A spotless dark blue sky is above us, all around fields of olive trees. The landscape, which is dry and dusty somehow reminds of Vrndavana shortly before the rainy season. We have arrived in Andalusia, southern Spain.

Paramananda Prabhu, one of the organizers of the festival, who picked us up from the train station happily said: “By the mercy of Śrīla Gurudeva it is not so hot as usually at this time.” It was “only” 34 degrees.

Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said: “prthivite ache yata nagaradi grama, sarvatra pracara haibe mora nama - in every town and village, the chanting of My name will be heard.” Fulfilling this prediction, His unlimited grace has to reach also this corner of the world, the town of Marchena, where a group of sincere and dedicated devotees took up the wonderful task of inviting Srila Gurudeva to have a festival of hari-katha and kirtana.

Marchena a town where people are not too much found of raising the Spanish flag but prefer to decorate the walls with paintings of mother Mary and other saintly personalities is certainly a fertile ground for Sri Krsna’s grace to flow via his pure devotee. Here people carry a natural devotion in their heart.

The saintly Teresa from Avila ordered that nuns should be happy and everyday joyfully sing for the Lord with musical instruments.

In the monastery of Franciscan nuns where we stayed as next-door neighbours in the ‘Hospederia de Santa Maria’ we saw such happy nuns who chanted every morning wonderful hymns for the Supreme Lord.

Already before the festival started the habitants of Marchena came to know through the newspaper and TV about a spiritual master in the tradition of bhakti-yoga who was about to visit their town.

In this way the inaugurating program of the festival, which took place in the city hall of the town was very well visited and the pious people were visibly moved by Śrīla Gurudeva’s speech on the topic of ‘The Essence of Religion’. Step by step he took the audience to the understanding of the individual’s highest purpose or telos, which is to serve God and chant His Holy Names. Very expertly Śrīla Gurudeva can remove any kind of sectarian doubts, which one might have by presenting the common points of all religions, like i.e. keeping a rosary which is seen in all religious traditions.

God compared to the sun is self-luminous, or in Sanskrit, svayam-prakāśa. The sun can only be seen by the light of the sun. In the same way God can be known or seen only through His name. All the guests could make a practical experience of the power of the divine names through the kirtana, where everyone joined in dancing and clapping. One lady expressed to Srila Gurudeva, that she has so many problems in her life but on this day, they were all lifted, she felt very grateful.

After the opening program in the city hall we celebrated the holy day of the cleaning of the Gundicha temple.

What a wonderful symbolic pastime which represents the cleansing of one’s heart. Lord Sri Krsna is very sweet, beautiful and gentle, so He will not want to come to a heart, which is filthy.

The big stones and stone chips should be removed, which means in order to have the darśan of the Supreme Lord a sattvic, non-violent lifestyle needs to be adopted with no intoxication and consumption of tamasic food like meat, fish or eggs.

But there is more to be cleaned. Only by selfless devotion is Sri Krsna conquered. It means all other tendencies to do karma (reward seeking ctivity), jnāna (desire for liberation), yoga (by my own strength and sādhana I will attain yoga-siddhis) and tapasyā (by hard austerities like fasting I will receive respect and become very pure) need to be removed. Srila Gurudeva explained, that persons, who also teach these kinds of practices actually hide some envy towards God in their heart. Even one may keep hatred towards one-self, which is also an aversion towards God. Therefore, bhakti is the only path which brings about a permanent purification, because it corresponds to our true nature.

Chaitanya Mahāprabhu collected more dust than all others and shows how intense His mood to serve is. And again, He ordered another cleaning, because there are so many subtle, unwanted elements, which impede devotion. Under the influence of utsaha-mayi, the beginner’s enthusiasm, one thinks himself to be already very close to the goal and later finds out, that actually this was not the case and the initial enthusiasm goes down. Before attaining the stage of nistha the devotee is under the influence of different types of unstable practices, sometimes he is very determined and sometimes he becomes slack (ghana-tarala). He becomes confused about different statements of the scriptures and sometimes wants to renounce everything prematurely and then again changes his conviction (vyudha-vikalpa). Even the devotee is not engaged in gross sense gratification but the desires remain on a subtle level and now he is battling inside with the senses (visaya-sasgara). Niyamaksama is the incapability to uphold a vow and taranga-rangini forces a devotee to enjoy the material benefits which are coming as a result of bhakti. Like this we heard about the six types of unsteady devotional practices explained by Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura in his Madhurya Kadambini and Srila Gurudeva recommended to all devotees to study this text carefully, which elaborates further more on other obstacles that can come on the devotional path like i.e. the different types of offenses.

Sweeping is the job of low cast persons, but Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Himself did this job with His associates, which shows, that even the lowest type of work can be an act of devotion.

The glories of sadhu-sanga were established by Srila Gurudeva explaining what a glorious prospect in life a living entity actually can have coming into the association of a saint. Being of tatastha nature, in the right and favourable environment, the jiva, compared to a spark of fire, when in contact with a big bundle of cotton has the potential to flame up fully into a blazing fire. How wonderful!

Means through hearing from Sri Guru the cleansing of the heart takes place, compared to the pouring of water all over in the temple of Gundicha Devi. The water of hari-katha and kirtana are needed, only through this the heart will become thoroughly clean.

srnvatam sva-kathah krsnah

punya-sravana-kirtanah

hrdy antah stho hy abhadrani

vidhunoti suhrt satam

SB 1.2.17

Sri Krsna, the Personality of Godhead, who is the Paramatma [Supersoul] in everyone’s heart and the benefactor of the truthful devotee, cleanses desire for material enjoyment from the heart of the devotee who has developed the urge to hear His messages, which are in themselves virtuous when properly heard and chanted.

The evening before the festival started we celebrated the disappearance day of Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura and Srila Gurudeva gave different devotees the opportunity to speak some of his glories. He himself spoke on the pastime when Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura was travelling in the train and then in a vision the demigods had invited him to come to heaven to explain to them the meaning of the verses 9.30 and 9.31 of Bhagavad-gita.

It was the world sankirtana day when by bus we headed for the capital of Andalusia, Sevilla, where first an outreach program in a yoga studio took place and afterwards a great nagar-sankirtana through the town. As the climate is very hot in the day time people come out in the evening and in this way the town was crowded with many people. Hundreds and hundreds were blessed to hear the Holy Name and the Spanish people go very easily along with the kirtana, clapping, waving, smiling and dancing. For more than one hour we went chanting through Sevilla, an extremely beautiful town. But maybe the town appeared so beautiful because we were fully absorbed in chanting.

As the pastime of Gundicha mārjanam shows, when all the devotees came out of the temple after cleaning, they saw, that the whole town had also become very clean.

Srila Gurudeva has explained many times that we don’t need to fix the world. That everything is perfect. Only we need to fix our own vision. With a pure heart, everything in the outside world also is seen as perfect and in order. For such a vision we pray!

That we never forget the most important tattva, sri guru-tattva, Srila Gurudeva invited devotees to speak about this essential topic. Failing to understand who is Sri Guru and the necessity to honestly follow him, one can actually not progress in spiritual life. Even a person may do all the practices of bhakti but without fully giving one’s heart to Śrī Guru actually there is no real practice going on.

Many new persons came to meet Srila Gurudeva and some already took shelter of him. We can say that during this festival a beautiful stream of grace was flowing. And leaving Marchena Srila Gurudeva was happy, saying that this festival was very successful.

One wonderful point which Srila Gurudeva made is that living a life of service is actually true human life. As long as one is just preoccupied with gratifying his own senses he is simply an animal. Like this the saints in all religious traditions were always in service to the Lord and ultimately active for the upliftment of society.

Also, very helpful to hear was that if a disciple once has received the karna-bheda-samskara, which means, he has heard the śabda-brahma from his Guru then it is his duty to always strive to be able to receive the divine sound vibration. This of course is only possible by following all the instructions of Śrī Guru in one’s life.

Another important teaching that we heard was about two instructions which Krsna gave in the Bhagavad-gita. On one hand He says that a person shall perform their duties without attachment to the result. That this is the safer path. Better than going on the path of jñāna because a person needs to be active at all times. And the result of niskama-karma-yoga and also jnana-yoga are the same, the attainment of discrimination between the body and the soul, atma-deha-viveka.

And the second instruction by Krsna is: sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja (BG 18.66). One should give up all duties and simply surrender to Krsna. Now what should one do?

The point is, that if one has sadhu-sanga then he should follow the second instruction. Niskama-karma-yoga is only for those, who do not have sadhu-sanga.

How is one able to progress in bhakti? Srila Gurudeva gave us the recipe. It is to hear about the glories of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s associates.

We were fortunate that towards the end of the festival the disappearance day of Sri Sivananda Sena and Sri Svarupa Damodara Gosvami were occurring. Hearing about the devotion of these personalities inspires and shows what is the standard of behaviour to be fit to become an associate of the Lord.

How intimately was Svarupa Damodara Gosvami serving Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. He could understand His inner feelings and by reciting different verses, rendered the most confidential service enabling His Lord to sink in deeper and deeper relishing transcendental emotions.

When we came to Marchena the external sky was spotless without any cloud. We pray that our inner sky may also become spotless and a suitable place for the Lord to take His seat.

During the program in the yoga studio Srila Gurudeva shared the extremely beautiful bhajan: mama mana mandire raha nisi-din, krsna murari sri krsna murari, which was written by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura. Now when all impediments are removed and the devotees heart becomes pure and soft, Krsna starts to have interest in him. But the process of His full revelation to the devotee starts very sweetly and gradually as Sri Krsna is shy and keeps on appearing and disappearing to the devotee, testing if he really wants Him. Then the devotee sings this kīrtana, where he requests Sri Krsna to kindly remain in the temple of his heart all day long and also during the night. He expresses in what all ways he will serve Him. By devotion, by offering garlands and sandalwood paste. “Please come, oh son of Nanda, I want to perform your arati.” He prays.

Concluding what is the real meaning of yoga Śrīla Gurudeva quoted this verse:

yoginam api sarvesam

mad-gatenantar-atmana

sraddhavan bhajate yo mam

sa me yukta-tamo matah

Bg. 6.47

“And of all yogis, the one with great faith who always abides in Me, thinks of Me within himself and renders transcendental loving service to Me – he is the most intimately united with Me in yoga and is the highest of all. That is My opinion.”

Thank you Srila Gurudeva and all the devotees for this wonderful festival. From day one to the last day I was uplifted from 0 to 10. It proofs so much, how important it is to regularly hear hari-kathā, have kīrtana and be in sadhu-sanga.

Marchena Bhakti Festival 2022 ki jaya!!

Vrndavana Vilasini dasi