My dear devotees:
It is my pleasure to send this message today after a week in
Sri Jagannath Puri.
We’ve had a beautiful week that we could have never
imagined, as we have found loving devotees everywhere. Like today, in Alarnath
Temple, we find Vaisnavas of the family of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta.
Vaishnava relationships are very important. They are based
on care and kindness. And today we were looked after very well. They offered wonderful
prasadam and made us feel at home. This point, my dears, is very important. In
India they are truly experts in dealing with visitors, and it is said that the
visitor is like God. When you come to a house to visit, the first thing they do
is welcome you, invite you to sit down and then you get some sweet words of
welcome, and you feel as if they have been waiting forever, saying: "I am
very happy that you arrived and you are here with us ", imagine one really
become very happy this way.
Then, they invite you to honor prasadam ... but before
honoring prasadam, they introduce you to the owner of the house. That owner is
the Deity.
Then they take you to the temple, where the Lord is and they
present you to Him. After that, they invite you to take prasadam and serve you
until you are completely satisfied. It is a very beautiful loving exchange: the
hosts offer more and more prasadam to the guests for their pleasure. Thus, when
we received a person in our temple or in the home of a Krishna conscious
family, we serve them well.
Today we are the temple of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gaudiya Nath
ji, deities installed by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada Thakur just
in front of the temple of Lord Alarnath.
On this day I receive and introduce each of you before their
Lordships Gauranga Gaudiya Nath Ji. This is a very sacred place. It is a very
beautiful pastime site. Here, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu exhibited beautiful
pastimes in great ecstasy of separation, so much so that he melted a stone that
to this day the marks of His sacred body remain in it. This stone is worshiped
today and we are visiting it today and we are asking for the mercy of
Mahaprabhu. There is a story connected with Sri Alarnath that is very sweet and
beautiful.
The pujari of the deity of Sri Alarnath was a devotee named
Mukunda, who always attended Him with great dedication. He never wanted to
delegate this service to another person. But one day he had to go out and asked
his son to attend the Deity while he was out. Mukunda taught him all the
details of the worship to his son so he departed. At the time of the offering
of bhoga, the young man took the plate with all the preparations; he recited
the appropriate mantras and left the room so the Lord could eat. It was a
tremendous surprise to see that the Lord had not eaten since the dish was still
full.
The poor boy did not know what to do, he was in such desperation
that he began to cry, imploring the Lord to eat. Seeing him so afflicted, the
Lord came down from the altar and began to eat the entire offering. So much so
that He left an empty plate :). When he came back with the offering, his mother
was surprised and very angry to see the empty plate. She told him, “Son, you
ate the Lord's offering that is irresponsible. I will tell everything to your
father.” When the father returned, his mother told him what had happened and
the father was very intrigued, so much that the next day he decided to stay
hidden to see what was happening when his son was offering. So, the same thing
happened again, the boy brought the offering, left the Lord eating and when he
returned the dish was still full. The boy was desperate once again began to cry
until the Lord came down and began to eat it all. The father was impressed by
the devotion of his son. But when the Deity realized that the father was there,the deity turned quickly into place and a little rice milk remained on His finger and mouth.
This deity of Sri Alarnath retains those prasadam marks even today and so we come to
beg Him to accept our offerings and help with remembering Mahaprabhu.
Going back to the start, we must turn our temples in places
where people feel so good that they identify with it as if they are in their own home. That also
means that our temples must be very beautiful in decoration, maintenance,
etc...For example in this temple of Brahma Gaudiya Math, which has many beautiful
decorations it is also very well maintained, the love placed behind it is apparent. So when we
are in a temple, we should be aware that the gardens and all areas are
beautiful. And I mean an ecologically beautiful site, no plastic waste should be in a beautiful place,otherwise all this is opaque. The plastic waste has nothing beautiful.
Thus, our temples should be beautiful with beautiful smiling devotees from the
heart. In Krishna consciousness we are not like American Airlines, which in its
policies they are mandated to always smile. A devotee smiles from the heart.
I get very happy to see that in our family we have many of
these beautiful devotees who smile from the heart. That is the pride of our
sampradaya: Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu himself took much care for each of his
devotees ... He is our role model. I know I say the same things a hundred times.
It's nothing new. But just as the Maha Mantra is always the same and the
Bhagavad Gita is the same for the last 5000 years, we repeat to remember.
That's why I also always repeat that all the temples should have Ishtagothis whose only meaning is to make everyone completely happy in the
community ... just so all the devotees will want to keep in the community.
Ishtagosthi is not a dictatorial instance. It is rather a participatory instance to define
how each devotee feels and what is the best way they can help.
It is in the ishtagosthi that we can agree on how to best serve our
guests and have beautiful temples and happier devotees. My message is that you
never get tired of being warm, friendly and make others feeling welcomed to the temple ... because when you stop being this way you also will stop feeling it.
A story that I want to share with you in this conclusion is that I want to thank Arup Govinda prabhu and the sannyasis and devotees of Jagannath Puri, we had
a meeting of the WVA which was very successful, and was the foundation to the Puri World Vaishnava Association branch.
They decided they were going to meet every month for joint
activities.
That's one of the main goals of the WVA-VVRS: increase solidarity and support between different Vaishnava missions. Now we are returning
to the city to continue our work. We will spend two days in Sri Purushottam
kshetra and then travel to Allahabad for our preaching work in Kumbha Mela.
It will be a great tapasya, but also a great responsibility to preach to the yogis so they can become more environmentally responsible.
With these words I say goodbye, have a nice Sunday festival
full of preaching and good reception of guests.
Jaya Om Paramahamsa Vishnupad
108 Parivrajak Acarya Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj, ki jay!
Srila Prabhupara, ki jay!
Jaya Om Paramahamsa Vishnupad 108 Parivrajak Acarya Srila
Prabhupad Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur, ki jay!
Haribol.
Your always well wisher,
Swami B. A. Paramadvaiti.My dear devotees:
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