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Pancha-Tattva and Harinam in Ljubljana
By Vipramukhya Swami

Click on each photo  for full size.

Friday, March 29, 2002, Slovenia–

Yesterday we had a big festival for the appearance of Lord Chaitanya here in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. About 200 people attended, and the highlight of the evening was placing very large, beautiful, neem-wood Deities of the Pancha Tattva on the altar. Earlier in the day we performed Harinam congregational chanting in the streets of downtown Ljubljana.

Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is an incarnation of Lord Krishna who appeared 516 years ago in West Bengal, India. I lectured about the appearance of Lord Chaitanya in the morning and again to the devotees and guests at the Gaura-Purnima festival. The morning lecture was recorded. Click here to listen or right click here to download first. 

Lecturing in Ljubljana is not difficult. About 90% of the people speak English, and about 80% speak fluently. I speak slowly, and as I speak, a devotee simultaneously translates the lecture. It takes some getting used to having a translator speak at the same time I am speaking, but with a little concentration it becomes possible. For the evening lecture, I had to speak one sentence at a time in the microphone, and it was translated by a lady devotee who sat near me, also with a microphone.

The Pancha Tattva is Lord Chaitanya and His chief associates. These five Deities were carved in India from neem-wood, a very hard, dense wood from a tree with edible, but very bitter leaves. Neem wood is the traditional, preferred wood from which to carve wooden Deities. I mentioned the Deities were “placed” on the altar, because normally Deities in ISKCON temples are “installed” on the altar. Installation means making a firm commitment to worship the Deities according to a very high standard. The Deities last night were not installed.

These are also the most beautiful Pancha Tattva Deities I have ever seen. I know of a few other places where there are Pancha Tattva Deities: Mayapur, Hawaii, Laguna Beach, Italy, and Sweden. But I don't know of any other temple that has such strikingly beautiful Pancha Tattva Deities as here.

Srila Prabhupada mentions in the Bhagavad-gita that “bhakti-yogi accepts the Deity of Krsna as worshipable because there is some bodily conception fixed in the mind, which can thus be applied.” He says that worship of the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His form within the temple is not idol worship. “There is evidence in the Vedic literature,” he writes, “that worship may be saguna and nirguna — of the Supreme possessing or not possessing attributes. Worship of the Deity in the temple is saguna worship, for the Lord is represented by material qualities. But the form of the Lord, though represented by material qualities such as stone, wood or oil paint, is not actually material. That is the absolute nature of the Supreme Lord.”

In another place (CC Adi 14.9, purport), Srila Prabhupada writes, “When the form of the Lord is carved from wood, stone or any other element, it is to be understood that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is there. Even logically we can understand that all material elements are expansions of the energy of the Lord. Since the energy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is nondifferent from His personal body, the Lord is always present in His energy, and He manifests Himself on account of the ardent desire of a devotee. Since the Lord is supremely powerful, it is logical that He can manifest Himself in His energy. Deity worship or worship of the salagrama-sila is not idol worship. The Deity of the Lord in the house of a pure devotee can act exactly as He can in His original transcendental personality.”

Another highlight of the day was chanting in the streets of downtown Ljubljana. Taking the role as chief kirtan leader, I followed the directions of the devotees and we all walked downtown. Downtown is only a 10-minute walk from the temple. Ljubljana is a modern city, but doesn’t seem that big. People seemed very friendly and greeted our Hare Krishna kirtan with smiles and sometimes waving. Click here to watch a movie of our Harinam downtown.

In my last “Pilgrim’s Diary” I mentioned I was having problems with my digital camera. Last night at the program, a devotee came to see me who had a solution. He had a battery charger that works for the battery in my camera, and he charged it for me. He also had PCMCIA digital media compact-flash adapter that allows my computer to read the compact flash memory card in my camera. So now I have battery power to take all the pictures I want, and I also have a way to get the pictures out of my camera. So you will see a lot of pictures attached to this article.

A lot of devotees here in Slovenia have been reading my Pilgrim’s Diary website (http://www.ChantAndBeHappy.com/diary) and it seems my Salagram and Govardhan Silas are rather famous. Quite a few devotees came by to see Them yesterday.

This morning I gave another lecture in the morning. Click here to listen to the pastimes of Lord Ramachandra, which was the subject matter of the purport to Srimad-Bhagavatam, Canto 1, Chapter 3, text 22. The verse reads, “In the eighteenth incarnation, the Lord appeared as King Rama. In order to perform some pleasing work for the demigods, He exhibited superhuman powers by controlling the Indian Ocean and then killing the atheist King Ravana, who was on the other side of the sea.” There is an interesting purport which you can hear if you click on the link.

Nama Hatta Program

This afternoon we went to a village called "Kriska vas" which is located about 30 kilometers from the capital of Ljubljana. Five devotee families own land and homes in this little village. I was guest in the house of Radha-Raman and his wife Sundari. 

After watching the beautiful sunset, we had a gathering of about 15 or 20 devotees who asked me many philosophical questions about Krishna Consciousness. Someone translated my answers into the Slovenia language.

© CHAKRA 3 April 2002