Please accept my blessings. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
I wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy Janmastami
Festival and a very joyful Srila Prabhupada’s Vyasa Puja.
Here in Mayapur we had already three Vyasa Puja celebrations; one at the
National school, one at the Community Centre and one at the International
school. So I think that here they want to increase every year some new
event. They want to have one week celebration of Srila Prabhupada’s Vyasa
Puja. So of course tomorrow we will have in the temple the formal Vyasa Puja
Celebration. Since Srila Prabhupada’s feast falls on the Nanda Mahotsava day
here they have various cooks had their kitchens inspected and authorized so
that they can cook for Srila Prabhupada. We hope to get 2000 pots of
preparations. This is what we are doing here in the Mayapur Dhama.
I have been in Mayapur, India since mid July over a month and a half. I was
making some progress under the guidance of Dr. Acyutananda but then I got a
fever and I was admitted to the hospital for about a week. Then my progress
has regressed a little bit but gradually I am taking up. I was able to take
a double even a couple of triple steps but now the doctor didn’t want to try
and I have been walking with the gait belt with one person.
I am going on one hand with the therapies and on the other hand we had the
GBC subcommittee for Mayapur, 6-7 people we all met at Mayapur and we
discussed about the various topics. So I have been very busy here between
the therapies and few meetings and attending Srila Prabhupada’s Vyasa Puja
festival. So today is the Janmastami. I hope you are seeing the offerings in
the www.mayapur.tv website which has a streaming video of how things are
going on and you can also watch www.mayapur.com which shows other things.
These are the highlights here in Mayapur.
I wanted to take this chance to wish you all a very, very blissful, a
transcendental Janmastami. We were discussing this morning how understanding
that Krsna’s appearance and His activities are all divya, transcendental. It
is so important because He says, that if one understands that His birth and
activities are transcendental then they will come to Him at the time of
death; they don’t have to take rebirth again. I hope that everybody has
clearly understood how Krsna’s birth, His appearance, His pastimes are all
transcendental. We are very grateful to HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Prabhupada that he has brought this Krsna consciousness movement all over
the world. I am very happy that I could be his disciple and I hope that I
will be able to expand the movement with whatever time I have left.
I want all of you devotees to please take advantage of Srila Prabhupada’s
mercy. Now I see that Krsna had to kill a lot of demons; like Him and
Balarama, They killed Pralambasura, Putana and so many demons. But Lord
Caitanya, He said he won’t lift any weapon on rivals. At one point He almost
used His chakra against Jagai and Madai but Lord Nityananda prayed please
forgive them and they also prayed for forgiveness. Lord Caitanya, He changed
the mentality from demonic to devotee; so this is our great chance by the
mercy of Lord Caitanya on this day we can have our consciousness fully
switched to devotee consciousness and thus get the mercy of Krsna.
Simultaneously the devotees of Lord Caitanya can be present in Caitanya lila
and Krsna lila.
In the tenth canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, Srila Prabhupada personally tells
how if we are Krsna conscious in this life, then at the end of life we can
go to the universe where Krsna is having His pastimes get trained up and
transfer back to Godhead. Of course if we have lot of desires we will anyway
take birth in the heavenly planets and then take birth in the yogis,
brahmins or rich mercantile family. But we really don’t want that, we would
rather directly be in Srila Prabhupada’s service or be at Krsna’s service
but in case we don’t have that focus yet then we can get this auspicious
birth. I hope all the devotees will keep the focus and utilize this human
form of life to get back to Krsna in this very life because if they take
birth in the heavenly planets then they may miss altogether Lord Caitanya’s
sankirtan movement which is about 10,000 years in this Kali yuga. This is
our chance. I now understand why the acaryas they pray that they can take
birth immediately in the family of devotees and continue where they left
out. Jai! So I thank you for taking time to read this short message and I do
hope that your Janmastami festival is ecstatic and you will have a very
blissful Srila Prabhupada Vyasa Puja. Hare Krsna. If you get this letter
late well I sent out on the auspicious day and I hope that blessing will
work.
Your well wisher always,
Jayapataka Swami