CC Antya 6 – Panihati Cida-dadhi Festival

Giriraj Swami: I don’t know what to say. I’m sitting in the midst of a [Unintelligible 00:22:33]. But yeah, so maybe, well there is a connection, I mean not very. . . well, yeah we have seen Srila Prabhupada’s mercy, but when I was serving him in Juhu, I always had the idea of going to Vrindavan and being like a Gosvami, like Raghunatha dasa. I never said it to Srila Prabhupada but Srila Prabhupada could tell a disciple’s mentality, and suddenly without my saying anything he told me, because Raghunatha dasa was very expert in handling his father and uncle’s estate and affairs. In fact, in this Chapter of Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta leading up to the Panihati Festival, there’s a description of how Raghunatha dasa got his father and uncle saving from a very precarious situation whether they do not or not [Unintelligible 00:24:14].

Anyway, there’s some details, so he was like that. So, Srila Prabhupada said to me, “First you manage your father’s estate very expertly (he’s referring to Juhu property).” “First you manage your father’s estate very properly and then you go to Vrindavan and become a Gosvami.”

Another time I walked in his room, I mean it doesn’t seem like I should be sharing these things but I walked into his room, he is sitting in, he looked up and he recited this verse tyaktvā tūrṇam aśeṣa-maṇḍala-pati-śreṇīḿ sadā tuccha-vat (Śrī Ṣaḍ-gosvāmy-aṣṭaka 4) from Srinivas Acharya’s prayers Ṣaḍ-gosvāmy-aṣṭaka. So it is literally by Srila Prabhupada’s mercy that he could look up really ordinary people, if not degraded people and elevate them to the heights of devotional service. And it’s really possible only by his mercy and potency.

To illustrate that point I’ll tell a little story. I have gone to raise funds for the Juhu project. Srila Prabhupada was very concerned about the project and getting funds. And I realized that when I was going to go to West Africa to raise funds, it was quite successful, and Brahmananda Prabhu was the GBC for Africa so I thought it was proper to inform him, and share the collections half and half. I was actually asked by Srila Prabhupada, “What do you need Brahmananda for? You’re going to collect for Juhu, you just go and collect.”

So that was it. I understood that it was a very important project and was raising funds for [Unintelligible 00:27:18-00:27:22]. So it was quite successful and I raised quite a bit with some help, maybe Sindhi businessmen who were there. And one of them, the main one, Damodara Chandra, he had a daughter who was married to a Sindhi businessman in the Canary Islands, so I thought maybe we can go there and also collect there. So I went, and developed quite an intelligent plan for preaching. A lot of people there, well, obviously spoke Spanish as it was part of Spain, and there was no other source of Vedic literature in Spanish, so I arranged Prabhupada’s books in Spanish. And I devised a whole preaching strategy to talk about Vedic culture, but there was one problem and that is the people didn’t have that much money. So I could make them life members, but I wasn’t getting any donations like I got in West Africa.

So I stayed, and I wanted to collect as much as I could. And I went to some other places, and then I came back just in time for the Mayapur Festival. And there I was leaded by Gargamuni who said, “Boy, Srila Prabhupada was not very pleased with your program for preaching and collecting, and he said you go to these places where people donate, but they wanted to donate to a project that’s close to them that they can benefit from, not to some project thousands of miles away.” So anyway, and it’s true,  actually, it dawned on me that I could have collected just as much right in Bombay, there’s so many affluent, pious Hindus in Bombay. I could have collected much better. So, I’m coming to the point of how everything is going by Srila Prabhupada’s mercy.

So, from Mayapur I went back to Juhu. And in Juhu there was a letter from Srila Prabhupada waiting for me. And the letter said, a man once asked his friend, “Are you intelligent?” And the man started feeling in his pockets. So the friend said, “What are you looking in your pockets for?” And he said, “Well, if there’s money, it means I’m intelligent.” So Prabhupada wrote, “You’ve gone so far and preached with such intelligence, but if there’s no money, where’s the intelligence?” And then he said and this is really the crucial line, and he said, “Actually everything is working by my intelligence and your cooperation.” In other words, Srila Prabhupada was the one with the intelligence, and we just had to cooperate with that. I’ve often heard Srila Prabhupada use that word ‘cooperate.’

Once he was in L.A. and I was sick, so I ended up coming to L.A. and one of our important friends from Bombay Brijratan Mohatta who was married to the R.D. Birla’s daughter, who had been the richest man in Pakistan before the partition. So Srila Prabhupada was asking to cooperate with him. So after Mr. Mohatta left the room, I asked Srila Prabhupada, “I heard that you asked him to cooperate. What does that mean cooperate with you?” He said, “It means to do what I say.” So, that means everything is working with my intelligence and you cooperate, that’s how it works. It’s going to work well, and that’s how it works.

So, I’ll read some more from this pastime, H.H. Indradyumna Swami Maharaja shared a little, and I’ll read a little more because it’s such, as we heard Lord Nityananda is very merciful and very funny. It’s actually quite humorous. So as per Bhanu Maharaja’s example to save time, I’ll just read the English so just repeat this verse (Cc Antya-līlā 6.46).

TEXT 46

Raghunātha dāsa offered his obeisances by falling prostrate at a distant place, and the servant of Nityānanda Prabhu pointed out, “There is Raghunātha dāsa, offering You obeisances.”

TEXT 47

Hearing this, Lord Nityānanda Prabhu said, “You are a thief. Now you have come to see Me. Come here, come here. Today I shall punish you!”

TEXT 48

The Lord called him, but Raghunātha dāsa did not go near the Lord.

COMMENT

Now, Raghunatha dasa was very humble. In fact later on, by the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu, he could join Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in Puri. Although he was in the inner circle of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, he would almost never submit a question or a plea to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu directly but he would always do it through Svarupa Damodara Gosvami, very humble.

TEXT 48 (continued)

The Lord called him, but Raghunātha dāsa did not go near the Lord. Then the Lord forcibly caught him and placed His lotus feet upon Raghunātha dāsa’s head.

TEXT 49

Lord Nityānanda was by nature very merciful and funny. Being merciful, He spoke to Raghunātha dāsa as follows.

TEXT 50

“You are just like a thief, for instead of coming near, you stay away at a distant place. Now that I have captured you, I shall punish you.

TEXT 51

“Make a festival and feed all My associates yogurt and chipped rice.” Hearing this, Raghunātha dāsa was greatly pleased.

TEXT 52

Raghunātha dāsa immediately sent his own men to the village to purchase all kinds of eatables and bring them back.

TEXT 53

Raghunātha dāsa brought chipped rice, yogurt, milk, sweetmeats, sugar, bananas and other eatables and placed them all around.

COMMENT

We have all those, right?  This is, as Maharaja said, a very authentic celebration of the Cida-dadhi festival. Tukaram Prabhu and his team had taken real care to make sure that they followed exactly the formulas and recipes in Caitanya-caritāmṛta.

TEXT 54

As soon as they heard that a festival was going to be held, all kinds of brāhmaṇas and other gentlemen began to arrive. Thus there were innumerable people.

TEXT 55

Seeing the crowd increasing, Raghunātha dāsa arranged to get more eatables from other villages. He also brought two to four hundred large, round earthen pots.

TEXT 56

He also obtained five or seven especially large earthen pots, and in these pots a brāhmaṇa began soaking chipped rice for the satisfaction of Lord Nityānanda.

TEXT 57

In one place, chipped rice was soaked in hot milk in each of the large pots. Then half the rice was mixed with yogurt, sugar and bananas.

COMMENT

And there’s more description. Different associates of Lord Nityananda, how they participated.

TEXT 64

Hearing about the festival, all kinds of learned scholars, brāhmaṇas and priests went there.

COMMENT

Sounds like you all. Hearing about the festival, you all came.

TEXT 64 (continued)

Lord Nityananda Prabhu honored them and made them sit on the raised platform with Him.

TEXT 65

Everyone was offered two earthen pots. In one was put chipped rice with condensed milk, and in the other chipped rice with yogurt.

TEXT 66

All the other people sat in groups around the platform. No one could count how many people there were.

TEXT 67

Each and every one of them was supplied two earthen pots — one of chipped rice soaked in yogurt and the other of chipped rice soaked in condensed milk.

TEXT 68

Some of the brāhmaṇas, not having gotten a place on the platform, went to the bank of the Ganges with their two earthen pots and soaked their chipped rice there.

TEXT 69

Others, who could not get a place even on the bank of the Ganges, got down into the water and began eating their two kinds of chipped rice.

TEXT 71

At that time, Rāghava Paṇḍita arrived there. Seeing the situation, he began to laugh in great surprise.

COMMENT

I don’t know how many of you have been to Panihati. Of course it’s a very important place, it’s not far from Calcutta, you can go to Calcutta and you can reach there. And you can see the place where the Cida-dadhi festival was celebrated. And Raghava Pandita, who was also a very dear devotee of Lord Chaitanya and Nityananda, lived nearby just a little down the road in Panihati. So he was at home while all of this fun was taking place, and he came and he saw it and began to laugh.

TEXT 73

Rāghava Paṇḍita said to Lord Nityānanda, “For You, Sir, I have already offered food to the Deity, but You are engaged in a festival here, and so the food is lying there untouched.”

TEXT 74

Lord Nityānanda replied, “Let Me eat all this food here during the day, and I shall eat at your home at night.

TEXT 75

“I belong to a community of cowherd boys, and therefore I generally have many cowherd associates with Me. I am happy when we eat together in a picnic like this by the sandy bank of the river.”

TEXT 76

Lord Nityānanda made Rāghava Paṇḍita sit down and had two pots delivered to him also. There were two kinds of chipped rice soaked in them.

TEXT 77

When chipped rice had been served to everyone, Lord Nityānanda Prabhu, in meditation, brought Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

TEXT 78

When Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu arrived, Lord Nityānanda Prabhu stood up. They then saw how the others were enjoying the chipped rice with yogurt and condensed milk.

TEXT 79

From each and every pot, Lord Nityānanda Prabhu took one morsel of chipped rice and pushed it into the mouth of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu as a joke.

TEXT 80

Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, also smiling, took a morsel of food, pushed it into the mouth of Nityānanda and laughed as He made Lord Nityānanda eat it.

COMMENT

Actually they were eating the remnants of the devotees. I mean it’s not mentioned explicitly but that they were eating the remnants of other devotees. And there’s a very nice verse in Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta elsewhere bhakta-pada-dhūli āra bhakta-pada-jala (Cc Antya-līlā 16.60) that means, bhakta-pada-dhūli the dust of the feet of a devotee, bhakta-pada-jala the water that has washed the feet of a devotee, and bhukta-avaśeṣa the remnants of food left by a devotee tina, these three are very powerful substances.

TEXT 81

In this way Lord Nityānanda was walking through all the groups of eaters, and all the Vaiṣṇavas standing there were seeing the fun.

TEXT 82

No one could understand what Nityānanda Prabhu was doing as He walked about. Some, however, who were very fortunate, could see that Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was also present.

COMMENT

So there’s much more and I hope you will get a chance to read it today or some other time. But I thought. . . although usually I speak about Raghunatha dasa Gosvami, and of course it [Unintelligible 00:43:21]. But today I thought to speak more about Lord Nityananda’s mercy because Lord Nityananda’s mercy is extreme. Yeah, there’s one verse in the Fifth Chapter of the Ādi-līlā, describes Lord Nityananda Prabhu, and there’s one verse that, because Lord Nityananda is always intoxicated with the love of God, He does not discriminate who is fit and who is not fit to receive His mercy. But anyone who falls down before Him gets His mercy. So we don’t need to have any material qualification nor is there any material disqualification, the only qualification is to fall down before Lord Nityananda or His representatives.

And there were times when Srila Prabhupada, well in a way probably all the time, exhibited Lord Nityananda’s mercy but there were times when it was striking and devotees saw Srila Prabhupada say much [Unintelligible 00:45:14].

One incident took place when Srila Prabhupada was staying at Karthikeya Mahadevia’s home in Central Bombay. There were a lot of complications with the Juhu land and we didn’t have a proper place for Srila Prabhupada there. So Srila Prabhupada received a phone call from the Temple President in Calcutta saying that one of Prabhupada’s very first disciples was in Calcutta and he was smoking ganja, marijuana, hashish. So the Temple President asked, “What he should do?” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “Tell him that if he doesn’t stop this, I will reject him.” And after the phone call, Tamal Krishna Goswami asked Srila Prabhupada, “Is that true that you would reject him if he doesn’t stop?” Prabhupada said, “No. Lord Nityananda’s mercy is unlimited. You can’t be too unqualified.”

And then, another time later, one of the tenants in Juhu got the entire apartment, a small apartment for Srila Prabhupada. And one of Prabhupada’s disciples has started living on Juhu beach. And he somehow got into the company of a bhogi-yogi, as we say. And he yeah sort of became like a follower or an apprentice of that bhogi-yogi. And he was doing something, I don’t remember the details but something like, little coin he’d put it in his ears and it would come out of his mouth. Anyways, it was quite bizarre. So Tamal Krishna Goswami, he was the zonal secretary for India so he phoned Srila Prabhupada and he said, “This man is giving us a very bad reputation because he’s your disciple. You should reject him as your disciple to save your reputation.” And Srila Prabhupada said, “I cannot reject any disciple.” And Tamal Krishna Goswami said, “Don’t you have to draw the line somewhere?” And Srila Prabhupada replied with the same answer, “Lord Nityananda’s mercy has no limit.”

So, we are fortunate to be recipients of His mercy through paramparā and Srila Prabhupada. And as H.H. Indradyumna Swami also often says, we should share your good fortune with others, and so I want to share this good fortune through the different methods we have for staying in Krishna consciousness. One of my favorite quotations from Srila Prabhupada, I mean there were others but he had a way of encapsulating the whole philosophy of Krishna consciousness in a few sentences, in a few words. So, in this one talk, he said, “To approach Radha and Krishna,” and that is our goal, “To approach Radha and Krishna, we need the mercy of Lord Chaitanya. And to get the mercy of Lord Chaitanya, we need the mercy of Lord Nityananda. And to get the mercy of Lord Nityananda, we have to approach people like Jagai and Madhai.” In other words, we have to go out. I mean there’s no dearth but people like Jagai and Madhai, and yet you approach them. Lord Nityananda was always in such an ecstatic mood that He would approach anyone and everyone.

And Lord Chaitanya, when He was in Navadvipa, He sent Lord Nityananda and Haridasa Thakura out to preach and then to come back and give Him a report at the end of the day. So when they were out they saw these two drunken debauches, Jagai and Madhai, and they thought if we can deliver these two, then Lord Chaitanya’s reputation as being most merciful will be magnified. So they tried to approach them but the two were very orally. . . and I don’t know, they took offense and they started to blaspheme Lord Nityananda and Haridasa Thakura, and they started to run after them to beat them. And so Lord Nityananda and Haridasa Thakura were fleeing,  and running away. And Haridasa Thakura said, “This was your idea. Look at the trouble you got us into and we’ll be lucky if we escape with our lives.” And Lord Nityananda replied, “You can’t put all the blame on me. It’s your Lord Chaitanya, He sent us out. He’s a sannyasi but He’s acting like a king giving orders and telling us to do this and that. You can’t put all the blame on me.”

So, they ran for their lives and they reached Lord Chaitanya’s home, and escaped from Jagai and Madhai. And they reported what happened. And Haridasa Thakura said, “By my associate Nityananda Prabhu, I am getting into very great difficulty.” And Advaita Acharya said, “It’s proper that Lord Nityananda should associate with Jagai and Madhai because they’re always intoxicated, and He’s also always intoxicated. So it’s appropriate that these intoxicated persons should be together.” But underneath it all, it was actually a very joyous meeting because as Advaita Acharya said that because Nityananda Prabhu has decided to deliver these two, they will be saved. Write it down. “They’ll be saved and come to you.”

So, in our reflective moods, we can see some similarity between us and Jagai and Madhai. We can count ourselves lucky to have been saved by Lord Nityananda’s and Lord Chaitanya’s mercy coming through paramparā, Srila Prabhupada. So we should feel grateful, I mean every moment we should feel grateful for their mercy in picking us up, and express that gratitude by serving them, by serving their mission and trying to bring others to them. And [unintelligible 00:55:41] Swami said in his talk, “In order to have potency to preach we have to have strong sadhana.” As many devotees do, I would spent time at Vaisesika Prabhu’s home, which is at San Francisco airport. He chose that location so he can distribute books at the airport. So I saw he had a very intense morning program, chanting, reciting shastra, worshiping, offering prayers. At the time he was working on his book which is now published. I have it, Our Family Business. And so we were discussing his book and he was saying, one of the main points in his book is that our enthusiasm to preach should come from the overflow of the bliss we feel from our spiritual practices. So the two really go together. By our spiritual practices, we get enthusiasm to preach, and by our preaching we get more adhikara, more eligibility, and qualification to perform sadhana.

So, it’s a great program that Srila Prabhupada has given us. It’s perfect and complete. And yeah we should adhere to it, and yes, and also of course associate with the devotees, sadhu-saṅga. In Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, Rupa Gosvami mentions five items of devotional service that are most potent nāma-kīrtana – chanting the Holy Name of the Lord and bhāgavata-śravaṇa—hearing Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, sadhu-saṅga and mathurā-vāsa—live in holy place like Mathura and Vrindavan and śrī-mūrtira śraddhāya sevana—worship the Deity with faith and veneration. With sadhu-saṅga, Rupa Gosvami gives the precise definition of sadhu-saṅga—sajātīyāśaye snigdhe sādhau saṅgaḥ svato vare. sajātīyāśaye snigdhe (Cc Madhya-līlā 22.131) Srila Prabhupada translates as having similar affection for the Lord. And I would say in our case especially that means associating with people who have similar affection for Srila Prabhupada. sajātīyāśaye snigdhe sādhau saṅgaḥ svato vare – and svato vare – it means [one who is ] more advanced than oneself. So we should look for that association and it’s there. Just one more point about that, and that is that superficially we might be peers, but internally we feel that that so-called peer is more advanced than we are. And therefore we can get that sādhau saṅgaḥ svato vare even amongst peers, or apparent peers. Yeah, Sacinandana Swami mentioned that to me there was a time, because even if we are apparently peers or equals, not born in Vaishnava family, no Sanskrit whatever, but internally, he said about himself, “I would think that Giriraj Swami is more advanced than others, so I can learn from him.” Giriraj Swami thinks that Sacinandana Swami is more advanced than he is, and he can learn from him, and that’s our culture. Srila Prabhupada taught us to address each other as Prabhu. Prabhu means master, and we are servants of our Prabhus. As Prabhupada said, “Not like—O Prabhu, can you bring me my slippers? But, really Prabhu, you are my master and I’m your servant.” So, please accept me as your servant and bless me with your mercy and association.

Hare Krishna.