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Topic: The Glories of Rathayatra Mahotsava Date:  30th July 2024 Speaker: HG Vedant Chaitanya Prabhuji Small Talk by HH Lokanath Swami Gurumaharaj: It is wrong to think about sense gratification. How will we meditate on the Brahma Jyothi? There is no dham, or Lord on whom we can meditate. This is not a subject of meditation for the Vaishnavas at least. We should meditate on Lord. Bg. 2.62 dhyāyato viṣayān puṁsaḥ saṅgas teṣūpajāyate saṅgāt sañjāyate kāmaḥ kāmāt krodho ’bhijāyate Translation While contemplating the objects of the senses, a person develops attachment for them, and from such attachment lust develops, and from lust anger arises. aishvaryasya samagrasya viryasya yashasah shriyah jnana-vairagyayosh chaiva shannam bhaga itingana   Translation “Full wealth, strength, fame, beauty, knowledge, and renunciation – these are the six opulences of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.” (Vishnu Purana 6.5.47) By these six opulences one can ascertain what is God. So we should meditate on Lord who has all the wealth and fame, so Hare Krishna Mahamantra is Lord. This mantra is full of all this six opulences.  CC Madhya 17.133 nāma cintāmaṇiḥ kṛṣṇaś caitanya-rasa-vigrahaḥ pūrṇaḥ śuddho nitya-mukto ’bhinnatvān nāma-nāminoḥ   Translation ‘The holy name of Kṛṣṇa is transcendentally blissful. It bestows all spiritual benedictions, for it is Kṛṣṇa Himself, the reservoir of all pleasure. Kṛṣṇa’s name is complete, and it is the form of all transcendental mellows. It is not a material name under any condition, and it is no less powerful than Kṛṣṇa Himself. Since Kṛṣṇa’s name is not contaminated by the material qualities, there is no question of its being involved with māyā. Kṛṣṇa’s name is always liberated and spiritual; it is never conditioned by the laws of material nature. This is because the name of Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa Himself are identical.’ Our mind wanders after different sense objects: Bg. 6.26 yato yato niścalati manaś cañcalam asthiram tatas tato niyamyaitad ātmany eva vaśaṁ nayet Translation From wherever the mind wanders due to its flickering and unsteady nature, one must certainly withdraw it and bring it back under the control of the Self. We must engage our mind in Krishna. Take the help of your brain. Chanting is not a fool’s task. So, you slept also in between. Your brain is nit functioning that means. Brain can tell whether I am sleeping or awake. We can use our brain to decide whether we are awake or sleepy. If sleep in between our japa that means we are fools. Bg. 7.15 na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ prapadyante narādhamāḥ māyayāpahṛta-jñānā āsuraṁ bhāvam āśritāḥ Translation Those miscreants who are grossly foolish, who are lowest among mankind, whose knowledge is stolen by illusion, and who partake of the atheistic nature of demons do not surrender unto Me. Maya steals our focus or knowledge. It makes us fools. So be cautious and take the help of your brain. Meditate on holynames, when you do that, then you can meditate in the form of the Lord and when we do that we will meditate on the qualities of Lord then we can remember the pastimes of Lord, and then we meditate on his associates as well and then finally we mediate on Dham. So we can remember the holynames, qualities, pastimes, associates and Dham of the Lord. So we have a variety as all of them are Krishna himself; his names, qualities, associates who are his relatives and dham- is his expansion. Keep chanting. If you are sleepy, then stand up and chant and then sit again and chant. Wash your face with cold water, do something when you are asleep. Think something to remove sleep. Ask someone to wake you up. Don’t get angry when someone wakes you up. Appreciate someone if they wake you up. This give and take is only called yoga or connection with Lord. Establish your relationship more and more.  We are chanting to deepen our relationship with Lord. Remember Lord while chanting, this is the process. What we should not do? Don’t think about Maya. We have to do only this, we have to think about Krishna and forget Maya while chanting. We must do nothing apart from this. Our life will be successful, and this self-realization is the goal of life. We have to go Back to home, back to Godhead. Do these do things-meditate on Lord and forget Maya. We have to practice this everyday and every second.  Don’t think about sense objects, words, smell, form, ras and touch. We have to stay away from them. Material touches which are their in malls, form, ras and smell he should leave this. We should not engage ourselves in this completely. Think about Lord that is Su-Vichara. Then there is Ku-vichar which is not thinking about Krishna. From Suvichara we will have good morning and night also. On the basis of these good wishes, we will have good morning. So Vedant and Chaitanya together. The essence of Vedas is Chaitanya. His words is his introduction. Now hear him nicely. HG Vedant Chaitanya Prabhuji: Dandvat Pranam to Gurumaharaj and all the devotees. Introduction of  courses from Rupanuga Vidyapeeth Pandharpur. So we should do these types of organised courses. Although these lectures are available on youtube, but it is important to listen carefully. Generally, we don’t listen properly, but when we listen in these courses which has exams, then only we study properly. Exam fear makes us study. They should read and listen. We just read for the sake of it. So this is a systematic study and then we can understand the subjects properly. We are creating these courses to give a platform for devotees to learn scriptures. This is run by the will of Srila Gurudev. We have created a school-college kind of environment and please float these courses in different groups.  om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya cakshur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah nama om vishnu-padaya krishna-preshthaya bhutale srimate bhaktivedanta-swamin iti namine namas te saraswate deve gaura-vani-pracharine nirvishesha shunyavadi pashchatya desha tarine jaya sri-krishna-chaitanya prabhu nityananda sri-adwaita gadadhara shrivasadi-gaura-bhakta-vrinda Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare In bhakti our progress is dependent on our interest in hearing and how much we can chant. This determines our success in bhakti. These things cannot happen separately, it goes hand in hand. So we talk about senior devotees and many people think that we are senior devotees so we don’t need to do these courses. I want to ask them why do they think so? So we should be senior in Namrata, tolerance and knowledge and a person how is senior in this things is actually senior. If someone is demanding seniority then that means that person is not senior at all. So we have to become senior in these things and if you follow these things, then we can consider that person as senior. One should not demand respect but command respect, Guru Maharaj says this. His character, behaviour should reflect that. So these symptoms are automatically shown. We don’t need to ask for it. He excels in naam ruchi, knowledge etc and then if they command respect then that is not right. They give respect rather than receiving it. People will treat you as senior rather than you demanding for it.  These devic gunas can come when we have mercy of senior vaishnavas but we cannot develop these qualities on our own. Devotees say that we can get  angry even when we are in ISKCON for so many years. So, we should continuously do practice to give up these bad qualities. If the guru and Vaishanava  are pleased, then these qualities develop. We can’t bring these qualities on our own. These are the intrinsic quality of the soul. We have taken dirty upon us, just like dirt fade aways the shine of the diamond. We should remove the dirt to show the shine of diamond. So, by hearing, serving, staying at holy place, we can remove the dust layer of maya. Then we become tolerant and we become humble. So all these layers should be removed by service, hearing, worshipping dham vaas and chanting. Bg. 7.25 nāhaṁ prakāśaḥ sarvasya yoga-māyā-samāvṛtaḥ mūḍho ’yaṁ nābhijānāti loko mām ajam avyayam Translation I am never manifest to the foolish and unintelligent. For them I am covered by My internal potency, and therefore they do not know that I am unborn and infallible. When someone listens to katha of Krishna with great concentration, then these anarthas wash away. We give respect to others, leave our pride etc. So it shows in person whose Avranas are removed. Sravana is very important. In SB ŚB 1.2.17 śṛṇvatāṁ sva-kathāḥ kṛṣṇaḥ puṇya-śravaṇa-kīrtanaḥ hṛdy antaḥ stho hy abhadrāṇi vidhunoti suhṛt satām Translation Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the Personality of Godhead, who is the Paramātmā [Supersoul] in everyone’s heart and the benefactor of the truthful devotee, cleanses desire for material enjoyment from the heart of the devotee who has developed the urge to hear His messages, which are in themselves virtuous when properly heard and chanted. So listening is important for removing this anartha layers. We should listen very carefully with great attention and we should hear each word carefully. Many times, deer roams in the jungle and he hears very carefully so that he is aware if the lion comes. If they does not hear properly, then the lion can eat them and his life is gone. So, they listen carefully. If we don’t hear carefully then there is no point in listening. So the deer loves his life so dearly but when we don’t hear and listen properly then we are not able to break the shackles of so many lives. So Sukadev Goswami asks Parikshit Maharaj to please hear with great attention.  A person who is very humble then we understand from Guru. Till the time the disciple is not humble then till that time we cannot make them understand about the confidential knowledge. So Gurumaharaj said that this shloka tells about the patrata of a person. If we don’t have a patrata, then how can we accept the mercy of Guru. This patra is CC Ādi 17.31 tṛṇād api su-nīcena taror iva sahiṣṇunā amāninā māna-dena kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ Translation “One who thinks himself lower than the grass, who is more tolerant than a tree, and who does not expect personal honor yet is always prepared to give all respect to others can very easily always chant the holy name of the Lord.” We can understand the patrata of a person by assessing these four qualities. Guru can always give mercy but if we do not have patrata then what is the use?  These four qualities are important to imbibe in us so that we can develop the patrata. A person who is humble only he can take knowledge.  Once HH Sivarama Swami said, if we don’t develop a heart-to-heart relationship with Gurudev UNTIL that time Guru doesn’t reveal the confidential knowledge. Guru cannot express themselves fully if trust is not built. People who win the trust of people, only they can succeed in devotion. Only those people can understand the knowledge. Trust is next to love. It is not easy to win someone’s trust, it takes years and years of time, when a person serves the Guru, then he gives the knowledge to us. Sri Guru-vandana Text 3 cakshu-dan dilo jei, janme janme prabhu sei, divya jnan hride prokasito prema-bhakti jaha hoite, avidya vinasa jate, vede gay jahara carito Translation He opens my darkened eyes and fills my heart with transcendental knowledge. He is my Lord birth after birth. From him ecstatic prema emanates; by him ignorance is destroyed. The Vedic scriptures sing of his character. Kripa is of two types-Kapta and Nishkapta kripa. Kapta kripa is when he praise you but this Nishkapta Kripa happens when we get scolding from guru. We think our service is good, but if we don’t reach that level actually then Guru knows and then he talks in that way. In Srimad Bhagavatam, What is that life without scolding of Guru. We need to make ourselves qualified to receive that mercy. So we can take up one question. Ques 1. So if we feel insulted by seniors then what should we do? So they treat VIPS and they don’t treat us properly. So what should we do? They say that your behaivior is not good and all. Ans1. In your home, we don’t treat our housemates as VIPS. So similarly when we become residents of the temple, we should leave it there only. This is not a big thing. So when a guest comes in the house, then we treat them differently. Seniors should know we should not hurt anyone’s ego. We feel bad when someone tries to find fault. This is Lord’s mercy that someone is taking out mistakes in us. So we should take it us mercy of Krishna. It is a way of cleansing us. So if you can’t bear that then you can distance yourself from that person.    

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