English
5th July 2019
Jagannath is in Gundicha temple which is Vrindavan
Yesterday was Jagannath Rath Yatra mahotsav ki jay! Haribol.
I am sure many of you took part in Rath Yatra wherever you were. I was at least able to watch Rath Yatra procession in Jagannath Puri yesterday. I had darsana of Jagannath with the crown. That is a beautiful city. I'm not sure how far the procession reached, sometime they stopped in the middle. Hopefully Jagannath has reached Gundicha temple, on the altar of Gundicha mandir by now. And Gundicha mandir is Vrindavan dhama- Vrindavan of Jagannath Puri. Lord will reside there for 8 to 9 days. Lord is very happy to be back in Vrindavan surrounded by his loving most loving devotees of Vrindavan dhama. This gives us topic to think about Lord, Hare Krishna, think of Radha and Krishna, think of Jagannath. We had been thinking. Now two weeks ago there was a snana yatra festival and then Lord took bed rest and getting recuperated. So we had been reminding you or we should be remembering like that my Lord Jagannath, Sri Krishna is not well. Ok we got the news that He is getting better and better. And then Gundicha marjana took place. That also was the day of Netra utsav. First time after long time devotees took darsana of Jagannath and yesterday was the Rath Yatra festival. Lord riding on the chariot and very anxiously eagerly traveling to Vrindavan to meet His devotees. Those who are pulling chariot they are His devotees and they are bringing Him back to Vrindavan.
And now He is in Vrindavan He is in Gundicha temple. All these past times of Jagannath in Jagannath Puri are lot for us to think about and meditate upon and digest, assimilate, make part of our system, consciousness and become Krishna conscious while chanting
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare
This gives topic for us to think about. We could very easily say that we are doing dhyana, we are remembering even these pastimes of Lord Jagannath and if we are remembering, chanting and remembering pastimes of Jagannath, but pastimes of Vitthal are going on here. Same Lord in Ayodhya, He has some pastimes happening and in Dwarka dhama it would be Sri Krishna and ‘Dakor ma kon che? Raja Ranchoda Che’ and like that Mayapur dhama ki jay! Gauranga Mahaprabhu is having His pastimes there. Vigraha, the deities are participating in different occasions and festivals you know. The tons of topic you could think about as Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Sarasvati Thakur used to say or used to propose, we should have a daily newspaper, ‘Hare Krishna’ daily newspaper. Some of his disciples said “Guru maharaja, how is that possible? How could we have so much news to print every day, Hare Krishna newspaper? Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur said and you could see, the world has hundreds and thousands of newspapers. There are so much news, breaking news, printing the news daily. But there are so many news from the spiritual sky, spiritual world, what to speak of printing the news daily in newspaper. There is enough news to print every minute. Every moment paper could be printed with so much news from all around, from all abodes, all personalities of Godhead and Their pastimes, Their festivals, this and that.
So if you could remember those activities and pastimes and lilas and festivals and get rid of these mundane news of this world, keep that out and substitute that with spiritual news, spiritual activities, pastimes of Jagannath and other deities are performing also and of course nitya lilas, pastimes are taking place all the time at every step. Now Caitanya Mahaprabhu is spending His time in Gundicha. I mean He is ‘jei gaur sei krishna sei jagannath.’ Jagannath is residing there and Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu is also residing in Gundicha and spending lot of time in Gundicha temple and how are they spending time, how is Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu spending His time?
Water sports and different things going on in Narendra Sarovar and lakes around. Caitanya Mahaprabhu used to enter different lakes and with His associates, He is playing water sports and splashing, so activities like that like Lord’s activities in Vrindavan with gopis, jalkeli water sport or with the cowherd boys He is also swimming and playing in water of Yamuna.
So Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu He is in mood of Sri Krishna, back in Vrindavan and He is performing various pastimes. They are hearing about Radha and Krishna, lot of time is spent in hearing and chanting at Gundicha temple. Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Gauranga surrounded by His associates specially very close confidential associates like Rai Ramananda, Svarupa Damodar, Govind and others Jagadanand Pandit and they were all doing,
‘bodhayantaha parasparam
kathayantasch mam nityam
tushyanti ch ramanti cha
(BG 10.9)
They are all talking about Krishna. Radha Krishna ki jai! Specially Svarupa Damodar he recites pastimes. He doesn’t speak pastimes; he sings pastimes of the Lord. Specially poems and songs devotional songs of Vidyapati and Chandidas. Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu took great pleasure as Svarupa Damodar would recites those devotional songs. Jaidev Goswami’s ‘Geet Govind’, Krishna Karnamrita of Bilvamangal Thakur, and Grantharaj Srimad Bhagavatam . That is another topic of discussion. Mostly this is going on there. Hearing and chanting and there is shravan utsav, you would like to call it and this is how they are happily absorbed in the pastimes of Radha Krishna in Vrindavan, from Vrindavan, now they are relishing these pastimes at Gundicha temple. As one listens to these pastimes, that pastimes are realized, that listener could began witnessing those pastimes. He becomes attracted to the pastimes and of course the personality of Radha Krishna those who are center of these pastimes and attempts to join this pastime, they could become very much nityalila pravishta. They could enter those pastimes and as they listen to these pastimes with rapt attention and this how they could become the jivan mukta while they are still in the present body. They are liberated.
So this is what is going on at Gundicha temple in association of Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu and then all His associates and as we get to hear about this from Caitanya Caritamrita, we are repeating this. So we get hooked or connected to that happened at Gundicha temple 500 years ago and is going on eternally right now.
Svarupa Damodar was Lalita sakhi from Krishna’s pastime. Now he has appeared as Svarupa Damodar and he understands Lord’s mind Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s mind very well or some of the thoughts in the mind, in the heart of Gauranga. Svarupa Damodar was blessed and competent to grasp what Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu was thinking about and what is on His mind or even some mantras or statements Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu used to utter and others could not understand what is He talking or singing about that also was happening during Jagannath ratha yatra 500 years ago.
Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu was saying something very very confidential and of course those were thoughts of, He was talking in a mood of Radharani. So what Radha has to say is not ordinary, superficial statement. It is very deep, very confidential. So Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu was uttering those statements. And Caitanya Caritamrita says Svarupa Damodar was only one who was understanding what Mahaprabhu was talking about. So Svarupa Damodar was exalted. We already said he is Lalita, if we could understand Lalita then that’s enough to understand Savarupa Damodar Goswami’s position.
So yesterday was also Svarupa Damodar Goswami’s disappearance day. So we thought to bring him into the picture, remembering him. Also I remember another special lila, Lord Gauranga Mahaprabhu had given one special assignment to Svarupa Damodar. Always there were lot of devotees and visitors. They had a habit of writing some statement addressed to Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu, they would write it down and Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu would read what they had written. Svarupa Damodar would process them before passing to Caitanya Mahaprabhu. He would pass whatever was perfect to Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu and anything that was imperfect or defective, siddhanta wise or otherwise Svarupa Damadar would reject that or throw that into dustbin. It is described that Svarupa Damodar was a secretary that one title also he had. So he was doing his secretarial services.
So one day one person he wrote his statement glorifying Jagannath and Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu as well. So what basically he had written was Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu ki jai! Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu is soul of Jagannath. He is atma of Jagannath. He was thinking, i am glorifying Gauranga but by mentioning Him to be the atma, the spirit of Jagannath. Svarupa Damodhar when he read this he dumped it into the dustbin.
Even when I read Caitanya Caritamrita initially, I thought this is great. I also was thinking like that, mind blowing Caitanya Mahaprabhu is soul of Jagannath. But Svarupa Damodar Goswami Maharaja, he took no extra time realizing the defect in that statement and he dumped it. So the defect was that if Sri Krishna Caitanya Mahaprabhu is atma of Jagannath, Jagannath is bodily form and Caitanya Mahaprabhu is soul. One is body and one is soul. Distinction Is there, so this is trouble, defect, flaw in this so called glory of Gauranga and Jagannath. Jagannath doesn’t have a body. Jagannath only has a soul or Jagannath is a soul supreme soul and Gauranga Mahaprabhu is Jagannath. Caitanya Mahaprabhu is equal to Jagannath not that He is part of Jagannath or He is soul of Jagannath.
‘jei Gour sei Krishna sei Jagannath’ He is Gauranga. He is also Jagannath, so they are both purna Purushottam, not that one is soul of another body or another personality. So Svarupa Damodar Goswami detected this defect and he rejected this statement which helped us to understand the tattva, Gaura tattva or Jagannath tattva.
We have to understand Lord tattvataha in order to become Krishna conscious in order to chant with faith in the holy name.
So we stop here, you continue, yesterday also was disappearance day of Shivananda Sen. I wanted to say yesterday also was appearance day or avirbhava tithi mahotsav of Radha Govind Swami Maharaja. I understood that some of you were able to participate in Vyaspuja festivals in Pune and some other places. So Radha Govind Goswami Maharaja is a very dear Godbrother of mine and his recitation of Srimad Bhagavatam is excellent. And he has been gifted by the Lord and he is very realized soul rather, realized statements of Bhagavatam and I always take great pleasure in listening Radha Govind Goswami Maharaja’s katha. Lord’s pastimes and hundreds of recording available, strongly recommend you all also hear them,of course, his kathas are in Hindi. There are hundreds of kathas recordings available in Hindi. I have been listening and I will keep listening to his kathas. I would like you take advantage of the treasure that Radha Govinda Goswami Maharaja’s left, he is still with us but his treasure is available. Take full advantage, become enriched.
Radha Govind Goswami Maharaja avirbhava tithi maha mahotsav ki jay!
Gaur Premanande hari hari bol!
