(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 19 February 2014, Mayapur, India, Srimad Bhagavatam 2.8.5)
Recently, I have spent time here in Sridham Mayapur because the GBC asked me to do some service. They asked me to do a kind of analysis of Mayapur and develop a strategy of how it should develop, in which direction it should go and asked me to write a report.
So, I spent four months working on that and I had to temporarily cut down my reading of Bhagavatam and had to sort of come down to management, management, management! So even now, in this lecture that is what will come out. It is inevitable because whatever we hear ultimately finds roots in our hearts, stays there and will manifest.
But I did read interesting and nice things about Mayapur, to comfort you. It’s not that bad [laughter]. After all, it is the spiritual world so it was a positive meditation. One interesting point came up in an old BTG article where Ambarish was being interviewed about the Mayapur project. Ambarish was saying that this project in Sridham Mayapur is very challenging. It’s challenging us to go beyond anything we could have ever imagined.
So the interviewer was asking, “In what respects do you mean? Are you talking about the money?” Ambarish said, “No, I am not talking about the money; money can come. I am talking in terms of organization.” He said that this is the biggest thing, the biggest thing this movement has ever undertaken and it’s just way beyond anything that we ever imagined we would do in this life. In this way, we are greatly challenged and that is indeed a fact!
In the course of interviewing various leaders, one of them said that just to build the temple, he said, “I bet you my bottom dollar that it will never be done unless everyone gets involved.” I thought that was the general principle which applies to the entire city and I thought it only comes alive if we all start giving to Mayapur.
We have come here again and again for inspiration. We have received the mercy of the dham. Here it is so easy! While I am here, automatically I can get up early. In other places, it is so difficult but here, it’s so easy. It just comes natural especially if there is no festival; there is nothing to do here at night, most of the time even the Pizzeria is not functioning [laughter]. So then where would you go? Nowhere to go!
So, just go to bed and then rise early and then chant before mangala-arati when there is really nothing going on, when there is no one talking and when one can just actually chant sixteen uninterrupted rounds, which is such an opulence – to just chant sixteen rounds without doing anything else, day after day. So I had a great time in that respect, I must say.
So, the dham was generous because the dham is surcharged with the generosity of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. We know that Caitanya-caritamrta highlights that generosity is an essential principle – that when we take the fruit of love of God and when we start to distribute that fruit of love of God, we will find that we wind up with more than we had before.
So, this principle applies here also. It equally applies to Sridham Mayapur. That actually we have to give to the dham, our effort has to be here, pranair arthair dhiya vaca (Srimad Bhagavatam 10.22.35); our energy, our wealth, our intelligence, our words – they all have to manifest here for this project to become what it is meant to be.
