[Applause] [Applause] Char [Applause] [Applause] Krishnna Krishna Kishna oh hearty [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] Heart har Krishna Krishna Krishna [Applause] Krishna [Applause] Krishna Krishna Krishna [Applause] Krishna [Applause] Krishna Krishna Krishna Krishna [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] Krishna Krishna Krishna [Applause] Krishna Krishna Krishna kishna [Applause] Chrishna [Applause] [Applause] You For vishna Nam oasen is to all the vavas I humbly uh be te your blessings this is a not expected and but I’m delighted again to to be here in new doraa uh and especially uh on this occasion Thea this is the 150th anniversary the cesa Centennial uh of the appearance of his
Divine grace was uh he appeared in jugat Puri on February 6th 1874 his parents as we know were B too takur and his wife bhagavati Davi uh he was one of 10 children um a few months maybe 8 n 10 months after um his appearance uh the family
Moved um he grew up in Bengal he grew up Shak sarasti grew up hearing um Krishna Kata from his mother bhagavati Davi from the very uh beginning of his life and then we know later he heard from his father Sho he was engaged in um uh in in uh helping bino takur with
Uh editing some of his books he went to a uh Sanskrit college and dropped out uh I was I was happy to hear that having been a Dropout myself um our understanding is that Shakti sitan sarati Tak was being pressed to join this The Faculty of that college as soon
As he graduated so he decided uh not to do that um still he um for several years he uh was engaged in different kinds of service teaching and and overseeing uh Affairs of State in in uh some kingdoms and lost in he had realized he had no interest in that
Shino Tak also uh realized that when when he was in college he um started a a group called The August assembly and among the um requirements for for membership was uh uh celibacy complete Brahma Chara so this is kind of like the anti fraternity um or or maybe what a
Fraternity should be this is real Brotherhood um he had a a a he was actually uh his followers consider that he was called by Shri lauko takur who himself had a a strong uh desire that someone would come um to help him um propagate Lord Chen’s teachings um in the modern
Age uh bakti yoga godia vaishnavism had been largely um restricted to Village Life in in parts of Bengal orisa and and uh uh around matura and BR doin and and at the time and and in the in the Years between sh Shan Maha pru’s disappearance and and bakti Bako tak’s
Appearance um godia aism had fallen into disrepute because of different um Splinter groups um that had uh emerged over the years this actually began to happen quite quickly after Maha pru’s uh uh own disappearance um the occasion for the composition of Shan Char by Shak Krishna Das kavaj go Swami
Was the instructions of the six goswami I think especially Jiva go Swami um that he composed something in Bengali to present Lord chetan’s identity character and teachings um as Maha pru shared it with the six go swamis of reavan actually side note here krishnadas kabiraj studied with all the six go
Swamis plus kugara goswami and um lanat goswami so he studied with eight ghost swamis of Ravin and um uh this great work of his was partly uh meant for um galvanizing the Bengali devotees all the previous kind of he geographical uh biographies of Lord chitan had been written in
Sanskrit and uh not everybody in Bengal was a highclass Brahman who was expert in Sanskrit so Krishna kabi Raj um composed chanar in benali so this is a little revolutionary in itself a little bold and uh we know the we may know the story of how uh chanar tar and the books
Of the other the other books of the go swamis uh found their way to uh to to West Bengal there was a great adventure in in in between but this was actually in itself a great Innovation and Krishna Das kabaj um explained that he avoided Sanskrit as much as possible but uh he
Said in order to uh support my assertions I need to site the shastras they’re in Sanskrit so deal with it I sometimes refer to it as a sort of apology but it really wasn’t there’s you know he he just said this is the way it
Is and figure it out um so that was um a little Innovative in itself but know takur as we know was also uh an uh a reformer an innovator about 25 years ago I wrote an essay say it’s been around on the interwebs a few times in different
Places uh that I called considering Shula prad’s Mercy um it came out of an ish toosi at the San Diego Temple in the late 90s maybe 98 or 99 dealing with a certain problem of you know outside influence and um I was asked to participate in this I was reluctant to
Do so but I was pressed to do so because of the uh the regard that devot community in general had for me and so they they wouldn’t proceed with this until I agreed to participate so finally I did but I said here’s what I’ll do um what
I’ll do in instead of what you might think I’m going to do what I’ll do is just share a little bit of how I think Shilo prad’s presentation is unique and that uh I was uh asked to turn that talk into an essay for their um jmy souvenir magazine and it was
Published in that maybe two or three years in a row so I call it considering Shula prad’s mercy and I’ll just share the first first few paragraphs leading uh including the paragraphs about bakti Sant Saraswati just so you kind of see where I was going with this about 500
Years ago Lord Krishna personally appeared as Shri chananya Maha prabu in place of the avatar for for the age of Cully Lord chananya had two purposes for coming to experience firsthand the Bliss of serving Krishna and to spread pure love of Krishna which is very rare writing about Lord chaitanya’s plan for
Making his Mercy widely available sh Krishna kwami says Krishna if you are indeed interested in logic and argument kindly apply it to the mercy of Shri chaitanya Maha prabu if you do so you will find it to be strikingly wonderful so I ended up using this to frame the essay considering Shila prad’s mercy so I ended it
With if you’re really interested in logic and argument kindly apply them to the mercy of Shila praat if you do you I think you’ll find it stri strikingly wonderful actually Lord chaitanya revolutionized vaishnavism he took Krishna Consciousness into the streets when he inaugurated the Krishna the congregational chanting of krishna’s
Holy names and deputed bands of devotees to widely preached the glories of s Kiran and pure devotional service he himself traveled all over India preaching Krishna Consciousness he specifically deputed Lord nand to preach in b whereas Lord chetan’s direct followers came mostly from the higher social classes Lord Nanda made absolutely no
Distinction he approached every anyone and everyone as demonstrated in his pasttime with jagay and maai and implored them to take up devotional service to Krishna accompanied by chanting har Krishna in the mid 19th century andur saw that Lord ch’s teachings had become distorted in several ways and had fallen into
Disrepute he conceived a dynamic plan for spreading the glories of devotional service to everyone around the world part of his program was a modern approach to presenting Krishna Consciousness he presented the philosophy of shrimat bhagavatam in a way that even those influenced by modern Western philosophies both in India and
Abroad could appreciate it essential to oa’s revolutionary view was the understanding that Lord chaan was not exaggerating when he said that his name would be sung in every town and Village around the world bino wrote in his journal sosan Shan Maha pru did not descend with his associates to deliver a certain
Number of human being human beings in the land of India but rather his purpose was to deliver and uplift all living beings in all countries of the world by practicing the Eternal religion of All Souls he quoted a verse from chaan bhagabat in which the Lord said my name
Will be preached in all the countries and towns that exist throughout the world bino then expressed his heart’s desire there are many kinds of religion in the world and among them the highest development of religion is the congregational chanting of the Supreme Lord’s Divine names of this there is no doubt
Alas when will that day come when greatly Fortunate Souls the Sanskrit word for that is aaga patam describes those who receive bakti in their hearts from the association of other devotees as is an intensifier that means too much so we’re too much fortunate we’re in incalculably
Lucky alas when will that day come when greatly Fortunate Souls in countries such such as England France Russia Prussia and America will take up banners Kettle drums mangas car and carals and thus cause the ecstatic waves of Haram Kiran and the singing of chaan Maha Shri
Chananya Maha pru’s Holy Name to rise in the streets of their towns and cities oh when will that day come when pure and transcendental V naaba pra will be the only religion and all tiny sectarian religions will meet in the unlimited and Universal religion of vaishnavism as
Rivers merge into the great ocean oh when will that day come oino tak’s plan for propagating Krishna Consciousness also included Reviving a scientific Dy varim system to help Society make more conducive to spiritual culture he passed this vision of preaching Krishna Consciousness to his son and shika disciple sha bakti sidhant
Saraswati takur who extended bod’s Revolution by taking concrete steps to reinstitute baramad Dharma asserting that the vi that vavas are as good as brahmanas bakti Sant Saraswati gave his disciples the sacred thread and initiation regardless of their family lineage he also reintroduced the asham of triand SAS to Kia
Vaishnavism by accepting it himself from a picture of his spiritual Master just see how bold um moreover he created an organized Institution for systematically propagating Krishna Consciousness and trained his disciples to aggressively confront all forms of false religion throughout his preaching career Shakti sidhant sarasti exhorted everyone he met to help spread Krishna
Consciousness to the entire world and then this is the transition to Shila propad so this is was a this was a short essay um so I I did a lot of uh condensing where’s the close this um so we see um evidence of Shila bakti Sant sarasti tar um revolutionary approach
Um espe well especially around the time he took SAS he um in 1905 we know he took a vow to chant a billion uh uh holy names uh this took several years he lived in mayapore in a Grass Hut um just chanted day and night cooked um some
Rice once a day in a clay pot and and lived on that for um all those years the result of that was his this bold Innovative preaching campaign that included um following bakinot taker’s U example included uh using modern technology to spread Krishna Consciousness back then modern technology meant the printing
Press and when we look at the logo of the godia mat which Shula prad had um uh put on the Gate of Maya porch Andro daier back in the70s I guess it’s not still there I don’t remember noticing it when I was there last year
Um the uh the logo is a circle and it’s divided into sections uh on one side uh there are some representations of the uh V Mark and on the other raganuga Mark and uh what we see on the side for the viim mar are uh deities of Lakshmi narayana
Um what the vadas and some Ary paraphernalia representing the patri VII and the pagat VII and raganuga Mar is represented on The Other Side by uh depiction of Radha and Krishna shid patam Cole and caral and a printing press far out huh um he also used uh the radio Bak
Sarasti takur had a different approach to being um a godia vava teacher generally they were part you know they were well at least those who were more orthod Orthodox not part of the really strange sahaja groups uh they kind of devolved into uh go Swami casts it was became uh
The lineage was passed down seminally through the families and um and you know if you wanted to to become initiated to the go of vnav you had to find a guru in some of these people’s estimation in one of these IES in um in Bengal or or odisa or in um inar Pradesh
Um Bakin Bak Tak had a different idea his ideas was that um it should that Krishna following his Father’s Footsteps it should be presented in a modern way to Modern people and that meant going to the city his own Guru Shor koras Pabi was was not at all inclined toward uh
Leaving the holy Tom and he how might we say it kind of called bakti Sant Saraswati takur on the carpet for going to K’s Kingdom Kika and um but Bak sar’s uh rationale was that U there’s so many condition Souls there and so many opportunities for sharing uh the
Teachings of Lord chitan for sharing uh the teachings of bagavita shatam andri so he you know he famously established uh godat Center in in uh uh in uh Kolkata and sent his disciples all over India he established 64 uh godam mat centers around to India there’s um uh an instance where Shila prad
Recounts when he was living in Mumbai uh he would go out with a couple of his God Brothers collecting they they would go out to collect money to establish a godi amount in Mumbai and um um B I think it was bakti suranga go Swami Maraj would would kind of like make an
Introduction bakti raka Shar mahaj would uh uh you know like expound on the you know expand on the philosophy and Chila propad would close he would close the deal and he was so good at it that devotees suggested to shakan to Saraswati takur that perhaps
He should be U managing the m and Sh Saraswati taker’s response was no don’t bother him um he’s doing fine as it is and in the future he’ll do everything thing prad shared that with us on a a walk at Magic Island in Honolulu back in
Uh God what year is it now uh back in uh February I think of 1975 um so Shakti sarti takur had this this very uh uh very bold um approach and that included um this uh uh establishing the godam Matas organized program um with with ashrams for brahmacharis and sasis
And and and a systematic way of presenting uh uh presenting Krishna Consciousness in the 30s he sent some of his disciples to England at considerable expense um and um they were in England and they also visited Germany um spoke with some government people in England and in Germany I think
Maybe even some folks from the royal family um came back with a couple of European followers and and but that was about the extent of their uh accomplishments there um although I do remember many years ago maybe 20 odd year maybe about 25 years ago hearing a Kon that was
Purportedly uh performed in London in the 30s and I don’t I don’t I don’t think I downloaded that tape I’m not sure I knew how to do that then um and so I don’t have access to that anymore but it was kind of interesting is that my
Signal I I figured since I can’t see the clock I can go as long as I want um I’m notorious for not being able to finish class on time um oh so in that regard there was a couple of there were a couple of really nice pastimes that
Um my uh friend and and godsister Mula prti discovered in her uh research over the years she would interview people um who had known Shula prad before he left India for the US in 1965 and um she compiled these in a book that she called our prad a friend to all early
Contemporaries remember his divine grace asak on Swami prup and I had the good fortune and great pleasure of U EDI Ting that book uh we were we were going crazy trying to get that book out before Mula passed away she went to reaven uh where she uh passed away of
Cancer and uh I I would this fortunately it was the summer so I didn’t have any classes to teach but I would have to get up at 12:30 1:00 in the morning to check my email because my friend mjeri would send me another chapter and they would have
To be done soon because we were literally trying to um if I don’t know if there’s anybody here old enough to remember the fire sign theater but one of their sticks was Beat the Reaper and we were literally trying to beat the Reaper with this and get this book out
Before mulab was gone uh we missed the dead I was God dead we missed the deadline that that was completely unintentional but um but there was there there were a couple of things that uh one of his God Brothers shared with her this is a uh gentleman named uh nand Babaji nandas
Babaji I actually met him on the paric mark when I was there in 1980 um very gentle soul um and uh he uh shared couple of things um he says I uh I distinctly recall some very special occasions involving abay CH Vu and our Guru Dave the first occurred at
The Shri chaitan mat and Shri Dam mayapur our Guru Dave used to Pace along the balcony of his quarters upstairs one day I was visiting he lived in champahati which is some distance away um one day I was visiting while he was pacing there surrounded by a crowd of many topas and
Brahmacharis then I saw that abhaya chendu had come on a visit from Kolkata and was walking up the stairs somehow our Guru Dave immediately noticed him coming and as he was walking there by his doorway he motioned for pru to come near him pru approached him slowly and
Humbly and Guru Dave greeted him warmly and affectionately and then opened the door and beckoned to come inside alone with him they remained inside for some time all the other devotees were amazed that Guru Dave showed his preference to a gusta in white cloth living outside at
The mut everyone was discussing this I especially noticed how beautiful and defent he was uh how beautiful and defent he was looking when he came out of the room um those of us who had the Good Fortune of getting um our Mantra dsha our second initiation personally from Shula prad
Can attest to what an amazing 15 or 20 minutes that was to be alone with Shula prad in his room um sitting right next to him having teach having him teach us the mantras how to count on our Knuckles and there are a lot of kind of cute
Stories Agy Dave has I think Agy Dave has one of the best stories I’ve heard about that um mine was that he told me so you count like this 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 now you do it so I just kind of ticked off my
Thumb ticked my thumb around the different joints of my hand and he said no count allowed oh okay so it was but it was just you know when you walk out um uh of that room the life your life has changed you know your life has changed there’s the other one
The last year that our Guru Dave organized and performed go mandala parama thousands and thousands of pilgrims assembled at our champahati mandir champahati was where NAD Das Babaji was uh serving as a at that time as a brahmachari there was a whole village of tents in all directions
On the afternoon of the last day one of our God Brothers had just arrived in nabad having returned from London by boat he had gone to preach but had returned without meaningful success in the evening while Guru Maharaj was giving prachan he explained that it was his Earnest desire that the
Teachings of chaitan Maha prabu should be spread in the Western countries he told how it was the vision of Shri lukino takur that this would happen and it was also the last request of his mother shrimati bhagavati Davi to him when she left the world can you
Imagine you imagine a a man sitting with his his Bengali mother anybody ever seen NAD nay no Nel Maha prabu when when maharu goes back to Nadia and and and uh Shima Davi hears the N there and you hear her voice I I can’t do it because
Um fighting off a little cold I can’t do that get up there it’s like NE your heart cracks when you hear that um so he’s sitting with his Bengali mother on her deathbed and she’s reminding him this is the instruction of your father and Guru don’t forget this
So he’s going to take this very seriously consequently he had been willing to take the lifeblood of the godan funds to send devotees there to preach and to maintain them while they were there devotees were going out and collecting and Shakti Sant sarasti Tak was sending the money that these
Devotees were going out Barefoot collecting door Todo and he was sending to these devotees in in uh in London but so far these attempts had been largely unsuccessful at this moment in his talk I noticed that something very mysterious was happening Guru Maharaj was looking out at the large crowd of devotees especially in the front where all the sasis and brahmacharis and red cloth
Were then he turned his head and looked over to his left side where I was standing he was looking intently at someone and became silent for a long moment I happened to look behind me and I clearly saw that the person with whom he was making eye contact was
Abhu I thought that they were looking each other looking at each other in a special way then Guru Maharaj again addressed the audience in front of him and said but I have a prediction however long in the future it may be I predict that one of my
Disciples will cross the ocean and that devotee will bring back the whole world I remembered this incident in Shri AC bant Swami Maharaj truly uh made it come to pass in this exactly in this way now I can’t especially here in Nara think of Shila bakti Santa sarati takur uh his appearance or
Disappearance without remember remembering Shira prad’s address uh on December 13th 1973 um here in Los Angeles I happened to be here kind of in between engagements my wife and I were supposed to go to South America to preach but there was some disturbance in iscan and and uh we were uh prevented
By well say it plainly the buzzsaw of iscan politics as it turned out but we ended up going back to Hawaii so we were um staying with our friends upendra and chitr Lea at the time and we were here we were here in LA to uh speak with sha
Prad um and we happened to be here uh we we left back to return to Hawaii just after this um so it was this was in the other um Temple room the um I noticed this morning the contrast the room was packed I got to say it the room was
Packed and it was the middle of the day uh it was a you know noon time festival Shila prad had out here what we called the sanctuary there was a large Vasan that had been constructed propad had them bring that Vasan in and bring that portrait from his room and place it
On the Vasan and he personally offered AR to Shri La bakti Santas s talk and he gave this wonderful address and he ended it um uh he ended it like this so he he was talking he’s recounting how he met the godat people in 1928 and things kind of developed from
There and then he recounts the dreams that he had where Shati sarati takur was calling him to take some SAS calling him out out um frankly and uh so he said and I was dreaming that bakati takur is calling me please come out with me so I was sometimes
Horrified and I remember hearing in 1970 sha prad’s the talk uh recording of the talk that sha Prat had given in Seattle in 1968 on the occasion of the passing of his god brother bti pran karaj who had um uh given uh initiation into theas
Prad and he said this he used the same word there he had these dreams and he said I was I had to take SAS I was just I was little horrified and you could hear in his voice that he he wasn’t putting it on this wasn’t
Uh oh oh oh I was horrified I I mean when his and his voice just kind of like went to a different place when he said said I was a little horrified you can hear that uh tape nowadays at recording but I saw several time oh uh so so I was sometimes
Horrified oh what is this I have to give up my family life B santati takur is calling me I have to take SAS oh I was horrified but I saw several times calling me so anyway it is by his grace that I was forced to give up my family
Life and so-called business life and he brought me some way or other in preaching this gospel so this is a memorable a memorable day what he desired I’m trying a little bit and you all are helping me so I have to thank you more you are actually representative of my my Guru
Maharaj now at this point the the transcript says in square brackets starts to cry prad had checked himself twice before this in the course of his talk you could see the you could hear and and feel the emotion welling up in him and he tamped it down twice but here he was
Unable to check it and he broke out in sobbing and tears the tears were like shooting from his eyes and streaming down his cheeks and he says you are actually representative of my Guru Maharaj because you are helping me in executing the order of my Guru Maharaj
And he was fighting to get these words out he was so choked up and then he said thank you very much and then we all hit the deck and I reflected shortly afterwards that if he’d had someone going around passing out tickets to uh Siberia Timbuktu you know Bora Bora or wherever
We would have just taken the tickets gotten in a van and gone to the airport because he had us in the palm of his hand right there when um this is one of those rare occasions where sha prad’s ecstasy was um uncheckable so we know that we owe everything we owe Our
Lives um I mean someone I you know I’ve been practicing Krishna Consciousness for almost 55 years now and um goodness only knows where my life would have gone considering where I was at the time um I mean I wasn’t like a street person or an addict or anything like that um
But it was the 60s and my life was becoming a little disheveled in some ways a little undone goodness only knows where I would have been um except for the mercy of shupad carrying this order of his spiritual Master Shila Shar mahaj observed once that shakar takur had opined that if he had
Another 10 years to live he would like to spend them in America because he saw that as the best place to preach from even better London was kind of like had been the capital of the world um but especially after World War I America was emerging um you know very strong in some
In in some ways so he told his disciples at one point if I had another 10 years to live I would like to spend them in America and shashidhar Maharaj said uh Swami Maharaj your Guru Maharaj has given him those 10 years and two extra so we owe everything to the the
Mercy of sh because it’s it’s carrying out their order trying to satisfy their desire that sh prad got on that boat and and and came here uh to live to deliver Lord chetan’s teachings and practices to us so we offer him our gratitude and our humble obeisances um I I’m assuming I’m way
Over time so I’m I’m just going to stop here thank you so much Krishna for
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