Lalithangi, Chennai, India

All Glories to Srila Gurumaharaj!
I happened to be in Chile, South America for two and a half years. It was then I realized the greatness of devotees born in western countries. Also, I felt fortunate for having born in South India. I have grown up visiting the beautiful, traditional temples here. I fall short of words to describe the soul-satisfying experience one is bestowed when having darshan of the Lord in these temple.
With such an orthodox background, one can imagine the heart breaks I felt when exposed to the culture in the western countries. My first reaction was instant disgust. Later on, I felt sorry for those born there. They from the early age, taught how to drink but not get drunk, they are given minced meat as their first food after mother’s milk. Illicit sex is a well accepted, thriving custom.
In such a scenario, there exists temple of Sri Sri Gaura Nitai, served by sincere souls from the same society who avoid intoxication, meat, illicit sex and gambling. This is not a fairy tale. It is a reality. A million thanks to Srila Prabhupada! People like iron are turned into gold by the magical touch of touchstone called ISKCON.
Every Friday, on my way to the temple, I cross atleast a dozen pubs, where school kids, in pairs enter for the Friday hang-out. Passing through the glaring undecipherable rock-bang, I enter the temple. There I see the devotees, dressed in sarees & dhotis, swaying to Gaura Arati. What a sharp contrast to the outside world! All Glories to Srila Pabhupada!
It is now 32 years since Srila Prabhupada left this planet, but the legacy is carried on by his disciples and is being passed to the next generation. Here comes the herculear effort by our Guru Maharaj HH Jayapataka Swami.Maharaj. He is one of those disciples of Srila Prabhupada, who non-chalantly traveled to all the corners of the globe, preaching the massage of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. What made him undertake such rigorous schedule of preaching, neglecting his own health? It cannot be anything other than his overwhelming compassion for the fallen souls, far away from Bharata Varsha. Every time he visits, he gives all his time to help devotees. He gives all his maximum possible time like Thakura Haridas he barely kept any time for his personal care!
I saw how his visit would lift the devotees from doldrums, made warring factions come together in the service of Lord Chaitanya. With first two minutes of his time and unlimited care, he is saving many devotees from falling back to Maya!
When he chants Jaya Radha Madhava with a large cymbals Sridham Mayapur descends right there and the devotees are instantly jumping and dancing. After the class a big list of devotees waits for his darshan. No matter, if he had traveled 20hrs non-stop in the flight and is in a severe jet-log, he has time for everyone waiting. Every devotee in the temple gets to have a word or two with him. He leaves in one or two days, leaving behind a lifetime of memories. 

Mahi-bharta das, Ljubljana, Slovenia

My name is Mahi-bharta das (KKD), and I am siksa disciple of HH Jayapataka Swami. I am coming from Slovenia (EU). My story which I would like to share with you is as follows:

I was initiated disciple of Harikesh since 1995. This story happened immediately after Harikesha left his position as guru in ISKCON.

At that time HH Jayapataka Maharaja very intensely started to visit different countries where there were many Harikesha's disciples. Maharaja made gatherings of Harikesh disciples at that time and offered himself completely to us. He was available for us at any time for talk, support, discussion. It is very difficult to describe how much he surrendered at that time to help the Harikesha's disciples all around the world. This is the practical prove of how powerful and elevated Uttama Vaishnava is Maharaja.
With thousands of his disciples he also took the burden to save as many Harikesha disciples as possible. What an unselfish person is Maharaja. He sacrificed his own life just to save others. Who could describe his glory and how dear he is to Srila Prabhupada.

Maharaja also came to Ljubljana (Slovenia) few times to help us out of crisis due to the loss of our spiritual master. After a long meeting he came out of the temple, and I tried to express my gratitude to him for coming to help us in this difficult times. At this moment he held my hands together and told me: "Please, just chant the holy name."

I still had some rounds to finish that day, and I went to sit down and chant in Tulasi room of our temple. At this moment I felt some special bhava coming from the words of HH Jayapataka Maharaja when he told me: "Just chant the holy name." I started to chant Hare Krishna maha-mantra. Never before I chanted so deeply. I had an experience of flying in the sound of the holy name towards the holy Tulasi plants. And in my mind came a story of Haridasa Thakura who chanted in such an affectionate mood of devotion that he could not stop to chant anymore. Then I started to think: "O, Krishna, now I can understand, why Haridas Thakura was able to chant all the time." My chanting became a song, and I just could not stop and control myself anymore. I became a little afraid because I never before experienced such deep feelings by chanting Hare Krishna. Tears came down my face and I simply got lost in the deep feelings of Krishna's holy name.

After that time I never had such a deep experience of chanting anymore. This was out of body experience. I only remember one thing, that the cause of all this wonderful experience in my spiritual life came from the strong bhava of HH Jayapataka Maharaja who overwhelmed me with his mercy and compassion. His is a completely empowered Uttama Vaishnava who came to save so many conditioned souls in this world. He is a person who took such a big burden of this planet earth on his shoulders by spreading the teachings of Lord Caitanya. I believe I will never be able to really understand who he really is. His spiritual power and compassion to the conditioned souls can save anyone who is at least a little bit meek and humble, no matter how much fallen someone might be. Praying for his mercy I am falling down at the dust of his lotus feet.

Janananda dasa and Atapatrini devi dasi, New Radhakunda, Sweden

A short time after Janananda and I, Atapatrini, had become aspiring disciples, Jayapataka Maharaja showed up in Korsnäs to visit us for 5 days. But we were in our native country, Denmark, those days. When our guru heard that, He just said:" Then I will go and meet them there". We became almost shocked by His willingness to assist us in our spiritual progress. And His Holiness has continued to positively surprise us in so many ways since then.