20240321 Addressing Śāntipur Festival

All glories to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda!

All glories to Caitanya Mahāprabhu!

All glories to Advaita Gosāñī!

All glories to all the assembled devotees!

You are in one of the very sacred places of caitanya-līlā! Here, Lord Nityānanda had done some tricks. Lord Caitanya wanted to go to Vṛndāvana upstream, but He was misdirected to Śāntipura. Meanwhile, Nityānanda Prabhu went to Navadvīpa and brought Śacīmātā and various devotees to this place. Then Lord Caitanya, He saw Advaita Ācārya crossing the river and He thought, “What is Advaita doing here in Vṛndāvana?!” Then He realized that He was in Śāntipura, not in Vṛndāvana! Then Advaita said, “You are in Vṛndāvana! Because on the western side of the Ganges, the Yamunā is flowing, so You are in Vṛndāvana!” Anyway, He gave fresh clothes to Lord Caitanya and brought Him across the river. There, He met Mother Śacī and He explained that He owes everything to Mother Śacī. Somehow or another He took sannyāsa. So He was asking His mother what He should do. Mother Śacī knew that if Lord Caitanya came back to His house, that would be a disgrace. So, Lord Nityānanda whispered in her ear, and she asked Lord Caitanya that, “You may go sometime to Vṛndāvana but make Jagannātha Purī as Your base.” So He accepted that because Jagannātha Purī was closer to Bengal and therefore the devotees of Bengal could come and also Śacīmātā would receive information. But Vṛndāvana was further away. So it would be very hard, as very few people come from Vṛndāvana to Bengal.

Like this, Lord Caitanya visited Śāntipura many times. This is one time. And three Prabhus – Lord Caitanya, Lord Nityānanda and Advaita Gosāñī, They sat together and that place is visible here – “Triprabhu Viśrāma-sthāna” – the resting place of the three Lords.

Lord Caitanya came also around ten years after His taking sannyāsa, after He had travelled all over South India. He was going to go to Vṛndāvana and He got up to Kānāi-Nāṭaśālā but there were thousands of people following Him! Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, he advised Him that this is not the way to go to Vṛndāvana with thousands of people, rather to go with a few people and meditate on the pastimes in Vṛndāvana. So then Lord Caitanya from there returned back to Jagannātha Purī. I think that on this return journey is when He came and saw the festival of Advaita, which He was observing on the disappearance day of His guru Mādhavendra Purī. And He saw that there was such a huge arrangement. Like, the way that the arrangement was described is how many cottages contained yogurt, vegetables, rice, dal, leaf plates. And it was such a huge arrangement that Lord Caitanya said, “It is not possible for any human being. Must be that Advaita is an avatāra of Lord Śiva. Because no man can do this, He must be Śiva!” Actually, Advaita is an avatāra of Mahā-Viṣṇu and Sadāśiva.

Anyway, Lord Caitanya was in this festival, Lord Nityānanda was chanting and giving garlands and everybody was doing sevā. EVERYBODY WAS DOING SEVĀ!! The ladies were doing the cooking, some devotees were distributing prasāda and everybody was in ecstasy in Kṛṣṇa consciousness! So, Lord Caitanya said, anyone who takes prasāda here, on this tithi, gets Govinda-bhakti!! So this festival had been observed by different followers of Lord Caitanya. But, it had stopped. So the previous sevaite had asked me, that is there any other place where you can get love of Godhead simply by eating!! So I said, no, it sounds like a great thing! So Śāntisakhā Goswami, the previous sevaite, he asked me whether I would do this festival every year and I agreed. This way, devotees can eat some prasāda and get love of Kṛṣṇa!

In order to do this prasāda distribution, we are not able to do like Advaita Gosāñī, but at least we give some khicuḍī and chutney and things. Now this has been facilitated by His Holiness Kavicandra Swami, who takes in on himself to go around and raise donations. And we are very grateful for his service. And Śāntisakhā Goswami, the previous sevaite, he showed to me some special letters of Śrīla Prabhupāda, he had a Plan B, if he did not get the land in Māyāpur, he would make his world headquarters in Śāntipura. So the present sevaite is Praśānta Goswami and he is facilitating ISKCON to continue this sevā every year. Something like 50,000 people come and take prasāda. Because so many people come, there are different sales-people, who come and sell different kinds of snacks.

In the doorway which I enter in the car, that is the gate to the north, there is a samādhi of the tenth generation from Advaita Gosāñī. He predicted that the sound of mṛdaṅgas would be heard all over Europe and America. It would be nice if someone gets the quotation that he made. That is the only person we heard that predicted this before Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura.

We hope that you all get involved in sevā of distributing prasāda and also take a little prasāda, I hope you have some prasāda and get the love of Kṛṣṇa, get kṛṣṇa-bhakti. Thank you very much!

Hare Kṛṣṇa!