Supporting Our Devotees in Ukraine

Giriraj Swami: So to begin, I would like to congratulate you devotees in Ukraine for persevering with your service even under such difficult circumstances. One of the important services that you do is maintain the deity worship. In the history of Hare Krishna land in Juhu, Bombay, we also faced many challenges and the deities moved so many times. As His Holiness Tamal Krishna Goswami said that, “We often hear about devotees performing austerities for the sake of the deities, but at Hare Krishna land, the deities performed austerities for the sake of the devotees.” We had a shed, sort of a shed for them, and then one day the Bombay Municipal Corporation came onto our property and they were supported by a paddy wagon from the police, saying that, our temple was unauthorized and they were going to demolish it. It was not unauthorized. Actually, we had permission for one year and I had just renewed the permission. So when the leader of the group said, it was unauthorized, I said “No, it is authorized.” I went and I got my file and I showed him, but he was not interested because he had been bribed to do this nasty work.

So, they came with sledgehammers and they were starting to break the roof over the temple shed, the darshan mandap part, and different devotees were rushing up to try to stop them and those devotees were taken and put in the police paddy wagon. One very heroic devotee, named Maithali dasi, she was a woman and she stood in front of the deity doors. Because she was a woman, they were a little hesitant to manhandle her. But eventually, they also dragged her away by the hair and she was kicking and screaming. Later Srila Prabhupada commented that she would go back to Godhead kicking, and screaming. So, we were all taken to the police station except for one devotee, Gujarati, a young man named Manasvi dasa. He was watching the whole thing. So, he called a life member of ours who had connections with Bala Thakre, who was the founder and leader of the Shiva-sena political party. And he was very powerful and a very staunch Hindu. So he phoned the municipal commissioner and said that, “This demolition of the temple is taking place and you have to stop it.” The municipal commissioner said, “It is not authorized,” which wasn’t true, it was authorized. Bala Thakre said, “Don’t forget who this city belongs to.” In other words, it was like a veiled threat. The municipal commissioner said, “All right, Balasaheb, all right. We will stop it.”

He phoned the local pay-ward and the pay-ward officer came running personally to the site to stop the demolition. We were released from the police custody and we returned to the temple. There was a picture of Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva over the deity’s doors and that was there. And I strongly felt that that Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva had protected the deities. Then we resumed the worship. It was difficult. I remember one devotee was holding an umbrella over his head because it was raining while he was doing the ārati. But then eventually, we rebuilt that temple. So, deity worship is very important. There are some beautiful verses by the Rupa Gosvami that basically say that the deity of Krishna is Krishna Himself and anyone who thinks otherwise is an offender, ignorant and an offender. So again, I congratulate you for maintaining the deity worship even in such difficult situations. I have been to Ukraine a few times myself and yes, the devotees are wonderful. And of course, you have His Holiness Niranjana Swami Maharaja, who is incredible. I came for his Vyasa-puja to Ukraine one year and I was very impressed with the devotees there. I pray that this situation improves. I don’t know if I should say this but His Holiness Niranjana Swami commented that Yamaraja will have to create a special hell for Putin. Anyway, so yes, I really pray that you are able to maintain your service and your Krishna consciousness amidst all the fighting and hardships and maintain the proper worship which is so important.

Srila Rupa Gosvami in his Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu enumerated sixty-four items of devotional service. And of the sixty-four, he said that five are most potent. The five are, sādhu-saṅga, nāma-kīrtana, bhāgavata-śravaṇa, mathurā-vāsa, and mūrtira śraddhāya sevana, and mūrtira śraddhāya sevana means to worship the deity with faith and veneration. That is one of the five most potent of forms of devotional service. Rupa Gosvami says that by even a little contact with any of those five processes, one can awaken a dormant love for Krishna. And the first item is sādhu-saṅga. And sādhu-saṅga of course in general terms means association with devotees. But sādhu-saṅga has described by Rupa Swami, has a very specific definition. And he says, sajātīyāśaye snigdhe sādhau saṅgaḥ svato vare. Sajātīyā, in a more literal sense means you are part of the same path or community. And for us, it would mean followers of Srila Prabhupada. Sajātīyāśaye snigdhe and snigdhe means affection. And in Srila Prabhupada’s translation of the verse, he says who has a similar affection for the Lord and that is also valid. But snigdhe can also be taken to mean that the sadhu should be affectionate to the devotee. And svato vare means that the sadhu should be more advanced than oneself. So, sajātīyāśaye snigdhe sādhau saṅgaḥ svato vare. So, that is one of the five and as I mentioned one of the other five is mūrtira śraddhāya sevana, worship the deity with faith and veneration.

So, I will just go through them a little bit from my book I’ll Build You a Temple – The Juhu Story about deity worship. So this is about deity and deity worship.

READING from I’ll Build You a Temple

In Calcutta, he had raised the question, “What is the duty of the spiritual master, and what is the duty of the disciple?” Then he had given the answer: “The duty of the spiritual master is to serve Krishna, and the duty of the disciple is to assist the spiritual master.” He had given the example that it was his duty to see that the temple floor was clean, and so the disciple washing the floor could think, “It is my spiritual master’s duty to keep the floor clean, and I am assisting him by cleaning it.”

In his eight stanzas glorifying the spiritual master, Srila Viśvanātha Cakravartī Thakura states,

śrī-vigrahārādhana-nitya-nānā-

śṛṅgāra-tan-mandira-mārjanādau

yuktasya bhaktāṁś ca niyuñjato ‘pi

vande guroḥ śrī-caraṇāravindam

“The spiritual master is always engaged in the temple worship of Sri Sri Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. He also engages his disciples in such worship. They dress the Deities in beautiful clothes and ornaments, clean Their temple, and perform other similar worship of the Lord. I offer my respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of such a spiritual master.” (Sri Gurv-aṣṭaka 3)

Srila Prabhupada explains, “Śrī-vigraha is the arcā, or suitable worshipable form of the Lord, and the disciple should be engaged in worshiping the Deity regularly by śṛṅgāra, proper decoration and dressing, as also by mandira-mārjana, the matter of cleansing the temple. The spiritual master teaches the neophyte devotee all these kindly and personally to help him gradually in the realization of the transcendental name, quality, form, etc., of the Lord.” (SB 2.3.22 purport)

So, when we, his disciples, made mistakes in our service to the Deities, he corrected us.

Because of our material conditioning and atheistic tendencies, we may tend to neglect the Deity—to think the Deity is merely a stone or metal statue, not the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This tendency is acknowledged—and criticized—in shastra:

arcye viṣṇau śilā-dhīr guruṣu nara-matir vaiṣṇave jāti-buddhir
iṣṇor vā vaiṣṇavānāṁ kali-mala-mathane pāda-tīrthe ‘mbu-buddhiḥ
śrī-viṣṇor nāmni mantre sakala-kaluṣa-he śabda-sāmānya-buddhir
viṣṇau sarveśvareśe tad-itara-sama-dhīr yasya vā nārakī saḥ

“One who thinks the Deity in the temple to be made of wood or stone, who thinks of the spiritual master in the disciplic succession as an ordinary man, who thinks the Vaiṣṇava in the Acyuta-gotra to belong to a certain caste or creed, or who thinks of caraṇāmṛta or Ganges water as ordinary water is taken to be a resident of hell.” (Padma Purāṇa)

Done in the proper mood, with faith and veneration (śrī-mūrtira śraddhāya sevana), worshipping the Deity is one of the five most potent processes of devotional service. As stated in Srila Rupa Gosvami’s Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (1.2.90), śraddhā viśeṣataḥ prītiḥ/ śrī-mūrter aṅghri-sevane: “With love and full faith one should worship the lotus feet of the Deity.”

But if we mistake the Deity for a stone, metal, or wooden statue, or idol, we are doomed. Referring to the Deity of Krishna, Srila Krishna- dasa Kaviraja Gosvami, the author of Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, states,

sākṣāt vrajendra-suta ithe nāhi āna yebā ajñe kare tāṅre pratimā-hena jñāna

“Without a doubt He is directly the son of the King of Vraja. Only a fool considers Him a statue.” (Cc Ādi 5.225)

sei aparādhe tāra nāhika nistāra

ghora narakete paḍe, ki baliba āra

“For that offense, he cannot be liberated. Rather, he will fall into a terrible hellish condition. What more should I say?” (Cc Ādi 5.226)

Commenting on this verse, Srila Prabhupada states, “Those who are actually very serious about devotional service do not differentiate between the form of the Lord made of clay, metal, stone, or wood and the original form of the Lord. . . The statue of Lord Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa Himself, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, are not different, because the Lord is absolute. . . Even if one has not developed this consciousness, one should accept it theoretically from the instructions of the spiritual master and should worship the arcā-mūrti, or form of the Lord in the temple, as nondifferent from the Lord.”

Thus Srila Prabhupada kindly trained us in the course of and as part of his service through deity.

COMMENT

So, my dear devotees, we have a little time left and I would like to give some time for questions and comments.

Host: It would be excellent if you can take some questions.

Giriraj Swami: I would love to.

Host: Anybody can speak and I can translate myself or the translator can translate it, as you like.

Giriraj Swami: Either is fine with me. Whatever, Suchi. Maybe you, present and involved or whatever.

Host: Anybody has any question for Maharaja? Best is that you write the question if you have the question in the general chat in whatever language you like. I will read out. I personally have a question. There are two questions from brahmacharis who are in the temple. Maybe somebody else want to try a question in audience. I will ask a simple question. It is actually very much related to really we are. The story you told. Thank you so much for story about your temple was almost ransacked by local police because they were bribed. I have question that how devotees should react to the fact that some temples in the war being ransacked or one temple in Ukraine is missile. How should we feel about it? Should we pretend, or should we have some emotional response to that. Maybe it is general question.

Giriraj Swami: Well, it is very sad that there are so many victims of this, I would say unnecessary wars. And it is more sad when devotees and temples are affected. I think when that happens, it is natural to feel sorry, and I don’t think we should try to suppress that feeling. But at the same time, what can we do? We have to take shelter of Krishna and Krishna consciousness. I think of a verse from The Nectar of Devotion which Srila Prabhupada said, should be the guide for all devotees. The verse is from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Tenth Canto, Fourteenth Chapter, and the purport to the verse in the Bhāgavatam is also very instructive. I will read from The Nectar of Devotion itself. The verse is:

ŚB 10.14.8

tat te ‘nukampāṁ su-samīkṣamāṇo
bhuñjāna evātma-kṛtaṁ vipākam
hṛd-vāg-vapurbhir vidadhan namas te
jīveta yo mukti-pade sa dāya-bhāk

TRANSLATION

“My dear Lord, one who earnestly waits for you to bestow your causeless mercy upon him, all the while patiently suffering the reactions to his past misdeeds, and offering you respectful obeisances with his heart, words, and body, is surely eligible for liberation, for it has become his rightful claim.”

COMMENT

And in The Nectar of Devotion, Srila Prabhupada writes, “This should be guide for all the devotees.” And coming to actual verse, in the purport. . . This is very instructive my dear devotees. Please pay attention.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

Srila Shridhar Swami explains in his commentary that just as a legitimate son has to simply remain alive to gain an inheritance from his father, one who simply remains alive in Krishna consciousness, following the regulative principles of bhakti-yoga, automatically becomes eligible to receive the mercy of the Personality of Godhead. In other words, he will be promoted to the kingdom of God.

The word su-samīkṣamāṇa indicate that the devotee earnestly waits for the mercy of the supreme even while suffering from previous sinful activities.

COMMENT

And the next point is very important and significant.

PURPORT (continued)

Lord Krishna explains in the Bhagavad-gītā that the devotee who fully surrendered unto him is no longer liable to suffer the reactions of previous karma. However, because in his mind a devotee may still maintain the remnants of his previous sinful mentality, the Lord removes the last vestiges of the enjoying spirit by giving His devotee punishments that may sometimes resemble sinful reactions. The purpose of the entire creation of God is to rectify the living entity’s tendency to enjoy without the Lord, and therefore the particular punishment given for a sinful activity is specifically designed to curtail the mentality that produced the activity. Although a devotee has surrendered to the Lord’s devotional service, until he is completely perfect in Krishna consciousness, he may maintain a slight inclination to enjoy the false happiness of this world. The Lord therefore creates a particular situation to eradicate this remaining enjoying spirit. This unhappiness suffered by a sincere devotee is not technically a karmic reaction; it is rather the Lord’s special mercy for inducing His devotee to completely let go of the material world and return home, back to Godhead.

A sincere devotee earnestly desires to go back to the Lord’s abode. Therefore, he willingly accepts the Lord’s merciful punishment and continues offering respects and obeisances to the Lord with his heart, words and body. Such a bona fide servant of the Lord, considering all hardship a small price to pay for gaining the personal association of the Lord, certainly becomes a legitimate son of God, as indicated here by the words dāya-bhāk. Just as one cannot approach the sun without becoming fire, one cannot approach the supreme pure, Lord Krishna, without undergoing a rigid purificatory process, which may appear like suffering but which is in fact a curative treatment administered by the personal hand of the Lord.

COMMENT

So, my dear devotees, all these reversals and consequences of pain and suffering serve a purpose; to help us let go of whatever remaining enjoying spirit we have so that we can go back home back to Godhead without any impediment. We don’t like reversals, but sometimes reversals serve a purpose to accelerate our progress in Krishna consciousness.

Host: Thank you so much Maharaja, it is so enlivening. I have one more question from the brahmachari ashram here and it is serious question. I will just read it out.

If I will worship deities in the temple and after some time, I will see Krishna in them, how much of this ability to see Krishna in them depends on my worship?

Giriraj Swami: Well. I did read some verse. We enforce the idea that the deity is Krishna Himself. And by your engaging in deity worship, Srila Prabhupada said, “By engaging in deity worship, you realize, you are not the body.” And by your engaging in deity worship with śrī-mūrtira śraddhāya sevana, with faith and veneration, you will gain that vision to see the deity as the Lord Himself. As Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gītā, ye yathā māṁ prapadyante—As they surrender unto Me, I reward them accordingly.” Srila Prabhupada has commented that if you see the deity as stone, then for you, the deity will remain stone forever. But if you see the deity as the Lord Himself, the Lord will speak to you. So, I congratulate to you for worshipping the deity and I pray that as you continue worship, you will get more and more realization that the deity is the Lord Himself.

Host: Jaya, thank you so much. There is a continuation to this question and I just read it a little. Some devotees just never see that. What it says here, some people complain. Some devotees complain “I just see statues; I don’t see the Lord.” I am not saying, ‘I am like that or somebody is like that.’ But just a general, how can we help them? What can we do to them so that they will not just see somebody engaged enthusiastically in deity worship but how do we change their visions and be able to see? And that is the question.

Giriraj Swami: I guess the first question is whether he is referring to devotees or non-devotees.

Host: Devotees often complain that they come to the deities and only see the statues. And I invite them to serve and tell them about how inspiring it is to serve the deities, but they reply, “Well we can see you and we can see other devotees are inspired but we ourselves, we cannot really see that.” So how we help such devotees, not non-devotees and devotees? Well, it has so many different things.

Giriraj Swami: Well, his idea that they should engage in deity service is perfect. Whatever doubts they have, and that is another point, but if they make the experiment, you can tell them, ‘All right, just make an experiment, try to worship them and see the result.’ Let them make the experiment and definitely they will get some mercy from the deity and their faith that the deity is the Lord will increase. If they are not willing to make the experiment, then I don’t know what can be done. But if they are taking a position, they should verify the position by making an experiment and doing deity worship and seeing the result.

Host: Thank you. The word experiment is so clear. Thank you so much, make an experiment. Okay, and a question came again, I think it follows on from that what can obstruct our building relationships with the deity forms or deities? What can be the obstacle? It is too general, it is probably another class but thank you, just maybe briefly.

Giriraj Swami: Well yes, the obstacle is the ignorance or illusion and that obstacle can be removed by hearing, by reading as we have been reading so many important statements about deity worship; the deity and deity worship. And there is a verse, I could read it, it begins, ārcye viṣṇau śilā-dhir and it ends, nārakī. And the purport of the verse or not the purport, the meaning is that if someone sees the deity as stone, he is a resident of hell or he has a hellish mentality, nārakī-sahaya, he is a resident of hell. So we should read these statements to purify ourselves, to remove our ignorance and to help us appreciate that the deity is the Lord Himself. 

Host: Thank you. I know we took more time than we agreed originally already. And I feel so guilty because your time is absolutely priceless, it is the best donation that we can get, and maybe we can reciprocate somehow later, I don’t know how. But we also hope that you can join us next Monday as well.

Giriraj Swami: Yes.

Host: Thank you so much and we have some more questions and maybe we will work on them and try to present them better next time.

Giriraj Swami: We can keep those for next time, sure.

Host: Thank you so much and I am so grateful to you, I am sure everybody else is really grateful. Let us all unmute and say,

Jaya Giriraj Maharaja ki jaya!

Hare Krishna. Thank you so much.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, thank you so much. If we going to end now, then I suggest we conclude with Vaishnava praṇāma.

vāñchā-kalpatarubhyaś ca kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca 

patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namaḥ

Ananta-koṭi Vaishnava Vrinda ki jaya!