Retreat—05 Concluding Statements

Mahatma dasa: One of the things that I always think of, and [Unintelligible 00:00:04] and I talk about this a lot; two things, is how to give our experience in these retreats, which is unforgettable, and then how we can help the devotees after, because we put a lot of effort into this. So obviously, it is our baby, we want to see the baby grow. So, I think I can speak for all the facilitators. We have an intense desire within our heart to see you succeed in your japa. So, when you leave here and you are having a rough day, just think of us. We spent a lot of time planning, and there are many things that we didn’t do here because we have eliminated them over time to see what works better. So, we are constantly planning, meditating, thinking how we can give this to you. And so, your greatest gift to us is to be able to take what we have given. That is our happiness, that is all we really want.

So, if you are having a bad day, just think of us, that we are rooting for you, and think of all the devotees that are here, they are also rooting for you. We have already prayed twice for the benefit, and we are going to end also praying again. So, I am going to put [Unintelligible 00:01:32] in the middle of the prayer circle. [laughter] And also, I am very fortunate to have spent from 1997 to 1999, six months a year in Vrindavan, which is one of the highlights of my life where I could read and study minimum six hours a day, and then teach one or two hours a day. And after I left Vrindavan, I came back to America, and we were living as poor brahmans. And my wife said, “You know we don’t have a car, we don’t have a house, we don’t have a bank balance, and we don’t have any children. What is going on here?” [laughter] I said, “Well, I am just a poor brahman.” She said, “I don’t like this poor brahman program.” So, she said, “You are so smart, make some money.” [laughter] So, at that point, it was the first time, that was in 1999 or 2000, it was the first time I actually went outside of the movement to do any independent work to make money. And because I was a little older at that time, we didn’t have children, we didn’t have a home, we didn’t have anything, so I just said, “I better dive into this.” So, I dove hook, line, and sinker, which was one of the biggest mistakes that I ever made in my life. We bought the house, we had the cars, we had it all. And I was working practically from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed.

It was only years later that I went to a seminar and saw this person on stage speaking to a thousand people, thirty of which were devotees, and I said, “Why aren’t the devotees on stage?” I said, “That is what I want to do.” And at that point, I realized I had disconnected from that side of me and just done business. And from that point, I prayed sincerely to Krishna to be able to do that. And there is no place I would rather be than here, doing this, as you could probably tell from the last five days. And it is a challenge to be able to support oneself doing this, that is my dream, doing this for devotees and non-devotees. So, I pray that you will pray for me that I can continue doing this exclusively. Thank you. Hare Krishna. [applause]

Dravida dasa: Hare Krishna. You know you are going to get a verse, right? [laughter]

vāñchā-kalpa-tarubhyaś ca
kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca
patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo
vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namaḥ

Just like you chant Hare Krishna, all of us, I assume, have chanted Hare Krishna before we came here, some sixteen rounds a day, some less, some more, whatever. But the chanting that we experienced here has a special quality because of all the guidance, the intensity, the focus, the association, everything has made us, made me, appreciate the holy name much more. So, similarly, that verse, which I am unusual in that, I have been in the movement thirty-five years, and that is thirty-five years’ worth of maṅgala-ārati, guru-puja class, sixteen rounds. Not to be proud or anything but just to let you know where I am coming from. But that verse is so rich when you actually think about what it means, that devotees are desire trees. In other words, they are fulfilling your real desire, your innermost desire, which is to be introduced to Krishna and to love Krishna more and more. Oceans of mercy, just think what that means.

Of course, I think of Prabhupada because I was thinking, everything is personal here, you think that there are all persons here, tulasi is personal, the deities, Prabhupada, the sort of [Unintelligible 00:05:56], everything is personal. And those Supreme persons, Radha and Krishna, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Lord Nityananda, they are the original oceans of mercy that are sending forth all of this energy. And what do they what? They just want us to come back to our original state and be happy in their service, that is what it is all about. And Srila Prabhupada, of course, was the most prominent and greatest messenger, taking the mercy all over the world. And this holy name of Krishna is also that mercy, it is all there, that holy name, we just need to allow the mercy energy, if you will, to affect us. And I could feel all that, you are not conscious of that. Not that I never appreciated that verse before but, you know how it can become routine in anything. But this is what is so wonderful about these focused seminars and these retreats. The retreat is very important, it costs so much, there is so much time involved, trouble getting here, but you are disconnected from all the other things in your life that distract, and it is just this one focus, so it is important to get away. The seminars you do in the temples are also very nice, but this is a special thing, this retreat aspect and the sign, I think in Catholic church, in the Christian community, that this is an important aspect that they also use.

So, I just wanted to thank all of you because I have been appreciating the devotees more with this focus. And sometimes this is one of the things I like to do. When you see devotees such as Maharaja or Mahatma or other senior devotees or anyone, you see they have a whole history of service. Mahatma Prabhu was telling me that in the last retreat, we had a long car ride together back from Delphi to Alachua with other devotees. And I learned, I had known it years ago, that he had spent so much time in Mauritius and in South Africa and he joined in San Diego, preaching and working hard for the devotees. We have hundreds and hundreds of years’ worth of devotional service represented here, Yadubara Maharaja, Vaisesika Prabhu and others, Kanka, and other senior devotees, Manmohini, this is actually an exalted assembly. And so, this is one of the things that I am personally taking away from this, to try to keep that appreciation for the devotees in mind, at all times. Another thing I wanted to share with you about the sixty-four round day, I think one of the things that we all experienced here is that you really confront yourself when you are chanting these sixty-four rounds, or any number of rounds, but especially when you start going thirty-two, forty-eight; it is like it is just you and the holy name and the mind. And some of the deepest misgivings or problems, everything starts to come out and you can see, “This is the impediment why I am not tasting all the nectar that I know was there in the holy name.”

So, for some reason, I had gotten here very early, I had gotten up at 1:45, and I opened the temple, finally successfully. Forgive me for not doing that the first day. And so, I already had a bunch of rounds chanted by the time everyone was coming in. And so, I was on round thirty-five when we finally broke after the first seven o’clock thing and we really got into the whole days with the chanting. So, I wanted to move a little bit. The body is getting a little older, you can’t just sit for eight hours anymore. And so, I started to walk around, and suddenly, I had this mood of saṅkīrtana. And I had been chanting and I was seeing all this foliage out here. And I was thinking of just the different kinds of cactuses and the little thorny bushes and everything. I said, “Boy, these poor living entities in here that they took this particular birth up in the mountains, it gets cold, in the desert.” And so, I had this idea, “Well, let me do some saṅkīrtana.” I will chant rounds really loudly and go around the poor little. . .and I was touching them. I was touching each one and I don’t know, [Unintelligible 00:10:22]. I just had that mood. And while I was doing that, I felt an upsurge of appreciation for the holy name. And, what I took away from that is that giving the holy name also gives you more appreciation for the holy name.

We have our hari-nāma in the temple every Friday night and I go out all the time as much as I can when I am there. And I never fail, that the next morning the rounds are sweeter, your whole appreciation for Krishna consciousness is sweeter. So, saṅkīrtana and giving out books, of course, that is invaluable in saṅkīrtana, will help you appreciate the holy name. And the final thing I wanted to express is that we have a great shelter, which maybe goes without saying but I will say it anyway, great shelter in Srila Prabhupada’s books, and that the instructions that are there throughout are all meant to help us to come to the point of sitting down and really appreciating the holy name, because that is Krishna. So, it is meant to help us, they are all meant to help us appreciate who is Krishna, that we are His servants, and that He is our life and soul. And one more plug for Mahanidhi Swami’s book, The Art of Chanting Hare Krishna, I have nothing to gain by selling this book, I don’t make anything from it, but I really think that it will help you over the weeks and months to come, to revive many of the things that you learned here. And so, if you can get it, I highly recommend it. Hare Krishna. [applause]

So, Yadubara dasa is next, Maharaja is going to go last. So, that leaves us time for another shloka with a poem. All right, I will give you one verse about the holy name. This is from the Krishna Karnamrita, a beautiful book by Bilvamangala Thakura. Near the end of it, he has this verse that includes appreciation for the holy name. He says,

jaya jaya jaya deva deva deva tri-bhuvana-maṅgala-divya-nāma-dheya jaya jaya jaya deva kṛṣṇa deva śravaṇa-mano-nayanāmṛtāvatāra, “O glory, glory, glory Lord O glory unto thee who with thy holy name bless all three worlds and set them free. O glory, glory, glory unto you O Krishna Deva, whose nectar floods our ears and eyes and hearts in endless waves.”

Hare Krishna. [applause]

Yadubara dasa: Hare Krishna. Of course, I want to thank everyone who came and took the trouble and put their normal lives aside to participate, and of course, the organizers, and especially, [Unintelligible 00:13:34] who phoned me about two months ago and asked if I could attend and lead the kirtans. And I was quite surprised, I have never gone to a place and just done that or had that as my service. First, that service was not full on until last night. Thank you for that. I also, like Mahatma Prabhu, I took seminars before on self-improvement and so forth, not a lot, a couple, but I always thought, Wouldn’t it be nice to have a Krishna conscious seminar to develop the qualities that we want to develop as Vaishnavas? So, I want to thank you for taking on that service. It is a great service, very much needed. Thank you. As far as the sixty-four rounds day, that is the second time I have done sixty-four rounds. And I wouldn’t say the results are astounding, there were some wonderful results, but not anything like some of the things I have heard. [laughter] But I would like to say that chanting this morning was very, very wonderful. We may not get the results we wanted on that particular day, but I think it will definitely come. And we have been given the tools to do that, and that is extremely important. So, I think we should take all the things we have heard very seriously and review the notebook, the japa journal. I would like to do that at least once a week.

So our goal, really, in our Krishna consciousness movement, everything we are meant to do is to please the Vaishnavas, to please our spiritual master, and to please the Lord. And I think they are all pleased these past few days by the activities we have engaged in with full attention. It has been a very wonderful experience for me. Sometimes in leading the kirtans, I would become quite emotional, and I was thinking that I shouldn’t do this because this will block my service. But I think that is what this week, these last few days have done, is to bring up the emotions in our heart and the feelings for the Vaishnavas. It may not be the feelings for the Lord, but if it is the feelings for the Vaishnavas, practically that is equal. And I really want to recognize and thank [Unintelligible 00:16:44] Prabhu for what he told us, that was not easy, I am sure. But also, because he hasn’t given up. And that is the wonderful thing, he hasn’t given up. And just like Prabhupada said, that we are like little children. Sometimes we fall, but we get up, we never just lie on the floor and not get up, we continue. So, that is the case with, I think, many of us. And there is a wonderful verse in the Eleventh Canto. I asked Dravida Prabhu to remember it. But it is Lord Krishna speaking about His devotee who is both attached to the spiritual and the material. And sometimes, by acting, engaged in sense gratification, he does that, but he is disgusted with it, he doesn’t like it at all. He knows the results going to be bad, but still, by because he has this body and because he has a certain set of senses, he has to engage, practically forced. But Krishna says that he should actually be happy. Still, even though there is fall down, he should be happy and continue on that path of Krishna consciousness. Maharaja, do you know that verse?

Giriraj Swami: Well, I don’t know the whole, but it is the sequel or following that one about [Unintelligible 00:18:22]. It begins like that, jāta-śraddho mat-kathāsu. I actually have the verse book. It wouldn’t have the purport. Oh, but it might not be in there. But anyway, yes, it is from the Eleventh Canto, and it says, “Having awakened faith in My pastimes and My topics, knowing full well that sense gratification leads to misery, and desiring to give up sense gratification, one may still fall into sense gratification. I don’t know exactly how it ends, but the idea is that without becoming overly depressed, one should have faith and continue one’s efforts and know that. . . This is partly from the purport, but that Krishna is like a father who never gives up on the child, and the child will always feel confident and protected by the father. And therefore, even though he falls down, he knows his father will be there to help him up. And eventually, he will be able to stand without falling down.

Yadubara dasa: So, this is a very encouraging verse, because it is actually Lord Krishna speaking, and He doesn’t give up, as we have heard. So we have great hope, just by sticking to the path, that we will achieve the glorious result. So thank you, everyone, for coming and enabling us all to meditate like this, it is just a wonderful, wonderful experience. Hare Krishna. [applause]

Giriraj Swami:

oṁ ajñāna-timirāndhasya
jñānāñjana-śalākayā
cakṣur-unmīlitaṁ yena
tasmai śrī-gurave namaḥ

śrī-caitanya-mano-‘bhīṣṭaṁ
sthāpitaṁ yena bhū-tale
svayaṁ rūpaḥ kadā mahyaṁ
dadāti sva-padāntikam

nama oḿ viṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale
śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine

namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe
Nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe

śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda
śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare

Dravida dasa: We have gone over time, so if you have a flight and you have to leave, don’t tell that you can’t leave. We were supposed to end at 12:30, but because it was such, I didn’t want to stop it, so I just want to let anyone know that they shouldn’t feel bad if they have to leave to catch their flight.

Giriraj Swami: But I might add that if you catch your flight, you might feel worse than if you miss it. [laughter] The first time I met the devotees was in 1969, and the first devotee who spoke to me personally was Baradraja Prabhu, and he was also pretty new at the time. This all took place when Srila Prabhupada was in Boston. Eventually, I had the chance to enter the room where Srila Prabhupada was sitting with some of his disciples. And I could feel it, but I couldn’t articulate it as beautifully as Baradraja Prabhu. And what Baradraja said was, he had the realization on entering the room, that Krishna consciousness is nothing but love masquerading as a philosophy.

And I think by this experience, we have felt that love. And that is really what Krishna consciousness is, everything else, as our poet in residence says, the aim is prema; prema is love. And not just love for Krishna, Krishna includes Krishna, His expansions and His devotees. And that is really the life of Krishna consciousness, and that is what sustains us and impels us. And a function of love or an aspect of love is mercy. And, Prabhupada is an ocean of love and an ocean of mercy. Some of the things that the devotee said reminded me of things about Prabhupada’s mercy. People have commented about how Krishna always gives us another chance.

So, there were one or two incidents. Once, one of Srila Prabhupada’s very first disciples had come to India, and somehow, he had gotten into smoking ganja, which, how would you translate that? Yes, marijuana. And so, the temple president in Calcutta phoned for Srila Prabhupada in Bombay and asked him what to do. And Srila Prabhupada said, “Tell him that unless he stops smoking ganja, I will reject him.” And then, after the phone call, Tamal Krishna Goswami asked Srila Prabhupada, “Is that true that if he doesn’t stop smoking ganja, you will reject him?” Prabhupada said, “No.” [laughter] “I cannot reject anyone.” And then later, Tamal Krishna Goswami said, “But don’t you have to draw the line somewhere? Isn’t there a limit?” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “There is no limit to Lord Nityananda’s mercy.” So, there really is no limit. But from our side, we shouldn’t, obviously, take advantage of Their merciful nature. They are merciful when we continue our efforts, that is the whole point.

And another instruction that Srila Prabhupada gave, which is encouraging, I find very encouraging, he said that, “Your qualification is that I give you an instruction and you try to follow it.” Not even, “I give you an instruction and you follow it,” but, “I give you an instruction and you try to follow it.” And that is all we do, all we can do, and the rest is mercy. Anything beyond that is mercy. And he was so kind and considerate. I hadn’t looked at my initiation letter for a while, and then I looked at it again after the japa retreat in Ohio last April, and I remembered Prabhupada saying, “Chant sixteen rounds every day and avoid the ten offenses.” And I thought, My God, this was practically the first direct instruction I got from him and I haven’t been following it. So, I looked up the letter, and there it was, “Chant sixteen rounds every day, and avoid the ten offenses as far as possible.” So, he gave the instruction, we know he wants us to avoid the ten offenses, but he added that, “as far as possible” because he knows that we are not perfect, and we will make mistakes.

As far as self-confidence, what my experience is, is that on our own, the concept of the self as the body and mind is not really us, and the concept of our self as a living entity, we are like one ten thousandth the tip of a hair, which is very small. But we do have confidence in Srila Prabhupada, in the paramparā. And, our acharyas do it. I am forced to do it. Before I speak, I always pray for help because I know on my own, I have no capacity. If I have any confidence, it is my faith and Their mercy, that They will be. . . And I am not asking for mercy for myself, that I can give a nice talk, but I am asking for mercy to all the sincere people in the audience that they can get something of value coming from Srila Prabhupada through me and whoever. As far as Mahatma Prabhu’s pastime with his wife where she said, “If you are so smart, why don’t you go out and make some money?” Of course, I don’t want to comment anymore on the temporal aspect of that exchange, but there is a spiritual counterpart to that. And that is that we needed to collect money for the Juhu project, and so, someone invited me to the Canary Islands, which are off the coast of Africa, they are actually part of Spain, to collect money, they said there were a lot of, like, wealthy Sindhis there and they arranged. But actually, they weren’t that wealthy, it turns out.

So, I wrote Prabhupada a letter explaining how I was preaching. It was a very intelligent approach, but they just weren’t rich, all they could afford to do is become life members, basically. So, Prabhupada wrote back that, “Once, a man asked his friend, ‘Are you intelligent?’ And the friend started to look in his pockets. And so, the first friend said, ‘Why are you looking in your pockets?’ And the second friend said, ‘Well, if there is money, it means I am intelligent.’” [laughter] And then Srila Prabhupada said, “You have gone so far and you are preaching so intelligently, but if there is no money, where is the intelligence?” [laughter] And this is really a very profound instruction. Then he said, “Actually, everything is working by my intelligence and your cooperation.” In other words, we shouldn’t think we have any intelligence, it is all working by Prabhupada’s intelligence and our cooperation.

And Prabhupada often used this word ‘cooperate,’ “Please cooperate with this movement.” And once, he clarified, “Cooperate means you do what I say.” So, that is all we have to do. The chanting minimum sixteen rounds and avoiding the ten offenses is Prabhupada’s instruction, and this is just to help us to follow that particular instruction, which is most essential, but all of the instructions in the books. And another point that has come up is about service in that exercise, so many beautiful exercises he gave us, one was, “The holy name is. . .” So, on that one, Prabhupada wrote, “The holy name is the greatest gift of my spiritual master, and I want to reciprocate by trying to distribute the holy name and please my spiritual master and the holy name.”

And even this question of taste in the First Canto, Second Chapter, verse after verse, beautiful verses explain the progression of devotional service. And one verse says that by serving the great souls who are freed from vice, the great service is done, syān mahat-sevayā viprāḥ. And by that service, vāsudeva-kathā-ruciḥ, one develops taste for the message of Vasudeva. So, we have this wonderful opportunity that Srila Prabhupada has given us through ISKCON and different programs that are extensions of his mission to engage in service, and that service will help us to develop taste. And we should do that. When we are not chanting, we should be engaged in some service, especially service to spread the mission. And that will get us the mercy of Srila Prabhupada and the mercy of the holy name. Now that, of course, depends on an individual circumstance, how much time he has, what he or she can do, but it is the idea, it is the intention.

And one other thought I had to share, although it might seem contrary to everything we have been saying and hearing about just fixing on the holy name, the holy name is a person, the holy name is Krishna. And one evening, I was chanting at the beach, which is a sacred space in my particular context, and I was really relishing. And it is always like that after the sixteen rounds, they get better because then there is you are not doing it because you have to and you are not in anxiety if you will finish. And I was just really relishing, almost like I have never relished before. And I thought, I just want to keep doing this. I don’t want to stand. I just want to keep doing this. But at that particular time, His Holiness Niranjana Swami was staying with me. And before I went to the beach, he mentioned, he hopes I get back early enough because he wanted to speak with me before he took rest. So, I was relishing, I didn’t want it to end, and then I felt like I got this message from the holy name that, “He, His Holiness Niranjana Swami, is my dear servant, and if you serve him, I will be pleased.” So, just this interplay between service, both; chanting is service, but spreading the chanting and serving the other servants of the holy name is also service to the holy name. And these two are the proper combination.

Yesterday, at one stage, I thought of a mistake I had made some time ago, some years ago, I would say, and I felt bad about it. And so, I was praying to the deities, “What do I do? I am ready, whatever you say. Whatever you want me to do, I am ready to face it.” I thought they were all pointing to Srila Prabhupada, “Whatever he says, we accept.” So then, I approached Srila Prabhupada and I imagined he said, “Don’t worry about the past, just work to spread Krishna consciousness.” And I was thinking, How? That was the next question, “How?” And then, one important way is through these japa retreats and workshops, because this is like watering the root. On one level, Prabhupada is really the one who is preaching, and then ISKCON is the vehicle for his preaching and his disciples and followers. And our most essential spiritual practice is our japa. And so, helping devotees with their japa is like watering the root. And then they themselves will preach and help more people with their japa, who in turn will have more strength to preach, and so on.

So, I am very grateful to all of you for creating this wonderful experience, and to Purushasukta for making so many arrangements and being so consistent in their efforts, and to Mahatma Prabhu, I learned a lot, I really learned a lot. Some of the exercises, the writing exercises, it was wonderful. And Yadubara Prabhu for the kirtans. Practically, whenever you would lead, I would feel like crying. And then, like you said, you felt like crying when you were leading, so it came through, it came through, yes. And Dravida Prabhu, it is said that in the spiritual world, all speech is poetry. Like, he is already there. [laughter] [applause] And I was going to say this to you the other night, but someone came and I couldn’t say it. And out of that context, I could never say it, but I can say it here and now, that you struck me just like a butter ball. You even have that buttery glow, or like a buttery sweet ball, and you are completely sweet like nectar. And I really felt like just eating you up. [laughter] [applause]

[Unintelligible 00:43:10] [laughter]

Giriraj Swami: And all of you. Well, with the promise of another verse, I should hand over the microphone.

[Unintelligible 00:43:23]

Giriraj Swami: No. Yes, one last point about how dependent we are. When Mahatma Prabhupada asked, “When you chant good rounds, how do you feel? And when you don’t chant good rounds, or when your chanting is bad.” It can’t be a bad round but our chanting is bad. I feel dependent. And yesterday, the morning was fine, chanting in the temple with the devotees, and then at a certain stage, I went to take prasāda, and then my ayurvedic [Unintelligible 00:44:11], I had to lie down for a half hour after lunch. And somehow, when I got up, I didn’t feel that good. And just for a moment, I was thinking, How am I going to do this? And then I just suddenly got the answer, I have to go to the temple and be with the devotees. If I am with the devotees and the deities and tulasi and the atmosphere, there it will be easy. And then I just fixed my mind on getting here as soon as possible.

But just walking out the door, I saw [Unintelligible 00:44:55], and that was like, “Wow.” I got a boost. And then, when I came near the fountain, there was Sonia and Manmohini, and I thought, Wow! And for a moment, I thought, Well, maybe I don’t even have to go into the temple. I can just sit by the fountain. [laughter] And then I said, “No, no, no. I can’t take any chances.” And then I came to the temple, to the shelter of all of you, and everything was fine.

Hare Krishna. [applause]