With a powerful chopper of Nama Sankirtana, I will cut the knots of demoniac desires from the hearts of everyone

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From Sri Mayapur Chandrodaya Mandir
Date: March 5, 2015 Speaker: HG Suresvara das
Subject: Gaura Purnima

I’m so glad that Jayapataka Maharaj mentioned that Senapati bhakta verse. He made an allusion, a reference to the prediction that he would send his military field commander to go and capture us and bring us here to chant Jaya Sacinandana Gaura Hari. A lot of us know that verse. Here’s the verse.

“With a powerful chopper of Nama Sankirtana, I will cut the hard knots of demoniac desires from the hearts of everyone.”

yadi papi chadi dharma dure dese yaya
mora senapati-bhakta yaibe tathaya

“Even if the sinners reject religion or flee to foreign countries, I will send mora Senapati bhakta, my military field commander to go there and deliver them.”

That’s Lord Caitanya to Srila Narada Muni in Sri Caitanya Mangala.

What I’d like to do this morning is share with you some historical arrangements that Lord Caitanya made — how Lord Caitanya set the stage of world history over four and a half centuries to send His Senapati bhakta abroad to just the right place at just the right time.

As they say in corporate culture, those who fail to plan, plan to fail.

Lord Caitanya did not plan to fail. And He did not fail to plan. He had a plan, and the Lord’s plan is always very mysterious, incredible, and inconceivable.

Let’s look at some of these historical arrangements over the course of four and a half centuries. I’m just going to touch on some highlights.

The first arrangement that Lord Caitanya made was that He came. Lord Advaita was praying, “Oh Lord, this whole world is being over run by sense gratifiers. They’ve forgotten pure devotional service. Please come and help us.”

So Lord Caitanya came, establishing the yuga dharma. He had His private reasons for coming, too, of course. anarpita-carim cirat, May that Supreme Lord, Kaviraja Goswami says in the fourth verse of Adi Lila, chapter one, “May that Supreme Lord, who is known as the son of Srimati Saci devi, be transcendentally situated in the innermost chambers of your heart, resplendent with the radiance of molten gold. He has appeared in the age of Kali by His causeless mercy to bestow what no incarnation ever offered before, the most sublime and radiant mellow of devotional service, the mellow of conjugal love. “Lord Caitanya was encouraging us to explore that inner space in the heart where the soul lives, and where Krishna lives.

Now that bhakti renaissance that the Lord ignited here in the subcontinent of India, Bharatvarsha, had its reflection in the West. There was the renaissance, the age of exploration, and the industrial revolution. While in Bharatvarsha the Lord was encouraging everyone to explore that inner space, in the West it was that people were throwing off the shackles of a corrupt church in Rome. They were beginning to explore the natural world more with telescopes and microscopes. The age of discovery brought westerners even to India, the French in Pondicherry, the Portuguese in Goa, and then finally the British for two hundred years in the mid 1700s to the mid 1900s. This was also part of the Lord’s plan. Lord Caitanya was allowing people outside Bharatvarsha to develop their yantra technology.

Meanwhile, back in Bharatvarsha, what was going on here? It was very mysterious because that bhakti renaissance that Lord Caitanya ignited was allowed to be mysteriously overshadowed, disgraced, by thirteen apasampradayas for a couple of hundred years. We cannot always know. It’s like they say, strange and wonderful are the ways of the Lord.

Just like a couple of years ago, as we remember, in Russia there was an attempt to ban the Bhagavad Gita. When I heard that, I just laughed. I mean, don’t get me wrong. It’s very serious. The Russian orthodox church was in cahoots with disgruntled former soviet people in power to try and get us out of Russia, specifically Srila Prabhupada’s Bhagavad Gita.

When I grew up my father was an advertising executive on Madison Avenue in New York City. I grew up reading things like Advertising Age. He was grooming me to be an ad man, a hidden persuader, in a word, a rakshasa. When I heard that they were trying to ban the Gita, I thought wow, how creative the Lord is. What an ad campaign for the Gita. Just get the book banned, or threaten to ban it, and everybody will want to read it. Of course! It’s forbidden fruit. What we are forbidden to do, we immediately want to do.

I checked with our Russian brothers and sisters and they said, “Oh yes, Prabhu. Everybody wants Bhagavad Gita now, especially at the Metro in Moscow.” They have about fifty places where they do the Metro, so creative.

While bhakti was being disgraced in Russia, meanwhile they are developing the yantra technology, the industrial revolution. In the nineteenth century, as we know, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura came along. Srila Prabhupada always called Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura the pioneer of the Krishna Consciousness movement in the modern world. Just a super guru, single handedly reviving the good name of bhakti which had been disgraced for over two hundred years.

He finally found a copy of the Caitanya Caritamrita in Oriya, and translated it into Bengali and convinced the Bengali aristocracy to take a fresh look at Lord Caitanya’s teachings. He convinced them it’s not a sects religion as the likes of Vivekananda were saying. It’s not a debauched cult. It’s actually the most sublime and radiant knowledge of the mellow taste of the Lord’s service, the mellow of conjugal love. They did, they took a fresh look and they saw, wow, this is actually better than what the British are saying. It’s better than Shakespeare. It’s better than the Bible. It’s better than Western civilization.

They once asked Ghandi, what do you think of Western civilization? “I think it would be a good idea.” If they got civilized, right?

Bhaktivinoda Thakura single handedly revived the good name of bhakti. Then he started reaching out. We say “bridge preaching.” He heard in the 1880s and 90’s that the Western intellectuals were becoming very interested in Sanskrit and Vedic culture.

He sent a copy of his Sanskrit work — as you know he wrote in Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, and English – Sri Krishna Samhita to an American transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, a famous author, writer, philosopher, and essayist. Emerson, in Massachusetts, was thrilled to get the book, this authentic Sanskrit book, but he didn’t know Sanskrit. He wrote Bhaktivinoda Thakura back and he said, “Thank you so much. Do you have anything in English?” Bhaktivinoda Thakura was inspired by the response. He wrote Sri Krishna Caitanya: His life and precepts. In 1896, the year of our founder acharya’s birth, Bhaktivinoda Thakura sent that book to academic institutions in Australia, Canada, the UK, and to Emerson.

Bhaktivinoda Thakura envisioned the whole Hare Krishna movement in broad strokes. Everything from the GBC, which as you may know, the Thakura appropriated from British Railways. They had a governing body committee. Everything from the GBC right down to Namahatta. At the macro level and at the micro level. The Thakura saw what it would take to start making good in this prediction.

prthivite ache yata nagaradi grama
sarvatra pracara hoibe mora nama

Sri Caitanya Bhagavat says, Lord Caitanya says, in every town and village on the surface of the globe, My holy name will be preached and sung. It’s in the Antya lila 4.126 It wasn’t happening. That was made back in the fifteen hundreds. Because the movement had been driven underground, so to speak, disgraced, Bhaktivinoda Thakura wanted to get going on this. “Let’s do it.”

He envisioned the whole movement. He saw that it would take a multi guru culture acting conjointly, cooperatively, under the supervision of a governing body to whom every body is accountable, and itself being completely accountable to the ever lasting vani of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. He saw what it would take to start making good on the prediction.

At the same time, he knew he did not have time to manifest this movement. As you know, he prayed to the Lord to “send someone from your personal staff,” Srila Prabhupada said. Hare Krishna. “Someone from your personal staff to please help me manifest this.”

The fourth son of Srimati Bhagavati devi and Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura came as Bhimoprasad. He became Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura Maharaj. In 1918, four years after his father, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura passed away, and three years after his guru maharaj Srila Gaura Kisora Dasa Babaji passed away, and after doing his vrata of chanting a billion names, which took him nine years to do, he sat down in front of a picture of his guru maharaj and accepted sannyasa.

Now if you’re a ray of Vishnu, you can do that. Don’t do that. Go through the normal channels.

Srila Prabhupada said that was the beginning of his mission, when he accepted sannyasa. Then he started building it. If you’ve read Bhaktisiddhanta vaibhava, the excellently documented biography of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura by His Holiness Bhakti Vikasa Maharaj, then you know that he eventually expanded sixty-four Gaudiya Maths. We hear at least 60,000 initiated harinam disciples. The crowning glory of the Gaudiya mission was that he sent the first Vaisnava preachers abroad to start making good on this “every town and village” prediction.

In 1976 when His Holiness Bhakti Raksaka Sridhara Maharaj was visiting Srila Prabhupada in his rooms in the Lotus building, (How do I know this? Because I heard Hari Sauri Prabhu’s living bhagavats series.) Sridhara Maharaj said, “Swami Maharaj, you’re the real acharya. Our god brothers went to Europe in the 1930s and they came back after a couple of years. Guru Maharaj called them back without much success. We thought, how could this ‘every town and village’ prediction actually come true? These people are animals.” What did Bhakti Saranga Maharaj hear from the Marque of Zoutman? You know, this sound clip from Prabhupada, “One Marque of Zoutman said to my god brother, ‘Swamiji, can you make me a brahmana?’ Oh yes, just avoid intoxication, illicit sex, meat eating, and gambling. ‘Impossible!'”

That’s the life and soul of Western culture.

One time I was hitchhiking in the early days of the movement. That’s how we got around. There was no money at first for planes or even gasoline. I was hitchhiking in America and I was on a freeway ramp at the entrance to the freeway. A state policeman pulled up. He was going to write me a ticket for hitchhiking. But then he looked at me and said, “Who are you?” I looked different, right? Dhoti, shaved head. I was about twenty-five years old. I blurted out, “I’m in the Hare Krishna movement. We don’t take intoxication. We don’t have illicit sex. We don’t eat meat. And we don’t gamble, Sir.” The state policeman just put down his ticket book, dropped his pen to the side, and looked at me. With all seriousness he said, “Son, you’ve got enough problems.” He was dead serious. “I’m not going to write you a ticket. Just be careful, ok?”

Just see how we are protected by the regulative principles. Back to the story.

So Sridhara Maharaj said, “So we thought, these people cannot even follow the four regulative principles. We thought this must be some sort of poetic expression, ‘every town and village.’ How could that literally be true? But Swami Maharaj, you’re doing it. You’re the real acharya.” Then Srila Prabhupada invited him to participate in ISKCON the next year.

As we know from the history, unfortunately, the Gaudiya Maths, after the disappearance of their founder acharya, it fragmented. They disobeyed the order of their founder acharya to work cooperatively under the supervision of their governing body. There was some superficial attempt to do that but it quickly collapsed under pressure from three camps.

There was a lot of evidence from our Srila Prabhupada that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura knew what was going to become of his own mission. “There will be fire in the maths, Abhay Charanaravinda das. The fire of dissension will spread and destroy. If you ever get money, you print books.”

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura could not only see what was going to become of his own mission, but he could see who would be capable of reviving it.

Earlier that year in 1935, when Srila Bhaktisiddhanta visited the Bombay Gaudiya Math, he complimented Bhakti Saranga Maharaj, “Oh this is very nice. Lots of guests, lots of preaching, lots of literature being published. It’s very clean, prasad distribution, very nice.” “Well, actually Guru Maharaj, this is all due to Abhay Charanaravinda Prabhu. He’s helping us financially. He sings beautiful bhajans. He’s a great preacher. He should be president of this center.” Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura replied, “No. It is better that he is living outside your company. You don’t have to recommend him. He will do. He will do everything himself.”

Srila Prabhupada told us on at least two occasions, once in Vrindavan and once on the train to Allahabad in 1977, “I was thinking, when I heard Guru Maharaj said that, what does he mean? I don’t understand this. But it was his blessing. Otherwise, how could I do? I have no qualification. It is his blessing.”

Now that could be historical stage setting.

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura actually manifested a movement. And then it fragmented. It was suspended, if you will, for about thirty years from the mid 30’s to the mid 60’s. Then before Srila Prabhupada came, before Lord Caitanya sent his Senapati bhakta, He made some incredible fine tuning and stage arrangements for the world history.

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura had sent those three Gaudiya Math preachers to Europe. Srila Prabhupada, by the 1960s, he was always very current and up to date, that’s how he did his Back to Godhead. Srila Prabhupada knew that the action now had moved across the ocean into New York City. Prabhupada told the devotees right here on March 9,1976 during a morning walk, “I was dreaming of coming to New York, targeting to come to New York. Sometimes I was dreaming that I’ve come to New York. I was thinking about how to go, which way was cheaper, through Japan or the other way, west.”

Before Srila Prabhupada took that voyage, Lord Caitanya really took care of business. Lord Caitanya made a religious adjustment to the world stage, a political adjustment, and a cultural adjustment, really dramatic. Are there any Roman Catholic Hare Krishna’s in the house? Ok. If you know your history of the church, in 1961 Pope John the 23rd called a big GBC meeting, a second vatican counsel. Much like Pope Francis today, he was trying to make the church more relevant, purify it, more real for the people.

So this very avuncular, Santa Clause like, rosy cheeked Pope John the 23rd, very popular pope, called this meeting in 1961. He started deliberating on how to reform and purify the church and make it more relevant. Pope John actually died in office in 1963. Fortunately, his successor reconvened the counsel. In 1965, the very year that Srila Prabhupada sailed west, that meeting ended with a lot of resolutions. But the one that was most relevant to Srila Prabhupada’s mission was this. For the first time in its history since the fourth century, Rome dropped its claim of exclusivity that they were the only way. That if you’re not following Rome, you’re going to hell. God’s grace could manifest through other faith traditions. They said that.

This is the time window from ’63 to ’68, and Rome was saying this. In ’68 the next pope rescinded that. But just when Srila Prabhupada came. This gave subtle but very powerful psychological permission for Roman Catholics worldwide to look at other teachings and appreciate how God’s mercy could manifest in other faith traditions.

One fine day, one of these recovering Roman Catholic young men was walking down the street in New York City. He was rushing from his job at the New York City Welfare Department to his apartment in the Lower East Side. He was walking down 2nd Avenue. He had been reading the Buddhist teachings. He had been reading Buddha.

As he walked by 26 2nd Avenue, out of the corner of his eye he saw someone in that storefront who looked for all the world to him, like the Buddha. Peach colored robes, big earlobes, shaved head, sitting cross legged. But he did not have time to go in. He saw a little sign there that said Bhagavad Gita class, Monday, Wednesday, Friday evenings at 7pm.

At the first opportunity, he went back to attend Bhagavad Gita class. He sat down and heard Swamiji, as they called him, speak. At the end of the class he raised his hand and asked a very Buddhist kind of question. He said, “Swamiji, how can I understand that I am just nothing?” That’s the Buddhist solution, right? You get rid of ego and your sense of self. You get rid of desire. That’s what nirvana means, out like a candle. I am just nothing. No more suffering. You get rid of yourself and there is no more suffering. It’s like that joke, the operation was a success, but unfortunately the patient died.

Srila Prabhupada had to answer all of these questions. Just like after six months of chanting in the storefront, one of his ardent listeners said, this was Howard, “Swamiji, I’ve been chanting Hare Krishna for six months and I still haven’t seen the universal form.” That’s why they were chanting, to stay high forever.

The reason Srila Prabhupada’s answers were so brilliant is because he did not just answer the content of the questions, he answered the intent of the questioner. That’s why you get these apparently opposite answers to the same questions from Prabhupada.

“I still haven’t seen the universal form.” Without missing a beat, Swamiji said, “That’s all right. Keep chanting.” We call that crazy questions, perfect answers.

Back to the Buddhist question, “How can I understand that I am just nothing?” “You are not nothing, you are something. But you are not this body.” That began a relationship between Swamiji and Steve. On Radhastami in 1966, Steve became Satsvarupa Brahmacari. Six years later he became Satsvarupa das Goswami. And then six years later in 1978, the GBC asked him to write the authorized biography of Srila Prabhupada.

These are all the arrangements of Lord Caitanya. Now that was a religious adjustment to the world stage, to have that Vatican 2 happen.

In America, there was a political adjustment. It seems a little minor, but it’s pretty significant. The United States immigration and naturalizations service which is now the ultimate paranoid department, the Department of Homeland Security, relaxed their Asian immigration laws. Between 1945 when Japan was our enemy and WW2, America’s enemy, to 1965 the US had this absurdly restrictive Asian immigration law. Asians were not allowed to come in.

I was born right near 26 2nd Avenue in Stanford Connecticut which is about 35 miles up the coast. I never saw an Asian person unless they were older and had already been in. A Chinese person might have run a laundry or something.

Then, very mysteriously, or, just right on time, they relaxed their immigration policy. It was, after all, twenty years since World War Two had ended. Srila Prabhupada came, with some difficulty, but he was able to extend his visa. He had to step over the line into Canada for a little bit and then he came back. He was able to get his green card, his residency card. He could come and go freely and preach. This was Lord Caitanya’s nice political adjustment.

The biggest adjustment that Lord Caitanya made was a cultural adjustment. As anybody from my generation will attest, especially in America, when Srila Prabhupada came, what did he find? He found a whole generation of people who were mad after anything Eastern.

When Srila Prabhupada came, he was doing two things. He was studying Americans. Srila Prabhupada said, “When I was in New York alone, sometimes I would just get on the bus and ride around the city observing how you people lived.”

Sally Agarwal tells a story of how Prabhupada was in her home in Butler, Pennsylvania. One morning she saw water coming out from underneath the bathroom door. She thought something was wrong. “Swamiji, are you all right? Are you all right?” She opened the door and there’s Prabhupada trying to wash his clothes Indian style on Sally Agarwal’s bathroom floor. Unfortunately, the floor did not slope to a drain like in India. You know, there’s a bathtub and a sink and a toilet. So there is Prabhupada doing the whole thing on the floor and the water is flying out. “Oh Swamiji, I have to show you the washing machine!” “…Washing machine?” Later on Prabhupada saw how Sally Agarwal was cleaning her house. “Vacuum cleaner, what’s that?”

Along with studying Americans, Prabhupada was writing letters to his god brothers. He was saying that, “I’m here in America and I see Americans. Anything, yoga, meditation, anything Eastern, they are really mad after it. And the Rama Krishna mission is here. They reinvented themselves as the Vedanta Society with their tenth class rubbish philosophy, as Srila Prabhupada wrote one god brother. They are attracting all of these naive Americans who don’t know anything about anything Vedic. And they’ve got a million dollar sky scraper here. And we Gaudiya Math people,” Srila Prabhupada said to one god brother, “we’ve become beggars. But better late than never, here I am. Let’s cooperate. Let’s do it.”

If you have the Bhaktivedanta Vedabase and you only have time to read one letter, go to November 8, 1965. It’s Prabhupada’s letter to Bhaktivilasa Tirtha Maharaj. Read this letter. It’s really telling. He’s saying to Tirtha Maharaj, who is practically speaking, the manager of the Gaudiya Mission. He was a very good organizer and fundraiser.

“Tirtha Maharaj, by Srila Prabhupada’s grace, you have those Calcutta Marwaris in the palm of your hand. You can inspire them to give crores of rupees. You also have the contacts in Delhi to get the Indian government to release those rupees to convert them into dollars. We need a million dollar building, too. And I’m here. I’m your man. I have no desire to be the proprietor of any Math or anything, but consider me one of the workers of your Sri Caitanya Math in Mayapur.” He was still the mahout of that Math. “I’m your man. I can recruit. I can organize. I just need funds. Here I am. I can do it.” Nobody cooperated. He even got criticism.

I’d like to end by thanking His Holiness Jayapataka Maharaj. He mentioned that Senapati bhakta verse at the end. What he didn’t tell you is that as far back as 1989, Maharaj demonstrated his profound understanding of Prabhupada’s position in his vyasa puja offering.

Again, if you have the vedabase go to vyasa puja offerings, 1989, GBC’s, Maharaj sighting Harinama Cintamani by Bhaktivinoda Thakura, identified Srila Prabhupada’s position. Here’s what Bhaktivinoda Thakura says about the position of the founder acharya in Harinama Cintamani. He wrote it in Bengali. He didn’t say founder acharya. He said adi acharya. This is Jayapataka Maharaj’s translation:

“One should first of all accept the instruction of the Sampradaya Adi Guru. This is the prehistoric, the dawn of time guru’s of the four vaisnava sampradayas like Lord Siva, the four Kumaras, Laksmi, Lord Brahma. We first of all have to accept them, the original guru’s of the sampradaya, and behave accordingly. Follow their instructions. Now in the disciplic succession of vaisnavas, the previous acharyas are established respectfully as the siksa guru’s for the sampradaya.” Now the Thakura turns, listen to this. “However, the adi acharya, the founder acharya, or original guru in the disciplic line of this particular branch of the sampradaya, is appropriately worshipped and respected as the guru shiromani, the topmost crown jewel of the spiritual masters. His perfect philosophical conclusions are to be followed by all in the sampradaya. Any contrary instructions will not be accepted.”

So what makes us Prabhupadanugas, followers of Srila Prabhupada, that Senapati bhakta that Lord Caitanya sent, is that we see everyone through his eyes. He is the touchstone. He is the testing stone. He is the lens through whom we see our teachers and teachings. We are not living in a vacuum. We are going to read other things. We are going to hear other things. We are going to associate with different people.

Fine. Measure all of that against what our foundational spiritual master is speaking and is writing. You will be a Prabhupadanuga. And what finer thing to be? We are not sectarian. We are not Baptist Christians. We don’t say that Srila Prabhupada is the way, the light, the truth, no one cometh unto Krishna accept by Srila Prabhupada. We don’t say that. Excuse my imitation.

We do say that if you just make an objective study, Srila Prabhupada did fulfill puranic prophesy and Gaudiya prophesy. Look what he did. Why not follow Srila Prabhupada? The unique path that he opened, being a very confidential servant of Sri Sri Radha Madhava and Lord Caitanya, is extraordinary. It’s a matchless gift.

Let us remember Srila Prabhupada and Lord Caitanya on this glorious day. Give each other our sanga and chant and be happy.

Srila Prabhupada Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu ki jaya. Nitai Gaura premanande Hari Haribol. Hare Krishna. Thank you very much.