How to Celebrate Holi 22nd March 2019 - Lokanath Swami Maharaj Transcripts

HOW TO CELEBRATE HOLI!

I am sure you must have enjoyed the Gaur Purnima festival yesterday. Wherever you may have been, you must have taken part in Gaur Purnima festival. Are you happy? Enjoyed? Rest of the Indians and Hindus were enjoying Holi , throwing colours and using pichkaris. Hare Krishna devotees were enjoying Holi festival differently, by chanting and dancing. nama nace jiva nace nace premadhan. ( Harinama Cintamani) For the devotees, Harinama was dancing and Jiva was also dancing. You are dancing means that’s the sign that you are happy. Happy people dance. Sometimes mad people also dance, but we are also becoming mad by chanting and we dance.

This holy festival is a festival of Radha and Krsna or Gopis and Krsna or may be also of some cowherd boys. These days they play Holi, but people don’t have any clue that this is Radha Krsna’s pastimes. They forget Krsna. They forget Radha or they themselves become Radha and Krsna. So this is dharmasya glanir that Krsna talks about in Bhagavat Gita – declination of the religious principles. They keep Krsna and Radha out of the picture. They play Holi twithout Radha and Krsna. That is dharmasya glanir and abhyutthanam adharmasya. ( BG. 4.7) Lord appears to facilitate the rise in pure religion. So this pure spiritual activity holi is made into mundane play or mundane entertainment devoid of Radha and Krsna. My thought on Gaur Purnima day was that Radha and Krsna also play holi. They join together and they appeared together as Gauranga Mahaprabhu. sri krsna caitanya radha krsna nahi anya. Radha and Krsna appeared on Holi Purnima day and the day became Gaur Purnima. Then we could play holi every day. When the Lord appeared and krsna prema pradaya te. ( Gaur pranam mantra) He gave himself to us, take me. I also said yesterday , on the Gaur Purnima talk that it was the appearance of Gauranga. So many others came with a birthday gifts. Sita Thakurani had come from Santipur with lots of gifts. Lord received gifts on his birthday party and he also gave a gift. He was receiving some gifts and he was giving out the gift which he had brought from Goloka to everyone . That gift is

HARE KRISHNA HARE KRISHNA
KRISHNA KRISHNA HARE HARE
HARE RAMA HARE RAMA
RAMA RAMA HARE HARE

Take it , have it. The Lord who plays, Radha and Krsna they play holi, on Holi day. , Krsna Caitanya gave us Radha and Krsna on that same holi day. Take Radha and Krsna. Caitanya Mahaprabhu was giving us Hare Krsna , Hare Krsna which means take Radha and Krsna. ‘Take Me and take My Radha. So in this ways we, Gaudiya Vaisnavas play holi differently by keeping Radha and Krsna in the centre. We chant the holy names and dance and we play holi. For us everyday is also Holi. Everyday we get the association of Radha and Krsna. So we are very grateful. What can we say? The Lord has given us the gift of the holy name. So we should be saying ‘ Thank you Krsna for this gift.’ We have no words to express our gratitude. This holy name is just his causeless mercy. Hari! Hari! Prabhupada has given this gift, Guru Maharaja has given us this gift. But first the Lord brought the gift. Prabhupada or any of the previous acaryas have not produced this gift. We are not the producer or creator. We heard of this amazing or out of this world kind of gift. This gift is like, before the battle of Kurukshetra, Lord was approached by Arjuna as well as Duryodhana. Lord gave his choice to both of them – one share will be My army – Narayani Sena and other was Myself – Dwarkadhish.’ Choose. Guess who received which share. Duryodhan was happy getting army of the Lord and Arjuna was happy to have Krsna on his side. Sri Krsna Caitanya Mahaprabhu gave us the gift. It’s not like you can take the gift and go away. Caitanya Mahaprabhu gave Himself , just like Arjuna received Krsna. He has given Himself to us. He has not given some item, but has given His whole self. purna mukta nitya suddha abhinnatvat nama namino. Lord who is full and complete that is the holy name. That was given to us by Gauranga yesterday as he made his appearance 533 years ago. If we could realise what is this gift or what is the value of this gift, that would be Krsna realisation or nama realisation then we would fully realise the holy name. This is Radha and Krsna. By chanting and chanting and chanting it will make us realise this holy name. Then we will realise this holy name is Krsna himself. So remember to think and thank the Lord for that.

Tomorrow during the japa session time I will be in the train from Nagpur to Nasik. Once I tried in the train and it had worked. So let’s see. Hopefully if the internet is favourable we will be able to connect. So see you tomorrow.
Hare Krsna!