Nama Om Vishnu paadaaya..
Hari Haraya Naama Krishna …
Jaya Prabhupada…
Mukham karoti…

Who was on the safari? Raise your hands! In the back! Don’t sit on the ledge, we don’t want you to fall off! Someone was on the ledge a few floors down and he fell asleep and he fell off! But since he was not so high, he survived! It is very dangerous to sit on the ledge. How many verses left? Many verses with big purports. So we will continue reading the glories of Balaram and Nityananda Prabhu.

Some people being very foolish, don’t see the puranas. They refuse to accept the authenticity of Balaram’s raasa lila. So the word murkha doshe which is used in the original Bengali means, due to foolishness. So if someone cannot understand a purport or meaning of the scriptures, then he is called a fool! So some people are proud of their material designations, and they are averse to the Supreme Lord, Lord Vishnu, who is beyond any material considerations. Such foolish people do not care to discuss the important puranas, like the Srimad Bhagavatam and they simply commit offences, by misinterpreting the statements from the Srimad Bhagavatam and other puranas. There are two types of people wo refuse to accept the raasa lila of Lord Balaram. So these people are being condemned by Vrndavan das Thakur. Lord Balaram is the supreme shelter. And as such, He should be respected and understood, but the foolish people do not understand the actual position of Lord Balaram.

The two brothers Krishna and Balaram, performed raasakrida with the gopis in Vrndavan. Raasakrida can also mean the Holi festival, throwing of colors as explained by Srila Jiva Goswami in his Laghu Toshani commentary on Srimad Bhagavatam.

This verse was in Sanskrit, so read the translation:

“Once Lord Govinda and Lord Rama, the performers of wonderful feats, were playing Holi in the forest at night with the young girls of Vraja.”

So in Vraja, Krishna and Balaram, the principle relationship was friendship. Balaram as Krishna’s friend, He was helping Krishna to enjoy. So after Shiva Ratri they observed the Holi Purnima and they were in the sub forest in Vrndavan. And in Dwaraka, Balaram was mainly taking the role of elder brother of Krishna. So that is the difference between Vraja lila of Krishna Balaram, and Dwaraka lila.

This is in Sanskrit, translation:

“Krishna and Balaram wore flower garlands and spotless garments and Their limbs were beautifully decorated and anointed. The women sang the glories in a charming way bound to them by affection.”

Jiva Goswami says that Lord Balaram has His own group of gopi friends.

Translation:

“The two Lords praised the nightfall signaled by the rising of the moon and the appearance of the stars. A lotus scented breeze and bees intoxicated by the fragrance of jasmine flowers.”

Translation:

“Krishna and Balaram sang, producing the entire range of musical sounds simultaneously. Their singing brought happiness to the ears and minds of all living beings.”

Haribol!

So murchanas are a very technical description – the precursors of a raaga is a murchana and that is the sequence of the seven scales of music, going from ascending to descending. And there are three sub divisions or notes, each with seven sub divisions. Or a total of 21 murchanas. Krishna and Balaram are so expert, They could sing with all these different murchanas, which are difficult even to understand or explain, what to speak of, to do!!? So Chitraketu prays to Lord Sankarshana that foolish people who want material enjoyment and worship various demigods, are no better than animals. They fail to worship Your Lordship, instead they worship insignificant demigods, who are small portions of Your Lord. And when they are destroyed, by the changing of the manavantaras, their benedictions are also finished. Just like a king when he is out of power, he no longer has any nobility. And presently in, what is that country – Algeria, they are demonstrating to remove the president, as they say that he is old, he is 82 and he has lost his memory, he can no longer rule. So once he is out of power, who will care for him? So this thing is going on. So these devas they give us blessings, for some material enjoyment ,but that is very short lived and when the devas are finished, their blessings are also finished. So one should worship Krishna and Balaram, who are never finished!! Haribol! Krishna and Balaram are Nitai Gaur, Balaram and Krishna. Nitai Gaur! Nitai Gaur! So Maha Sankarshana is the expansion of Lord Balaram. He is the shelter of all jivas. We are jivas. I am reminded of the namahatta song – Nadiya Godrume Nityananda Mahajan, Paathi aache namahatta jivera kaaran, shraddha vanjan hey shraddha vanjana.

So Balaram or Nityananda is the source of Maha Sankarshan, who is the shelter of all the jivas. So jivas are the marginal potency of the Lord. So the Lord’s expansion is a Prakash and the expansion of the expansion is akula. So Balaram is svayam prakash. So Maha Vishnu is one of the akulas, one of the parts of a part. Maha Vishnu is the source of other purushavatars – Garbodhakshaayi and Kshirodakshaayi are both called purushavatars. They are the plenary portions of the Kaaranodaakshaayi Vishnu the Maha Vishnu, who is the first Purusha. So all the universes come in Maha Vishnu and Kshirodakshaayi is in each universe, supervising the creation, maintenance and destruction. He manifests Himself in different incarnations, and He is the maintainer of the worl. So that means that He is the part of the part of the part of Lord Nityananda. So Lord Caitanya is the same Lord Krishna and Lord Nityananda is the same Lord Balaram. Lord Nityananda fulfills all of Lord Caitanya’s desires. These two brothers are like one body; they are identical manifestations. If you do not believe in Lord Nityananda, you will fall down! Who believes in Lord Nityananda? Nitai, Nitai! So Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur says, it is better to be an atheist, than be a hypocrite, by believing in one and not the other. Nitai Gaur! So we will start from here tomorrow.

So I was thinking this morning after being with the safari for two days, and seeing different mass namahattas’ stage programs, that in Chagda there were 4-5 thousand people, and in the place near Adi Saptagram, there were 8-10 thousand people! So I was thinking that, when I started some 40 years ago, preaching in the namahatta, I had a program called Sanskar Patra. Where I would request people who would chant minimum one round a day, 108 Hare Krishnas and we got thousands of people to accept that. I went to one house in Jalpaiguri by the Chinese border, maybe that is Bhutan border, and a person had one of the Sanskar patra mantra card mailed to his house of bamboo. He said I have been chanting one round for six years. Can I increase now? It won’t be an offence? Ha! Ha! So we have to tell them that they can chant more if they want. Ha! Ha! I was thinking that now we have so many devotees, that means many people are coming new. We could convince them on the importance of chanting Hare Krishna. There are many verses in the Vedas that give the importance of chanting. Like Harer naama Harer naama Harer naam eiva kevalam, kaluau naastyaiva naastyaiva naastyaiva gathis anyatha. Like this, there are hundreds of verses. We heard that in the Hari Bhakti Vilas, there are more. So I don’t think we have any problem to convince people that they should chant Hare Krishna. I want to try this in Berhampur and if it works, I would like some of the safari ladies to give out the mantra cards to the ladies. And the safari men should give out the cards to the men. So we start a revolution! Lord Caitanya had a simple process. Three ways, He said, bolo Krishna, bhajo Krishna, koro Krishna shikha. Chant Hare Krishna, that is one third. Then bhajo Krishna, serve Krishna in devotional service, that the namahatta can teach them how to do that. That will be how to eat prasadam, how to observe Ekadasi, how to put on Tilak, bhajo Krishna. And then koro Krishna shikha. Prabhupad said that Bhagavad Gita is the teachings of Krishna, and Srimad Bhagavatam is about Krishna’s glories. So both are Krishna shikha. And then there is Caitanya Caritamrita and other books. So that is the book distribution. So three ways, Harinaam, dev service, and books! Good idea? Do you want to try it?

So ok, we have one thousand mantra cards from the sankirtan, that is not enough. I have asked Mahavaraha to print out some. And then we have to see, maybe namahatta may have some. What if 2000 people stand up?? We want them to take one home. Any way. Are there are questions on the Balaram class?

Are you here tomorrow Marici prabhu or will you go?

Tomorrow the whole day they are here and day after will go to Berhampur.

Second part of the Vaishnava etiquette. Can anyone attend even if you are not safari? Anyone can come! Shooo…. Is there Ha! Ha! Any questions? Introductions?

Marici prabhu said, that the timing of the Vaishnava seminar is 10.30 am tomorrow and there will be questions and answers.

Guru maharaj said: I heard you perfectly, loud and clear, you were yelling!

Marici prabhu said sorry, guru maharaj, I was talking so loud for everyone. Guru maharaj attended the safari the last two days was very, very nice and inspiring. This was amazing, these two days. How much love the namahatta devotees have for Srila Jayapataka Swami, my guru maharaj, in Chagda for instance or Adi Saptagram, those two programs, thousands of devotees there were initiated, like, they are not like normal public. Yesterday in Adi Saptagram, about one and a half kilometres around the pandal, the entire city, they have speakers so the entire town, they could hear guru maharaj. When he arrived, the reception was simply amazing. You can see thousands of people crying and welcoming him. The matajis were doing uludhwani and singing. Adi Saptagram is very famous for Sandhya Arati. So when they did the Sandhya arati, you cannot imagine, when you see eight thousand people dancing, it is not like a normal Sandhya arati, everyone, chanting Hare Krishna with a lot of emotion. And devotees from this place they also teach how to chant and all the safari devotees went to the public to sing and dance together with the public, it is really touching! And also yesterday has been an amazing day. Almost every day. Even today we went to Samudragarh village. But in this small place they have three namahattas. I asked the namahatta leader, he said, oh this is namahatta A, the original, after the next one is B and number three is C. So they have a system, A, B, C. And big competition among them. Each one they have about hundred devotees, they say A namahatta, tomorrow 12 of our members will take initiation and some will take brahmin initiation. So there is a lot of preaching. When they welcomed the safari devotees, even though they are very simple and poor people, I don’t know where they are getting s many flowers and garlands and they were cooking whole day, prasadam for us. The prasadam was a little spicy today for some of us. But what to do you know? So much love.

Guru maharaj said, Shanti Gopi said that they got spicy prasadam.

Today also we were in a special place, Ambika Kalna. Once Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityananda came after the Shantipur festival, they came to Ambika Kalna, both of Them. They had a bath in the Ganges and both with wet cloth, They went and sat down and lay down under a tamarind tree. There is a very huge and beautiful tamarind tree, more than 500 years old. We brought one tamarind fruit for guru maharaj!

I didn’t get it yet, guru maharaj said. Here it is Marici prabhu said.

Guru maharaj said, oh, let me see it. (guru maharaj touched it to his forehead).

Nitai Gaura Nitai Gaura Nitai Gaura!

Marici prabhu said: We also went on the Ganga safari for two hours when we travelled from Chagda to Adi Saptagram.

Marici prabhu said, yes, we were all singing the Ganga safari song! Even we sang in Adi Saptagram with the eight thousand devotees. They all sang the song of Ganga Safari.

Guru maharaj: They said when they come back they will sing the Ganga safari song for me! Can I hear that?

Ganga! Ganga! Ganga! Ganga! Ganga! Ganga!
From Kanainaathshaala to Panihati on the Ganga Safari, on the Ganga Safari!
Nitai Gaura Haribol!
Ganga! Ganga! Ganga! Ganga!
We are getting the mercy, of Lord Gauranga and Lord Nityananda, on the Ganga Safari Nitai Gaura Haribol!
Ganga! Ganga! Ganga! Ganga! Ganga! Ganga!

Jai Gaura Mandal safari ki jai! Gaura Mandal Ganga ki jai!

Transcribed by Jayaraseshwari devi dasi
28 March 2019