last updated 15th March 2008

Kazakhstani online petition

Kazakhstani online petition

By Radha Mohan Dasa

Please visit http://www.krishnatemple.com NOW and click the link to the new petition, or go straight to the petition webpage:

http://harekrishna.epetitions.net

Please sign it soon as you can, and please tell as many people as you can about it.

Background: Workers and police arrived on 15th June at the village near Almaty, Kazakhstan, where the embattled Hare Krishna commune is based to demolish twelve more Hare Krishna-owned homes. “The houses were literally crushed into dust. By ten o’clock it was all over,” said ISKCON spokesperson Maksim Varfolomeyev.

The temple, which the devotees have been ordered to destroy, has not been touched but the devotees fear it could be the next target. Human rights activist Yevgeny Zhovtis is outraged at the continuing destruction. “The authorities are showing that they will do what they want, despite the international outrage at the earlier demolitions of Hare Krishna-owned homes.” He believes the local administration chief “doesn’t care about the political damage to Kazakhstan’s reputation – or to its desire to chair the OSCE.”

ys Radha Mohan das

Kazak Edition of Bhagavad-gita presented to Srila Prabhupada.
This is now the 55th language in which Bhagavad-gita has been printed.

ASTANA, Kazakhstan -- Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev criticized foreign missionaries on Thursday as a threat to national stability and urged lawmakers to curb their activities.

The mainly Muslim country has positioned itself as an area of stability in the potentially volatile Central Asian region. But some rights groups have criticized its treatment of small groups such as Hare Krishna.

Speaking at a congress of the Nur-Otan party, which holds all seats in the lower house of the parliament, Nazarbayev said foreign missionaries posed a threat to secularity.

"We are a secular state where religion is separated from the state, but this does not mean Kazakhstan should become a dumping ground for all kinds of religious movements," he said the veteran leader, without naming any groups.

"There are tens of thousands of missionary organizations working in Kazakhstan today. We don't know what their aims are. ... We cannot leave it like that and let them do something that our country does not need," he said.

Nazarbayev often singles out ethnic and religious accord as one of his main achievements in the country, which has a large Orthodox Christian community.

But Western human rights groups say religious intolerance toward smaller groups is on the rise.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe criticized Kazakhstan last year for destroying houses belonging to followers of Hare Krishna, who practice yoga and vegetarianism in a village near Almaty.

Read HERE how the original issue began in Kazakstan

Read HERE what the previous articles from November 2006 were

Iskcon Kazakstan
http://www.palaceofthesoul.com/news/index.php

PLEASE VISIT THIS PAGE
http://kazakhkrishna.com/en-main/

Kazakh
http://vedabase.net/kazakhstan/

Please accept my obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Here is a unit of activities for ages 2-18, centered around Lord Caitanya’s Appearance Day.

It’s designed for parents who homeschool, or who have their children in non-devotee school and want to do something in the mornings, afternoons, or weekends.

It can be used by devotee schools, once-a-week programs, or the festival coordinator who wants to do something special for the children for Gaura Purnima.

This is a first printing, and all comments and suggestions for improvement are welcome. We hope to produce many more of this, and with much expanded resources.

Your servant, Urmila devi dasi

Click here for full screen mode - (http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_id=412948)
To download it as pdf click here (http://www.docstoc.com/docs/DownloadDoc.aspx?docID=412948)

See the article here http://www.dandavats.com/wp-content/plugins/post2pdf/generate.php?post=5381

The Lord's early life was recorded by one of His chief devotees and contemporaries namely Srila Murari Gupta, a medical practitioner of that time and the later part of the life of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was recorded by His private Secretary Sri Damodar Goswami or Srila Swarup Damodar who was practically a constant companion of the Lord at Puri. These two devotees, recorded practically all the incidences of the Lord's activities and later on all the books regarding the Lord were composed on the basis of Karchas of Srila Damodar Goswami and Murari Gupta.

The Lord advented Himself on the Phalgooni Purnima evening of 1407 Shakabda and it was by the will of the Lord there was a Lunar eclipse on that evening. It is the custom of the Hindu public to take bath in the Ganges or any other sacred river during the hours of eclipse and chant the Vedic mantras for purification. When Lord Chaitanya was born during the Lunar eclipse, the whole of India was roaring with holy sound of Sri Hari or the Hare Krishna Mantra (hare krishna hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare, hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare). These sixteen Names of the Lord are mentioned in many Puranas and Upanishads and they are described as the Tarak Brahman Name of this age (kali-yuga).
It is recommended in the Shastras that offenseless chanting of these holy names of the Lord can deliver a fallen soul from the material bondage. There are innumerable Names of the Lord both in India and outside and all of them are equally good because all of them indicate to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. But because these sixteen Names are specially recommended for this age, it is better that people may take advantage of the great Acharyas and their path who attained success by their practice of the rules in the Shastras (revealed scriptures).

This co-incidence of the Lord's appearance and occurrence of the Lunar eclipse make it clear about the mission of the Lord. The mission of the Lord was to preach the importance of chanting the holy names of the Lord in this age of kali (quarrel). The present age is meant for quarrel even on trifle things and therefore the Shastras have recommended for this age a common platform of chanting the holy name of the Lord. Accompanied by melodious music people can hold meetings for glorifying the Lord in their respective languages and if such performances are executed in an offenseless manner, it is sure and certain that such persons will gradually attain spiritual perfection without any effort to undergo any other rigid methods. In such meeting every one, the learned and the fool, the rich and the poor, the Hindus and Muslim, the Englishman and the Indian or the Chandala and the Brahmin, all can give an aural reception to the transcendental sound and thus purify the dust accumulated on the mirror of one's heart by unwanted association of material surroundings. And to confirm the Lord's mission all the people of the world will accept the holy name of the Lord as the common platform for Universal religion of the mankind. In other words the Advent of the Holy name took place along with the Advent of Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

When the Lord was on the lap of His mother, the child would at once stop crying as soon as the ladies surrounding Him chanted the holy name with the clap of hands. The peculiar incidence was observed by the neighbors of the Lord with awe and veneration. Sometimes the younger ladies took pleasure in making the Lord crying and then stop him by chanting the holy name. So from the very childhood the Lord began to preach the importance of the holy name. Lord Sri Chaitanya was known as Nimai in His early age. This name was given by His beloved mother because the Lord took his birth underneath a Neem Tree in the courtyard of His paternal house.

When the Lord was offered solid foodstuff at the age of six months in the Annaprashan ceremony, the Lord indicated His future activities. It is a rule to offer the child at the time both coins and books to see the future taste of the child. The Lord was offered both sides coins and the Bhagavatam. But the Lord accepted Srimad Bhagavatam instead of the coins.

When He was five years old He was initiated for learning and He showed Himself a naughty boy. And When He was a mere baby crawling on the yard, one day it so happened that a snake appeared before the baby and the Lord began to play with it. All the members of the house were struck with fear and awe but after a little while the snake went away and the baby was taken away by His mother. Sometime He was stolen by a thief in order to take away His ornaments but the Lord took a pleasure trip on the shoulder of the bewildered thief. The thief was searching for a solitary place in order to rob the baby and it so happened that the thief wondering hither and thither, arrived at last just before the house of Jagganath Misra and he was afraid of being caught hold of. He, therefore, dropped the baby at once and the anxious parents and relatives were glad to see the lost child.

Once upon a time a pilgrim Brahmin was received at the house of Jagannath Misra and when the Brahmin was offering the food stuff to Godhead, the Lord appeared before him and partook of the prepared foodstuff. The eatables were rejected on being touched by a child and the Brahmin again prepared the foodstuff. The next time the same incidence happened. For the third time the same attempt was made and the baby was forcibly made to go asleep at night within the room. At about 12 in the night when all the members of the house were fast asleep within the closed room, the pilgrim Brahmin offered his prepared food stuff to his Deity and in the same way, the baby Lord appeared before the pilgrim and spoiled his offerings. The Brahmin again began to cry but as every one was fast asleep nobody could reply. At that time child Lord appeared before the fortunate pilgrim Brahmin and disclosed His identity as Krishna Himself. The Brahmin was forbidden to disclose the incidence and the baby went back to the lap of his mother as fast asleep.

There are many such incidences in His childhood life. As a naughty boy sometimes He used to tease the orthodox Brahmins who used to take bath in the Ganges. When they complained to His father the boy appeared before the father as if just coming from the School. And at the bathing Ghat he used to play jokes with the neighboring girls who were engaged in the worship of Shiva with hope of getting good husband. That is a practice amongst the unmarried girls in the Hindu family. While engaged in such worship the Lord as a naughty boy appeared before them and said "My dear sisters, please give me all the offerings you have just brought for Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva is my devotee and Parvati is my maid servant. If you worship Me the Lord Shiva and all other demigods will be more satisfied." Some of them refused to obey the naughty Lord and He would curse them that on refusal she would be married with an old man with seven children by his previous wife. The girls out of fear and sometimes out of love also would offer Him all materials and then the Lord would bless them with assurance that they would have very good young husband and that they would be mother of dozens of children. These blessings would enliven the girls but they used to complain the incidence to their respective mothers.

In this way the Lord passed His early childhood and when He was just sixteen years old He started His own Chatuspathi (village school conducted by a learned Brahmin) And in the school teachings, He would simply explain Krishna even in the readings of grammar. Srila Jiva Goswami in order to please the Lord had later on composed a grammer in Sanskrit in which all the rules of the grammar are examplified with the holy names of the Lord. This grammar is still current and is known as "Harinamamrita Vyakaran" and is prescribed by the syllabus of Sanskrit Schools in Bengal till now.

During this time a great Kashmiri scholar of the name Keshav Kashmiri came to Navadvipa to hold meetings on the discourse of Shastras. The Kashmiri Pandit was a champion scholar and he had travelled all the places of learning in India. At last he came to Navadvipa to contest the learned Pandits there. The Pandits of Navadvipa decided to put forward Nimai Pandit (Lord Chaitanya) before the Kashmiri Pandit thinking it wise if Nimai Pandit was defeated they would have another chance with a plea that Nimai Pandit was a boy only. And if the Kashmiri Pandit was defeated then they would be more glorified because people will know that a boy of Navadvipa defeated such a champion scholar of all India repute. And it so happened that Nimai Pandit met the Kashmiri Pandit while strolling on the bank of the Ganges. The Lord requested the Kashmiri Pandit to compose a Sanskrit verse in praise of the Ganges and the Pandit within a short time composed a verse of 100 slokas in praise of the mother Ganges. He recited the verses like storm and showed sufficient strength of his vast learning. Nimai Pandit also at once took by heart all the slokas without deviation of a line. He quoted the 64th sloka and pointed out some deficiencies in the calculation of retorhical and literary irregularities. He particularly pointed out one word bhavani bharta and pointed out that this word coveys opposite meaning. Bharani means the wife of Shiva and who else can be Her Bharta or husband. In this way he pointed out several discrepancies in one sloka and the Kashmiri Pandit was struck with wonder. He was astonished as to how a student of grammar could point out such literary mistakes of an erudite scholar. The matter was ended prior any public meeting and the news was spread all over Navadvipa like wild fire. At last Keshav Kashmiri was ordered in a dream by the goddess of learning to submit before the Lord and the Kashmiri Pandit became a follower of the Lord.

The Lord was then married with great pomp and gay and began to preach the congregational chanting of the Holy Name of the Lord at Navadvipa. Some of the Brahmins became envious of His popularity and they put many hindrances on His path. At last such Brahmins complained the matter before Muslim Magistrate at Navadvipa. Bengal was then governed by Pathans and the Governor of the Province was Nawab Hussain Shah. The Muslim Magistrate of Navadvipa took up the complaints, of the Brahmins, seriously and at first he warned the followers of Nimai Pandit not to chant loudly the Name of Hari. But Lord Chaitanya asked His followers to disobey the orders of the Kazi and they went on with their Samkirtan Party as usual. The Magistrate then sent constables and broke some of the Mridangas where Samkirtan was taking place. When Nimai Pandit heard this incidence he organised a civil disobedience movement at Navadvipa. He is the pioneer of civil disobedience movement in India for the right cause. He organised a procession of one lac of men with thousands of Mridangas and Karatals and the procession passed over the roads of Navadvipa without any fear of the Kazi who issued the order. At last the party reached the house of the Kazi who went upstairs out of fear of the mass movement. The men, assembled there at the house of Kazi, showed haughty temper but the Lord asked them to be peaceful.
At this the Kazi came down and pacified the Lord by addressing Him as his nephew. He said that Nilambar Chakrabarty was called by him as Chacha or the uncle and as such Srimati Sachidevi the mother of Nimai Pandit became his sister. He asked Nimai Pandit whether a sister's son can be angry upon his maternal uncle? The Lord replied that rightly the Kazi was his maternal uncle but when the nephew is a guest at the house of his maternal uncle why he shall not be well received. In this way the whole thing was mitigated and there was a long discussion on Koran and Hindu Shastras between the two learned scholars. The question of cow killing was also raised by the Lord and they were properly replied with reference to the order of the Koran. The kazi also questioned the Lord about cow sacrifice in the Vedas and the Lord replied that sacrifice of cow mentioned in the Vedas is not cow-killing. In that sacrifice an old bull or cow is sacrificed to give it fresh younger life by the power of Vedic Mantras. In the Kali-yuga such cow sacrifice is forbidden on account of absence of such learned Brahmin able to conduct such sacrifice. In the Kaliyuga, therefore, all Yajnas are forbidden because they are useless attempt by the foolish men. In the Kaliyuga only the Samkirtan yajna is recommended for all practical purposes. The Kazi was convinced and he became a follower of the Lord. He declared thence forward no body will put hinderances in the Samkirtan Movement started by the Lord. The Kazi of Navadvipa has left his will for his future descendants that nobody would hinder the Samkirtan Movement started by the Lord. The Kazi's crematorium is still existent within the area of Navadvipa and all Hindu pilgrims go there to show their respects to the Kazi's Graveyard. The Kazi's descendants are residents of that place but they never objected Samkirtan even during the Hindu Moslem riot days.

This incidence of Lord chaitanya's life shows clearly that the Lord was not a timid so called Vaishnava. A Vaishnava means a fearless devotee of the Lord. For the right cause they can take any step suitable for the purpose. A Vaishnava is by nature a non-violent peaceful living being and he has all the good qualities of God. But when there is the question of blaspheming the Lord or His devotee, the Vaishnava never tolerates such impudency on the part of the nondevotee.

After this incidence the Lord began to preach and propagate his Bhagavat Dharma or Samkirtan movement more vigorously and whoever stood against this propagation of the Yuga Dharma or duty of the age, was properly punished by various chastisement. Two Brahmin gentlemen called by the names of Chapala and Gopala who also happened to be maternal uncles of the Lord were also chastised by infliction of leprosy upon them and later on when they were repentant they were accepted by the Lord. In course of His vigorous preaching work, He used to send every day all His followers including Srila Nityananda Prabhu and Thakur Haridas two chief whips of His party to go from door to door and preach the cult of Srimad Bhagavatam. The whole of Navadvipa was surcharged with His Samkirtan Movement and the H. Q. was situated at the house of Shrinivas Thakur and Sri Advaita Prabhu another couple of chief whips amongst the householders. These two heads of the Brahmins and learned community were most ardent supporters of Lord Chaitanya's movement. Sri Advaita Prabhu is the chief agent to bring in the advent of the Lord. When Advaita Prabhu saw that the complete society is full of materialistic activities without any tinge of devotional service which alone could save them from the threefold miseries of material existence, he out of his causeless compassion for the age-worn human society, he prayed fervently for the incarnation of the Lord with continued worship by the water of the Ganges together with the leaves of Tulsi. So far preaching was concerned every body was to do his bit of work daily according to the order of the Lord.

Once Nityananda Prabhu accompanied by Srila Haridas Thakur both were passing the main road and on the way they saw an assembly of crowd roaring on the way. On enquiry from the passers-by it was understood that two brothers of the name Jagai and Madhai were creating public disturbances in drunken state. It was also gathered from informations that the two brothers were born in a respectable Brahmin family but on account of low association, both of them had turned to be debauches of the first order. They were not only drunkards but also they were meateaters, women hunters, dacoits and sinners of all description. Srila Nityananda Prabhu heard all these stories and decided that these two fallen souls must be delivered first. If they are delivered from this sinful life then the good name of Lord Chaitanya will be still more glorified. Thus thinking both Nityananda Prabhu and Haridas pushed into the crowd and asked the two brothers to chant the Holy Name of the Lord Hari. The drunken brothers got enraged on this request and attacked Nityananda Prabhu with filthy languages. Both Nityananda Prabhu and Haridas Thakur hurriedly left the place and the drunken brothers chased them to a considerable distance. In the evening the report of the preaching work was submitted to the Lord and He was glad to learn that such a pair of stupid fellows were attempted for deliverance.
The next day again Nityananda Prabhu went to see the brothers and as soon as He approached them one of them threw a piece of broken earthen pot hurled on the body of Nityananda Prabhu. At once the broken part struck on the forehead of the Lord squizing out a flow of blood. Srila Nityananda Prabhu was so kind upon them that instead of protesting against the heinous act, He said 'it does not matter that you have thrown stone upon me but still I request you to chant the holy name of Lord Hari.'
One of the brothers was astonished to see this behaviour of Nityananda Prabhu and he at once fell down on the feet of Him asking Him to pardon his sinful brother. The other one was again attempting to hurt Him but Jagai checked him and implored him to fall down unto the feet of Nityananda Prabhu. In the meantime the news of hurting Nityananda reached the Lord and he at once came up to the spot in an angry mood like fire. The Lord at once asked for Sudarshan (the Lords weapon, a disc of fire) to kill the sinners but Nityananda Prabhu reminded Him about His mission. The mission of the Lord is to deliver the hopelessly fallen souls of the Kaliyuga and the two brothers Jagai and Madhai were typical examples of the present day population. The population of the present age are ninety nine per cent like the two brothers although some of them are born of very respectable families of the higher caste. According to the verdict of the revealed scriptures all the population of the world, of this age, will be of the lowest Sudra quality or less than that the Chandala quality. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu never acknowledged the stereotyped caste system by birth right and He strictly followed the verdict of the Shastras in the matter of one's Swarupa real-identity.
When the Lord was asking for the Sudarshan Chakra and Srila Nityananda Prabhu was imploring Him to forgive them, both the brothers fell on the lotus feet of the Lord and begged to be pardoned for their gross misbehaviour. The Lord was asked by them as well as by Nityananda Prabhu to accept the repenting souls and the Lord asked them only one condition that thence forward they will completely give-up the habit of debauchery and sinful activities. Both the brothers agreed and promised to give up their sinful habits and the kind Lord accepted them without reference to their past misdeeds and sinful acts.

That is the specific kindness of Lord Chaitanya. In this age no body can say very boldly that he is free from all kinds of sinful acts. Rather it is impossible for every one to say like that. But Lord Chaitanya accepts all kinds of sinful persons only on one condition that such repenting soul promises not to indulge in the sinful habits after one is spiritually initiated by the bonafide spiritual master.

There are instructive things in this incidence of deliverance of the two brothers Jagai and Madhai by Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. One thing is that in this age of Kali-Yuga practically all the people are specimen of Jagai and Madhai. But if they want to be relieved from the reaction of their misdeeds, they must take shelter of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and after spiritual initiation such persons must refrain from the prohibitory things enjoined in the Shastras. We shall deal in the prohibitory rulings in connection with the Lord's teachings to Srila Rupa Goswami.

During His householder life the Lord did not display much of the miracles as are generally expected from such personalities. But once He showed an wonderful miracle in the house of Shrinivas Thakur while Samkirtan was going on in full swing. He asked the devotees what they wanted to eat and when He was informed by the devotees that they wanted to eat mangoes, although the time was out of season, the Lord asked for a seed of mango. When it was brought before Him He sowed the seed in the yard of Shrinivas Thakur and at once the creeper began to grow. Within no time the creeper gradually became a full grown mango tree and there was ripen fruits more than necessary. The tree remained there thence forward and the devotees used to take mangos from the tree daily and as many as they wanted.

As referred to above the Lord had very high estimation for the affection of the damsels of Vrajabhumi for Krishna and in appreciation of their unalloyed service to the Lord, once Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was chanting the holy names of the Gopis instead of chanting the name of the Lord. Some of His student disciples accidentally came to see Him and when they saw that the Lord was chanting the names of the Gopis they were astonished and out of sheer foolishness they advised the Lord to chant the Name of Krishna and asked Him why He would chant the Name of the Gopis. The Lord was in ecstacy and He was disturbed by the students in this foolish way. He therefore wanted to chastise the students and chased them while they were flying away. The students were almost of the same age like the Lord and thus very wrongly they thought of the Lord as equal in position. As such they held a meeting and wanted to retaliate the attitude of the Lord and resolved that they would also attack Him if Nimai Pandit dared again to punish them in that manner. This incidence gave an impetus to the general public by the agitation of the discontent students and thus here and there were malicious talks about the Lord.
When the lord was aware of this fact he began to think within Himself that there are different varieties of men in the society. Specially the students, the professors, the fruitive workers, yogis, enemies of the devotional cult, and different types of atheists all are against the cult of devotional service of the Lord. He thought within Himself as follows: "My mission is to deliver all the fallen souls of this age but if they commit offence on Me thinking Me as an ordinary man, it will go against their interest. Some way or other they must offer obeisances unto Me and that will be the beginning of their spiritual realisation." So the Lord decided to accept the renounced order of life (Sanyas) so that people in general may be inclined to offer respect to a Sannyasi.

Five hundred years before the condition of the Society was not so much degraded. At that time people would show respects to a Sannyasi and the Sannyasi was also rigid in the matter of regulations of the renounced order of life. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was not very much in favour of the renonnced order of life in this age of Kali but that was only for the reason that very few of the Sannyasins would be able to observe the rules and regulations of Sanyas life. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, therefore, decided that He would accept the order of an ideal Sannyasi so that people in general would show Him respect as one is duty bound to show to a Sannyasi. A Sannyasi is considered to be the master of all the Varnas and Ashramas.
While He was contemplating of accepting the Sannyas order of life, it so happened that Keshav Bharati a Sannyasi of the Mayavada school and resident of Katowa (Dist Burdwan in Bengal) visited Navadvipa and he was invited by the Lord to dine with Him. When Keshav Bharati came at His house, the Lord requested him to award Him the Sannyas order of life. The formality of accepting the Sannyas order is to accept it from another Sannyasi. Although the Lord was independent in all respects still to keep up the formalities of the Sastras, He desired to accept the Sannyas order from Keshav Bharati though not in the Vaishnava Sampradaya (school or lineage).

After this consultation, the Lord left Navadvipa for Katowa to accept the Sannyas order of life and He was accompanied by Srila Nityananda Prabhu, Chandra Shekhar Acharya and Mukunda Dutt all who assisted Him in the details of the ceremony. As mentioned above this incidence of accepting the Sannyas order by the Lord, is very elaborately described in the Chaitanya Bhagavat by Srila Vrindavana das Thakur.
Thus at the end of twenty four years of His age the Lord accepted the Sannyas order of life in the month of Magh. After accepting the Sanyas order of life He became a full fledged preacher of the cult of Bhagavat Dharma. Although He was doing the same preaching work in His householder life yet when He experienced some obstacles in His way of preaching, He sacrificed even the comforts of His homely life for the sake of the fallen souls. In His householder life, His chief assistants were Srila Advaita Prabhu and Srila Shrivas Thakur. But after accepting the Sannyas order of life His chief assistants were Srila Nityananda Prabhu who was deputed to preach in Bengal specially and the six Goswamis headed by Srila Rupa and Sanatan who were deputed to go to Vrindavana and excavate the present places of pilgrimage by His order. The present city of Vrindavana and the importance of Vrajabhumi were thus practically disclosed by the will of Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

The Lord, after accepting the Sannyas order of life, at once wanted to start for Vrindavana. For three days continually He travelled in the Radha Desha (places where the Ganges does not flow) in full ecstacy with the idea that He was going to Vrindavana. Srila Nityananda Prabhu waylaid Him and brought Him at the house of Advaita Prabhu at Shantipur. The Lord stayed at the house of Sri Advaita Prabhu for a few days after Sannyas and knowing it well that the Lord was leaving His hearth and home for good Sri Advaita Prabhu sent his men to Navadvipa to bring in Sachi Mata to have the last meeting with her son. Some unscrupulous people say that Lord Chaitanya met His wife also after Sannyas and offered her His wooden slipper for worship, but so far we get informations from authentic sources, we do not see any such meeting with His wife after Sannyas. His mother met Him at the house of Advaita Prabhu and it was practically a tragic scene when the mother saw the son in Sanyas dress. The mother desired that Lord Chaitanya may make His head quarter at Puri so that she may get informations of the son often and as such the Lord accepted the last desire of His beloved mother. And after this incidence the Lord started for Puri leaving all the residents of Navadvipa in the ocean of lamentation on account of the Lord's separation from the place.

The Lord then started for Puri visiting many important places on the way. He visited the temple of Gopinath Ji Who had stolen condensed milk for His devotee Srila Madhvendra Puri. Since then Deity Gopinathji is well known as 'Kirchora Gopinath'. The Lord relished the story of stealing by Gopinathji, with great pleasure.

After visiting the temple of Kirchora Gopinath of Remuna at Balasore in Orissa, the Lord proceeded towards Puri and on the way He visited the temple of Sakshi Gopal who appeared as the witness in the matter of two Brahmin devotees' family dissension. The Lord heard the story of Sakshi Gopal with great pleasure because He wanted to impress upon the atheistic class of men that the worshipable deities, in the temples approved by the great Acharyas, are not idols as it is alleged by a class of men with poor fund of knowledge. The deity in the temple is the Archa incarnation of the Personality of Godhead, and as such the deity is identical with the Lord in all respects. He responds to the proportion of the devotee's affection for Him. In this instance there was seemingly a family misunderstanding by two devotees of the Lord and inroder to mitigate the turmoil as well as to show specific favour to His servitors, the Lord in His Archa incarnation was pleased to come down from Vrindavana to Vidyanagar a village in Orissa. From there the deity was brought to Cuttack and the temple of Sakahi (wittness) Gopal is still visited by thousands of pilgrims on the way to Jagannath Puri.

The Lord passed over night there and began to proceed towards Puri. On the way His Sannyas rod was broken by the conspiracy of Lord Nityananda Prabhu on which the Lord became apparently angry with Him and went alone to Puri leaving behind His reputed companions.
At Puri when He entered the temple of Jagannath He became at once saturated with transcendental ecstacy and fell down on the floor of the temple, unconscious. The care takers of the temple could not understand the transcendental feats of the Lord but there was a great learned Pandit of the name Sarvabhauma Bhatacharya who was the chief appointed Pandit in the court of the king of Orissa Maharaj Prataprudra. Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya was attracted by the youthful lustre of Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and he could understand that the feats, of unconsciousness just after meeting Lord Jaggannath in the temple, was not a thing of ordinary affair. Such transcendental feats are rarely exhibited by the topmost advanced devotees who are already on the transcendental plane in complete forgetfulness of material existence. Except a liberated soul nobody could show such transcendental feats and as the Bhattacharya was vastly learned, he could understand that with reference to the context of transcendental literature on which he had considerable authority.
He asked, therefore, the caretakers of the temple not to disturb the unknown Sannyasi; better he advised them to take Him at his home for further observation on the unconscious state. The Lord was at once carried to the house of Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya who was at that time the most influential learned scholar with sufficient power of authority on account of his becoming the Sabha-Pandit or the State Dean of Faculty in Sanskrit literatures.
The learned Pandit wanted to test scrutinisingly the transcendental feats of Lord Chaitanya because it so happens that unscrupulous pseudo-devotees sometimes immitate such feats of body to make a false show of transcendental achievements just to attract the innocent people within the influence. A learned scholar like Bhattacharya, therefore, can detect such foolish show of spiritual advancement and when he finds out the artificial caricature, at once he rejects such pseudo-transcendentalists.
In this case of Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the Bhattacharya tested all the symptoms in terms of the Shastras just like a scientific man and not as a foolish sentimentalist. He tested the movement of the stomach, beating of the heart and breathing in the nostrils. He felt also the pulse of the Lord and he saw that all such actions were completely in suspension; but when he put a small cotton swab before the nostrils, he found out that there is slight breathing only and the fine fibres of cotton swab was slightly in movement. And thus he came to know about the genuineness of the Lord's trance in unconsciousness and he began to treat Him in terms of prescribed formula. But in the case of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, He would be treated in a specific way of resounding the Holy Name of the Lord by His devotees. This specific treatment was unknown to Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya because the Lord was still unkown to him. He saw Him for the first time in the temple and took Him as one of the influx of pilgrims.

In the meantime the companions of Lord Chaitanya who reached the temple a little after, could not see the Lord there but they heard about the incidence of the Lord's transcendental feats and His being carried away by the Bhattacharya, from the men who were still gossiping on the incidence. One of them by chance met Gopinath Acharya known to Gadhadhar Pandit and both of them greeted each other. From him it was learnt that the Lord was lying in unconscious state at the residence of Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya who happened to be the brother-in-law of Gopinath Acharya. All the members of the party were introduced by Gadadhar Pandit to Gopinath Acharya and the latter took them all to the house of Bhattacharya where the Lord was lying unconscious in spiritual trance. All the members then chanted loudly the holy Name of the Lord Hari as usual and the Lord regained His consciousness. After this Bhattacharya received all the members of the party including Lord Nityananda Prabhu and asked them to become his guest of honour. The party including the Lord went for a bath in the sea and the Bhattacharya arranged for their residence and meals properly at the house of Kashi Misra with attention of Gopinath Acharya his brother-in-law. There was some friendly talks about the Lord's divinity between the two brother-in-laws and in this argument Gopinath Acharya who knew the Lord before, also, wanted to establish that the Lord was the Personality of Godhead but the Bhattacharya wanted to establish Him as one of the great devotees. Both of them argued from the angle of vision of authentic Shastras and not on the strength of sentimental vox-populi. The incarnations of God are known in terms of the authentic Shastras and not on the popular votes as it is the practice amongst the foolish fanatics. Because Lord Chaitanya was an incarnation of God in fact, foolish fanatics have pushed forward so many so called incarnations of God in this age or after Lord Chaitanya and that also without any reference of the authentic scriptures. But Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya or Gopinath Acharya did not indulge in such foolish sentimentalism; on the contrary both of them wanted to establish Him (the Lord) on the strength of authentic Shastras.

Later it was disclosed that Bhattacharya was also hailing from the Navadvipa area and it was understood from him that Nilambar Chakarabarty the maternal grand-father of Lord Chaitanya happened to be a class-fellow of the father of Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya. In that sense the young Sannyasi Lord Chaitanya attracted a filial affection from the side of Bhattacharya. Bhattacharya was the professor of many Sannyasins in the order of the Shankaracharya Sampradaya and he himself also belonged to that lineage. As such the Bhattacharya desired that the young Sannyasi Lord Chaitanya may also hear from him about the teachings of Vedanta.
Those who are followers of the Shankara succession are generally known as the Vedantist. It does not, however, mean that Vedanta is a monopoly study of Shankara Sampradaya. Vedanta is studied by all the bonafide Sampradayas but they have their own interpretations. But the Shankara Sampradaya is generally known as the Vedantist without any knowledge of the Vedantist Vaishnavas.

The Lord agreed to take lessons from Bhattacharya on the Vedanta and they sat together in the temple of Lord Jaggannath. The Bhattacharya went on speaking continually for seven days and the Lord heard him with all attention without any interruption. This dumb like hearing of the Lord before the Bhattacharya raised some doubts in his heart and he asked the Lord how it was that He did not ask anything good or bad in the matter of hearing the explanations of Vedanta.
The Lord posed Himself before the Bhattacharya as a foolish student and pretended that He heard the Vedanta from him because he wanted Him to do so as the duty of a Sannyasi; otherwise He hardly could follow or understand the lectures delivered by him.
By this the Lord indicated that the so called Vedantist amongst the Shankara Sampradya or any other Sampradaya who do not follow the instructions of Srila Vyasadev, are mechanical students of the Vedanta without any introspection within the great knowledge. The explanation of the Vedanta Sutras is given by the author himself in the text of the Srimad Bhagavatam. Anyone who has no study or knowledge in the Bhagavatam will hardly be able to know what the Vedanta says.

The Bhattacharya as a vastly learned man could follow the sarcastic remarks on the popular vedantist by the Lord. He therefore asked Him why He did not question on any point which He could not follow. The Bhattacharya could understand the purpose of His dead-silence for the days He heard him. This shows clearly that the Lord had something else in His mind and he requested Him to disclose his mind.
Upon this the Lord spoke as follows: "My dear sir, I can undelstand the meaning of the Sutras like 'janmadyasya yatah' 'shastrayo nitvat' 'athato brahmajijnanasa' of the Vedanta Sutras but when you explain them in your own way it becomes difficult for me to follow them. The purpose of the Sutras is already explained in them but your explanations are just like covering them with something else. You do not purposely take the direct meaning of the Sutras but indirectly you give your own interpretations."
The Lord thus attacked all Vedantists who interpret the Vedanta Sutras fashionably according to their limited power of thinking and also to serve their own purpose. Such indirect interpretations of the authentic literatures like the Vedanta is hereby condemned by the Lord.
The Lord continued to say, "Srila Vyasdeva has summarised the direct meanings of the Mantras in Upanishads in the Vedanta Sutras. Unfortunately you do not take the direct meaning of them and indirectly you interpret them in a different way".
"The authority of the Vedas is unchallengeable and goes with out any question of doubt. And whatever is stated in the Vedas must be accepted in toto otherwise it becomes a challenge to the authority of the Vedas".
"The conchshell and cowdung are bone and stool of two living beings. But because they have been recommended by the Vedas as pure people accept them as such and that is the authority of the Vedas".

The example of the conchshell and that of the cowdung given by the Lord is very much appropriate in this connection. If some body argues that cowdung is the stool of a living creature and therefore the stool of a learned Brahmin will be still more pure, that sort of argument will not be accepted. The cowdung will be accepted and the stool of a highly posted Brahmin will be rejected with equal abhorrence. The Lord therefore continued to say.

"The Vedic injunctions are self-authorised and if some mundane creature wants to adjust the interpretations of the Vedas certainly he will commit blunder upon the authority of the Vedas. It is foolish to think of oneself as more intelligent than Srila Vyasadeva. He has already expressed himself in his Sutras and there is no need of help from personalities of lesser importance. His set up of the Vedanta Sutras are as much dazzling as the midday Sun and when somebody wants to give his own interpretations on the self effulgent Sun-like Vedanta Sutras, certainly such person attempts to cover the sun with a kind of cloud of one's own imagination."
"The purpose of the Vedas and Puranas are one and the same. They want to ascertain the Absolute Truth and the Absolute Truth is greater than everything else. The Absolute Truth is ultimately realised as the Absolute Personality of Godhead with Absolute Controlling Power. As such the Absolute Personality of Godhead must be completely full of opulence, strength, fame, beauty, knowledge and renunciation. And as such the transcendental Personality of Godhead is astonishingly ascertained as impersonal."
"The impersonal description of the Absolute Truth in the Vedas is meant for nullifying the mundane conception of the Absolute whole. Personal features of the Lord are completely distinguished from all kinds of mundane features. The living entities are all individual persons and they are all parts and parcels of the Supreme whole. If the parts and parcels are individual persons, the source of their emanation must not be impersonal. He is the Supreme Person amongst all the relative persons."
The Vedas inform us that from Him (Brahman) everything emanates and on Him only everything rests. And after annihilation everything merges in Him only. Therefore, He is the ultimate dative causative and accommodating cause of all causes. And all these causes cannot be ascertained to an impersonal object."
"The Vedas inform us that He alone becomes many and when He so desires He puts His glance over the material Nature".
"Before His such glance over the material Nature, there was no material cosmic creation. And, therefore, His glancing over the material nature is certainly not one of material creation. Material mind or senses were unborn when the Lord placed His glance over the material Nature; and all these evidences of the Vedas prove it without any doubt that the Lord has transcendental eyes and mind distinguished from the material one. His impersonality therefore is negation of material but not denial of His transcendental Personality".
"Brahman means ultimately the Personality of Godhead. Impersonal Brahman realisation is just the negative conception of the mundane creations. Paramatma realisation is localised aspect of Brahman within all kinds of material bodies. Ultimately the Supreme Brahman realisation is the realisation of the Personality of Godhead. Lord Sri Krishna is that Supreme Personality of Godhead according to all evidences of the revealed scriptures. He is the ultimate source of Vishnu Tattva".
"The Puranas are also supplimentary to the Vedas. The Vedic mantras are too stiff for an ordinary man. Women, Sudras and the socalled twice-born higher castes are unable to penetrate into the sense of the Vedas. And thus the Itihasha or the Mahabharata as well as the Puranas are made easy to explain the truths of the Vedas. In the prayers of Brahma before the boy Sri Krishna He said that there is no limit of the fortune of the residents of Vrajabhumi headed by Sri Nanda Maharaj and Yasodamayi; because the eternal Absolute Truth has become their intimate relative."
"The Vedic mantra describes that the Absolute Truth has no legs and no hands and yet goes faster than all and accepts everything that is offered to Him in devotion. These statements of going faster or accepting everything by hand definitely suggest the Personal features of the Lord, although He is distinguished from mundane hands and legs or other senses."
"Brahmam is, therefore, never Impersonal but when such Mantras are indirectly interpreted it is wrongly established that the Absolute Truth is impersonal. The Absolute Truth Personality of Godhead is full of all opulences and therefore He has a transcendental Form of full existence, knowledge and bliss. How one can establish thus the Absolute Truth as impersonal."
"Brahman being full of opulences, it is understood that He has manifold energies and all such energies are classified under three headings under the authority of Vishnu Puranam (6.7.60). It says that the transcendetal energies of the Lord Vishnu are primarily three. His spiritual energy as well as the energy of the living entities are classified as superior energy whereas the material energy is inferior one which is sprouted out of ignorance."
"The energy of the living entities is technically called Kshetrajna Energy. This Kshetrajna Shakti although equal in quality with the Lord, becomes over powered by material energy out of ignorance and thus suffers all sorts of material miseries. In other words the living entities are marginal energy between the superior spiritual and inferior material energy and in proportion of the living being's contact with either of the material or spiritual energies, the living entities become situated in proportionately higher and lower levels of existence."
"The Lord is beyond the inferior and marginal energies as above mentioned and His spiritual energy is manifested in three different phases. They are manifested as eternal existence, eternal bliss and eternal knowledge. So far eternal existence is concerned it is conducted by the Samdhini potency, similarly bliss and knowledge are conducted by the Ahladini and Samvit potencies respectively. As the Supreme energetic Lord, He is the Supreme controller of the spiritual marginal, and material energies. And all these different phases of energies are connected with the Lord in eternal devotional service."
"The Supreme Personality of Godhead is thus enjoying in His transcendental eternal Form and therefore it is astounding that one may dare to call the Supreme Lord as non-energetic?"
"The Lord is the controller of all the above mentioned energies and the living entities are parts and parcles of one of the energies. Therefore, there is a gulf of difference between the Lord and the living entities. How then one can say that the Lord and the living entities are one and the same thing."
"In the Bhagavad-Gita also the living entities are described to belong to the Superior energy of the Lord. On the principles of intimate co-relation between the energy and the energetic, both of them are non-different also. Therefore, the Lord and the living entities are non-different as the energy and the energetic".
"Earth, water, fire, air, space, mind, intelligence and ego all these elements are inferior energies of the Lord but the living entities are different from all of them as superior energy and that is the version of the Bhagavad-Gita."
"The transcendental form of the Lord is eternally existent and full of transcendental bliss. How then such Form can be a product of the material mode of goodness? Anyone, therefore, who does not believe in the Form of the Lord, such person is certainly a faithless atheist (pashandi) and as such he should'nt be seen or touched. He is fit to be punished by the laws of Yamaraja."
"The Buddhist don't accept the Vedas, so they are 'nastika' (agnostic or atheist), but those who defy the Vedic conclusions as above mentioned under the cover of being follower of the Vedas, they surpass even the the Buddhists in their 'nastikya-vada' (path of atheism or agnosticism)."
"Sri Vyasadeva very kindly compiled the clause of the Vedic knowledge in his Vedanta Sutras and if somebody hears the commentation of the Mayavadi school (as represented by the Shankara Sampradaya), certainly such pure conclusions are destroyed".
"The theory of emanations is the beginning for the Vedanta Sutra and as such all the cosmic manifestations are emanations from the Absolute personality of Godhead by His inconceivable different energies."
"The example of the touchstone is verily comparable with the theory of emanation. The touchstone can convert unlimated quantity of iron into gold and still the touchstone remains as it is. Similarly the Supreme Lord can produce all the manifestive world by His inconceivable energies and yet He is full and unchanged. He is Purna (complete) and unlimited number of Purnas being emanated from Him, He is still Purna."
"The theory of illusion by the Mayavada school is advocated on the ground that the theory of emanation will cause transformation of the Absolute Truth. And in that case Vyasdeva will be put into error and to save this anomaly of the great Master, they have skillfully brought in the theory of illusion."
"The world or the cosmic creation is not illusion or false as it is advocated by the Mayavada school. But it has no permanent existence. A non-permanent thing cannot be called as false altogether. But the conception of the material body by the living being, as his self, is certainly wrong."
"Pranava (Om or the Omkara in the Vedas) is the primeval hymn and the transcendental sound is identical with the Form of the Lord. All the Vedic hymns and the material world are based on this Pranava."
"'Tat-twam-asi' is but a side word of the Vedic literatures and therefore this word cannot be the primeval hymn of the Vedas instead of the Pranava. Sripada Shankaracharya has given more stress on the side word 'tat-twam-as' than the primeval principle 'Pranava'".

The Lord thus spoke on the Vedanta Sutras and defied all the propaganda of the Mayavada school. The Bhattacharya tried to defend himself and his Mayavada school by jugglery of logic and grammer but the Lord was able to defeat all such jugglery of words by His forceful arguments. He affirmed that we are all related with the Personality of Godhead eternally and the devotional service is our eternal function to exchange dealings of our relations. And the result of such exchange of dealing is to attain Prema or Love of Godhead. When Love of Godhead is attained, love for all other beings automatically follows because the Lord is the sumtotal of all the living beings.

The Lord said except these three items namely eternal relation with God, exchange of dealings thereof and to attain to the stage Love of Godhead, all that are instructed in the Vedas are Superfluous only, and besides these three items everything is concocted imagination.
The Lord further added that the Mayavada Philosophy catered by Sripad Shankaracharya is something imaginary explanation of the Vedas but it had to be done by Him (Shankaracharya) because He was ordered to do so by the Personality of Godhead. In the Padmapuranam it is stated that the Personality of Godhead ordered His Lordship Shiva to deviate the human race from Him (the Personality of Godhead). The Personality of Godhead was to be so covered that people may be encouraged to generate more and more population. His Lordship Mahadeva said to the Devi: "I appear in the Kaliyuga in the garb of a Brahmin, and I shall preach Mayavada Philosophy which is nothing but clouded Buddhism." (this verse in the Chaitanya Charitamrita, 2.6.182, is a quote from the Padma-Purana, Uttara-khanda 25.7.)

After hearing all these speeches of the Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the Bhattacharya was struck with wonder and awe and began to see Him in dead silence. The Lord then encouraged him with assurance that there was no cause of wonder, "I say that 'loving service unto Bhagavan', the personality of godhead, is the highest human interest". He than quoted a sloka from the Bhagavatam and assured him that even the liberated souls who are absorbed in the Spirit and spiritual realisation, do also take to the loving devotional service of the Lord Hari, because the Personality of Godhead has such transcendental qualities as He attracts the heart of the liberated soul too.

Then the Bhattacharya desired to listen to the explanation of the "Atmarama" sloka from the Bhagavat-Purana (1.7.10) on which the Lord first of all asked Bhattacharya to explain it and after that He would explain. The Bhattacharya then scholarly explained the sloka with special reference to logic. He explained the sloka in nine different ways chiefly based on logic because he was the most renowned scholar of logic of the time.

The Lord after hearing the Bhattacharya thanked him for the scholarly presentation of the sloka and then on the request of the Bhattacharya the Lord explained the sloka in sixty four different ways without touching the nine different explanations given by the Bhattacharya.

Thus after hearing the explanation of the 'Atmarama' sloka from the Lord, the Bhattacharya was convinced that such a scholarly presentation of the sloka is impossible to be done by any earthly creature. Before this he was tried to be convinced by Sri Gopinath Acharya about the Divinity of the Lord but at that time he could not so accept Him. At the present moment the Bhattacharya was astounded by the Lord's exposition of the Vedanta Sutra and explanations of the Atmarama sloka. And thus he began to think within himself that he committed a great offence at the lotus feet of the Lord without recognising Him to be Krishna Himself. He then surrendered unto Him repenting his past dealings with Him and the Lord was kind enough to accept the Bhattacharya. Out of His causeless mercy the Lord manifested before him first as four handed Narayana and then again as two handed Lord Krishna with the flute in His hand.
The Bhattacharya at once fell down on the lotus feet of the Lord and composed many suitable slokas in praise of the Lord by the Grace of Him. He composed almost one hundred slokas in praise of the Lord. The Lord then embraced him and out of transcendental ecstacy the Bhattacharya became unconscious of the physical state of life. Tears, tremoring, throbing of the heart, perspiration, emotional waves, dancing, singing, crying and all the eight symptoms of trance were manifested in the body of the Bhattacharya. Sri Gopinath Acharya became very glad and astonished on this marvellous conversion of his brother-in-law by the Grace of the Lord.
Out of the 100 celeberated slokas composed by the Bhattacharya in praise of the Lord, the following two are most important and these two slokas explain the mission of the Lord in gist. They are as follows:

1. "Let me surrender unto the personality of Godhead who has appeared now as Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. He is the ocean of all mercy and has come down to teach us material detachment, learning and loving devotional service of Himself."
2. "Pure devotional service of the Lord having been lost in oblivion of time, the Lord has appeared to renovate the principles and therefore I do offer my obeisances unto His lotus feet."

The Lord explained the word Mukti as equivalent of the word Vishnu or the Personality of Godhead. And to attain Mukti or liberation from the bondage of material existence is to attain to the service of the Lord.

The Lord then proceeded towards South India for some time and converted every one He met on the way to become a devotee of Lord Sri Krishna. Such devotees also converted many others to the cult of devotional service or Bhagavat Dharma of the Lord and thus He reached on the bank of the Godavari where He met Srila Ramananda Roy the Governor of Madras on behalf of Maharaj Prataprudra the king of Orissa. His talks with Ramananda Roy is very important in the matter of higher realisation of transcendental knowledge. We shall however try to give herewith a gist of the conversation as follows:

Sri Ramananda Roy was a self realised soul although outwardly he belonged to a caste lower than the Brahmin in social convention. He was neither in renounced order of life and besides that he was a high government servant in the State. Still Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu accepted him as one of the liberated soul on the strength of high order of realisation of transcendental knowledge. Similarly the Lord appointed Srila Haridas Thakur a veteran devotee of the Lord hailing from the Mohamedan family. And there are many other great devotees of the Lord who hailed from different communities groups and castes. But the Lord's only criterion was to see the standard of loving devotional service of the particular person. He was not concerned with the outward dress of a man but He was concerned only with the inner soul and its activities. Therefore the whole missionary activities of the Lord are to be understood as standing on the spiritual plane and as such the cult of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu or the cult of Bhagavat-Dharma has nothing to do with mundane affairs of sociology, politics, economic development or any such spheres of life. The real important thing is only the purely transendental urge of the soul.

When he met Shri Ramananda Roy on the bank of the Godavari the conversation began with the subject matter of Varnashram-Dharma followed by the Hindus. Srila Ramananda Roy said that by following the principles of Varnashram-Dharma or the system of four castes and four orders of human life it should be followed by every one in order to realise transcendence. In the opinion of the Lord the system of Varna Ashram Dharma is superficial only and it has very little to do with the highest realisation of spiritual values. Because the highest perfection of life is to get detached from the material attachment and proportionately realise the transcedental loving service of the Lord. The personality of Godhead recognises a living being who is progressing in that line. Devotional service is, therefore, the culmination of the culture of all knowledge. When Sri Kishna the Supreme Personality of Godhead appeared for the deliverance of all fallen souls, He advised for clear cut deliverance of all living entities as follows. The Supreme Absolute Personality of Godhead from whom all living entities have emanated, must be worshipped by all by their respective engagements, because every thing that we see is also the expansion of His energy only. That is the way of real perfection and is approved by all bonafide Acharyas past and present. The system of Varnashram is more or less based on the principles of moral and ethical rules. There is very little realisation of the transcendence as such the Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu rejected it as superficial and asked Ramananda Roy to go further up.

Sri Ramananda Roy then suggested renunciation of the fruitive actions unto the Lord. The Bhagavad-Gita advices in this connection as followes. "Whatever you do, whatever you eat and whatever you give as well as whatever you may perform in penance, all must be offered to Me alone". This dedication on the part of the worker suggests the Personality of Godhead a step higher than the impersonal conception of the Varnashram system but still the relation of the living being and the Lord is not distinct in that way. The Lord therefore rejected this proposition and asked Ramananda Roy to go further on.

Roy then suggested renunciation of the Varnashram-Dharma and acceptance of devotional service. The Lord did not approve of this suggestion also for the reason that all of a sudden one may not renounce his position and that will not bring in the desired result.
It was further suggested by Roy that attainment of spiritual realisation freed from the material conception of life is the topmost achievement by a living being. The Lord rejected this suggestion also because on the plea of such spiritual realisation many havoc may be done by the unscrupulous persons and therefore all of a sudden this is not possible.

Sri Ramananda Roy then suggested sincere association of self-realised souls and to hear submissively the transcendental message of the pastimes of the Personality of Godhead from any wordly position. This suggestion of Sri Ramananda Roy was welcomed by the Lord. This suggestion was made following the foot prints of Brahmaji who said that the Personality of Godhead is known as 'Ajita' or 'the One who cannot be conquered' or approached by anyone. But such Ajita also becomes Jita (conquered) by one method which is very simple and easy. The simple method is that one must be very meek and submissive and try to live peacefully by lending the ear to the speeches of the transcendentally self-realised soul who speaks on the message of Bhagavat Dharma or the Religion of 'Glorifying the Supreme Lord and His devotees'. To glorify a great merit is a natural instinct for living being. Perfection of life is attained simply by glorifying the Lord in association of self-realised devotee of the Lord. Self-realised devotee is he who surrenders unto the Lord fully without any further attachment for material prosperity. Material prosperity and sense enjoyment and advancement of learning thereof, are all activities of ignorance in the human society. Peace and friendship are impossible propositions in the light of a detached society from the association of God and His devotees. It is imperative, therefore, that one should sincerely seek for the association of pure devotees and hear them patiently by submissive aural reception from any position of life. The position of a person in the higher or lower status of life does not hamper in the path of self-realisation. The only thing one has to do is to hear from self-realised soul with a routine programme. And the speaker may deliver lectures from the standard of Vedic literatures following the foot prints of the bygone Acharya who realised the Absolute Truth. Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu recommended this simple method of self realisation generally known as Bhagavat Dharma. Srimad Bhagavatam is the perfect guide for this purpose.

At the conclusion of this meeting of the Lord with Sri Ramananda Roy the latter was advised by the Lord to retire from the service and come to Puri so that they can live together and relish transcendental mellows. Some time after Sri Ramananda Roy retired from the Government service and took pension from the king. He came back to Puri at his residence and all along he was one of the most confidential devotees of the Lord.

The Lord extensively travelled all over the southern part of India.
The Lord excavated from the south Indian portion two very important old literatures namely the 'Brahma Samhita' and 'Krishna Karnamrita' and these two valuable books are authorised studies for the person in the devotional line. The Lord thus returned to Puri after a south Indian tour.

On His return to Puri all the anxious devotees of the Lord got back their life and the Lord remained there with continued pastimes of His transcendental realisations. The most important incidence during that time was to grant audience to the King Prataprudra. King Prataprudra was a great devotee of the Lord and he considered himself as one of the servants of the Lord entrusted with service of sweeping the temple. This submissive attitude of the king was very much appreciated by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. The King requested both Bhattacharya and Roy to arrange for his meeting with the Lord. When however He was so requested by the two stalwart devotees of the Lord, He flatly refused to keep the request even though the same was put forward through the good office of such personal associates like Ramananda Roy and Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya. The reason is that it is dangerous for a Sannyasi to be in intimate touch with wordly men. The Lord was an ideal Sannyasi. No woman could approach the Lord even for offering respects. Women's seats were accomodated far away from the Lord. As an ideal teacher and Acharya He was very strict in the routine work of a Sannyasi. Apart from His part of Divine Incarnation, the Lord was an ideal character as a human being. His behaviour with respective persons were always above suspicion. In His dealing as Acharya He was harder than the thunderbolt and softer than the rose.
On the Principles of the order of life and discipline the Lord knew no compromise and therefore even though He knew that the King was a great devotee, He refused to see the King. By these examples the Lord wanted to emphasise on the point of behaviour by a sannyasi (monk). A sannyasi has nothing to do with women and money and he must always refrain from such intimate relations. The King was however favoured by the Lord by the expert arrangement of the devotees. This means that the beloved devotee of the Lord can favour a neophyte more liberally than the Lord. Pure devotees, therefore, never commit offence at the feet of another pure devotee. Offence at the lotus feet of the Lord is some times excused by the merciful Lord but offence at the feet of a devotee is very much dangerous for one who actually wants to make progress in the devotional service As long as the Lord remained at Puri thousands of His devotees used to come and see Him during the car-festival ceremony of Lord Jagannath. The Lord's congregational Samkirtan movement at Puri was an unique exhibition for the mass of people and that is the way of turning the mass mind towards spiritual realisation.

The Lord inaugurated this system of mass Samkirtan Movement and leaders of all countries may take advantage of this spiritual movement in order to keep the mass of people in pure state of peace and friendship with one another which is now the demand of the present human society all over the world.

After some time the Lord again started on his tour towards Northern India and He wanted to visit Vrindavana and its neighbouring places. He passed through the Jungles of Jharikhanda (Madhya Bharat) and all the wild animals also joined with His Samkirtan movement. The wild tigers, elephants, bears and deers all together accompanied the Lord and the Lord accompanied them in His mode of Samkirtan movement. By this He proved that by the propagation of the Samkirtan Movement (congregational chanting and glorifying the names of the Lord) even the wild animals can live in peace and friendship and what to speak of men who are supposed to be civilised. No man in the world will refuse to join the Samkirtan movement nor the Lord's Samkirtan movement has any restriction of caste creed and colour for joining His movement. Herein is direct evidence of His great mission that He admitted even the wild animals to partake in His great movement.

On His way back from Vrindavana He first came to Prayag where He met Rupa Goswami along with his younger brother Anupam. Then He came down to Benares. He instructed for two months Sri Sanatan Goswami all about transcendental science. The instruction to Sanatan Goswami is itself a big narration. The gist ideas are given as follows:

Sanatan Goswami (formerly known as Dabir Khan) was in the cabinet service of the then Bengal Government under the regime of Nawab Husain Shah. He decided to join with the Lord and thus retired from the service. On His way back from Vrindavana when He reached Varanasi, the Lord became the guest of Sri Tapan Mishra and Chandra Shekhar assisted by a Maharastra Brahmin. At that time Varanasi was headed by a great Sannyasi of the Mayavada school and his name was Sripad Prakashananda Saraswati. When the Lord was at Varanasi the people in general became more attracted with Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu on account of His mass movement of Samkirtan. Wherever He visited specially during the time of His going to Vishwanath temple, thousands of pilgrims used to follow Him some being attracted by His bodily features and others being attracted by His melodious songs in glorifying the Lord.

The Mayavadi Sannyasins designate themselves as Narayana. And Varanasi is still overflooded with many Mayavadi Sannyasins. Some people who saw the Lord in the mode of His Samkirtan movement, considered Him to be actual Narayana and the report was reached in the camp of the great Sannyasi Prakashananda.
In India there is always a kind of spiritual rivalry between the Mayavada and the Bhagavata school and as such when the news of the Lord reached Prakashananda he could know that the Lord was a Vaishnava-Sannyasi and therefore, he minimised the value of the Lord before those who brought him the news of the Lord. He deprecated the activities of the Lord on account of His preaching the Samkirtan Movement which was in his opinion nothing but a religious sentiment. He was a profound student of the Vedanta and he advised his followers to give attention to the Vedanta than indulge in the so called Samkirtan.

One devotee Brahmin, who became a devotee of the Lord, did not like the criticism of Prakashananda upon the Lord and he came to the Lord to express His sorry feelings. He said to the Lord that on his utterance of the Lord's Name Chaitanya before the Sannyasi Prakashananda, the latter strongly criticised Him although he heard him uttering several times the name Chaitanya. The Brahmin was astonished to see that the Sannyasi Prakashananda could not vibrate the sound Krishna even for once although he uttered the name Chaitanya several times.

The Lord smilingly replied to the devotee Brahman about the reasons of non-utterance of the holy name of Krishna by the Mayavadi Sannyasi. He said as follows: "The Mayavadis are offenders at the Lotus feet of Krishna although they utter always 'Brahman', 'Atma', or 'Chaitanya' etc. and because they are offenders at the Lotus feet of Krishna, they are practically unable to utter the holy name of Krishna. The name Krishna and the Personality of Godhead Krishna are identical. There is no difference in the Absolute realm between the Name, Form or Person of the Absolute Truth, because in the Absolute Realm everything is transcendental bliss. There is no difference of body and soul in the Personality of Godhead Krishna distinguished from that of the living being who is always different from the outward body. On account of this transcendental position of Krishna, it is very difficult for a lay man to know actually about the Personality of Godhead Krishna, His holy name and Fame etc. His name fame form and pastimes all are one and the same transcendental identity and they are not knowable by the exercise of material senses."
"The transcendental mellow of the Pastimes of the Lord is the source of still more bliss than one can experience by realisation of Brahman or becoming one with the Supreme. Had it not been so then those who are already situated in the transcendental bliss of Brahman would not have been attracted by the transcendental bliss of the Pastime of the Lord."

After this a great meeting was arranged by the devotees of the Lord in which all the Sannyasins were invited including the Lord and Prakashananda Saraswati. In this meeting both the scholars (the Lord and Prakashanada) had a long discourse on the spiritual values of the Samkirtan movement and the gist idea is given below.

The great Mayavadi Sannyasi Prakashananda enquired from the Lord as to the reason of His diversion to the Samkirtan movement instead of studying the Vedanta Sutras. He said that it is the duty of a Sannyasi to read the Vedanta Sutras and what was the cause that He indulged in Samkirtan.
After such enquiry the Lord submissively replied as follows: "The reason of my diversion to the Samkirtan movement from the Study of Vedanta is that I am a great fool." The Lord thus represented Himself as one of the numberless fools of this age who are absolutely incapable to study the Vedanta Philosophy. Fool's indulgence in the study of Vedanta has caused so many havocs in the society and, therefore, He continued to say "And because I am a great fool so my spiritual master forbade Me to play with Vedanta Philosophy. He said better I may chant the holy Name of the Lord and that would deliver Me from the material bondage".
"In this age of Kali there is no other religion than glorifying the Lord by utterance of His holy name and that is the injunction of all the revealed scriptures. And my spiritual Master has taught me one sloka (from the Brihan Naradiya Purana) which is as follows:
harer nama harer nama harer namaiva kevalam kalau nasty eva nasty eva nasty eva gatir anyatha."
"So on the order of my spiritual master I chant the holy name of Hari and I am now mad after this holy Name whenever I utter the holy Name. I forget myself completely and as such some times I laugh, cry, dance, like a mad man. I thought within myself if I have not gone actually mad by this process of chanting the holy Name and therefore enquired from my Spiritual Master about it. I told him that I have become now mad by chanting the holy Name and what is this please let me know."
"My spiritual master informed me that it is the real effect of chanting the holy Name that it produces a transcendental emotion which is a rare manifestation. It is the sign of love of God which is the ultimate end of life. The Love of God is transcendental to liberation (Mukti) and as such it is called the fifth stage of spiritual realisation above the stage of liberation. Actual result of chanting the holy Name of Krishna is to attain the stage of Love of God and it was good that fortunately I was favoured with the blessings."

On hearing this statement from the Lord the Mayavadi Sannyasi enquired from the Lord what was the harm if He would study the Vedanta along with the chanting of the Holy Name. Prakashananda Saraswati knew it well that the Lord was formerly known as Nimai Pandit a very learned scholar of Navadvipa and His representation as a great Fool was certainly impregnated with some purpose. So on this enquiry by the Sannyasi the Lord smiled and said "My dear sir, if you do not mind it then I can reply your enquiry."
All the Sannyasins there were very much pleased on the Lord for His simple dealings and they unanimously replied that they would not mind for whatever He may reply. The Lord then began to say as follows:
"Vedanta Sutra is transcendental words or sounds uttered by the transcendental Personality of Godhead. As such in the Vedanta there cannot be any human deficiencies like mistake, illusion, cheating or inefficiencies. The message of Upanishads is expressed in the Vedanta Sutras and what is said there directly is certainly glorified by themselves."
"Whatever interpretations have been given by Shankaracharya have no direct bearings on the Sutras and therefore such commentation makes everything spoiled for the purpose."
"The word Brahman indicates the greatest of all, full with transcendental opulences without anyone else on the same level. Such Brahman who is ultimately the Personality of Godhead is covered by such indirect interpretations and established as Impersonal".
"Every thing that is in the spiritual world is full of transcendental bliss including the Form, body, place and parapharnalia of the Lord; all are eternally cognisant and blissful. But it is not the fault of the Acharya Shankara that he has so interpreted but if somebody accepts it then certainly he becomes doomed. Anyone who accepts the transcendental body of the Personality of Godhead as something mundane, certainly commits the highest order of offences."
The Lord thus spoke to the Sannyasi almost in the same line as He spoke to the Bhattacharya of Puri and by forceful arguments He nullified the Mayavada interpretations of the Vedanta Sutra. And all the Sannyasins present there reclaimed the Lord as Personified Vedas and directly the Personality of Godhead. All the Sannyasins became converted to the cult of Bhakti and all of them accepted the Holy Name of the Lord Sri Krishna. All of them dined together with the Lord in the midst of them. After this conversion of the Sannyasins the popularity of the Lord became more conspicuous at Varanasi and thousands of people assembled to see the Lord in person. The Lord thus established the primary importance of Srimad Bhagavata Dharma and He defeated all other systems of spiritual realisation. Since then every one at Varanasi became overwhelmed with the transcendental Samkirtan movement.

While the Lord was camping at Varanasi Sanatan Goswami also arrived there after retiring from office. He was formerly one of the state ministers in the government of Bengal then under the regime of Nawab Hussain Shah. He had some difficulty in getting relief from the state service as the Nawab was reluctant to leave him. He came to Varanasi and the Lord taught him all about the principles of devotional service. He taught him about the constitutional position of the living being the cause of his bondage under material conditions, his eternal relation with the Personality of Godhead. He was taught about the transcendental position of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, how He expands Himself in different plenary portions of incarnations and how does He dominate in different parts of the universe and the nature of His transcendental abode. He was taught about the devotional activities, its different stages of development and the rules and regulations for achieving the gradual stages of spiritual perfection. He was taught about the symptoms of different incarnations in different ages and how to detect them with reference to the context of revealed scriptures.
The subject of teachings to Sanatan Goswami forms a big chapter in the text and essays of Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita.

At Mathura He visited all the important places and then He reached Vrindavana. Lord Chaitanya appeared in the family of a high caste Brahmin and over and above that as Sannyasi He was the preceptor for all the Varnas and Ashramas. But He used to accept meals from all classes of Vaishnavas. At Mathura the Sanodhia Brahmins are considered in lower status of society but the Lord accepted meals in such family also because He (His host) happened to be a desciple of the Madhabendra Puri family.
At Vrindavana the Lord took bath in 24 important bathing places and ghats. He travelled to all the twelve important Vanas (forests). In these forests all the cows and birds welcomed Him, as if He was their very old friend. The Lord also began to embrace all the trees of those forests and by doing so He was feeling the symptoms of transcendental ecstacy. Some times He fell unconscious and He was made to regain consciousness by resounding the holy Name of Krishna. The transcendental symptoms that were visible on the body of the Lord during His travel within the forest of Vrindavanaa were all unique and inexplicable and we have just given a gist idea only.

From Vrindavana His personal servitor Krishnadas Vipra induced Him to go back to Prayag to take bath during the Magh Mela. The Lord accede this proposal and they started for Prayag. On the way they were met with some Pathanas amongst whom there was a learned Moulana who presented to the Lord Mayavada philosophy on the basis of the Koran. Whatever arguments he put forward, the Lord refuted them all. Finally the person became stunned and could not speak.
Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said, "The Koran certainly establishes impersonalism (Mayavada), but at the end it refutes that impersonalism and establishes the personal God. Your scripture accepts the fact that ultimately there is only one God. He is full of opulence, and His bodily complexion is blackish and the Lord has a supreme, blissful, transcendental body. He is the Absolute Truth, the all-pervading, omniscient and eternal being. He is the origin of everything. Creation, maintenance and dissolution come from Him. He is the original shelter of all gross and subtle cosmic manifestations. The Lord is the Supreme Truth, worshipable by everyone. He is the cause of all causes. By engaging in His devotional service, the living entity is relieved from material existence. No conditioned soul can get out of material bondage without serving the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Love at His lotus feet is the ultimate goal of life. The happiness of liberation, whereby one merges into the Lord's existence, cannot even be compared to a fragment of the transcendental bliss obtained by service unto the Lord's lotus feet. In the Koran there are descriptions of fruitive activity (karma), speculative knowledge (jnana) andmystic power (yoga), but ultimately all this is refuted and the Lord's personal feature established, along with His devotional service. Your learned scholars (of the Koran) are not very advanced in knowledge. Although there are many methods prescribed, they do not know that the ultimate conclusion should be considered the most powerful." So Mahaprabhu asked the scholar, "Seeing your own scripture and deliberating over what is written there, what is your conclusion?"
The saintly Muslim replied, "All that You have said is true. This has certainly been written in the Koran, but our scholars can neither understand nor accept it. Usually they describe the Lord's impersonal aspect, but they hardly know that the Lord's personal feature is worshipable. They are undoubtedly lacking this knowledge. Since You are that very same Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself, please be merciful upon me. I am fallen and unfit. I have studied our scripture very extensively, but from it I cannot conclusively decide what the ultimate goal of life is or how I can approach it. Now that I have seen You, my tongue is chanting krishnas name. The false prestige I felt from being a learned scholar is now gone."
Saying this, the saintly Muslim fell at the lotus feet of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and requested Him to speak of life's ultimate goal and the process by which it could be obtained.
Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu then told all the Muslims there, "Chant the holy name of Krishna! Chant the holy name of Krishna!" As they all began to chant, they were overwhelmed by ecstatic love. All the Pathanas were converted into His cult of chanting the holy name of Krishna.
Later these very Pathanas became celebrated as the Pathana Vaishnavas. They toured all over the country and chanted the glorious activities of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

When He came back to Prayag Srila Rupa Goswami along with his youngest brother met Him near Vindumadhava Temple. The Lord was this time welcomed by the people of Prayag more respectfully. Ballave Bhatta, who resided on the other bank of Prayag in the Village of Arail, came to receive Him at his place and while going there the Lord jumped on the river Jamuna. With great difficulty He was again picked up in unconscious state and thus visited the headquarters of Ballav Bhatta. This Ballav Bhatta was one of His chief admirers but later on he inaugurated his own party of the Ballave Sampradaya.

On the bank of the Dasaswamedh Ghat at Prayag for ten days continually the Lord instructed Rupa Goswami on the Science of Loving Devotional Service of the Lord. He tought the Goswami the divisions of the living creatures in 8'400'000 species of life. Then about the human species. Out of them He selected the followers of the Vedic principles. Out of them the fruitive workers. Out of them emperic philosophers. Out of them the liberated souls and out of the liberated souls He said there is only a few only who are actually the pure devotees of Lord Sri Krishna.

Srila Rupa Goswami was a younger brother of Sanatan Goswami and when he retired from service he brought with him two boats full of gold coins, accumulated by the labour of his service. And before leaving the home for Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu he divided the wealth as follows. 50 percent for the brahmanas and vaishnavas. 25 percent for the relatives and 25 percent for his personal needs in case of emergency. This is a practical example of how one can divide his money and retire from household life.

The Lord taught the Goswami about devotional service comparing the whole subject with a creeper. And He advised to protect the Bhakti creeper most carefully specially from the elephant of offensive act unto the pure devotees. Besides the giant elephant as above mentioned the creeper has to be protected from the desires of sense enjoyment, monistic liberation and perfection of the Yoga system. They are all detrimental on the path of devotional progress. Similarly violence on the living being, desire for worldly gain, worldly reception and worldly fame all are detrimental to the progress of Bhakti or a loving serving relationship with the supreme Lord.

Pure devotional service must be freed from all desires of sense-gratification and uncovered by fruitive aspirations and culture of monistic knowledge. One must be freed from all kinds of designations and when one is thus converted into transcendental purity, one can then only serve the Lord by those purified senses.
So long there is the desire to enjoy sensually or to become one with the Supreme or to possess the mystic powers, there is no question of attaining the stage of pure devotional service.

Devotional service is conducted under two categories namely primary practice and spontaneous emotion. When one can rise up to the platform of spontaneous emotional stage he can make further progress by spiritual attachment, feeling, love, and many other higher stages of devotional life for which there is no English words to express properly.

Transcendental devotional service has five stages of reciprocation.

   1. Only the self realisation stage just after liberation from the material bondage, is called the Santa or neutral stage.
   2. After that when there is development of the transcendental knowledge of the Lord's internal potential opulences, the devotee engages himself in the Dasya stage.
   3. By further development of the Dasya stage a respectful fraternity developes and above that a feeling of friendship on equal terms become manifest. Both these stages are called Sakhya stage or the devotional service in friendship.
   4. Above this there is the stage of filial affection and this stage is called Vatsalya stage.
   5. And above this stage there is the stage of conjugal Love and this stage is called the highest stage of Love of God although there is no difference of quality in either of the above stages. The last stage of conjugal Love of God is called Madhurya stage.

Thus He instructed all about the devotional science to Rupa Goswami and deputed him to Vrindavana to excavate the lost sight of the places of transcendental pastimes of the Lord. After this He came back again to Varanasi and delivered the Sannyasins and instructed the elder brother of Rupa Goswami.

The Lord left only eight slokas of His instructions in writing and they are known as Sikshastakam.
All other literatures of His Divine cult were extensively written by the principal followers the six Goswamis of Vrindavana and their followers.

The eight slokas (Sikshastakam) completed by the Lord are as follows:

   1. Glory to the Sri Krishna Samkirtan which cleanses the heart of all the dust accumulated for years together and thus the fire of conditional life of repeated birth and death, is extinguished. Such Samkirtan movement is the prime benediction for the humanity at large because it spreads the rays of the benediction Moon. It is the life of all transcendental knowledge, it increases the ocean of transcendental bliss and it helps to have a taste of the full nectarine for which always anxious we are.
   2. Oh my Lord your holy name can alone render all benediction upon the living being and therefore you have hundreds and millions of names like Krishna, Govinda etc. In these transcendental names You have invested all Your transcendental energies and there is no hard and fast rules for chanting these holy names. Oh my Lord You have so kindly made easy approach to You by Your holy name but unfortunate as I am, I have no attraction for them.
   3. One can chant the holy name of the Lord in an humble state of mind thinking himself as lower than the straw in the street, tolerant more than the tree, devoid of all sense of false prestige and being ready to offer all kinds of respect to others. In such state of mind one can chant the holy name of the Lord constantly.
   4. Oh the almighty Lord! I have no desire for accumulating wealth nor I have any desire to enjoy beautiful woman neither I want any number of followers of mine. What I want only is that I may have Your causeless devotional service in my life birth after birth.
   5. Oh the son of Maharaj Nanda, I am Your eternal servitor and although I am so, some how or other I have fallen in the ocean of birth and death. Please therefore pick me up from this ocean of death and fix me up as one of the atoms of Your lotus feet.
   6. Oh my Lord when shall my eyes be decorated with tears of love flowing constantly by chanting Your holy name? When my words will be choked up when uttering the holy name? And when all the holes of hair on my body will have eruptions by the recitation of Your name?
   7. Oh Govinda! Feeling Your separation I am considering a moment as twelve years or more than that and tears flowing from my eyes like the torrents of rains I am feeling all vacant in the world in the absence of your presence.
   8. I do not know anyone except Krishna as my Lord and He shall always remain as such even if He handles me roughly by his embrace or he may make me broken hearted by not being present before me. He is completely free to do anything and everything but he is always my worshipful Lord, unconditionally.

Compiled on the basis of the translations of Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was born in Navadwip, situated on the bank of the holy Ganges river in Begal, in February 1486, during the eclipse of the full moon amidst the loud chanting of the Holy Name of the Lord. His father, Jagannatha Misra and mother Sac i, were both from pious and scholarly brahmana families originally from Sylhet. After loosing their first eight children, all daughters, they gave birth to a son named Visvarupa, who took sannyasa at an early age. Then Sri Chaitanya appeared from the womb of mother Sachi and was given the name Visvambara.

Sri Chaitanya showed great attachment to the Holy name from birth. He would often cry and could not be consoled until the people around him began to chant Hare Krishna. He was nicknamed Nimai and would was very fond of singing and dancing. With uplifted hands He seemed to dance in a fit of divine madness, which enraptured all and made them dance and chant along with him.

Nimai studied under Ganga dasa Pandit, the most learned scholar in Navadwip. Although there were many students in His school, some of which were much older and very learned, Nimai eclipsed them all by His extraordinary intelligence. A favorite pastime of His was challenging students from other schools in intellectual debates on the bank of the Ganges. He would offer His own explanation on certain Sutras and ask others to criticize it. On their failing to find any flaw, he would Himself point out a number of flaws and offer another explanation which he would again criticize to re-establish his original explanation with extraordinary skill and felicity.

He acquired mastery over the different branches of Sanskrit learning at a very early age and became known by the name Nimai Pandit. After the death of His father he married Laksmipriya and set up a school where he taught grammar. He was imbued with scholastic spirit and indulged in dialectical bouts with the scholars of Nadia. In one such bout he defeated the world conqueror (Digvijaya Pandit Kesava Kashmiri), whom the blessings of the goddess of learning Saraswati, had made him invincible. It was later revealed to the Pandit in a dream that the man who had vanquished him was the Lord Himself.

When Nimai was about twenty-two years old he went on a tour to Sylhet in East Bengal. During His absence His wife Laksmipriya died of a snake bite. Later, at the request of His mother he was remarried to Vishnupriya.

About one year after His tour of east Bengal he went to Gaya. There he met Isvara Puri the disciple of Madhavendra Puri of the Madhva sampradaya. He took initiation from Isvara Puri and from that moment on He began to show spiritual ecstasy at every moment. He returned to Navadwipa a different person. His pride of learning and aggressive spirit were gone. He was immersed in the thought of Krishna. Tears incessantly flowed from his eyes and at the very name of Krishna or anything associated with Krishna sent Hi m into trance. It became impossible for Him to teach his pupils. The only meaning He knew of the Sutras of grammar which he was accustomed to teach, was that any word or letter was Krishna. So He always discoursed on Krishna and in the midst of the discourses laughed and wept and lost Himself in trance. His pupils did not know what to do. One day in utter helplessness He had to tell his pupils, "I always see a dark complexioned boy of exquisite beauty standing before me and playing on His flute. I can only speak of Him and Him alone. I must therefore stop teaching you from today. You are free to go and take your lessons anywhere you like."

Saying this He closed His book and burst into tears. The pupils also closed their books saying, "No more education for us Master! Only bless us that we may remember life after life what we have learnt at your lotus feet." Nimai was visibly moved. He took them one by one and embraced them. Then He performed sankirtan with them. He stood in the middle singing:

haraye namah krsna-yadavaya namah |
gopala govinda rama sri-madhusudana ||

Keeping time with His hands, the pupils went round and round repeating the song. As the song and the dance went on their hearts were filled with ecstasy and tears of joy flowed from their eyes. Many people from the neighborhood were attracted to the scene and everyone who came as a spectator was caught in the current of devotion and began to sing and dance. This marked the beginning of the sankirtana movement of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the prophesied mission of His appearance.

Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was soon joined by His principal associates, Nityananda, Gadadhara, Sri Advaita and Srivasa Pandit. Many thousands of people became influenced by the sankirtana movement. In the courtyard of Srivasa Thakura He held nightly sankirtana with His very close associates. There He revealed His Divine Forms to His followers and indicated that His mission was to deliver all the fallen souls of Kali-yuga.

The courtyard in the house of Srivasa Pandit became the regular meeting place for the Vaisnavas but soon there was organized sankirtana parties and processions of which thousands upon thousands of people participated, parading through the streets of Nava dwip, singing and dancing and surcharging the whole atmosphere with this unique spiritual fervor.

Once, a small but influential group, proud of their learning and maintaining an inimical attitude towards the sankirtana movement, placed a complaint before the Chand Kazi, the Mohamedan governor of the town. The Kazi tried to crush the movement, breakin g mrdangas and stopping the processions. But due to the overwhelming influence of the huge congregational gathering organized by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, in a defiant display of peaceful civil disobedience, the Kazi not only came to his senses, but joined the movement of Mahaprabhu and declared to the world that this movement will never be impeded.

At the age of twenty-four Nimai Pandit decided to take to the renounced order of life. He accepted sannyasa initiation from Kesava Bharati and received the name Sri Krishna Chaitanya. Soon after He journeyed to Puri where he converted Sarvabhauma Bhattacary a, a veteran scholar of nyaya and Vedanta. The Bhattacharya recognized Him to be the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself and became so attached to Him that he could bear anything in the world but separation from Him.

Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu soon embarked on an extensive journey through the south of India to the tip of Cape Comorin. Then He turned northwards and after visiting many of the important temples and holy rivers, returned to Puri.

His influence on the people of Orissa was epitimized when He captured the heart of the Orian King, Pratparudra. Yearly the devotees from Bengal would come to visit Him and this became and annual pilgrimage for the Bengalis.

In the year 1514 Sri Chaitanya started on a pilgimage to Vrindaban. Traveling through Bengal, Sri Chaitanya met two brothers who were ministers in the court of the Mohamedan king Hussain Shah of Bengal. They were known by the Mohamedan names of Saker Mali k and Dabir Khas. Won over by Sri Chaitanya they became his disciples and given the names Sanatana and Rupa. These two brothers along with their nephew Jiva are the great pillars of faith, upon whose writings rests the theological and philosophical foundations of the Gaudiya sampradaya.

Sri Chaitanya had tried going to Vrindaban a few times before with a large accompaniment of followers. This time however He went with only two people and traveled through the forests in order to be unnoticed by the masses. In Vrindaban He was always over welmed in ecstacy and absorbed in the mood of Radha and Krishna. He uncovered the sites of the divine Radha Kunda and Syama Kunda. Everyone He met on His travels He induced to chant the holy name of Krishna merely by the sight of Him.

Returning from Vrindaban He stayed at Allahabad for some time during the Kumba Mela. Here he met a Vaidika brahmana named Vallabha Bhatta, who is also known as Sri Vallabhacharya, the founder of the Vaisnava sect of that name.

Here He also met Rupa and his younger brother Anupama, who had renounced the world for His sake and come all the way from Bengal to receive His instructions. Mahaprabhu gave them detailed instructions on Bhakti for ten days and sent them to Vrindaban comm issioning Rupa to devote himself to the preparation of foundational literature for the propogation of Bhakti. Proceeding to Varanasi He met Sanatana, the elder brother of Rupa. Sanatana had been imprisoned by the king, because his meeting with Sri Chaitanya had brought a complete change in his state of mind, and he was not able to attend to the duties of his ministerial office. He managed, however, to escape from prison and go in disguise to Varanasi to surrender himself completely at the feet of his maste r. Sri Chaitanya gave him elaborate discourses on bhakti and commissioned him as well with the task of laying more secure foundations of Vaisnavism by rediscovering the holy places in Vrindavana, building temples and producing canonical literature.

An important event at Varanasi was his triumph in theological discussions over the Mayavadi Sannyasis, who followed the path of jnana and deprecated Bhakti as pure sentimentalism. The result was the conversion of Prakasananda Sarasvati, the head of the mayavadi sannyasis of Varanasi, along with many of his followers.

Sri Chaitanya returned to Puri. For six years after taking to the sannyasa order He traveled all over the country, broadcasting the seeds of Bhakti. These seeds having sprouted and taken root meant He could now leave the plants to the care of His able leiutenants, and pass the remaining eighteen years of His life in monastic seclusion at Puri. He settled permanently in the house of Kasi Misra and all His days were spent in deep communion with the Lord, interrupted only by the occasional conversations with a few of His most intimate disciples.

By HH BPSwami on Mon, 2007-10-29 13:43.

SCHEDULE FOR GAURA PURNIMA FESTIVAL 2008

            A Festival of Loving Exchanges

24. FEB – 5. MAR   GBC Meetings

25. FEB                   HH Bhakti Tirtha Swami Vyasa Puja

5. MAR                     Devotees arrive

6. MAR                     Festival Inauguration

6. MAR – 9. MAR    Panca Tattva Abhisheka of the Holy Name,

                                  Sat Sanga Seminars (Sponsored-no Service Charged)

                                   and Cultural Programs

8. MAR                     Tamal Krishna Goswami’s Disappearance

                                  Congregational Preaching Night

9. MAR                     Book Distribution Awards

10. MAR                   Navadvipa Mandala Parikrama starts

16. MAR                   Navadvipa Mandala Parikrama returns to ISKCON

                                  Sri Sri Radha-Madhava Swing Festival

17. MAR                   Sri Sri Radha-Madhava Boat Festival

18. MAR                   Shantipur Festival

19. MAR                   Ganga Puja

                                   Immersion of ashes of departed souls

19. MAR                   Deity Procession

20. MAR                    Mayapur Ratha Yatra

21. MAR                    Gaura Purnima

                                   Abhisheka of Lord Gauranga

22. MAR                    Jagannath Mishra’s feast

6 MAR – 9 MAR & 16 MAR – 20 MAR: English Cultural Program at Main Pandal

1974 Mayapur parikrama

1975 sankirtan on parikrama during Mayapur festival

updated pics of Mayapura 2008
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mayapur/

http://www.mynews.in/fullstory.aspx?storyid=2664

OTTOWA, CANADA, March 12, 2008: Under a multi-year agreement between Ranka Group of Companies and Wal-mart, it was announced yesterday they will sell Indian family apparel, covering a wide range of clothing in 20 Wal-mart stores across Canada.

"My life dream to promote India in Canada is fulfilled. I have been working for years to promote self esteem for Indian women and wellness for the entire family in Canada. Now the company has the opportunity with Wal-mart to create Indian garments with latest North American style that combine our design experiences with great value and innovative ideas to fulfill this dream," said Kash Sood, president of Ranka Enterprise Inc.

"This landmark deal combines the talent and experience of our company with Wal-mart's reach and vision. We believe this partnership will deliver extraordinary results," Sood added.

courtesy of Hinduism Today  http://www.hinduismtoday.com

HH Devamrita Maharaja, Srimad Bhagavatam 3.1.1–3

 sri-suka uvaca:
nisamya vacam vadato muneh punyatamam nrpa
bhuyah papraccha kauravyo vasudeva-kathadrtah

"Sri Sukadeva Gosvami said: O King, after hearing all these most virtuous topics from the sage Maitreya, Vidura inquired further on the topics of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, which he adored to hear."

PURPORT: The word adrtah is significant because it indicates that Vidura had a natural inclination for hearing the transcendental message of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and he was never fully satisfied though continuing to hear those topics. He wanted to hear more and more so that he could be more and more blessed by the transcendental message.

        vidura uvaca:
sa vai svayambhuvah samrat priyah putrah svayambhuvah
pratilabhya priyam patnim kim cakara tato mune

"Vidura said: O great sage, what did Svayambhuva, the dear son of Brahma, do after obtaining his very loving wife?"

caritam tasya rajarser adi-rajasya sattama
bruhi me sraddadhanaya visvaksenasrayo hy asau

"O best of the virtuous, the original king of kings [Manu] was a great devotee of the Personality of Godhead Hari, and thus it is worth hearing of his sublime character and activities. Please describe them. I am very eager to hear."

PURPORT: Srimad-Bhagavatam is full of the transcendental topics of the Personality of Godhead and His pure devotees. In the absolute world there is no difference in quality between the Supreme Lord and His pure devotee. Therefore, hearing the topics of the Lord and hearing of the character and activities of the pure devotee have the same result, namely, the development of devotional service.

[invocatory prayers]

Today in this short time we have for class, I will try to speak of virtue and responsibility, and also the transformation between the Lord and his devotees. We hear from Srila Prabhupada's purport that in the absolute world, there is no difference in quality between the Supreme Lord and his pure devotee. We can see that phenomenon of the absolute world so prominently displayed apparently in this world during the pastimes of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu and his associates, how the Lord and his devotees melted in regard to each other's transcendental qualities.

Particularly, let us meditate on Lord Caitanya's meeting with Haridasa Thakura in Jagannath Puri, how they approached one another and the reaction upon their meeting together. Naturally, Haridasa Thakura pays his full dandavats in the dust to Lord Caitanya. Lord Caitanya picks him up and they both embrace and cry unlimitedly in tears of ecstatic love. This is the hallmark of Lord Caitanya's interactions with His associates, the constant embracing and shedding of tears in pure love. In this way, they are displaying, even within the material world, the interactions between the pure Lord, who is always supremely pure, and His pure devotees.

Krishnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami presents an extraordinary insight into this situation of the embrace and the mutual shedding of tears of pure love. He explains that the Lord became transformed by the qualities of Haridasa Thakura and Haridasa Thakura became transformed by the qualities of the Lord.

How is it that the Supreme Lord is so affected by his devotee? We must be careful of impersonal understanding, which is so prevalent, especially pop impersonalism in the Western countries these days, in which one thinks that because I feel good, that means God means good. Or because I feel miserable, therefore God must be miserable. This is not the mutual transformation that Kaviraja Go swami is referring to.

In this mutual transformation, everything takes place on the transcendental platform. The Lord is becoming transformed by the pure qualities of Haridasa Thakura It is not that the Lord becomes transformed by the mundane qualities of living entities under the influence of the modes of material nature. So there is a difference in how Krishna becomes affected by his parts and parcels. As we know, the Lord is aloof from the actions and reactions of the material energy, but in Caitanya-lila, He shows how He cannot resist becoming influenced by His pure devotees to the extent that He becomes transformed by them.

Haridasa Thakura tells Lord Caitanya, "Don't touch me, don't touch me! I am the lowest of persons. I am so sinful."

Lord Caitanya replies, "I am touching you for my own purification because your good qualities, your transcendental qualities, don't exist in me."

Now, in this mutual transformation, we must remember that one is always the Prabhu, the Supreme Lord, and one is always the servitor. It is not that becomes a quantitative mix-up. Yet, although the Lord is always who He is, He is eager to partake of the transcendental qualities of His devotee. In fact, He is more eager, Srila Prabhupada explains in this section, the Lord is more eager to serve the devotee than the devotee is to serve him.

Our ascent to reviving our proper qualities in relation to Krishna is driven by hearing about Krishna. Our understanding of virtue is far different from the mundane conception. First of all, it is the prime principle of Lord Caitanya's sankirtan movement that virtue is brought about by hearing about Krishna, speaking about Krishna. The krsna-katha is transformational. We are not dealing with religious belief: We shall be saved because we believe a certain way or because we have certain external religious markings. No, we are saved because of the transformational activity of hearing and chanting about Krishna, which actually produces virtue and good qualities.

When Srila Prabhupada was on the Jaladuta in the Boston Harbor, he frankly assessed the situation before him: a population drowning in passion and ignorance. How will these people ever become Krishna conscious? Then he expressed his deep realized experience of the transformational power of talks about Krishna, Krishna's holy name: Although the situation is impossible, because of the power of hearing about Krishna, the situation can be salvaged, and indeed, even the most fallen living entities can achieve perfection; all because of the transformational potency of sri-krsna-sankirtana.

In this way, we are not speaking of religious faith as ordinarily understood. We are speaking about a bhakti laboratory process of the transcendental sound vibration, entering the ear and the heart and producing virtue, producing divine qualities to the extent where at the level of complete purity, the Lord is eager to be transformed by the qualities of his devotee.

It is becoming very difficult for people today to understand what virtue is. In fact, even from the material point of view, you rarely hear mention of virtue and wisdom in terms of political leaders running for office. They do not promise the people, "I will be virtuous, I have wisdom." Everyone promises, "I will bring about more economic development for you; I will bring about more wealth in your pocket."

Politicians around the world remind themselves, quoting one famous American president, whenever the politician is perplexed how to appeal to the people, "It's the economy, stupid! It's the economy! It's the economy!" That's what they want. They want money. They want to see how their financial prosperity is increasing. These are the issues.

No one goes around saying, "I have virtue, I have wisdom, and I will train the population in virtue and wisdom." People don't want to hear that because their judgments of what is good and bad are so economically driven that economic principles have become the virtues.

Therefore the question is, in an exchange between two persons, is that exchange mutually beneficial for both of them, as each person perceives it? So much so that I may be selling you something that may not do you any good from one person's point of view, but if you think it does good for yourself and you give me money and I am pleased with that money, it is a mutually beneficial exchange. There should be great hesitation in applying the laws of the land to restrict such a mutually beneficial exchange.

We were speaking about this at our Chowpatty temple a week ago, that to varying degrees this is becoming the prime organizing principle of society: how to have exchanges in which one person gives money, the other person gives a product, and both persons are more or less satisfied by that exchange. This is the perfection of social organization to varying degrees. There may be some restraints in this country on selling certain types of things, and restraints in another country, or lack thereof, but to varying degrees, this economic principle is the foundation of society today.

So people don't know anymore what is virtue outside of situations that can be financially calculated. Here is a popular example that is given amongst so-called thinking persons. Who is more virtuous: Mother Theresa, Bill Gates, or Norman Borlaug? Now, you might think, well, obviously we all know, Mother Theresa is more virtuous. She was an ascetic, she was always living amongst the poor, clothed very simply, with very sad eyes upon seeing the suffering of others. Whereas, look at Bill Gates, filthy rich [laughter], the richest man in the world. How can there be any virtue there?

And who is Norman Borlaug? [laughter] Does anyone here know who Norman Borlaug is? No one? He is accredited with saving one billion people's lives because he is said to be the father of the agricultural revolution, the innovation of chemical agriculture that covered the world and saved a billion lives at least.

Yes, so what about Bill Gates? He has used his fortune to establish charities to eliminate malaria, dysentery, and other scourges of the developing world. You may say that he is certainly not a saintly person. You may say that he is filthy rich, he is greedy, he looks like an overgrown teenage computer nerd [laughter], but look what he is doing for billions of people. Then look at Mother Theresa. She prayed a lot and she gave poor people very primitive medicine. In other words, they died, but they died with lots of prayers around [laughter], living in very harsh circumstances, just surrounded by devotional mannerisms. These social psychologists point out that you have been fooled by an aura of sanctity.

When you look at the hard facts, Norman Borlaug is the savior of the world. One billion people, they calculate, have been saved because of the agricultural policies of chemical agriculture. Look at Bill Gates, countless people are being saved from malaria and dysentery. Then look at Mother Theresa, just because she acted like a saint, and clothed herself as a true believer and prayed a lot and spoke a lot of religious platitudes, how many people did she actually save? Therefore, we must have a completely different understanding of what is virtue. In other words, the traditional religious understanding of virtue has no practical impact in this world in terms of measuring against the philanthropic deeds of people you would never call a saint. So you must rethink your understanding.

Furthermore, you tend to think of virtue as an individual characteristic that can be cultivated. As an individual, you want to develop virtuous qualities. Your scripture says:

srnvatam sva-katha krsna punya sravana-kirtana

By hearing about Krishna, real virtue, real piety develops in the heart. All right, that is your individual thing, but let us look at the facts. We can see from the facts that generally—there are always exceptions—but generally, morality is situational. People decide what to do and what not to do based on the situation they are in. Research has shown this. I'll give you an example:

    * It has been shown by social psychologists that, if you are passing in front of a store that is selling fresh baked bread, and the street if filled with this smell, you will be more prone to do a good deed than someone who is walking past a clothing store and there is no smell of fresh bed in the air.
    * Similarly, if you are at a pay phone you find in the coin return slot one coin is there, immediately after that, you are more prone to try to help someone than otherwise.
    * A third example: if you are reading a book and in the book you see the words "virtue, goodness, charity," immediately after that you are more prone to help someone than someone who is reading a book in which they see the words "horror" or "terror."

Academics have spent much time and money researching these “crucial” situations. What happens when there is global tragedy like war? Is it that terrible persons come to the fore and do terrible things? No, according to social research, good persons are put in terrible situations and therefore they do terrible things. By and large, there are always exceptions, but by and large that is the general rule.

There is some lesson in all of this for the devotees of the Lord. Look at Brahma's situation: he has just dealt with the four Kumaras, catusa. Each of the four boys represents something very needed by human society: tapas, yoga, vairagya, sankhya.

Lord Brahma is considering the whole earth's situation, the whole universe's situation, as we heard His Holiness Radhanath Maharaja explain in class. So he wants to make a social system, a circumstance, a situation so that people can achieve the goal of their being in the material situation, which is to revive their Krishna consciousness. He turns to the four Kumaras and gives them the justifiable request: "Will you please procreate so that we can build up a system in the world, a populated system, in which, through that system, people can achieve the ultimate goal of life?" The four Kumaras tell him, "No. We're not interested. We don't want to enter into all of those activities."

This is showing, the acaryas point out, that the four Kumaras want direct bhakti and not so much to be involved with the manifestation of the varnasrama system. But Lord Brahma is thinking of the well being of all the conditioned souls in the universe. He knows that generally living entities are influenced by their situation, so he has the responsibility to construct a situation in which people can gradually make progress to the ultimate goal, because they are influenced by favorable circumstances for reviving their Krishna consciousness. He wants the four Kumaras to help in that.

But they refuse. Now he has Svayambhuva; he is requesting Svayambhuva, "You please procreate and also take responsibility for managing, take responsibility for protecting the living entities." Svayambhuva Manu graciously accepts with great love, "Yes, I'll do what you say."

It is not so easy to take responsibility like that. We are finding out this to be so in our Krishna consciousness organization. Who will take responsibility for Srila Prabhupada's movement as his disciples leave more and more, as they age more and more? Is it that everyone is jumping for the massive responsibilities? Is it that everyone is eager, "When will these old-timers move on, we can take their spot?"

There doesn't seem to be a mass outpouring [laughs] of voluntary desire, but Lord Brahma also had this problem, because what is going to happen is Svayambhuva Manu, as we'll find out in the Fifth Canto, wants to retire. And the only person he can turn to is Priyavrata. All other options in the hereditary line have been exhausted.

Priyavrata, he has been in seclusion receiving transcendental education from Narada Muni. Priyavrata has his mind set on remaining a brahmacari and having nothing to do with worldly rule, nothing to do with management.

This presents a problem for Brahma and Svayambhuva Manu because who will manage the world when there is a circumstance in which people can make gradual spiritual progress? And secondly, how can Svayambhuva Manu fulfill dharma by retiring from his extraordinary managemental burdens?

The situation was so intense that Lord Brahma had to personally appear in order to lovingly break Priyavrata's determination, and this was going to be a difficult job, the Bhagavatam explains, because who is Priyavrata's instructor? Narada Muni. Narada Muni has Priyavrata completely focused on brahmacarya, no management, no worldly responsibilities.

Brahma understands this is going to be a difficult task. He arrives at the Gandhamadana Hill accompanied by Lord Siva, accompanied by the personified Vedas, Marici, Vasistha, Atreya, all these great sages are in the entourage of Lord Brahma, because this is going to be such a momentous occasion and such a difficult occasion. How to convince this person who is qualified to take up managemental responsibility?

Lord Brahma descends on his swan, and there on top of the Gandhamadana hill you see Narada Muni, Svayambhuva Manu, and Priyavrata having their discussion. Lord Brahma arrives and the first thing Brahma does is let Priyavrata know, "I have been in contact with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Don't be jealous of his order." After all, everyone accepts the order of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In other words, you may desire not to do this, but this is what you should do.

Then Lord Brahma quotes many verses explaining that the living entity is not simply bound by his past karma, the living entity is not simply bound by his body, but the living entity is bound by the rules and regulations of dharma.

In this way Lord Brahma prevailed upon Priyavrata. At the end, both Priyavrata and Narada Muni were very happy to follow Brahma's order. They recognized, "This is the desire of the Supreme Lord;" and Svayambhuva Manu was definitely very happy because he could retire from administration, which he needed to do, in order to set an example for others how not to cling to such extraordinary responsibilities until the end of life; and also he needed to set the example for others that for one's own purification this is the best thing to do.

Now, in our attempts to staff responsibilities in our ISKCON society, at least to my tiny self, it is evident through traveling around the world that it's not that devotees are jumping to take up responsibilities. In many places, there are no devotees to take up responsibilities. So what to do?

Srila Prabhupada has explained that this Krishna conscious movement should always be a great challenge. In that way, devotees will feel enthusiastic to follow the regulative principles. Without that feeling of a challenge, they will become lethargic and slide under the grip of the material energy.

How is everyone to feel that challenge, that there is opportunity for me to do something wonderful for me to do for Krishna, and even though that wonderful service will require some austerity or purification, I am signing up for it? How to create that spirit for the Krishna conscious society to go on? It is an easy thing to do. As we can see, Brahma himself and Svayambhuva Manu had that problem, who is going to run the universe? Priyavrata didn't want anything to do with it. He was rightfully thinking, "I don't want to get involved in all this."

Then Lord Brahma gave him a hint. In the process of Lord Brahma saying that no one can avoid the order of the Lord through either yoga, Vedic rituals, or through their own intelligence, manisaya—that's the hint to Priyavrata. Manisaya, use your intelligence not to reject the order of the Lord, but to follow it. Priyavrata got the hint. The answer was yukta vairagya as enunciated so brilliantly by Rupa Go swami

"All right, I'll take up the post of managing all the planets of the universe, but I'll do it in the spirit of complete detachment. I'll do all my activities with the motive to please the Supreme Personality of Godhead." In that way, Priyavrata combined the instructions of Brahma to manage, and Narada Muni to remain aloof. He properly combined them all to the satisfaction of his predecessors, Brahma and Narada Muni.

I remember one letter from Srila Prabhupada that is not in the Folio now, but I would have this letter pinned to my locker in the Henry Street temple, 1973, in Brooklyn, New York. And there Srila Prabhupada explained something that on one hand seems sad, but on the other hand seems joyful. The letter was written to a leader that was disappointing Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada wrote:

"I am hearing such things about you that are making my heart feel very sad, very forlorn. I have given you the opportunity to be such a big leader on behalf of Lord Caitanya and now I'm hearing these things. Naturally you should understand how I am feeling."

So we may see these things, how we are disappointing Srila Prabhupada sometimes, not living up to his expectations. And Srila Prabhupada admitted, "I am feeling sad, I am feeling forlorn hearing these things, especially because I have given you such a big opportunity." Then Srila Prabhupada concluded, "Never mind, I know Lord Caitanya will send me the right person to lead this movement. If not you, someone else."
This is the surety of someone who understands Krishna's plan will prevail, who will be the ones who will get the extraordinary opportunity to participate in that plan.

If you look at the situation—let's talk about the first world, the developed world. We find that more and more people are becoming practically insane due to having no meaning in life. They are so disturbed by stress and anxiety.

This is affecting our preaching. We have in our line the command to reestablish in some kind of way, make some effort to reestablish daivi-varnasrama. Just like the four Kumaras wanted pure bhakti, but Svayambhuva Manu took it as his job to make favorable circumstances. Because indeed, most people are influenced by their circumstances.

Similarly, Srila Prabhupada taking the command from Bhaktivinoda Thakura through Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura down through Srila Prabhupada, he wanted that there would be a favorable attempt, to make some kind of structural arrangement, so that even those who are not strong enough to be Krishna conscious on their own will be influenced by circumstances and situations and in that way their gradual Krishna consciousness can be revived.

You remember in the last year of Prabhupada's presence among us, a devotee asked Prabhupada, "Why this talk about varnasrama dharma? Lord Caitanya's policy is to simply chant Hare Krishna. We thought that's what's it all about." Just to make a powerful point, Srila Prabhupada said, "Lord Caitanya, he was from the spiritual world. We're different. We want to help people." That doesn't mean, of course, that we shouldn't chant Hare Krishna. It means that Prabhupada was revealing his extraordinary compassion how in so many ways to help people gradually become purified.

Now this varnasrama dharma has proven to be a great challenge for us. And sometimes the challenge has been so great we don't even talk about it anymore. But what can be done? This is our parampara inheritance and we have to struggle with it.

It is a fact that most people are influenced by their circumstances. Put a person in a good situation, it is highly probable that person will do something good. Leave a good person in a terrible situation and indeed, as social psychologists point out, the good person will do terrible things, as has been seen in so many atrocities and genocides.

We have a lot of work to do, and we have a lot of responsibility to be taken. Sometimes even Lord Brahma becomes perplexed what to do. You'll see that. After Svayambhuva Manu agrees, "Father, whatever you ask, I'll readily do. But where should I be located, what to do about all the people, where should they stay? The earth has fallen into the Garbhodhaka Ocean."

And then Lord Brahma is perplexed, "Yes, that's right. How can this situation be fixed?" And while Lord Brahma is thinking in perplexity, Lord Varaha emerges from his nostril.
We are also, although not Brahma, we are thinking in perplexity: How are we going to not forget about our parampara inheritance that Srila Prabhupada wanted, that favorable circumstances be constructed so that people could become Krishna conscious. That's why he pushed varnasrama dharma. It seems so difficult; it seems even inconceivable, but what can we do? This is our line.

In closing, particularly in the first world, we see massive social degradation, people becoming crazy because of stress and lusty affairs since such a young age. It seems that in the 60's and 70's, that was the Satya-yuga [laughter] and now... Prabhupada came and got all the hippies of the Satya-yuga who really didn't do anything for the most part degraded (if they did at all), until they were eighteen.

Now all that degradation begins at the age of eleven and twelve! This has affected our preaching, in my humble opinion. I have seen this around the world, that devotees are perplexed, that young people today are nuts [laughs]. Everyone is so economically obsessed. What to do?

Perhaps we need to take another look at Srila Prabhupada's strategies. Maybe they weren't antiquated or outmoded, or maybe they weren't dreamy at all. How indeed to create situations so that people can become good, and how to take people out of situations in which they will do terrible things because the situation is terrible? That is a different way of looking at varnasrama dharma and our parampara inheritance.

So we have a short class today, fortunately for you, because kirtana was long. I'll end with those thoughts. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.

READ MORE on Environmental Issues HERE

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/expanding-deserts-by-land-and-sea/

LONDON, UK, March 11, 2008: Scientists have long projected that areas will become more desertic in a warming world -- from the Middle East through the European Riviera to the American Southwest, from sub-Saharan Africa to parts of Australia. But scientists have measured a rapid recent expansion of desert-like barrenness in the subtropical oceans, in places where surface waters have also been steadily warming.

Relatively plankton-free areas (and thus fish-free, harboring little life) in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans around the tropics typically cover about 20 percent of the global ocean surface, but have expanded about 15 percent since 1998, according to the new study. The change was measured by tracking color differences in sea water.

The authors of the study said the change could be temporary, given the short span of observations, but it matches a slight but steady warming trend in the affected ocean regions and also matches a pattern scientists have predicted would occur under human-caused global warming. It is not clear, however, that land and sea "deserts" are growing for the same reasons. Dr. Isaac Held, a scientist who specializes in climate modeling, said "I would advise keeping them as separate issues."

Mayapura Festival Lectures 2008
http://namahatta.org/en/node/6862

Transcribed by Anandatirtha Prabhu and Rasa Sundari Mataji, these lectures are published via the PAMHO conference MayapurLive. You find them on several devotee websites like www.mayapur.com and www.dandavats.com. Audio files are available here.

More HERE http://mayapurlectures.blogspot.com/

All Glories to Srila Prabhupada!

This letter brings you the special mercy of the Pancha Tattva, whose lotus feet are cooling like one million moons, providing eternal shelter to you and your loved ones.
I am taking this opportunity to highlight the significance of your participation in the upcoming Gaura Purnima Festival. Sri Navadvipa Dhama Mahatmya tells us that the merit of performing devotional service in the Holy Dham accrues 1000 times more spiritual benefit than in other places.

Become a much valued Festival supporter and enliven your spiritual life. I encourage you to perform prasada seva for the vaisanvas on any day of your choice. One Day Prasad is $2400 or one meal Prasad is $1200. You can also invite your friends to take advantage of this unique opportunity and collectively contribute for the event. Remember only ten days (five festival days and six parikrama days) are yet to be sponsored.

Please click now http://www.mayapur.com/main/?q=node/714 and enjoy browsing through the festival schedule of events and descriptions of the various sevas available to you.

Please join us, in the mood of loving service, to fulfill the vision of our previous Acharyas and Srila Prabhupada, who desired a grand Gaura Purnima Festival.

Do send me a mail if you need any other information.

Your servant in the service of Srila Prabhupada.
Bhakti Purusottama Swami.

Festival Co-ordinator
bps@pamho.net
Read More...
http://universal-iskcon.blogspot.com/2008/01/participate-in-gaura-purnima-2008.html

His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Listen to Prabhupada's explanation & kirtan below

http://www.harekrishnatemple.com/bhakta/chapter7.html

The transcendental vibration established by the chanting of Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare is the sublime method of reviving our Krsna consciousness. As living spiritual souls we are all originally Krsna conscious entities, but due to our association with matter from time immemorial, our consciousness is now polluted by the material atmosphere. The material atmosphere, in which we are now living, is called Maya, or illusion. Maya means "that which is not." And what is this illusion? The illusion is that we are all trying to be lords of material nature, while actually we are under the grip of her stringent laws. When a servant artificially tries to imitate the all-powerful master, this is called illusion. In this polluted concept of life, we are all trying to exploit the resources of material nature, but actually we are becoming more and more entangled in her complexities. Therefore, although we are engaged in a hard struggle to conquer nature, we are ever more dependent on her. This illusory struggle against material nature can be stopped at once by the revival of our Krsna consciousness. Krsna consciousness is not an artificial imposition of the mind; this consciousness is the original energy of the living entity. When we hear the transcendental vibration, this consciousness is revived. And this is the process recommended for this age by authorities. By practical experience also, one can perceive that by chanting this maha-mantra or the Great Chanting for Deliverance, one can at once feel a transcendental ecstasy coming through from the spiritual stratum. And when one is factually on the plane of spiritual understanding-surpassing the stages of the senses, mind, and intelligence-one is situated on the transcendental plane.

This chanting of Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare/Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare is directly enacted from the spiritual platform, and thus this sound vibration surpasses all lower strata of consciousness-namely sensual, mental, and intellectual. There is no need, therefore, to understand the language of the mantra, nor is there any need for mental speculation or any intellectual adjustment for chanting this maha-mantra. It springs automatically from the spiritual platform, and as such, anyone can take part in the chanting without any previous qualification, and dance in ecstasy.

We have seen this practically. Even a child can take part in the chanting, or even a dog can take part in it. Of course, for one who is too entangled in material life, it takes a little more time to come to the standard point, but even such a materially engrossed man is raised to the spiritual platform very quickly. When the mantra is chanted by a pure devotee of the Lord in love, it has the greatest efficacy on the hearers, and as such, this chanting should be heard from the lips of a pure devotee of the Lord, so that immediate effects can be achieved. As far as possible, chanting from the lips of non-devotees should be avoided. Milk touched by the lips of a serpent has poisonous effects.

The word Hara is the form of addressing the energy of the Lord, and the words Krsna and Rama are addressing the Lord Himself. Both Krsna and Rama mean "the supreme pleasure" and Hara is the supreme pleasure energy of the Lord, changed to hare in the vocative. The supreme pleasure energy of the Lord helps us to reach the Lord.

The material energy, called Maya, is also one of the multi energies of the Lord. And we, the living entities, are also the energy-marginal energy-of the Lord. The living entities are described as superior to material energy. When the superior energy is in contact with the inferior energy, an incompatible situation arises; but when the superior marginal energy is in contact with the superior energy, called Hara, the living entity is established in his happy, normal condition.

These three words, namely Hare, Krsna, and Rama, are transcendental seeds of the maha-mantra. The chanting is a spiritual call for the Lord and His internal energy, Hara, to give protection to the conditioned soul. This chanting is exactly like the genuine cry of a child for its mother. Mother Hara helps the devotee achieve the grace of the supreme Father, Hari, or Krsna, and the Lord reveals Himself to the devotee who chants this mantra sincerely.

No other means of spiritual realization, therefore, is as effective in this age as chanting the maha-mantra:

Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare

 Caitanya Mahaprabhu dreaming of Radha-Krsna

How often and where should one chant?

Srila Prabhupada set the rule that one should chant at least sixteen rounds a day if one is initiated. The best time for chanting is in the morning hours. Though Lord Caitanya mentions that there are no hard or fast rules for chanting, it is still important to know that the chanting is accompanied by following the regulative principles. However, since there are no hard and fast rules one can chant anytime and at any place. The most recommended way to chant is in association of devotees. It is also advantageous to chant in front of Tulasi devi. One main point that Mahaprabhu stressed is the attitude while chanting:

trnad api sunicena taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena kirtaniya sada hari
(Siksastaka 3)

"One should chant the holy name of the Lord in a humble state of mind, thinking oneself lower than the straw on the street, being more tolerant than a tree and always ready to offer all respects to others. In such a state of mind one can chant the holy name of the Lord constantly."

In regards of chanting during kirtan, there are certain rules, e.g. specific melodies and songs to be chanted in the temple. The classical melodies can be heard on the Vaisnava Songs link.

If you came to this page from the 'Introduction to Krishna Consciousness' please click the back button on your browser to continue reading the introduction. If you are participating in the bhakta program use the links below to continue your study.

Read more on Chanting Hare Krishna HERE:

The  Changing the Face of the Earth  campaign is a world-wide program to bring about a solution to the problems currently faced by this planet and her inhabitants.

The campaign aims to educate the governments and the people of the world in the practical application of the timeless teachings of the Vedas, India's storehouse of transcendental knowledge, as presented in the translations and commentaries by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

The Campaign aims to create public support for action to solve the world's current environmental and economic crisis in line with this timeless knowledge. Specifically:

    * Develop projects supporting environmentally sound self-sufficient communities at all levels.
    * Encourage vegetarianism and cow protection.
    * Establish Plain Living and High Thinking farm communities to demonstrate self-sufficient rural living is a viable alternative lifestyle.
    * Recognize the spiritual aspect of humanity and its importance to society, and its interrelationship with global problems.
    * Work towards the establishment of the perfect social system, Varnasrama dharma

Campaign Issues

    * Economic development and the environment
      The ability of this planet to support us is being reduced as a result of the intensive exploitation of her resources to support ever increasing economic development. To save the environment radical changes must be made in the way we approach trade and development issues. We can't expect to save the environment without changing our lifestyles!

    * Karma and consciousness
      Karma is the science of action and reaction. The law of karma states activities we perform now will cause a reaction in the future. Karma effects us as individuals, on a collective level as nations and ultimately the whole planet. The current environmental and economic crisis is a karmic reaction. This bad karma is a result of our sinful activities. There is no question of a solution until we reduce our sinful activities.

    * Vegetarianism and cow protection.
      The whole planet is now suffering as a result of the enormous burden of karma created by massive slaughterhouses killing large numbers of innocent animals, particularly the cow. For peace and prosperity in the world this animal killing must be curtailed. If animal killing continues global war will be the inevitable result.

    * Plain Living and High Thinking
      Life need not be complicated. If we have some land, cows and food grains, life can be very peaceful and simple. Such a lifestyle affords ample time for the practice of spiritual activities. There should be provisions made to enable people to choose this lifestyle as an alternative to hectic city life.

    * Varnasrama Social System
      This social system is a natural system which recognizes that different people have different propensities and should therefore be engaged in work suitable to their qualities.The governments should recognize the different qualities of their citizens and engage them accordingly. People will be happy if they are working at tasks compatible with their nature.

    * The Golden Age
      The current age is Kali-yuga, or the iron age of quarrel, however the timeless Vedic Scriptures of India describe this iron age can be transformed into a golden age of prosperity and spiritual reawakening. The world can be transformed if the leaders of the principal governments encourage the Sankirtana movement.

    * The Science of mantra Meditation
      In this age the most practical and effective form of meditation is chanting the Hare Krishna maha mantra. It can solve all the problems we are currently facing and enable us to leave this material world and go back home, back to Godhead after we leave this body.

We ask the governments of the world to help establish the golden age by implementing the advice given in this document. The result will be a transformation of the planet and an end to the problems we are currently facing: environmental, social and economic.

http://www.krishna.org/ctfote/

This section of the site contains stories of Reincarnation collected from visitors to Beyond Religion.

Read more on Reincarnation HERE:

http://www.mynews.in/fullstory.aspx?storyid=2907

TAMIL NADU, INDIA, March 11, 2008: Two Christians died and many more were wounded when shot by police who intervened yesterday to stop clashes between Dalit Catholics and upper caste Catholics in the diocese of Pondicherry- Cuddalore (Tamil Nadu). Troubles started on March 7 when a group of Dalit Christians from the Villupuram district began a hunger strike to protest discrimination in a local parish by the Vanniyar. Three months ago Dalits from St Jabamalais Annai Church in Earyur built another church dedicated to Saghaya Madha (Our Lady of perpetual Help) and sought to have it erected as a separate parish with its own priest. They were backed in their demands by two political groups, the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (Vck) and Ambedkar Makkal Iyakkam (AMI).

According to Catholic Priest Fr G. Cosmon Arokiaraj, secretary to the Church's Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the "confrontation in the area between Dalit and Vanniyar Catholics goes back quite some time. For years Dalits have been discriminated within the Church itself," he said. "They cannot sit with upper caste members in the same church; they are buried in separate cemeteries. When the mother of a Dalit priest died in the 1990s the upper caste did not allow the funeral procession to use the main road; even the bishop failed to bring about a compromise."

courtesy of Hinduism Today  http://www.hinduismtoday.com

Please pass this info to your female friends........ Something to take note of.

This is my true story, nothing altered. These are facts, as they relate to my experience, my opinions based on what I have read and felt. I am relating them to warn other young health-conscious women who are unwittingly harming themselves.

In 1989, I graduated from high school in Texas and couldn't wait to hit the big college city. One of the changes I wanted to make was to eat healthier. Once I moved to health-conscious Austin, Texas, I began to fortify my body with the best and healthiest foods I could find. Tofu was the main ingredient in every healthy dish, and I bought Soya milk almost every day.

I used it for everything from cereal to smoothies or just to drink for a quick snack. I bought Soya muffins, miso soup with tofu, soybeans, soybean sprouts, etc. All the literature in all the health and fitness magazines said that Soya protected you against everything from heart disease to breast cancer. It was the magical isoflavones, the estrogen-like hormones, that all worked to help you stay young and healthy. I looked great, I was working  out all the time, but my menstrual cycle was off.

At 20, I started taking birth control pills to regulate my menstrual cycle. In addition to this, I began to suffer from painful periods. I began to get puffy, it was as though I was losing my muscle tone, began to suffer from depression and getting hot flashes. I mistook all this for PMS, since my periods were irregular. By the time I was 25, my periods were so bad I couldn't walk. The birth control pills never made them regular or less painful, so I decided to stop taking them. I went on like this for another two years until I realized my pain wasn't normal.

At 27, my gynaecologist found two cysts in my uterus. Both were the size of tennis balls. I went through surgery to have them removed and thank God they were benign. The gynaecologist told me to go back on birth control pills. I didn't. In 1998, he discovered a lump in my breast. Again, I went through surgery and again it was benign.

In November 2000 my glands swelled up and my gums became inflamed. Thinking I had a tooth infection, I went to the dentist who told me that teeth were not the problem. After a dose of antibiotics the swelling stilldid not go down. At this point I could feel a tiny nodule on the right side of my neck.

I told my mother I had thyroid trouble. She thought I was being silly. No one in the family suffered from thyroid trouble.

Going on a hunch, I saw a specialist who diagnosed me with Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma. After a series of tests he told me it was cancer. My fiancé and I sat stunned. We were not prepared and I was so scared. We scheduled surgery right away. The specialist told us that it would only be after the operation that a pathologist would be able to tell us for sure if it was cancer. They found a tumor at my right lobe composed of irregular cells and another smaller tumor growing on the left, so the entire thyroid was removed.

They told me that after undergoing radioactive iodine I would be safe and assured me that I could live a long life. After treatment I began to search for the cause of all these problems. I never once thought it could be all the Soya I had consumed for nearly ten years. After all, Soya is healthy.

I came upon a web page that linked thyroid problems to Soya intake and the conspiracy of Soya marketed as a health food, when in fact it is only a toxic by-product of the vegetable oil industry. This was insane, after all, the health and fitness magazines had said nothing about Soya being harmful.

I visited a herbalist who was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 1985. She informed me that Soya was the culprit. She had a hysterectomy due to cysts and other uterine problems. A few months later another acquaintance who had consumed Soya came down with thyroid cancer. A girl in England I met through the internet in a thyroid cancer forum had just undergone surgery, she was only 19. What was going on????

Breast cancer is linked to estrogen. What mimics estrogen in the female body, SOYA! But I never suspected Soya because until now I never once found  single article that stated Soya could be dangerous. Women who took Soya prior to thyroid problems will continue to take it after if they are not aware of what Soya actually does, what it contains and how it reacts in the female body. I think this is the reason that women with thyroid cancer often develop breast cancer later.

My co-worker is big into Soya and I see her losing hair and gaining weight despite a walking workout during her break and after work, and apples and oranges for lunch. She just had cysts removed from her uterus, too. I warn her to stay off Soya. I referred her to websites, but until it is in the evening news on all four networks, women will suffer. Since the thyroidectomy, I do not touch Soya, haven't for two years.

Dear readers, please use my story in any way you can. There are so many young girls who are consuming Soya because they think they are taking care of themselves, and women taking Soya because they want to be healthy. It is so unfair that the information about the dangers of Soya isn't more widely circulated. It is sad. There are many out there who feel this way and it is a terrible blow when you realize you are not as healthy as you thought and that the information that you depended on was wrong.

Some references:

http://www.haelan.co.uk/Wholefood-Soya.shtml

http://www.netlink.de/gen/Zeitung/2000/000813.html

Burial of an Aryan was found in the Russian city of Omsk, reported archaeologist Albert Pelevedov to "Interfax". Analyses indicated that the Aryan had lived 3 500 years ago.

One of the residents of the Beregovoy village (located on the outskirts of Omsk) discovered the burial. While fixing a water-pipe, the man stumbled upon a skull and immediately called the police. However, policemen denied criminal nature of the case and invited archaeologists to conduct some tests.

According to Polevodov, the burial belongs to the Andron culture (middle of the second millennium BC).

The archaeologist tells that the Aryan has been buried on his left side, facing south; his upper and lower limbs all drawn in. Archaeologists were able to determine the time of the burial afterexamining ceramic pieces found next to the skeleton. Some of the ceramic pieces depicted swastika turned the opposite direction.

Polevedov states, "Andron people, European-like tribes, who spoke languages of Indo-Iranian language group, were in fact the exact same Aryans that used to be praised by fascists."

The find is of tremendous significance due to the fact that settlements of Andron tribes are quite rare for that particular region. Back in the days, they were forced out of there, stated the archaeologist.

According to specialists, the burial was not solitary in the area. It is also possible that a larger settlement of Andron people can be found by the river Irtysh.

Vedic World Heritage links:

See our pages supporting these views HERE:
http://www.hknet.org.nz/VWH.html (Vedik World Heritage)
Western Indologists been exposed page:
http://www.hknet.org.nz/WesternIndologists-page.htm
How British Misguided the World on Vedic History
http://www.hknet.org.nz/MotiveBritishRajMissionaries.html

Tory Ministers Visit site where Gangotri was Killed by the RSPCA
http://www.dandavats.com/?p=5472

PRESS RELEASE by Bhaktivedanta Manor

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

11th March

2008

Tory Ministers Visit site where Gangotri was Killed by the RSPCA

Peter Ainsworth MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Shailesh Vara MP, Shadow Deputy Leader of the House of Commons visited Bhaktivedanta Manor in Watford on Monday 11th March. The shadow ministers met with His Grace Gauri Das, President of the Temple. Top of the agenda was discussion about Gangotri, recently put to death by the RSPCA

The visit included a tour of the Cow Protection programme and works to the new 3 million pound project to build the largest Cow Protection Farm in Europe. “The ministers saw the bulls working in the fields, and cows being milked? said Gauri Das the Temple President. “We all then had a tasty and enjoyable lunch with paneer curry, a curd cheese made from milk from our cows fresh that morning.”

When visiting the site at which Gangotri was put to death by the RSPCA, Mr Ainsworth said ?I hope that the community at Bhaktivedanta Manor will accept my sincere condolences on the loss of Gangotri. One of the many things which I learnt from my visit is that Bhaktivedanta Manor provides a very caring environment, and I fully believe that Gangotri benefited from all possible attention and medical care. I was disturbed to learn that the version of events set out to me by the RSPCA differs, in some important matters of fact, from what was actually experienced on site in the days leading up to 13th December last year.?

Among other things the temple is seeking an investigation into the killing of Gangotri by the RSPCA, Mr Ainswroth gave his support to this end and said ?I agree that it will be important to establish the truth of what happened, partly so that justice can be done to Gangotri’s memory, partly to ensure that the integrity of the Manor is upheld, and partly so that lessons can be learnt. I will be asking Hilary Benn to report on progress since the meeting he held with representatives of the Hindu community.?

Mr Vara the Shadow leader of the House of Commons said, ?I am particularly keen to ensure that, for the future, there is a proper procedure established, so that this sort of incident does not happen again. We must all work together to achieve that end.?

The Hindu Community have been reeling at the way the RSPCA acted and the killing of Gangotri has seen universal condemnation from Hindus from around the world.

?It is clear to me that what happened on 13th December was not acceptable or right.? Commented Mr Ainsworth.

The Temple has is now considering legal proceedings against the RSPCA and looking to the Government to act, to prevent such incidents happening in the future.

ENDS

Notes to Editor:

COPYRIGHT FREE PHOTOS

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48778979@N00/

Permission nor any acknowledgement is required to use these pictures.

For photos and further information please contact Vinay Tanna, Communications Director at the Temple, on 077 80 70 70 60

Interviews: Kapil Dudakia, Chair of the Justice for Gangotri Campaign: 07971573026

For further information about the visit, please contact Daniel Hunt in Shailesh Vara MP’s office on 0207 2196050

Bhaktivedanta Manor:

Bhaktivedanta Manor, in Aldenham near Watford in Hertfordshire, is one of the largest Hindu temples in Europe and possesses 78 acres of land. In 1973 former Beatle George Harrison purchased the property for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). A beautiful shrine was established in August 1973 by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, who brought the movement to the West in 1965. Bhaktivedanta Manor, renamed in his honour, is now a theological college for fifty trainee priests. It has become the most important Krishna shrine in Britain, and on the festival occasion of Janmashtami, attracts up to 60,000 visitors. The shrine is acclaimed for its high standards of cleanliness and devotion. Amongst its parkland, lake and gardens, cows and bullocks graze peacefully in the pasture. The centre also includes courses and workshop training facilities, a monastic order, a fully equipped theatre room, and a nursery and primary school.

The RSPCA? s killing of Gangotri:

On 13th December 2007 one of Bhaktivedanta Manor? s sick cows who was being treated by its keepers and professional vets with Reiki, acupuncture and massage was unfairly and forcibly put down by officials from the RSPCA.

The death of Gangotri, a Belgian Blue-Jersey cross, caused outrage among worshippers, who say that they were deceived. ?This is shocking and duplicitous behaviour. We have been deceived by those who had given us their word,? Gauri Das, president of the temple, said.

Gauri das said that the RSPCA and police had given assurances that they would not take drastic action and that the temple would be allowed to form a legal case, but that they returned to kill the cow when many devotees were praying.

The issue received considerable media attention both nationally and internationally, and Bhaktivedanta Manor received support from all the main Hindu organisations in Britain, including the Hindu Forum of Britain, The International Society for Krishna Consciousness, The National Council of Hindu Temples, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Swaminarayan Mission (BAPS), and the National Hindu Students Union.

Hindu leaders expressed their outrage and frustration, considering the killing to be not only an entirely unnecessary waste of life, but also a symbolic attack on Hinduism itself, a religion of non-violence.

“Never before have I seen such anger and solidarity in our community,? said Arjan Vekaria of the Hindu Forum of Britain. ?We want answers and retribution and we will not stop until we get them.”

Raj Joshi, the vice-chairman of The Society of Black Lawyers, angrily commented: ?This action is showing complete disregard for the sensitivities of the third largest religion in this country. It is astonishing that the authorities seem to have disregarded all customary tolerance and understanding, and certainly the relevant legislation, in carrying out this unwarranted and inhumane destruction of an animal.?

Over the Christmas period prayer vigils were held and protests were staged outside the RSPCA? s national headquarters in Horsham, West Sussex.

On 13th February 2008 a noisy demonstration was held outside Parliament with a simultaneous event in India to mark the scattering of Ashes of Gangotri. The demonstration culminated in the mock killing of a ‘cow’ by protestors dressed as RSPCA officers.

For more information, news and views about the Gangotri issue, please visit: http://www.justiceforgangotri.org

See our World Vegetarian Day Newsletters 2004 - 2005 - World Vege Day

See similar articles at Vegetarianism & beyond:
http://turn.to/Vegetarianism

There's a story of four brahmin boys who were looking for wealth, so they went up into the Himalayas.  Brahmin means devotee, but they were interested in getting wealth.  They were thinking, "I've just come out of gurukula training, now we have to get some wealth, and then we can get married and have a happy life."  So they went to one sage who was living
near the Himalayan mountains, and they asked him, "My dear sage, we have heard that you are all-knowing, so please tell us where we can find wealth."  The sage said, "All right.  So now I will put in each of your hands one ghee wick, a cotton ghee wick.  You just hold that in your hand, and you walk up into the Himalayan mountains.  Wherever this wick drops during the course of walking up the mountain, at that spot if you dig you will find something valuable.  You will find precious metal up to the value of gold."  So they were very happy, and they went up into the mountains holding their wicks.  One of the wicks dropped, so the boy dug there and he found copper.  "Oh, copper.  Very nice."  The other boys said, "Why just copper?"  "No no," the boy said, "I am satisfied.  The sage said, wherever the wick drops, so this is my quota.  God has given copper."  So he took that and went down.  The other boys continued, and another wick dropped.  When they dug they found silver.  "Ah, silver, very nice.  Even more valuable."  The boy whose wick had dropped was very satisfied, but the other two said, "Well silver's alright, but the sage said up to gold."  "Anyway," the boy said, "I've found silver by God's grace, so I'm taking that."  So the other two continued, and one of their wicks dropped.  He dug, and he found gold.  "All right," one said, "here it is, the gold.  Enough for both of us."  The last one said, "Yes, but I still have my wick.  It hasn't dropped yet."  The other one replied, "Yes, but the sage said nothing more valuable than gold."  "Well anyway," the last boy said, "I still have my wick, so I am going to find my treasure."  "Well you do as you like," the boy who found the gold said, "but I am taking this gold."  So then the last boy went high into the Himalayas, up to the very top, and still his wick didn't drop.  Then he saw one man in the distance.  So he was calling to him, "My dear sir, do you know of any valuable treasure up here?  I am looking for wealth."  As soon as he said that, his wick dropped.  So he thought, "There must be something very valuable here."  Meanwhile the boy had come a little closer to the man, and he noticed that the man was standing in a strange way, he was not moving, and there was a wheel turning on his head.  The middle of the wheel, the hub was grinding into his head and causing blood to flow, and this man was obviously in great pain.  When this boy's wick dropped then that wheel was suddenly moving from the other man's head onto his head, and the wheel was turning and he was feeling great pain.  He also could not move any more, the wheel was somehow keeping him in place.  The other man could move again and he was saying, "Oh, I'm free!  Thank God!"  The brahmin said, "Please tell me what is going on here!  Why am I suddenly stuck to this spot?  I cannot move and this wheel is on my head and it is feeling very painful.  What is happening?"  The other man replied, "You have come to the place where Kuvera keeps his treasure.  He's the treasurer of the demigods, and all his wealth, all the wealth of the demigods is buried here and you have come across it."  "Well, what is this wheel?" the boy asked.  "This wheel is a weapon of Kuvera which protects his treasure."  "Oh," the boy said.  "So tell me, what is going to happen to me?"  "What is going to happen to you," the man said, "Is the same thing that happened to me.  I also came up here looking for treasure.  I came up with some friends and met an old sage, and he gave us ghee wicks.  My friends got copper, silver and gold, but I wanted to go higher.  I came up here, and the wheel came onto my head."  "So what can I expect?" the boy asked.  "Well, this wheel will stay on your head and keep you fixed to this place.  You will not grow thirsty or hungry, you will just stay and not be able to move until somebody else comes up here looking for treasure.  Then you will be released, and he will get the wheel on his head."  "How long were you here?"  the boy questioned.  "Who is the king of India now?"  The boy gave the name of some king, and the man replied, "Well when I came up here, Lord Ramachandra was king."  "Oh no!" the boy said.  "That was two million years ago!"  And then the man was going to leave.  "No you can't leave!" the boy said.  "Yes, I can leave, I'm getting out of here.  I've suffered so much."  This greedy brahmin was left up there, and probably he's still up there now.  So don't go up into the Himalayas looking for treasure.

MORAL:  This is an illustration how this lusty desire for sense gratification can get one in great difficulty.  This brahmin broke the law and took more than his quota, so therefore he got into trouble.

See similar inspirational snippets HERE:
http://www.hknet.org.nz/parables.htm

The phaomnneil pweor of the hmuan mnid: Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig!
Mybae the I can sotp slpel ckchenig?

http://www.gaura-gambhira.com/

Written by HH Bhakti Purusottama Swami

Dear Maharaj/ Prabujis/ Matajis,

It is my great pleasure to inform all the devotees of Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu that a great service opportunity has been offered by the temple authorities of Gambhira, in Puri dham, where Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu spent the final years of His manifested pastimes on this earthly planet. Kasi Mishra's house, also known as Gambhira, and the Radha Kanta math, were both under the care of the Orissa government due to 20 years of litigation. Finally, this litigation problem has been resolved and the management of the institution has been returned to the temple mahanta.

The temple has sustained much damage over the years due to lack of proper maintenance. The whole place is very dirty and the roofs and walls are falling down. The temple roof is also cracking. Additionally, the temple has a lack of proper income for the maintenance of the devotees and for deity puja—and, of course, the more the Gambhira is allowed to deteriorate, the fewer visitors it will have.

At this crucial point, the mahanta of Gambhira has requested ISKCON to extend kind assistence to him in order to protect and maintain this most holy place. Devotees from all over the world come to offer their prayers and obeisances at Gambhira. This is one of the most important places for the followers of Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and must be maintained nicely.

Thus, this is a golden opportunity for devotees to render service to this most sacred cause. I request all devotees to kindly donate towards this purpose. There are many things to be fixed at the place. For the time being we have prepared a rough budget, for whatever the most urgent needs are, just to bring the situation up to  survival position. Later on, we will let you know about further opportunities for service in the development of the Gambhira.

For further information contact

Bhakti Purusottama Swami

Phone: ++ 91 9434506434

E mail: bps@pamho.net

Topical Articles:
Abortion - http://www.hknet.org.nz/index-abortion.htm
Genetic Engineering ( GE or GM ) - http://www.hknet.org.nz/GE.html
Environment - http://www.hknet.org.nz/Environment.htm
Encroachment - http://www.hknet.org.nz/WE-Day2004.html
Cloning - http://www.hknet.org.nz/cloning.htm
Science - http://www.hknet.org.nz/science2KC.html
Cow Protection - http://www.hknet.org.nz/Cow-protection.htm
The Four Regulative Principles of Freedom - http://www.hknet.org.nz/Regs-4page.htm
seX-files - http://www.hknet.org.nz/seX-files.htm
Mundane Knowledge - http://www.hknet.org.nz/mundaneknowledge.html
Death (Yamaduttas - Terminal Restlessness etc)- http://www.hknet.org.nz/death.html
Near Death Experience - http://www.hknet.org.nz/NDE.htm
Ghosts - http://www.hknet.org.nz/ghosts.htm
Reincarnation again here - http://www.hknet.org.nz/Reincarnation-page.htm
Gain some insights in the TV culture  - http://www.hknet.org.nz/television.html
The aweful Truth about softdrinks - http://www.hknet.org.nz/theREALthing.html
Changing the face of the Earth - http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1390/index.html
UFOs - http://www.hknet.org.nz/UFOs.html
Vegetarianism & Beyond - http://turn.to/Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism in the major Religions - All manner of religions
Articles for newcomers to Krishna consciousness - http://www.krishna.com/newsite/main.php?id=87
Self Help and Motivational pages - Deals and Affiliate programs: - http://www.hknet.org.nz/index-selfhelp.html
Myth of the Aryan invasion by Dr. David Frawley: - http://www.hknet.org.nz/Aryan-invasion-mythDF.html

The Peace Formula - (By HDG Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada) http://www.hknet.org.nz/PeaceFormula.html

.........many other articles - http://www.hknet.org.nz/index-articles.htm

and from there go to the Main Index http://www.hknet.org.nz/index.htm

Iskcon News Articles now available - many topical insights
http://www.iskcon.com/new/index.html

Paradigms - where things are not all they seem

 The Peace Formula
http://www.hknet.org.nz/PeaceFormula.html

The Real Peace Formula
http://www.hknet.org.nz/PeaceRealF.html

See more on Yoga and Meditation HERE:
http://www.hknet.org.nz/index-yoga.html

World Vegetarian Day October 1st yearly &
World Vegetarian Awareness Month of October yearly
...please visit our links and see what you can do to help

World Smoke Free Day
31st May Every Year 

http://www.be-free.org/b-media/market-bfree03/cinema.php

yeah kick the butt
...and remember from 10th December 2004 no more smoking in public places in New Zealand by law