attending Mongal artik

[Paramananda das]

dear Vaisnavas Please accept my humble obaisences All glories to Srila Prabhupada In our stage of Bhakti it is very essential to attend mangal artik or perform it in our own home if we live outside the temple. Sometimes devotees get engaged in collecting for Guru and Krsna and to some extent for personal use for grhastha maintanence etc. Other devotees engage in straight preaching and bookdistribution others work outside .However Srila Prabhupada never authorized us to stop chanting our rounds. and not attend mangal artik.

Srila Prabhupada wrote to Gopijanavallabha däsa on September 19, 1974, : “Upon your recommendation I am initiating the following disciples. You must see that they strictly follow the regulative principles, the four prohibitions as well as the devotional practices of rising early, taking morning bath, putting on tilaka, attending mangal artik, chanting japa sixteen rounds, and attending Srimad-Bhägavatam class. This is the duty of all my initiated disciples, whether they are big or small. Everyone is a devotee. So everyone is expected to follow the devotional practices. Here in Vrindävana I am enjoying my disciples how they are speaking. So two times daily everyone must attend the classes. During the morning and evening times there should be no business, simply kirtana. chant, dance, and be purified. Do not be paramahaàsa that now I haven’t got to hear Srimad-Bhägavatam and Bhagavad-gitä. Don’t be a better paramahaàsa than your Guru Mahäräja. I go and sit and I enjoy the lectures and how they are performing kirtana. So as I am doing you must also do.”

from morning walk November 2 1975 Nairobi:

Prabhupäda: No, “Example is better than precept.” If you actually follow strictly the rules and regulations and chant sixteen rounds, why they’ll not follow? They’ll follow. If you are not attending class, if you are not attending maìgala ärati, if you are not finishing sixteen rounds, then that is bad example. Brahmänanda: This boy didn’t attend mangal ärati. Prabhupäda: Don’t set bad example. That is detrimental. Devotee (7): Srila Prabhupäda, is it for the advanced devotees…? Prabhupäda: Nobody is advanced. Everyone is student. He must follow. There is no question of advanced. Devotee (7): I mean, they call südras… Prabhupäda: Südras? Südra, how he can be devotee? südras are never devotee. Indian man (4): No, he says sometimes the devotees, they call the other devotee that “You are südra.” Prabhupäda: That is jokingly. (laughter)

Devottes used to joke in the old days when someone would never attend mangal artik and chant 16 rounds , you have become like a Sudra. Srila Prabhupadas states mangal artik is also for the socalled” BIG Devotees” –do not try to become a better paramahamsa than your GuruMaharaja Srila Prabhupada stated.

“Do not be paramahaàsa that now I haven’t got to hear Srimad-Bhägavatam and Bhagavad-gitä. Don’t be a bett er paramahaàsa than your Guru Mahäräja ” In the Gita 10.4 Srila Prabhupada writes:

Tapas means austerity or penance. There are many rules and regulations in the Vedas which apply here, like rising early in the morning and taking a bath. Sometimes it is very troublesome to rise early in the morning, but whatever voluntary trouble one may suffer in this way is called penance

In the Gita 18.8 purport Srila Prabhupada writes:

Anyone who gives up prescribed duties as troublesome or out of fear of bodily discomfort is said to have renounced in the mode of passion. Such action never leads to the elevation of renunciation. PURPORT One who is in Kåñëa consciousness should not give up earning money out of fear that he is performing fruitive activities. If by working one can engage his money in Kåñëa consciousness, or if by rising early in the morning one can advance his transcendental Krsna consciousness, one should not desist out of fear or because such activities are considered troublesome. Such renunciation is in the mode of passion. The result of passionate work is always miserable. If a person renounces work in that spirit, he never gets the result of renunciation.

Just earning money and not attending mangal artik is also in the mode of passion, therefore Srila Prabhupada advised devotees in his final purports of the 10 Canto ,to rise early chant our rounds and attend mangal artik and situate ourself in sattva Guna and gradually elevate ourself to visuddha sattva. Sb 10.13.53 purport: Tamo-guëa and rajo-guëa increase lust and greed, which implicate a living entity in such a way that he must exist in this material world in many, many forms. That is very dangerous. One should therefore be brought to sattva-guëa by the establishment of varnäsrama-dharma and should develop the brahminical qualifications of being very neat and clean, rising early in the morning and seeing mangala-ärätik , and so on. In this way, one should stay in sattva-guëa, and then one cannot be influenced by tamo-guna and rajo-guna. tadä rajas-tamo-bhäväù käma-lobhädayaç ca ye ceta etair anäviddham sthitaà sattve prasidati
(SB 1.2.19)

your humble servant Payonidhi das