Nama Om Vishnu Paadaya, ….
Hari Haraaya Naam Krishna Yadavaya Naama Hari Gopal Govinda Rama Sri Madhusudhan
Mukham karoti…
So today is the 11th of February, Monday. Yesterday was Vasanta Panchami and the appearance day of Pundarik Vidyanidhi, Saraswati Puja and many other great souls appeared and disappeared on that day. So today I had my physical therapy in the morning and voice therapy. If anyone finds it difficult to understand the words what I say, please give those words. Those who are physically here, can give the words to Ekarani dd. Those who are on internet and have smart phone can send their words under the comments of the live page. So we are blessed today by the presence of His Holiness Radhanath Swami and he has an early morning flight, so he left. Otherwise, we would have loved to have had him on this class. I went for cycling, because for two days I hadn’t been cycling. So class is a bit late. I had to do at least 450 cycles.
Caitanya Carita Mahakaavya (Guru maharaj said: Oh boy! Haribol! Caitanya Carita Mahakaavya…
When there was not space in the room, sufficient space to hold more people, the effulgence of the Lord somehow came through the spaces in the walls became visible to the people outside. The people inside were so happy, so joyful that somehow their joy radiated from inside the room! Just like a devotee feeling great joy in serving the Lord in pure, ecstatic love. It is shown in his outside body by the hairs standing on end. Similarly, the room was radiating this ecstasy outside. Haribol!
Caitanya Bhagavat, Madhya kanda:
The devotees cleaned Vishnu’s throne and the Lord Vishwambhar sat down on His own throne.
Lord Nityananda Rai, held an umbrella over the head of the Lord. Some fortunate devotee fanned the Lord with a chamara. Chamara is a fan made from the yak tail in the Himalayas.
All the devotees, they took the articles for puja worship to the Lord, and they began to worship their own Lord at His lotus feet.
They offered various articles of worship and various ceremonies. These have names in Sanskrit and I will try to give the translation by a brief description of the ceremony. Paadya – this is offering water at the lotus feet of the Lord and washing His lotus feet.
Aargya – this is water and aus items to the hand of the Lord.
Aachamani – This is water for washing the mouth
Gandha – this is sandalwood paste
Pushpa – this is flowers offered to the Lord
Dhupa – this is incense offered to the Lord
Pradeep – these are lamps offered to the Lord
Single lamp of camphor or multiple lamps either five, seven or different lamps.
Naivedhya – these are foodstuffs offered to the Lord.
Vastra – pure cloth offered to the Lord.
So everything was offered in this order.
According to their capacity, they offered brahmin threads, cloth and ornaments and they worshipped the Lord with the 16 ingredients mentioned in the Vedas. According to Hari Bhakti Vilas 11.46.49, the 16 ingredients of shodashaka upacharaa puja are mentioned.
So the devotees dipped Tulasi manjari or flowers into sandalwood paste and then offered again and again, repeatedly at the lotus feet of the Lord. Tulasi manjari is only offered to Vishnu’s lotus feet. It was offered to Lord Caitanya because He had revealed to the devotees that He was actually Lord Vishnu. He was Krishna, the original Vishnu, come as a devotee. So at this time, He revealed His actual identity to Lord Advaita. It was one of the rare occasions. Usually the Lord kept Himself secret.
The devotees worshipped the Lord following all the rules and regulations, by chanting the ten syllable Gopal mantra. After offering this Gopal mantra to the Lord, they all began to offer different prayers and mantras to the Lord. The Gopal mantra is described in the Gautamiya Tantra and in the Narada Pancharaatra.
All the principle associates of the Lord, headed by Advaita Gosain, fell down and offered their prostrate obeisances at the lotus feet of the Lord.
Rivers of love flowed as tears from the eyes of the devotees. As the devotees offered their prayers to the Lord, the Lord listened with rapt attention, the following prayers.
Since the Lord is transcendental to everything, He is not subject to the same defects that the conditioned souls have, and He listened without duplicity, with total sincerity and attention to the prayers of the devotees. He was showing His transcendental position as the avatar of Narayana.
How many more verses? 2
All the devotees present became very joyful and absorbed in bliss, they understood that Gaurangadev was the Lord of the three worlds ,and having this realization, they also heard coming from the mouth of Shri Gauranga Mahaprabhu, a special very sweet and blissful sound of the flute, and all the people could hear this emanating from His lotus mouth! Haribol! Gauranga! Gauranga! Gauranga! Gauranga! Gauranga! Gauranga!
At that time, all the devotees present felt unparalleled happiness! And their bodies had their hairs standing on end and at that time, their eyes were filled with loving tears!! It felt such unparalleled bliss. They offered Shri Gauranga special jaya dhwani Saying Haribol! Jaya dhwani and the ladies were chanting ulu dhwani! All directed to Gaurachandra!! Jaya Gaurachandra Jaya Gaurachandra Jaya Gaurachandra Jaya Gaurachandra!
Thus ends the chapter entitled 16 articles of worship of the Lord under the section of the 21-hour ecstasy. So if you can get the questions, I will just be back!
Question: Dear guru maharaj, What pleases you the most? Gunagrahi Gauranga das
Guru maharaj: It depends. If devotees do service up to their capacity, that is very pleasing to me. Hanuman was throwing mountain tops in the water, and a squirrel, he was throwing only small pebbles. Hanuman told the squirrel, move aside, but Lord Ramachandra said no, he is serving up to his capacity. So whatever your capacity, you serve up to capacity or more, I will be very happy. Of course we would like to see the message of Lord Caitanya, Krishna spread. We would like to see the conditioned souls liberated from this material bondage and they are engaged in Krishna’s service. Haribol!
Question: Dandavat pranams guru maharaj. Can you tell us what are the main offences to the home deities that grihasthas must avoid? How to rise to the platform of offenseless worship? Ys Lalitangi Radha devi dasi
Guru maharaj: Lalita Radha devi dasi, read the Nectar of Devotion. There are 64 seva aparadhs to avoid, and for me to explain all the 64, I think would be too late! Well, whatever is applicable to the temple deities, the home deity is the practice deity, so you try to avoid all the things that are mentioned for the main deities. Like it says, don’t sit with your feet out to the deities. So how we can say we could do that for the home deity but not temple deity? So you know some of the things may not be applicable.. but off hand I cannot say what are not applicable.
Q: Dear most Guru maharaj, Gauranga is non-different from Krishna. Can our constitutional position of a jiva be preaching in Gauranga’s service?
Guru maharaj: Those who are Gauranga’s devotee, they simultaneously get a position in Krishna lila and Gauranga lila. Bonus! So in Gauranga lila some of the gopis or devotees with female bodies may have male bodies in Gauranga lila, maybe. Those who have male bodies in Gauranga lila may have female bodies in Krishna lila. Like Satyabhama in Krishna lila is Jagadananda Pandit in Gauranga lila. And Vishakha is Ramananda Rai and Lalita is Swarup Damodar. Of course Radharani is Gadaadhar. But Narada Muni is Srivas. So he is male in both.
Question: Hare Krishna guru maharaj: (Guru maharaj said: Hare Krishna!) we would like to understand if a person who worked for Indian Army and now working as a security head in a mall, is he eligible for initiation? During the initiation interview this time, he was told to quit his job. (Guru maharaj said, why?) Is it mandatory? Vaishnavananda Nitai das from Bengaluru.
Guru maharaj: I don’t understand why some devotee was being told to quit his job. Some devotee may be cooking meat in a restaurant. So that is not allowed to take initiation, if you are dealing with meat. Some people they are selling fish, there is a lot of karma in selling fish. They may not eat the fish but they sell it. So those kinds of jobs are better to change. But being a guard, I don’t see why you have to change. Is he guarding the meat? Even then I don’t think that is one of these six karmas mentioned by Manu, storing the animal, transporting the animal, killing the animal, cooking the animal, eating the meat, so
Devotee says because he is guarding in a mall where there are restaurants which sell liquor and other meat eating restaurants. After initiation he quit his job because he was told to quit.
Guru maharaj: I do not think that it is required. The guard’s job is basically to keep away thieves. They don’t deal with the liquor or meat as such. I had someone in a shoe factory, there he was the accountant. They don’t deal with the leather, they just show the income and expense. So for that, how strict you want to become if not directly dealing with meat or leather, but he is accounting. So anyone working as a Chartered Accountant he has a job that he may have to do some job for a corporation and the corporation, one of the things they do is maybe breaking the regulative principles. This world is as Prabhupad said, utility is the principle It is not a perfect world. I take it literally what the codes of Manu say, how to distinguish who gets the karma for the killing of the cow. I was working in a rest. My job was to sweep the floor and clean the tables. My father and grandfather were multi-millionaires. But they, the devotees, said they needed some money for paying for Prabhupad’s flat rent. So all the brahmacharis and bhaktas had to go out and do a job. So this is the job I got. I was working at a A&W Root beer restaurant, which was serving meat as one of its items. So some devotees asked Prabhupad that he is working in a meat restaurant. Prabhupad asked what does he do? They said he cleans up. So he read thru the six karmas – the last karma is one who eats the meat. So he said cleaning up is not part of it. Ha! So I held the job. Ha!a But Janamashtami came and I asked for leave for and the manager said no. I said it is a very important day for us. He said, no. I left any way and went to Janamashtami! and I was fired! That was a blessing in disguise. Then I worked in a printing press. I worked for two weeks and the guy promised he will pay me. After two weeks I asked him where is my money? He laughed. He said I am not going to pay you. Thank you for the work! So then I went to a printing place looking for a job and the guy asked you know printing? I said sure. How long do you know? So I had to tell a fib. I had to tell a lie. I said six months. In two weeks what I learnt, I could run the machine and so I got the job! So I got three times more salary as a printer. Now our devotees don’t have to do this. They worship deities, they sell books and they go out and propagate. So now we get donations and we maintain the devotees. But I know what it is like working outside. That is why I appreciate the congregation so much, they are working and they are also practicing Krishna consciousness. HARIBOL!
Today I got a gift from Madana Mohini and of course, the details you can read on my Facebook page. I thank Madana Mohini for this kind gift. But I think that she really deserves it. Any way. (Guru maharaj showed a trophy cup)
Transcribed by Jayaraseshwari devi dasi
11 February 2019