Parikrama. Ucha Gaon
Бхакти Вигьяна Госвами · Вриндаван · 2023
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Invocation prayers and opening chants
Oṁ ajñāna-timirāndhasya jñānāñjana-śalākayā cakṣur unmīlitaṁ yena tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ namaḥ. Śrī-caitanya-mano-'bhīṣṭaṁ sthāpitaṁ yena bhū-tale, svayaṁ rūpaḥ kadā mahyaṁ vaiṣṇavāṁś ca
śrī-rūpaṁ sāgrajātaṁ saha-gaṇa-raghunāthānvitaṁ taṁ sa-jīvaṁ vaiṣṇavāṁś ca. śrī-rādhā-kṛṣṇa-pādān saha-gaṇa-lalitā-śrī-viśākhānvitāṁś ca he kṛṣṇa karuṇā-sindho dīna-bandho jagat-pate
gopeśa gopikā-kānta rādhā-kānta namo ’stu te tapta-kāñcana-gaurāṅgi rādhe vṛndāvaneśvari vṛṣabhānu-sute devī praṇamāmi hari-priye
vāñchā-kalpatarubhyaś ca kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namaḥ śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda vṛndāvaneśvari vṛṣabhānu-sute devi hare rāma hare rāma rāma rāma hare hare kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa hare hare hare rāma hare rāma
hare hare hare kṛṣṇa hare kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa hare hare hare rāma hare rāma rāma hare hare
namas te śacī-putra-mātra-svarūpaṁ kasyāgrajaṁ rūpa-purī-mādhurīṁ goṣṭhā-rādhā-kuṇḍa-girivara-rādhikā-mādhava-sāṁ dāmatā-sme yaṁ taḥ praviśya mamavācam imāṁ prasuptāṁ sañjīvayaty akhila-śakti-dharaḥ sva-dhāmnā anyāṁś ca hastacaraṇa-śravaṇa-tvagādīn prāṇān namo bhagavate puruṣāya tubhyam
Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Ram, Hare Ram, dare Hare, Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Ram, Ramadare Hare Namaswamati sachiputramatraswarukam rukam kasyagrajam, urupuri madhurim ghostava, radakundagirivarama rādhikā-mādhavāśāṁ prāpto yasya prathita-kṛpayā śrī-guruṁ taṁ nato 'smi.
Purpose of pilgrimage to holy places
yan-praviśya mama vācam imāṁ prasuptāṁ sañjīvayaty akhila-śakti-dharaḥ sva-dhāmnā Kila Shakti Darah Swadamna Panandambu prāṇān namo bhagavate puruṣāya tubhyam. Hare Krishna. Again I'm really sorry for being so late and
for making you wait. But as yesterday Panda said that the fruit of waiting is very sweet. So let's try to obtain the fruit of waiting now by talking about this wonderful place and about the purpose of pilgrimage.
This is a very ancient tradition and still it's very prominent in many many different religious movements and denominations to come to a so holy place.
Why it is so important to leave the our usual habitat, our usual environment,
and take the austerity of being in a completely different place without many facilities with a lot of crowds and traffic jams and whatnot Of course, the immediate answer which comes to mind is that yes, this is our sacrifice.
We have to do something for God. And for that we have to leave our habitual environment. Because when we live in the place where we live, we are trying to make everything as if we are in control.
In reality we are not in control and to realize that we are not in control, we should leave our place and come to Uchigong. That's the best way to realize this truth which is very difficult to realize.
Otherwise we always try to arrange the things in such a way that I know everything and I am in control here. But there is a deeper reason for coming to a holy place.
In Sanskrit, the holy place is called Tirtha and Tirtha means shallow waters. Tirtha means the place where you can cross over the river or the ocean.
And the idea here is that Tirtha is the place where you can cross over the ocean of material existence. The ocean of material existence is very, very uh deep. And we are completely immersed in this ocean.
And uh we are very busy with all the you know anxieties and all the duties which we have to fulfill and all the things which we have to do and we have no time.
Transforming the heart through spiritual impressions
So people come to a holy place with sole purpose to feel God and to try to receive some spiritual impression.
Because only when we have some impressions, some some scars of the spiritual things we can change our consciousness.
Any spirituality, if it's real spirituality, if it's not just some fake form of spirituality, implies radical transformation of our heart.
At this moment of time, our heart is completely absorbed in totally useless pursuits of trying to enjoy this material world.
We're just really trying hard to be happy in this world and not only us, everyone. Everyone is trying his best to become happy in this material world. And our mind is habituated to do this. It's always things.
What I will enjoy, how I will enjoy, what will be the next enjoyment. I already told about this. What you know what will be the next.
And therefore Krishna, he says in Bhagavad-gītā that to change this you have to obtain another habit. This habit is to think about God. Manmanā. Bhava mad-bhakto.
Manmanā is the most important uh dictum, the most important uh order of Krishna in Bhagavad-gītā. You think about me. But it's very difficult to think about Krishna.
You know, for how long you're going to think about him, you know. To think about what? I remember, you know, when I just started doing my spiritual practices, somebody told me, you think about Krishna. And I tried.
It didn't really work. Because you can only think about something which you have experience of. And we don't have any experience of Krishna. We didn't see him.
If we saw him, we could think about him, because darśana of Krishna would have a lasting impression within our heart.
And the deeper our impressions which are there, the deeper are saṁskāras, the easier for us is to think about these things.
You know, if there is some deep saṁskāra, you know, if somebody offended us, if somebody inflicted some pain to us, uh, we will think about him 24 hours a day. Because uh uh you know because the saṁskāra is very strong.
Of course Krishna also offended us. He abandoned us and sent us to this material world.
But in any case, the very important idea is that we can only think uh or remember about something which we have previous experience of.
And therefore any religion or any spiritual discipline is trying to create deep impressions within our heart to facilitate our thinking about God.
Like for example, in Christianity, they have this amazing story about Jesus Christ, who was, you know, supposedly the Son of God and who was crucified, and this and that. And because it's such a dramatic story, people while reading it they get a very deep impression in the heart, and it actually helps them to get out of this mire
of material existence, of this very difficult place, because this place is sucking us in. We are drowning in this place.
And the only solution is to think about, uh, God, is about uh, his devotees, about something which, uh, has the imprints of spiritual energy.
Power of hearing in Vrindavan
So, pilgrimage to the holy places is giving us facility to have the experience of the encounter with spiritual, with spirituality. And Krishna arranged this.
He arranged that on the surface of the earth, there are so many different holy places. The holy places are everywhere in Asia, in Europe, even in Europe, amazingly enough.
And of course in India, in India every village is a holy place. And the more remote the village is, the more holy it is.
But in any case, the idea here is that while coming in a holy place, we somehow rather feel the presence a more pronounced presence of God. And of course, as I said, Vrindavan is a very special
place in this regard, because it's not tirtha. Yeah, there are so many tirthas here, uh, the places of, uh, you know, holy places within Vrindavan, within Vrajadavan. But Vrindavan is the exact replica of the spiritual world.
It's very difficult to understand. But while hearing about this, we can get some glimpse how it is like this. Just by being here we will probably not get much experience of this.
And therefore, it's very important, and in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it is very emphatically said that if somebody comes to the place of pilgrimage and only takes the holy bath in some lake or river, then he is like an ass or cow. He is not very intelligent because the purpose of pilgrimage
is to come to the holy place and to concentrate your mental faculty on the spiritualities through the process of hearing. Because the process of hearing is very powerful. It's the most powerful process that is there.
And by hearing, we very easily can concentrate on somebody or on the subject matter which is being described.
And, uh, it is said actually very interestingly, Jīva Gosvāmī and Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura and Mukunda, uh, Mukunda Dāsa Gosvāmī and the three commentators of Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu they say very interesting thing about hearing.
They say that śravaṇād vāpa kiñcit anubhūtiḥ bhavati, that by hearing we get some experience. Hearing itself is giving us some sort of spiritual experience because uh because of the nature of this process.
Therefore this is the first method, the first process of devotional service, to hear again and again and again and again. And at one point we will feel the change within our heart.
Because again there is no more powerful process to change our heart than to hear.
And when we come to the holy place, we hear about the holy place and we hear how the holy place is non-different from how the holy place is non-different from the spiritual world.
Sacred sound and the holy name
For us, because we are habituated in interacting with this material energy through material senses and because this is one of the places within this material world, it's very difficult to get this understanding.
Like also, even more emphatically, it is said that Hare Krishna Maha mantra is non-different from Krishna Himself. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare.
But it's very difficult for us to really understand this. How is it non-different? How is it Krishna Himself?
Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, very interestingly, he says that vācya vācakāmity abhāvato nāma-rūpa-dvāyam. He says that Krishna, who is Vachya, who is being described by these sounds, and Vachika, the sounds which describe him, the sound of the name.
Te nāma-rūpa-dvāyam. They are two forms of Nam. It's a very interesting idea which Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī says, because he doesn't say—he says that Nāma has two forms. One is the form of Krishna and another one is sound.
He doesn't say Krishna has two forms. One is the form of Krishna as he is, and another one is the sound. He says Nāma has two forms.
So the primary form of Krishna is sound. Krishna is, you know, has this form of sound. And we know this, we hear about this, that Krishna is non-different from the sound.
But it's very difficult for us to get this real experience. And therefore, we have to hear about this again and again and again. And then our consciousness will gradually be tuned to really feel it.
Because again, at this moment of time our consciousness is not tuned to feel or to understand or to experience spiritual objects.
It's too much habituated in experiencing ice cream or some other you know facilities, maybe pizza. Now it's lunchtime, so spontaneously the line of thought is going to prasāda.
Anyway, so uh so we're coming to the holy place, and the holy place, especially this particular holy place which we are in, not to Chagon as such, but Vrindavan, Vraj.
Even though it's uh completely spiritual and uh there are so many holy people, saintly people, who testified this and who had this direct experience.
And sometimes holy Dham kind of unveils itself and through the process of unveiling we will begin to see its spiritual nature.
These glimpses are there and uh you know and of course the saintly people they have very strong experience.
Manifestation of the holy dham
But what I want to say by coming here is that Holy Dham, as much as Krishna himself, Krishna is eternal.
But at the same time, we hear in the scriptures that Krishna at one point of time he comes to the earth and then 125 years later he disappears from the earth.
So he comes and goes, even though he is Satyam param. He is the eternal truth. And eternal truth by definition, Satyam is something which exists all the time.
But he comes and he gives us the opportunity to see him for some time and then he leaves.
And exactly in the same way, his holy Dham, when he comes, becomes visible and then it disappears after some time. And then it appears again.
Holy Dham, being spiritual, is not a part of this world, and therefore it behaves in a very whimsical and unpredictable way.
Sometimes Holy Dham reveals his glory or its glory, I don't know if what is the proper pronoun in referring to the holy Dham. It's a conscious entity.
But sometimes holy dham, uh, completely covers, is being covered by, uh, material energy, and, uh, we cannot really, uh, see the holy dham.
So when Caitanya Mahāprabhu 500 years back came to Vrindavan, this holy dham, this holy place which we are in, was practically non-existent. It was forgotten.
There were jungles all over the place, there were some paddy fields, there were little practically deserted villages, and nobody actually knew that this was the holy Dham.
Krishna left this world and after some time, very quickly, in a this holy dham also disappeared. But when Caitanya Mahāprabhu came.
Please listen very carefully because this is something very important for us to understand.
One of his very important missions, one of his contributions to our spirituality to facilitate our changing of consciousness, changing of the heart, changing our ontological situation in this material world was to reveal the Holy Dham.
He wanted to reveal the Holy Dham for us because he knew that without this his mission will not be accomplished. Actually if we see the history of Bharat of Great India, spiritual history of Bharat,
we can see that every big personality, saintly personality, When he comes, he has very strategic plan in mind. They really come for very serious purpose and this purpose is to help people to get in touch with spirituality.
If we see Shankaracharya, Shankaracharya was a great strategist. He established his headquarters in four directions of Bharata so that the whole Bharata would be covered.
His idea was, of course, mostly for the people of Bharata. Therefore, he established his maths in these four directions. Madhvācarya was very strategic, Rāmānujācārya had very strategic plan.
And Caitanya Mahāprabhu had an even greater plan in mind. He wanted the whole world to come to Vrindavan. And you are fulfilling his desires by coming here. Thank you very much for this.
He wanted the whole world to come to Vrindavan, not just to come to Vrindavan, but to come to Vrindavan and to feel to get the spiritual experience and then go back to Bangalore or whatever place you are or Hyderabad or whatever.
But still remember Vrindavan. It doesn't matter where you are physically. What is most important is where you are mentally.
And while coming here and visiting all these holy places and having nice prasāda in the holy places, again, spontaneously my consciousness flows in this direction. Well visiting this, having curtains.
You know, we can remember about the holy places and remembrance of the holy places is no different from remembrance about God. In this way, we fulfill the order of Krishna in Bhagavad-gītā: remember about me.
It's very difficult for us to remember Krishna as such. We can remember his name. But uh even easier is to remember about uh his holy place. And uh you know while we are here it may be difficult to remember
this holy place because the mind uh is programmed to think about something else. The mind hates to think about something which is easily available.
That's the main habit of the mind, always to think about something which is difficult over to get. But uh the good news is that you will leave Vṛndāvana soon. And then you will be able to think about Vṛndāvana.
So there was a one beautiful story about Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī. He one very old person came to his ashram. He was 80 plus years old and he decided to re to surrender completely and he started living in the ashram.
He left his family and he uh became the you know monk and the ashram. And then uh after a couple of years uh his time of death has come.
And the brahmacārīs came to Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī and they said, please instruct us what to do with him. He is about to die. How we can help him to think about Krishna in the last moment of time.
And Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī said immediately, take him to his village. And they were shocked. You know, he's living in the ashram. You know, and the guru says, take him to his village.
But of course, Guru says, so you're not supposed to question this. So they take him to the train and they go into the village which was a little far away, and in a train he dies.
And then they come back very bewildered and they said, Guru Maharaj, you know, you know, he died. He asked them what happened, they say, you know, what happened? He died in the train. He said, very good. Very good.
Because while in a train he was thinking about ashram. While if he was in the ashram, he would think about his village. So while thinking about the ashram, he got the higher destination.
So we come to this place to take this place within the heart. And we come to these different places and we try to. Our duty while being here is to try to be as much as possible here.
Legacy of Narayan Bhatta Goswami
But then the impression will come to our heart and then we come back and then it will be very easily it will be very easy for us to remember, you know. This is the uh samadhi mandir of Narayan Bhatta Goswami.
Narayan Bhatta Goswami, why did I take you to this place and why I wanted to speak in this place, which is a very beautiful corner of Uchagaon, the village of Lalita-saki, the closest friend of Srimati Radharani, is that because yesterday Radha Pramod told me that my lecture
was too esoteric, and he asked me to speak about something more which is little easy to relate to. So I brought you here because this is the place of a very great saintly person, Narayan Bhattagoswami,
who actually discovered Vraja. As I said, the strategic plan was the plan of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. And he deputed his closest associates, Rupa and Sanatana Goswami, to fulfill his desire.
And he gave them a fourfold mission. He said, you please discover the holy places, you write the books and you discover the deities and you explain how Vaishnavas should live in this world.
He knew that in Kali Yuga the situation will be horrible, it will change. So please go through all the shastras and try to facilitate people's thinking about God.
Try to explain to them what is the process of meditation in this Kali Yuga.
The process of meditation in this Kali Yuga is of course chanting of the holy name, but we can only chant holy name in a very substantial way, in a very meaningful way.
If we also understand about Krishna, who is Krishna, how he loves his devotees, what is his relationship with the devotees, how sweet this relationship are. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, he gives a very interesting point.
He said, I heard about Krishna and I couldn't remember about him. It didn't depress me too much. And sometimes we hear about Krishna and we think, okay, so what?
Yeah, he had a peacock feather in his head, okay, no problem. I can also put some peacock feather. And then he says, yes, I heard about your shuddha and I wasn't depressed. Wasn't depressed.
But when I heard how your shoulder loves Krishna and how Krishna loves your shoulder. Then I was impressed. Then my heart melted.
So Caitanya Mahāprabhu, he ordered to his closest associates to write books, and that was their primary mission.
And when Rūpa Gosvāmī, Sanātana Gosvāmī, Jīva Gosvāmī, Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī came to this place, they were discovering some holy places.
But their main work was to write the books and to explain in a very logical and beautiful way, but at the same time in a very emotional way, how Krishna is the person.
You know, the most important point which we have to remember all the time, Krishna is the person, and person means personal relationship. Person means he likes something, he doesn't like something. That's what person means.
That's why people have hard time to relate to this concept because when God is impersonal it's easy, you know. If he's impersonal, no problem. You know, it's okay if he's impersonal.
But personal means you have to adjust yourself, you have to change yourself. You have to behave in a certain way which he likes. And you should stop doing something which he doesn't like. You know, it's a headache.
And therefore, nobody likes to think that Krishna is a person, God is a person.
But at the same time, when we don't understand that he is a person, we're depriving ourselves of personal relationship with him, which is the greatest treasure which we can obtain.
So, yes, there is some headache, no doubt about it. Like uh Lila Vinodini yesterday she gave a vow, no illicit. I really like this vow, no illicit. Whatever illicit is there, nothing.
It basically means whatever Krishna doesn't like I will not do. So I'm not going to break the laws of God, I will behave in a way which is pleasing to Him, which is not easy.
So this is the way to obtain personal relationship and that's what was the main mission of Rūpa Gosvāmī, Sanātana Gosvāmī. They were writing the books explaining what Krishna likes, what he doesn't like.
How we should behave ourselves, how we should relate to him, how we should relate to holy names, and they did amazing job.
And at the same time there was this other mission to discover holy places, but they didn't pay too much attention to this mission. And they became old.
They came here when they were already quite mature in age and they stayed here for a long time and tomorrow we will go with you
to beautiful Terkadamba place which is the Bhajan Kutir of Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī. Very important place for us. But they felt a little anxiety. Who will discover this holy Dham? Who will establish all these different places?
Of course, Lokanātha Gosvāmī was there. He actually, this holy Dham was revealed mostly by Lokanātha Gosvāmī and Narāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī. These are two associates of Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
Of course, Narāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī has never seen Caitanya Mahāprabhu, but Lokanātha Gosvāmī was his close associate who actually discovered all these places of pilgrimage.
To fulfill this mission of Caitanya Mahāprabhu so that we could come and we could get purified by visiting these places, hearing about the glory of these places and taking these places deep within our heart and then going to our places of work or where we live and remembering about these holy places.
So Narāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī wanted to tell a few words about this great personality, next to whose samādhi we are sitting. And actually we are sitting on a rāsa-sthalī.
That was one of his contributions to place rāsa-sthalīs or the places where rāsa dance was taking place. So Narāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī was from Madurai, from the south. He was a Madhva brāhmaṇa.
And he was very young; he was hardly 17 years old. He studied, uh, śāstras under his, uh, uncle. He was very well versed in all the śāstras. And then at one point he was taking a bath in a river in the noontime.
And while he was taking baths in the river, there are different stories about this. There is the whole book describing his life story.
But some say that, you know, he didn't, he went to the water and he obtained the deity of Krishna. Somebody said that he had some darśana of Krishna and Krishna himself gave him this deity.
But whatever happened, we don't really know. But we know the result of what happened while he was taking bath. He was completely changed.
He had a very profound spiritual experience, and this spiritual experience told him: You go to Vrindavan. You leave everything behind and go direct to Vrindavan, straight to Vrindavan. And actually they say that he didn't
even go home. From this river, he went straight to Vrindavana. Because he understood this is the most important thing. This is what Krishna wants me to do. And Krishna told him in his vision or like this that
you know you will go and your mission will be there to discover different līlā sthalīs, different places where Krishna played his pastimes while he was on the earth.
So, but the problem was that he got this deity, uh in the hands and he went straight to Vṛndāvana, but the deity was very talkative. you know usually deities don't talk too much but this was a very talkative deity. And uh uh he was always talking and
uh actually this deity, uh you know, uh liked very much different places which he visited and uh when he would come to some village, the deity would say, stay here a little longer.
So it took him two years to reach Vṛndāvana from Madurai. He was going this and this and this, and the deity said, why don't we visit this place or that place? So it was a it was a long journey before he arrived here.
But finally he came here, and when he came here to Vrindavan,
the first thing which he did, he uh found Rūpa and Sanātana Gosvāmī, who were living separately, but they usually lived close by to each other to come to meet every
day. And he came to them and he completely surrendered to them. He said, Krishna sent me here and I have come here to fulfill this mission. I will help you. And they were relieved.
They were old by that time and they said finally, somebody young, energetic and talented has come and he will do this. So he uh he actually
uh his first place of living was Rādhā-kuṇḍa. Rādhā-kuṇḍa is a very special place for all Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas. It's actually the pinnacle of the holy places.
Because out of all the holy places, there is only one holy place which was discovered by Caitanya Mahāprabhu himself. When he came to Vrindavan, he discovered only one holy place. That was Rādhā-kuṇḍa.
Because everything else is actually dependent on Rādhā-kuṇḍa. Rādhā-kuṇḍa is the epicenter. Everything else is just secondary. So, Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa, on the advice of
Rūpa and Sanātana, he took initiation from Kṛṣṇa Dāsa Pūjārī, who was pūjārī of Madana-mohana temple in Vṛndāvana, and for some time he was trained by this Krishnadas Pujari.
He was basically trained in the intricacies of a very special style of Gaudiya Vaishnava meditation. You know, every Indian tradition, every Indian spirituality implies some sort of meditation.
But the varieties of meditation are huge, you know. Everyone has their own little tricks and objects of meditation and the methods of meditation.
So Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas have a very elaborate system of meditation and that's what he was taught. Nārāyaṇabhaṭṭa Gosvāmī was taught, uh, these intricacies of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava meditation on God.
Discovery of holy sites in Vraja
And then after this training he started discovering holy places. Actually, he wrote 59 books.
And at least one of these books, one of these books, and not just, you know, like nowadays to write fifty-nine books is not a big problem, you know, you can just ask some uh whatever. Of 26,000 verses.
It's not just fifty-nine brochures. Huge books, you know. Twenty-six thousand verses means almost twice as Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. In verses. He was a very prolific writer and very knowledgeable person.
And his main book is about Sri Vrindavan Dham. He's explaining all different pastimes. It's the most elaborate tour guide of Vrindavan.
He was explaining different līlā-sthalīs, he gave the name to all the kuṇḍas, to all the ones, to all different numerous places. And how he did it? He did it in a very peculiar way.
He always had this deity of Gopāla with him, and he would come to a place and he would ask Gopāla, "Gopāla, what happened here?" And Gopāla said, "Oh, oh, yeah, very beautiful." And would tell him.
So but then when somebody else would approach, Gopal would again, you know, become very silent and in a very uh motionless mood again would become a mūrti.
Actually it very much depends on your relationship with God. You know if you think that God is stone, he will remain stone for you, no problem. For him to become a stone, no problem.
Because we have stone like heart, God is like stone to us. But when our heart melts, we can talk with the deities, we can see their pastimes.
And this Gopāla which came to him, he was actually guiding him and showing him different places, revealing him different places, different pastimes. And as a result of his dictation, he wrote all these books.
These books are actually directly coming from the spiritual world from Gopāla explaining what was happening here. So that was how Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī was living and he was an ardent devotee of Rādhā-kuṇḍa.
You know, those who live in Rādhā-kuṇḍa, they don't believe in any other holy places. They have very negligent I mean they don't believe that any place is holy because this is the most holy place.
So there was one little story in the life of Narayan Bata when he saw that some local villagers are planning to go to prayak. We all know that prayak is the most holy place and you know you have to go at least
once during the months of mag when it's freezing cold and take bus in this confluence of Gangri and Yamuna. And they were busy going there and Narain Bhattan said, why are you going there? Everything is here.
Why do you want to leave this most elevated and exalted place and go to some prayak? Prayak is here. Prayak is begging to come here. And he said, actually prayak is close by.
The place where he discovered Prayak is very close by. So we can go to Prayak by the way too.
So and then they were very happy, the villagers came, they started digging, and you know, lo and behold, some water was coming, and this water was very sweet and amazing. So they were convinced that Prayak is here.
But then Prayak personally came to him in the form of a brāhmaṇa. This episode is described in uh his life story, and this Brahmin uh he challenged him. You know, who you think you are?
You stop these devotees to go to prayak, who you think you are? You know, this is very important for every Hindu to go to Kumbamela. You know. How come you stop them from going to Kumbamela?
And then he started, you know, j and prayak is the holiest of all holy places.
And he started quoting Purana after Purana after Purana after Purana and you know uh which are saying that Prayak is the most holy and you have to go to prayak to get rid of all your sins and only you can get liberation if you go to this place.
And Narayan Bhatta was quoting other places and saying Vrindavan is much more holy.
So they had a debate for many days, you know, quoting and counter-quoting and quoting and counter-quoting and quoting and counter-quoting. And ultimately this Brahmin said, actually I am Prayak Raj myself.
And I came just to listen from you the glory of Vrindavan. To purify myself. That was the purpose of my coming here, and that's why I'm here.
So this is what he did, and as I said, in the first uh period of his life, while he was discovering the holy places, his headquarters were in Radhakund. And he was staying there in Radakund and going to different locations from there.
Actually, this is Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī who discovered these deities of Lārilī Lāl, Śrīji, in the main Mandir in Vrindavan, or in Vrindavan and Varsana, very popular and amazing deities, Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa found them because they came again to him and said to him, We are here, please discover us and establish some worship to us.
And in the last period of his life, last means you
you know when he became little middle-aged, he came here to Uchagaon. And on the order of his father, very interestingly, he was a Brahmachary and he was not interested but and he ran away from home and didn't even you know leave any email message to his father.
I'm in Vrindavan, but somehow or other his father found him and he came to him and he said: my son, I'm proud of you, you're doing good work. But I have one request. You please get married.
And he said, okay, father, no problem. If you want me to do it, I will do it. So he was married and he lived here and he actually
Purpose and practice of pilgrimage yatra
left his body in Uchagaon and we're here in this place just to try again to understand why we came to this place.
We came to this place to learn how to meditate on God, how to think about God in his personal form as Krishna, and how to obtain his mercy by meditating on him and how to change our heart according to his desire.
So that's why we are here and Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī uh uh he very quickly discovered thousands of holy places. Really amazing, and he wrote the books about all these holy places, and he
established the f— for the first time in the history, he established this system of pilgrimage of yatra. Like we are coming here. Of course, we're not following his idea because we are too busy. We have to go back.
And for him pilgrimage would mean one month here at least. Visiting all the holy places and sitting in the holy places, chanting the holy name, and trying to absorb the atmosphere of the holy place within ourselves.
It's very important to spend some time not to be in a hurry. We are very rajasic people, and we're always in a hurry. So we come here, okay? Yeah. Okay. Fine. Next destination.
No, but this is the places which we have to try to absorb ourselves into this atmosphere.
And Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa, he established this system that whoever comes here has to visit 12 forests of Vṛndāvana, and he established different rasa sthalīs, as I said, the places where Krishna was dancing, rasa dance, because Krishna danced rasa dance in many, many different places. In Vṛndāvana, only one Rasa dance is described.
Jayadeva Gosvāmī described Vasantarāsa, but actually Krishna till this date dancing his Rasa dance in different places in Vṛndāvana.
So he established this, he wrote the books and he uh actually taught uh he had a son one son was born to him and uh his son was his successor and he uh helped him yeah that's his another contribution.
He was the first one who started this performance of Krishna līlā. Dramas with Krishna līlā.
And till this date, especially in Kārtika time, we can see different troupes are coming here and performing Rāsa līlā. And this is another way to meditate on Krishna, another way to come closer to Krishna, and another way to get the glimpse of the emotions which are there in Krishna's heart and in the heart of his devotees.
Eradicating material samskaras through devotion
So this was a down-to-earth lecture today according to the order rather promote. And if you have any questions I would be happy to answer. And anyway, prasāda is not coming because there is a huge traffic jam.
So you can ask some questions to He is still here. He is somewhere here. But uh I don't think he will talk with you so easily. He will be a little more reserved. How did you find uh writing the route?
There are different stories about this some say that the Shriji this did this which are Larli Lau which are there and Mandir they were stored in some Vaishnava's house within the rice.
And they told him that they were here. But if you go to Varsana and I believe you will go to Varsana today, there is a special place there, and some other people say that they were discovered there.
If you go from Manmandir to the main temple, on the way to the main temple, I believe before Jaipur Mandir, there is a very special tree which is being worshipped and this is the place where the deities of Rādhā and Krishna told him we are here in the earth, so dig us out from there.
That's what. If you go in the evening, you will see people put some lamp in front of this tree under which the Rādhā and Krishna found when Ryan but Huh? Yeah yeah.
He was he he took initiation from this Krishna Das Pujari who was disciple of uh Sanatana Goswami. So he became Gaudiya, yes. Very much gaurgy. What is the process? Changing heart?
Like when you know that what Krishna wants to change you, but you try and sometimes again do it wrong, again, again and how to do like how to follow these instructions.
There is a lot of bad saṁskāras which are there within our consciousness, within our heart, citta. Citta actually is the storehouse of all the impressions which we acquired not only in this life but in many lifetimes.
You know when we get this body, this body is shaped according to prarabda karma, the karma which already fructified.
So all the saṁskāras which are active within our heart they are there and this saṁskāras cumulative number of these saṁskāras all together they constitute prārabdha karma.
And prārabdha karma, a prārabdha karma very easily being destroyed by chanting of the holy name. Those saṁskāras which not yet manifested, not we're not uh instrumental in creating this body and this
mind which we have in this particular lifetime. This is called aprārabdha karma. Uh this which were silent saṁskāras they easily erased by the sound of the holy name.
But prarabda karmas are also being gradually erased, but it's much more difficult process so
we have all these saṁskāras and we behave uh according to the saṁskāras which we have. We are what we are and we are what we are.
We are formed by the past impressions, by the impressions of past deeds in this life and in the previous life. So that's what we are.
This is what constitutes our habits, our thoughts, processes, our way of thinking, and of course, definitely way of behaving. Now, to change it, we have to counteract these saṁskāras, as I said, by spiritual saṁskāras.
And but at this moment of time, our material saṁskāras are very strong, and our spiritual saṁskāras are somewhat weak. Therefore, the change of the heart means to create strong and powerful spiritual saṁskāras.
And spiritual saṁskāras are coming from the association with the holy dhām, from the association with holy people, from the from hearing the holy people or serving the holy people, saintly persons, from the association with the holy name,
from reading Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, from serving the deities. So the trick is to get saṁskāra which is very strong. And when this saṁskāra is strong, it overshadows other saṁskāras.
Like uh even in this life we can understand that you know some saṁskāras or some habits, like for example, it's a bad example, but it's unfortunately very relevant example.
Somebody never took any drugs or any bad things which is addictive. And then he takes. And he experienced very amazing thing, you know, he and
and this saṁskāra becomes so strong that it overshadows other saṁskāras. And he becomes addicted to this habit because he got
by taking this drug, he got very deep experience. And this experience changes the course of his life. So in the same way, to change the course of our life, to change our heart, the trick is to get deep spiritual saṁskāras.
How to get deep spiritual saṁskāras? For that, what is very important, first of all, the experience which we must must have, should have some emotional nature. If it's just theoretical, it's not going to work.
Theoretically I know Krishna is God, but it doesn't matter for me so much because because my desires are stronger. Because my identification with the body is very strong.
And moreover I reinforce my identification with the body every day of my life. Every time when I'm eating, I'm uh you know I'm enforcing uh this idea, I'm this body.
And this body should be taken care of and it should be nicely fed and so on and so forth. So, first of all, the experience should have emotional nature.
And sometimes, you know, like during the kirtan we can have very strong emotions and then we remember. You know, anything, any experience which was emotionally surcharged, we still remember it many years later.
Because emotional energy is very powerful and it makes the impression very deep and very profound. So we have to have emotional exchanges with other devotees, especially with holy people.
And another trick is that try to concentrate our consciousness while we're doing something. Try to more or less consciously put your mind into what you are doing, that will create deeper impression.
That's what we are trying to do while we are chanting the holy name. That's what we're supposed to try to do while we are, uh, listening to the class.
You know, if we listen very attentively then the impression will be deeper. Rather than, you know, yeah, yeah, what is he talking about? Okay, okay, okay, okay, what else? You know, so it's, uh, so that's the trick.
Uh, to try to get some emotions connected with spiritual life, positive emotions, of course. Of course, negative emotions are much stronger than positive emotions.
And also try to be absorbed or concentrated in whatever we're doing. And actually the holy place is very merciful
and Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī says that the holy place, saintly people, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, they can give us the Bhagavatam, they can give us the glimpse of bhāva if we are not offensive.
Bhāva means very deep emotional conversion, very deep emotional experience. So, you know, don't worry for some time the the inertia will be there.
But if we don't if we don't commit offenses, uh what happened when we commit offenses? The offenses make our spiritual saṁskāras weaker. Or sometimes they completely turn them off.
And they again activate our material saṁskāras.
But if we don't commit offenses and if we at least as much as we can not committing offenses, consciously we are guarding against it and we are trying to surf and we are trying to chant the holy name, then the spiritual experience will become the dominant force within our life.
And it will completely reshape our life according to it. So don't worry. The main thing is just continue doing what we're doing and it will come.
The material saṁskāras will become weaker and weaker and weaker. They're already weaker. You know I I know one devotee, one person, he was taking not just drugs, he was taking heavy drugs, heroin.
And people say that, you know, the doctors, the professionals say that it's not possible, the heroin changes the structure of your brain, completely destroys the brain.
And he was not only taking heroins for many years, he was he He had seven times, he almost died seven times.
He was somehow or other saved because of the too much dosage of heroin. So he was not taking small dosages, it's not possible. He was taking huge dosages, he was so addicted.
And then he met with devotees, and then he chanted the holy name, and then He said, Okay, I'm done, that's it, this is a better drug for me now. So, and ever since, he never, he never did it, you know, and
that was very sudden he told me, you know, he was he was very addicted, hopeless case. You know, Hare Krishna mantra saved him because it gave him very strong experience. Yes.
Even though if we increase the spiritual intelligence, like do we need to burn our material impressions since we got from past life? Do we need to burn? It will burn itself no problem.
Because even though if we increase the spiritual impression, those will remain same, right? Material impressions will not vanish. See, the spiritual practices, they erase material saṁskāras on their own.
This erasement or weakening of the samskaras is is going on and it very much depends on your desires. If you desire, uh, very quickly it will do. You don't have to do anything special for this.
If you chant the holy name, if you come uh to the holy place, if you associate with people, automatically your material experience will be weaker and weaker and weaker and ultimately
at the end all your karmas will be extinguished. You know, people do very severe things, you know, they you see, pañca-tapas.
Still now in Vrindavan somewhere you can see yogis, they're sitting, from their four sides, there is fire, and the fire up, the sun is there in the middle of the day, he's sitting there under the sun just To burn his material samskaras.
You don't have to do it. That's good news. So just chant the holy name, and the holy name itself has the power, himself has the power to completely eradicate all your samskaras.
And of course the process of initiation is also important because the initiation helps to deactivate the samskaras. So there's no special thing. You know, if you really want to do some austerity, fast on ekādaśī.
That's the best way to deactivate samskaras and to burn everything. Just fast completely every ekādaśī. But sometimes we feel that the right time will come when we can devote more time for our spiritual practices.
How do we remind ourselves that this may never happen? The right time will never come. So you feel now that sometime in the future will be the right time for you to devote yourself.
You know, tomorrow never happens because it's always tomorrow.
So we have to do whatever we can at this moment of time, because, you know, sometimes people think, when I become old, you know, when you become old, you will spend all your time going to doctors and thinking about your body. You know, it's not a good policy.
You know, whatever we can do now, we should do. This is the sign of sincerity. If we always think, you know, I will do something in the future... yeah. Sometimes we like to dream, you know, we have some spiritual dreams.
In the future I will be such a pucca devotee, I will chant 64 rounds. And you feel good about it. No, but that's not the correct way.
Whatever you can do now, whatever little you could do now, you should do, and then you will get the taste. The problem is not... the problem is that at this moment of time you don't have taste for it.
And therefore you think, okay, yeah, it sounds right, but I am not ready yet. This is the way of thinking which people have. But if you try to do a little bit now and then the taste will increase.
Like you came here, there is some taste, right? You hear something, there is some taste, you chant a little bit, there is taste. And the taste will increase if we concentrate our mind.
So otherwise we will be just neck next lifetime Baba as they say. Prabhupāda used to say, "Don't become next lifetime baba." This time is most important. Ultimately all the śaktis are coming from Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī.
Yeah, Pārvatī is nothing but a shadow of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī. And ultimately Vimalā means very pure. Vimalā means spotless, pure. Who is the most pure? Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, because her feelings towards Krishna are the most pure.
And we are all results of Vimalā Prasāda, Vimalā Prasāda is the mercy of Vimalā.
Overcoming anger through self realization
Vimalā Prasāda was the name of Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura. How to get rid of, uh, anger and stay calm for most of the time? See, see, anger is, uh, is called in Sanskrit kāmānuja. It's a younger brother of kāma.
Krodha is the younger brother of kāma, of lust, uh, and, uh, and desire, as Krishna explains very scientifically in the Bhagavad-gītā, that this desire is the result of saṅkalpa.
Come, selfish desire, egoistic desire, lust is the result of saṅkalpa, or determination to enjoy by all means.
And determination to enjoy by all means, this saṅkalpa, very deeply rooted saṅkalpa, which is there, and this saṅkalpa is a result of misidentification with the body.
Because we so deeply identify ourselves with material body, then the desire, you know, because body needs some, you know, and
of course, we should enjoy, we should have permitted enjoyment in this life. There is no doubt, there is nothing wrong with it. It's just, uh, we have to be careful with this because the tendency
is that when we enjoy a little bit, then, you know, the greed for enjoyment becomes stronger. And when somebody prevents us, uh, from enjoying, uh, we become angry. Anger is nothing but the energy or force which is generated to remove the obstacle for our enjoyment.
Somebody is, uh, is a hindrance for this, somebody prevents us from this, and we become angry, or somebody, yeah.
So we will never be able to get rid of anger unless we get rid of kāma, very strong desire to increase our enjoyment, and we will never be able to get rid of this strong desire to increase our enjoyment unless we understand, "I'm not this body," and these enjoyments which I get through the body are meager. They are insignificant.
They are not something—they're actually denigrating myself. And I'm meant to experience some spiritual experience which is unlimited. The material enjoyment is frustratingly limited.
You know, you you're hungry and you want to eat and you think you will eat, you know, you will eat three pizzas. But after half of a pizza, you kind of don't feel like, you know, eating at all.
And then, you know, okay, you force yourself to eat two pizzas, and then you're sick for for the rest of the week because the pizza is there undigested. You know, material enjoyment is tuccha, they are not significant.
They're very—so we have to understand I'm not this body, I'm soul.
You know, people when they have near-death experience, nowadays, because of this advancement of the medicine, many people return from their, you know, their experience back to the life, uh, oftentimes, uh, they become completely different.
Why? Because they realized I'm not this body. Body was dead. I was still there. I was thinking, you know, and I had this experience.
And because they realized this, all the habits which were problematic for them, very easily they gave it up.
So it all boils down to this one thing, to deeply in the heart realize that I'm not this body, and therefore, uh, my way of living should be different. Yes,
Prabhumalika is here, he is a beautiful singer. I invited him to chant some bhajans so we can have some deep emotional experience by listening to his, his beautiful Gandharva-like voice to this horrible sound system.
And this is Peter's mother. He came with