Those who are advanced and highly qualified and are interested in the essence of life, know the good qualities of Kali Yuga. Such people worship the age of Kali because in this age simply by chanting the Hare Krishna mahamantra one can advance his spiritual knowledge and attain life’s goal
Purport
This is a quotation of Srimad Bhagavatam spoken by the great sage Karbhajana Rishi one of the 9 yogendra’s. The sage was informing Maharaja Nimi about the people duty to worship the supreme personality of godhead according to different processes in different Yugas. Those who are advanced and high qualified and our interested in the essence of life, know the good qualities of Kali Yuga such people worship the age of Kali. Because in this age simply by chanting the Hare Krishna Mahamantra one can advance his spiritual knowledge and attain life’s goal.
Radhanath Swami on Instructions of Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu to Srila Sanatana Gosvami
We are reading from the instructions of Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu to Srila Sanatana Gosvami from the Madhya Lila of Sri Caitanya Caritamrita. Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu has already explained to Srila Sanatana Gosvami what is the nature of the soul how it is part and parcel of Krishna, how it is pure spiritual energy, and how it comes into this material world due to its desire to enjoy independent of the service of Lord Krishna and how as long as we misuse this independence in such a way that soul has to transmigrate, birth after birth through various species of life of which it is numbered 8 million 4 hundred thousand, but the soul is the conscious force within each body and as queen Kunti explains in Srimad Bhagavatam without the consciousness the body is useless.
The consciousness is the all and all even a person who is very exalted very much glorified by man when his soul life’s his body that same body, which previously was sitting in so many decorated seats and protected in so many ways perhaps even ornamented with jewels and other decorations. The body is no longer wanted by anyone. In fact it is something disgusting that is set on fire or put in the ground to dispose off. So the is all and all of life is consciousness and as Srila Prabhupada explains there is only one consciousness and that is Krishna consciousness there is no other consciousness because all consciousness is emanating from Krishna, he is the source of all consciousness.
janmädy asya yataù,
mamaiväàço jéva-loke jéva-bhütaù sanätanaù
Radhanath Swami explains the Importance of Krishna Consciousness
Every living being we have all these qualities of awareness in consciousness only because we are part of Krishna, only because we are emanating from Krishna. Therefore Krishna is the source of all consciousness, Srila Prabhupada uses the example that you cannot separate the light of the Sun from the Sun, we never say shine we always say Sunshine if we go outside into the bright light of the Sun we do not say the shine has come. We say the Sunshine has come. Because we must be aware that the shine is utterly depending on its source the Sun. In the same way anyone who talks about consciousness is greatly in illusion unless they understand that there can be no consciousness without Krishna consciousness because all consciousness is emanating from Krishna and every living entity can only have consciousness because Krishna has endowed us with this consciousness as his parts and parcels so Krishna consciousness is the only consciousness, but the Maya Shakti the illusory energy of the Lord is so powerful created by God Himself to give independent living entities the opportunity to think that they can enjoy apart of Krishna because that is what we want and therefore although Krishna consciousness is the exclusive only consciousness in all of the existence.
We speak of consciousness, but we forget Krishna, we forget our relationship with Krishna and in this material world in this forgetful state since time in memorial we have to suffer so many great problems in life who could deny especially in this age of Kali Yuga. But the Lord appears he personally comes sometimes through his incarnation and sometimes in his original form just to remind us of who we are what is our source and teach us the process of Krishna consciousness real life, true life, our original nature.
Krishna has spoken in Bhagavat Gita just to give the ways and the means by which anyone who is sincere can come back to that original spiritual consciousness or Krishna consciousness. In every Yuga satya Yuga, terta Yuga , dwapar Yuga, and Kali Yuga the problems and the miseries progressively increase. KailYuga is the taste where there is so much strive and as the years go by it will become worse and worse and there is nothing anyone can do about it as far as changing the environment, but we can change our own consciousness that everyone has complete control of just like now there are elections and people are so much politically minded so much hoping and aspiring that one party can defeat another party, what Srila Prabhupada used to tell us it does not really matter, which party wins whether it is capitalism, whether it is socialism, whether it is communism, whether this party, or that party the fact is we are still in Kali Yuga it is still of the age of cheaters and the cheated and we all still have to suffer.
In the previous Soviet Union communism was so prominent and somehow or other the whole world was thinking if only we can eradicate communism then there will be free and happy and somehow or other communism completely eradicated free votes, democratic state, and now it is all split up and practically every part of it is a world with one another, so what is the improvement. By our material endeavors to solve problems the best we could do is just take the problem of burden on one shoulder and put it out on another shoulder and perhaps we can postpone it for another day, but that other day is soon to come and in Kali Yuga it is so intense there is so much conflict, there is so much distrust, there is so much violence, there is so much insanity people have become crazy who can deny it. And therefore it is explained in this verse that those who are advanced and highly qualified and our interested in the essence of life they know the good qualities of Kali Yuga in fact they worship the age of Kali. Why do we worship the age of Kali as the best of all Yugas the Yuga where there is drought and earthquakes and volcanoes, starvation, wars everywhere, filth, and dirt, rats crawling around roaches all over us why do we worship this age people are so envious and comparative polluting the seas, polluting the air, polluting the ground, polluting even you send your child to school just to be polluted. Because in this age the supreme personality of godhead exhibits his supreme mercy.
A type of mercy that He does not be still upon anyone at any other time, He comes in the form of his Yuga Avatar Sri Gauranga Mahaprabhu to give what has never been given before, the opportunity for everyone to attain the highest perfection of pure love for Krishna simply by chanting the holy names, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare
We know that in previous Yugas the holy name is always effective it is not that only in Kali Yuga by chanting the holy names can you become perfect, but the chanting of Hare Krishna mantra the names of god it is so simple and so sublime that another ages it is hard to take it seriously because everything is so enjoyable they have to torture each other, they have to perform severe tapsya, fasting, celibacy, deep, deep 60,000 years of meditation in Dwapar Yuga just to get a glimpse of understanding the goal of life. Performance of massive, massive sacrifice, which takes years and years practically your whole life just to arrange such a sacrifice and it requires so much wealth so much absolute technical procedure in the chanting of every particular mantra so unbelievable tapsya to perform such a Yajna; or worshiping the Lord in Dvapara Yuga according to the pancha ratrika system very perfectly, very punctually it is a great austerity and through that austerity people realize,ka they realize the absolute necessity of taking shelter of the Lord, but in this age of Kali people are by nature so frustrated, and they are so called happy and pleasures is so short lived that they really have the best opportunity seeing the circumstances around to just take shelter utterly of Krishna’s holy name and chant the Mahamantra Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna , Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare, <___>
Radhanath Swami narrates the Pastime of Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu
Krishna has descended in this age in his name <___> from the spiritual world of goloka Sri Radharani and Lord ShyamSundar have descended in the form of this Mahamantra and Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu has come to announce this good news to the world and to bestow the most intermit mercy upon all living beings by personally inviting everyone to chant these holy names.
There are so many wonderful stories when the Lord was just a child in Sri Caitanya mangala by Lochandas Thakur he explains how the Lord was very playful and so many games he would play with his friends sometimes they would play what they call the harinam game where the Lord would ask all of his playmates chant hari bol, hari bol, and everyone would chant hari bol but they would chant nicely hari bol and they would all raise their hands and they would chant very loudly hari bol and they began to dance in circles around Nimai and they all would be laughing and clapping their hands and then the Lord would take them each and he would sit down and place them on his laps his own friends and when he would touch them they would become so emendated in ecstatic love for Krishna that bumps would just start grow on their bodies allover in ecstasy and they would all raise their arms and call out the holy names hari, hari and upon feeling the merciful touch of Srimad Mahaprabhu they would just began to dance and clap their hands and laugh in ecstatic love. One day as they were performing this very pleasant game of sankirtan some pandits, Brahmins, they were walking by and they saw the boys chanting and dancing together although they were by nature very dry scholars of various scriptures by studying all the scriptures in the world you can get a lot of dry logic and a lot of philosophy, but unless you participate in the sankirtan of the holy name we never taste the sweetness of love, which is the secret essence within the scriptures.
It is revealed that the chanting of the holy names, so these pandits obviously they have been studying the shastras for so many long years of their life and they were so professional, but when they saw these little children who were not necessarily very highly educated they were exhibiting ecstasies that were unapproachable by these great pandits, but just by associating with these children they began to clap their hands and dance and as they were dancing they became ecstatic in love of god and they were all chanting the holy names, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna , Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare and as they were dancing and dancing they forgot all of their materialistic designations of life and they were just enraptured by seeing the beauty of the Lord.
In fact Lochana Das explains that as the boy friends of Nimai were dancing around him it appeared like intoxicated bees swarming around a honey filled lotus flower and this spreads the tumultuous word of the chanting of hari, hari was so beautiful they filled the directions and the travelers on the road that happen to see this wonderful kirtan these distinguished pandits dancing with little children and Nimai’s beautiful, beautiful golden form directing everyone all the travelers joined in the kirtan and began to chant hari, hari, and more and more people were coming in the sankirtan of the holy name as we have all experienced we forget this material world, we become an reality where there is only the Lord, his devotees, and his name, and everything else sees to exist in our consciousness that is actually truth that is reality and then neighboring ladies carrying pots of water on their heads they ran to see the fun and Sachidevi the mother of Nimai Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu she heard all of this and she came running to see what is this and she saw all these children and all these learned pandits all dancing and Nimai was dancing in great, great abandon of blissfulness and she took Nimai on her lap and she began to chastised the pundits.
She said you learned pandits and Brahmins you are causing someone else son to become like a mad man dancing around crazy like this and as she chastised them in this way everyone was just stunned they came out or their ecstatic trans and then they all realized again who they were and where they and they were wondering what are we doing what have we done and the Sachidevi took Nimai home.
The Lord induced everyone to chant, even when he was a little baby he would cry and cry and everyone loved him because of his beautiful golden beauty so much that they could not tolerate to see him cry and he would not accept anything to pacify him accept when everyone around could claps their hands and chant the holy names, <___> and as the Lord became older and he officially inaugurated the sankirtan of the holy name in the house of Srivas pandit. He could leave such beautiful wonderful kirtans he had Lord Nityananda Prabhu they are dancing it is said to be the most beautiful manifestation in the history of all creation.
The dancing of Nitai and Gaurachandra were not different than the original lila of Radha and Krishna and their associates in the eternal land of Vrindavan, but so wonderful because the leela of the Lord in Vrindavan is so confidential so difficult to approach in the proper state of consciousness, but Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Sri Nityananda prabhu they brought that same Vrindavan lila that they performed it in such a way that even the worst sinners like Jagay and Madhai what to speak of us we all have complete access to its entrance through the beautiful chanting of the holy names of Krishna. So the envious people they would criticize the Lord and his devotees with so many harsh words, but the pious people they really appreciated in the evening only very advance devotees were allowed entrance into Srivas Pandita’s house and the pious people would think that because of all of these envious sinners always criticizing the Lord always blaspheming his devotees because of them we are not given entrance into this beautiful kirtan whoever is given entrance into this house is the most fortunate, but we have no qualifications, but somehow or other if we just remember the Lord and worship him Nimai who as descended in such a great devotee and we just long enough and pray intense enough then someday he may allow us to come in enjoying his kirtan and at the end of the night as they were just praying and glorifying the Lord throughout the night when the morning would come they would go to Lord Caitanya house and they would offer him prostrated obscene and the residence of Navadvip would bring him gifts of bananas and fruits and various types of leafs and garlands and the Lord would give them beautiful instructions.
Lord explained that all of you should know that Krishna is the goal of life worship Krishna chant Krishna’s names, sing Krishna’s glories at all times in all places that is the real goal of life and he explained that I will teach you the process you should chant this form of japa day and night you should always try with a sincere and attentive heart to chant the 60 name mantra, which is the Mahamantra the greatest the most powerful of all mantras in this age of Kali Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna , Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare. When you rise in the morning, when you are traveling, when you are working always try to remember this beautiful mahamantra and when you are at home you gather your family together your parents, your wives, your children, your friends who ever will come and you clap your hands and you sing together and dance together <___> and then he explained and besides chanting this Hare Krishna Mahamantra I will give you another mantra to sing together <___> in this way the Lord he was so kind that he would put grasp between his teeth and he would humbly with folded palms he would beg all the pious people he would beg them please take this process of hari kirtan be free from the miseries of Kali Yuga and attain the perfection of loving relationship. The treasure of everyone’s heart is Krishna.
This Hari kirtan is the key that can open that treasure and reveal to the highest and most beautiful and sweetest truths of life. so in this way practically the whole of Navadvip and not only the Navadvip, but all the villages around they were all day and night chanting the holy names of Krishna clapping their hands, dancing, and singing this beautiful Mahamantra, so here Lord GauraSundar, Sriman Mahaprabhu is explaining to Sri Sanatan Gosvami and explaining to all of us that this age of Kali Yuga is glorious <___> because in this age of Kali the Lord descends in his name and simply by chanting the holy names even in this environment, which is an ocean of false one can achieve the supreme perfection of liberation.
In this age of Kali it is called an ocean of false who could deny it, but Mahaprabhu has given an understanding where this ocean becomes a very friendly wonderful environment. In our daily life’s whatever situation may come upon us we should not resent the situation. In fact <___> devotee welcomes the miseries of Kali he understands that it is actually a gracious opportunity to detach oneself from all of the false hopes of material pleasure and attach ourselves to the real hope of the certified blessing of the Lord in the form of the chanting of the holy names, the worship of the Lord, and the association of the devotees of Lord. So if we see in this life everything becomes positive nothing is negative the more crises that are afflicted upon society the more impetus and intensity we have to take shelter of Krishna, his devotees, and his names therefore the environment is auspicious if we understand what is the goal of life.
Therefore, it is very important that we have according to our capacity a very deep philosophical understanding of life Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Srimad Bhagavatam, Sri Caitanya Charitamrita, Sri Bhakti Rasamrta Sindhu & our beloved Guru maharaja Sri A. C. Bhaktivedanta swami Prabhupada has so kindly, compassionately, translated the most important and essential of all the scriptures and simply by studying them learning this knowledge we will have a strong conviction of what is truth and how to live within the environment of this age of Kali in such a way that in every moment we progressing. Progressing toward the real solutions to the problems of the life, progressing to the real blissful condition of our original Krishna consciousness and of course sankirtan indicates very clearly that we require the association of sincere devotees to follow this philosophy.
The support and the friendship of vaishnavas is absolutely necessary in order to cross over this ocean of Kali. Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu he taught very simple that there is Krishna name, there is Krishna words , there is Krishna’s devotees that is all there is everything else in this world is an illusion, everything is an impairment, but he also taught the art and the science of how to apply this conclusion to every aspect of our life’s.
We have been reading everyday the Brahmacharis the beautiful biography of his divine grace Srila Prabhupada that how during the earlier years of his life he was a family man with several children and so many business responsibilities, but how he was always anxious to have kirtan with the devotees he was always anxious to hear the blessed words of his Guru Maharaja and therefore he showed us how to be perfectly Krishna conscious even while living according to the principles of the responsibilities of our society today
Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu himself in his Grihastha ashRama also showed us the same process that never with an illusion to think that this society had any real valve separate from our understanding of its relationship with Krishna separate from the understanding of how we could utilize all opportunities to serve Krishna that is the perfection of our life and that is the great gift that we are all been given. Lord Caitanya instructs in this beautiful verse with Sanatana Gosvami those who advanced in highly qualified and our interested in essence of life know the good qualities of Kali Yuga such people worship the age of Kali because in this age simply by chanting the Hare Krishna Mahamantra one can advance in spiritual knowledge and attain life’s goal. Lord Caitanya is here quoting Karbhajan rishi one of the 9 Yogendras from the 11th Canto of Srimad Bhagavatam.
Radhanath Swami describes Bombay Sankirtan
The Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu appeared in Sri Navadvip dham of west Bengal and we would like to invite everyone to please kindly for the pleasure of all the devotees and for the sanctification of receiving the greatest blessings in life come to attend this wonderful festival. On the 16 we will inaugurate the ceremony by following the footsteps of Sri Mahaprabhu, by performing beautiful hari nam sankirtan through the streets of down town Bombay. During Mahaprabhu’s tour of the various provinces of eastern, southern, and western India he came at that time it was called Bombay it was called Dwaipayani, but it was this very place we should be very fortunate in our understanding that Mahaprabhu himself personally danced in this very place that we are living and he induced all of the residents of this small village at the time to raise their arms in the intoxication of Krishna prema chanting the holy names, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna , Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare so we are hoping that as many devotees and guests as possible can come and we are hoping to have many hundreds and hundreds of devotees very gracefully and devotionally chanting through the streets of Bombay.
Schedule for Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu
The holy name of the Lord is so pure and empowered with such spiritual opulence that anyone who hears the sincere devotees chanting or sees them performing sankirtan their spiritual life on the path of bhakti will certainly begin. If they see with a mood of appreciation they will get great spiritual progress and the next day throughout the entire day from Mangal Arati till in the hours of the night we will be celebrating many wonderful guests will be here some very exalted sanyasis from various parts of the world will be here, they will be leading in kirtan and speaking and there will be dRamaas and plays and slide shows and fasting it will be wonderful experience. In the morning there will initiations. Those of you who are getting initiated and desire if you have nice japa please label them and give them to us today and then at about 6 o’clock there will be beautiful abhishek for Sri Nitai Gaura Chandra. Then a wonderful lecture on the life of Lord Caitanya and his significance of his appearance in this world and then there will be the most glorious arati ceremony of the year. <___> this beautiful, beautiful arati ceremony of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu is attracting the minds of all living being in all of the universe so we will perform such an arati on the night of the moonrise when Mahaprabhu appeared and the next day on the 18 in the evening beginning about 6 0’clock we will celebrate in morning there will be another initiation ceremony and then in the evening there will be Jagannath Mishra Utsav you see Lord Caitanya appeared at the time of moonrise at night here it is explained that he appeared like the full golden moon from the horizon of the womb of Mother Sacidevi and the next morning when the news spread at that time, to celebrate the coming of the child it is on the next day.
It is explained that all of the principle demi gods they disguised themselves to come and worship the Lord and have his beautiful darshan and Advaita acharya’s wife and all of the Vaishnavas also came in ecstatic love and when they came they saw here is the child who has all the beauty of Gopal Krishna, but who is manifesting all of this beauty in a wonderful, wonderful golden complexion Gaurahari so that will be Saturday night and then Sunday a week from today during the Sunday feast progRama we will continue the celebrations so everyone please kindly try to attend all of these wonderful opportunities to worship the Lord.
Radhanath Swami Introduces Garga Rishi Prabhu
One very special and prominent guest that has come to celebrate Gaura Purnima with us is the senior most devotee of new Vrindavan he is sitting very humbly in the back so no one will recognize him, but his effulgence is attracting us all his name is Gargrishi prabhu hari bol, Gargrishi prabhu please come, please make way for him, hari bol, of all the devotees at new Vrindavan, Garga Rishi has been there the longest he came in about 1970, Haribol. Please it is our custom when you come to the foreign land you must accept the custom. He has been a devotee since 1970 that means 25 years and this is the first time in his entire life he has ever come to India and he has performed so many years of great tapsya at new Vrindavan no matter what has happened he has always with great conviction and steady determination served the beautiful Lord Sri Sri Radha Vrindavan Chandra and in recent times when there was great crises in the community more than anyone else he was very firm to preserve the sanctity and future of the new Vrindavan community. You all have meet his wife and daughter Mudhkari and Madhurya Lila you remember that fair complexion girl that stood taller than all the rest of us she has been here twice it is Garga Rishi’s daughter and his son is also here, where is son stand up hari bol, his name is Kichridas servant of Kichri hari bol, and he is one of the most blissful Krishna conscious children in all of the western world you will see what you get to know him over the next few days.
Gargrishi and I have many long years of friendship together at one back many, many years ago in 1973 he was a brahmachari at that time and in his old house the original new Vrindavan part I was the head pujari and taking care of cows I would milk the cows and herd them with stick and I would worship the DDs and he was the head cook so the two of us, it was just the two of us living in a kutiya on a mountain taking care of cows and worshiping DDs together, but then somehow or other he accepted a higher service, which I was not eligible to receive he got married and he performed wonderful services and later on we were both called head pujari’s for RadhaVrindavan Chandra and we would spend the whole day just worshiping the DDS together, so he is one of our dearest and oldest friends in Krishna consciousness and he has much realization and wisdom, which he will certainly sHare with all of you, so let us welcome Gargrishi prabhu to Sri Radhagopinath temple hari bol, hari bol,
Garga Rishi Prabhu ki jai and also with him came Bhakta Jeremy who is an aspiring disciple of His Holiness Sri Barsana Maharaja. So let us welcome him to Radhagopinath temple. Haribol, and you may remember from last week Sanatana Dharma prabhu, he introduced him last week he has also come from new Vrindavan so let us welcome all these new Vrindavan devotees every loudly so that they really can experience how joyful we are that they have blessed us with their kind association hari bol, so Gargrishi prabhu please speak some words.
H.G. Garga Rishi Prabhu: Radhanath swami ki jai, hari bol, actually Maharaja obviously went on through the higher service he is doing so wonderfully here we just came from Mayapur and such a wonderful atmosphere at Mayapur dham, but when I walked into the temple here it was just incredible wonderful ecstatic atmosphere that personally I have not experienced since I have been back to new Vrindavan I think actually it is more wonderful, I have only been here about an hour or so, but that is the proof of Radhanath swamis potency, care, and love for all the wonderful devotees here beautiful DDs I am very grateful, we all are very grateful to come in your association and if there is some little service we can render please engage us in your service Hare Krishna, hari bol, thank you very much Kichridas would you like to say something hari bol
