20240224 Question and Answer Session

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-gurun dina tāriṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram
hariḥ oṁ tat sat

Jayapatākā Swami: I have another meeting. Any questions? We can take your questions in writing, and I will answer them tomorrow.

Question: I heard that the next decade will be a decade of tears as slowly all the disciples of Śrīla Prabhupāda will leave the planet. Guru Mahārāja, as young disciples how should we deal with this? We are still so immature.

Jayapatākā Swami: Of course, some of the disciples have joined in the 80s, 90s. We hope these senior disciples would take responsibility for the more junior disciples. Actually there is a letter Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote to me that I should spend more time in Māyāpur, and have my assistants help me to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness all over the world. At that time, all my assistants were younger godbrothers and godsisters. But now I have disciples and some will be older, more mature. So I am trying, with the help of Vrajeśvara Gaura dāsa, to establish many disciples as new gurus. The problem is not many have read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books! Other problems are there, but if everybody has studied Śrīla Prabhupāda books, in that way we can have faith that they will transmit the same message. In the 12^th canto it says:

kaler doṣa-nidhe rājan
asti hy eko mahān guṇaḥ
kīrtanād eva kṛṣṇasya
mukta-saṅgaḥ paraṁ vrajet
[SB 12.3.51]

There is another verse:

harer nāma harer nāma
harer nāmaiva kevalam
kalau nāsty eva nāsty eva
nāsty eva gatir anyathā
[Cc. Ādi 17.21]

The more that the people are familiar with all these different pramāṇas or evidences, they can preach. We are trying to get people who are able to preach. Any way what can we do? This is the material world, a world of birth and death. This is called martya-loka, planet of death. Here the people, everyone dies. You should take every opportunity to read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books, to hear the classes. Don’t stay just a kaniṣṭha-adhikārī.

I was just initiated suddenly, and I became the temple president in Montreal. I opened up a new temple in Toronto. Śrīla Prabhupāda called me to LA (Los Angeles), but then he said he will call me later. In the meantime, I was sent to Chicago to help Bhagavān open a new temple.  And I was called to Calcutta. They lied to Śrīla Prabhupāda, they said they had a place to stay but they didn’t. I was staying in the Gauḍīya Maṭha for a few months. For a long time, they considered me like a half-breed! Somehow, I don’t know, I stayed there. Then I became the temple president of Calcutta, and I was shipped out to Māyāpur. Here is the GEPOC meeting.

Haribol!