How Can We Help?

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Question: One time one devotee told me that someone was looking for a senior member was searching for a guru and said, I want that swami. Then finally it was understood that who they were looking for was you! What was surprising to know was they said that this person has spread Krsna consciousness in every nook and corner of West Bengal, every town, every village, every street, that the conversion in Bengal was the lowest they had noticed in any part of India. The question is I think now you are aiming to reach beyond Bengal. I heard that Bangladesh, had 108 ratha yatra on the day of Ratha yatra, one day in every nook and corner of Bangladesh there was ratha yatra this year. Srila Prabhupada did not visit Bangladesh but he sent Srila Jayapataka Swami Guru Maharaj to go there and preach! Now you have covered the Middle East. But now we hear that through His Holiness Bhakti Purushottam Swami Maharaj you are also reaching to every nook and corner of the tribal states. Because that is where the major conversion is happening. So I would quickly want to ask you what are your strategies, how do you feel? How do we reach out to them? We don’t have to convert people from other religions, we have to strengthen our Hindus to understand their scriptures and chant. we as good Hindus can inspire others to become vaisnavas too. I want your comment on that Guru Maharaj

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Jayapataka Swami: I realize, I told Bhakti Purushottam Swami that I have a disease. Apart from all the physical diseases, I have one other disease. Everybody I meet, I think, how can help this person be Krsna conscious? That is my disease. So even while I was in the hospital it is amazing how many nurses are from Kerala and they are Christians. So Srila Prabhupada, he did not convert us, he convinced us! And if they wont chant Hare Krsna, then I would have them chant some other name, Jesus Christ or something. But why should the tribals change their religion? They have very nice, actually they are very simple. They lack amenities. And they lack education. They lack logistics. So I am very happy that when Bhakti Purushottam Swami, took up the tribal care initiative. I have some tribal disciples in Tripura, Mizoram, Assam and Jharkanda, Bengal. Some of the tribals they go to some Christian hospital, they have a stomach ache. Maybe nothing very serious is wrong. They say that this hospital is for Christians, you convert and then we will cure you. They dunk them in a well they have outside and they tell your name is John or Joseph or something. Then you can come into the hospital. Give him Aspirin and send him home! So you know, people can be whatever they want to be, we don’t mind. Because there is only one God. You can call Him by any name. We want people to learn to love God. We call God as Krsna or Govinda or Visnu. They don’t have a name or sometimes they have. We are trying to reach the tribals and recently the Tripura government gave us 20 schools. They have hundreds of schools but they are lying idle. So if we can somehow make these 20 schools work for the tribals they will give us more schools, more school buildings. So like this we are trying to use various facilities. The government gives some funding but they say that mainly there are Christian organizations come for the funding. And so we know the Vatican sends some I don’t know maybe hundred million or more than that. It is alright. But we want to make the tribals Krsna conscious. They already believe in Krsna. They already have the basic fundamentals but they are very simple people. They eat bamboo roots! Just give them basic facility like water, medical care, and we try to give them a temple in their village but they need some practical care also. So this is one of our programs. So we find that there are many tribals exploited by missionaries, Maoists and various other people. So we are trying to serve them and we have this Tribal Care initiative. So we have many namahattas or the village oriented groups. So like in West Bengal we have 3600 namahattas and we want to expand that in the tribal areas. But they need simple things like kartals, mridangas. Cymbals, drums, simple things. They need the books in the language they can read. So if you like the tribal initiative, you can help in that also. As I said in the beginning Srila Prabhupada gave me 600 dollars a month and said try preaching in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh 90% don’t know what religion they are and 10% are Hindus. So we try our outreach to the Hindus and now we started with one centre in Dhaka and two years when I was sick, I heard that 36 centers. Now I asked, they told me there are 96 centres! So I just planted the seed. I came here to the Middle East, I saw that there were a huge number of expatriates. So we tried to organize different programs for the adults for the children and it expanded miraculously. I see that it is the mercy of His Divine Grace A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and the desire of Lord Krsna in His most special avatar as Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. I thank all of you for helping. Hare Krsna!
14-SEPTEMBER-2019 DAMODAR DESH