English
23rd SEPTEMBER
KIRTANS WILL GO UNOPPOSED!
Welcome all. The entire parampara is blessing you, starting from Brahma, who appeared as Brahma Haridas Thakur and all acaryas are blessing the chanters. I am just conveying those blessings on behalf of the previous Acaryas, including Srila Prabhupada.
You are all blessed that you are getting blessings of the parampara. On the conference today we have 442 participants. We know the world is chanting. More and more new participants are also chanting and also many regular chanters are chanting at different places. Only difference is we are not able to see them on the conference. Everywhere chanting is going on and that gives us joy. Whole parampara is joyful. Gaurang is watching all the chanters. Lots of reporting has happened during the Japa session. Specially devotees have chanted additional number of rounds, from different parts of the world and different parts of India. In Ahmedabad 55 devotees chanted 64 rounds.
Devotees from Bhiwandi and from New Bombay, Ekanath Gangul also chanted 64 rounds. Ramlila Mataji from Solapur reported her daughter in law chanted 32 rounds for the first time. Like that Panchali from Greater Noida chanted 32 rounds and I don't even remember all the reports. I only said some of them which came to my mind. Someone reported doing 118 rounds. I think that was the biggest score.
Syamalangi Mataji from Dubai managed to get more people to chant and even kids chanted on small Japa malas. For small kids there was the small Japa mala with 27 beads. Parents and children were chanting in Dubai. Efforts were made in other parts of the world also to chant more. Get more people to chant. Advaita Acarya from Greater Noida is arranging a holy name festival there today and you know he had been reporting that devotees are preaching in different parts of Noida with great success.
They reported to me yesterday in the park that each one of them got more than 500 new people to chant the maha-mantra. Manjulali Mataji reported 630 school children chanted one round of maha-mantra. This is in Bangalore. Advait Acarya Prabhu was chanting from Slovenia. He did not report anything, but I was happy to see him chanting. Hardik Patel distributed Srila Prabhupada's books which are full of the glories of the holy name.
Book distribution is also a celebration of the World Holy Name Festival. Like that, we should remember your reporting made here. That is all right, and we have only one more day to go - today and tomorrow. You may continue reporting to me on this conference, but you should be visiting World Holy Name Festival website and should be sending your reports to Ekalavya Prabhuji. Dinanukampa Mataji can guide all how to do the total reporting of entire week. You should report your personal report, report of your city, or report of your entire country or continent. Dinanukampa Mataji and Madhavi Gauri mataji will check how to do the final reporting and prepare the combined report of everything. This will be eventually reported to the GBC(Governing Body Committee.) They will not go into minute details, but will have an overview of bib things, big numbers and there will be winners.
Till now so many reports are coming. Trilokinath from Brisbane, Australia reported Harinama is going on there. The Bhakti Vriksha group of Srimati Radhika chanted yesterday. I want to stop this reporting now, and want to tell you some glories of the holy name, this morning.
We are saying that we will be talking about the glory of Harinama, but this is also like a report of Maha Harinama Sankirtana that took place 500 years back in Navadvipa. For the past few days you have been hearing how Caitanya Mahaprabhu was instructing and inspiring followers to go out and chant and dance and spread the glory of Harinama. ‘Share glories of the holy name, share the holy name with others.’ Caitanya Mahaprabhu also told them to come back and report him.
One day many devotees presented a very bad report to Mahaprabhu. It was very discouraging. That was that Chand Kazi along with his police force were opposing the kirtana. They were opposing not just by saying, ‘Oh! Don't do it!
You can't do it! They went even beyond that and started beating and threatening all the chanters. They started breaking mrdangas.” There was reporting like this from all over. Such reports were reaching Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu. When Mahaprabhu heard these reports He was very furious. He was very angry like a rudra personified. He was in the mood of destroying all those agents and parties and individuals who were opposing Mahaprabhu’s or Hari’s kirtana or the holy name 'Hare Krishna'.
Then Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu said that they should gather all the devotees from Navadvipa. “I will also be there in the front of the procession. We will all go to Chand Kazi's house. I will question him, threaten him, scare him so that he doesn't stop our kirtana.” So then a big number of devotees arrived on the scene. They most probably gathered at Srivas Thakur's house. His courtyard was known as 'Srivas Angan. So the news spread.
All the Navadvipa residents became very, very delighted and jubilant. Because there was going to be the Maha Harinama Sankirtana party and Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu was going to lead the procession. They all started sweeping and cleaning the streets. They decorated the streets and entrances of their homes. So that the kirtana party can be greeted, whenever they will pass by their homes. All those who arrived at the evening time, were carrying the mashal or lamp in their hands as it was evening. There were so many of them with torches.
The number of participants was amazing. There were millions of participants. This number was beyond the number of residents or citizens or population of Navadvipa. Many demigods had arrived in disguise and there was an overpopulation. The amount of decoration done on the streets was also amazing. They were wondering who is decorating this? Residents were decorating, but they noticed there was much more additional decorations that had taken place. Some visiting personalities also got busy in decorating the town. I can't give all the details. There are so many details. There is a whole chapter on this in Caitanya Bhagavata. Vrindavan Das Thakur has explained this kirtana and kirtana party. This party was divided into so many groups. Advait Acarya was leading one of the parties and Haridas Thakur was dancing and leading another party.
Nityananda Prabhu said, “ No! No! I can't be away from You, my Lord. Wherever You are in whichever party You will be I will be next to You. So like that it was a well organised Sankirtana procession. Now it was heading towards the house of Chand Kazi. “Where is Chand Kazi? Get him!” Those of you who have visited Navadvipa Mayapur know where Chand Kazi's samadhi is. Imagine that was the location of the house of Chand Kazi. And then this whole procession started heading towards the house of Chand Kazi. There was a whole uproar as devotees were chanting and dancing.
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare
They were surcharged with the chanting of the holy name of the Lord. It was heard from the far distance and now Chand Kazi was also able to hear this, Hare Krishna Hare Krishna! He was the one who had been stopping the kirtana all these days. He used to say, “Stop this kirtana! Kirtan must stop! We will threaten you , we will beat this kirtaniyas and break their mrdangas.” These orders were already in place, but this day, as Mahaprabhu's party was chanting there was no opposition. Chand Kazi was wondering what's happening? His followers reported to him that this is Nimai.
Nimai is coming with the big procession, chanting party and dancing party. Some of them are saying, “We will catch Chand Kazi! We will kill Chand Kazi! When Chand Kazi heard reports of this huge harinama party, headed by Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Advaita Acarya, Haridas Thakur, Srivas Thakur, Gadadhar Pandit. All His associates were there performing nagar Sankirtana. Finally the kirtana party arrived right in front of Chand Kazi’s kothi.
Chand Kazi was trying to hide, feeling his end is near now. He cannot save himself. Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu managed to have audience with Chand Kazi. There was the dialogue between Chand Kazi and Gauranga. Chand Kazi was also greeted in his own way, so then there was a dialogue between two great personalities. That was a very good and instructive dialogue. Very inspirational dialogue in fact, which we should study and read from Caitanya Bhagavata.
Gist of it is that Caitanya Mahaprabhu said, “Oh! What happened? You have been stopping our kirtanas all these days, for the past several days, but today we did not see anyone opposing us. We did not encounter any opposition. There was no one trying to stop us. What happened? Why today no one came to stop our kirtana? Tell us what happened? Kirtana went unopposed.” Then Chand Kazi shared his experience of the night before. What he had encountered or what he had gone through.
He said in the middle of the night when I was fast asleep, I heard the roaring sound of a lion, coming in my direction. I was woken up and I saw a very scary scene. Literally there was the lion, but His face was only lion like and His body was human-like. He jumped on my chest, and said that you were stopping My kirtanas, and stopping this Hare Krishna Hare Krishna chanting? I will kill you if you continue such attempts, I am ready to kill you.
He had a long fingers and sharp nails. He placed them on my chest. He was trying to dig them deeper into my chest. There was blood from my chest, but luckily he was kind to me. He said I will let you go, but if you ever again try to stop My kirtanas or chanting and trouble the kirtaniyas , dancing on the streets of Navadvipa, if you ever tried to stop that I will be back. I will then cut you into pieces and make chutney of you and eat that. Understand? Chand Kazi was sharing his experience of the night before. I said you may not believe what I said but look, and he uncovered his chest he removed his kurta and showed the marks of the nails of that person who appeared last night.
They are still fresh can you see?
This is not the end of that pastime, but we need to stop here. But the gist is that Mahaprabhu had promised that I will protect you. You do the kirtanas and if anyone is opposing you, I will take care. He had said this. Then what happened in the case of Chand Kazi. Now you know. That lion was Narasimha. Gauranga is Narasimha. kesava- dhrita-narahari-rupa. Caitanya Mahaprabhu appeared as Narasimhadev and He protected. Then we know from history that there was an order that from today onwards Nimai's Kirtana party will go on unopposed. No one will stop it. Nimai's Kirtana will go on in Navadvipa. He passed that order. This pastime is also called Chand Kazi's uddhar Lila.
He was liberated, and we know that this Chand Kazi was none other than Kamsa. In Caitanya Mahaprabhu Lila has appeared as Chand Kazi. Then there was Chand Kazi uddhar. In Mayapur there is a samadhi of Chand Kazi. That samadhi is not only visited by Muslims but also by Gaudiya Vaisnavas. We have Navadvipa-mandala Parikrama in Mayapur, that time we all go to Chand Kazi's samadhi. We offer our respects and we do Parikrama of his samadhi. Caitanya Mahaprabhu liberated Chand Kazi and then kirtanas went on.
So go on chanting and reporting. We have one more day.
Hare Krishna!