GLORIES OF NRSIMHADEV! 18 MAY 2008, Sridham Mayapur.(transcribed by HG Jayaraseshwari mataji)

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HH JAYAPATAKA SWAMI GURU MAHARAJ’S CLASS ON:

GLORIES OF NRSIMHADEV! SPOKEN ON 18 MAY 2008

Shloka from Srimad Bhagavatam, 7.8.17:

Satyam vidhaatum nijay-bhrtya-bhaashitam

Vyaaptim ca bhuuteshv akhileshu caatmanah

Adrshyataayadbhuta-ruupam udvahan

Stambhe sabhaayaam na mrgam na maanusam

TRANSLATION: To prove that the statement of His servant Prahlada Maharaja was substantial – in other words, to prove that the Supreme Lord is present everywhere, even within the pillar of an assembly hall – the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Hari, exhibited a wonderful form never before seen. The form was neither that of a man nor that of a lion. Thus the Lord appeared in His wonderful form in the assembly hall.

PURPORT BY HDG: AC BHAKTIVEDANTA SWAMI PRABHUPADA!

When Hiranyakashipu asked Prahalada Maharaja, Where is your Lord? Is He present in this pillar?” Prahlada Maharaja fearlessly replied, “Yes, my Lord is present everywhere.” Therefore, to convince Hiranyakashipu that the statement of Prahlada Maharaja was unmistakably true, the Lord appeared from the pillar. The Lord appeared as half lion and half man so that Hiranyakashipu could not understand whether the great giant was a lion or a human being. To substantiate Prahlada’s statement, the Lord proved that His devotee, as declared in Bhagavad-gita, is nevery vanquished (kaunteya pratijaaniihi na me bhatah pranashyati Bg 9.31). Prahlada Maharaja’s demonic father had repeatedly threatened to kill Prahlada, but Prahlada was confident that he could be killed, since he was protected by the Supreme Lord. By appearing from the pillar, the Lord encouraged His devotee, saying in effect, “Don’t worry. I am present here.” By manifesting His form as Nrsimhadeva, the Lord also preserved the truth of Lord Brahma’s promise that Hiranyakashipu was not to be killed by any animal or any man. The Lord appeared in a form that could not be said to be fully a man or a lion.

Hari hi Om tatsat!

So Srimad Bhagavatam describes the appearance of Nrsinghadev to fulfill the statements of his devotee , nitya pritya bhaashitam, the words spoken by His servant, his devotee were proven to be true. The Lord is present everywhere. Also He promised that His devotee would not perish, so he was protected by Lord Nrsinghadev. Hiranyakashipu tried so many ways to kill Prahlad but they were not successful and when he finally he could not kill him he decided to at least get rid of him. He had him put in the bottom of the ocean, and had piled a mountain of rocks, stones. He thought this would keep him out of sight and prevent him from causing trouble. Then he was under hundreds of thousands of tons of millions of tons stones. Then Prahlad became light. He had mystical powers to be heavier than the heaviest and lighter than the lightest. So he became so light that he floated to the top of the ocean and popped out from the pile of boulders. So, these things were frustrating Hiranyakashipu. So he decided I will kill him myself. That is when he asked if Nrsinghadev is in the column and Prahlad said He is everywhere. So just at the right time the Lord appeared out of the column. Hiranyakashipu fought with Him and Hiranyakashipu was defeated. In the Padma Purana it mentions that Prahlad, Hiranyakashipu, Nsringhadev they appear many times, it is not only this one time. At least two different incarnations in other days of Brahma are described in the Padma Purana. One of those times he worshipped Siva and he got the blessing. Another time he worshipped Brahma again. When he was worshipping Siva he wanted Prahlad to admit that he was supreme and when Prahlad did not he said that well at least admit Siva is supreme if not me. And that he is higher above Lord Vishnu. Prahlad did not accept that either. Prahlad was a very fixed up Vaishnava. He knew very clearly who the Supreme was. He got prenatal instructions in the womb of his mother Kayadu. He was instructed by Narada Muni. When Narada went to save Prahlad from the devas and took Kayadu to his ashram she was carrying Prahlad and then instructed her. Later she forgot about the things but Prahlad remembered everything. So that is why before he was born he was already trained up. Teachers of Prahlad were amazed where he was getting all this information from. They were not teaching him all this Vishnu tattva. So they were surprised. His mother - I can’t remember whether it was the Siva time or Brahma time, One time Padma Purana says that when Bhakta Prahlad was preaching about Vishnu bhakti and everything then Hiranyakashipu got really angry and sent his soldiers to kill him. First they tried to – struck him with the sword. No sooner the weapon would hit Prahlad it turned into a blue lotus neel kamal. Another soldier came with a spear and went to stab Prahlad in the heart, and kill him, but as soon as it touched Prahlad it turned into a blue lotus. Someone came with a spear and ah…………. More blue lotus! Whatever they tried, the weapons turned into blue lotuses. So there was a pile of blue lotuses next to Prahlad. They were not able to hurt him. Rather they were doing pushpanjali! Ha Ha! Like that so many other things they tried to kill him. They sent one big tusker, an elephant , the elephant went running to Prahlad and tried to jab him with his tusk. When the tusk hit Prahlad it broke out and then without any tusk he was demoralized and ran away. Whereas in the Bhagavatam it says that Hiranyakashipu says that maybe this boy is being contaminated by the preaching of some Vaishnava. So he told his elite soldiers to guard the school and make sure that no Vaishnava goes in. If they see any Vaishnava going to the gurukul, kill him he said. They were guarding with their weapons. Little did they know that the Vaishnava Prahlad was already inside, Bhakta Prahlad and teaching the students to chant Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare!

So like this so many exchanges between Prahlad, Hiranyakashipu actually Hiranyakashipu was a child abuser. Right? In the worst way. He wanted, to get rid of him in so many ways. He was a demon of the child abusers. But Prahlad was protected by Nrsinghadev. Strangely, Padma Puran mentions that in another kalpa Hiranyakashipu had the boon not to be killed by the devas animals, or by man but he did not mention in or out but in this leela he mentioned neither inside or out, but in that leela he did not mention. So that he had to be killed in the door way and twilight he did not mention. So there is little difference in each of the pastimes. So Hiranyakashipu told Prahlad I will give you time till 6 in the evening till sun down. Like in America the cowboy bullies they say you have time till sundown. So Hiranyakashipu gave Prahlad time till sundown and if your Lord does not come by that time you will be finished.

There was elaborate arrangement for worshiping Hiranyakashipu. They built a big air conditioned facility which was very like a over a 100 km long and 50 km wide and very high and even air planes to fly inside it. It was air conditioned and was quite cold. Also very pleasant. There was special buffet if you were hungry. Eat whatever you want. But even then you do not feel hungry but still if you felt hungry you could eat. There was a big high like altar with a big throne and Hiranyakashipu would sit and 100 million people would sit and do Hiranyakashipu kirtan. Did not say what was in the kirtan. We love you ..Hiranyakashipu. You give us sense gratification! You are a great guy! Something like that. So they had big gatherings, fountains and beautiful… Hiranyakashipu would get worshipped, not as a representative of Lord Vishnu but as the supreme himself. Then Prahlad would still not accept it. Mutiny was imminent. Hiranyakashipu told him you have until sunset and I will kill you. Then Nrsinghadev appeared outside of this big facility and He was walking thru the town. All the people the demons living in Hiranyakashipu’s city they saw Him and he climbed the ramp and entered into the stadium or whatever you call it. The facility and He was roaring with His gigantic form. Hiranyakashipu said what is this? Call the air force commander. Tell this whatever he is we do not allow beasts into the stadium. He should go out otherwise he will be killed. So they went there to tell Nrsinghadev to leave. He did not leave. Then they went to attack Him. His mane was spread out. When any airplane or missile hit His mane they would be pulverized into ashes. Psh…Would fall as ash down on the people below. Sometime in the airport we see some light bugs which touch the light and get burnt and fall down psh…Hiranyakashipu had special missiles and he told them to release the missiles. All kinds of missiles to destroy and so one after another he was throwing missiles at Nrsinghadev. Some would get burnt, and some Nrsinghadev would catch look at and throw it back. Nothing was happening to Nrsinghadev. All the military and all the airport place was destroyed. Then Hiranyakashipu himself went to attack Nrsinghadev. Fight was very similar. Catching, releasing, flying in the air, fighting with each other and when it was the right time, then Nrsinghadev grabbed Hiranyakashipu like a big bug but this time he sat on his throne took him and bifurcated him into two took out the intestine and everything. He sat down. Laxmi devi could approach. In the Bhagavatam leela she could not, He was too angry, but in this one she could. Some differences in the leelas. She sat on Nrsinghdev’s lap. The devas wanted to approach and offer prayers but the it was so intense the effulgence of Nrsinghadev that they communicated, like they told, whispered to Laxmi – effulgence, cooling please! Lord had different kinds of jyothi, the intense hot jyothi and also the cooling jyothi like the moon rays and he switched the jyothi to cooling mode. Then everyone came and offered prayers and Prahlad came and offered prayers. It is very interesting that Nrsinghadev does not come only one time.

Last year 2007 we went to South India divya desham parikrama not parikrama, well, safari. We went to different temples. In Vishakapatm there is Varaha Nrsimha temple, Nrsimhachalam. How many of you have gone to Nrsihachalam? You were there in the yatra? Not the yatra. One time Radhanath Swami took his yatra 2500 devotees and went to I met them there. From there he went to Tirupathi.

So Prahlad said you pray to Nrsinghadev that I saw your form delivered my father. When you came in the form of Varahadev you delivered my uncle I did not see that . Will you show that reveal that to me? Lord Nrsinghadev appeared then He assumed the form of Varaha Nrsimha where his head became like the boar, lion and man all the three. He assumed that form after He killed Hiranyaksha. They say, the local pujaris say that that is the place of Prahlad’s gurukul. Any way Prahlad made this appeal to Nsinghadev and that is history and He took that form to show that form to Prahlad the Varaha Nrsimha form. The deity is there since the time of P and millions of years old. They put sandalwood pulp on him every three months, 45 kilos every three months. So one day they take it all out that is on Akshaya Trithiya and people have a darshan of Him without sandalwood. The next day they again apply sandalwood for the rest of the year. Like a big egg of sandalwood pulp or sandalwood paste. With a big tilak on the sandalwood covering the face. Three four times they put take it off for one day and then put again. You saw? One year I got special permission, someone let me go to Vishakapatnam he said the EO , the Executive Officer has given permission and you can go directly to see the deity. Normally there is an 8 hour wait, 300,000 people queuing up for days and nights. Once a year the deity opens for 12 hours. Everybody wants to see. I had to go thru the exit and show my pass. They allowed 5 people. Finally got into the main temple thru the exit. Everything was thru the exit. The policeman came and looked at us and I cannot handle it there are too many people. Tough luck. I am sorry! We were feeling so much … it was special to get this darshan. Somehow the person climbed over the fence and saw the EC and police guy came and they came and took us in whoosh….. let us in. There was a huge queue of people coming in and they let me go behind the volunteers and I went behind them and got right up, let me into the deity room I was at a distance…. as far away as that video, the head of Varahadev, beautiful deity. So then somehow they forgot about me. I was there for like 10 minutes. Everyone was getting like 2 seconds darshan! And then finally this person shooed me. If you don’t get to see the deity there is a drawing to see how the Lord looks. But you can feel the deity’s presence in the middle of the chandan.

There is Mangalagiri in Vijayawada, Lord Caitanya visited there. You have to climb this hill some 200 odd steps. You go to the top and there is a special queue. There is a face of the deity into the stone and you may bring some gur water and give it to the pujari and he puts in a conch shell and pours init to the mouth of deity and it goes down and we can hear it go down gonu gonu gonu… like he is drinking or something. And somehow half the conchshell gets filled with prasadam this gur water, panak, one of the names of the deity is Panaka Nrsimha. Everybody was drinking litres of charanamrita. They say that deity they offer in the satya yuga they offer soma ras, in the dwapara yuga they offer milk, in treta yuga ghee and in kali yuga these people are poor so they offer panakam. Gur water with spices. Like a lemonade with gur. So we had the darshan there and we go down there is a new temple at the base recently built in the dwapara yuga by Yudhisthir maharaj. Mangalagir is there since yugas. This is only 5000 years old! Modern temple. This is Lakshmi Nrsimha temple built by Yudhisthir maharaj of the Pandavas.

Few years ago we went on Nrsimha Safari all the Nrsingha temples.We went to Ahobilam. Last year we went, where we climbed all sorts of mountains and stuff. Some of the youth went there by the side and we put the footprints of Lord Caitanya there. Lord Caitanya had visited Ahobilam. There are 10 deities, 9 are ancient deities and one is like even more modern like 2000 or 1000 years old. We saw 7 of them and one of them we had to go deep in the jungle. So we could not see two of them. There was one Hanuman temple. That Nrsinghadev appeared before Hanuman. Hanuman said You know my Lord is Ramachandra, ki jai! Nsringhadev said I am Ramachandra. But Hanuman said you don’t look like Ramachandra you look like a lion, prove it! So then Nrsinghadev manifested Rama’s bow and arrow in His Hands. So then Hanuman said you are my prabhu and paid His obeisances. They still have the bow and arrows carved on to the stone. There are so many pastimes there I can’t remember where. We went six years ago. But beautiful temples. We can see the lotus foot prints of Lord Caitanya there.

We also went to Karnatka, to Melkottai where there is a Narasinghadev where Prahlad he tried to meditate on Nrsinghadev and Nrsinghadev said you don’t know how to meditate. Then Nsinghadev showed him how to meditate. N took the yoga asana showing P how to meditate on Him. Even the Lord is teaching his devotee how to do the pastime. That is Yoga Nrsimha. How many of you have seen Yoga Nrsimha? There are many different Nrsinghadev temples especially in South India. We have the Nrsimhapalli where Nrsinghadev was flying over Navadweep and he landed in Nrsimhapally and He was not approachable. After killing Hiranyakashipu here He became more approachable. So the devas built cottages around and built Him a cottage and started serving Him bhoga and fanning and doing all kinds of personal services. So here in Navadweep dham the Lord is accessible and of course when Murari Gupta was chanting the Vishnu Sahasranam and got to Nrsinghadev, Lord Caitanya got into the mood of Nrsinghadev and lifted His stick and shouted Where are the demons? Where are the demons? I will kill them all! People were seeing the huge form of Lord Caitanya with a stick saying I will kill all the demons. They all started running and when Lord Caitanya when he saw them running he came back to His original form and He told Murari Gupta that I scared all those people. He said that by just seeing You in that form they got liberated. So Lord Caitanya manifested in Mayapur this mood of looking for the demons and somehow Nrsinghadev, sthanu Nrsimha when He comes out of the column and He looking for the demons … I am just reading the new book they published about Nsinghadev lilas in Mayapur – everybody got their copy. There was one pujari who was afraid of worshipping Lord Nrsinghadev appeared in his bedroom and told him don’t worry you can worship Me and don’t have to feel afraid of Me. How many of you have come here to worship Nrsinghadev? How many plan to worship Lord Nsinghadev today? Whoever is worshipping Nrsinghadev there is nothing to fear. There are some beautiful pastimes there. One lady was praying to Nrsinghadev for some service. She turned around and Pankajangri prabhu asked her if she would help with some service for Nrsinghadev? She got the Nrsinghdev chararanamrita for the ladies. He gives instant blessings. Somebody was going blind - two people, one person had an accident, one eye was already damaged and other doctor said you will lose it. The man prayed to Nrsinghadev and he got full eye sight. And the other lady also gradually got her sight. He is very merciful. Since we have Nrsighadev we have no more dacoits and He protects us here must be by His mercy. Somebody was saying why are we worshipping Nrsinghadev why cant just worship Madhav ? Some day Madhav came in his dream and said Madhav is non different from Nrsinghadev. Every time the devotee looked up at the face of N and saw Madhav. That is why the guru or the stapathi agreed to let us have this Nrsinghadev deity who is ferocious. But he said the Krishna devotees they worship Him like Krishna and He will be very merciful. But if you try to cheat Krishna or Nrsinghadev when in Mayapur try to sneak and do something you are not supposed to do He knows everything.

Any questions, comments?

I was supposed to talk for 45 minutes. You can all do a Nrsinghadev lion roar. ROAR…………………………….

There is another pastime. Nrsinghadev between Hyderabad and Warangal few times we went there. Some Jahnu muni or Juna muni or someone you know that pastime. There is a deity inside the cave. You go inside. The cave is above the ground. There was like a self manifested deity there. …

I asked in Shantipur where the shaligram was it in the Advaita temple but the sevite of the Advaita temple he said that as far as he knows another of his relatives one of the descendants of Advaita acarya had the shaligram in Shantipur town. I wanted to go and see, may be Bhakti Siddhanta Maharaj He is a shaligram devotee…

(comments by some devotees which is not audible)

There is a book called the Advaita Prakash I don’t know how bonafide it is. But that gives the details of the pastimes of Advaita Acharya.

Once I was doing Gaura Mandal Bhoomi parikrama. Went to a place called Raghunath Ganj near the Ganges and there is an old temple from the time of Lord Caitanya and he , pujari, came out and brought a shaligram Nrsinghadev shaligram, mouth open, chakra, like Ugra Nrsimha and he said will you please take this Nrsinghadev. I am a grihastha pujari and I don’t feel qualified to worship this Ugra Nrsimha. I am not so strict. You can take it to Mayapur and worship it. Some pujaris do not want to worship Ugra Nrsimha.

Question:What is the significance of Adivas?

Reply by Gurumaharaj: It is like a preparatory worship a very important puja before Janamashtami or Gaura Purnima or some big function is going to happen the following day, then you offer various auspicious articles to the deity with mantras and it is to get you meditating and understanding that you are preparing for a very important function or spiritual festival. This is prescribed in the Rupa Goswami’s Janamashtami vidhi that one should do Adivas before Janamashtami. Also in the deity installation book it says that you can also do this kind of adivas. But for deity installation there are a number of adivas – jal adivas, dhanya adivas, shayan advias, there are a number of them, rice paddy, water, putting to sleep, etc. we do these things which are kind of purifying before the function. We purify the pujari, the uninstalled deity is also purified, the bimba, purify the reflection, so that the Lord will come in and stay there.

(Comment by a devotee which is inaudible)

Since He appeared a number of times, don’t know which kalpa. In Ahobilam there they have the column from which He came out. But in some places it seems like He is in Indra loka.

Thank you all very much ! Hare Krishna! Happy Nrsingha Chaturdasi ki jai!

Jayapataka Maharaj ki jai!