From work in progress, from Jayananda Thakur volume two,
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Meditation Two
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by Vishoka Dasa
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Jayananda gave love to everyone. That is our mission, to give love of God, love of Krsna to all the souls of this material world. And to love Krsna's devotee, that is just as good as love of God. So Jayananda got people to greatly admire him, he got them to love him, and in that way they were loving God, through the yoga of loving Krsna's devotee. Ordinary people loved Jayananda, he melted their hearts.
Jayananda makes Krishna's devotees extremely happy; he puts a bliss into their heart that is hard to describe, hard to put into words. He compounds exponentially the bliss we feel from serving and remembering Srila Prabhupada and Lord Krishna.
This is the love that every person in this material world is actually looking for, all their lives. This is the only kind of real love, love of Krsna, via the love of His devotee. Other kinds of love in this material world are simply temporary and false, and disappointing. Only the love of God and His devotees is the actual real love. Only divine love is completely satisfying to the soul.
Jayananda had the gift of giving this divine love to the work-a-day ordinary people he met on a regular basis. The hardened NY lady cried uncontrollably and left the room, when she heard Jayananda was gone. Murli-Krsna ran a temple vehicle into a police car, damaging the fender. The policeman came to his window, and said, "Oh, you know Johnny-ananda?" Murli said "Yes." The policeman said, "that's ok, you can go on." Murli wrecked the fender of a police car, but he let him go! That was because the man felt love for Jayananda. I went to a store for some parts, for Ratha-yatra one year, and they asked about Jayananda. I had to tell them the unfortunate event, that he had left our vision. I saw tears in their eyes, out of love for him, they gave the parts free to me, in memory of him. Devotees, and people of all walks of life loved him dearly.
We worship Krishna, we read His pastimes, we love Krishna, and we know we have a personal relationship with Him. Sometimes we feel far away from the actual personal service and connection with Lord Krishna. Like, who am I to serve Krishna? I only know Krishna through His saints. We have the process to serve Him in His holy name, His deity form, and hearing and remembering His pastimes, and serve Him through His saints, and He always remains with us through thick and thin, in our hearts, through millions of births, always helping us to advance in His service, there is no greater friend than Lord Krsna. We read His lila, how He is happy in association of the gopis, or playing with the cowherd boys, and so we become happy by reading or hearing how our Lord Krishna is eternally happy with His pure devotees, we hanker to join that eternal association, when Krishna is permitting.
We love Srila Prabhupada, and we worship and serve Srila Prabhupada, we think of him always. He is jagat-guru, and he is there for all of us, for all of humanity. When he was manifest in the 70's, I always felt like a mouse in a herd of elephants around Srila Prabhupada, always looking inward, looking in from the outside perimeter of devotees, still I always felt an intimate and personal connection with him. Srila Prabhupada is all pervading like Krishna, he is always there for all his disciples and followers. He lives forever in his books, he lives forever in his spiritual legacy, and in the thoughts and words and deeds of his millions of followers.
In order to serve Lord Krishna we must first worship Krishna's servants, worship His saints. Krishna says, “I consider worship of My devotees to be better than direct worship of Me. If someone attempts to worship Me directly without worshiping My devotees, I do not accept such worship, even though it may be presented with great opulence." - KB 86
We love to read about the Vaisnava saints and previous acharyas and serve them and worship them, and beg for their benedictions to grant us devotional service unto Lord Sri Krishna. Sometimes we read about the wonderful life of Rasikananda, like the time he wept in compassion for the men who tried to kill him, because they were slain by snakebite.
Sometimes we read and meditate on the lives and writings of one of the six gosvamis, such as Srila Rupa Gosvami or Srila Sanatana Gosvami. Sometimes we worship the lives of Sri Ramanuja or Sri Madhvacharya, or Vamsi dasa. Often we read of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Maharaja and other acharyas of the parampara, and all the wonderful saints in Srimad Bhagavatam and Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, and we give them all of our worship.
Sometimes we meditate on the lives of Srila Prabhupada's saintly devotees, such as Visnujana Swami, and Tribhuvannatha prabhu, and Hladini dasi, to name a few. Visnujana Swami said, "I was coming to the temple regularly and then I realized I'm living among saints."
We relish the wonderful stories of Visnujana Swami, how he played mrdanga every day in harinama, until his fingers bled, and how tears were streaming down his face, and other stories we read in Radha-Damodara Vilasa, and the folio.
We read about Tribhuvannatha prabhu on the internet, on the Prabhupada Connect website, and there is soon to be a book on Tribhuvannatha.
There is a book about the life of Hladini dasi, titled “Legacy of Love, a Servant’s Quest,” in which we read how she wrote to Srila Prabhupada many letters after 1977, this passage in a letter of 1986, “I simply want to be useful -- am I pleasing you? I gave this life, all of it…. ”
There are so many other saints and "unsung heroes" amongst Srila Prabhupada's disciples, such as Madanacini dasi, who served Lord Jagannatha for 35 plus years steadily at the San Francisco and Berkeley temple. And I could name hundreds more of saintly unsung heroes who lovingly served Srila Prabhupada, but then I would be guilty of neglecting to mention the names of the other hundreds of saintly devotees, and so suffice it to say that there are so many saints and unsung heroes in Srila Prabhupada's movement, we cannot count them all.
Jayananda is our omnipresent saint; he is there for all of us, bar none. He increases exponentially the love we have for Srila Prabhupada and Lord Krishna and His devotees. We all can be directly connected to Jayananda, because he is there for all who pray to him and meditate on his life. Makes no difference who you are, where you are, or what generation of disciple you are, he is in your corner. Doesn't matter if you are good or bad, if you have all bad qualities, or if you are 1% surrendered to Krishna, or 50% or 90% surrendered, none of these factors have any bearing on Jayananda giving his association, and granting a connection to our saint. Jayananda Thakur is every devotee’s saint, he is always there and ready to bestow his blessings and intimate instructions directly into the heart of any person who prays for his service. We only need to follow his example, even to the smallest degree, and all good fortune will attend us.
If I can follow even an atomic portion
of his life, I will consider myself
extremely fortunate.
Haribol, Bharat dasa
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Vishoka Dasa
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