Nama Om Vishnu paadaaya..
Hari Haraya Naama Krishna …
Jaya Radha Madhava…
Mukham karoti…
You are in Nrsimhapally. We know how in the Bhagavatam how Nrsimhadev liberated Hiranyakashipu. He was so angry, no one could approach Him. Even Lakshmi, His wife, she could not approach Him. Brahma told Prahlad, it is all because of you! Ha! You should go and pacify the Lord! Ha! Ha! So He was so angry but when Prahlad came and offered His obeisances, He mellowed down and accepted the prayers of Prahlad. But generally He is not very easy to approach, He is in an angry mood, most of the time. But when He went over Navadvip dham, He remembered that this was His eternal dham. So He landed at Nrsimhapally and all the devas, they also came down and built their cottages on a raised hill and that became known as Devapally. They came and they could approach Nrsimhadev and offer Him service. The devis cooked for Him and the devas, they offered the prasad to Nrsimhadev, the bhoga. They also worshipped the Lord, so He was very approachable in Navadvip dham! This is the glory of Navadvip dham. This is Audarya dham, it is the dham of mercy! And even N He became, very merciful in this holy dham! Haribol! So there is some prediction that some great maharaj would build a big temple for Nrsimhadev. So we were thinking that Gopal he is a big maharaj, maybe he will build a temple for Nrsimhadev! Ha! Any way there is all kinds of histories for this Nrsimhapally temple. In the ancient times the pujaris they could go only in the day time as in the night time there were tigers. Growlllllllll tigers! Very dangerous! And there was a fire. And part of the deity got burnt. You will see little piece of the deity is chipped off. If you try to see you will notice. The deity is carved in a stone, a kind of brass. There is a lake near there where Nrsimhadev bathed and it is considered a holy lake. So I will let others speak on the glories of Lord Nrsimhadev. Haribol!
Your sevak, Jayapataka Swami
That we will send out to the Russian group. Now they are in Rajapur, tomorrow they will go to Aam Ghaata, Suvarna Vihar, Panchanan taala, Nrsimhapally and Harihar Kshetra and the Alakananda river.
Last year we started to go to the Rudradvip Gaudiya matth. Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur chanted there before the Gauranga deity, 300,000 names of Krishna, for several months before that Gauranga deity. There is a village there, I went there to distribute prasadam during the flood. The village name was Nirdoya or Nidoya. Nirdoya means no mercy. When Lord Gauranga left home to take sanyas, then Sachi mata realized that her son had left. She ran out and she called out in the night to the village, where is my Son? Where is Vishwambhar? Where, where, where did He go? And there was no response from the village. Sachi mata said, you are nirdoya, you have no mercy! Since then the name of that village is, Nidoya. And whenever there is a flood or any disaster, that village is the worst struck. Sachi mata’s frustration was meted out to that village. These villages they are all intertwined with the pastimes of Gauranga Mahaprabhu. There is a village of Bahridenga, and that means Bharadwaj Tila. That Bharadwaj muni, he mediated there and got the darshan of Lord Caitanya. So that village became named after Bharadwaj muni. But over time the pronunciation became convoluted, instead of Bharadwaj Tila it became Bahridenga, Denga means hillock. Tila means hillock. Bahri is short form for Bharadwaj. Jayadev appeared in a neighboring village which is called Srinathpur. But the place where they say is his birthplace, somebody else lives there. So all these places have the appearance and presence of great sages and great souls. For the other parties, I have already given some descriptions of the places they will visit tomorrow. So I can answer some questions now.
This morning I gave some class in Bengali for the Bengali groups. After seeing the deities I went to Krishna Nagar to a diagnostic centre. They did three tests. They took my blood, they did an X ray and they did a sonography. I was having some pain in my ribs and the doctor said I should take an X ray to make sure that it wasn’t a cracked rib. They x-rayed it and saw there was a bruise. Somebody had handled me roughly and caused the bruise on my ribs. So the doctor said, the good news is that you don’t have a broken rib. But it is a nice place. It is air conditioned, clean. We had gone for two days to look for a good place but they were bad, only one good place. So any way, if you need there is one good diagnostic centre. Any body has any questions, please write it down and send it.
If you have a question in Spanish? She has a question in Russian.
Question: For the Hams Vahan deity, when Lord Shiva comes to hear Caitanya Bhagavan, do you know anything of the speaker that told about Lord Shiva was coming to hear Lord Caitanya?
Guru maharaj: As far as I remember, it was Shukadev Goswami. Either Shukadev or Suta, I feel it is Shukadev. So Lord Shiva was so eager to come down that He thought His bull Nandi was going too slow. So He asked Lord Brahma if He could borrow his vahan, his vehicle. So He came on the swan of Lord Brahma, all the sages stood up. They thought Brahma had come and they were surprised to see Lord Shiva on Lord Brahma’s swan! The deity there is Hamsa vahan, Lord Shiva on the back of a swan. If you want to hear a pastime of Hamsa Vahan, I can tell you later. So it is a safari story. We are going on safari. Govindam Adi Purusham Tam aham Bhajami.. Ha! So we all took some milk or some Ganges water to be offered to Lord Shiva but somehow all of the water of the Ganges spilt. So what should we do? So they went ahead to Pushkar thirtha and filled our pots with the Pushkar water and then we went back to Hamsa Vahan. So once a year they have the deity come out and the villagers line up and they pour water over the head of Lord Shiva and they put a little flower on the head of the swan and if they ask for a benediction and if the Lord is pleased, He will give the benediction, the flower will pop up. And if there is no benediction then poom.. it will fall down. So the pujaris told us, wait wait! All the flowers are going down. Wait wait, you come. Then we went in. I only asked for pure bhakti and I don’t know what others asked. But Poof Haribol! The pujaris were very happy that the deity started giving benedictions again. So that is one pastime.
Question: You said that Prabhupad told you to take care of your body. How can we as disciples visiting Mayapur, assist you in good health?
Guru maharaj: It depends whom you ask. If you ask Aakarshak Caitanya, he will say one thing. Depending on whom you ask, they will give different advice. My advice? If you are good disciples of your spiritual master, if you evolve your natural love for Lord Gauranga, that will make me very happy!
Today, Haridhwani taught my cook how to make curd burgers! But his curd burgers weren’t as good as hers. Ha! Narayani Radha devi dasi, she brought me some digestive aids from Russia. So different people do different things! What time is it?
Question: What is the intimate secret of the relationships between Lord Gauranga and Nityananda? Why Nityananda is more dear to Lord Gauranga than His own life?
Guru maharaj: You see since Lord Gauranga is unlimited, Nityananda prabhu is unlimited, and we are limited, therefore we can never fully understand what goes on between Them. What we do understand is that it itself is very blissful. At one time mother Sachi said she had a dream and that she was serving prasadam to Gauranga and Nityananda and when she went out of the room and came back, Gauranga had turned into Krishna and Nitai into Balaram! And Balaram came up to her and told her, I am hungry! I am hungry! Feed Me! She said, what does that mean? That maybe we should invite Lord Nityananda for lunch! Ha! Gauranga, He went out to find Nityananda and He was on the other side of the Ganges and He told Him, come! So He swam over and then Lord Gauranga told Nitai, that You come and take lunch! Then Nityananda was walking back with Gauranga and He said, no funny business! I don’t do any funny business Gauranga said, You don’t do any funny business! They went back. Maybe the first time Nitai came and said He was hungry. I think it was the second time she got so excited that she brought three plates, although they were two of them. Then they turned into Krishna and Balaram. And when mother Sachi saw that she fainted. Then Lord Gauranga came and said, mother, mother, what happened? She looked and saw Nitai and Gaura and ran into the room and locked the door! Ha! She did not talk to anyone the rest of the day. So Nitai told Gaur don’t do any funny business. And He said, I don’t do, you don’t do. So who did it? Ha! Ha!
Any other question? Last question.
Question: How can we receive the benediction from the holy dham when we are doing Navadvip parikrama?
Guru maharaj: Before this parikrama I was telling the pastimes of Lord Gauranga, and then we told the pastime how He gave mercy to Kolavecha Sridhar and how He gave Kolavecha Sridhar, the benediction of becoming a king but Kolavecha Sridhar said no, I don’t want it. He said He will give him all eight mystic powers, he said, I don’t want that. I WILL GIVE YOU THE MERGING INTO THE JYOTHI! I don’t want that, no, no! So you have to ask for something. What do you want? WHAT DO YOU WANT! Well if I have to ask for something, if I am qualified, I would like to supply all your vegetables and fruit needs of Your every avatar. I would see the brahmin boy with His mischievous smile come and take my bananas. But if I can’t be this, please let me born in a family of Your devotees. Then Lord Gauranga said, I give you love of Krishna! Haribol! Haribol! So if you go to a holy place, hear the glories and you should also get some blessings. Haribol! That story it says whoever hears the story also gets love of Krishna!
So face that way and take a photo. Chaitanya Chandra Charan das and Gaurava Chandrika dasi sit here. So when we take a photo you will be in the photo.
Spanish devotees spoke and guru maharaj acknowledged.
Transcribed by Jayaraseshwari devi dasi
13 March 2019