Ratha-yatra Address

Giriraj Swami: We welcome you to this year’s festival of joy, which is part of the Hare Krishna movement. We are known popularly as the Hare Krishna people, because we chant the Hare Krishna mantra. This mantra consists of three different names of God, of the Supreme; Hare, Krishna, and Rama, arranged in a very special, sacred configuration of sixteen words.

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

Please repeat after me.

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

Now, this Hare Krishna maha. . . Mahā means great. So, Hare Krishna maha-mantra means the great chant for deliverance. Man means mind, and tra is related to the Sanskrit word trāyate, which means to deliver. So, by chanting the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, your mind is delivered from all anxieties. Everyone in the material world is suffering from anxiety, no one is exempt. Even in other species of life, the creatures are filled with anxiety. But we, in the human form of life, have a special opportunity to become completely free from anxiety, and to achieve everlasting peace and happiness.

The basic text that we follow is called the Bhagavad-gītā, I think many of you have heard the name of the Bhagavad-gītā, and in fact, we have copies available here. And according to the Bhagavad-gītā, and also, if we analyze it with our intelligence, we can also come to the same conclusion, that we, the living entity, are different from the physical body. The physical body is actually a machine, and the soul, or the ātmā, the jīvātmā, is the living force that animates the body. As long as the ātmā is in the body, we say that the body is alive. Actually, the body is never alive, but it is infused with light by the presence of the soul or the jīvātmā. And when the soul leaves the body, there is no more consciousness, there is no more activity, it has no value. So, what’s really valuable is the soul, that’s our real identity, and consequently, we should live our lives in such a way that we nourish the soul.

There is the example of a fish. If you take a fish out of water and put it in a beautiful golden bowl and fill that bowl with precious gems and jewels, but the fish will not be happy because the fish is a creature of the water, and the fish can be happy only in the water. So similarly, we, jīvātmās, are part and parcel of the Supreme Soul or Paramātmā, and we can be happy only in relationship with Him, only in the spiritual atmosphere. And the way to revive our original spiritual consciousness, or God consciousness, or Krishna consciousness, is by chanting these sixteen words;

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

And you can chant anywhere, at any time, there are no hard and fast rules. You can chant while you are walking on the road, you can chant while you are riding in the car or a bus or a train or an airplane, you can chant in the shower. You can chant anywhere, at any time. And that chanting will cleanse your consciousness, ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam. There are different installments of benefit that you get from chanting, and the first installment is ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam, it cleanses your consciousness. Then bhava-mahā-dāvāgni-nirvāpaṇaṁ, and it extinguishes the blazing fire of material existence. And ultimately, it gives us a taste of the nectar for which we are always anxious.

So, my request of all of you today, you are very fortunate to have come for the festival of joy, the Ratha-yatra, and the best thing you can take with you is the chanting of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.

But there is a great philosophy behind this mission. As I mentioned, the basic text is the Bhagavad-gītā, which is the original book of yoga, all different types of yoga. But in the Bhagavad-gītā, Lord Krishna says yoginām api sarveṣāṁ mad-gatenāntarātmanā, “Among all yogis,” bhajate yo māṁ, “He who worships Krishna with faith and love is the best of all.” So, this is called bhakti-yoga, the yoga of love and devotion, and the most essential practice of bhakti-yoga, as I mentioned, is the chanting of the holy names. But there are nine processes; śravaṇam, hearing, which you are doing right now, kīrtanam, repeating what you’ve heard, smaraṇam, remembering Krishna, and so on.

We also have a temple in Dallas, in Gurley Avenue, I’m sure that there are cards that will invite you to our temple. So, to continue this festival of joy, you can come to the temple. We also have a wonderful vegetarian restaurant at the temple called Kalachandji’s, and here, there are many booths with vegetarian food, so you can get a taste of that food, and you can continue your experience of that food at the temple. Now, this food, of course, it’s vegetarian, but it’s more than vegetarian because the Bhagavad-gītā explains that if you eat food just for your bodily nourishment, you are actually eating lumps of sin.

Now, sin is a word that we may not appreciate, but the definition of sin, as we use it, we are adapting it from the Sanskrit, is anything that is against the laws of God, just like crime. A crime means something that is against the laws of the state, so sin means something that is against the laws of God.

And many of you, maybe all of you, have heard the word karma. Karma means action, but it also can include the idea of reaction. According to your action, you get a reaction, and that reaction is called karma. So, when you eat ordinary food, even vegetarian food, there is a reaction. But when you eat food that is offered first in sacrifice to Krishna, which we do, there is no reaction. And in fact, you become liberated from sinful reactions by eating that food, which is called prasāda. Prasāda means literally mercy.

So, the vegetarian food that you will experience here today is prasāda, and it’s special, and it actually tastes different. I had a colleague who was in India in the peace corps, and while he was in India, he had prasāda at the temples. There are many big temples in India of Jagannatha, this huge temple of Jagannatha in Puri. There are many other huge temples of Vishnu, of Krishna. So, when this colleague of mine named Ted came back to America after his duration of time in the peace corps, he met the devotees and he went to the temple and he had prasāda, and he recognized that taste, “Oh, this is the same taste as the prasāda I had in India.” Because it’s not just vegetarian food, it’s food that’s been offered to Krishna and sanctified by that process of offering.

So, our method, this bhakti-yoga method, consists basically of chanting, dancing, feasting on prasāda, and if you like, a little philosophy. And there is a lot of philosophy. We have the Bhagavad-gītā, it has seven hundred verses, we have Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which is eighteen thousand verses, which is considered the graduate study in the science of God, and we have the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, which is the post-graduate study. So, I request all of you, somehow or other, immerse yourself in Krishna. Don’t be a fish out of water, but go back into the water, and that water is Krishna, and your life will be sublime. But if nothing else, chant Hare Krishna.

I’m sure there are devotees who have cards that they can give you, the words to the mantra. Personally, I always carry cards with me, so if I meet people while I’m walking around, not just at the festival but anywhere, I give them the card with the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. So yeah, get a card with the Hare Krishna maha-mantra and chant as much as you can. The more you chant, the better it will be for you. And as I said, you can chant anywhere, at any time. And the more you chant, the happier you will be.

So, in conclusion, chant, dance, feast, and try to understand this philosophy, and be happy in Krishna consciousness. Hare Krishna. [applause]