Bhadra Purnima Inspirational Talk

om ajnana-timirandhasya
jnananjana-salakaya
cakshur unmilitam yena
tasmai sri-gurave namah

Translation
I offer my respectful obeisance unto my spiritual master, who has opened my eyes, which were blinded by the darkness of ignorance, with the torchlight of knowledge.
o? namo bhagavate v?sudev?ya
mantre??nena devasya
kury?d dravyamay?? budha?
sapary?? vividhair dravyair
de?a-k?la-vibh?gavit

Translation
O? namo bhagavate v?sudev?ya. This is the twelve-syllable mantra for worshiping Lord K???a. One should install the physical forms of the Lord, and with the chanting of the mantra one should offer flowers and fruits and other varieties of foodstuffs exactly according to the rules and regulations prescribed by authorities. But this should be done in consideration of place, time, and attendant conveniences and inconveniences.

This is how Bhagavatam begins.All obeisance unto the supreme personality of godhead. But when we say that we should also remember that we are offering obeisance to Bhagavatam itself or Bhagavatam himself. Bhagavatam is not different, it is Supreme Personality of Godhead.

k???e sva-dh?mopagate
dharma-jñ?n?dibhi? saha
kalau na??a-d???m e?a
pur???rko ’dhunodita?

Translation
This Bh?gavata Pur??a is as brilliant as the sun, and it has arisen just after the departure of Lord K???a to His own abode, accompanied by religion, knowledge, etc. Persons who have lost their vision due to the dense darkness of ignorance in the Age of Kali shall get light from this Pur??a.

Lord was getting ready to return, but then Uddhav said “No, no, I will also come with you, I can’t stay behind also, or without you”. And then Lord said “No, no, I will also stay behind, then in what form I will stay, in form of “Bhagavatam”. So Bhagavatam is itself Krishna, not different from Krishna

k???e sva-dh?mopagate
dharma-jñ?n?dibhi? saha
kalau na??a-d???m e?a
pur???rko ’dhunodita?

Translation
This Bh?gavata Pur??a is as brilliant as the sun, and it has arisen just after the departure of Lord K???a to His own abode, accompanied by religion, knowledge, etc. Persons who have lost their vision due to the dense darkness of ignorance in the Age of Kali shall get light from this Pur??a.

People are becoming blind, the greed, the lust, the anger is making them blind, they are not able to see, then what happens, then puran ark uditah… Then ShrimadBhagavatam is brilliant as sun, he is Lord himself- “koti Surya samaprabha”, means Lord himself had made available in the form of Bhagavatam, and giving the vision to the whole world, providing vision to the world, and that Bhagavatam, Srila Prabhupaad has given to us to the whole world. We distribute Bhagavata Geeta in Decemberbecause of Geeta Jayanti and that we had been doing from since the very foundation of ISKCON.

Every December – Geeta Marathon ki Jay. And now yet another marathon, we are getting into, settling in with this idea and we are calling it “Bhadra Purnima Campaign” or distributionsets of Bhagavatam, distribution Marathon. So, we do Geeta Marathon because Geeta was spoken in month of December. And we are doing this Bhagavatam distribution campaign/marathon in the month of Bhadrapada, because Srila Sukdev Goswami spoke Bhagavatam. He started recitation of Bhagavatam on Navami and then seventh day was BhadraPurnima,purnahuti. The completion of recitation of Bhagavatam took place on Purnima. So, these are the days of anniversary celebration. We celebrate the ShrimadBhagavatam recitation celebration by distributing Bhagavatam. Now if you want to please me, distribute my books- Prabhupaad said. And I have personally experienced this, I also was a book distributor. “Narad Muni travellingsankirtan party” was my party’s name. And we used to do reporting.

Mahaman Prabhu was talking about reporting, ChaitanyaMahaprabhu associates were doing reporting to Mahaprabhu. So, whenever we reported, I personally report the scores of books and experienced the joy, the happiness, pleasure of Srila Prabhupaad. So, now is the time to distribute Bhagavatam. We never less, we are not known for distributing a smaller number of books, so we always distribute more books. So, we already had distributed certainly more books, 2-3 years ago. Bhima Prabhu said this, Bhampe was the first temple to start, they distributed 35 sets of Bhagavatam, I want to thank and congratulate Bhima Prabhu for inspiration and VaishashikPrabhu also.

They got behind this Bhadra Purnima Campaign and it is going now. And then ICC chairman Prabhu and we have a team and we are pushing year after year, we are organizing Inspirational talks and saying MayapurSankirtan party,there are 50 devotees. And no wonder, why they are distributing they are no. 1 in the world. How keen they are to understand, hear and get further inspired. And I must say book distributing devotees were very dear to SrilaPrabhupaad. So, you all MayapurSankirtan and all the assemble devotees, right now right here, you are very dear to Srila Prabhupaad and because you are dear to Srila Prabhupaad, I would also like to say that, you are dear to me. So, you all assemble devotees, I am happy that youhave assembled and our family business is book printing and book distribution, otherwise we are not businessmen but we do this transcendental business of printing and distributing books. So, I was saying we increase book distribution and I am confident that we are collectively going to distribute more books, I go for it, double it – Prabhupaad used to say this. Devkinandan prabhuji has said that, try for that, but certainly we have to distribute more sets of Bhagavatam compare to the previous years that we have to make refer, I was thinking, how organization is being organized is important.

I was just reminded, during last days of Srila Prabhupaad he was with Giriraj Prabhu that time. Prabhupaad said how this movement will go on after I am gone? And Giriraj Prabhu responded, will chant Hare Krishna, will follow four regulative principles and like that. But Prabhupaad was not impressed and he kept quiet for long pause, and then Prabhupaad said, he just said two things, organization and intelligence. So, when you put this together, Prabhupaad has faith in intelligent organization or intelligently organized. So, for this book distribution purpose marathondistributing sets of Bhagavatam, we are getting organized but if we could get more intelligent organization behind this effort of book distribution and again Prabhupaadhad policy is where 2 heads are better than 1 and 3 are better than 2 and like that, collective effort putting everyone, giving their inputs and ideas, so keep doing this prabhuji, as many prabhujis are behind this effort. So, I also was thinking we need to distribute more Bhagavatam because there is big war going on right now. The Russians and Ukraine is battling. That battle can be counteracted only with the weapon. What could you say, which weapon should counteract with the bombs and missiles are being showered?

Is Bhagavatam. Geeta and Bhagavatam, we always say these are time bombs and you know the Srila Prabhupaad – The Senapati Bhakta, Commander-in-Chief, while he was riding in Jalduta boat and headed towards America and there preaching means fighting. And what was he carrying? He was equipped with Bhagavatam. So, there is something called collective consciousness, individual consciousness gets adds up, adds up, forms the collective consciousness of the world and Prabhupaad,of course said this- “the revolution in consciousness could be brought about by Krishna Consciousness and by Bhagavatam and Bhagavata Gita”. So, this world needs transcendental weapon more than ever before. So, let us make a very special effort and I was thinking it works, the message of Bhagavatam works on the individualconsciousnessandthencollectiveconsciousness.TherearedevoteesofKrishna, thosewho have read Bhagavatam, they are in Russia and they are also in Ukraine, so what about those Russian devotees? And what about those Ukrainian devotees? Are they battling / fighting?No.

Theyareofferingobeisanceandtheyareembracingeachotherandtheyareexchangingpeace, love and all that. So those who have studied Bhagavatam, this is what happens to them. So, we want to increase number of such personalities people on this planet and that is possible by this Bhagavatam. And ofcourse, chanting the Holy name of God and prasadam.

Lord in different form, but here we are talking about Bhagavatam, and I was also thinking other so-called religions- the books of religion – Bible, the Quran, the GuruGranth Sahib. We don’t just have a book, but we have a library of religion, not just one book of religion, and that library is Bhagavatam – the wholesome, complete and very potent. So, let’s go for it and let’s distribute Bhagavatam, and this is the topmost welfare work we could possibly do, the distribution of Bhagavatam. And what is distribution of Bhagavatam, the distribution of Krishna or sharing Krishna or we are sharing Krishna’s name, form, qualities, pastimes, abode. There is so much ignorance in this world, so let us throw some light in the form of Bhagavatam and let people open their eyes andtheirhearts and let there be revolution in their consciousness.

“Sarvesukhinahbhavantu, sarvesantuniramaya,
sarvebhadranipashantu, na kas chiddukhbhagwavet”

Translation
May all sentient beings be at peace,
may no one suffer from illness,
May all see what is auspicious, may no one suffer.

GranthrajSrimadBhagavatam ki jay!Bhagavata distribution ki jay!Srila Prabhupaad ki jayand for sure, all the assembleddevoteeskijay! para?vijayate?r?-k???a-sa?k?rtanam,victoryisguaranteed,let’s gofor it!Gauranga!