Wisdom Munches 11: Srila Prabhupada’s love for Jagannatha & Jagannatha’s reciprocation

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you. What is the third part? ISKCON. Now, within the ISKCON perspective, I’ll talk about two things.
I’ll talk from Prabhupada’s personal perspective and then Prabhupada’s, because the whole Krishna conscious movement in one sense is the body of Srila Prabhupada. It’s the Vishwaroop of Srila Prabhupada, which he has manifested. So, from his socio-cultural perspective.
So, from his personal perspective, Prabhupada seemed to have great attraction for Jagannath right from his childhood. And that’s why as a small child, he organized and performed the Radha Yatra ceremony. When I was looking at the children’s beautiful artistic collection, I was thinking that now when we have to do something, there are so many supports available.
And what was done is laudable. But maybe 70, 80 years ago, it was only 70, 80, probably 100 years ago almost. Yeah, something like that.
More than 100 years ago. Prabhupada was born in 1896. So, he performed Radha Yatra even in 1905-19, around 10-15 years old.
So, almost 10 years ago. At that time, getting paraphernalia and everything was not easy. And Prabhupada organized.
He was Abhay at that time. He organized. Of course, his parents and others have helped.
But even for them to go through all that labor, his desire must have been so strong. Now, I asked one of my friends who is a Bengali historian, was it a common practice at that time that for kids to organize Radha Yatras? And he said, no. Radha Yatra itself was a common festival.
But for kids, organizing it was not ordinary. So, Prabhupada had a personal relationship with Jagannath. And even as a small child, it’s described that when he graduated, when he more or less, not graduated, he finished his 12th or something, 10th or 12th, he had a vacation.
And normally when there are vacations, people want to go to scenic hill stations or Disneyland or some big spots. But Prabhupada, I was thinking, okay, you know, what are the timings for the train to go to Jagannath Puri? And how much will it cost? Prabhupada was dreaming about going to Puri. He was dreaming about going to Vrindavan.
There was this longing for Jagannath. And then, so, that was his personal perspective. That when Krishna reciprocated with him.
Bhakti is all about reciprocation. A devotee has a particular desire and the Lord reciprocates. So, what is the reciprocation? And Prabhupada was in America, Jagannath suddenly appeared.
And it was the devotees who came to Srila Prabhupada initially, they knew nothing about what to speak of the Gaudiya Vishnu tradition, even the Vedic tradition they didn’t know. When they wanted to decorate the 26th Second Avenue storefront for Prabhupada’s pleasure, they just went to some alternative art gallery and they found some pictures which looked Indian. And they brought them.
And in one of the pictures, he says, Prabhupada, this is beautiful. And he says, Prabhupada, what is that? Is that a cat? I said, it was actually Hanuman. Now, how did they mistake Hanuman to be a cat? They just couldn’t figure out what is this.
So, they just went to one of the devotees who had just gone to a store and there she, Malti Mataji, she saw something which looks like something Indian. And they didn’t have money. So, just picked it up and brought it.
And she says, Swamiji, at that time they would call Prabhupada Swami, Swamiji, I got something. And she just showed it. And to her amazement, Prabhupada was sitting, Prabhupada just got up and offered obeisances.
She said, what is this? This is the Lord of the Universe. This is Krishna. She said, look at it.
This doesn’t look like Krishna at all. Prabhupada says, this is Jagannath. He says, Jagannath has appeared himself and we should worship him.
And then that’s how not only Jagannath worship started but the Jagannath Athyatra started. And it became one of the most, not just eye catching, you can say, eye popping festivals. It’s amazing.
Now, the hippies love to do something strange. Now, if they wanted to dance on the streets, that was a strange thing. If normally if they would have danced on the street, the police would have come and arrested them.
But now in Jagannath Athyatra, they dance on the streets and the police escorted them. So, it was all far out. So, it was Prabhupada’s personal devotion being reciprocated by the Lord.
And now, all over the world, we have Jagannath Athyatra being celebrated from Boston to Berlin to Brisbane, from Durban to Dubai to Dublin. Everywhere in the world, Jagannath Athyatra is being celebrated. So, this is the reciprocation of the Lord with the longing of the devotee.
But this becomes even more significant if we consider the socio-cultural perspective. When the British came to India, the British came from a Christian background. Not all of them were devout Christians but there is a background.
And the Christian background is iconoclastic. Iconoclastic means that their idea is that God can never manifest in any form. In fact, worship of any form is actually the worship of the Satan.
This is that. When you worship any form in this world, even if they believe God has a form, but they don’t think that any form in this world can manifest God. Therefore, they say, if you are worshipping any form, then you are worshipping something other than God.
And something other than God becomes a competitor to God. And it becomes a competitor to God, then that competitor needs to be destroyed so that the one true God’s worship can be established. So, now among the various manifestations of the divine that were seen in India, they all found, okay, you know, Ram looks beautiful, Krishna also looks beautiful.
But the one form they just couldn’t digest was the form of Jagannath. You know, one western endologist, he came and said, you know, if Hinduism is the religion of the Satan, then Jagannath is the ultimate voodoo lord. They just couldn’t comprehend it.
And there is one Christian missionary who said that the success of Christianity would be to end this worship of this horrendous looking lord. And then what happened? Now Prabhupada was educated in the Scottish Church College, which is a Christian college. And he knew about these conceptions.
That’s what his professor would speak at times in school. Now, just look at the audacity of Srila Prabhupada. Now, Prabhupada, that same lord, that particular form whose worship, they wanted to stop.
Prabhupada not only started that, Prabhupada made that public. That’s not just worship in the temple, that worship will be done on the streets. And then finally, when there was Jagannath Rathyatra in London, it happened many times, but Prabhupada couldn’t be present on many occasions.
At one time, Prabhupada was quite sick. And still he said, OK, I’ll just come and have darshan of Jagannath and I’ll leave. But on the streets of London, when Prabhupada saw Jagannath being worshipped, Prabhupada just manifested such extraordinary energy, Prabhupada started dancing in public.
And all the people around just went mad. The police at that time, they were trying to keep the crowd in control. And some of the devotees who were there in that Rathyatra, I was in London for a month last year, I was talking with them.
They said that what is described as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, that when he would be performing Kirtan, he would be in ecstasy and he would touch someone, that person would also go into ecstasy. So, there were the cops who were supposed to guard, the cops would tell the devotees, stop, stop. They touch the devotees and somehow the cops would also start singing.
So, it was just extraordinary what happened. So, for Prabhupada, this was actually the ultimate cultural conquest. It was from that sociocultural perspective what Prabhupada achieved.
Many spiritual teachers from India have gone to the west and they taught Indian spirituality. But in general, they kept the parts of Indian spirituality which western people would find difficult to understand, they downplayed them. Most of them talked about Advaita Vedanta.
Because Advaita Vedanta does not involve any form. And it’s relatively easy to accept. But Prabhupada not only emphasized the personal form of the Lord, but that form which was, in one sense, the western mind, especially the Christian mind would have, would recoil the most.
And that Jagannath attracted hundreds and thousands of people. So, the chariot festival is now one of the most prominent cultural festivals which reflect the Indian tradition. And of course, Diwali is a big festival.
Holi, the festival of colors is big. But these are festivals that happen at particular places. The Jagannath Rathyatra festival is something which happens on the streets.
And it is somewhere which hundreds and thousands of people get the mercy of the Lord through this festival. So, that is Prabhupada’s reciprocation with Jagannath. And we in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, as followers of Srila Prabhupada, have the opportunity to continue that reciprocation when we assist in organizing the Rathyatra.