Srila narotham das thakur has prayed Rupa raghunath pate,”Rupa raghu nath pate kabhi mora asha prarthana koro ye sada narotham das” which means that ,to follow in the foot steps to accept the example which has been given by the six goswamis of virndavan headed by Srila rupa goswami, raghunath das goswami is the real path of the gaudia vaisnavas. When the six goswamis were living in vrindavan they established in the purest & highest sense the way in which every human being should strive to live. We can not imitate them, we can accept the principles & aspire to follow them. We read in Caitanya charitamrita & Caitanya bhagavat, bhakta ratnakar & all the great literatures describing their lives how the center, the focus of every thing was the deity of lord Sri Krishna. He was the heart & focal point of all the devotees at every stage of their life for the sake of pleasing Sri Krishna who was appearing especially in those days as Sri radha govinda , radha madan mohan & radha gopinath. They would be chanting the holy names, japa, they would come together in kirtan, they would write in so much so many wonderful books. They would engage in so much wonderful wonderful seva but the concentration, contemplation was always in fixation of mind that it was only for the pleasure of my worship able lord.
We find when Krishna das kavi raj goswami was as per the vaisnavas to compile a historic narration of the life & teachings of Sri Caitanya mahaprabhu. After first receiving the blessings of all the devotees, he went to the temple of govinda, gopinath & madan mohan & he begged for their blessings & all the devotees were there following & when the garland fell from Sri Madan Mohanji every one accepted this is conformation, Of course when all the vaisnavas were asking what is the need of conformation but still this is the consciousness of the devotees, because all the devotees, their blessings, their instructions are on behalf of Lord Sri Krishna & Krishna appears in form of archa vigraha the deity, Simply to give a focus by which we all come together to remember him, to serve him & to love him & we find all of the great acharyas how much they emphasized keeping the deity of Krishna in the center. Srila madhavacharya, he established the highest principles of worship, above he taught so much deep deep deep philosophy & very very powerful strong sadhana, he was all centered around keeping his disciples together in the service of Sri Udupi Krishna. Their was a focus by which all the Bhajan was being conducted & Srila ramanujacharya, he established the highest principles of worship in kanchipuram, in Tirupati & he made his head quarters at the Ranganath temple in Srirangam with a focus to keep the attention of all the devotees in Krishna together in the worship & service of Sri Ranganathji & similarly when Sri Caitanya mahaprabhu appeared, where did he take his residence? In Jagannathpuri & although he was teaching the yuga dharma that the most important principle is congregation chanting of the holy name. How did he focalized his chanting? It was most transparent during Rathyatra devotees from all over Bengal, orissa all of his disciples & followers they would gather in Jagannathpuri during the rathyatra & they would have beautiful beautiful kirtan & he taught them that it was all for the pleasure of Lord Jagannath & every morning Sri Caitanya mahaprabhu would come to the Jagannath temple for the darshan & the whole focus of all the vaisnavas in puri was taking Jagannath Prasad having the darshan of Jagannath, doing seva of Jagannathji & spreading compassion to humanity, service to humanity on behalf of Jagannath by spreading chanting of the holy name & following those principles. Sri Rupa and sanatan were sent to vrindavan Caitanya mahaprabhu told them you must establish temples in deity worship & centered around that the essence of Vedas which is chanting of the holy name & devotion to Krishna but the focus was always in the service & glorification of Sri madanmohan, Sri gopinath & Sri govinda dev. Now of course we find that in many religions of the world there is great aversion to this idea of worshiping of deity in the temple they call it Idol worship & the Vedas also condemn in the higher levels Idol worship. Idol worship is one of two things, generally one is with no scientific scriptural guidelines to simply concoct our own superstious imaginatory reasons for some deity & to concoct a method of worship as well & the other is to worship simply for material ambitions to be fulfilled this is called Idol worship & in the western countries we see at the time of the great religions of the west practically one hundred percent of the population were malicious & yovanas following no vedic principles addicted to eating meat & other activities as such, their was no sastra,& their was no conception of this very very high beautiful scientific method of prana pratista of calling the lord to accept our love & service in his holy form of the vigraha, the murti. Therefore the imaginatory process, the speculative superstitious process of Idol worship was ramped why because that principle of focusing the mind on a form of God is always their & even the religions who condemn so called Idol worship, they are doing it themselves, they have to have a focus, the sikh their whole focus is their work it is their worshipable deity all that they rally around but it is a form, it is a form which they can experience God in & the muslims, they are doing their namaskaras towards mecca where ever they are in the world that is their deity that where they are bowing to God That is where they are reaching out for the essence of God but it is a physical place a form & the Christians in every church they stand before the crusi-fix the cross they kiss it they kiss it, they kneel down before it , they pray to it, they beg mercy from it & the jews have their Tora which they keep on the alter & on certain days they decorate it with crowns & jewellery & they kiss it & they bow down before it & they worship it, in this way every religion sees the great need to gather around together around a form which they perceive as the essence of God. So we say that God never, you should not worship God in any thing material, we find that every religion is doing it, every religion is performing deity worship but in the vedic religion it is a very very high scientific process which has been given by God himself & which has been followed & amplified by all of great previous acaraya’s. & When we read so many beautiful stories that how Krishna through his worship able deity some times he speaks to his devotees, the devotees could feel the presence of God & could feel the love of God so much ubsurjing in their hearts when they come before the beautiful form of Sri Krishna. Therefore the vedic litreatures, they explain what is the process of proper deity worship i.e. in the temples, in our own homes we may have the murti & that is very nice but the murti in the temple of guru maharaj should always be the center of our life because that is where we all can come together, not as one isolated families, but all families can come together to unite& share our love & devotion to Krishna. Lord Caitanya’s movement is the sankirtan movement. We find in vrindavan each of the goswamis had their own murti’s that they would worship personally individually in Jagannathpuri (13:30) every one had their own murti’s which would worship personally & do Bhajan for but the emphasis was always Sri madan mohan, gopinath, govinda where they would all come together, where they would all have beautiful kirtan, where they would all take Prasad together, where they would all discuss philosophy together, in this way all small families become one big family recognizing God as their father & this is not an imagination, it is like Srila Prabhupada used to tell us some times people would challenge him why are you worshiping God in wood or stone? Then Prabhupada would reply is God every where or is God not every where, any one who believes in God must accept God every where &he is in every thing so is he not in this wood or stone but the difference is we are recognizing him here, we are worshiping him here, we are focusing our attention in him here & it is explained when an advanced vaisnava according to the instructions of guru sadhu and sastra one who invokes the presence of the lord in a form that is particularly designed according to the appearance of God as it is explained in the sastra. Then out of mercy out of causeless mercy & kindness the supreme God had appeared in that form to accept our love & Krishna explains as you approach me I reward you accordingly, if we approach the deity as stone, the deity appears to us as stone, if we approach Krishna, the deity as God, the deity will reveal himself as God but of course at the beginning our vision is material we can not see the spiritual & it is for that reason that Krishna allows us to keep our attention on him on a material form that we can perceive. People say that God is spirit how can you see him with material vision? The fact is you cannot, therefore out of God’s mercy he appears in matter so that we can see him, we can keep our attention on him it makes easy for us, we can dance before him, we can repose our affection on him, we can cook for him, we can serve for him, we can do so many wonderful services twenty four hours a day & most of us can come together to glorify him. This is the beauty & sweetness of the worship of the vigraha of Sri Krishna. Srila Prabhupada used to say it is like post box when the spiritual master personally authorizes & calls Krishna to come into a particular form it is like an authorized post box what ever you offer to the deity is accepted by God but if you just conduct your own box it is like any one can make a box & put it some where but that does not mean that mail man is going to deliver that, there are so many boxes unless that post box is authorized by the government & by the postal department it may look any way it want but the effect is not there, the message is not delivered so similarly idol worship means to conduct a manufactured own post box without the Krishna, the Sastra, the guru, & the sadhus & proper deity worship that according to guru sadhu and sastra is the authorized post box what ever you offer is accepted by Krishna directly. So beautiful festivals we are observing today are one of the most important parts of vaisnava life style. We find in Caitanya charitamrita how every festival Lord Caitanya would celebrate with his devotees in such a unique & jubilant way, they put so much priority on festivals, it is like when you know Sri Caitanya mahaprabhu wanted to go to vrindavan but the devotees would always were trying to delay him, you should not go now as rath yatra is coming up then we have to celebrate rath yatra, all right we will celebrate rath yatra, but janmastami is coming up we have to celebrate janmastami & then after janmastami, Ah radhaastami is coming up & then after radhaastami rasspurnima is coming up, okay, govardhan puja is coming up, Dholi yatra, holi is coming up ramnavmi is coming up rath yatra is coming up ha!ha!ha! where it will end, and then Caitanya mahaprabhu could not refuse & he would celebrate all these festivals in such wonderfull ways all in very very unique he would always be centered around kirtan of the holy name the pravacan, the transcendental narration of the lords lela & so many wonderful offerings & sevas to deity worship uniquely according to that occasion & such festivals not only give great great pleasure to Krishna but they bring great great pleasure to the devotees because what gives Krishna most pleasure is when the devotees are finding great pleasure in serving him, loving him & glorifying him so these wonderful festival days are so important in our lives it is one of the most important principles which is the basis of our unity which means it is one of the most important principles in the sankirtan movement. We are not simply tapasvi’s just living in caves somewhere doing tapasya we are not dry philosophers studying the sastra’s studying the sastra’s, in the age of kali yuga none of these things are recommended, we are vaisnavas we are devotees, we have taken shelter under the sankirtan movement of lord & therefore to learn to love one another to dance with one another, to sing for one another, to make beautiful flower clothing’s for Krishna together, to work together to make wonderful jewelry for deities, to work together to cook feast for the deities, to work together to decorate the temple beautiful for the deities especially on these days that are holy to the lord, this is where love enters into our life. There is knowledge, there is renunciation, combination of all these must be love & therefore Srila rupa goswami, sanatan goswami, gopalbhatt goswami they have written so many books rupagoswami wrote bhaktirasamrit & so much major portion of it how to properly worship the deities & celebrate the wonderful glories in the temple & gopalbhatt goswami, sanatan goswami one of their major works hari bhakti vilas teaches simply how to wonderfully celebrate the different festivals with the pleasure of the deities in the temple. And when Srila Prabhupada came to the west first of all, his own guru maharaj, he established 64 temples here in India Bhakti Sidhantha Sarswati where he installed the beautiful deities of radha Krishna & gaurang mahaprabhu & he taught everyone how to chant japa? How to chant kirtan? How to have bhajans? How to have beautiful pravacan? How to beautifully decorate the deity, cook for the deity, serve the deity, love the deity celebrate the festivals with the deity & when Srila Prabhupada came to the west he established 108 temples all over the world where every body was calling the world simply to worship the forms of radha & Krishna, to dance, to chant, to take Prasad with them, he established rath yatra so the whole world could see the beautiful form of Jagannath & offer obeisance’s to him & appreciate the beautiful chanting &the beautiful services to him, he established rath yatra in almost every major city of the world & it is a big big endeavor making three big big carts most of the carts they had to be mechanically collapsible because the Jagannathpuri they don’t have telephone & electrical lines &railway bridges on the main path, in cities of America all these things are their, so much so much endeavor to make a wonderful festival, Prasad for tens & thousands all Jagannath’s mercy hundred sometimes thousands of devotees coming to chant together, in this way Srila Prabhupada established deity worship to bring vaisnavas together on such an high & jubilant platform with love & devotion for the pleasure of Krishna & it is this that attracts the world, since here people of the world when they see this they are captivated, they need not even understand intellectually, they are attracted, Krishna is all attractive whenever enthusiastically we are serving him in unity that will attract the hearts of all sincere innocent people on this planet no doubt, So today is the winter bathing festival for radha & Krishna. Srila Prabhupada explains that you should worship radha & Krishna by decorating them simply with flowers & let every one see the beauty of Krishna as he is decorated with wonderful flowers rupa goswami said if you are attached to the material sense objects of this world then you should not look up on the beautiful form of Krishna because he will steal your heart away, so you know that we are all interested to see something beautiful, man want to see beautiful women, women want to see beautiful men, we want to decorate ourselves with so many wonderful ways so that people look at us, in this way there is an endless competition of trying to be beautiful & trying to see beautiful & trying especially to posses that which is beautiful but all of this material consciousness is transcended when we learn to appreciate the beauty of Krishna &it is not a beauty that we posses, it is a beauty that we serve. Suppose I want to posses a beautiful car to posses beautiful clothing, to posses beautiful man or women, to posses beautiful jewelry. When we come to the temple Krishna is ours but Krishna is also everyone else’s . When we come before radha gopinath we think that Krishna is mine personally he is mine everyone is thinking like that. Does everyone think that way about your nice car? Does everyone think that way about your nice jewelry ? Does everyone think that way about your nice house furniture, in this way how mine & yours, this is mine &this is not yours, this is yours but not mine But Krishna is everyone’s though your in the temple today who does not feel that radha & gopinath is their own Everyone feels this way they do not that radha & gopinath these beautiful forms they are mine I can come any time I can see them &serve them I can chant for them, I can dance for them, I can cook for them they are mine but everyone is thinking that way their is no competition, in this way the presence of Sri radha gopinath is uniting us all & today is nice festival we requested the devotees for the pleasure of Krishna let us make beautiful clothes made out of only flowers & so many ladies came together, usually what do ladies do when they come together they gossip, they talk, talk about relatives & other relative things or I don’t know what else they do? Usually they don’t come together, but today so many are coming together & they are all fixed in consciousness just helping one another, assisting one another to make some thing beautiful for Krishna & the pujari’s & the cooks everyone, so many people doing so many things little working together to make everyone like a little part doing their part to make the whole festival wonderful for the pleasure of Krishna & this is what will bring human society at peace with one another but of course in order to have this principle we must philosophically understand what we are doing & why otherwise when it is simply based on sentiments it can when some imperiment comes we are easily dis-unified so when we understand the philosophical principles of deity worship & the need for it & observing these beautiful festivals. When we hear submissively the philosophy, religion without philosophy is sometimes sentimentalism or sometimes fanaticism & philosophy without religion is simply dry speculation. Their has to be a marriage, the harmony between the two. This wonderful devotional festivals are essential necessity but they must be combined with a deep understanding philosophically that why we are doing & what we are doing. So today is the beautiful festival of the winter bathing ceremony. We have bathe them in flower petals. It is so nice just like, last year in puna if you remember, when we were having hari kirtan on the roads, when people were showering flowers upon us. Do you remember how much bliss & ecstasy you were feeling when that was happening? Do you remember? That was such a joyful experience when people were dropping buckets upon buckets & buckets of flowers on our heads & devotees were just, you can when the flowers were falling on their heads they were just intoxicated in joyfulness it was such an experience. So we want to do the same thing for Krishna shower him, bathe him with beautiful flowers, soft fragrant flowers simply for his pleasure & when the devotees see Krishna getting such a pleasure so many beautiful flowers showered upon him the devotees feel great ecstasy. When you water the root of the tree every part of the tree is nourished, is satisfied so when our consciousness is connected to Krishna when we se Krishna being bathe with flowers to the degree our consciousness is like a branch connected to the tree, to the root of Krishna to that degree we will derive the greatest ecstasy & pleasure seeing how Krishna is enjoying & to the degree our consciousness is elsewhere disconnected from the root we don’t realize the ecstasy that is coming so this real pleasure, this is supreme pleasure to give pleasure to Krishna, the reservoir of all pleasure & this is real society, real love when we all come together united for one purpose to give pleasure to Krishna & how nice Krishna has arranged so many magnificent, exciting & dynamic festivals all unique in their own way so that we can continuously be coming together to love Krishna, to serve Krishna, to chant his holy names “ Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare” & when we take part in this wonderful festivals naturally automatically we loose all our attraction to the dry selfish pursuits of happiness of this world. So now we will have the beautiful Arati for Sri Sri Radha gopinath. When this Arati is taking pace we should fix all our attention on the beautiful form of radha gopinath. We should fix all our attention on the beautiful offerings & all of the nice seva that has gone into this offerings that is decorating Krishna. Krishna is only decorated by the love of his devotees & similarly the devotees, their only decoration is their hearts love for Krishna in this way there is endless competition between Krishna & his devotees decorating one another, serving one another with love.
Thank you very much.