Sri Ekachakra Festival: Beyond Imagination

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Kolkata—Worldwide, 28 February 2021, part 5

The big festival lasted finally four days—ekadasi, dvadasi, trayodasi, and chaturdasi; and everybody started coming one day before that. It is very difficult to maintain so many people. One thousand kilograms of rice was cooked on Nityananda-trayodasi. Prasadam was served beginning from twelve o'clock and until six o'clock in the evening, and many people came again late in the evening. People came from many areas—from all over Bengal, from Jharikand, and five-six hundred people came from Siliguri. Mostly, devotees (disciples of Gurudev and other devotees) joined this festival and stayed at the temple.

Srila Ashram Maharaj: How many kg rice did you distribute?

2,500 kg rice total for this festival, and 1,000 on Nityananda Prabhu's day. I left Ekachakra yesterday in the morning, and there were still about two hundred people staying there—some left yesterday after lunch, and some of them left today. This year, they had to buy a special train ticket with reservation, they could not buy the ticket at the station as before.

Now the cows in Ekachakra are very happy and stay much more comfortably. It was getting too crowded for them before that (there are now much more cows). I had got some land some years ago, to the south of the guesthouse, in the direction of the Pandav Tala. Actually, now it is hard to understand where is what because so many people are buying the nearby land now and start to live there. The temple used to stand alone, surrounded by vacant land, but now all land is getting covered—people build many houses and start to live there. People want to stay near our temple, and also it is now becoming a tourist place—people are going to Tarapith and other places, and on the way they come to our temple, pay obeisance, etc. Ekachakra is getting quite crowded now.

If you read Nityananda-mahimamrita (The Nectarean Glories of Sri Nityananda Prabhu), you can find there descriptions of so many pastimes in Nityananda Prabhu's life and also many very nice songs written by Srila Lochan Das Thakur, Srila Kanu Ram Thakur, Srila Vrindavan Das Thakur. You can see there how much mercy Nityananda Prabhu distributed in Gauda-mandal, Gauda-desh.

When Mahaprabhu took sannyas, He told Nityananda Prabhu to preach Krishna consciousness, but Nityananda Prabhu likes to preach about Gauranga Mahaprabhu,

ভজ গৌরাঙ্গ, কহ গৌরাঙ্গ, লহ গৌরাঙ্গের নাম রে
যে জন গৌরাঙ্গ ভজে, সেই আমার প্রাণ রে

bhaja gauranga, kaha gauranga, laha gaurangera nama re
ye jana gauranga bhaje, sei amara prana re

"Worship Gauranga! Say Gauranga! Take Gauranga's Name! Those who worship Gauranga are My heart and soul!"

Nityananda Prabhu bestowed His mercy to us, fallen souls. If you read the lectures of Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, Srila Guru Maharaj, Srila Gurudev, if you see what they saw about Nityananda Prabhu, you will see that they always stress that we cannot enter Vrindavan without the mercy of Nityananda Prabhu. His mercy is the main thing for us. Without Nityananda Prabhu's mercy, we cannot enter devotional life.

First, it is necessary to understand that Nityananda Prabhu is non-different from guru-tattva,

আশ্রয় লইয়া ভজে তার কৃষ্ণ নাহি ত্যজে
আর সব মরে অকারণ

asraya la-iya bhaje, tare krsna nahi tyaje
ara saba mare akarana

"Krishna never leaves those who take shelter in Him and serve Him—all others die in vain."

It is necessary to first surrender (to have sarangati), to have faith (sraddha, visvas). Faith is the main thing. It is necessary to have the strongest faith and proper chastity. If you do not have proper chastity, you will not be able to understand Nityananda Prabhu, understand who is Nitai because His behaviour and everything about Him is inconceivable. Those who have some simple-hearted sukriti, some proper sukriti, can understand Nityananda Prabhu.

Sri Ekachakra Dham is non-different from Sri Dham Vrindavan. There is Sivji Maharaj (Ekachakreshwar Sivji Maharaj) here who is worshipped by Sri Hadai Pandit, Nityananda Prabhu's father. There is also Lord Jagannath, Baladev, Subhadra... You know, this year our parikama managed to go inside the birthplace of Nityananda Prabhu ('Nitai bari') with the loud speaker—this year, they did not stop us. Actually, the situation at that temple is not so good now because the babaji from the temple died from coronavirus. There was no virus in Ekachakra (nobody had it there), but that babaji got it and died from it. So, the temple went through this bad experience. Before, they used to impose too many restrictions every year, they would stop our microphone, kirtan, etc. But this this time they did not stop us. I was very surprised at this.

During the festival I did not answer so many phone calls because my schedule was very busy—I gave the class two times a day, many people came to take initiation, I had to manage everything, preach, etc. I had to handle so much. Some foreign devotees helped with the decoration—mainly, Kamalendu Prabhu and Sudevi Didi. Sripad Sajjan Maharaj and Krishna Sundari Didi sold many books this festival. Sripad Sajjan Maharaj had brought six hundred copies of Original Source alone, and all were sold during the festival. Many bigger books were also sold—Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Sri Chaitanya-bhagavat, Nityananda-mahimamrita, and others. This is brihad-mridanga preaching. Krishna Sundari Didi was at the bookshop, and Sripad Sajjan Maharaj was preaching and distributing brochures and books in front of the temple to all the people who came. Jharikand and many other devotees helped distribute prasadam. There were twenty cooks who worked day and night. Twenty-five people continuously cut vegetables in shifts twenty-four hours a day. This is how the festival went. We brought only cabbage, cauliflower, pumpkin, eggplant, beans, tomatoes, and potatoes. So many people came to take prasadam that all wood had finished, we had to bring more, all vegetables finished, we had to bring more two-three times. Everything was finishing all the time. Our idea of the scope of this festival proved a failure.

Actually, so many people are coming as a result of preaching. If I did not preach, people would not join Krishna consciousness. We preach because Srila Prabhupad said, "Prana achhe yara, sei hetu prachara (প্রাণ আছে যার সেই হেতু প্রচার): you must preach for as long as you are alive. Go door to door."

People worry about coronavirus, but you see—two of my disciples took the vaccine and now they are sick. They say they felt good before, but when they went for vaccine, they became sick. Whether you take a vaccine or not, what does it change? You can get vaccinated, and then another disease will come. You are always thinking about the vaccine, but you cannot think about Nityananda Prabhu. You always think, "Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine! When will the vaccine come?" It is not necessary to wait for the vaccine—wait for service! It is necessary to be anxious about, "When will service come to me?" We must wait for service!

আর কবে নিতাইচাঁদ করুণা করিবে ।
সংসার-বাসনা মোর কবে তুচ্ছ হ'বে ॥

ara kabe nitaichand karuna karibe
samsara-vasana mora kabe tuchha ha'be

"When will Nitaichand give mercy to me? When will all my material desires become insignificant?"

('Prarthana' by Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

বিষয় ছাড়িয়া কবে শুদ্ধ হ'বে মন ।
কবে হাম হেরব শ্রীবৃন্দাবন ॥

visaya chhadiya kabe suddha habe mana,
kabe hama heraba sri-vrindavan

"When will my mind, leaving the material world, become clean? When will I see Sri Vrindavan?"

কবে নিত্যানন্দ মোরে করি' দয়া ।
ছাড়াইবে মোর বিষয়ের মায়া ॥

kabe nityananda more kari' daya
chhadaibe mora visayera maya

When will Nityananda be compassionate to me and relieve me from the mundane illusion?

("Kabe habe bolo se dina amar" by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

When will Nityananda Prabhu give His mercy to me, when will my family attachment go far away? This is what we must be always thinking about. Kabe habe bolo se dina amar? When will that day be mine?

আর কবে নিতাইচাঁদ করুণা করিবে ।
সংসার-বাসনা মোর কবে তুচ্ছ হ'বে ॥

ara kabe nitaichand karuna karibe
samsara-vasana mora kabe tuchha ha'be

"When will Nitaichand give mercy to me? When will all my material desires become insignificant?"

('Prarthana' by Srila Narottam Das Thakur)

— : • : —

{ 2001  |   2002  |   2003  |   2005  |   2009  |   2010  |   2011  |   2012 }
{ 2013  |   2014  |   2015  |   2016  |   2017  |   2018  |   2019  |   2020  |   2021 }

• Listen to the audio or download (3.7 Mb, 9 min)