Bhaimi Ekādaśī (Jayā Ekādaśī)

Please check the date and time for Ekādaśī in your area using below sites.

https://www.vaisnavacalendar.info/

https://vaishnavacalendar.org/

https://www.drikpanchang.com/iskcon/iskcon-ekadashi-list.html

Fasting for Bhaimi Ekādaśī

Observe half day fast (till noon) for appearance of Lord Varāha and then break fast with Ekādaśī prasādam. Lord Varāha appearance is celebrated the following day on dvādaśī.

How to perform Ekādaśī

Teachings of Lord Caitanya, Chapter 12

Observe fasting on Ekādaśī day (this occurs on the eleventh day after the full moon and the eleventh day after the new moon). On such days no grains, cereals or beans are eaten; simply vegetables and milk are moderately taken, and the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa and reading of scriptures are increased.

Srila Prabhupada lecture on Bhagavad-gītā As It Is 7.9, Vṛndāvana, Aug 15, 1974

Tapasya means to undergo voluntarily some inconveniences of this body. Because we are accustomed to enjoy bodily senses, and tapasya means voluntarily to give up the idea of sense gratification. That is tapasya. Tapasya. Just like Ekādaśī. Ekādaśī, one day fasting, fortnight. That is also tapasya. Or fasting in some other auspicious day. That tapasya is good, even for health, and what to speak of advancing in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So we should accept this tapasya. The upavāsa. There are many prescribed days for fasting. We should observe.

Meditations on this auspicious day

Excerpt from a lecture by Guru Maharaj; Bhakti On: Affirmation #6 

I am not my body or mind; I am superior to negative thoughts and low actions. 

28 March 2022

Don't be shy about taking on more devotional service and increasing your vow. If you feel that the capacity coming on, you feel a little hunger, you feel that you have more to do and you're not doing it. Don't think I'll stay back. I'll just hang back here. Because that may be too much or something. Try it, move ahead, take more. So, internally, watch, take your temperature, see how full you are and so forth and what you can handle. Also, on special days, like Ekādaśī, or other times when you have the opportunity, you can really load up on your sādhana and then see how that fits. When you get a chance, a week off or something like that increase your sādhana. And then you may stick. Because you may feel like, ‘oh, I've been doing too little, no wonder I haven't been getting a taste’. When I chant 25 rounds and I really start to feel some momentum, 16 is not enough for me. Or if you chant 64 rounds, and you feel like I should do this every Ekādaśī, or something like that. You should take these risks and have a big feast on doing more. Try to sit down and read Bhāgavatam for several hours. See how you feel afterwards. Just as in sense gratification, what happens, according to the yoga sūtra, is that we get an impression in our mind, from sense gratification. You go and you have some kind of experience and then it leaves an impression, a vrīti. It's imprinted on your mind and in your consciousness, and then you keep coming back to it and think, ‘I gotta have that again’. Although it's insignificant. Kṛṣṇa says in Bhagavad-gītā that a wise person doesn't go for that kind of happiness because it's really not there. It's just tactile, it comes, and it goes. So, it's not significant. So similarly in devotional service, we take these opportunities [such as Ekādaśī] to make a strong impression from doing more.

At certain times, we'll realize our higher capacity. And we'll think, ‘oh, I've been cheating myself all this time. Why don't I do more’. And then you can step up. So, whenever you see an opportunity to do that increase, and see how it fits, Kṛṣṇa will empower you. Really being able to maintain any vow of practice in Kṛṣṇa consciousness is an empowered activity. We'd make our own endeavor but ultimately have to be empowered.

Story of Bhaimi Ekādaśī

Padma Purāṇa, Uttara-Khaṇḍa, Chapter 43

Yudhiṣṭhira said, ‘O Kṛṣṇa, please tell me which Ekādaśī would fall in the bright half (of that month). What is the manner in which it is observed?

Śrī Kṛṣṇa said, ‘O lord of kings, I shall tell you about the Ekādaśī that would fall in the bright half of Māgha. It is called Jayā. It is great and removes all sins. It gives desired objects and salvation to men. It destroys the sin of the murder of a brāhmaṇa. Men are not reduced to the condition of ghosts when the vow of this (Ekādaśī) is observed by them. O best king, listen to an ancient auspicious tale. I have talked about its greatness in the Padma Purāṇa.

Once Indra ruled in heaven. Gods happily lived in that charming heaven. They were engaged in drinking nectar and were waited upon by celestial nymphs. In it there was a grove called Nandana. It was full of Pārijāta trees. Once Indra, rejoicing as he liked, joyfully made the celestial nymphs to dance. Gandharvas sang there. There was a gandharva named Puṣpadantaka, whose son Mālyavat was enamored by the beauty of the grand daughter of Citrasena, Puṣpadantī. Mālyavat was very much fascinated by the beauty of Puṣpadantī. She subjugated Mālyavat with her glances.

To please Indra, the two (Puṣpadantī and Mālyavat) came there to dance. They sang there and were waited upon by bands of celestial nymphs. Due to love for each other they were infatuated. With their mind perplexed they did not sing chaste songs.

Influenced by the arrows of Cupid they had rivetted their eyes upon each other. Indra knew that their minds were attached to each other. Due to the lapse in their singing and dancing, Indra, thinking that it was an insult to him, got angry with both of them and giving them a curse said: ‘Fie upon you. You stupid ones have disobeyed me. Be turned into goblins as husband and wife. Go to the mortal world, enjoying the fruit of your deed.’ Thus, cursed by Indra, the two with their minds distressed, being deluded by Indra’s curse reached the Himālaya mountain. Both became goblins and met with terrible grief also. Their minds were tormented, and met with misery caused by snow. Being deluded, they were not aware of their state of a gandharva or a celestial nymph. They were oppressed by summer and the effect of bodily sins. Troubled by the fruit of their deeds they did not get any pleasure or peace. Talking to each other they moved in the mountain-caves.

Then that male goblin said to his wife, the female goblin: “What great, fierce and thrilling sin have we committed due to which we have obtained goblin-hood?” Thus, being anxious, they were overpowered with grief. Due to their good luck, the Ekādaśī of Māgha, named Jayā and well-known as the best among days, came. When that day came, O king, they remained there without food and without drinking water. They did not kill any living being and did not eat leaves and fruits. Near the Aśvattha tree, they remained always full of grief. O king, while they remained like that the sun set. Night, that was fierce, terrible and fatal, approached. The two, trembling and clinging to each other with their bodies and arms, then slept there on the (bare) ground.

O best king, they were thus troubled by the curse of Indra. When they were thus unhappy the night rolled by. The sun rose when the day of Dvādaśī came. O best king, I thought to myself about their salvation. They observed the good vow of Jayā and kept awake at night. Listen to what happened by the efficacy of that vow. When the Dvādaśī day came, and when the Jayā-vow was observed like that, their goblin-hood disappeared by Viṣṇu’s prowess. Puṣpadantī and Mālyavat had their forms as before. They had the same affection as before, had put on the same ornaments as before. They got into an airplane and went to the beautiful heaven. Having gone in front of the lord of gods (Indra), they gladly saluted him.

Seeing them like that, Indra, being amazed said to them, ‘tell me, due to what moral merit you who were reduced to goblin-hood, who had received a curse from me, were freed and by which god? Mālyavat said, ‘O lord, our goblin-hood has gone by Viṣṇu’s favour, the observance of the Jayā-vow, and the strength of devotion to you. Hearing these words Indra also spoke again. “You have become sinless, pure, and have become adorable even to me. You have observed the vow on the day of Viṣṇu. There is no doubt that those mortals who adhere to the vow of Jayā Ekādaśī, and are devoted to Kṛṣṇa, are adorable to us also.”’