20240323 A Talk Show: Deepening Your Relationship With Śrīla Prabhupāda

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

Śikhi Māhiti Dāsa (Host): You were a member of the first GBC and I think during that time as GBC Śrīla Prabhupāda brought up this point of Founder-Ācārya. Maybe you can speak about that, becoming GBC and what they were thinking when Śrīla Prabhupāda was emphasizing this Founder-Ācārya in the first meetings?

Jayapatākā Swami: When one of his disciples took Śrīla Prabhupāda’s property, sold some of the land and kept the profit for himself, that time Śrīla Prabhupāda emphasized that he was the Founder-Ācārya of ISKCON and that people could not do that. But Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura in his Vāṇī-vaibhava mentions that the Founder-Ācārya of any sampradāya is the śikṣā-guru for the whole sampradāya. And he was very emphatic about that. Śrīla Prabhupāda, he established the ISKCON, International Society for Krishna consciousness and others had established Gauḍīya Maṭha, Gauḍīya Caitanya Maṭha, Gauḍīya Mahāprabhu Maṭha, some little change. So Śrīla Prabhupāda, he, on the one hand wanted to unite the Sārasvata Gauḍīya sampradāya, and on the other hand he wanted his disciples to maintain the policies that he had established. I was once talking to a godbrother of Śrīla Prabhupāda, and I said that we have to follow the orders of the spiritual master. That godbrother became very disgusted because he did not want we should follow our spiritual master, Śrīla Prabhupāda alone. So he made a gesture that he was unhappy. So, the Founder-Ācārya meant a lot more for Śrīla Prabhupāda. And for his compatriots, his godbrothers. I don’t know if it meant so much for the ISKCON devotees. Now we are starting to understand that Founder-Ācārya is a very special position. And we can only have one Founder. We can have many ācāryas but only one Founder.

Host: Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja, is the embodiment of determination. To me it is such an inspiration that just to come to Māyāpur in the early days when there was nothing, you have no idea what it was like. I came in 1977, I did not come until 2005, it was too austere for me! But living in that hut, trying to fulfill Śrīla Prabhupāda’s mission! So, Mahārāja, maybe you can speak about the struggles that even Śrīla Prabhupāda went through. He had failed businesses, practically speaking his family fell, and yet near the end he made one more attempt to start ISKCON and within that 12years’ span, 108 temples. Mahārāja was right there from the beginning up to Śrīla Prabhupāda leaving and also continuing now.

Jayapatākā Swami: I was thinking how the Śrī Sampradāya, they have Divya-deśas. They say if we can visit the 108 Divya-deśas, we can go back to Godhead. And in Bengal there are associates of Lord Caitanya and wherever they appeared, that is called a śrīpāṭ. I was thinking when I was transiting through Los Angeles, that somehow the 108 temples that Śrīla Prabhupāda established should have some special nomenclature. We lost the Manhattan temple and Śrīla Prabhupāda, we heard that he wanted to do his samādhi on the roof of the Manhattan temple. So he felt very bad that somehow we had lost this temple. But those Deities were moved to Brooklyn. And then we almost lost the Deities too, but somehow His Holiness Bhakti Cāru Swami and others were able to save the Deities. But we should see that all the temples established by Śrīla Prabhupāda be recognized. Śrīla Prabhupāda was very worried that somehow, we would sell off the properties, and live off the sales. He told me that, I made 108 temples, see that those are preserved. If you can make more that is good! But at least preserve what we have. Because there are many spiritual movements where the properties are sold off and the disciples live off the proceeds. So Śrīla Prabhupāda, he did not want that to happen. Like this, he was interested in preserving the properties. I would like to hear from His Holiness Candramauli Swami.