CC daily 28 – M 4.102-105 – Delight in the expansion of the Lord’s glory, not one’s own glory

How this transpires. Thank you.

So, as the temple, as the temple manifested, then, in the traditional culture, the temple would have its own resources, because charity may come and not come, sometimes comes and may not come. So, the temples were a enduring structure, and the whole socio-cultural structure was arranged in such a way that the temples were not dependent on unpredictable charity alone. Certainly, charity would be there, but the temples would have their own resources.

So, one of the resources considered very valuable in the tradition is cows. Cows give milk, which is dear to the Lord, and cows provide any other items also, like their dung can be used to make gobar, which is used for cooking and for making patties for houses, and so many other things like that. So, now, every village, each, actually, not just every village, but each and every family in a village, in Rijidham, in Ravan, they gave one cow, ek lika vraja-vasi, so here vraja-vasi refers to one vraja family, because the property was not owned by individual members, it was a whole family together.

So, every family gave one cow. We can just imagine that if they were able to give a cow in donation, that means they must have had multiple cows, because spare a cow means that they had other cows which did their regular regular services, and then they spared a cow which was donated to Gopal. So, in this way, Gopal got, actually goes to Gopal.

You know, he is the protector of cows, and the cows are his providers. Although he doesn't need anything, the cows provide him milk and he delights in that milk. And in the many items that are made through the milk.

So, as we know, Gopal steals butter which is made of milk ultimately. Overall, the natural opulence of Vraja in terms of cows also was offered to Gopal. And then, sahasra-sahasra-gavi.

Sahasra is, in this way, thousands and thousands of cows were there. Now, there are many many there are so many people living in each city. Even if Vrindavan is a small place, not exactly city but still there are, in each of the villages, if we combine together, there are hundreds and thousands of people, and thousands and thousands of cows came in the treasury, in the possession of Gopalji.

Gowda haite aila dui vairagi brahman puri gosai rakhi latare kariyayatan Gowda haite aila So, from Gowda, from Bengal haite aila, to aila came vairagi brahman, two brahmanas who were nunciates. And puri gosai rakhi latare kariyayatan And puri gosai rakhi latare, he kept them there and kariyayatan to keep them there, he started endeavouring. Now, Madhavendra Puri was a travelling nunciate and when he got an opportunity for doing this extraordinary service of discovering the deity and establishing the deity so he naturally did that.

But at the same time he knew that deity worship requires a team of many, many people. And the Vrajavasis were enthusiastic to assist the vairagi brahmanas were also doing services over there but he felt that he wanted to offer the best care to, best service to Gopalji. So he decided he was looking for people who could serve him, constantly serve him as we could say in today's language in the language that is used in the Krishna consciousness movement that he wanted full time people.

So at that time two brahmanas were renounced, in the renounced order they came to Vraja and as they were going to various Vraja places Madhavendra Puri saw them and he talked with them he evaluated them and he found them very good and he decided that he should be kept for the pleasure of, for the service of Gopalji. So he gave them various comforts and gave them inducements by which they could stay over there itself and render service to the lord. Saidui Shishyakari, he made both of them his disciples.

They were already aware of Madhavendra Puri's glory and seeing the deities there they also wanted to serve. So Shishyakari seva samarpila and he samarpila entrusted the service of the deities to them. Rajya sevahai purira ananda badila and then he saw that the service of the lord was rajya sevahai, was being performed opulently purira ananda badila so Madhavendra Puri's happiness, ananda badila it increased enormously.

A devotee wants the lord to be glorified more and more and the lord is glorified more and more by that his the devotee becomes pleased. So lord is glorified, lord is served that's what Madhavendra Puri saw over here ananda badila. So in general a devotee's mood is that how can the lord be served more and more and the more the lord is served the happier the devotee becomes so we can also pray that instead of we seeking happiness in increasing our own gratification or our own aggrandizement we also learn to delight in delight in expanding the service of the lord expanding the glory of the lord, expanding the opulence of the lord just as when we love someone we naturally want to see that person happy, successful and in that we gain happiness similarly when there is love for the lord then in expansion of the service of the lord there is great joy for a devotee.

So such was the joy that Madhavendra Puri relished and by relishing this joy he lived in ecstasy now the lord would soon expand the service of Madhavendra Puri in another way and that will be mentioned from the next verse onwards and in this way for years both of them served now Madhavendra Puri he was so attached to the deity that he decided to stay there itself and although he was used to travelling but Vrindavan was after all a devotee's heart's aspiration is to live in Vrindavan and when the lord has himself manifested, performed his miraculous pastime and revealed himself to the devotee what more can a devotee want? So he decided to stay in Vrindavan but then while he was staying so Madhavendra Puri had a dream and how one earlier dream had led to the discovery of the Gopal deity and another dream led to further adventures in devotional service what they are we will discuss in our next session Thank you.