My dear Diksha, Siksa, Shelter, Aspiring disciples and well wishers,
Please accept my blessings. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
In the month of July 2012, after staying in Mayapur, I went to Serbia for the national festival. This was my first visit to Serbia in about four years.Devotees from Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, and other places came to see me. It was a very wonderful experience and the devotees gave me a very good reception.
My stay there was exceptionally ecstatic especially in the association of Sacinandana Maharaja, Bhakti VaibhavaMaharaja, Bir Krishna Maharaja, Prahladananda Maharaja, Kadamba Kanana Maharaja and others. After Serbia, I went to the
Russian Summer Bhakti Vrksa Festival in Moscow. There were about two or three thousand devotees in attendance. It was a very nice festival with Rathayatra, kirtans and dramas. All the devotees had brought their Deities.
They were put on display and worshiped there. There were hundreds of
Deities: Gaura-Nitai, Jagannatha, Baladeva and Subhadra, and Radha-Krsna. I delivered some lectures. Naru Gopal Das and the ‘Mayapur Chandras’ were there leading kirtan. They also sang the song which I wrote as an offering to Srila Prabhupada for his Vyasa Puja this year. The translations of this song were read thereafter. It was a very nice experience to be unitedwith the devotees in Russia, CIS, and various other places nearby. Then after that I went to Birmingham, U.K. for the Rathayatra. There we had Rathayatra and the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, with his good wife, also attended the Rathayatra. In my speech I mentioned that Birmingham was the largest city in the U.K. Some people wanted to correct me saying that London was the largest. I said “No,Birmingham.” The Lord Mayor, he grinned and was very happy. He said, “Yes,Birmingham is the largest. London is divided into many boroughs like Greenwich borough, Westminster borough, this borough that borough, so as a result London is not such a big city because of the boroughs”. The crowd for the Rathayatra festival was large. The Bhakti Vrksa Festival for all of U.K. was also very well attended. I was fortunate that I had no leg infection this time, so I could attend all the programs. It was ecstatic to participate in these festivals.
I spend five months in Mayapur, and about four months in my zone. Three months are decicated to visit other places around the world where I have some interest or some disciples. If you are in any of these places which are not in my zone, if you want me to visit, you should write to my secretaries HG Mahavaraha das, and HG Ekanatha Gaura das.They will tell you what is required for me to visit.
The coming of Janmastami is a time during which we all mark our special dedication and surrender to The Supreme Soul, and Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Krsna. Actually, Sri Krsna is the cause of all causes, and He has a body of eternal bliss and knowledge—-Sat Cit Ananda.
We are also small parts of Krsna where we can never be equal or greater than Him. We should take shelter of Krsna, and take shelter of Nitai-Gaura, who are Krsna’s most merciful manifestations, so that we can get His mercy and awaken our natural love. We love so many things in this material world. All that love disappears, and in every life, we have a different situation. However, if we love Krsna, then naturally, we can love everyone else. This was taught by Srila Prabhupada. We should try to awaken our love for Krsna.
I am very concerned that disciples try to follow very strictly
the regulative principles and chant their sixteen rounds, or whatever
rounds they are committed to chanting. Chanting the holy name will change our outlook and allow us to have a spiritual vision. Maya is always testing us to see if we are really sincere. We may fail such tests unless we take shelter of Krsna. Krsna promises in the Bhagavad Gita that if we surrender to Him, He will take us over this material energy to Himself and the spiritual abode. Srila Prabhupada is the natural representative of Lord Krsna and the disciplic succession. We take shelter of Prabhupada. We have the disciplic succession toreach Lord Krsna’s lotus feet. Radha and Krsna are the summum bonum. This has been taught to us by Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
I am concerned that disciples need stronger resources to equip themin their fight against maya, and in this regard, we have the Jayapataka Swami archive.
I want to equip you all nicely. They are digitalizing my lectures and videos so that they can be made available to you all either free or for a minimal cost to cover expenses. We hope that you take advantage of the lectures and the videos that are made available by the archives. We have a Facebook page called JPS Live, and there you can get various information, pictures, and downloadable audios and videos. Also, recently we made JPS Live in various languages. We have it in Spanish, Bengali, Russian, Hindi, and Tamil.We intend to add more languages as we find people to take responsibility for each language. In addition to this social networking on Facebook, we also have a Twitter account, although I haven’t used that very much. I intend to use it more in the future. I hope to see you there on the internet on the Facebook JPS Live. On this occasion of Janmastami and Vyasa-puja of His Divine Grace, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Srila Prabhupada, we want to wish you a very happy Vyasa-puja and a very transcendental Janmastami. Haribol!
There is a special month coming up. This comes once in three years. In the vedic calendar, which is a lunar calendar, there are three hundred and fifty five days instead of three hundred and sixty five. To catch up, there is a leap month that is put in once every three years. That month has been adopted by Lord Krsna. He has named it after Himself as Purusottama month.
I will send some details later. This month is very, very special for spiritual advancement. Any spiritual activity we do in this month means a lot of multiple effects. So we should all take advantage of mercy of the Lord through this month of Purusottama. This year, it comes after Janmastami and before Radhastami.. Therefore, this year, Janmastami and Radhastami are a month and a half apartinstead of the usual fifteen days. Please observe Purusottama month and look out for details if you don’t havethem already. We will send them shortly.
Your wellwisher always
Jayapataka Swami
*For More Details contact*