(2) South Indian Tour

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Siliguri, 30 April 2019, evening, part 2
Translated from Bengali

You have heard that this year after Ratha-yatra I will take some devotees to South India. We have hired three small buses for this tour. We are going from Puri to Kurmaksetra, and from Kurmaksetra we will continue our way by buses. Each bus takes about forty people. So, I will take about a hundred pilgrims with me. We hired a little expensive A/C buses. You live here in Siliguri, so you are not used to very hot weather (it is mostly cool or cold here), and even those who live in South India cannot manage in non A/C buses. When you travel anywhere south, you struggle with the heat, and if you go to South India, it is even hotter there – it gets scorching hot. There is a heatwave there. That is why we hired A/C buses for our South Indian tour, which is quite expensive. But the buses will take us everywhere and wait for us. We will stay overnight at some places, then continue our way the next day. We will visit several temples and all the places that Mahaprabhu went to.

You know that when Mahaprabhu went to South India, He met there with Ray Ramananda, Visakha's incarnation. Their meeting took place in Kovvur, on the bank of the Godavari. It was there that Mahaprabhu showed His original Rasa-raj Maha-bhav form. He showed that mood to Ramananda Ray there. It is a very high place. There is a temple of Chaitanya Math there, and we have arranged with them to take prasad there and to stay there for some time. From there, we will go by buses to Vijayawada. We have our centre there, and the devotees will also arrange for a place for everybody to stay. We will reach it in the evening, so we will cook, take prasad and rest there.

In South India, they like to cook sour dishes. They add tamarind even when they cook rice. They cook all vegetables with sour ingredients, too. It is hot there, so I guess it helps manage the thirst. We cannot take everything, so we have to take our cooks with us. We have to take our rice and dal with us. In our area, we are used to taking parboiled rice (it is sold half-boiled) – if we eat non-parboiled rice (atop chal), we get a problem with our stomaches, gas, etc. Such rice is not sold everywhere, so we have to take it with us.

We will leave Puri by train, at about nine or ten o'clock in the morning, and come to Kurmaksetra, a place of Lord Kurmadev. Mahaprabhu met there a brahman who read Srimad Bhagavad-gita. Mahaprabhu asked him, 'You are reading it all wrong, mixing up the words, but why are you crying when you are reading it?' The brahman replied, 'My gurudev saw that I was a fool, so he told me to read Gita. I do not know how to pronounce the words correctly, but when I read it, I can see Krishna stirring Arjuna's chariot, and when I stop reading, then I cannot see it anymore. That is why I always read it.' Hearing his reply, Mahaprabhu said, 'O brahman, you are the one who actually has the right to read Gita.' He lived in Kurmaksetra. Also, Lord Kurmadev, a tortoise incarnation, appeared there. He is the Deity of the Earth, one of the ten incarnations of the Lord: Matsya avatar, Kurma avatar, Varaha avatar, Nrisingha avatar, Vaman avatar, Parasuram avatar, Ramachandra avatar, Baladev avatar, Buddha avatar and Kalki avatar. Kalki is the only one who has not come yet.

Anyway, come for the parikramas. Tomorrow is our main festival here. I will be here for a few days. Come for the class every day. Come in the morning tomorrow, there will be Hari-katha starting from the morning. You can join the service at the kitchen today – help them cut the vegetables. I have told them what to cook tomorrow. They will make kochu sak, Mahaprabhu's favourite spinach. Actually, Mahaprabhu said, 'Give cakes and tasty things to everybody, and as for Me, give Me lapra.' Lapra is a curry made of five mixed vegetables. We have brought potato, pumpkin and other vegetables – take five vegetables and cooked them together to make lapra. They will make some paneer rasam, patol rasam with potato, mango chutney, sweet rice and a few other things. But today is ekadasi, a fasting day, so they will cook some plain potato...

Let us chant some kirtans now.

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