it so lord caitanya revealed one after another to his devotees extraordinary events that had happened way before showing them that he had been with them all that time lord caitanya revealed himself in a six-armed form before many many onlookers it was in the house of srivasta three two of the forms were the forms of ramachandra greenish two were the forms of krishna playing his flute two where the arms arms are needed to say not forms two arms were that of ramachandra two arms that of krishna and uh two arms that of sannyasi a renunciant with a stick and a water part so in this way there was a very very nice revelation of the sixth armed form he showed himself to savabu i I go a little bit fast about this through this but you must know this is what god does typically he shows various divine forms what he has for instance he showed one uh once brahma came with the devatas and they came to lord krishna in the spiritual planets there krishna sat on a lotus flower and constantly out of his body appeared forms like like rama and so on and so forth so in this way krishna can show all the various forms of the supreme personality of godhead and also krishna caitanya or gauranga is capable of showing all his forms in a very very consistent manner she caitanya mahaprabhu in his youth did another extraordinary activity see when he was about around 16 years of age he became the most learned scholar in the harvard [Music] of india navadvip the town where he appeared was known as the town of scholars just like the town of harvard or princeton is also known as a place of study and of exploration and of science so with 16 years he already opened his school on grammar and various rules of logic and every evening he took his students down to the river ganga and did his class next to the best of reverse so at that time navadvip was highly uh it was an unrest it was upset because a great scholar keshava kashmiri had announced that he would come and that he would challenge all the leading scholars for a debate this uh keshava kashmiri was not an unknown figure he was known by the honorary title dick vijay he who had conquered all the directions it meant that he had gone all over the places of learning and engaged in excruciating debates with the scholar of his time where he demonstrated his superiority of of of logic and so on keshava kashmiri it is said was so highly victorious because he had obtained a boon from saraswadi the goddess of learning that he could not be defeated in debates he had conquered everyone so there were strict laws governing debates they were almost as strict as the laws governing a boxing fight I know in america you are famous all over the world for muhammad ali a very talented boxer who knew how to move his fists with extraordinary speed and strength and someone who entered a debate had to prepare or present a text and establish the original purpose of the text he had to see where in the text a reason and logic was used in order to make a proposition he then had to show examples and analogies which further shed light on the theory and then he had to show whether or not a new and clear understanding of a particular subject had been presented and all what he said had to be supported by shastric quotations so it was not an academic exercise when two scholars came and debated the loser was obliged to become the student and disciple of the winner it was a fight for blood you could say but on the intellectual level it was heavy so keshava kashmiri had heard about the young prodigy but he looked down on grammar and logic that was for children he said so he came to down to the river gangas and he listened to nehemiah pandit who was sitting there amongst all his students and he was [Music] thinking how cute this young man is really talking really very good then he interjected and said you talk very nice on lesser subjects but do you know something higher he was an arrogant scholar he had entered the town of namadweep with a whole huge caravan where there were ox cards who carried ox cards who carried his books he said can you please say something higher me my pandit smiled and he said well i’m young but you please say something even praise of mother ganga so confident of his intellectual strengths he immediately that the scholar immediately recited verses on mother ganga the verses were flowing with a meter that was adapted to the sound of the ganga rivers rivers um waters you know the waves and he when he was finished with his 100 verses he thought wow that was good now and um neymar pandit said could we please go back to the 64th verse and he recited the 64th verse he had remembered everything and he said if we look at this verse there are so many faults in there what you dare to find fault in my immaculate uh presentation i’m show me the thoughts and then nimai said oh you know better than me but here this is highly um inappropriate how you have expressed yourself and there’s so much redundancy here in what you have said and he continued on one verse to it for to draw out fault after fault so that all the inflated pride which was there like aaron a balloon left purchase kashmiri and he he he just quickly left the place of his shameful defeat and in the night he prayed to saraswati saraswati oh goddess you first make me the biggest champion of all times in knowing and then you allow that I suffered defeat from from a little 16 year old boy and again saraswati said listen this person whom you call a boy is not a boy he’s the my worshipable lord the supreme personality of godhead you should be very happy that you have made met him and that he has destroyed your false ego so that you can now move on in your in the real purpose of human life so keshava kashmiri the next morning it was really early came and went to caitanya mahaprabhu and surrendered to him from that day on mahaprabhu blessed him and he became a humble itinerant monk who went everywhere i want to end today with a very nice song which I uh request our magician venkata bhatta to show its slide number two udila aruna this is a song which lord caitanya would sing in the morning yes in the morning time when the sun was arising caitanya mahaprabhu got up called all his devotees together who were already waiting before his house but he brought them together and armed with madunga with a drum and carters they would go in the surrounding villages and they would sing this very beautiful song and something happened afterwards here is the song you may sing with me we will sing together all together oh [Music] [Laughter] [Music] a venkatabata will put for us the second song jeff jargo a slide three i will read you the translation of this when the reddish sun began to rise on the eastern horizon sri gauranga the jewel among the twice born at once evoked taking his devotees with him he went into the towns and villages of navadville the medanga sounded and the characters played in time and lord caitanya was dancing like you see on the picture with arms spread out he was swaying back and forth there were little anger belts see at his feet which made a very nice sound to the music and he was over flying flowing with prama and he would call out to everyone what we will sing now um please everyone sing [Laughter] [Music] make of sleeping souls wake up wake up all of you on the call listen to lord karanga how long will you still sleep on the left of the witch called maya don’t know you came into this world saying you will worship the lord but now you have forgotten this you are so burdened by the resultant ignorance to deliver you I have descended who but me is your friend and i’ve brought the medicine that will destroy the disease of maya take these holy names I beg you I beg you falling at the lotus feet of sriman mahapabu bhagtivinod has begged for and accepted this harinam thank you very much i think we can all feel the urgency of caitanya mahaprabhu getting at us waking us shaking us entering our little self-constructed words with a different message this actually is maybe one of the greatest wonders of caitanya mahaprabhu his infectious [Music] urging us to sing the holy name once he came to one of his devotees shuklambara who was a poor beggar but an enlightened soul outside beggar inside enlightened you find this very often this combination and he explained to him one verse which captured the essence of his mission he said we live in the age of kali that is an age where the mind is disturbed constantly distracted people are lazy for spiritual life and constantly in anxiety and he said in this age of kali there’s no other means no other means no other means for self-realization than chanting the holy name chanting the holy name chanting the holy name by repeating three times he uh alluded to karma togiyana the path of intellectual speculation and to yoga meditation no the holy name is very very powerful but he said it must be chanted in a certain way it can only be chanted if that false ego which haunted this scholar so much with so much self-importance is is given where you may say i’m not so uh so so much thinking i’m uh self so important i’m thinking sometimes i’m quite useless actually but this is also false ego false ego means your thoughts only revolve around a story which you have created um as a story which has been even biologically entrenched in your neural pathways and so on a story that has become um psychologically engraved in your heart but it is not true we are divine we have a divine origin we are part of god this this this eye maker or story maker a han kara means story maker or eye maker no that is so much a problem and when you chant for a moment we must exit this illusion therefore uh the way to do it is by a fourth four a path with four strains one who thinks himself lower than the grass who is more tolerant than a tree who does not expect personal honor yet is always prepared to give all respects to others such a person can always chant the holy name of the lord lord caitanya became very very very enthusiastic when he chanted this verse he says he said i raise my hand in the sky and I declare everyone please hear me string this verse on the thread of the holy name and wear it on your neck for continuous remembrance [Music] my dear devotees caitanya bhakti is so nice it offers even to a little child um a very very uh great invitation join the world of ecstasy join the world of bliss join the world of divine love which caitanya mahaprabhu had given today we heard how he talked with an astrologer and revealed his form we heard about how he revealed his various divine forms starting with this brahmana who had been worshiping in ritual worship the lord for so long without having ever seen a divine revelation an ecstatic revelation in his art we heard how he confronted a amazing scholar that who had conquered the ten directions through debates anyone who had an contact with the lord either in revelation or when the lord taught them something like he taught this scholar it was in a state of divine bliss I would like to stop this qatar today with one little song which we will hear at the end it is a song sung to us through the voice of a child sometimes children don’t have developed such an imprisoning story no they are much more freer have you seen children are not so edited children are not so that I say constrained they still know how to dance and how to laugh without a reason because out of the happiness from their heart and I thought we would end this call by hearing a beautiful song only the first verse we will hear yes our magician is putting it up for us and now if you could please put the sound as well venkatabata that would be wonderful [Music] foreign you see the little boy here he’s harry dave he is my friend he lives in vendavan india and he sang a very profound song this first line of it says that person for whom the lotus feet of sri garanga are his wealth and property knows the essence of bhagti rasa that person for whom the sweet pastimes of gauranga have entered the ears is pure in heart i request our to remove the picture again this song is an amazing song once giriaj maharaj entered prabhupada’s room in mumbai and prabhupada was listening to a recording of this song which had been recorded live at the new york temple when it was over prabhupad looked up and said when i’m no longer present you can listen to this song and remember your spiritual master i thought the organizers of this program who called this program gauranga duti pada after this song had been guided by chaitanya mahaprabhu in their hearts i’m sure you didn’t know this little detail because it came only out a week ago or so but see why can we remember our spiritual master by this song well it tells you the wonderful life the wonderful purity the wonderful love which those who are associates of caitanya mahaprabhu who are close to caitanya mahaprabhu have it is said that those who are worshiping lord caitanya mahaprabhu that they are pure in their heart and the essence of bhakti has entered the heart and so on [Music] it’s a beautiful thought i’m i’m remembering the princess mirabai who at an early age had decided to become a devotee of lord kiritari krishna she went through india singing her songs and was once asked you’re a princess and you live the renounced life of a saintly person why have you given up the comfort of a palace life and she responded um I cannot follow the ways of the ordinary people because I have tasted the ecstasy of love for giridhari krishna and i’m walking on the path of ecstasy not the path of ordinary life my dear listeners my dear friends my dear doctors also and especially all those who are so distracted I saw today in these little windows um uh signs of the american distraction dream i have watched you very carefully only tipi was focused she’s a university professor and knows how to listen so [Music] sometimes little humor is appropriate it is a humorous loving reminder that you can do better in your listening capacity my dear audience so yes this is the offer of caitanya mahaprabhu an ecstatic life a life less ordinary a life full of joy a life free from the mental anxieties that are so typical to kali yoga and therefore this avatar lord caitanya mahaprabhu is the essence of all the avatars of the lord i thank you very much my dear my dear audience I have so many more notes which I wanted to explain today but i i got stuck in uh in in the ecstasy of mahaprabhu’s qatar but we have still another uh session where more can be explained for now i would like to thank venkata butter you did extra ordinary well everything was on time it entered on time the images and they exited on time we can see that you are the knower of all computer things [Laughter] i will now turn to our yashoda dulal prabhu who will guide us through the next session thank you so much sachina maharaj this was so nectarian uh we’re eagerly looking forward to the next two sessions for those of you who are outside the united states of america please don’t go anywhere thinking that oh this is just a couple of announcements because I have an important announcement that concerns you if you are outside of the us so stay tuned for about a minute so this idea maharaja the title of this series gauranga radi actually came from one of our team members gore kumar prabhu so you know you see some of us in the foreground the al goranga venkata but yes but yes gore kumar is very much a very key force in our team as is danielle who’s our technical guru in the background and gore sharon the brahmachary from the bhakti center so yeah gorkumar came up with this name and we all loved it so we decided to go with this name so with that I want to share uh my screen and as always remind everyone that this uh series is organized by the bhakti center in manhattan and it’s co-hosted with several yatras in the neighboring states um iskan of new jersey tobacco is kind of central new jersey iskcon new york which is the brooklyn temple or rather govinda mandir 26th second avenue the first temple in the west bergen county iskan new jersey richmond virginia and gitanagri eco farm in pennsylvania and now comes the announcement for people who are outside the united states please notice that there is a time change for those who are outside the united states so in america our clock spring forward tomorrow actually tonight but after midnight and therefore for the next two sessions uh i’ve highlighted only three of the time zones but please check with your own time zone you can go online and google it um if you are in the united kingdom the program will now start at 1 pm not 2 p.m if you are in central europe it will start at 2 p.m not 3 p.m and if you are in india instead of 7 30 it will now start at 6 30. so in the us the start time remains the same 9 o’clock but because we change clocks and some parts of the world are only going to change after 2 weeks we have this disconnect in timing so please do note that you will be joining most of you outside the us will be joining one hour earlier than what you’ve been used to so far for the next two sessions but please do check your local time zones because I do not know every single time zone that is changing so with that I have quite a few questions lined up for you marge so elena from estonia she asks how do we properly worship gauranga mahaprabhu and krishna we know that they are both one and the same but they look different they have different moods and different pastimes it is difficult to meditate on both at the same time should we meditate on krishna as god and lord caitanya as the supreme devotee because during his life mahaprabhu discouraged devotees from calling him krishna or what is the appropriate way to do this this is a question as big as the whole world but I will try my best to give an answer that is practical [Music] i had a crisis in my spiritual life where I had to ask this question I had it was when I was maybe 20 years in krishna consciousness and i did what is I took an invite territory and found out that yes externally I had done many things at opened temples and so on but my heart had not really changed as of yet and I then needed to know what could be the way that my krishna consciousness would yield better results what could I do so that the attachments and anxieties and other things which were not favorable for my krishna consciousness could leave me and instead I could remember krishna and be enthusiastic and like this and i did a huge let me say [Music] exploration of our philosophy you I have to come say to you others than other exhaust than exhausted souls in our movement i had not joined because of the devotees the devotees were very very different from my social background and they lived in a poverty and I was not accustomed to this no was i accustomed to every morning a cold shower I it was my nervous system was not built for this it was difficult for me to stay with the devotees it was not easy it was not a shelter it was an austerity for me so I had therefore decided i have come because of the process if it works I will stay if it does not work I will go and look for another process and now I was after 20 years and it had not worked for me I was now considering what to do in my life so I decided to research and explore sheila powerpath’s books and i found out what convinced me very much that krishna is very difficult to attain for a conditioned soul whose heart is not yet purified and therefore krishna comes into it comes in a form that can purify the heart he comes in the form of the holy name to purify the heart so that the heart becomes a good instrument to see the lord and to be with the lord now this holy name is propagated by caitanya mahaprabhu how to chant it in what mood to chant it he becomes the teacher of the holy name he is krishna who sees that people are slow in learning so therefore he has to teach them and show them by example how to relate to the holy name how to chant the holy name and how to spread the holy name so this is how the two connect the lord wants that we return to him but he sees that we are not able to do so therefore he gives he comes in a very accessible form the holy name but because this is so ex let me say exalted he teaches us as caitanya mahaprabhu he teaches us himself so how to worship caitanya mahaprabhu and krishna what I say to you you will have heard many times but maybe you will hear it for the first time today you need to chant you need to learn to chant with deep devotional absorption that will make all the difference and then you will worship the lord and your heart will become a place a meeting place between the jiba you the living entity and the lord himself thank you thank you maharaj anonymous question in many places in the scriptures seeing krishna is described as the pinnacle or height of spiritual realization you also mentioned it today when you talked about the brahmanas seeing mahaprabhu and krsna’s krsna’s form how specifically does seeing the lord’s form provide the highest joy also our srila prabhupada’s guru maharaj srila bhakti siddhanta saraswati said we should not try to see krishna but act in such a way that he will be pleased to see us thank you very much this is a very good relevant question the bhagavatam speaks twice about when the not in the heart is pierced at that time the living entity can see the lord and in the purpose to this verse it comes in the fourth canto and then the 11th canto and the first cantu prabhat speaks about when you are face to face with the sun the krishna sun then all the darkness of material life is gone now the word avidya or ignorance darkness is needs to be understood what it really is avitia avitia means a total forgetfulness of your real identity total total total total total total total and the result is that you develop a false identity when this a media makes you lose yourself and it gives you a replacement a surrogate which is false and which becomes your story in life uh the ahamkara story so this avidya is destroyed when you see the lord now in order to see the lord and to come face to face and go back to godhead a certain attitude is required that is you should not want to see him looking what can your eyes see what can your eyes see in this moment your eyes can really please me you can’t even see your thoughts and yet they are so important in your life you can’t see the thoughts of another person he can be there with a polite new york smile and he can plan murder behind his skull you know you can’t see your uh the soul the self um how can you see god so if you run around trying to see god you will never see him however when you act in the proper way he will become attentive to you and when he becomes attentive he will give you what you need to come back to him into his into his loving embrace yeah so that is i hope a clear answer uh thank you so much yashoda dulal what is the next question thank you marge vijaya mehta asks how should we understand the happening or the event of the six girls who were born to sachimata and jaganath mishra before caitanya mahaprabhu appeared is this analogous to the story of mother devi six sons were born before balarama and krishna i thank you very much vijay mehta for this question i have try to find out informations who were these six girls and I must tell you i have only I have contacted jai pataka maharaj many years ago and then he also did not know the answer so he did some research and there was one information from a very exalted god brother of sheila prabhupada um that they were highly uh elevated souls who had this task to perform in the lila to appear and then quickly disappear but i must tell you honestly i do not there was not more information we all know that before krishna appeared there were also six uh sons of mother uh devaki who were leaving uh who were killed by kamsa actually immediately after their birth it sounds very very similar and there could be an a connection but more than just noting the similarity and noting that they must have had a role to play in the past time i’m not able to tell you more I could i don’t wish to give you some speculative answer i’m this is all I can say i’m very sorry thank you maharaj uh three devotees wrote in about false egos i’m combining their question dhaira karem baretto krishna and natalia sharapko can you elaborate on false ego and how do we pray to nimai to destroy our false ego and how do we let go of our fear of this happening because we are holding on to our false ego so tightly when you are crushing a river and all you have is a float that disintegrates you will be very very very scared to give up that float although it is not functional however if you have a boat next to you a boat which comes then you can give up the float so um is that an american word float that’s when you tie some something together and you sit on it raft raft yes a raft raft i thank you very much for when you have such a dysfunctional raft you you are afraid to to give it up and to jump off of it only when you have a boat so when you have only your false ego you think well if i if I give this up I become like a lumber without a shell like a turtle without its shell i’m without any protection and most probably that is right uh especially we who suffer from such a low self and esteem and low confidence when we are told to give up that this is false ego and we should give it up we feel oh my god now the last the last straw on which i’m holding myself is go gone you have to develop an understanding of who you are as an eternal soul and so on and not theoretically but practically only and this comes only if you purify your heart then through the processes of bhakti the ninefold bhakti it’s amazing someone who is strong in his service and who found an identity in his service is not so much challenged by this issue of dealing with his false ego try to build up a service identity but beware beware for false proud can also pride can also enter there that you think i’m the best servant i’m the best cleaner of the temple i’m the best flower garland maker i’m the best orator i’m the best leader of the devotees and once there it is again that ego has taken a new disguise take instead be be be intelligent find yourself a service where you can feel as a servant of krishna and learn just three words no four words it’s just for you do your service like this with this mantra it’s just for you meaning krishna and then you will slowly move into an understanding of that i’m your servant and it will become embedded in your heart and ingrained into your heart so that even at the moment of death when you feel everything is going from you you’re not afraid when I was a young boy [Laughter] i wanted to cross the ocean on a little raft which I had bound with reeds you know reeds yes good and I i was swimming in in the baltic sea already which goes into the atlantic ocean and then i wanted to go to america because as a little boy I had heard about america so I was on this raft and it was disintegrating and by by krishna’s inconceivable mercy because I had told no one about my plan they would have stopped me my parents and everyone by krishna’s mercy fisher boat found me as my the reeds were sinking and and and so on and i immediately without hesitation switched boats and went into the fisher mode so so when you have a false this false ego doesn’t serve us doesn’t carry us doesn’t help us to cross the ocean of illusion find the boat of seva of service and there you can start with your real ego that you are a servant and by doing it you will develop the servant identity it’s just like by doing push-ups you will develop the necessary muscles for push-up you will have costumer has does 100 push-ups a day oh very impressive he has now it’s a very strong costumer so this is uh this comes by practice not this uh identity comes by practice and then you are safe as long as you go with your false ego you are unsafe thank you maharaj if we can we would like to ask maybe one or two more questions there are others and I apologize for not getting to them um today we will run out of time so surubi from central new jersey asks gora leela is such an esoteric topic how can we ourselves access it properly and also make it more accessible to those who might be newer practitioners acts in various roles if you so want and some of them are very difficult others are very easy to to access the role when he acts as god is difficult to access in this age of kali uh therefore he was hiding this role also but when he acts as an here comes my new word paradigm bacter you know the the exemplary devotee chanting the holy names [Music] and kirtan being compassionate to fallen souls I have a whole a lot on this for the next installment of uh the series then it’s he’s easy to understand and he’s also easy to understand and very likeable when he acts as a teacher so talk about the things where he acts the the pastimes where he acts at the paratechnic devotee because that’s how he wanted to be known also remember he told those whom he showed his divine forms and there were many many he said please be becau uh don’t tell this um knowing very well that uh in kali yuga people would have difficulties to access these this divinity of his so therefore talk about him as an exemplary devotee and as a teacher thank you maharaj if I may I will ask one last question divianam prabhu from richmond virginia asks how can we develop a sense of urgency in our spiritual practices and especially our chanting when many of us might especially in the west be living in a so-called comfortable situation and be a little complacent yeah this is such a wonderful question we we have do you also notice this uh your shoulder and everyone who’s organizing this there’s so such good questions and such serious divorce i watched also the series on nityananda and was nithyananda was really uh very impressed by the depths of the questions first of all urgency is always for a conditioned soul the motivating factor to change anything many many come to spurt alive because they see that material life is misery and they develop a certain sense of urgency but that doesn’t keep you in spirit alive that may be good when you want to join in spiritual life you have to have other motivating factors of of the urgency and I can see nothing more efficient or effective than to have a good heart-to-heart talk with devotees who have seen a sense of urgency in their life there is nothing that works as quick in installing a sense of seriousness of eagerness of urgency and then with them I would like to tell you a con the la the conversation which I had with my older brother I have a physical older brother who’s also who is a disciple of sheila prabhupada and we are very different very different so I am I needed to phone him because my parents are very old now and really old and 1996 my father 96 I think or 95 i’m not so good with numbers but he is also very old you know but a body is not so good because he was in the second world war and he was wounded a few times very heavily so so i feel I must help them to direct their consciousness towards krishna because I owe them this human form of life and so I needed to know something um from him and he and I then asked him well by the way what are you doing he said you won’t believe what i’m doing he’s also very old my older brother is maybe 70 years old as i’m not so good with numbers but something like this he’s a little older than me you know so he must be seven seventy and i I said uh to him so so tell me i think I become just like you one day i’m reading the bhagavatam and he’s in some study course which requires him to get up very early in the morning and he he reads the bhagavatam very early in the morning he studies it and he he told me I never thought that I could again get up that early and I like it I i feel new life is in my in my veins and as he was telling talking about it I i felt wow I can also get up superhuman early and study the bhagavatam first I will do my routes i’m a holy name person but there’s my faith is there but then i will read the bhagavatam my faith is also there I immediately felt it was coming to me and this is what it is stated in the scriptures by sadhu sangha emptiness overflows with fullness you know when your heart is empty with urgency it overflows with fullness and and some other blessings are there but i remember this uh it’s called from the yoga vashishta ramayan a very very not an often quoted scripture and this is you know find some serious devotee and get into a serious talk I always say talk with them about something which you can only talk with devotees about don’t talk with them about new mobile telephones and new applications on the mobile telephone but talk to them on the spurter path and I can guarantee you as they speak from their experience something something will come into your heart and that will overflow that is as to my knowledge the best method really and the you are not a beginner otherwise you wouldn’t be on the call here um for a beginner this uh you know when my my friend betrayed me and I lost my inheritance and then i went over the road and then the car drove over my foot and the foot broke and now I can understand materialize this misery now i’m joining kushner consciousness that’s for beginners all right but we are you are not a beginner you have to motivate yourself with other things and that those come these other perspectives come when you have sangha or association good so unfortunately our time is up what to do i know we should do mahaj we should invite you to come back next week good yes so please and please everybody remember the announcement from yeshua dal that tomorrow is the daylight savings times in the us and so clocks will be changing on our side for those here in america if you’re outside the usa please check your local timings to see if the program will be starting an hour earlier for you so just that reminder for everybody we will continue to do the program at 9 00 a.m eastern time which will be edt next week eastern daylight time so take that into consideration we’ll continue next week saturday um on gauranga’s lila and so that will be the uh part that we will continue next week we’re so so grateful to you marge your depth your humor your reflectiveness your sincerity your relatability all of it is is quite enlivening for all of us and we’re very very very grateful and glad to have you here we would like to give everybody an opportunity to show their love and thank you and so we will be unmuting everybody and you can have the opportunity to say haribol and thank you and show maharaja your love hare krishna hey krishnamuraj thank you so much for a wonderful presentation we are I don’t think everyone’s been unmuted yet we are anticipating let us unmute everybody thank you very much we are waiting for you next week