Report from Bangalore about Kartik celebrations

http://www.harekrishnablog.com/index.php/festival-a-reports.html?start=174

Deepotsava means the festival of lights. The month of Kartik (11th Oct, 2011 – 9th Nov, 2011) is celebrated as the Deepotsava month, commemorating the Damodara Lila of Lord Krishna.  As per the Skanda Purana, this month is especially dear to Lord Krishna and is considered to be the holiest of all months. During this month, devotees offer lamp to Lord Damodara and recite the beautiful prayer called Damodarashtaka, which was spoken by Satyavrata muni which attracts the Supreme Lord Himself. In Hari Bhakti Vilasa, Srila Sanatana Goswami quotes from various puranas, the glories of observing Deepotsava festival in Kartik month. The following are some of the glories of offering a lamp to Lord Krishna, during the month of Kartik.

When one offers a lamp during the month of Karttika, his sins in many thousands and millions of births perish in half an eyeblink.

Offering a lamp during the month of Karttika is very pleasing to Lord Kesava. A person who offers a lamp in this way will not take birth again in this world.

By offering a lamp during the month of Karttika one attains a pious result ten million times greater than the result obtained by bathing at Kuruksetra during a solar eclipse or by bathing in the river Narmada during a lunar eclipse.

For a person who thus offers a lamp burning with ghee or sesame oil, what is the use of performing an asvasmedha-yajna?

Even if there are no mantras, no pious deeds, and no purity, everything becomes perfect when a person offers a lamp during the month of Karttika.

A person who during the month of Karttika offers a lamp to Lord Kesava has already performed all yajnas and bathing in all holy rivers.

When in the month of Karttika there is no lamp burning before Lord Kesava, then the pious deeds in Svargaloka, Martyaloka, and Rasatalaloka scream with dissatisfaction.

The ancestors say: When someone in our family pleases Lord Kesava by offering to Him a lamp during the month of Karttika, then, by the mercy of the Lord who holds the Sudarsana-cakra in His hand, we will all attain liberation.

By offering a lamp during the month of Karttika one burns away a collection of sins as big as Mount Meru or Mount Mandara. Of this there is no doubt.

To one who either at home or in a temple offers Him a lamp during the month of Karttika, Lord Vasudeva gives a great result.

A person who, after taking birth in the world of human beings, offers a lamp to Lord Krishna during the month of Karttika becomes very glorious and fortunate.

A person who offers a lamp during the month of Karttika attains a result that cannot be obtained with even a hundred yajnas or a hundred pilgrimages.

Even a person addicted to all sins and averse to all pious deeds who somehow offers a lamp during Karttika becomes purified. Of this there is no doubt.

No sin exists anywhere in the three worlds that will not be purified by offering a lamp to Lord Kesava during Karttika.

A person who offers a lamp to Lord Krishna during Karttika attains the eternal spiritual world where there is no suffering.

A person who offers a lamp in a temple of Lord Vishnu during the month of Karttika attains eternal wealth, good children, fame, and glory.

As fire is present in all wood and may be extracted by friction, so piety is always present in the offering of a lamp during the month of Karttika. Of this there is no doubt.

When someone offers Him a lamp on the full-moon day of the month of Karttika, Lord Krishna, finding that He does not have sufficient money to repay that gift, gives Himself in exchange for that lamp.

In the Narada Purana it is said: Of all gifts the gift of a lamp during the month of Karttika is the best. No gift is its equal.

In the Padma Purana it is said: One who offers a steady lamp to Lord Hari during the month of Karttika enjoys pastimes in Lord Hari's splendid spiritual world.

Somehow or other a mouse once lit a lamp that someone offered on ekadasi during the month of Karttika. That mouse attained a rare human birth and then went to the supreme spiritual world.

When they see a human being offering a lamp to Lord Vishnu, the demigods in Devaloka think: When, by performing that single pious deed, will this person join us here?

A person who lights many lamps inside and outside Lord Vishnu's temple becomes a liberated soul. Holding a disc and conch, he attains a spiritual form like Lord Vishnu's.

When a person lights many lamps in Lord Kesava's temple, not a single of his hundred thousand closest relatives lives in hell.

In the Bhavisya Purana it is said: A person who makes the Lord's temple splendid with many lamps during the month of Karttika, and especially during the ekadasi or the dvadasi of that month, becomes glorious like ten thousand suns. Traveling in a splendid airplane that fills the universe with light, he leaves this world of birth and death. For each lamp that he lit on the earth he is glorified on Vishnuloka for a thousand years.

They who bathe and then worship Lord Damodara in Mathura during the month of Karttika attain spiritual forms like Lord Krishna's. Of this there is no doubt.

What is the use of yajnas, austerities, and pilgrimages to a person who has the opportunity to worship Lord Krishna, the beloved of Radha, in Mathura during the month of Karttika?