DISTRIBUTE MY NAME ALL OVER THE WORLD

You know that Prabhupad Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj appeared on this day of Nandotsav, the day after Krishna’s appearance day. After Krisha’s appearance last night, today Nanda Maharaj makes a festival and all the Vraja-vasis—the cowherd men, boys, and ladies—assemble in the house of Nanda Maharaj.

“After so long Nanda Maharaj has gotten a son, and He is unbelievably beautiful.” Hearing this, all the Vraja-vasis come with ingredients like milk, curd, ghee, or butter, some ornaments, flowers, or various other things as presents. With all of these things, they come to the house of Nanda Maharaj, and their tradition is to dance and sing. So, they dance, sing, and throw butter, cheese, and other items about in an intoxicated way. We have seen in the villages of Bengal people still celebrate festivals in this way.

The priest of Nanda Maharaj, the very famous Garga Muni, also came to the festival, and he gave the Name ‘Krishna’ to the son of Nanda Maharaj. From this day, the son of Nanda Maharaj became very famous, and Garga Muni told everyone the boy had the power to become the controller of  the whole universe. Garga Muni did not say the son of Nanda Maharaj was the Supreme Lord, but he saw and felt that He was and considered that everyone else would see His Pastimes in future.

There is very nice song about the Nandotsav:

nander mandire re go-wala gai re
hate nari kande bhava nache dheye dheye
siva nache brahma nache ara nache indra
gokula go-wala nache paiye govinda

These verses mean that Lord Siva, Lord Brahma, Lord Indra, and all the demigods in the form of cowherd men join in the festival and celebrate the appearance of Krishna.

Krishna very mercifully sent His dearmost devotee Prabhupad A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami to this mundane world for the super-benefit of our spiritual lives on this day. Krishna sent him on this day, this festival day, that of His own birthday festival, saying, “Go and distribute! All the cowherd men are distributing ecstasy here at My birthday festival and you should go and distribute My Name all over the world in this festive way.”

Everyone has seen what happened after Srila Swami Maharaj came to the Western world. Within twelve years, he performed a great miracle, and all over the world people began dancing and chanting the Hare Krishna mahamantra. Now in Hungary, in Russia, in previously communist countries, people are chanting the Hare Krishna mahamantra. Now the whole world knows the name of Krishna and something about Krishna consciousness. If you say the name of Srila Prabhupad anywhere, almost everyone will understand. And anywhere when people see someone with saffron cloth, tilak, and a sikha, they ask, “Are you ISKCON?” So how famous is the preaching of Prabhupad? You all know the glories of Prabhupad. If Prabhupad had not appeared, who would have distributed the Hare Krishna mahamantra all over the world? Prabhupad has given that transcendental substantial wealth to everyone. And through that also, many of his followers are now doing very nice things all around the world.

Actually we have entered the Western world by the grace of Prabhupad, and I know only one society, that is, the world Vaisnava society, and we are members of that society by the grace of Srila Swami Maharaj. By this I mean the pure Vaisnava society. There are many people living in the Vaisnava society of India, but the pure Vaisnava society in the line of Guru Maharaj has been spread all over the world by Srila Swami Maharaj. Everyone knows Srila Guru Maharaj holds the pure line of Rupa Goswami. And in a nondifferent way Srila Swami Maharaj and Guru Maharaj have tried to spread that consciousness to everyone. One is my Siksa-guru, one is my Diksa-guru. They are both in the pocket of my heart. And another pocket of my heart is full of all my friends. I am running on alone now after Guru Maharaj and Swami Maharaj, but the pocket of my heart is always full.

I am feeling so fortunate that Srila Swami Maharaj Prabhupad’s mercy is still flowing all over the world, and we are floating within that.

Source

Spoken in September of 1994 in Hungary.