Technology. So, the verse, First Canto, Chapter 24, Text 43:
mano brahmaṇi yuñjāno yat tat sad-asataḥ param
guṇāvabhāse viguṇe ekabhaktyānubhāvitaḥ
"He fixed his mind upon the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Parabrahman, who is beyond cause and effect, who manifested the three modes of material nature, who is beyond those three modes, and who is perceived only through unfailing devotional service."
Yes, ekabhaktyā, by exclusive devotion. It's interesting because it is just eka means one. One is sometimes used in the other way, like everything is one, but here we have devotion to one Lord. And we have only devotion, we are not doing karma and jñāna, we are doing bhakti. We are doing devotional service because only by devotional service can, if He's... can you realize the... Yeah.
I think that line was in there, but I'm not finding it. But there is there are many processes in this world for different goals, and that is all right. Like if you want to become a doctor, you're not going to study music. Or maybe you do because you like music, but it's not going to make you a doctor. And jñāna and karma... Karma is mostly to be pious within this world and get good results within this world. And it is a lot better than not doing good activities, but it doesn't get us outside of this material world. We are still within the wheel of saṁsāra, although our next destination may have been more elevated. It doesn't end that cycle. Jñāna aims to negate the material suffering, and then one can realize the impersonal feature of the Lord.
This removes the suffering of the material world, but it doesn't satisfy the the the nature of the soul. The nature of the soul is like the nature of the Supreme Lord, actually, sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ. We are persons, we are eternal, we are conscious, and the nature is to be blissful. And then we look around the world, we open the newspaper, and we walk down a busy street, or we sit in the, what is it called, the traffic jam, and in the rush hour, and we look around, and we don't see the blissful feature very much. But the soul has this blissful nature, it's just covered. And bhakti... Because all the yoga processes are meant to like uncover, purify the soul. But then when the soul is purified, what do we do? We do bhakti, we do devotion to the Supreme Lord.
The material nature is all we see, mostly it's all we see, the three modes of material nature. So, the Lord has manifested these modes of nature, He is beyond those modes of nature. And wherever there is bhakti, there must be three things: bhakta, bhakti, and Bhagavān. There is the person who gives bhakti, or who performs bhakti, practices bhakti. There is the process of bhakti, and there is the goal of bhakti, the the the direction it goes towards.
Like, like sometimes they are saying bhakti is very good to fix the mind for those who are not ready yet realized. But why should the Supreme be less than us? We are persons, we have relationships, we have desires. And He comes, and He comes again and again. Why does He come here? He comes here to perform a certain purpose, and whenever He performs a certain purpose, then many things are becoming performed automatically. Like this material world, it's it's a container for those of us who didn't want to be in the spiritual world, but it's also the means where we can get back to the spiritual world.
So, Kardama Muni here, this is Satya-yuga, this is not the present age, so he is going to go into the forest. He has done this vow, and I thought about that because I think we have all been thinking a little bit about that. The Supreme Lord appears as his son, and then he goes away and takes renunciation. What is this? It's very very unexpected. Mother Yaśodā never goes into the forest, she's worrying when Kṛṣṇa goes into the forest that He's hurting His soft little lotus feet. But also, the Bhāgavatam stories are exemplary. And in the Satya-yuga, the main method of bhakti, it was not a separate method, it was bhakti also, but it was performed through yogic meditation. And he's meditating on the Supreme Personality. He did that in the beginning, he did his austerities, and the Lord appeared before him and promised to come as his son, and He did come as his son. But Kardama Muni is still going to do his duty.
And that is an interesting concept, especially for us Westerners, because duty sometimes feels like it's a hard thing. It's something like it's not it's not nice. You want to do some fun things, but then you have a duty. We had a I had a friend and somehow or another her mother was incapacitated, she wasn't really able to be very present. So then her father took like the strong duty to perform for the family. He was working, and he was taking care of everything, but he was not able to be emotionally present. And and that's sometimes how we think about duty. But duty in Kṛṣṇa consciousness means, and and in how to say, a philosophical, Vedic sense, means to do that which is right. But the the main duty is bhakti.
And then when bhakti is perfected, it doesn't feel like a duty anymore. Like we go on we go on the altar even if we are tired, or even if it's raining, or even whatever. And in a certain sense, it's it's a it's a duty and it's austerity, and it's performed on the time, especially with the good devotees, it's performed on time. And we're clean, and we're following the mantras and that, but we're we're in front of the Lord, we're serving the Lord. I mean, it's very wonderful, and we wouldn't want to do anything else. And saṅkīrtana also, you know, sometimes the weather is not so good, sometimes the books are a little heavy, and sometimes there was too much prasādam the Sunday before, but the saṅkīrtana, the dedicated saṅkīrtana devotees, they go out. And then sometimes it's tough, and sometimes it is fun, because Kṛṣṇa is there. So, whether Kṛṣṇa is there or not, it's still the duty. But in the more realized state, Kṛṣṇa is there all the time. And in the absolute stage of blissful devotion, sometimes Kṛṣṇa hides Himself, and that's very intense, and it intensifies the devotion. So so that is like the the sometimes the the, how to say, riddle of devotional service. Because some sometimes people, I've I've been asked this, "Why is it so ritualistic, what you are doing?" Bhakti is not ritualistic, but the the the structure of sādhana-bhakti helps us to develop, helps us to keep the mind fixed on that goal.
And once the mind is fixed on that goal, it is said that the pure devotee doesn't have to follow regulative principles. It doesn't mean that the pure devotee goes out and have a beer and a hamburger, not like that. It means the pure devotee may lose external consciousness and doesn't know if it's day or night, but that that love for Kṛṣṇa is is the only thing that is that is still there. So so everyone is is on one of these stages. jīvera 'svarūpa' haya-kṛṣṇera 'nitya-dāsa', it says in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta. The the the actual nature of the spirit soul is to be servant of Kṛṣṇa. And then for some, it is completely covered, and for some, the questioning in the heart has started to appear. And and the the the heart is soul is calling out to the universe, to whatever, and what is what, where where am I, where am I going? That was what Sanātana Gosvāmī was saying when he met Lord Caitanya, "They call me a great scholar, they think I'm so intelligent and all of that, but I don't even know who I am, ke āmi, who am I? The first question."
So, the Bhāgavatam tells us we're the bhaktas, we're supposed to be the bhaktas. And if we're not realized, then the bhakti is covered. But when bhakti is not covered, then bhakti is done. The love is performed as a duty but as love, and and those two things go together, and we cannot really, how to say, separate them because, yeah.
Because when somebody when when like Mother Yaśodā loves Kṛṣṇa, you know, it's not that, "Oh no, I have to get up and boil the milk again," but it's like, "Oh, Kṛṣṇa is there, Kṛṣṇa is hungry, let me get the best milk. I have butter also." But He goes out and steals the butter from the other gopīs, and there is a whole thing, the the other ladies are coming and complaining, you know, "Your son, they're coming here and destroying our butter, and and how can they find it in the dark rooms?" "Because they have all these jewels that light up the place." And Mother Yaśodā said, "Oh oh, maybe I have to take the jewels away, okay, maybe I have to make some punishment." They said, "No no, don't punish them, don't punish these boys." And Mother Yaśodā thinks on the other direction, "Maybe my butter isn't good enough." And then she goes out, she takes the best cows, and she personally takes them to the best grazing ground where the best herbs are growing, and then she she she churns that butter just, you know, so so that that duty doesn't go away, but when it's elevated with love, it's it's the perfection. I made some notes, but I don't know what time is it. We we talked about it some other day like which kind of avatāras is there. And we have six kinds of avatāras, six kinds of incarnations. Do we know them?
Puruṣa-avatāras? Yes, and they are Kṣīrodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, oh, Kāraṇodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu. Yes, they they manifest the universe. They they are coming the first, they are the first in this world. Yeah. You know any other avatāras? Guṇa-avatāras? Guṇa-avatāras, and they are Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva. Yes, they are ruling the three guṇas. Līlā-avatāras? Līlā-avatāras, and how many līlā-avatāras are there? Unlimited. Unlimited. They are they are the amount of waves coming into the beach from the ocean. They keep coming. We have manvantara-avatāras, and that's the Manus, and we have yuga-avatāras, and there are four yugas. In Kali-yuga, Lord Caitanya is the yuga-avatāra, but He is He is hidden, He is channa-avatāra. He doesn't manifest as, "Here I am, I'm God, come and worship me." He comes and shows how to do bhakti. But the devotees say, "No." And then we have śaktyāveśa-avatāras, who are empowered incarnations, who are not necessarily the the category, the Viṣṇu category, but they are empowered to do something special. And I was looking up these avatāras because I forget everything, and in Teachings of Lord Caitanya, then it was mentioned that Kapila is a śaktyāveśa-avatāra, because that question was raised one of these weeks. And in in the Caitanya, in the Teachings of Lord Caitanya, there in the seventh chapter when these incarnations are described, then Kapila is mentioned as a śaktyāveśa-avatāra.
And that means? That means an empowered incarnation. But here I don't know because Viṣṇu manifested, so so I don't know. But that's what I read.
So, we see so many examples of this devotion, and the devotees sometimes there is conflicting feelings for the devotee, and for a neophyte, those conflicting feelings usually come from being covered by the three modes. Sometimes our nature, the nature of this body and mind we are presently born in, that nature is not exactly the best for devotional service, so we have to kind of overcome it. It can be a little bit of a struggle. But then we see on the level of pure devotion, there can sometimes be this this different direct directions, like the heart wants to go in one direction, but then suddenly Kṛṣṇa says, "No no." He says to the gopīs, "Yeah, I thank you very much for your service, I cannot repay it, and now I have to go away and do some business, then I will come back." And they are devastated, because they cannot... Uddhava came, Lord Kṛṣṇa sent Uddhava back to to to console the gopīs, and he came with some philosophy, you know, "Maybe Kṛṣṇa is not here, but when you're remembering Him, then He's present." And Uddhava, he's also a pure devotee of the Lord. And then the gopīs said, "No no, you don't understand, we are not trying to remember Kṛṣṇa, we cannot forget Him, and we keep remembering Him, and we want to tear our hearts out." And and Uddhava just paid his obeisances and prayed to be next, to take his birth as a as a little plant on the ground, so the the inhabitants of Vṛndāvana could just put their feet on him.
So so I think it's that that's a very nice example of how we get to a certain point with like the philosophy and the tattva, but the love is not contained in the philosophy. It is described. We don't want to just let the love run free, you know, it's not the '60s, it's not free love. That's that's not what it's all about. But it's the soul's nature to be drawn to Kṛṣṇa, and then Kṛṣṇa has some... Because that's what they also say, "Okay, if you go to the spiritual world and there are no more suffering and no more birth and death, isn't it going to be boring?" No, it's not going to be boring because Kṛṣṇa is going to be there. And Kṛṣṇa is such a dynamic, tricky person that there is there is never any boredom. You know, we're reading about the cowherd boys, they go out with Kṛṣṇa in the forest, and we never hear, we hear that they are playing, they are playing leapfrog, de hoppar bock. That's not usually how we treat the Lord. The deity's on the altar, we we're not playing leapfrog, we are serving with great veneration and devotion. But we never heard, and then one day they all stayed home because they got bored. No, because Kṛṣṇa touches our heart, because there's a loving relationship. There's not just a perfect setup, like sometimes especially like the the Western local religions, they have this idea we go to heaven, and what do we do in heaven? Nobody knows. What does God do do in heaven? Nobody knows, because it's not written there. Still, it is has been very powerful scriptures because even up to this day, people still consider God as a person. So, there that is that is certainly something, that's certainly not nothing. But that person Kṛṣṇa, He puts His devotees through all kinds of situations, sometimes we don't understand it, a lot of the times we don't understand it.
And, yeah, I was thinking of different persons, like like how all the devotees they would come to Lord Caitanya four months out of the year. In the end of his life, Lord Caitanya, he went to Jagannātha Purī, he took sannyāsa because Mother Mother Śacī requested that he doesn't go too far away. There will be news traveling back and forth from Orissa to to to Bengal, so she will hear about him even if he's not staying at home because taking sannyāsa, you don't stay at home. So, the devotees there, they would go every year for four months, and they would travel, I don't know, one or two months there, one or two months back, so half of the year they were gone. So so I guess they did their business in the rest of the year, and then they just went to Lord Caitanya. And this year, the wives came too, the ṭhākurāṇīs came, and they all had cooked, and there's a whole chapter, almost the whole chapter describes Rāghava's rāghava-jhālīs, Rāghava's bags. Because his sister, her name was Damayantī, she loved the Lord so much that she considered herself in devotion to be like a servant, but her love was that of a mother, so she cooked. Damayantī, her name was Damayantī. She made she made like, there are all these descriptions are described, not all of them because because he runs out of words. He comes to a point where he cannot describe anything more, but there's this rice, and that sweet, and you know, maybe I should, I don't know if I should read the whole thing, it's quite long, but it's quite wonderful.
So so then when we are wondering what are we doing here, then we can read the the 10th chapter of Madhya-līlā and see, you know, if we have no no service to do, we can always start to make sweets and and things for for for Lord Caitanya, because he can accept all of that. And sometimes the devotees neglect. Here is like the translation. "During the rāsa-dance, Kṛṣṇa asked all the gopīs to return home, but the gopīs neglected His order and stayed there for His association." So so sometimes we cannot fully fully understand how the pure devotees act, but we can certainly hear and read about it and be drawn to it. So, all the devotees came, they gave him all the prasādam, and his servant Govinda was was presenting it, because Rāghava was coming, "What's happening? Is the Lord eating it?" So, he was eating like like the amount of prasādam for a hundred men. And they all met him, there was some water pastimes. And all the devotees, they came there in the same place, they were playing with Lord Caitanya, and there was kīrtana, and the kīrtana was going on and on. After seeing Lord, yeah. The next day, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu went with His personal devotees to see Lord Jagannātha when Lord Jagannātha arose early in the morning. After seeing the Lord, seeing Lord Jagannātha, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu began His all-encompassing saṅkīrtana. He formed seven groups, which then began to chant. In each group, there was a principal dancer, like Advaita Ācārya and Lord Nityānanda, and in the other groups, there were, yeah, Vakraśvara, Acyutānanda, Paṇḍita Śrīvāsa, Satyarāja Kān, and Narahari. There was a main dancer in each group, and Lord Caitanya walked, huh? Vakraśvara Paṇḍita, his appearance day is today. Oh! Oh, that's that's nice.
Because when you read this, Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, it's kind of like you start to recognize the person, you start to feel like, yeah, we will also go there and dance with them one day. And Caitanya Mahāprabhu walked from one group to the other, and then every group thought, "The Lord is in our group." And the congregational chanting made a tumultuous roar that filled the sky. All the inhabitants of Jagannātha Purī came to see the kīrtana. The king also came, watched from a distance. Due to the forceful vibration of kīrtana, the entire world began trembling. Everyone chanted, and it made a a tumultuous sound, kolāhala. And they performed, the Lord performed congregational chanting for some time, and then he decided to dance. And they all danced and chanted and were beating the drums in seven directions, and Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu began dancing in the center in great ecstatic love. And then he remembered a line in the Orissan language and ordered Svarūpa Dāmodara to sing sing it: jaga mohana parimuṇḍa yāu. "Let my head fall at the feet of Lord Jagannātha in the kīrtana known as Jagamohana."
And then because of that line, Lord Caitanya was was dancing in great ecstatic love. People all around him floated in the water of his tears. He raised his two arms and said, "Chant, chant," and in floating in transcendental bliss, the people responded by chanting. The Lord fell to the ground unconscious, not even breathing. Then suddenly he stood up making a loud sound. The hairs on his body constantly stood up like the thorns on a śimula tree. Sometimes his body was swollen, and sometimes lean and thin. He bled and perspired from every pore of his body, his voice faltered, unable to say the line properly, He said, "jaja gaga pari muṇḍa yāu." All his teeth shook, as if each were separate from the others. Indeed, they seemed to fall to the ground. His transcendental bliss increased at every moment, therefore even by midafternoon, the dancing had not ended. And they started in maṅgala-ārati, you know, when the Lord had woken up. The ocean of transcendental bliss overflowed, and everyone present forgot his body, mind, and home. Then Lord Nityānanda found a way to end the kīrtana, he gradually stopped all the chanters. Thus, only one group continued chanting with Svarūpa Dāmodara, and they chanted very softly. When there was no longer a tumultuous sound, Lord Caitanya regained consciousness. Then Nityānanda Prabhu informed him of the fatigue of the chanters and dancers. Understanding the fatigue of the devotees, Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu stopped the congregational chanting. Then he bathed in the sea accompanied by them all, because this is Jagannātha Purī, the sea is there. And then Lord Caitanya took prasāda and asked them to return to their dwellings and take rest.
And Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu lay down at the door of the Gambhīrā, this is where I wanted to come, to where the devotees a little conflicted in the duty and His desires and and and how to act. And Govinda came there to massage his legs, Govinda is his servant. It was a steady, long-standing rule that Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu would lie down to rest after lunch and Govinda would come to massage his legs, then Govinda would honor the remnants of food left by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu. This time, when the Lord lay down, he occupied the entire doorway. Govinda could not enter the room, and therefore he made the following request: "Kindly turn on one side. Let me pass to enter the room." However, the Lord replied, "I don't have the strength to move my body." Govinda made this request again and again, but the Lord replied, "I cannot move my body." Govinda repeatedly requested, "I want to massage your legs," but the Lord said, "Do it or don't do it, it depends upon your mind."
Then Govinda spread the Lord's wrapper over the Lord's body and in this way entered the room by crossing over him. Govinda massaged the Lord's legs as usual, he pressed the Lord's waist and back very softly, and thus all the Lord's fatigue went away. As Govinda stroked his body, the Lord slept very nicely for about 45 minutes, and then his sleep broke. When Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu saw Govinda sitting by his side, he was somewhat angry. "Why have you been sitting here for so long today?" the Lord asked. "Why didn't you go to take your meal after I fell asleep?" the Lord asked. Govinda replied, "You were lying down blocking the door, and there was no way to go." The Lord asked, "But how did you enter the room? Why didn't you go out and take your lunch the same way?" And Govinda mentally replied, "My duty is to serve even if I have to commit offenses and go to hell. I would not mind committing hundreds and thousands of offenses for the service of the Lord, but I greatly fear committing even a glimpse of an offense for my own sake." Thinking in this way, Govinda kept silent, he did not reply to the Lord's inquiry.
It was Govinda's practice to take lunch when the Lord was asleep on this day, however, seeing the Lord's weariness, Govinda continued massaging his body. There was no way to go, how could he leave? When he thought of crossing over the Lord's body, he considered the great offense. These are some of the finer points of etiquette in devotional service. Only one who has received the mercy of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu can understand these principles. And the Lord is very interested in manifesting the exalted qualities of his devotees, and that is why he engineered this incident. And there is a purport here. "Karmīs, fruitive workers, cannot understand the finer conclusions of devotional service because they accept only its ritualistic value but do not understand how devotional service satisfies the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The karmīs view the formalities as a means of advancing in religion, economic development, sense satisfaction, and liberation. Although these are only material results of following religious principles, the karmīs consider them everything. Such ritualistic activities are called karma. Karmīs who adopt devotional service very loosely and therefore remain on the platform of material activities are called prākṛta-sahajiyās."
"They cannot understand how pure devotional service is rendered in paternal and conjugal love, for this can be understood only by the special mercy bestowed by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu upon pure devotees." So so there is like, sometimes, devotees also, we get a little bit like we see some things are good and should be done, some things are bad and should not be done, but they are like two layers of that. There is the the the ritualistic, karmic activity, some are good and some are bad, pāpa and puṇya. And then there are devotional service where some things are good and some things are bad, and sometimes they don't exactly correspond to each other. So so therefore we want to learn and study and see the examples of great devotees, who we don't become sahajiyās, we don't give up the the the proper way of acting in this world and take some cheap imitation of love, and we also don't become karmīs who just kind of count our, "We did something good, we didn't do something bad, we should have a result. I chanted so many years, and I went to maṅgala-ārati so many times, and why do I still get a headache sometimes, and why are the devotees mean to me?" But we look at the example of these great devotees, and we don't imitate them, but we take great inspiration because somehow we are also in in this line, we are also in this party of Lord Caitanya, and we are also going to be welcomed, not whimsically. Even in Jagannātha Purī, Lord Caitanya had his secretaries, Svarūpa Dāmodara, right? And sometimes people would come and they had written some poem, they had written something, and then he would read it first and see if it's if it's something proper to present, because if it has rasābhāsa, we cannot present it. So to understand these like how this clashes with that, this is right, this is not right, it's not a ritualistic thing, it is disturbing to the devotion. Even we can see, material rasābhāsa. Like we have the we have the different rasas, we have śānta-rasa, which means appreciating the Lord's in a passive way. And then we have dāsya, which means you are a servant, and the Lord is the Master, it's not very complicated. Then then friendship, sakhya-rasa, we are equal, so how is it possible to be equal to the Lord? No, this is not the it's not a competition, who is the greatest, it is a relationship thing. Like we have friends, we respect our friends, we like our friends, we understand our friends, but with the friends we can sometimes, you know, I don't know, snatch a capātī from their plate or something. The dāsya-rasa, you cannot do that, that would be ridiculous. And little things you can criticize, you can make fun, but it is done in in that love, and you can also bring up things, but like the cowherd boys, they play leapfrog. They they they hide Lord Caitanya's lunch, Lord Kṛṣṇa's lunch. And the pujārī would not hide Kṛṣṇa's lunch, that would not be right. But in that friendship relationship, it it pleases the Lord because He accept that pure love and He He reciprocates. Then the parental love, they are superior to the Lord, they tell Kṛṣṇa what to do. Sometimes it's not very successful, Kṛṣṇa sneaks out at night and dances, and He does all kinds of things. But but it's a natural relationship, sometimes Kṛṣṇa does become a little afraid. Mother Yaśodā shows Him the stick, you know, and then He's rubbing His eyes with the tears and, you know, rubbing the, what you call it, the kajjal. And then Mother Yaśodā thinks, "Oh, this is not very good." She doesn't want to hurt Kṛṣṇa, she just want to make sure He grows up in a good way, so He will be always happy, and if you're if you act sinfully or bad and like that, you cannot be happy. Then she starts to chase Him to tie Him with His rope, and it's a whole pastime, we're glorifying it for a whole month. And and that's like when Lord Caitanya was was in meeting with some devotee asked him to come to this meeting where all the sannyāsīs were invited, and they were staying, you know, we can see, "You're such a pure, beautiful, young sannyāsi," they could even see his effulgence, they they aspired to to merge in that effulgence, but when they could see that effulgence, and they were asking him, "Why are you dancing with these sentimentalists, why are you not studying the Vedas?" Yeah, so so that's like Lord our Śrīla Prabhupāda is called Bhaktivedānta, because when you come to the end of the Vedas, of the Vedānta, that is bhakti, we don't want to get stuck on the way. Okay, I think we could, we're going to do that, we're going forever read the Bhāgavatam, we're forever going to read the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, and we cannot stop. But sometimes we have to stop because today is a busy day, we're also going to dance in front of Lord Jagannātha, and maybe we can see Lord Jagannātha too. But the rasābhāsa thing is you don't mix these rasas, and if you're not very realized, and if you're not very educated, we we get some weird things. Does anybody else remember this? You you were in it. This play, there came this this South American devotee from Denmark. He put up a play here where he made there was a husband and a wife, and the wife was a devotee, and the husband was just some guy. And she said, "You have to take initiation, you have to take initiation, and if you don't take the initiation, the next person who enters the room, I will leave you." And then Rādhā in the spiritual world sees this and tells Kṛṣṇa, "If you don't make that person a pure devotee, I will leave you." And I thought, "Where did you find that?" That play would never have come in front of Lord Caitanya, because that play is ridiculous. Our philosophy is not we have to take initiation of the next person who comes in the room, you know. So, we have to know something, and before we know something, we can start to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, we can start to study, we can start to perform devotional service. But usually if there are some doubts and some problems, it's some of it is because our purification hasn't kicked fully in. And sometimes it is we see contradictory behavior in the devotees, because devotees it's not, you know, like some of the Christian sects in in Sweden are like, you know, "Everybody wears black, the church is painted gray, and everybody works all week, and on Sunday you go to church, or somebody will hit you." Very cut and dry. Kṛṣṇa is not cut and dry, Kṛṣṇa does whatever He likes, and sometimes the devotees manifest things in different ways. Sometimes, of course, neophyte due to impurities, sometimes advanced devotees due to their emotions overtaking them, and we can't always know. But we we find somebody that we trust, we serve and work under under the devotees, we study these books, and we see how what Kṛṣṇa does, what Lord Caitanya does, and we hear how Prabhupāda describes it to us, and then we can continue our devotional life without difficulties, and in the end, we will fully realize our love for Kṛṣṇa, and our only desire will be to serve Him here or in the spiritual world, because at that point it doesn't matter anymore. Hare Kṛṣṇa. So, yeah, we managed to read a little bit, and, I didn't even think about Ratha-yātrā when I picked up this pastime, it's so weird, but, we have that mercy, and we have that connection, and we just continue, and that will that will manifest more and more fully. Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Hare Kṛṣṇa. Any questions or comments or something I forgot or something that we are want to know more about?
Maybe you can say why do we have Ratha-yātrā? What is the story behind Ratha-yātrā?
Kṛṣṇa, He's the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and He manifests in all kinds of funny forms, and the Lord Jagannātha, He has this very special form, and there is a story about Kṛṣṇa. All the wives came to speak with, who was it, Rohiṇī? Rohiṇī. Rohiṇī was there. Okay, and then they put Subhadrā to guard so nobody should come in. But then Kṛṣṇa and Balarāma came in anyway, and then they were listening, and they became so ecstatic by hearing about their own pastimes that their eyes became very big, and their arms retracted into their bodies, so that's the form of Lord Lord Jagannātha. And He manifested in Purī, that was also mysterious. There was a king who wanted the deity, and there was a special person who was going to make this deity from the wood that came floating, everything was very special and mystical. And, and he's was this the architect of the devas who came down to to do this, and he said, "I will do it on one condition, you cannot disturb me." And he was in there for days, and days, and days, and days, and the wives were asking the king, "Maybe something, maybe you should check," and he said, "But I promised I couldn't, that was the conditions." And after a while he became so worried that, "Maybe He's sick in there, maybe He's dying in there," so they opened the door, and He said, "Okay, I'm leaving now," and they saw the deity, and they didn't look quite finished. But actually, that was the way Lord Jagannātha wanted to appear. And He was in Purī for a long time, He was hidden by sand, He was excavated and all of that. And then, when Prabhupāda came to the West, we we should all read this because sometimes we have this like conflicting moods between devotees. We have the strict, Brahmanical, brahmacārīs, who want everything to be very strict, and then we have the outgoing devotees, who just want to dance and invite everybody and include everybody. And that's not a new thing, and that's not a wrong thing. That was like the first temple in in in New York, mostly that was a strict brahmacārī mood, and then some of the devotees went to San Francisco, and that was like the hey days of the hippie movement, and there was always dancing, and they had festivals, and they invited Prabhupāda to this this this special festival with all kinds of rock bands, and they everyone chanted Hare Kṛṣṇa. And then one day, Mālatī came home from the the grocery where they were selling like these Eastern foods, and she because in those days, devotees they were just they came to Prabhupāda with everything, so she had this little wooden wooden statue or doll or something, and she said, "What is this, Prabhupāda?" He said, "Oh, you have brought the Lord of the Universe." "And go back and see if the rest are there." So, they found Jagannātha, Balarāma, and Subhadrā, but they were quite small, so the devotees were making the first the first Jagannātha deities in in San Francisco, and then somehow or other, Prabhupāda encouraged them, and they made the first Ratha-yātrā. So, Lord Lord Kṛṣṇa and especially in Jagannātha Purī, nobody gets to see Him. They are so strict. Prabhupāda was a little upset about that, you know, "He's the Lord of the universe, He's not the Lord of the, you know, the the temple pujārīs," because they wouldn't let the Western devotees in. They wouldn't even let Indira Gandhi in, because she she was born in a Brahmanical family, but she married outside of that, so they didn't even let her in. And so so but Lord Lord Jagannātha every year He comes out, and there is one internal story. He takes a bath and He gets a cold, and He goes and visit the goddess of fortune, and I haven't read up on the story so I don't remember it exactly. He stays in another temple for a while, and then I think it's a week, then He comes home, and He's drawn by a cart, and everyone comes because at that moment everyone can see Him. So, He comes out so everyone can see Him. But actually, He's the Lord of the universe, not just Orissa, so Prabhupāda started the Ratha-yātrā all over the world. We are doing Ratha-yātrās everywhere because everyone gets to see Lord Lord Jagannātha, everyone gets to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, because we're all jīvera 'svarūpa' haya-kṛṣṇera 'nitya-dāsa', either we know it or we don't know it, either we have this birth or that birth, Kṛṣṇa is not very concerned. What is it, māṁ hi pārtha vyapāśritya ye 'pi syuḥ pāpa-yonayaḥ, striyo vaiśyās tathā śūdrās te 'pi yānti parāṁ gatim? Yeah, all of them, even of lower birth, and there are no limits to the lower, we can take very lower birth, but as long as we're human beings, we can connect and get purified and connected to Kṛṣṇa, because it's not Bhakti is not dependent on any material qualification, we cannot be qualified to serve Kṛṣṇa because of our birth, because of our activities. The only thing is pure devotion, and pure devotion is given from a devotee to a devotee, and Kṛṣṇa has started this line, this line is active up to this day. And then we say, "But what about all our regulative principles?" They are our safeguard, our regulative principles will not take us to Kṛṣṇa, but they will stop us from going way from Kṛṣṇa, you know what I mean, they give us a good foundation. There is this time when they were having night night kīrtana in Śrīvāsa-aṅgana, in Śrīvāsa's courtyard, and they didn't only let the the the close devotees, the intimate devotees, Lord in the day they went out, everyone could be in the kīrtana, but that was the time when there was only that pure devotion, it would be get quite mad sometimes. Everybody should read all the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, because it's it's we we get to enter Śrīvāsa-aṅgana, you know, just from a distance, we get to see everything. And one day there was a brahmacārī, and he really wanted to come there and he convinced Śrīvāsa that he was he, you know, he lived such a pure life, he only drank milk. And then he was hidden under a basket, and then the kīrtana, the ecstasy wouldn't start, and then they found him, and then Śrīvāsa said, "But he he really wanted to, and he only drinks milk." Lord Caitanya, "That's not pure devotion, you know, our austerities, that's not pure devotion." So, we have those regulations, but what we want is bhakti. And in Lord Caitanya's line, not only do we want bhakti, but we want to give bhakti, because that is pleasing to Lord Caitanya. So, we are in his line, so that's what we will do. Is that okay, or did you have some other thought, because obviously there are many, there are many things.
There is something with the gopīs also.
Oh, yeah yeah. They came there, they came there because Lord...
In Kurukṣetra.
They came there, Kurukṣetra.
They wanted to bring Kṛṣṇa back to Vṛndāvana.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they say... What was that about? Yeah, what was that about? But Kurukṣetra, is that different thing?
Yes, that's Jagannātha.
No, the idea is that the the whole thing of pulling Jagannātha, I'm not sure really how, but that is representing... We read this morning in the Prabhupāda-līlāmṛta actually.
Ah! Oh, that's wonderful.
That they they want to take Kṛṣṇa back to Vṛndāvana.
Yeah.
So that is the... I'm not sure exactly how it relates to Jagannātha Ratha-yātrā, but at least it's...
Yeah, yeah. Because they came there and they were saying, "We are the same gopīs and you are the same Kṛṣṇa, but we miss being on the banks of the Yamunā under the moonlight."
The inner meaning of Ratha-yātrā is the gopīs' desire for Kṛṣṇa to return to Vṛndāvana.
Yeah, that's it, yeah. Okay. Was not more explicit. It was that, it was that, that is the inner meaning. So that's always so many meanings and it's all very ecstatic and thank you so much. Hare Kṛṣṇa.
Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya Jagannātha. Jaya Jagannātha.