Diary of a Traveling Sadhaka, Vol. 8, No. 15
By Krishna-kripa das
(August 2012, part one)
By Krishna-kripa das
(August 2012, part one)
Polish Woodstock, Prague, Spain
(Sent from Wroclaw, Poland, on September 2, 2012)
(Sent from Wroclaw, Poland, on September 2, 2012)
Where I Went and What I Did
I went on the Polish Woodstock for the twelfth time. It was nice to see how each year people become more favorable to Krishna consciousness, and more devotees I know from America come each year. I went to Prague for a couple of days and did harinama with some friends from Slovakia and Czech Republic. Then I went to Spain, with my friend, Dhruva Prabhu, at the request of Yadunandana Swami, who invited me when he traveled through Dublin. I felt victorious as in the eight days we were in Spain we did three harinamas and participated in a three-day kirtana-mela. Two of the harinamas inspired people to come to the temple and visit, a rarity.
Bhaktivaibhava Swami and Kadamba Kanana Swami share beautiful realizations at Spain’s three-day kirtana-mela. Devotees in Málaga share moving Prabhupada pastimes and words of gratitude on his Vyasa Puja. As usual I pass on insights from the journal and books of Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami. I also include the words of senior devotees like Vedavyasa Prabhu and Yadunandana Swami.
Thanks to Ananta Vrindavan Prabhu, Vishnujana Prabhu, and aatist_kks for the photos. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Polish Woodstock 2012
After over 14 hours on trains starting in Zurich, I made it to the Woodstock for the first harinama. More devotees than I had even seen since I started coming in 2001 took part in that harinama, and more people from the festival joined us in chanting and dancing than usual, some staying with us till the end.
It is nice to see friends from ISKCON Alachua like Bada Haridas, Chaturatma Dasa, Purusartha Das are here again. New York kirtana leader, Acyuta Gopi, came for the first time and chanted both on Ratha-yatra and the kirtana tent.
It is difficult for me to sift through the pictures and choose the best. Here are a couple albums you can look at. Click on the “>>” above the right side of the image to view the next image:
Twenty Woodstock attendees were dancing on the Ratha-yatra at the busier times, some with the women and some amidst the men. Some pulled the ratha, with beer in hand. Here are three videos of the Ratha-yatra so you can see what it was like:
You also see new T-shirts with new slogans and novel costumes each year. One young woman wore a green T-shirt with the question “Can you maintain me?” written on it with white letters. That reminded me of how according to the scripture, male-female relationships are meant to be regulated through marriage for spiritual elevation of human society. The man’s duty is to maintain the woman he wishes to have an intimate relationship with, but in this age so many men neglect that duty, and so the T-shirt is a reminder by the woman to the man about his duty.
Anna, who talked to Indradyumna Swami two years before, asked us to arrange another meeting with him now, and I had one of my former interpreters, Radhanandini Dasi, help her out with that.
One girl had a great time in our camp at the first two days of the festival, and so she told me she wanted to join us. Knowing the tour is not really equipped to train new people, and it was not possible to tell the depth of her seriousness immediately, I urged her to first attend the Sunday feast in Wroclaw, where she lives, and then see about joining us. Still it was impressive that she was so happy in the association of the devotees that she was thinking in that way. Later in the summer Polish told me that she was joining one of our temples.
I met one person who remembered me from Zary over eight years ago, and many people remembered me from more recent years. It is so embarrassing that so many remember me, and I remember so few of them.
I danced in back of the kirtana tent. In the evening, it was packed full of people.
One young lady followed my dance step and learned it. After a little while, I smiled, and said “Dobrze! [Very good.]” Then, as it is not my dharma to dance with the ladies, I stood just outside our tent, to facilitate encouraging people to come in tent or thanking them for their dancing as they left. Over half an hour later on her way out that same young lady wanted to dance that step she learned from me one more time, and six more people joined in, some people chanting as well as dancing.
One girl asked to know what is Hare Krishna, and I looked around for someone who could translate for me, and a girl who worked reception in previous years volunteered.
Two girls, Monika and Ana, remembered me from last year. They are from Kostrzyn, the city where the Woodstock has been held since 2004. Monika and her friends came and danced on several occasions throughout the four-and-half-day event. She knew English very well merely from studying it high school. The last day I gave Monika my Krishna.com business card and explained that she and her friends could find nice Krishna music which they liked so much on that web site.
The guy who remembered me from Zary and sent me photos he took a previous year, offered me some plums the second time he saw me this year. He said our kirtana yoga tent was best of venue of all as it was only one with lyrics to the songs displayed on the walls for everyone to see.
A boy said we had the best party of all. He and his friend took pleasure in singing and dancing with us.
I would dance to the music in the kirtana tent by myself in the beginning, but then gradually more people would gather. Sometimes I would tell the devotees sitting around the perimeter of the kirtana tent to dance as it would attract people to come to watch and thus hear the kirtana. During one kirtana, I taught a dance step to seven people. Usually it was the girls who were more inclined to dance, and it was awkward being a brahmacari showing them a dance. Later I danced outside the tent with eight people or so, half men and half women. While passing out mantra cards, I met another person who I taught a dance to, and who wanted to dance with me again.
Someone asked me where he could buy a dhoti, and I pointed to our gift shop.
I met a couple who offered to do some service. They said they had seen me at several Woodstocks. I suggested serving prasadam or picking up trash. They chose the trash, so I got plastic gloves and trash bags for them. I gave them my card and promised to send contact information for the devotees who does programs in their city of Krakow. Later I saw the girl dancing in the kirtana.
Another couple from Krakow wanted to get a CD of the kirtana in our kirtana yoga tent and get the contact information for the Krishna programs in their city. Perhaps we should put the recordings from the kirtana tent online, so the people who loved our chanting could keep it with them.
We did not go quite as late as last year, ending our chanting at 0:50, 2:15, 2:45 and 2:30, respectively, the four nights of the festival.
Sometimes two or three people would come running, skipping, or dancing, with smiles on their faces to join our kirtanas in the tent. Sometimes a girlfriend would drag a reluctant boyfriend into the kirtana tent, and sometimes a boyfriend would drag in a reluctant girlfriend. Whole families would come and listen, watch, and dance. Sometimes the parents would reject my offer of a mantra card because they thought Krishna consciousness was opposed to their Christian tradition, but as entertainment, they liked the kirtana, and they encouraged their children in it.
Often the devotees would dance in such a way that each person was holding the hand of the person before him and the person after him, as in a chain. Sometimes devotees would try to grab people from the audience and add them to the chain and sometimes those visiting our camp would also also grab people to add them to the chain. Sometimes some of the guys visiting our camp were a little too eager to grab the attractive girls, even the devotee girls, and add them to the chain.
One young lady from Bydgoszcz came to our camp for four years. She said she waits a whole year to eat our food. I told her there is a couple in Bydgoszcz that does a few programs a year, so she could have Krishna food more often, and she took down their phone number.
One man from Szczecin took the invitation to the Berlin temple, the closest one to him.
Izabela from Kostrzyn who has been coming and bringing her friends to Krishna’s Village of Peace for the food for years told me she finally graduated and will soon being working in Wroclaw. I gave her an invitation to the Wroclaw Ratha-yatra and Wroclaw temple Sunday feast, and she said she would try to make it for the Ratha-yatra.
Another girl from Kostrzyn happily told me she has been coming to our camp for the spiritual food since Woodstock came to her city back in 2004.
After our final Ratha-yatra, one girl from Germany’s Baltic coast asked me to explain what the Hare Krishna philosophy is. I stressed how the soul is present in all bodies and is symptomized by consciousness. Human life is special because we can awaken our love for God, the supreme conscious person, through the chanting of His holy name, especially the Hare Krishna mantra. I gave her our invitation to the Berlin temple and told her about Hamburg and Leipzig Ratha-yatras coming up on August 25 and September 8, respectively. She said she likes to go to Leipzig and will come for the Ratha-yatha. I explained how that one is special because the week before several hundred of us who will participate in it will be chanting for eight hours a day for six days. This year the city gave us a better location for our festival after the parade so more people will come. She explained that she is just beginning a spiritual search.
One young man from Berlin took an invitation to that center after I briefly explained the philosophy to him.
Another young man said that when he was in our kirtana yoga tent, he forgot all his problems.
Sometimes the people could not speak English very well, so I would tell them in Polish that we have a questions and answers booth over there, pointing in its direction, and go back to dancing and distributing mantra cards.
When I would show people who had been visiting the kirtana yoga tent the mantra cards, a small minority of people were averse, some people were indifferent, but most people were favorable, often very much so. Often they would smile in recognition, seeing the text representation of the song they were hearing and/or singing. Some would begin singing along to the words, often with their friends, and I would smile and sing along with them and dance. I often would remember a recent newsletter by Janananda Goswami wherein he quoted Srila Prabhupada many times saying, “Somehow or other, get them to chant.”
Lots of people wanted to have their pictures taken with us.
Gaura Hari Prabhu, a brahmacari from Leipzig who came for the first time, was impressed with the qualities of the people in the kirtana tent. Alhtough drunk, they are not as sexually motivated or angry as drunk people usually are at such late night music events. They were also very respectful.
Jananivasa Prabhu, one of my former interpreters, told me that each year the quality of the questions in the question and answers booth improves. Now there are no longer people who are just joking around trying to call attention to themselves, but rather, many sincere spiritual inquirers. A devotee who worked in our book tent told me that the questions of the people get more serious each year.
For several years, the day after the Woodstock festival, some of my friends and I have done harinama at the train station.
For several years, the day after the Woodstock festival, some of my friends and I have done harinama at the train station.
I think this was the best year, as each year it gets better. We had eight devotees participate, more than usual, and we encountered more people there waiting for the trains. Some were very happy to see us.
People of the town came to their windows to see us.
Others danced with us.
We chanted both by the station and by the tracks.
One devotee took a movie of it.
Harinama in Prague
Lokanatha Swami told in me 2004 that Prague is the best city for harinama, and when I chanted there with my friends for two days after the Polish Woodstock, I could see how that is true. In one place you meet people from all over the world, and the people are not so much in a rush as in London, but more relaxed and looking for some kind of cultural experience. Many people take pictures and have some pleasing interaction with the harinama devotees. I gave the words of the mantra to one girl who was appreciating the kirtana, but she said did not need them because in Prague the people hear it so much they know the words.
Once we were detained in a area that was protected from the rain. The drunks who were also taking shelter there were a little angry at first but by the power of the kirtana they either mellowed out or went away. Other people there liked having the entertainment while waiting out the storm.
Harinamas in Spain
I had no plan to go to Spain when I came to Europe this year, but I met my Spanish friend and godbrother, Yadunandana Swami, in both England and Ireland this year, and he invited me to a three-day kirtana-mela at our farm outside of Madrid. I cannot afford to travel to Spain, but I asked my friend and benefactor Dhruva Prabhu, who has traveled with me to different European festivals if he wanted to go and would be willing to help me out, and he agreed. I wanted to go for just the three days of the kirtana-mela, as I know for certain I have friends to do harinama with in Czech Republic and Germany, whereas Spain I did not know about. Dhruva, however, thought if we were going to Spain we should go for at least a week. Thus reluctantly I went to Spain with five whole days before the mela. Fortunately Yadunandana Swami helped me organize some harinamas, and we were able to go out three of the days before the festival.
Brihuega:
Brihuega is the town nearest our farm project an hour from Madrid known as Nueva (New) Vraja Mandala. In recent years devotees have just done a weekly harinama in Madrid. Previously they would do four days a week, and include Guadalajara and two other cities. Still in recent times they had not chanted in Brihuega, the closest town to them at all. We chanted from 8:30 p.m. to 10:15 p.m. in a square in the center of town that had some restaurants off to one side. That is not a late hour there as people take a break during the heat of the day and stay up late as a regular lifestyle. We set up near one entrance to the park so a lot of people would have to pass by us, not too close to the restaurants, in case the managers did not like it and told us to stop. Originally we were going to do a sitting down harinama, but some of the devotees thought people may not like us constantly chanting in one place, so we planned to walk around. As it turned out, we were so well-received in the park that we just stayed there, standing instead of sitting as we did not bring our mats. At one point, when I was singing and two young devotee ladies were dancing together in a nice pattern, quite a crowd gathered. I counted forty people, mostly elementary school aged children and a few adults. In fact, we always had some people watching from the beginning to the end of the harinama. The two ladies engaged some of the more brave children in dancing with them. One gave one of the young girls a flower garland which she was happy to receive. At the end of the evening five or six teenaged girls came by and had a great time dancing with the young devotee lady who stayed till the end. Afterward, the girls wanted to have their picture with her. One man watched us the whole time. He explained to me in Spanish that he was half Indian. He also wanted his picture taken with the devotees. Surprisingly enough, four days later I saw him on our farm at the cow festival following the Sunday feast program. It is not everyday that someone who meets the harinama party ends up coming to the temple, but such was the case with my first harinama in Spain. Seeing the popularity of the harinama in their local village, I advised them to do at least one harinama each week in Brihuega. Let’s hope they can do it.
Málaga:
We began our Janmastami celebration in Málaga by doing a 1½ hour harinama attended by eight devotees. Our plan was to go right after the morning class, before it got too hot and the devotees became tired from fasting. As it turned out it was from 11:15 to 12:45 that we chanted. Lots of people, mostly tourists took pictures. Three people danced with us. We gave out invitations to the evening Janmastami program, as well as the weekly Sunday feast, and several people were interested in coming. One Spanish man, who had spent two months in Vrindavan, was happy to hear the chanting again in his own country. In Central London, devotees do harinama in Janmastami in the afternoon on Oxford Street, and in Leipzig they do it in the evening when the curtains are closed before the final arati. In the future, you may consider celebrating Janmastami by doing harinama in a city near you!
Churriana:
On Vyasa Puja day, just before our evening program, we did 40 minutes of harinama with four devotees around Churriana, the town where our Málaga temple is located. We passed out five invitations to our Sunday program, and although it was Saturday, seven people came to the temple, three staying to hear a few homages to Srila Prabhupada. I was overjoyed, and I saw this as Srila Prabhupada’s reciprocation for us doing outreach on his glorious appearance day!
Kirtana Mela in Spain
They have incredibly beautiful Radha Krishna deities called Radha Govindacandra there at Nueva Vraja Mandala, and it was a pleasure to chant for them.
There were not too many people at this kirtana-mela, perhaps fifty to eighty or so. I was happy that there was room to dance. During the hot part of the day, we stayed inside.
When it cooled we went outside.
Bhaktivaibhava Swami and Kadamba Kanana Swami were both there and led very lively kirtanas, as did some other kirtana leaders from Spain that I did not know.
Kadamba Kanana Swami also inspired people to dance when others, especially Bhaktivaibhava Swami, led kirtana.
I personally had a great time dancing.
There were lots of great realizations about chanting which you can read in the “Insights” below. Kadamba Kanana Swami at the end challenged the devotees to have a kirtana-mela with two hundred devotees for next year’s anniversary of the installation of the deities there.
I am grateful to Yadunandana Swami and Dhruva Prabhu for giving me with such a wonderful opportunity in Spain.
Insights
Bhaktivaibhava Swami:
When Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya asked Lord Caitanya the best process of bhakti He quoted the verse beginning harer nama harer nama . . . in this age there is no other process for self-realization other than the chanting of the holy name.
The iti sodasakam verse indicates that specifically the maha-mantra is the best spiritual practice in all the Vedas.
The illusory energy of the Lord makes one forget that he endeavored for material happiness before and he just got beaten over the head.
The devotees are most fortunate because they are utilizing lives properly.
We are not painting everything black. Birth, death, old age, and disease are a fact. If death is natural, why does every living entity resist it if you try to kill it?
If we maintain the purity of our chanting, others will be attracted in the future, as we were attracted in the past.
Krishna appears as His holy name when we have a service-inclined tongue and ears. When the tongue is controlled, all the senses become controlled
In the Garuda Purana, it describes many subtle beings, and all these beings are liberated when the harinama party goes by.
Pudma Purana describes that even by thinking of the Ganges River, one becomes liberated.
There is a story of frog couple who went on pilgrimage to go to the Ganges River and dive in and become liberated. Unfortunately, they met a snake on the way. They tried to preach to the snake that they were innocent and should not be killed. The snake preached to the frogs, that by God’s arrangement they were his prey and it was right for him to eat them. The snake prepared to eat them, and they cried out “Ganga Mayi” as they left their bodies. Thus both frogs attained the heavenly planets, the male shared the throne with Indra. After many, many years of enjoyment on the heavenly planets, a Vaikunntha airplane came to take the two former frogs to the spiritual world.
One who perfectly follows his spiritual master reaches the Supersoul.
One can learn by hearing or by experience, but it is better to learn by hearing.
My mother told me, “My dear son, do not marry.” She had not had a good experience of marriage, and thus so she instructed me thus. So I accepted it.
We are not against material desires. We will not be successful in our preaching if we instruct people, especially young people, not to have material desires. But they should go about the fulfillment of their material desires in the proper way, and in this way they will suffer less.
Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami:
I am not serving any big projects
in ISKCON, just writing, reading,
telling of my little life and tending to
my sadhana. I’m doing as my departed
Godbrother, Sridhara Maharaja, said,
“Just be yourself
and make your contribution.”
in ISKCON, just writing, reading,
telling of my little life and tending to
my sadhana. I’m doing as my departed
Godbrother, Sridhara Maharaja, said,
“Just be yourself
and make your contribution.”
from Journal and Poems, Volume 3:
“Then, where are the directly God conscious, devotional haikus? One cannot say that they are omitted in a neutral, natural way. To omit the Absolute Truth is itself a metaphysical statement. To light incense and not offer it to God. To write of erotic moments in defiance of scriptural codes. To write hundreds of nature poems assuming that the perception of birds, beasts, sky, elements, etc., is sufficient spiritual nourishment—and that God is just another ‘thing.’ These are all atheistic proclamations.
“Write of the bomb? Write of a sexual affair? ‘We must,’ they say, ‘because this is our life, this is reality.’
“I am no Buddha
no Jayadeva,
but someone has to say it:
Which haiku
will save us
at death?
“Basho’s death poem
is a wishful hope,
wandering across the moor.
“I am no Buddha
no Jayadeva,
but someone has to say it:
Which haiku
will save us
at death?
“Basho’s death poem
is a wishful hope,
wandering across the moor.
“Issa gave a humble farewell—
‘I was a fool,
so are we all!
‘I was a fool,
so are we all!
“Which haiku will save us?
The frog jumps in?
The wings of the dragonfly?
The frog jumps in?
The wings of the dragonfly?
“Talented poets,
please make a poem-prayer.
But first you have to learn it.
“Delicate senses
in a floating world,
is not enough.
please make a poem-prayer.
But first you have to learn it.
“Delicate senses
in a floating world,
is not enough.
“Don’t you know
we all have to come back
to another body?
“Now who will come forward
and say it with beauty?
we all have to come back
to another body?
“Now who will come forward
and say it with beauty?
“Alas, my gayatris go by too quickly, and I can’t get them back. Is it that I think my time is better spent in writing?
“‘But how do you know there is God?’
“‘Because the Srimad-Bhagavatam assures us.’
“‘But isn’t that just an old book of stories?’
“‘No, it’s sastra. It’s the book of authority. Srila Prabhupada said, ‘At least we have a book.’ Srimad-Bhagavatam is solid authority, at least among those who cherish it and who are learned in spiritual science. It is self-effulgent, describes the highest nature of religion as love of God. Are we so dull that we can’t appreciate its standard?’
“‘Because the Srimad-Bhagavatam assures us.’
“‘But isn’t that just an old book of stories?’
“‘No, it’s sastra. It’s the book of authority. Srila Prabhupada said, ‘At least we have a book.’ Srimad-Bhagavatam is solid authority, at least among those who cherish it and who are learned in spiritual science. It is self-effulgent, describes the highest nature of religion as love of God. Are we so dull that we can’t appreciate its standard?’
“So it goes, me and the atheist, like two guys at a sidewalk café in Paris arguing over whether or not God exists.
from Karttika Notes:
In this temple [in Mayapura] they keep moving people who are in front of honored guests like me and so I had a clear vision of Sri Sri Nrsimhadeva. I can’t say that I prayed to Him to remove the anarthas, but at least I was enthusiastic to be in His presence, and I know that He is fierce and that He is going to work on you when you come close to Him in a respectful devotional way.
Today is Gopastami. The Deities of the gopis and Radharani had their feet showing. They said the reason is because these gopis are all going to see the cows for Gopastami and they don’t want to get their saris muddy so they lifted them up a bit.
[Pankajanghri Prabhu said in a letter to Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami]: “Opposite to any other place I’ve stayed, Sri Mayapura gets more and more attractive the longer one stays and one’s attachment to it increases proportionately.”
I have many favorite memories [of Srila Prabhupada]. One memory I like is of a lecture that Prabhupada gave in 1975 at the annual Mayapur festival. Prabhupada quoted Bhaktivinoda Thakura saying that he longed for the day when the Europeans (and Americans) would join with their Bengali brothers and chant the holy names of Krishna and Caitanya. Prabhupada announced from the vyasasana that now that prophecy had taken place today. It was a wonderful moment of history to be present while Prabhupada announced that the prophecy of Bhaktivinoda Thakura had been fulfilled by Prabhupada’s own work and by his own movement and witnessed at Sri Caitanya-candrodaya Mandir.
Yes. Prabhupada asked all of his devotees to write. Krishna is our best friend, so we can express ourselves to him in the form of a journal. It may contain sastric verses and our own realizations, and even our lamentations at our lack of realizations. A devotee’s journal is not mundane, but it is filled with transcendental aspirations and is a recommended way of practicing Krishna consciousness.
My drawing for today is
three colorful sankirtaneros
dancing with upraised arms.
They are red and black and green
and smiling in the bliss of harinama.
Swirls of color surround them as auras
of auspiciousness, and they make the viewer
happy. That is the symptom of the maha-
bhagavata, that he induces others to also
chant Hare Krishna. These three are infectious,
and they invite you to join with them in the most
important function: the congregational
chanting of the holy names.
three colorful sankirtaneros
dancing with upraised arms.
They are red and black and green
and smiling in the bliss of harinama.
Swirls of color surround them as auras
of auspiciousness, and they make the viewer
happy. That is the symptom of the maha-
bhagavata, that he induces others to also
chant Hare Krishna. These three are infectious,
and they invite you to join with them in the most
important function: the congregational
chanting of the holy names.
from My Letters from Srila Prabhupada, Volume 2, You Cannot Leave Boston:
“I had another service which I liked very much, which was writing the blurbs on the back of the books and the introductions describing what the books were. I took a lot of pleasure in that assignment. It was an area where I could use my knowledge of the Western mentality and of readers and to try to attract readers who knew nothing about Krishna. Writing those blurbs was always challenging. When we printed the Second Canto chapters as small paperbacks, I also titled the chapters. Those were the first books ISKCON Press printed. Prabhupada liked them, but after a while our printing mistakes became obvious as the books started to fall apart. We were still in an experimental stage at that time. I chose the titles from references in each chapter and tried to use Srila Prabhupada’s varied expressions.
from Narada-bhakti-sutra, verse 23:
“‘On the other hand, displays of devotion without knowledge of God’s greatness are no better than the affairs of illicit lovers.’
Vedavyasa Prabhu:
One can listen for a long time, but if he is not submissive, he will not benefit.
Any topic in relationship with Krishna is glorious and worth hearing.
Bhaktisiddhana Sarasvati Thakura spoke to Radha Kunda babajis about Prahlada Maharaja instead of satisfying their desire to hear of Krishna’s intimate pastimes.
Kasyapa had the duty to satisfy his wife Diti sexually, but not at an inauspicious time.
Q: It is difficult to liberate one’s children in this age, so is better not to have any?
A: We must have the intent to liberate them.
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami says that the man is either completely rational or completely emotional while the woman is always half rational and half emotional, and so a man when in his state of being completely emotional can take shelter of the intelligence of the woman.
If a householder is sensually agitated he can always take shelter of his wife, while those in the renounced order can become completely degraded if they cannot tolerate the agitation.
There were cases where people could not follow the strictly follow the principle of having sex only for procreation, and Prabhupada advised them to minimize the sex as far as possible.
If there is no repentance of inability to follow but just the offering of excuses, that presents a problem to progress.
The idea is that by having sex according to dharma and raising the children properly you will be purified from the sex desire. Otherwise it will remain.
It is better to go through some authority to arrange a male-female relationship to leading to a marriage. Sometimes persons in a spiritual community pursue male-female relationships without intending to get married, but that ends up creating a disturbance.
Kadamba Kanana Swami:
A gray van came to my town and too many pink men come out. I popped into a shop. Someone said they are a dangerous sect. They looked dangerous to me. When I heard them on TV three months later, explaining their philosophy, no meat eating, no intoxication, no illicit sex, and no gambling, and chanting 16 rounds a day then I knew they were dangerous.
The power of the holy name is such that even the reluctant would be touched by the holy nmae of the Lord.
The holy name penetrates into our heart and gradually our desires change and thus it can create a revolution in this entire world.
The mercy of the pure devotee of the Lord is very possible. In Sri Caitanya-caritamrita one devotee is described as able to deliver the entire world. Seeing Srila Prabhupada’s activities we can understand how this is possible.
Srila Prabhupada understood that by their hearing the holy name, it will work in their heart, and they will come back.
Smita Krishna Swami said that Srila Prabhupada said that when a harinama party goes through the street it does not just change the people in the street, it changes the whole street as well. Anyone who goes through that street later becomes purified.
Once Srila Prabhupada said, “We do not need to use this microphone. We are using this microphone to purify the microphone maker.”
It is not only the people who chant Hare Krishna that benefit, but also those that hear.
Once in Spain there was an ad with four Hare Krishnas on a big Easyrider, Harley Davidson motorcycle. The people in general think it is funny—monks on a motorcycle. But we laugh because monks are at home on a motorcycle. This movement is meant to pick up all kinds of people.
The holy name can reach out to the most fallen. It does not require any qualification.
We travel all over the people to meet the same people and do the same thing—chant Hare Krishna. But it is not always the same, it is a great transcendental adventure. Sometimes there is magic in the kirtana, and we can all feel the presence of Krishna, and we think this is the best, and for that moment, our eyes are open, and we experience the truth, that chanting the holy name is the best thing.
In New Mayapur, in central France, Prabhupada told the devotees to offer some fruits to the Deities in the afternoon. A devotee said he would buy some. Prabhupada said, “Why buy? Just pick some bananas from the garden.” The devotees said they are no bananas in our garden, but Prabhupada said in the future there will be.
Q: Who gets more purified? The chanter or the hearer?
A: One may chant with partial faith, but another can hear it with complete faith and can make great progress. Often persons have heard about Krishna originally from unserious persons but became very serious themselves.
The holy name is Krishna, and He has an individual relationship with each one so you never know who gets purified.
Srila Prabhupada just let the holy name act. He was not trying to change the world by his power. He had prayed to Krishna, “Why can I say to deliver these people? I can only repeat your words.” Prabhupada was convinced. Are we convinced? If we were, we would just stay here and chant Hare Krishna all day. We chant, but we also looking for happiness elsewhere.
It is said that Ajamila was the best by far among those in the gurukula at that time, so the teachers decided to do his astrological chart and find out how great a personality he was. But when they saw his chart, it was not so auspicious. He was in a Jupiter period and doing very well, but it was not to last. So they decided to get him married to a nice brahmani lady. But he saw a low class man embracing a low class women intimately, and he decided that he must have that woman. So he engaged her as a maidservant, and sent his wife back to her father, and later s
Travel Journal#8.15: Polish Woodstock, Prague, and Spain
→ Travel Adventures of a Krishna Monk
Diary of a Traveling Sadhaka, Vol. 8, No. 15
By Krishna-kripa das
(August 2012, part one)
By Krishna-kripa das
(August 2012, part one)
Polish Woodstock, Prague, Spain
(Sent from Wroclaw, Poland, on September 2, 2012)
(Sent from Wroclaw, Poland, on September 2, 2012)
Where I Went and What I Did
I went on the Polish Woodstock for the twelfth time. It was nice to see how each year people become more favorable to Krishna consciousness, and more devotees I know from America come each year. I went to Prague for a couple of days and did harinama with some friends from Slovakia and Czech Republic. Then I went to Spain, with my friend, Dhruva Prabhu, at the request of Yadunandana Swami, who invited me when he traveled through Dublin. I felt victorious as in the eight days we were in Spain we did three harinamas and participated in a three-day kirtana-mela. Two of the harinamas inspired people to come to the temple and visit, a rarity.
Bhaktivaibhava Swami and Kadamba Kanana Swami share beautiful realizations at Spain’s three-day kirtana-mela. Devotees in Málaga share moving Prabhupada pastimes and words of gratitude on his Vyasa Puja. As usual I pass on insights from the journal and books of Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami. I also include the words of senior devotees like Vedavyasa Prabhu and Yadunandana Swami.
Thanks to Ananta Vrindavan Prabhu, Vishnujana Prabhu, and aatist_kks for the photos. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Polish Woodstock 2012
After over 14 hours on trains starting in Zurich, I made it to the Woodstock for the first harinama. More devotees than I had even seen since I started coming in 2001 took part in that harinama, and more people from the festival joined us in chanting and dancing than usual, some staying with us till the end.
It is nice to see friends from ISKCON Alachua like Bada Haridas, Chaturatma Dasa, Purusartha Das are here again. New York kirtana leader, Acyuta Gopi, came for the first time and chanted both on Ratha-yatra and the kirtana tent.
It is difficult for me to sift through the pictures and choose the best. Here are a couple albums you can look at. Click on the “>>” above the right side of the image to view the next image:
Twenty Woodstock attendees were dancing on the Ratha-yatra at the busier times, some with the women and some amidst the men. Some pulled the ratha, with beer in hand. Here are three videos of the Ratha-yatra so you can see what it was like:
You also see new T-shirts with new slogans and novel costumes each year. One young woman wore a green T-shirt with the question “Can you maintain me?” written on it with white letters. That reminded me of how according to the scripture, male-female relationships are meant to be regulated through marriage for spiritual elevation of human society. The man’s duty is to maintain the woman he wishes to have an intimate relationship with, but in this age so many men neglect that duty, and so the T-shirt is a reminder by the woman to the man about his duty.
Anna, who talked to Indradyumna Swami two years before, asked us to arrange another meeting with him now, and I had one of my former interpreters, Radhanandini Dasi, help her out with that.
One girl had a great time in our camp at the first two days of the festival, and so she told me she wanted to join us. Knowing the tour is not really equipped to train new people, and it was not possible to tell the depth of her seriousness immediately, I urged her to first attend the Sunday feast in Wroclaw, where she lives, and then see about joining us. Still it was impressive that she was so happy in the association of the devotees that she was thinking in that way. Later in the summer Polish told me that she was joining one of our temples.
I met one person who remembered me from Zary over eight years ago, and many people remembered me from more recent years. It is so embarrassing that so many remember me, and I remember so few of them.
I danced in back of the kirtana tent. In the evening, it was packed full of people.
One young lady followed my dance step and learned it. After a little while, I smiled, and said “Dobrze! [Very good.]” Then, as it is not my dharma to dance with the ladies, I stood just outside our tent, to facilitate encouraging people to come in tent or thanking them for their dancing as they left. Over half an hour later on her way out that same young lady wanted to dance that step she learned from me one more time, and six more people joined in, some people chanting as well as dancing.
One girl asked to know what is Hare Krishna, and I looked around for someone who could translate for me, and a girl who worked reception in previous years volunteered.
Two girls, Monika and Ana, remembered me from last year. They are from Kostrzyn, the city where the Woodstock has been held since 2004. Monika and her friends came and danced on several occasions throughout the four-and-half-day event. She knew English very well merely from studying it high school. The last day I gave Monika my Krishna.com business card and explained that she and her friends could find nice Krishna music which they liked so much on that web site.
The guy who remembered me from Zary and sent me photos he took a previous year, offered me some plums the second time he saw me this year. He said our kirtana yoga tent was best of venue of all as it was only one with lyrics to the songs displayed on the walls for everyone to see.
A boy said we had the best party of all. He and his friend took pleasure in singing and dancing with us.
I would dance to the music in the kirtana tent by myself in the beginning, but then gradually more people would gather. Sometimes I would tell the devotees sitting around the perimeter of the kirtana tent to dance as it would attract people to come to watch and thus hear the kirtana. During one kirtana, I taught a dance step to seven people. Usually it was the girls who were more inclined to dance, and it was awkward being a brahmacari showing them a dance. Later I danced outside the tent with eight people or so, half men and half women. While passing out mantra cards, I met another person who I taught a dance to, and who wanted to dance with me again.
Someone asked me where he could buy a dhoti, and I pointed to our gift shop.
I met a couple who offered to do some service. They said they had seen me at several Woodstocks. I suggested serving prasadam or picking up trash. They chose the trash, so I got plastic gloves and trash bags for them. I gave them my card and promised to send contact information for the devotees who does programs in their city of Krakow. Later I saw the girl dancing in the kirtana.
Another couple from Krakow wanted to get a CD of the kirtana in our kirtana yoga tent and get the contact information for the Krishna programs in their city. Perhaps we should put the recordings from the kirtana tent online, so the people who loved our chanting could keep it with them.
We did not go quite as late as last year, ending our chanting at 0:50, 2:15, 2:45 and 2:30, respectively, the four nights of the festival.
Sometimes two or three people would come running, skipping, or dancing, with smiles on their faces to join our kirtanas in the tent. Sometimes a girlfriend would drag a reluctant boyfriend into the kirtana tent, and sometimes a boyfriend would drag in a reluctant girlfriend. Whole families would come and listen, watch, and dance. Sometimes the parents would reject my offer of a mantra card because they thought Krishna consciousness was opposed to their Christian tradition, but as entertainment, they liked the kirtana, and they encouraged their children in it.
Often the devotees would dance in such a way that each person was holding the hand of the person before him and the person after him, as in a chain. Sometimes devotees would try to grab people from the audience and add them to the chain and sometimes those visiting our camp would also also grab people to add them to the chain. Sometimes some of the guys visiting our camp were a little too eager to grab the attractive girls, even the devotee girls, and add them to the chain.
One young lady from Bydgoszcz came to our camp for four years. She said she waits a whole year to eat our food. I told her there is a couple in Bydgoszcz that does a few programs a year, so she could have Krishna food more often, and she took down their phone number.
One man from Szczecin took the invitation to the Berlin temple, the closest one to him.
Izabela from Kostrzyn who has been coming and bringing her friends to Krishna’s Village of Peace for the food for years told me she finally graduated and will soon being working in Wroclaw. I gave her an invitation to the Wroclaw Ratha-yatra and Wroclaw temple Sunday feast, and she said she would try to make it for the Ratha-yatra.
Another girl from Kostrzyn happily told me she has been coming to our camp for the spiritual food since Woodstock came to her city back in 2004.
After our final Ratha-yatra, one girl from Germany’s Baltic coast asked me to explain what the Hare Krishna philosophy is. I stressed how the soul is present in all bodies and is symptomized by consciousness. Human life is special because we can awaken our love for God, the supreme conscious person, through the chanting of His holy name, especially the Hare Krishna mantra. I gave her our invitation to the Berlin temple and told her about Hamburg and Leipzig Ratha-yatras coming up on August 25 and September 8, respectively. She said she likes to go to Leipzig and will come for the Ratha-yatha. I explained how that one is special because the week before several hundred of us who will participate in it will be chanting for eight hours a day for six days. This year the city gave us a better location for our festival after the parade so more people will come. She explained that she is just beginning a spiritual search.
One young man from Berlin took an invitation to that center after I briefly explained the philosophy to him.
Another young man said that when he was in our kirtana yoga tent, he forgot all his problems.
Sometimes the people could not speak English very well, so I would tell them in Polish that we have a questions and answers booth over there, pointing in its direction, and go back to dancing and distributing mantra cards.
When I would show people who had been visiting the kirtana yoga tent the mantra cards, a small minority of people were averse, some people were indifferent, but most people were favorable, often very much so. Often they would smile in recognition, seeing the text representation of the song they were hearing and/or singing. Some would begin singing along to the words, often with their friends, and I would smile and sing along with them and dance. I often would remember a recent newsletter by Janananda Goswami wherein he quoted Srila Prabhupada many times saying, “Somehow or other, get them to chant.”
Lots of people wanted to have their pictures taken with us.
Gaura Hari Prabhu, a brahmacari from Leipzig who came for the first time, was impressed with the qualities of the people in the kirtana tent. Alhtough drunk, they are not as sexually motivated or angry as drunk people usually are at such late night music events. They were also very respectful.
Jananivasa Prabhu, one of my former interpreters, told me that each year the quality of the questions in the question and answers booth improves. Now there are no longer people who are just joking around trying to call attention to themselves, but rather, many sincere spiritual inquirers. A devotee who worked in our book tent told me that the questions of the people get more serious each year.
For several years, the day after the Woodstock festival, some of my friends and I have done harinama at the train station.
For several years, the day after the Woodstock festival, some of my friends and I have done harinama at the train station.
I think this was the best year, as each year it gets better. We had eight devotees participate, more than usual, and we encountered more people there waiting for the trains. Some were very happy to see us.
People of the town came to their windows to see us.
Others danced with us.
We chanted both by the station and by the tracks.
One devotee took a movie of it.
Harinama in Prague
Lokanatha Swami told in me 2004 that Prague is the best city for harinama, and when I chanted there with my friends for two days after the Polish Woodstock, I could see how that is true. In one place you meet people from all over the world, and the people are not so much in a rush as in London, but more relaxed and looking for some kind of cultural experience. Many people take pictures and have some pleasing interaction with the harinama devotees. I gave the words of the mantra to one girl who was appreciating the kirtana, but she said did not need them because in Prague the people hear it so much they know the words.
Once we were detained in a area that was protected from the rain. The drunks who were also taking shelter there were a little angry at first but by the power of the kirtana they either mellowed out or went away. Other people there liked having the entertainment while waiting out the storm.
Harinamas in Spain
I had no plan to go to Spain when I came to Europe this year, but I met my Spanish friend and godbrother, Yadunandana Swami, in both England and Ireland this year, and he invited me to a three-day kirtana-mela at our farm outside of Madrid. I cannot afford to travel to Spain, but I asked my friend and benefactor Dhruva Prabhu, who has traveled with me to different European festivals if he wanted to go and would be willing to help me out, and he agreed. I wanted to go for just the three days of the kirtana-mela, as I know for certain I have friends to do harinama with in Czech Republic and Germany, whereas Spain I did not know about. Dhruva, however, thought if we were going to Spain we should go for at least a week. Thus reluctantly I went to Spain with five whole days before the mela. Fortunately Yadunandana Swami helped me organize some harinamas, and we were able to go out three of the days before the festival.
Brihuega:
Brihuega is the town nearest our farm project an hour from Madrid known as Nueva (New) Vraja Mandala. In recent years devotees have just done a weekly harinama in Madrid. Previously they would do four days a week, and include Guadalajara and two other cities. Still in recent times they had not chanted in Brihuega, the closest town to them at all. We chanted from 8:30 p.m. to 10:15 p.m. in a square in the center of town that had some restaurants off to one side. That is not a late hour there as people take a break during the heat of the day and stay up late as a regular lifestyle. We set up near one entrance to the park so a lot of people would have to pass by us, not too close to the restaurants, in case the managers did not like it and told us to stop. Originally we were going to do a sitting down harinama, but some of the devotees thought people may not like us constantly chanting in one place, so we planned to walk around. As it turned out, we were so well-received in the park that we just stayed there, standing instead of sitting as we did not bring our mats. At one point, when I was singing and two young devotee ladies were dancing together in a nice pattern, quite a crowd gathered. I counted forty people, mostly elementary school aged children and a few adults. In fact, we always had some people watching from the beginning to the end of the harinama. The two ladies engaged some of the more brave children in dancing with them. One gave one of the young girls a flower garland which she was happy to receive. At the end of the evening five or six teenaged girls came by and had a great time dancing with the young devotee lady who stayed till the end. Afterward, the girls wanted to have their picture with her. One man watched us the whole time. He explained to me in Spanish that he was half Indian. He also wanted his picture taken with the devotees. Surprisingly enough, four days later I saw him on our farm at the cow festival following the Sunday feast program. It is not everyday that someone who meets the harinama party ends up coming to the temple, but such was the case with my first harinama in Spain. Seeing the popularity of the harinama in their local village, I advised them to do at least one harinama each week in Brihuega. Let’s hope they can do it.
Málaga:
We began our Janmastami celebration in Málaga by doing a 1½ hour harinama attended by eight devotees. Our plan was to go right after the morning class, before it got too hot and the devotees became tired from fasting. As it turned out it was from 11:15 to 12:45 that we chanted. Lots of people, mostly tourists took pictures. Three people danced with us. We gave out invitations to the evening Janmastami program, as well as the weekly Sunday feast, and several people were interested in coming. One Spanish man, who had spent two months in Vrindavan, was happy to hear the chanting again in his own country. In Central London, devotees do harinama in Janmastami in the afternoon on Oxford Street, and in Leipzig they do it in the evening when the curtains are closed before the final arati. In the future, you may consider celebrating Janmastami by doing harinama in a city near you!
Churriana:
On Vyasa Puja day, just before our evening program, we did 40 minutes of harinama with four devotees around Churriana, the town where our Málaga temple is located. We passed out five invitations to our Sunday program, and although it was Saturday, seven people came to the temple, three staying to hear a few homages to Srila Prabhupada. I was overjoyed, and I saw this as Srila Prabhupada’s reciprocation for us doing outreach on his glorious appearance day!
Kirtana Mela in Spain
They have incredibly beautiful Radha Krishna deities called Radha Govindacandra there at Nueva Vraja Mandala, and it was a pleasure to chant for them.
There were not too many people at this kirtana-mela, perhaps fifty to eighty or so. I was happy that there was room to dance. During the hot part of the day, we stayed inside.
When it cooled we went outside.
Bhaktivaibhava Swami and Kadamba Kanana Swami were both there and led very lively kirtanas, as did some other kirtana leaders from Spain that I did not know.
Kadamba Kanana Swami also inspired people to dance when others, especially Bhaktivaibhava Swami, led kirtana.
I personally had a great time dancing.
There were lots of great realizations about chanting which you can read in the “Insights” below. Kadamba Kanana Swami at the end challenged the devotees to have a kirtana-mela with two hundred devotees for next year’s anniversary of the installation of the deities there.
I am grateful to Yadunandana Swami and Dhruva Prabhu for giving me with such a wonderful opportunity in Spain.
Insights
Bhaktivaibhava Swami:
When Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya asked Lord Caitanya the best process of bhakti He quoted the verse beginning harer nama harer nama . . . in this age there is no other process for self-realization other than the chanting of the holy name.
The iti sodasakam verse indicates that specifically the maha-mantra is the best spiritual practice in all the Vedas.
The illusory energy of the Lord makes one forget that he endeavored for material happiness before and he just got beaten over the head.
The devotees are most fortunate because they are utilizing lives properly.
We are not painting everything black. Birth, death, old age, and disease are a fact. If death is natural, why does every living entity resist it if you try to kill it?
If we maintain the purity of our chanting, others will be attracted in the future, as we were attracted in the past.
Krishna appears as His holy name when we have a service-inclined tongue and ears. When the tongue is controlled, all the senses become controlled
In the Garuda Purana, it describes many subtle beings, and all these beings are liberated when the harinama party goes by.
Pudma Purana describes that even by thinking of the Ganges River, one becomes liberated.
There is a story of frog couple who went on pilgrimage to go to the Ganges River and dive in and become liberated. Unfortunately, they met a snake on the way. They tried to preach to the snake that they were innocent and should not be killed. The snake preached to the frogs, that by God’s arrangement they were his prey and it was right for him to eat them. The snake prepared to eat them, and they cried out “Ganga Mayi” as they left their bodies. Thus both frogs attained the heavenly planets, the male shared the throne with Indra. After many, many years of enjoyment on the heavenly planets, a Vaikunntha airplane came to take the two former frogs to the spiritual world.
One who perfectly follows his spiritual master reaches the Supersoul.
One can learn by hearing or by experience, but it is better to learn by hearing.
My mother told me, “My dear son, do not marry.” She had not had a good experience of marriage, and thus so she instructed me thus. So I accepted it.
We are not against material desires. We will not be successful in our preaching if we instruct people, especially young people, not to have material desires. But they should go about the fulfillment of their material desires in the proper way, and in this way they will suffer less.
Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami:
I am not serving any big projects
in ISKCON, just writing, reading,
telling of my little life and tending to
my sadhana. I’m doing as my departed
Godbrother, Sridhara Maharaja, said,
“Just be yourself
and make your contribution.”
in ISKCON, just writing, reading,
telling of my little life and tending to
my sadhana. I’m doing as my departed
Godbrother, Sridhara Maharaja, said,
“Just be yourself
and make your contribution.”
from Journal and Poems, Volume 3:
“Then, where are the directly God conscious, devotional haikus? One cannot say that they are omitted in a neutral, natural way. To omit the Absolute Truth is itself a metaphysical statement. To light incense and not offer it to God. To write of erotic moments in defiance of scriptural codes. To write hundreds of nature poems assuming that the perception of birds, beasts, sky, elements, etc., is sufficient spiritual nourishment—and that God is just another ‘thing.’ These are all atheistic proclamations.
“Write of the bomb? Write of a sexual affair? ‘We must,’ they say, ‘because this is our life, this is reality.’
“I am no Buddha
no Jayadeva,
but someone has to say it:
Which haiku
will save us
at death?
“Basho’s death poem
is a wishful hope,
wandering across the moor.
“I am no Buddha
no Jayadeva,
but someone has to say it:
Which haiku
will save us
at death?
“Basho’s death poem
is a wishful hope,
wandering across the moor.
“Issa gave a humble farewell—
‘I was a fool,
so are we all!
‘I was a fool,
so are we all!
“Which haiku will save us?
The frog jumps in?
The wings of the dragonfly?
The frog jumps in?
The wings of the dragonfly?
“Talented poets,
please make a poem-prayer.
But first you have to learn it.
“Delicate senses
in a floating world,
is not enough.
please make a poem-prayer.
But first you have to learn it.
“Delicate senses
in a floating world,
is not enough.
“Don’t you know
we all have to come back
to another body?
“Now who will come forward
and say it with beauty?
we all have to come back
to another body?
“Now who will come forward
and say it with beauty?
“Alas, my gayatris go by too quickly, and I can’t get them back. Is it that I think my time is better spent in writing?
“‘But how do you know there is God?’
“‘Because the Srimad-Bhagavatam assures us.’
“‘But isn’t that just an old book of stories?’
“‘No, it’s sastra. It’s the book of authority. Srila Prabhupada said, ‘At least we have a book.’ Srimad-Bhagavatam is solid authority, at least among those who cherish it and who are learned in spiritual science. It is self-effulgent, describes the highest nature of religion as love of God. Are we so dull that we can’t appreciate its standard?’
“‘Because the Srimad-Bhagavatam assures us.’
“‘But isn’t that just an old book of stories?’
“‘No, it’s sastra. It’s the book of authority. Srila Prabhupada said, ‘At least we have a book.’ Srimad-Bhagavatam is solid authority, at least among those who cherish it and who are learned in spiritual science. It is self-effulgent, describes the highest nature of religion as love of God. Are we so dull that we can’t appreciate its standard?’
“So it goes, me and the atheist, like two guys at a sidewalk café in Paris arguing over whether or not God exists.
from Karttika Notes:
In this temple [in Mayapura] they keep moving people who are in front of honored guests like me and so I had a clear vision of Sri Sri Nrsimhadeva. I can’t say that I prayed to Him to remove the anarthas, but at least I was enthusiastic to be in His presence, and I know that He is fierce and that He is going to work on you when you come close to Him in a respectful devotional way.
Today is Gopastami. The Deities of the gopis and Radharani had their feet showing. They said the reason is because these gopis are all going to see the cows for Gopastami and they don’t want to get their saris muddy so they lifted them up a bit.
[Pankajanghri Prabhu said in a letter to Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami]: “Opposite to any other place I’ve stayed, Sri Mayapura gets more and more attractive the longer one stays and one’s attachment to it increases proportionately.”
I have many favorite memories [of Srila Prabhupada]. One memory I like is of a lecture that Prabhupada gave in 1975 at the annual Mayapur festival. Prabhupada quoted Bhaktivinoda Thakura saying that he longed for the day when the Europeans (and Americans) would join with their Bengali brothers and chant the holy names of Krishna and Caitanya. Prabhupada announced from the vyasasana that now that prophecy had taken place today. It was a wonderful moment of history to be present while Prabhupada announced that the prophecy of Bhaktivinoda Thakura had been fulfilled by Prabhupada’s own work and by his own movement and witnessed at Sri Caitanya-candrodaya Mandir.
Yes. Prabhupada asked all of his devotees to write. Krishna is our best friend, so we can express ourselves to him in the form of a journal. It may contain sastric verses and our own realizations, and even our lamentations at our lack of realizations. A devotee’s journal is not mundane, but it is filled with transcendental aspirations and is a recommended way of practicing Krishna consciousness.
My drawing for today is
three colorful sankirtaneros
dancing with upraised arms.
They are red and black and green
and smiling in the bliss of harinama.
Swirls of color surround them as auras
of auspiciousness, and they make the viewer
happy. That is the symptom of the maha-
bhagavata, that he induces others to also
chant Hare Krishna. These three are infectious,
and they invite you to join with them in the most
important function: the congregational
chanting of the holy names.
three colorful sankirtaneros
dancing with upraised arms.
They are red and black and green
and smiling in the bliss of harinama.
Swirls of color surround them as auras
of auspiciousness, and they make the viewer
happy. That is the symptom of the maha-
bhagavata, that he induces others to also
chant Hare Krishna. These three are infectious,
and they invite you to join with them in the most
important function: the congregational
chanting of the holy names.
from My Letters from Srila Prabhupada, Volume 2, You Cannot Leave Boston:
“I had another service which I liked very much, which was writing the blurbs on the back of the books and the introductions describing what the books were. I took a lot of pleasure in that assignment. It was an area where I could use my knowledge of the Western mentality and of readers and to try to attract readers who knew nothing about Krishna. Writing those blurbs was always challenging. When we printed the Second Canto chapters as small paperbacks, I also titled the chapters. Those were the first books ISKCON Press printed. Prabhupada liked them, but after a while our printing mistakes became obvious as the books started to fall apart. We were still in an experimental stage at that time. I chose the titles from references in each chapter and tried to use Srila Prabhupada’s varied expressions.
from Narada-bhakti-sutra, verse 23:
“‘On the other hand, displays of devotion without knowledge of God’s greatness are no better than the affairs of illicit lovers.’
Vedavyasa Prabhu:
One can listen for a long time, but if he is not submissive, he will not benefit.
Any topic in relationship with Krishna is glorious and worth hearing.
Bhaktisiddhana Sarasvati Thakura spoke to Radha Kunda babajis about Prahlada Maharaja instead of satisfying their desire to hear of Krishna’s intimate pastimes.
Kasyapa had the duty to satisfy his wife Diti sexually, but not at an inauspicious time.
Q: It is difficult to liberate one’s children in this age, so is better not to have any?
A: We must have the intent to liberate them.
Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami says that the man is either completely rational or completely emotional while the woman is always half rational and half emotional, and so a man when in his state of being completely emotional can take shelter of the intelligence of the woman.
If a householder is sensually agitated he can always take shelter of his wife, while those in the renounced order can become completely degraded if they cannot tolerate the agitation.
There were cases where people could not follow the strictly follow the principle of having sex only for procreation, and Prabhupada advised them to minimize the sex as far as possible.
If there is no repentance of inability to follow but just the offering of excuses, that presents a problem to progress.
The idea is that by having sex according to dharma and raising the children properly you will be purified from the sex desire. Otherwise it will remain.
It is better to go through some authority to arrange a male-female relationship to leading to a marriage. Sometimes persons in a spiritual community pursue male-female relationships without intending to get married, but that ends up creating a disturbance.
Kadamba Kanana Swami:
A gray van came to my town and too many pink men come out. I popped into a shop. Someone said they are a dangerous sect. They looked dangerous to me. When I heard them on TV three months later, explaining their philosophy, no meat eating, no intoxication, no illicit sex, and no gambling, and chanting 16 rounds a day then I knew they were dangerous.
The power of the holy name is such that even the reluctant would be touched by the holy nmae of the Lord.
The holy name penetrates into our heart and gradually our desires change and thus it can create a revolution in this entire world.
The mercy of the pure devotee of the Lord is very possible. In Sri Caitanya-caritamrita one devotee is described as able to deliver the entire world. Seeing Srila Prabhupada’s activities we can understand how this is possible.
Srila Prabhupada understood that by their hearing the holy name, it will work in their heart, and they will come back.
Smita Krishna Swami said that Srila Prabhupada said that when a harinama party goes through the street it does not just change the people in the street, it changes the whole street as well. Anyone who goes through that street later becomes purified.
Once Srila Prabhupada said, “We do not need to use this microphone. We are using this microphone to purify the microphone maker.”
It is not only the people who chant Hare Krishna that benefit, but also those that hear.
Once in Spain there was an ad with four Hare Krishnas on a big Easyrider, Harley Davidson motorcycle. The people in general think it is funny—monks on a motorcycle. But we laugh because monks are at home on a motorcycle. This movement is meant to pick up all kinds of people.
The holy name can reach out to the most fallen. It does not require any qualification.
We travel all over the people to meet the same people and do the same thing—chant Hare Krishna. But it is not always the same, it is a great transcendental adventure. Sometimes there is magic in the kirtana, and we can all feel the presence of Krishna, and we think this is the best, and for that moment, our eyes are open, and we experience the truth, that chanting the holy name is the best thing.
In New Mayapur, in central France, Prabhupada told the devotees to offer some fruits to the Deities in the afternoon. A devotee said he would buy some. Prabhupada said, “Why buy? Just pick some bananas from the garden.” The devotees said they are no bananas in our garden, but Prabhupada said in the future there will be.
Q: Who gets more purified? The chanter or the hearer?
A: One may chant with partial faith, but another can hear it with complete faith and can make great progress. Often persons have heard about Krishna originally from unserious persons but became very serious themselves.
The holy name is Krishna, and He has an individual relationship with each one so you never know who gets purified.
Srila Prabhupada just let the holy name act. He was not trying to change the world by his power. He had prayed to Krishna, “Why can I say to deliver these people? I can only repeat your words.” Prabhupada was convinced. Are we convinced? If we were, we would just stay here and chant Hare Krishna all day. We chant, but we also looking for happiness elsewhere.
It is said that Ajamila was the best by far among those in the gurukula at that time, so the teachers decided to do his astrological chart and find out how great a personality he was. But when they saw his chart, it was not so auspicious. He was in a Jupiter period and doing very well, but it was not to last. So they decided to get him married to a nice brahmani
Travel Journal#8.14: Ireland, Paris, Switzerland
→ Travel Adventures of a Krishna Monk
Diary of a Traveling Sadhaka, Vol. 8, No. 14
By Krishna-kripa das
(July 2012, part two)
By Krishna-kripa das
(July 2012, part two)
Ireland, Paris, Switzerland
(Sent from New Shantipur Farm, Czarnów, Poland, on August 25, 2012)
(Sent from New Shantipur Farm, Czarnów, Poland, on August 25, 2012)
Where I Went and What I Did
After chanting in Dublin and Belfast, Ananta Nitai and I went to Govindadvipa to chant at a couple towns near our Krishna island, namely Enniskillen, Northern Island, and Cavan, Ireland, with Bhagavata Dasi, who has great enthusiasm for sharing Krishna. Then we returned to Dublin for the 12-hour harinama that we organized for that coming Saturday. After a few more days of harinama in Dublin, I went to chant for three days with my friends in Paris. Then I went to Langenthal, Switzerland, for the Saturday feast program, and to Zurich for the Sunday Jhulan Yatra festival and harinama on Monday. Then off to Berlin enroute to Kostrzyn, Poland, for my twelfth year at the Polish Woodstock festival which I describe in my next journal.
I share insights from a variety of Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami’s books, which are quoted in his online journal, Viraha Bhavan, which I regularly proofread, from Gour Govinda Swami’s disciple, Madhavananda Prabhu, who was visiting Paris, from Bhakti-sastri teacher, Adi Purusa Prabhu, who was visiting Zurich, and from my harinama partners in Dublin and Paris. I also include the experience of a man I met on a bus who met the Hare Krishna devotees at a festival.
Harinamas in Ireland
Invited by Bhagavata Dasi, Ananta Nitai Prabhu and I went to Govindadvipa to do harinamas in two nearby towns, Enniskillen, in Northern Ireland, and Cavan, in the Republic.
In Enniskillen, devotees chant in a little pedestrian area in the center of the town. The people were more appreciative and more charitable in general than the people in Cavan the next day. Bhagavata Dasi had some small books we gave all those who gave a donation, no matter how small. We did, however, encounter one macabre surprise, a fight between two women, perhaps in their twenties or thirties, no more than three meters in front of where we were chanting. One knocked the other down on the ground and was shouting and punching her out, to the horror of her son, who was standing, helpless, nearby. The one on the ground ended up with a bloody nose. No one intervened in the fight, other than a man who said a few words to no avail. The woman who was knocked down had her belongings scattered, and some people helped her pick them up, including the women who punched her out, who found her cell phone a little ways away and returned it to her. Five policemen came and interrogated the aggressive lady. It was truly a bizarre scene. I was singing and playing the harmonium at the time, so I just kept on chanting, as it was not clear what else I could really do. No one seemed to have a better idea. For me, it was just another example of how degrading humanity is becoming?that one woman would beat up another and that no one would try to intervene and prevent injury.
In Cavan the next day we had another great location in the center of the town where we chanted another three hours. The temple president, Gopal Acarya Prabhu, and his family encouraged us by coming out for the first hour or so. The best part was a young man coming up to the devotees, looking for Bhagavad-gita, and giving twenty euros. Otherwise, except for a few smiles, there was not a great response.
Twelve-Hour Harinama in Dublin
The previous week, Ananta Nitai Prabhu suggested that we might do a twenty-four hour harinama in Dublin. Thinking back on how I always have to take a break for three hours to get some rest during the twenty-four hour kirtanas, I suggested we start with a twelve-hour harinama. We settled on a week from Saturday, specifically, Saturday, July 21, and Premarnava Prabhu advertised it on Facebook, and we told all our harinama friends. I was most impressed by the participation of Ananta Nitai Prabhu himself, who participated for at least eleven hours, and the participation of a couple of devotee ladies from out of town, who we had chanted with during our brief tour of Ireland. Bhagavata Dasi took the bus two hours each way from Govindadvipa and chanted for four and half hours. Anet took the train one hour each way from her home and amazingly distributed books during the harinama for ten hours. Her only comment at the end, before returning home, was “When is the next one?” Premarnava Prabhu also put in five hours, and Robert came extra early for the regular Saturday evening harinama to participate. One break dancer enjoyed dancing with us in the afternoon, and group of young boys and one young lady really got into the dancing in the evening.
A couple of girls from Seattle girl happened to encounter our harinama at least twice during the day, and their smiles of joy inspired me to talk with them. One said that seeing the harinama was the best part of her Dublin trip. I encouraged them to visit our temple in Seattle, when they return home, for the local Sunday feast program there. I participated myself in our twelve-hour harinama for over eleven hours. Not realizing the strength of the Irish sun in that chilly land, I got the worst sunburn this year. I learned some strategies for my increasing participation. Just have a small lunch so you do not become tired and need to take rest, and do not drink so much you have to always take a bathroom break. I reported our harinama successes to my authority in the UK and Ireland, Janananda Goswami, who encouraged me to return to Ireland again after I come back to the UK from Europe in late September.
Metroyoga in Paris
I was happy to join my friends, Chandrasekhara Acharya Prabhu, Gadadhara Priya Prabhu, and Bhaktin Sara, in chanting on the metros in Paris again, a program called Metroyoga. Recently Chandrasekhara Acharya has written a nice article for Back to Godhead describing the program. You always meet some people who really appreciate the chanting and the presentation, and that makes it all worth it.
Langenthal, Switzerland
There is a growing community of devotees in Langenthal, Switzerland, about an hour from Zurich, in the German-speaking part of the country. They have a larger temple room than most of our temples in Europe. There were a lot of devotees there who had enthusiasm for the kirtana at their weekly Saturday feast program. At Langenthal three householder families have a prasadam business by which they maintain themselves.
Zurich
I was in Zurich for the Jhulan Yatra (Radha Krishna swing festival) on Sunday and harinama by the lake on Monday. Special features of the Zurich Jhulan Yatra are that the swing is suspended over a pool of water, and to satisfy both the Tamil-speaking congregation, largely from Sri Lanka, and the local German-speaking congregation, the festival is held twice, so I got to swing Radha-Krishna two times. This festival is observed in our temples with Radha Krishna deities for the five days before and including Lord Balarama’s appearance day, but in recent years I had not been in a temple where it was held, so it was a treat to be there in Zurich and to swing Radha and Krishna twice in one day. The Gaudiya Vaishnava sampradaya stresses service to the divine couple, Radha and Krishna, and this swing festival of Theirs gives everyone in the congregation a little experience of that. For that reason, it is one of my favorite festivals.
I felt indebted to temple president, Krishna Prema Rupa Prabhu, who kindly organized a nearly two-hour harinama on Monday with ten devotees down along the lake in Zurich. There was a lot of enthusiasm among the devotees. We even went further around the lake than they ever do, through a small region where they do not have permission to chant, to the other side of the lake where it is again permitted. We passed out many temple invitations, both to the Sunday feast and the upcoming Janmastami festival. One woman came up to me asking about devotees’ summer festival, and I gave her an invitation for the Janmastami event. Apparently there the devotees celebrate Janmastami so nicely people in the city look forward to it each year.
I took a night train from Zurich to Berlin on the way to the Polish Woodstock. Although it was over eleven hours, it was only $43, a rare deal from the Swiss train company, SBB.
Insights
Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami:
Emerson says, “Beware what you set your heart upon, for it will surely be yours.”
Make war on Maya in your life.
O Ugra Lion-Man,
Your black body,Your
stance of ready-to-fight,
massive black head
plainly silver teeth and
10 arms and hands I can
almost see them all?
be real for me,
I don’t fear You because
You are our protector against
evil. Therefore I ask You
please come alive?and
tear out form the roots
my anarthas.
And life ebbs out like from a slightly leaking pot.
I thought this is so strange. The blue-faced murti of a calm Nrsimha holding Laksmi on His lap. India, and a religion of strange forms. Is it not that way? Unless you are born and raised here (or you live here many years and become Indian-religionized) it remains alien to you. But you have one thing?your surrender to Prabhupada. And he expertly teaches and induces you to accept Krsna consciousness in a scientific nonsectarian way. Except for him, even Gaudiya Vaisnavism remains strange gods, alien words, hard to believe miracles. . . .
Srila Prabhupada followed his guru life and soul yet made his own way in America, innovated, etc. Can you?
Don’t want to die “off” or die having not fulfilled what you could have become if you dared. Let everyone live out the best he or she can become.
“How do you develop selfless service for
the guru?” she asks. I’m at a loss to
answer precisely because
I don’t know it myself!
I am in lap of Gaura-Nitai [being in Mayapura]. Please I ask Them, please shape me and give good meaning to my visit.
I can occupy myself splendidly if people would just leave me alone.
But you have seen Lord Nrsimha
and can call His names,
please protect me from demons,
please kill my own demons
in the heart.
A day here is worth
millions somewhere else says
Navadvipa Mahatmya.
Bumpkin returns to the
West with stars in eyes
and plan. He’ll be a
Prabhupada Gauranga man.
Tell them. . . . I love you, I love this, but I also love to be alone?it’s hard work but very rewarding in a quiet and deep way.
O Lord, I thank You, it’s You who arrange this, who guide me to do it. Now may I do it purely.
Well life and death are somewhat the same and they are definitely related. When you are aware of death then you live in a certain way, a better way. The certainty of death, and thinking about it, turns your life more serious. It doesn’t mean you live in a deathlike way. You can still be very much in the moment, and so to speak, enjoy it all, but you’re aware that it’s really over soon, and you live in a way to improve your next life. So you see what I mean, how death and life are connected?
Yesterday you were complaining a little that there has been so much talk in your life about people dying, especially devotees in Vrndavana. But partly it’s just your own fear and avoidance of death that makes you not want to hear all of this. And the positive way to take it is to be aware of death as you live. That doesn’t spoil everything in the present moment, but it rather infuses it with a certain energetic fervent quality. If you can drive out sense gratification and serve Krsna then you are successful.
Tomorrow we’ll try a new strategy of just completely closing the windows because the bugs are coming right through the screens. I’ve never seen any place where they have such multitudes of insects. Prabhupada talks about it in some of his lectures, how in Mayapur during the night these creatures are born and live and die in one night and how in the morning you see heaps and heaps of bodies. Sometimes when I heard the lecture I felt perhaps he was exaggerating when he said that there were thousands and thousands of bugs and heaps and heaps of bodies in the morning and that you could sweep them away. But now I see it’s true. Why don’t I take Prabhupada literally true on face value all the time? Just it’s a matter of time before you find out that what he says is true.
from My Letters from Srila Prabhupada, Volume 3, I am Never Displeased with Any Member:
“I was recently speaking with one devotee who told me that her fifteen-year-old daughter is so fixed on becoming a devotee that she even thought of running away from home and joining an ISKCON temple (her mother wants her to stay home and finish school). Despite the horrors that so many of us suffered, there’s another side: Living in a temple really helped us become devotees, solidly fixed in sadhana.
“We shared living space, bathrooms, food, cooking duties, trouble, anxiety and the triumph of having received such a letter from Prabhupada. We worshiped together and felt the bliss of collective peak experience that comes from working hard for Krishna. Our lives were so different from anything we could have imagined them to be. We weren’t living abstract ideas of unity and community as were the hippies in their cynicism. Prabhupada had given us the real thing. Prabhupada was the center. It wasn’t always easy?and I’m aware that I’m stressing the good side?but we were all devotees, disciples, together. There was no question that we could do other than we did if we were sincere. Putting aside the old ISKCON debate, we should be mature enough to just try and feel the essence of something Prabhupada gave us and which many of us are so fortunate to have taken part in, even if things have changed. We joined the spiritual world.”
from Srila Prabhupapa Samadhi Diary:
“O Prabhupada, may we live in you until we die; may we serve in this life and the next. May we study your words and repeat them with joy and conviction. May we know Krishna and Radha through you.”
Dhruva Prabhu:
The Sanskrit verses of the scripture purify us so it is good to chant them repeatedly.
Prabhupada was very liberal and said it does not matter what religion you follow but that you must follow strictly whatever religion you choose. Just like you have to learn math, but which math book you use is up to you.
If we love someone, we must remember that person and we must do something for that person, and so it is with Krishna.
The greatest gift is love of God.
In America the greatest worry is “will my money run out before I die?”
The beauty of Krishna consciousness is the giver and the receiver both benefit.
A saint is not recognized in his own town. The great example is Prabhupada who had so much difficulty preaching Krishna consciousness in India but became very successful in the West.
In the material world if someone praises you, you praise them, “You must be so intelligent to realize how intelligent I am.”
Our preaching is successful if one comes to appreciate different features of Krishna consciousness, the harinama, the prasadam, and the books.
I have been on many harinamas, but the ones that Indradyumna Swami has in Poland are the most amazing. The devotees are all dressed very nicely and play the instruments very nicely. People are very attracted, and you can see it.
In India the children see the mother and father as God because mother and father maintain them as God maintains them.
It is no wonder we fall several times a day, but we must recognize we have fallen, and continue chanting.
We do not see our big faults, but we are very expert in finding innumerable insignificant faults in others.
Ananta Nitai Prabhu:
I always liked harinama, congregational chanting in public, but it was not until I read what Aindra Prabhu wrote that I understood its great importance.
We cannot judge devotees externally. Externals do not represent the internal mood of the devotee, but it is the internal mood that Krishna reciprocates with.
Krishna’s statements in the Gita are enacted in His pastimes.
Tribhuvananatha Prabhu said, referring to the spiritually ignorant, a husband and wife love each other’s false egos at best.
I could chant four rounds a day, and I resigned my self to that, thinking I would never chant anymore than four. I heard that the association of devotees was valuable, so I took a week off from work and attended the temple morning program with fourteen devotees every day. By the fourth day, I was chanting sixteen rounds, and I have been chanting sixteen rounds a day ever since. That was thirteen years ago. Thus I practically can see the power of the association of devotees in my own life.
Mayesvara Prabhu:
Hridayananda Maharaja says just by seeing the smile of the empowered preacher of Krishna consciousness you can understand you are not your body.
comment by me: That reminds me of this description given by Srila Prabhupada in a purport about Kardama Muni, “Pure devotees are so absorbed in thought Krishna that they have no other engagement; although they may seem to think or act otherwise, they are always thinking of Krishna. The smile of such a Krishna conscious person is so attractive that simply by smiling he wins so many admirers, disciples and followers.” (SB 3.22.21)
Madhavananda Prabhu:
In America there was a poll showing that 60%–70% of the people who believe in God do not believe in religion. There is a popular book called How I Left Religion and Found God.
People have not found satisfaction through sectarian religion because they have missed the essence of religion, unmotivated, uninterrupted service to God.
Krishna explains that religion is meant to be practically experienced and to be happily performed. (Bg. 9.2)
Srila Prabhupada said, “Our only business is to get people to chant Hare Krishna.” We do not want anything in exchange. Elsewhere he explained, “Our only business is to make people happy.” He also explained that we are nonsectarian society with members coming from many different religions and that members of ISKCON may retain their own religious faiths.
In Zurich there are many streams but you cannot hear their sweet sounds during the day because of all the cars and buses. In the same way, we cannot hear the soul because of the radio of our minds.
There are saints in every religion who cry for the Lord, and the Lord hears their cries.
If you go to seek a job and when asked your qualification, you say you have none or that you are the most useless person in the world, will you get a job? No. But in spiritual life, it is different.
Having straw in your teeth, both indicates that you are not going to protest nor are you going to cry with your mouth but with your heart.
Narottama Dasa Thakura prays to the Lord, “You are famous as the savior of the most fallen, but if you do not save me, you will have to change your name.”
We have to cry in such a way that it is clear to Krishna that no toys He may give us will satisfy us; nothing will satisfy us except Him.
Sadhus say smaranam means maranam. Remembrance of God means death to all our material desires.
Krishna explains to Arjuna that only those who chant his name, crying from their souls, are dear Him.
All the great religions of the world are based on great saintly persons but later on their so-called followers became more interested in business.
bhakti-yoga bhakti-yoga bhakti-yoga dana
bhakti sei krishna-nama smarane krandana
Visvanatha Cakravati Thakura states that bhakti-yoga is the greatest charity, and bhakti-yoga means chanting the holy name of the Lord with remembrance and with crying.
Ramachandra Dev, was King of Jagannatha Puri, but he was defeated by a Muslim general. After thirteen months and fifteen days in prison, the general offered to release him and allow him to be king again, only he would have to become a Muslim and marry a Muslim woman. Seeing that as the only opportunity to continue his service to Jagannatha, he accepted the condition. All his other wives rejected him, and left him, along with their children. His friends also rejected him. He went to the Puri temple, but the priests would not even let him in, although he was the king of Puri, because he had a Muslim wife. Every night after the temple closed, Ramachandra Dev would go outside it and cry. When he was so aggrieved and he was about to end his life, the Lord appeared and said, “Do not cry.” Then the Lord manifested the Patita-pavana deity outside the temple so the king could see him.
When Ramachandra Dev cried for Krishna, Jagannatha (Krishna) cried for him.
Lord Jagannatha is the form of the greatest ecstasy.
In Orissa there Muslims who help build and pull the Ratha-yatra.
They say in Orissa, “The name of Rama is like a laddu, and the name of Krishna is like ghee, and the name of Hare is like sweetened condensed milk, and you mix them and drink it. That is the Hare Krishna mantra.”
Q: How do I cry for Krishna?
A: Associate with people who are crying for Krishna.
Gour Govinda Swami explained there are two secrets for success:
1. Every day say some prayers to Lord Nityananda.
2. Pray for other people.
There are three kinds of mercy:
1. Mercy for the body.
2. Mercy for the mind.3. Mercy for the soul.
The Deity Govindaji in Jaipur appears effulgent because of all the devotees of the city love Him so much.
It is important to respect the leaders, otherwise progress is difficult.
There is a cartoon with a group of executives sitting at a table, with one at the head. The chief executive had an ax above his head and swords in his side. The chief executive is asking who wants to be the next chief executive.
If we expect people to be able to follow the varnasrama rules and regulations and we reject them if they do not, then we will become irrelevant.
Bhaktivinoda Thakura explains the dress of a Vaishnava is a way we can use the body to progress spiritually. However, if we think that such external features are required, and we disrespect real Vaishnavas who do not follow them, we become sectarian.
There is verse where is it said if you address Krishna before Radha, you get the reaction for killing a brahmana. That because it is so distasteful to Krishna.
In Mahabharata, it is said that the mother is ten times more respectable than the father.
India has the lowest divorce rate in the world.
Adi Purusa Prabhu:
Sankhya, analytical knowledge, is like a kaleidoscope. It is very attractive on the outside, but if you look inside you will find nothing of value.
One should not criticize people. One should not even criticize things because they are Krishna’s things.
A Vaishnava never chastises anyone except his students and disciples, and then only in a loving way.
There is one devotee who is a software engineer. He is so patient, kind, and respectful, all the workers in the company want him as a supervisor.
The biggest sacrifice is to give up your false ego.
If we accept that we do not have to be in the superior position, then that will help us in conflicts with other people.
Once I was arguing and arguing with another devotee. At one point, it occurred to me, I should try to understand how he was seeing things. Much to my surprise, as soon as I starting thinking in this way, the other devotee said, “Now I can understand what you are saying.”
Krishna allows each of us the right to be wrong. If we allow others the right to be wrong, that is a sign of respect. Everyone has a right to their opinion, even if it is not good for them.
Sacinandana Swami explained that our body belongs to Krishna, and therefore, we should loving take of it for Krishna’s service.
Who is the doer? In summary, the soul is responsible but dependent, and the Supersoul and material nature are neutral doers.
Every religion teaches there is a higher reality which is indestructible.
I came to Krishna consciousness because I wanted to find a method so I could experience a higher reality.
Previously I was a Buddhist, but I wondered what was after nirvana and never got clear answer.
We are entitled to eternity, bliss, and knowledge, but now we have turned away, so we have reconnect.
The highest pleasure is experienced in loving relationships by giving love.
Da Vinci depicted God as an old man, perhaps 60 or 70 years old. Why not a million years old? Because he is all-powerful he can stop aging. But if you could stop aging, would you choose to be 60 or 70 years old? No, you would choose to remain youthful. And so it is with Krishna. He is an eternal youth. Krishna is the original cool teenager.
At one point the Vatican removed some references to God as the supreme judge and giver of punishment.
In Vrndavana only the priests can swing Radha-Krishna. Srila Prabhupada has given us very special mercy to allow even visitors to the temple to participate in this pastime by swinging the Lord.
The eight gopis are associated with the eight directions.
By hearing about Krishna’s pure pastimes of love we connect with Him, and we remember these when we pull Radha Krishna on the swing.
Bhakti is pure if the goal is to serve Krishna with love, and that we do bhakti only to attain this goal. In addition, one must understand Krishna in truth, and engage in the nine kinds of devotional service.
My siksa guru, Niranjana Swami, has given me the best guidance in my life as a devotee. He explains the key to bhakti is intention. One simply has to act with the desire to please Krishna. If you feel unconnected to Krishna, try adjusting your intention, and you will see it makes all the difference.
Dave [a carpenter from Dublin I met on the bus from Beauvais Airport to Paris]:
I saw the Hare Krishnas in Dublin. Once I spent two hours in a Krishna tent at a festival. It just felt like 40 minutes. Many tunes of the same song, Hare Krishna, and they played in my mind for days after. [I gave him the card for the Sunday feast and Tuesday evening kirtana program in Dublin.]
—–
naham tisthami vaikunthe
yoginam hrdayesu va
tatra tisthami narada
yatra gayanti mad-bhaktah
yoginam hrdayesu va
tatra tisthami narada
yatra gayanti mad-bhaktah
[Lord Krishna to Narada:] “I am not in Vaikuntha [the spiritual world] nor in the hearts of the yogis. I remain where My devotees engage in glorifying My activities. (Padma Purana, quoted in Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.21.41, purport)
Travel Journal#8.14: Ireland, Paris, Switzerland
→ Travel Adventures of a Krishna Monk
Diary of a Traveling Sadhaka, Vol. 8, No. 14
By Krishna-kripa das
(July 2012, part two)
By Krishna-kripa das
(July 2012, part two)
Ireland, Paris, Switzerland
(Sent from New Shantipur Farm, Czarnów, Poland, on August 25, 2012)
(Sent from New Shantipur Farm, Czarnów, Poland, on August 25, 2012)
Where I Went and What I Did
After chanting in Dublin and Belfast, Ananta Nitai and I went to Govindadvipa to chant at a couple towns near our Krishna island, namely Enniskillen, Northern Island, and Cavan, Ireland, with Bhagavata Dasi, who has great enthusiasm for sharing Krishna. Then we returned to Dublin for the 12-hour harinama that we organized for that coming Saturday. After a few more days of harinama in Dublin, I went to chant for three days with my friends in Paris. Then I went to Langenthal, Switzerland, for the Saturday feast program, and to Zurich for the Sunday Jhulan Yatra festival and harinama on Monday. Then off to Berlin enroute to Kostrzyn, Poland, for my twelfth year at the Polish Woodstock festival which I describe in my next journal.
I share insights from a variety of Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami’s books, which are quoted in his online journal, Viraha Bhavan, which I regularly proofread, from Gour Govinda Swami’s disciple, Madhavananda Prabhu, who was visiting Paris, from Bhakti-sastri teacher, Adi Purusa Prabhu, who was visiting Zurich, and from my harinama partners in Dublin and Paris. I also include the experience of a man I met on a bus who met the Hare Krishna devotees at a festival.
Harinamas in Ireland
Invited by Bhagavata Dasi, Ananta Nitai Prabhu and I went to Govindadvipa to do harinamas in two nearby towns, Enniskillen, in Northern Ireland, and Cavan, in the Republic.
In Enniskillen, devotees chant in a little pedestrian area in the center of the town. The people were more appreciative and more charitable in general than the people in Cavan the next day. Bhagavata Dasi had some small books we gave all those who gave a donation, no matter how small. We did, however, encounter one macabre surprise, a fight between two women, perhaps in their twenties or thirties, no more than three meters in front of where we were chanting. One knocked the other down on the ground and was shouting and punching her out, to the horror of her son, who was standing, helpless, nearby. The one on the ground ended up with a bloody nose. No one intervened in the fight, other than a man who said a few words to no avail. The woman who was knocked down had her belongings scattered, and some people helped her pick them up, including the women who punched her out, who found her cell phone a little ways away and returned it to her. Five policemen came and interrogated the aggressive lady. It was truly a bizarre scene. I was singing and playing the harmonium at the time, so I just kept on chanting, as it was not clear what else I could really do. No one seemed to have a better idea. For me, it was just another example of how degrading humanity is becoming?that one woman would beat up another and that no one would try to intervene and prevent injury.
In Cavan the next day we had another great location in the center of the town where we chanted another three hours. The temple president, Gopal Acarya Prabhu, and his family encouraged us by coming out for the first hour or so. The best part was a young man coming up to the devotees, looking for Bhagavad-gita, and giving twenty euros. Otherwise, except for a few smiles, there was not a great response.
Twelve-Hour Harinama in Dublin
The previous week, Ananta Nitai Prabhu suggested that we might do a twenty-four hour harinama in Dublin. Thinking back on how I always have to take a break for three hours to get some rest during the twenty-four hour kirtanas, I suggested we start with a twelve-hour harinama. We settled on a week from Saturday, specifically, Saturday, July 21, and Premarnava Prabhu advertised it on Facebook, and we told all our harinama friends. I was most impressed by the participation of Ananta Nitai Prabhu himself, who participated for at least eleven hours, and the participation of a couple of devotee ladies from out of town, who we had chanted with during our brief tour of Ireland. Bhagavata Dasi took the bus two hours each way from Govindadvipa and chanted for four and half hours. Anet took the train one hour each way from her home and amazingly distributed books during the harinama for ten hours. Her only comment at the end, before returning home, was “When is the next one?” Premarnava Prabhu also put in five hours, and Robert came extra early for the regular Saturday evening harinama to participate. One break dancer enjoyed dancing with us in the afternoon, and group of young boys and one young lady really got into the dancing in the evening.
A couple of girls from Seattle girl happened to encounter our harinama at least twice during the day, and their smiles of joy inspired me to talk with them. One said that seeing the harinama was the best part of her Dublin trip. I encouraged them to visit our temple in Seattle, when they return home, for the local Sunday feast program there. I participated myself in our twelve-hour harinama for over eleven hours. Not realizing the strength of the Irish sun in that chilly land, I got the worst sunburn this year. I learned some strategies for my increasing participation. Just have a small lunch so you do not become tired and need to take rest, and do not drink so much you have to always take a bathroom break. I reported our harinama successes to my authority in the UK and Ireland, Janananda Goswami, who encouraged me to return to Ireland again after I come back to the UK from Europe in late September.
Metroyoga in Paris
I was happy to join my friends, Chandrasekhara Acharya Prabhu, Gadadhara Priya Prabhu, and Bhaktin Sara, in chanting on the metros in Paris again, a program called Metroyoga. Recently Chandrasekhara Acharya has written a nice article for Back to Godhead describing the program. You always meet some people who really appreciate the chanting and the presentation, and that makes it all worth it.
Langenthal, Switzerland
There is a growing community of devotees in Langenthal, Switzerland, about an hour from Zurich, in the German-speaking part of the country. They have a larger temple room than most of our temples in Europe. There were a lot of devotees there who had enthusiasm for the kirtana at their weekly Saturday feast program. At Langenthal three householder families have a prasadam business by which they maintain themselves.
Zurich
I was in Zurich for the Jhulan Yatra (Radha Krishna swing festival) on Sunday and harinama by the lake on Monday. Special features of the Zurich Jhulan Yatra are that the swing is suspended over a pool of water, and to satisfy both the Tamil-speaking congregation, largely from Sri Lanka, and the local German-speaking congregation, the festival is held twice, so I got to swing Radha-Krishna two times. This festival is observed in our temples with Radha Krishna deities for the five days before and including Lord Balarama’s appearance day, but in recent years I had not been in a temple where it was held, so it was a treat to be there in Zurich and to swing Radha and Krishna twice in one day. The Gaudiya Vaishnava sampradaya stresses service to the divine couple, Radha and Krishna, and this swing festival of Theirs gives everyone in the congregation a little experience of that. For that reason, it is one of my favorite festivals.
I felt indebted to temple president, Krishna Prema Rupa Prabhu, who kindly organized a nearly two-hour harinama on Monday with ten devotees down along the lake in Zurich. There was a lot of enthusiasm among the devotees. We even went further around the lake than they ever do, through a small region where they do not have permission to chant, to the other side of the lake where it is again permitted. We passed out many temple invitations, both to the Sunday feast and the upcoming Janmastami festival. One woman came up to me asking about devotees’ summer festival, and I gave her an invitation for the Janmastami event. Apparently there the devotees celebrate Janmastami so nicely people in the city look forward to it each year.
I took a night train from Zurich to Berlin on the way to the Polish Woodstock. Although it was over eleven hours, it was only $43, a rare deal from the Swiss train company, SBB.
Insights
Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami:
Emerson says, “Beware what you set your heart upon, for it will surely be yours.”
Make war on Maya in your life.
O Ugra Lion-Man,
Your black body,Your
stance of ready-to-fight,
massive black head
plainly silver teeth and
10 arms and hands I can
almost see them all?
be real for me,
I don’t fear You because
You are our protector against
evil. Therefore I ask You
please come alive?and
tear out form the roots
my anarthas.
And life ebbs out like from a slightly leaking pot.
I thought this is so strange. The blue-faced murti of a calm Nrsimha holding Laksmi on His lap. India, and a religion of strange forms. Is it not that way? Unless you are born and raised here (or you live here many years and become Indian-religionized) it remains alien to you. But you have one thing?your surrender to Prabhupada. And he expertly teaches and induces you to accept Krsna consciousness in a scientific nonsectarian way. Except for him, even Gaudiya Vaisnavism remains strange gods, alien words, hard to believe miracles. . . .
Srila Prabhupada followed his guru life and soul yet made his own way in America, innovated, etc. Can you?
Don’t want to die “off” or die having not fulfilled what you could have become if you dared. Let everyone live out the best he or she can become.
“How do you develop selfless service for
the guru?” she asks. I’m at a loss to
answer precisely because
I don’t know it myself!
I am in lap of Gaura-Nitai [being in Mayapura]. Please I ask Them, please shape me and give good meaning to my visit.
I can occupy myself splendidly if people would just leave me alone.
But you have seen Lord Nrsimha
and can call His names,
please protect me from demons,
please kill my own demons
in the heart.
A day here is worth
millions somewhere else says
Navadvipa Mahatmya.
Bumpkin returns to the
West with stars in eyes
and plan. He’ll be a
Prabhupada Gauranga man.
Tell them. . . . I love you, I love this, but I also love to be alone?it’s hard work but very rewarding in a quiet and deep way.
O Lord, I thank You, it’s You who arrange this, who guide me to do it. Now may I do it purely.
Well life and death are somewhat the same and they are definitely related. When you are aware of death then you live in a certain way, a better way. The certainty of death, and thinking about it, turns your life more serious. It doesn’t mean you live in a deathlike way. You can still be very much in the moment, and so to speak, enjoy it all, but you’re aware that it’s really over soon, and you live in a way to improve your next life. So you see what I mean, how death and life are connected?
Yesterday you were complaining a little that there has been so much talk in your life about people dying, especially devotees in Vrndavana. But partly it’s just your own fear and avoidance of death that makes you not want to hear all of this. And the positive way to take it is to be aware of death as you live. That doesn’t spoil everything in the present moment, but it rather infuses it with a certain energetic fervent quality. If you can drive out sense gratification and serve Krsna then you are successful.
Tomorrow we’ll try a new strategy of just completely closing the windows because the bugs are coming right through the screens. I’ve never seen any place where they have such multitudes of insects. Prabhupada talks about it in some of his lectures, how in Mayapur during the night these creatures are born and live and die in one night and how in the morning you see heaps and heaps of bodies. Sometimes when I heard the lecture I felt perhaps he was exaggerating when he said that there were thousands and thousands of bugs and heaps and heaps of bodies in the morning and that you could sweep them away. But now I see it’s true. Why don’t I take Prabhupada literally true on face value all the time? Just it’s a matter of time before you find out that what he says is true.
from My Letters from Srila Prabhupada, Volume 3, I am Never Displeased with Any Member:
“I was recently speaking with one devotee who told me that her fifteen-year-old daughter is so fixed on becoming a devotee that she even thought of running away from home and joining an ISKCON temple (her mother wants her to stay home and finish school). Despite the horrors that so many of us suffered, there’s another side: Living in a temple really helped us become devotees, solidly fixed in sadhana.
“We shared living space, bathrooms, food, cooking duties, trouble, anxiety and the triumph of having received such a letter from Prabhupada. We worshiped together and felt the bliss of collective peak experience that comes from working hard for Krishna. Our lives were so different from anything we could have imagined them to be. We weren’t living abstract ideas of unity and community as were the hippies in their cynicism. Prabhupada had given us the real thing. Prabhupada was the center. It wasn’t always easy?and I’m aware that I’m stressing the good side?but we were all devotees, disciples, together. There was no question that we could do other than we did if we were sincere. Putting aside the old ISKCON debate, we should be mature enough to just try and feel the essence of something Prabhupada gave us and which many of us are so fortunate to have taken part in, even if things have changed. We joined the spiritual world.”
from Srila Prabhupapa Samadhi Diary:
“O Prabhupada, may we live in you until we die; may we serve in this life and the next. May we study your words and repeat them with joy and conviction. May we know Krishna and Radha through you.”
Dhruva Prabhu:
The Sanskrit verses of the scripture purify us so it is good to chant them repeatedly.
Prabhupada was very liberal and said it does not matter what religion you follow but that you must follow strictly whatever religion you choose. Just like you have to learn math, but which math book you use is up to you.
If we love someone, we must remember that person and we must do something for that person, and so it is with Krishna.
The greatest gift is love of God.
In America the greatest worry is “will my money run out before I die?”
The beauty of Krishna consciousness is the giver and the receiver both benefit.
A saint is not recognized in his own town. The great example is Prabhupada who had so much difficulty preaching Krishna consciousness in India but became very successful in the West.
In the material world if someone praises you, you praise them, “You must be so intelligent to realize how intelligent I am.”
Our preaching is successful if one comes to appreciate different features of Krishna consciousness, the harinama, the prasadam, and the books.
I have been on many harinamas, but the ones that Indradyumna Swami has in Poland are the most amazing. The devotees are all dressed very nicely and play the instruments very nicely. People are very attracted, and you can see it.
In India the children see the mother and father as God because mother and father maintain them as God maintains them.
It is no wonder we fall several times a day, but we must recognize we have fallen, and continue chanting.
We do not see our big faults, but we are very expert in finding innumerable insignificant faults in others.
Ananta Nitai Prabhu:
I always liked harinama, congregational chanting in public, but it was not until I read what Aindra Prabhu wrote that I understood its great importance.
We cannot judge devotees externally. Externals do not represent the internal mood of the devotee, but it is the internal mood that Krishna reciprocates with.
Krishna’s statements in the Gita are enacted in His pastimes.
Tribhuvananatha Prabhu said, referring to the spiritually ignorant, a husband and wife love each other’s false egos at best.
I could chant four rounds a day, and I resigned my self to that, thinking I would never chant anymore than four. I heard that the association of devotees was valuable, so I took a week off from work and attended the temple morning program with fourteen devotees every day. By the fourth day, I was chanting sixteen rounds, and I have been chanting sixteen rounds a day ever since. That was thirteen years ago. Thus I practically can see the power of the association of devotees in my own life.
Mayesvara Prabhu:
Hridayananda Maharaja says just by seeing the smile of the empowered preacher of Krishna consciousness you can understand you are not your body.
comment by me: That reminds me of this description given by Srila Prabhupada in a purport about Kardama Muni, “Pure devotees are so absorbed in thought Krishna that they have no other engagement; although they may seem to think or act otherwise, they are always thinking of Krishna. The smile of such a Krishna conscious person is so attractive that simply by smiling he wins so many admirers, disciples and followers.” (SB 3.22.21)
Madhavananda Prabhu:
In America there was a poll showing that 60%–70% of the people who believe in God do not believe in religion. There is a popular book called How I Left Religion and Found God.
People have not found satisfaction through sectarian religion because they have missed the essence of religion, unmotivated, uninterrupted service to God.
Krishna explains that religion is meant to be practically experienced and to be happily performed. (Bg. 9.2)
Srila Prabhupada said, “Our only business is to get people to chant Hare Krishna.” We do not want anything in exchange. Elsewhere he explained, “Our only business is to make people happy.” He also explained that we are nonsectarian society with members coming from many different religions and that members of ISKCON may retain their own religious faiths.
In Zurich there are many streams but you cannot hear their sweet sounds during the day because of all the cars and buses. In the same way, we cannot hear the soul because of the radio of our minds.
There are saints in every religion who cry for the Lord, and the Lord hears their cries.
If you go to seek a job and when asked your qualification, you say you have none or that you are the most useless person in the world, will you get a job? No. But in spiritual life, it is different.
Having straw in your teeth, both indicates that you are not going to protest nor are you going to cry with your mouth but with your heart.
Narottama Dasa Thakura prays to the Lord, “You are famous as the savior of the most fallen, but if you do not save me, you will have to change your name.”
We have to cry in such a way that it is clear to Krishna that no toys He may give us will satisfy us; nothing will satisfy us except Him.
Sadhus say smaranam means maranam. Remembrance of God means death to all our material desires.
Krishna explains to Arjuna that only those who chant his name, crying from their souls, are dear Him.
All the great religions of the world are based on great saintly persons but later on their so-called followers became more interested in business.
bhakti-yoga bhakti-yoga bhakti-yoga dana
bhakti sei krishna-nama smarane krandana
Visvanatha Cakravati Thakura states that bhakti-yoga is the greatest charity, and bhakti-yoga means chanting the holy name of the Lord with remembrance and with crying.
Ramachandra Dev, was King of Jagannatha Puri, but he was defeated by a Muslim general. After thirteen months and fifteen days in prison, the general offered to release him and allow him to be king again, only he would have to become a Muslim and marry a Muslim woman. Seeing that as the only opportunity to continue his service to Jagannatha, he accepted the condition. All his other wives rejected him, and left him, along with their children. His friends also rejected him. He went to the Puri temple, but the priests would not even let him in, although he was the king of Puri, because he had a Muslim wife. Every night after the temple closed, Ramachandra Dev would go outside it and cry. When he was so aggrieved and he was about to end his life, the Lord appeared and said, “Do not cry.” Then the Lord manifested the Patita-pavana deity outside the temple so the king could see him.
When Ramachandra Dev cried for Krishna, Jagannatha (Krishna) cried for him.
Lord Jagannatha is the form of the greatest ecstasy.
In Orissa there Muslims who help build and pull the Ratha-yatra.
They say in Orissa, “The name of Rama is like a laddu, and the name of Krishna is like ghee, and the name of Hare is like sweetened condensed milk, and you mix them and drink it. That is the Hare Krishna mantra.”
Q: How do I cry for Krishna?
A: Associate with people who are crying for Krishna.
Gour Govinda Swami explained there are two secrets for success:
1. Every day say some prayers to Lord Nityananda.
2. Pray for other people.
There are three kinds of mercy:
1. Mercy for the body.
2. Mercy for the mind.3. Mercy for the soul.
The Deity Govindaji in Jaipur appears effulgent because of all the devotees of the city love Him so much.
It is important to respect the leaders, otherwise progress is difficult.
There is a cartoon with a group of executives sitting at a table, with one at the head. The chief executive had an ax above his head and swords in his side. The chief executive is asking who wants to be the next chief executive.
If we expect people to be able to follow the varnasrama rules and regulations and we reject them if they do not, then we will become irrelevant.
Bhaktivinoda Thakura explains the dress of a Vaishnava is a way we can use the body to progress spiritually. However, if we think that such external features are required, and we disrespect real Vaishnavas who do not follow them, we become sectarian.
There is verse where is it said if you address Krishna before Radha, you get the reaction for killing a brahmana. That because it is so distasteful to Krishna.
In Mahabharata, it is said that the mother is ten times more respectable than the father.
India has the lowest divorce rate in the world.
Adi Purusa Prabhu:
Sankhya, analytical knowledge, is like a kaleidoscope. It is very attractive on the outside, but if you look inside you will find nothing of value.
One should not criticize people. One should not even criticize things because they are Krishna’s things.
A Vaishnava never chastises anyone except his students and disciples, and then only in a loving way.
There is one devotee who is a software engineer. He is so patient, kind, and respectful, all the workers in the company want him as a supervisor.
The biggest sacrifice is to give up your false ego.
If we accept that we do not have to be in the superior position, then that will help us in conflicts with other people.
Once I was arguing and arguing with another devotee. At one point, it occurred to me, I should try to understand how he was seeing things. Much to my surprise, as soon as I starting thinking in this way, the other devotee said, “Now I can understand what you are saying.”
Krishna allows each of us the right to be wrong. If we allow others the right to be wrong, that is a sign of respect. Everyone has a right to their opinion, even if it is not good for them.
Sacinandana Swami explained that our body belongs to Krishna, and therefore, we should loving take of it for Krishna’s service.
Who is the doer? In summary, the soul is responsible but dependent, and the Supersoul and material nature are neutral doers.
Every religion teaches there is a higher reality which is indestructible.
I came to Krishna consciousness because I wanted to find a method so I could experience a higher reality.
Previously I was a Buddhist, but I wondered what was after nirvana and never got clear answer.
We are entitled to eternity, bliss, and knowledge, but now we have turned away, so we have reconnect.
The highest pleasure is experienced in loving relationships by giving love.
Da Vinci depicted God as an old man, perhaps 60 or 70 years old. Why not a million years old? Because he is all-powerful he can stop aging. But if you could stop aging, would you choose to be 60 or 70 years old? No, you would choose to remain youthful. And so it is with Krishna. He is an eternal youth. Krishna is the original cool teenager.
At one point the Vatican removed some references to God as the supreme judge and giver of punishment.
In Vrndavana only the priests can swing Radha-Krishna. Srila Prabhupada has given us very special mercy to allow even visitors to the temple to participate in this pastime by swinging the Lord.
The eight gopis are associated with the eight directions.
By hearing about Krishna’s pure pastimes of love we connect with Him, and we remember these when we pull Radha Krishna on the swing.
Bhakti is pure if the goal is to serve Krishna with love, and that we do bhakti only to attain this goal. In addition, one must understand Krishna in truth, and engage in the nine kinds of devotional service.
My siksa guru, Niranjana Swami, has given me the best guidance in my life as a devotee. He explains the key to bhakti is intention. One simply has to act with the desire to please Krishna. If you feel unconnected to Krishna, try adjusting your intention, and you will see it makes all the difference.
Dave [a carpenter from Dublin I met on the bus from Beauvais Airport to Paris]:
I saw the Hare Krishnas in Dublin. Once I spent two hours in a Krishna tent at a festival. It just felt like 40 minutes. Many tunes of the same song, Hare Krishna, and they played in my mind for days after. [I gave him the card for the Sunday feast and Tuesday evening kirtana program in Dublin.]
—–
naham tisthami vaikunthe
yoginam hrdayesu va
tatra tisthami narada
yatra gayanti mad-bhaktah
yoginam hrdayesu va
tatra tisthami narada
yatra gayanti mad-bhaktah
[Lord Krishna to Narada:] “I am not in Vaikuntha [the spiritual world] nor in the hearts of the yogis. I remain where My devotees engage in glorifying My activities. (Padma Purana, quoted in Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.21.41, purport)
Travel Journal#8.13: The North of England, Dublin, and Belfast
→ Travel Adventures of a Krishna Monk
Diary of a Traveling Sadhaka, Vol. 8, No. 13
By Krishna-kripa das
(July 2012, part one)
The North of England, Dublin, and Belfast
(Sent from New Shantipur Farm, Czarnów, Poland, on August 20, 2012)
By Krishna-kripa das
(July 2012, part one)
The North of England, Dublin, and Belfast
(Sent from New Shantipur Farm, Czarnów, Poland, on August 20, 2012)
Where I Went and What I Did
The first week of July I spent in Newcastle doing harinama with Sri Gadadhara Prabhu, and sometimes joined by Prema Sankirtana Prabhu, and once also with photographer, Bhakta Lauris. As usual, sometimes we chanted in Newcastle itself and sometimes in neighboring regions. Next we went to the monthly Manchester harinama, the second Sunday of the month. GBC of the UK Praghosa Prabhu was there, and I got to tell him about my new program of working in his region in the summers under the direction of Janananda Goswami. Brahmacaris from the Bhaktivedanta Manor were visiting and did harinamas with us in Manchester on Monday and Leeds on Tuesday. Wednesday was a wild day traveling from Leeds to Manchester to help with a program for elementary students, and then going to Sheffield for the afternoon harinama and evening program, and then taking a train to Birmingham to catch a bus to Dublin. I spent a few days in Dublin and Belfast chanting three hours almost every day with my new harinama partner, a disciple of Maha-Vishnu Swami, Ananta Nitai Prabhu.
I share a couple quotes from Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami about the most sacred place in the world, and Srila Prabhupada’s explanation for why certain activities are considered sinful. I include insights from Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami from a variety of his books. Yadunandana Swami came to Dublin and shared some insights which I include. The question of remembering Krishna at the time of death and the potential problem of Alzheimer’s disease generated an interesting discussion and devotees share some real life stories about that. GBC Praghosa Prabhu at the Manchester Sunday Feast glorified Srila Prabhupada and encouraged us to follow his example. My harinama partners also share some interesting realizations in their classes.
I apologize for the lack of photos to illustrate this issue. My camera died, and I was not enthusiastic enough to ask the devotee photographers for the pictures they took at the time. I tried writing some of them by email later, asking for pictures, but no one responded.
More Harinamas in The North of England
We chanted in Sunderland and three boys, perhaps ten or twelve or so, amazed us by trying to chant and for dancing with us for fifteen minutes. One was especially fired up. Later Sri Gadadhara Prabhu sold a Bhagavad-gita to a couple girls who reminded us of the hippie era by their dress and behavior. They maintained themselves by face painting and Tarot card reading. They joined our harinama and chanted and danced so in such a lively way as we passed through the streets and malls of Sunderland, it was as though they were brahmacarinis from one of our ashrams.
In Manchester we had such a fired up harinama that two or three young Muslim ladies danced right in the middle of one of two facing lines of dancing devotees who were repeatedly coming together, jumping, and moving apart. Although Muslim ladies are often attracted, usually they just smile, take pictures, or dance with their friends a little distant from our party, but this time they were right in the thick of it. At the same time, a couple of visiting Italian girls, also danced in one of the lines of dancing devotees at one end. One man from Kuwait was watching when the Muslim ladies danced and spoke disapprovingly about them to me, saying they were from Pakistan and were setting a bad example for Muslim ladies. His comment seemed a little humorous to me, perhaps because I had not encountered such internal disagreements among the Muslims before.
Sutapa Prabhu and a van load of devotees from Bhaktivedanta Manor were visiting the Manchester area, and we did an amazing four hours of harinama in downtown Manchester on Monday and then harinama for a couple of hours in Leeds on Tuesday before the evening program there. Having all the extra devotees made the kirtana at the Leeds program very lively. As a result of a good experience, Sutapa Prabhu is considering coming to The North of England with some of his party more often to assist the outreach up there.
Manchester Program for School Students
Tribhangananda Prabhu does programs for school children who come to the temple to learn about Hinduism. He makes it really interactive for them by having them dress up as avatars, demigods and demigoddess, and having them hold dolls of different Hindu deities, and pass them around the room. Then he talks about the qualities and activities of each deity. I was surprised that some of the students remembered details of the Ramayana from their Hinduism class at school and were able to identify some of the personalities from it. Sri Gadadhara Prabhu and I played a brief role by leading kirtana for the kids and demonstrating the musical instruments. The kids and their teachers all get prasadam afterward. You could see that both the students and the teachers liked the program. It was impressive to me that the teachers expressed appreciation that my friend and I had taken time out of our lives just to sing for them. As it was, by running and taking two buses, I made it to the train station just two minutes before my train to Sheffield, but my friend, who was less determined, missed his flight to Czech.
Sheffield Harinama and Program
I like Sheffield because you can always count on some of the local devotees to come on harinama. Kay, the leader, and her daughter Radha, are almost always there. Another young man is very steady as well. Radha was scheduled to work but asked for the rest of the afternoon off because it was a slow day, and her boss gave it to her. Mark, who had not been coming around for awhile, saw me when I was chanting alone in the beginning, and he passed out flyers for me. When the others came, he continued with the harinama, and later came to the program. Four girls danced as they walked by the harinama, and then again when they passed by in the other direction. While Radha was singing, she encouraged three girls who were friends to participate. First the girls danced, and then they chanted, and they had a great time. At the program a new lady from India who heard about our ISKCON program from a student at the university, and who knew the devotees from Bangalore, came, stayed the whole time, bought some beads and made a vow to chant one round a day. Steven from Ghana, a regular at that program, and a taxi driver, gave me a complimentary ride to the train. As I reached the train to Sheffield, just two minutes before its departure, which caused me too much anxiety, this time we got there seven minutes early.
Dublin Harinamas
Premarnava and Ananta Nitai Prabhu have a regular program of going out every day on harinama for an hour or an hour and a half, sometimes joined by Mayesvara Prabhu, and so it was great to have their association. Ananta Nitai, in particular, did not mind increasing to three hours almost every day. We chanted in Dublin a couple of days, once assisted by Yadunandana Swami who was visiting and Mayesvara Prabhu, a regular.
Belfast Harinamas
Ananta Nitai Prabhu and I went to the usual Belfast harinama stop after arriving from Dublin by bus, as we had invited the temple devotees to join us there. Soon Bhaktin Annete, who loves distributing books on harinama, appeared and later Satya Rupa Devi, a disciple of Srila Prabhupada who had moved to Ireland from Australia since I visited last year.
The next day we decided to do harinama before the Sunday feast for two and a half hours. This time, Shyama Mayi Devi, a regular on last year’s harinamas who had chanted with our Mayapur harinama party this spring, came out along with Annete. The advantage to pre-Sunday feast harinamas is that the interested people you meet can come back to the temple for the program, and this time it actually happened. A man, perhaps in his forties or fifties, who seemed to be on a spiritual search, came back with us by bus to the temple for the Sunday lecture, kirtana, and feast. I decided to sit with him during the feast, as no one else seemed very interested in talking to him. I asked what he thought of the philosophy, and he said he liked it. Because of his interest, I suggested that Ananta Nitai Prabhu might try to sell him a book. And so he did, not one, but four, and the man gave a 60 pound donation, almost $100. I saw it as Krishna encouraging us in our humble attempts to do outreach.
Monday, another enthusiastic devotee lady, Rukmamati Devi, who is a full-time pujari, joined the harinama, along with one of the other ladies, and Shyama Mayi joined us on Tuesday. I suggested to the four ladies who had come out on harinama over the four days we were there that they arrange their service schedules so they could go out on harinama two or three times a week, as they all were very happy to be chanting in the streets again, and I hope they do.
Next we went to Govindadvipa to chant with Bhagavata Dasi, a very enthusiastic devotee lady who is somewhere around sixty years in age, but still loves to go chanting in the towns near our temple there.
Insights
Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami [from Govinda-lilamrita]:
Describing the arena of Lord Krishna’s rasa dance:
Beneath a kalpa-druma tree [desire tree] is a palace wherein Lord Krishna’s jeweled throne is situated in a sacred place, and where the Agama-sastra explains the Lord has multitudes of pastimes with the gopis. It is also said that in this monarch of all places that by seeing Lord Govinda one would attain the qualities of Radharani and Her gopi friends with great joy.”
[Glorifying the names of Krishna is performed by the gopis, Krishna’s greatest devotees:]
By playing on His flute Lord Krishna announced His desire to enjoy the rasa dance. The gopis responded by singing various songs glorifying Lord Krishna’s names. These songs greatly pleased the Lord.”
Srila Prabhupada:
from a lecture in Bombay, February 24, 1974:
Why are meat-eating, illicit sex, intoxication, and gambling considered sinful? Because they force the soul to accept another body, which is the source of misery.
Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami:
from Prabhupada Meditations IV:
?It has been almost fourteen years since Prabhupada left us. We are getting older physically, but we are still spiritual infants. We have so much to learn. We pray to Prabhupada for better vision. Arjuna prayed for the eyes to see the Universal Form; we need the eyes to see what is in Prabhupada’s books. We need to understand the deeper meanings of Krishna consciousness. This doesn’t mean that Prabhupada didn’t give us everything. It only means that we have failed to recognize it.”
from his journal, Viraha Bhavan, for July 16, 2012:
It’s
nice when sadhus
dance so beautifully, like
Lord Caitanya did.
It enhances the performance
of sankirtana and induces
onlookers to appreciate and
even participate.
from Karttika Papers:
This is Mayapura where
you can commit offenses.
Everything you do is blessed
The Two Brothers Reign.
They bring you to gopi-bhava.
Prabhupada said, “Death is not
wonderful. Life is wonderful. And
this is life, Krsna consciousness.”
We need to take a break from the arduous duties and just hear the pastimes of Krsna.
from Journal and Poems, Volume One:
?In 1977 when Prabhupada was quite ill, he attended a big pandal in Bombay. He had to be carried onto the stage and the audience could see that he was physically diminished. Yet Prabhupada never preached more powerfully. At one of those programs, a man asked, ‘What about health?’ Prabhupada replied, ‘What is health? You’re going to die, so how can you be considered healthy?’ So one of the things I seem to be gaining during this recuperation period is the deepening realization that I’m going to die. I’m trying to recoup a little strength so that I can go on for many more years, but there’s no question of reversing the incurable process of aging unto death. Although this truth should be commonly understood, many have not realized it.
from Vrindavana Writing:
I want to taste the nectar so I can become like a maddened bee and remain always in the lotus of Your confidential pastimes. O Lord, I do not know anything but the spiritual masters who guide me are enticing me toward the goal. I’m not happy to be chanting and hearing without feeling the ecstasy of attraction for You. I am ashamed that this is my condition. I beg You to please relieve me of that shame.
Dear Lord, if there are obstacles to be removed before You grant me this request, then I further request that You show me those obstacles and teach me to surmount them. Give me the courage and intelligence to overcome a weak heart.
If You think I require more time to ripen before You will find me an enjoyable and attractive servant in Your pastimes, then I only ask to be allowed to associate in this world with devotees who have a deep affection for Srimati Radharani. Please allow me to serve those devotees life after life and to learn from them how to return to Her lotus feet.”
Yadunandana Swami:
The Srimad-Bhagavatam is the most glorious scripture because of its focus on describing the birth and activities of the Lord. Of its 335 chapters, the 90 chapters comprising the Tenth Canto deal with the pastimes of Krishna and the Eleventh Canto of over 30 chapters deals the legacy and final instructions of Krishna.
A teacher of nonviolent communications teaches we must know our own needs, and the needs of the others and then figure out how to connect with others, knowing this. The pleasure comes from connecting with others. Our first business in spiritual realization is sambandha, understanding our connection with and connecting with Krishna.
Now there is talk of a God particle. This means that the scientists directly or indirectly conscious of God. The function of the particle is to sustain matter, and that is one of God’s attributes.
One of Ramanujacarya’s gurus had the power to ask the Deity a question and have the Deity reply with an answer. Someone asked him to ask the Deity, “What happens if your devotee cannot remember you at the time of death?” The Deity replied, “If the devotee does not remember Me at the time of death, I will remember my devotee.”
comment by Ananta Nitai Prabhu: My mother had Alzheimer’s disease, and at a certain point, she would just repeat what anyone said. I just chanted the Hare Krishna mantra, two words at a time, and she would repeat them, until she would say, “O stop!” Then I would try one more mantra, and when she would not complain, I would continue. After I while she would say, “O stop!” again. Then I would try one more mantra, and she would again not complain, so I would continue. This went on until she was too tired to say anything. Later my sister said she would sometimes hear my mother chanting the entire Hare Krishna mantra. This was amazing to me as usually someone with that condition cannot remember anything, so I think this is evidence of Krishna giving her some special mercy.
comment by Mayesvara Prabhu: One devotee in Dublin had Alzheimer’s disease. Once he was in a large store, and he got separated from his wife, and he could not remember his own name nor who he had come with to have the store authorities make an announcement. He got the idea to say the Hare Krishna into microphone so his caretaker would understand what happened. Later when his wife could not longer take care of him, he lived in a home with others who required assistance. Many people in that situation in the same home were angry and bitter but he was peaceful and appeared effulgent. His wife would bring him prasadam and garlands from the Deities, and she wiped his face with Ganges water.
comment by me: Malati Prabhu told in a morning class of a devotee seamstress in New Vrindavana, who after a long absence due to Alzheimer’s disease, again took darsana of the Lord, for whom she had made outfits for years. Malati said, “I was surprised to see her absorption in the Deities. She saw me looking at her, and turned to me, saying, ‘You may try to forget Krishna, but Krishna will not forget you.’”
Most of us have both divine and demoniac qualities.
Divine means to follow the instructions of God given in the scriptures.
The life of the soul in the material world is a dilemma. And spiritual life is also a dilemma.
When we are preaching, we should consider where we are at, and preach what we have realized. It is important to be balanced and consistence. We must communicate Krishna’s message without hypocrisy.
Today is a birthday party. Devotees are special souls, and it is good to take advantage of such opportunities to glorify them. We wish the devotee a long life in Krishna consciousness.
Praghosa Prabhu (GBC UK):
In the spiritual world the bliss is every increasing yet we decided to come to the place of misery, the material world.
There was nothing in Prabhupada’s life that was separated from his mission.
Past the age of retirement, Prabhupada left India to share this knowledge with the world. He had no doubts about his mission. He knew people were suffering, and he wanted to help them.
If we do not have faith that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, we cannot convince others. Therefore, Prabhupada challenged his leaders, “Are you convinced?”
There are so many words for suffering because it is a constant for everyone in this material world.
None of us are really comfortable in our bodies.
Nature programs are very popular yet if you think about it, all you see the different animals doing is four things, eating, sleeping, mating, and defending.
Radhanatha Swami’s father has 200 channels on his TV, but he is not satisfied as it is difficult to remember which had the best program.
Tell all your friends about Krishna in a way that makes them more attracted to Krishna.
The only reciprocation Prabhupada wanted is that we pass what he gave us.
Ananta Nitai Prabhu:
I always liked harinama, the congregational chanting in public, but it was not until I read what Aindra Prabhu wrote that I understood its great importance.
We cannot judge devotees externally. Externals do not represent the internal mood of the devotee, but it is the internal mood that Krishna reciprocates with.
Krishna’s statements in the Gita are enacted in His pastimes.
Tribhuvanatha Prabhu said, for the spiritually ignorant, a husband and wife love each other’s false ego at best.
Conditioned souls identify either with their bodies or their minds. Fearfulness arises from either identifying ourselves with our body or our mind. When we come in contact with the Lord, this fearfulness is annihilated.
The essence of life is to transcend death and that is the knowledge this Hare Krishna movement is giving.
The more pious we are, the less fearful of death we become, and the more sinful we are the more afraid of death we become.
The more selfless you become, the less you worry about the source of miseries which are in relationship the body.
There was a Christian Bible-Belt family who had a kid at an early age who remembered details of a previous life as a fighter pilot. He listed names and details of different aircraft. The family researched it to disprove the idea of reincarnation, but they became convinced of it.
Scientists describe the body functioning in terms of chemical reactions only, but can you show me a chemical reaction that is aware of itself?
One reason people like dogs because the dogs will not reject them.
comment by Annete: I see that when I am distributing books that some people are so glad to talk to me just because they are so lonely. Sometimes they take a book just because they are happy I talked to them.
comment by Guru Das from the Manor in another Srimad-Bhagavatam class: One’s mind wanders in proportion to one’s lack of desire to surrender to Krishna.
Nrsimha Tirtha Prabhu:
At the ceremony when the child is first offered grains, Narottama Thakura Dasa, as baby, refused to eat the grains because they were not offered to Krishna.
Lord Nityananda Prabhu, the original guru, took Narottama Thakura Dasa, as a youth, to the Padma River, to receive the love of God that Lord Caitanya had deposited there for him.
Narottama Thakura installed the deities in Khettari so the devotees there would make steady advancement by regularly serving the Lord.
Bhugarbha Goswami would chant within the earth, in a cave or underground, to make sure no one would disturb him, and that is why he is called Bhugarbha.
The pure devotees think they are fallen, but that motivates them to do more devotional service.
The acaryas, the great spiritual teachers, are looking for their faults in order to correct themselves, and that is expressed in their songs.
Sri Gadadhara Prabhu:
When we do our work for Krishna, it becomes an art.
Krishna consciousness is simple. Do your work for the gratification of Krishna’s senses not your own.
One householder devotee said, “Do not talk about love until you have been married for 15 years,” the purport being that without staying together and serving each other for a long time, through happiness and distress, there is no question of love.
Srila Prabhupada explained nonviolence as working for the spiritual benefit of everyone, but unless we engage in devotional service, we cannot do this. So not to engage in devotional service is actually violence.
Aindra Prabhu said simplicity is to follow whatever the Lord tells us from within.
—–
prthivite ache yata nagaradi grama
sarvatra pracara haibe mora nama
sarvatra pracara haibe mora nama
[Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu said:] “In every town and village, the chanting of My name will be heard.” (Caitanya-bhagavata, Antya 4.126)
Travel Journal#8.13: The North of England, Dublin, and Belfast
→ Travel Adventures of a Krishna Monk
Diary of a Traveling Sadhaka, Vol. 8, No. 13
By Krishna-kripa das
(July 2012, part one)
The North of England, Dublin, and Belfast
(Sent from New Shantipur Farm, Czarnów, Poland, on August 20, 2012)
By Krishna-kripa das
(July 2012, part one)
The North of England, Dublin, and Belfast
(Sent from New Shantipur Farm, Czarnów, Poland, on August 20, 2012)
Where I Went and What I Did
The first week of July I spent in Newcastle doing harinama with Sri Gadadhara Prabhu, and sometimes joined by Prema Sankirtana Prabhu, and once also with photographer, Bhakta Lauris. As usual, sometimes we chanted in Newcastle itself and sometimes in neighboring regions. Next we went to the monthly Manchester harinama, the second Sunday of the month. GBC of the UK Praghosa Prabhu was there, and I got to tell him about my new program of working in his region in the summers under the direction of Janananda Goswami. Brahmacaris from the Bhaktivedanta Manor were visiting and did harinamas with us in Manchester on Monday and Leeds on Tuesday. Wednesday was a wild day traveling from Leeds to Manchester to help with a program for elementary students, and then going to Sheffield for the afternoon harinama and evening program, and then taking a train to Birmingham to catch a bus to Dublin. I spent a few days in Dublin and Belfast chanting three hours almost every day with my new harinama partner, a disciple of Maha-Vishnu Swami, Ananta Nitai Prabhu.
I share a couple quotes from Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami about the most sacred place in the world, and Srila Prabhupada’s explanation for why certain activities are considered sinful. I include insights from Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami from a variety of his books. Yadunandana Swami came to Dublin and shared some insights which I include. The question of remembering Krishna at the time of death and the potential problem of Alzheimer’s disease generated an interesting discussion and devotees share some real life stories about that. GBC Praghosa Prabhu at the Manchester Sunday Feast glorified Srila Prabhupada and encouraged us to follow his example. My harinama partners also share some interesting realizations in their classes.
I apologize for the lack of photos to illustrate this issue. My camera died, and I was not enthusiastic enough to ask the devotee photographers for the pictures they took at the time. I tried writing some of them by email later, asking for pictures, but no one responded.
More Harinamas in The North of England
We chanted in Sunderland and three boys, perhaps ten or twelve or so, amazed us by trying to chant and for dancing with us for fifteen minutes. One was especially fired up. Later Sri Gadadhara Prabhu sold a Bhagavad-gita to a couple girls who reminded us of the hippie era by their dress and behavior. They maintained themselves by face painting and Tarot card reading. They joined our harinama and chanted and danced so in such a lively way as we passed through the streets and malls of Sunderland, it was as though they were brahmacarinis from one of our ashrams.
In Manchester we had such a fired up harinama that two or three young Muslim ladies danced right in the middle of one of two facing lines of dancing devotees who were repeatedly coming together, jumping, and moving apart. Although Muslim ladies are often attracted, usually they just smile, take pictures, or dance with their friends a little distant from our party, but this time they were right in the thick of it. At the same time, a couple of visiting Italian girls, also danced in one of the lines of dancing devotees at one end. One man from Kuwait was watching when the Muslim ladies danced and spoke disapprovingly about them to me, saying they were from Pakistan and were setting a bad example for Muslim ladies. His comment seemed a little humorous to me, perhaps because I had not encountered such internal disagreements among the Muslims before.
Sutapa Prabhu and a van load of devotees from Bhaktivedanta Manor were visiting the Manchester area, and we did an amazing four hours of harinama in downtown Manchester on Monday and then harinama for a couple of hours in Leeds on Tuesday before the evening program there. Having all the extra devotees made the kirtana at the Leeds program very lively. As a result of a good experience, Sutapa Prabhu is considering coming to The North of England with some of his party more often to assist the outreach up there.
Manchester Program for School Students
Tribhangananda Prabhu does programs for school children who come to the temple to learn about Hinduism. He makes it really interactive for them by having them dress up as avatars, demigods and demigoddess, and having them hold dolls of different Hindu deities, and pass them around the room. Then he talks about the qualities and activities of each deity. I was surprised that some of the students remembered details of the Ramayana from their Hinduism class at school and were able to identify some of the personalities from it. Sri Gadadhara Prabhu and I played a brief role by leading kirtana for the kids and demonstrating the musical instruments. The kids and their teachers all get prasadam afterward. You could see that both the students and the teachers liked the program. It was impressive to me that the teachers expressed appreciation that my friend and I had taken time out of our lives just to sing for them. As it was, by running and taking two buses, I made it to the train station just two minutes before my train to Sheffield, but my friend, who was less determined, missed his flight to Czech.
Sheffield Harinama and Program
I like Sheffield because you can always count on some of the local devotees to come on harinama. Kay, the leader, and her daughter Radha, are almost always there. Another young man is very steady as well. Radha was scheduled to work but asked for the rest of the afternoon off because it was a slow day, and her boss gave it to her. Mark, who had not been coming around for awhile, saw me when I was chanting alone in the beginning, and he passed out flyers for me. When the others came, he continued with the harinama, and later came to the program. Four girls danced as they walked by the harinama, and then again when they passed by in the other direction. While Radha was singing, she encouraged three girls who were friends to participate. First the girls danced, and then they chanted, and they had a great time. At the program a new lady from India who heard about our ISKCON program from a student at the university, and who knew the devotees from Bangalore, came, stayed the whole time, bought some beads and made a vow to chant one round a day. Steven from Ghana, a regular at that program, and a taxi driver, gave me a complimentary ride to the train. As I reached the train to Sheffield, just two minutes before its departure, which caused me too much anxiety, this time we got there seven minutes early.
Dublin Harinamas
Premarnava and Ananta Nitai Prabhu have a regular program of going out every day on harinama for an hour or an hour and a half, sometimes joined by Mayesvara Prabhu, and so it was great to have their association. Ananta Nitai, in particular, did not mind increasing to three hours almost every day. We chanted in Dublin a couple of days, once assisted by Yadunandana Swami who was visiting and Mayesvara Prabhu, a regular.
Belfast Harinamas
Ananta Nitai Prabhu and I went to the usual Belfast harinama stop after arriving from Dublin by bus, as we had invited the temple devotees to join us there. Soon Bhaktin Annete, who loves distributing books on harinama, appeared and later Satya Rupa Devi, a disciple of Srila Prabhupada who had moved to Ireland from Australia since I visited last year.
The next day we decided to do harinama before the Sunday feast for two and a half hours. This time, Shyama Mayi Devi, a regular on last year’s harinamas who had chanted with our Mayapur harinama party this spring, came out along with Annete. The advantage to pre-Sunday feast harinamas is that the interested people you meet can come back to the temple for the program, and this time it actually happened. A man, perhaps in his forties or fifties, who seemed to be on a spiritual search, came back with us by bus to the temple for the Sunday lecture, kirtana, and feast. I decided to sit with him during the feast, as no one else seemed very interested in talking to him. I asked what he thought of the philosophy, and he said he liked it. Because of his interest, I suggested that Ananta Nitai Prabhu might try to sell him a book. And so he did, not one, but four, and the man gave a 60 pound donation, almost $100. I saw it as Krishna encouraging us in our humble attempts to do outreach.
Monday, another enthusiastic devotee lady, Rukmamati Devi, who is a full-time pujari, joined the harinama, along with one of the other ladies, and Shyama Mayi joined us on Tuesday. I suggested to the four ladies who had come out on harinama over the four days we were there that they arrange their service schedules so they could go out on harinama two or three times a week, as they all were very happy to be chanting in the streets again, and I hope they do.
Next we went to Govindadvipa to chant with Bhagavata Dasi, a very enthusiastic devotee lady who is somewhere around sixty years in age, but still loves to go chanting in the towns near our temple there.
Insights
Krishnadasa Kaviraja Goswami [from Govinda-lilamrita]:
Describing the arena of Lord Krishna’s rasa dance:
Beneath a kalpa-druma tree [desire tree] is a palace wherein Lord Krishna’s jeweled throne is situated in a sacred place, and where the Agama-sastra explains the Lord has multitudes of pastimes with the gopis. It is also said that in this monarch of all places that by seeing Lord Govinda one would attain the qualities of Radharani and Her gopi friends with great joy.”
[Glorifying the names of Krishna is performed by the gopis, Krishna’s greatest devotees:]
By playing on His flute Lord Krishna announced His desire to enjoy the rasa dance. The gopis responded by singing various songs glorifying Lord Krishna’s names. These songs greatly pleased the Lord.”
Srila Prabhupada:
from a lecture in Bombay, February 24, 1974:
Why are meat-eating, illicit sex, intoxication, and gambling considered sinful? Because they force the soul to accept another body, which is the source of misery.
Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami:
from Prabhupada Meditations IV:
?It has been almost fourteen years since Prabhupada left us. We are getting older physically, but we are still spiritual infants. We have so much to learn. We pray to Prabhupada for better vision. Arjuna prayed for the eyes to see the Universal Form; we need the eyes to see what is in Prabhupada’s books. We need to understand the deeper meanings of Krishna consciousness. This doesn’t mean that Prabhupada didn’t give us everything. It only means that we have failed to recognize it.”
from his journal, Viraha Bhavan, for July 16, 2012:
It’s
nice when sadhus
dance so beautifully, like
Lord Caitanya did.
It enhances the performance
of sankirtana and induces
onlookers to appreciate and
even participate.
from Karttika Papers:
This is Mayapura where
you can commit offenses.
Everything you do is blessed
The Two Brothers Reign.
They bring you to gopi-bhava.
Prabhupada said, “Death is not
wonderful. Life is wonderful. And
this is life, Krsna consciousness.”
We need to take a break from the arduous duties and just hear the pastimes of Krsna.
from Journal and Poems, Volume One:
?In 1977 when Prabhupada was quite ill, he attended a big pandal in Bombay. He had to be carried onto the stage and the audience could see that he was physically diminished. Yet Prabhupada never preached more powerfully. At one of those programs, a man asked, ‘What about health?’ Prabhupada replied, ‘What is health? You’re going to die, so how can you be considered healthy?’ So one of the things I seem to be gaining during this recuperation period is the deepening realization that I’m going to die. I’m trying to recoup a little strength so that I can go on for many more years, but there’s no question of reversing the incurable process of aging unto death. Although this truth should be commonly understood, many have not realized it.
from Vrindavana Writing:
I want to taste the nectar so I can become like a maddened bee and remain always in the lotus of Your confidential pastimes. O Lord, I do not know anything but the spiritual masters who guide me are enticing me toward the goal. I’m not happy to be chanting and hearing without feeling the ecstasy of attraction for You. I am ashamed that this is my condition. I beg You to please relieve me of that shame.
Dear Lord, if there are obstacles to be removed before You grant me this request, then I further request that You show me those obstacles and teach me to surmount them. Give me the courage and intelligence to overcome a weak heart.
If You think I require more time to ripen before You will find me an enjoyable and attractive servant in Your pastimes, then I only ask to be allowed to associate in this world with devotees who have a deep affection for Srimati Radharani. Please allow me to serve those devotees life after life and to learn from them how to return to Her lotus feet.”
Yadunandana Swami:
The Srimad-Bhagavatam is the most glorious scripture because of its focus on describing the birth and activities of the Lord. Of its 335 chapters, the 90 chapters comprising the Tenth Canto deal with the pastimes of Krishna and the Eleventh Canto of over 30 chapters deals the legacy and final instructions of Krishna.
A teacher of nonviolent communications teaches we must know our own needs, and the needs of the others and then figure out how to connect with others, knowing this. The pleasure comes from connecting with others. Our first business in spiritual realization is sambandha, understanding our connection with and connecting with Krishna.
Now there is talk of a God particle. This means that the scientists directly or indirectly conscious of God. The function of the particle is to sustain matter, and that is one of God’s attributes.
One of Ramanujacarya’s gurus had the power to ask the Deity a question and have the Deity reply with an answer. Someone asked him to ask the Deity, “What happens if your devotee cannot remember you at the time of death?” The Deity replied, “If the devotee does not remember Me at the time of death, I will remember my devotee.”
comment by Ananta Nitai Prabhu: My mother had Alzheimer’s disease, and at a certain point, she would just repeat what anyone said. I just chanted the Hare Krishna mantra, two words at a time, and she would repeat them, until she would say, “O stop!” Then I would try one more mantra, and when she would not complain, I would continue. After I while she would say, “O stop!” again. Then I would try one more mantra, and she would again not complain, so I would continue. This went on until she was too tired to say anything. Later my sister said she would sometimes hear my mother chanting the entire Hare Krishna mantra. This was amazing to me as usually someone with that condition cannot remember anything, so I think this is evidence of Krishna giving her some special mercy.
comment by Mayesvara Prabhu: One devotee in Dublin had Alzheimer’s disease. Once he was in a large store, and he got separated from his wife, and he could not remember his own name nor who he had come with to have the store authorities make an announcement. He got the idea to say the Hare Krishna into microphone so his caretaker would understand what happened. Later when his wife could not longer take care of him, he lived in a home with others who required assistance. Many people in that situation in the same home were angry and bitter but he was peaceful and appeared effulgent. His wife would bring him prasadam and garlands from the Deities, and she wiped his face with Ganges water.
comment by me: Malati Prabhu told in a morning class of a devotee seamstress in New Vrindavana, who after a long absence due to Alzheimer’s disease, again took darsana of the Lord, for whom she had made outfits for years. Malati said, “I was surprised to see her absorption in the Deities. She saw me looking at her, and turned to me, saying, ‘You may try to forget Krishna, but Krishna will not forget you.’”
Most of us have both divine and demoniac qualities.
Divine means to follow the instructions of God given in the scriptures.
The life of the soul in the material world is a dilemma. And spiritual life is also a dilemma.
When we are preaching, we should consider where we are at, and preach what we have realized. It is important to be balanced and consistence. We must communicate Krishna’s message without hypocrisy.
Today is a birthday party. Devotees are special souls, and it is good to take advantage of such opportunities to glorify them. We wish the devotee a long life in Krishna consciousness.
Praghosa Prabhu (GBC UK):
In the spiritual world the bliss is every increasing yet we decided to come to the place of misery, the material world.
There was nothing in Prabhupada’s life that was separated from his mission.
Past the age of retirement, Prabhupada left India to share this knowledge with the world. He had no doubts about his mission. He knew people were suffering, and he wanted to help them.
If we do not have faith that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, we cannot convince others. Therefore, Prabhupada challenged his leaders, “Are you convinced?”
There are so many words for suffering because it is a constant for everyone in this material world.
None of us are really comfortable in our bodies.
Nature programs are very popular yet if you think about it, all you see the different animals doing is four things, eating, sleeping, mating, and defending.
Radhanatha Swami’s father has 200 channels on his TV, but he is not satisfied as it is difficult to remember which had the best program.
Tell all your friends about Krishna in a way that makes them more attracted to Krishna.
The only reciprocation Prabhupada wanted is that we pass what he gave us.
Ananta Nitai Prabhu:
I always liked harinama, the congregational chanting in public, but it was not until I read what Aindra Prabhu wrote that I understood its great importance.
We cannot judge devotees externally. Externals do not represent the internal mood of the devotee, but it is the internal mood that Krishna reciprocates with.
Krishna’s statements in the Gita are enacted in His pastimes.
Tribhuvanatha Prabhu said, for the spiritually ignorant, a husband and wife love each other’s false ego at best.
Conditioned souls identify either with their bodies or their minds. Fearfulness arises from either identifying ourselves with our body or our mind. When we come in contact with the Lord, this fearfulness is annihilated.
The essence of life is to transcend death and that is the knowledge this Hare Krishna movement is giving.
The more pious we are, the less fearful of death we become, and the more sinful we are the more afraid of death we become.
The more selfless you become, the less you worry about the source of miseries which are in relationship the body.
There was a Christian Bible-Belt family who had a kid at an early age who remembered details of a previous life as a fighter pilot. He listed names and details of different aircraft. The family researched it to disprove the idea of reincarnation, but they became convinced of it.
Scientists describe the body functioning in terms of chemical reactions only, but can you show me a chemical reaction that is aware of itself?
One reason people like dogs because the dogs will not reject them.
comment by Annete: I see that when I am distributing books that some people are so glad to talk to me just because they are so lonely. Sometimes they take a book just because they are happy I talked to them.
comment by Guru Das from the Manor in another Srimad-Bhagavatam class: One’s mind wanders in proportion to one’s lack of desire to surrender to Krishna.
Nrsimha Tirtha Prabhu:
At the ceremony when the child is first offered grains, Narottama Thakura Dasa, as baby, refused to eat the grains because they were not offered to Krishna.
Lord Nityananda Prabhu, the original guru, took Narottama Thakura Dasa, as a youth, to the Padma River, to receive the love of God that Lord Caitanya had deposited there for him.
Narottama Thakura installed the deities in Khettari so the devotees there would make steady advancement by regularly serving the Lord.
Bhugarbha Goswami would chant within the earth, in a cave or underground, to make sure no one would disturb him, and that is why he is called Bhugarbha.
The pure devotees think they are fallen, but that motivates them to do more devotional service.
The acaryas, the great spiritual teachers, are looking for their faults in order to correct themselves, and that is expressed in their songs.
Sri Gadadhara Prabhu:
When we do our work for Krishna, it becomes an art.
Krishna consciousness is simple. Do your work for the gratification of Krishna’s senses not your own.
One householder devotee said, “Do not talk about love until you have been married for 15 years,” the purport being that without staying together and serving each other for a long time, through happiness and distress, there is no question of love.
Srila Prabhupada explained nonviolence as working for the spiritual benefit of everyone, but unless we engage in devotional service, we cannot do this. So not to engage in devotional service is actually violence.
Aindra Prabhu said simplicity is to follow whatever the Lord tells us from within.
—–
prthivite ache yata nagaradi grama
sarvatra pracara haibe mora nama
sarvatra pracara haibe mora nama
[Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu said:] “In every town and village, the chanting of My name will be heard.” (Caitanya-bhagavata, Antya 4.126)
Travel Journal#8.12: London Ratha-yatra, Stonehenge, and More
→ Travel Adventures of a Krishna Monk
Diary of a Traveling Sadhaka, Vol. 8, No. 12
By Krishna-kripa das
(June 2012, part two)
By Krishna-kripa das
(June 2012, part two)
London Ratha-yatra, Stonehenge, and More
(Sent from Málaga, Spain, on Janmastami, August 10, 2012)
(Sent from Málaga, Spain, on Janmastami, August 10, 2012)
Where I Where and What I Did
London Ratha-yatra was wonderful as usual with a great parade, super prasadam, and various booths and a stage show that attracted people from all over the world. The next couple days, I did harinama in London, along with Sri Gadadhara and Trevor Prabhus, a couple new devotees I had been serving with in Newcastle. Next these friends and I joined with Parasurama Prabhu and his crew to go to Stonehenge for the annual solstice festival, joined by one attendee from the London Ratha-yatra I invited to come. Many people heard the holy name and took prasadam there on that cold, windy, and wet night. Then my little sankirtana party returned to London for a few more days of harinama. Trevor flew to Czech Republic, and on the way back to Newcastle, Sri Gadadhara, my remaining sankirtana partner, and I stopped in Leeds for their monthly Sunday feast. There the congregation pleasantly surprised me by joining us for an hour of harinama after the program. While waiting for the bus back to Newcastle the next morning, I took a break and chanted for a few minutes on the crowded sidewalks where the Olympic torch bearer was passing through Leeds. The final few days of the month we did harinama in Newcastle and nearby localities.
In the “Insights” section I include a great quote about spiritual pleasure from The Nectar of Devotion, and notes on a beautiful class given by Srila Prabhupada on Bhaktivinoda Thakura. It seems Candramauli Swami is making even better points in his lectures as the years go by. Hrdayananda Goswami makes wonderful observations about Srila Prabhupada and his intense desire that we all share the knowledge he gave us. Niranjana Swami shares observations about the simplicity of brahmacari life. Prahladananda Swami challenges materialistic science. Isana Gaura Prabhu speaks valuable words about bhakti, the holy name, and the Lord Krishna’s conversation with Uddhava, known as “Uddhava Gita.”
London Ratha-yatra
London Ratha-yatra was held on a beautiful day, such a relief from last year’s which was drenched with continuous rain. I talked to many people from a variety of countries. One young lady said she spent time with the devotees in Berlin recently and had attended Govinda’s restaurant in Soho when she previously lived in London. I told her about our program of chanting and food distribution on the Stonehenge solstice festival in a few days, and amazingly enough, she decided to come.
I loved the prasadam, especially the srikand. I had seconds or thirds, I cannot remember! Parasurama Prabhu who is in charge of the feast is determined to make a good impression on the public with great prasadam. The last kirtana on the stage was lively, and the audience was appreciating, including a couple of Scottish girls who were really charmed by it. Mahavishnu Swami did a harinama back to the Soho temple after the festival at Trafalgar Square.
Many people took great photos of London Ratha-yatra. I do not have time to look through them and choose the best, but I can share links to their galleries with you so you may look at them. Click on the picture or links below, to see the galleries:
On YouTube there are many videos of London Ratha-yatra, if you want to get an idea of what it is like:
Stonehenge Solstice Festival
Parasurama Prabhu, who does transcendental food distribution in London on a daily basis, brings food and a chanting party to the Stonehenge solstice festival each year. These activities go on usually from midnight to six or seven in the morning on the day of the summer solstice, June 21. If the weather is good, which it wasn’t this year, he even has a Ratha-yatra for two hours, from one to three. This year was the worst weather in the three years I have gone. It started raining not long after we started our walking harinama to the stone, and it did not let for some time. We all got soaked. I did not bring any socks, fearing they would get soaked, but in retrospect I think wet socks would have been better than no socks, as my feet would have been warmer. There was a little shelter from the rain where we were serving the spiritual food, but I was so wet that the cold wind made me suffer so much I took shelter of the van and Giridhari Prabhu’s sleeping bag from four to six just to stay warm, out of fear of getting sick, and I missed the height of the event. Sri Gadadhara and Trevor Prabhus, the two newer devotees who were traveling with me, were able, along with three others, somehow or other, to continue chanting the whole time up to the stones and then back, and they said many people were happy to see them and to sing and dance with them as usual. Someone took the following video of them and posted it on YouTube:
One blogger, Ross Merritt, commented on the devotees, “The hardcore, Hare Krishna types were there as usual, who for some reason were singing their mantra in the tune of ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’! They must be trying to reach out to a new fan base!”
One young lady named Paola, originally from Italy, who I met at the London Ratha-yatra, came with us to Stonehenge. She did not get as wet as we did because she did not go on the initial chanting party, helping to distribute food instead. Despite the bad weather, she had a positive experience, meeting the devotees, distributing prasadam, and helping the Indian ladies cook at the Manor before we left for Stonehenge. She told Parasurama Prabhu she would help him distribute prasadam in London sometimes.
Other Harinamas in England
Croydon:
I heard there was going to be a weekend warrior program in Croydon the Saturday after the London Ratha-yatra to advertise the Croydon Ratha-yatra the following day. Those programs usually involve chanting, book distribution, and talking to people about spiritual topics, so I generally like to go to them. Jai Nitai Prabhu, temple president of our Soho temple encouraged me to go to the one in Croydon, although I would have preferred to help my friend Giridhari Prabhu do a similar program in Ilford to advertise their spiritual cultural program to be held the following Thursday. It turns out neither of the two new devotees traveling with me wanted to go, no one else from the temple wanted to go. And when I got there, I found that no one else was there. I had gotten the number of the local contact person, so I explained that I was there and was determined to play my harmonium for three hours and chant, and if they supplied invitations for the next day’s Ratha-yatra I would gladly distribute them, and so they did. While I was chanting, waiting for the invitations, one jovial, black man came up to me, saying he wanted to give a donation. Noticing I had no receptacle for donations, he suggested if I get a bowl to put donations in, I would collect more money. I just wanted to chant and did not want to go shopping for a bowl. So, noticing there was a 99 pence store across the way, I suggested he might purchase a bowl for me as a donation. And so he did, placing the bowl before me with his penny in change being my first donation. By the end of the three hours, I collected over 27 pounds ($42) , more than covering the 8 pounds it cost me to get there and back. Some people, both Indians and Englishmen, simply seeing me chanting came up and asked about the Ratha-yatra, and others were happy to learn of the event for the first time. An Indian man from the Croydon congregation stopped by and helped by distributing the invitations as I sang for half an hour or so. As Janananda Goswami paid for my trip to London and the London temple paid for my trip to Croydon, I did not need to collect for my expenses, and so I gave all the money to the temple, and they used it to sponsor books for distribution. I learned from this experience that if you are determined to do your service despite all impediments, that Krishna definitely reciprocates.
Leeds:
After the monthly Sunday feast in Leeds, England, seven members of the congregation greatly inspired me by joining me and my friend Sri Gadadhara in chanting all around the center of the city for an hour. It was wonderful to see the devotees’ spiritual enthusiasm generated from the Sunday program utilized in sharing Krishna with others. We passed out many invitations to their weekly Tuesday evening program during the harinama. The post-feast program harinama reminded me of Kharkov, Ukraine, where devotees do two hours of chanting through the streets of their city after their weekly Sunday feast. When you think about it, for many devotees, especially those in the congregation, their greatest participation in devotional service to the Lord for the whole week comes from the weekly programs and so they are most appreciative of the value of Krishna consciousness in their life at this time. Therefore, it is actually the best time for them to engage in an activity like harinama, which involves sharing one’s enthusiasm for Krishna consciousness with others.
The next morning I took a break from waiting for my bus to Newcastle to play harmonium and chant Hare Krishna for a few minutes for a crowd watching the Olympic torch bearer run through the streets of Leeds. I followed the torch bearer for a block, along with several others. As I passed, one uniformed man smiled and shouted with confidence, “Gouranga!” I smiled back. I had heard that devotees from Scotland put up posters for years in Scotland, and perhaps The North of England as well, which said “Chant Gouranga!” Apparently this man took it seriously, and he was one of few who knew that the Hare Krishna’s were behind this “Chant Gouranga” campaign.
Newcastle area:
Soon after we returned to Newcastle, one day a boy named David joined us, chanting with us for a few minutes near the monument. Sri Gadadhara told me that while I was traveling to Manchester, David had met the harinama in Newcastle and come to the Sunday program. He was happy to meet the devotees again, and said he would again come by the temple.
On Thursday we did a one and a half hour harinama in Chester Le Street, near Newcastle. The sky grew dark, and it started to rain, so we left quickly. Later Prema Sankirtana Prabhu saw this video of the town posted on the internet.
Seeing the video reminded me of this verse, yajñat bhavati parjanyo, rains are produced by performance of yajña [sacrifice] (Bg. 3.14).
After narrowly escaping the inundation at Chester Le Street, we went to Sunderland, and chanted for another half hour without disturbance by the rain. It was only in the evening when we returned to Newcastle and saw many abandoned cars stuck on the roads and lakes of water covering the pavement that we realized the magnitude of the storm Krishna had protected us from, while at the same time facilitating our
sankirtana.Insights
Srila Prabhupada:
from The Nectar of Devotion:
“Without relishing some sort of mellow or loving mood in one’s activities, no one can continue to perform such activities. Similarly, in the transcendental life of Krishna consciousness in devotional service there must be some mellow or specific taste from the service. Generally this mellow is experienced by chanting, hearing, worshiping in the temple and being engaged in the service of the Lord. So when a person feels transcendental bliss, this is called ‘relishing the mellow.’ (The Nectar of Devotion, p. 152)
from a lecture on Bhaktivinoda Thakura:
Just as there is a material genealogical succession, there is a spiritual succession.
The Vedic injunction is not to acquire knowledge by speculation. That is useless. It is simply a waste of time. For thousands of years you can speculate, and you will never know God. You must approach a guru.
Although Bhaktivinoda Thakura was a grihastha (married man], he was guru. It does not matter about one’s material position. It does not matter. Anyone who knows the science can become guru.
Spiritual life means reducing eating, sleeping, mating, and defending. One should not sleep more than five to six hours. Sleeping is not a very important thing. Even some politicians sleep no more than two hours. Bhaktivinoda Thakura would rise at midnight.
Bhaktivinoda wrote a hundred books, sent books to foreign countries, gave instruction about developing Mayapur, and discovered Lord Caitanya’s birthplace.
Everyone should be educated in spiritual knowledge. There is a need for acaryas, spiritual teachers.
Prasadam is less available at the Jagannatha temple than formerly as the present administrators do not appreciate the value of it. Previously there were no restaurants since people could always get prasadam at the temples.
The rascal Bisika Sena said to Bhaktivinoda, “Jagannath is made of wood. I am directly the Supreme Lord Vishnu.” Thus Bhaktivinoda Thakura became angry, and understanding he was a cheater, had him arrested.
As you approach an important man through his secretary, you must approach God through a guru.
You cannot just study scriptures. There are different scriptures. The Bible was spoken in a desert region to people who were not very advanced. There was so much killing. They even tried to kill Lord Jesus Christ.
Just as a medical book is available in the market, but you have to study in the medical college. You cannot say. “I have read all the medical books you should recognize me as a doctor.” In the same way, you cannot just read the scriptures and understand God. You need a guru.
Bhaktivinoda Thakura wrote many important books such as Caitanya Siksamrita and Jaiva Dharma.
We are honoring Bhaktivinoda Thakura today so that we may get his blessings. Simply by the blessings of the acaryas, the great spiritual teachers, we get the mercy of the Lord.
We should try to become servant of the servant. We should not approach the Lord directly.
If one says he is God. He is a false guru.
Our Krishna consciousness is very bona fide because we say what Krishna says.
Anyone who is inquisitive to understand the highest knowledge requires a guru.
First-class knowledge is to know I am the eternal servant of Krishna and to engage in Krishna’s service. Second-class knowledge aspires for liberation and third-class knowledge is knowledge of how to be comfortable in this world, like the animals have.
We are to educate people of this opportunity to attain spiritual perfection in this human form of life. Unfortunately in the schools and universities people do not have the opportunity to study this science.
a Prabhupada memory:
Janananda Goswami drove Srila Prabhupada to Bhaktivedanta Manor. During the trip Srila Prabhupada merely asked one question, “How are the cows?” This indicates how important cows are to a pure devotee of Krishna.
Candramauli Swami:
A person born in a family of doctors cannot claim to be a doctor on the strength of that birth without going to medical school, becoming certified, and actually practicing medicine. In the same way, one cannot be considered a brahmana simply by being born in a family of brahmanas.
After Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura spoke so expertly about the qualities of the brahmana and the qualities of a Vaishnava and the relationship between them that the caste brahmanas realized there was nothing they could say to establish their erroneous viewpoint, they left the assembly.
It is not enough to eat pradasam, but one should also avoid eating food that is not prasadam.
Simply defeating someone is not preaching. Changing someone’s heart is preaching.
A devotee may avoid hostile people, but he does not consider them to be enemies.
Success can be more dangerous than reverses because one can become proud of success and commit offenses and make other mistakes.
A devotee is steady. He does not take a break from devotional service for variety’s sake, thinking, “When I return to devotional service, it will be fresh again.”
In 1976 because people with second initiation were leaving, Srila Prabhupada said that one must take the Bhakti-sastri course before accepting second initiation (brahmana initiation). We are just beginning to implement that now.
To tell a half-truth to protect a person from being hurt is not considered lying.
Suffering is a state of consciousness. It is a question of how one perceives a situation that makes it a cause of suffering.
According to Manu-samhita, a businessman is not supposed to make more than 25% profit.
The some of twelve qualities of a brahmana:
jnanam satyam ca damah srutam ca
hy amatsaryam hris titiksanasuya
yajnas ca danam ca dhrtih samas ca
maha-vrata dvadasa brahmanasya
-
knowledgable
-
truthful
-
sense controlled
-
has heard from authority
-
without enemies
-
modest
-
tolerant
-
performs yajnas (sacrifices)
-
charitable
-
steadiness
-
peaceful
-
celibate
Hridayananda Dasa Goswami [from a lecture given at the LA Prabhupada Festival]:
Srila Prabhupada would introduce himself as the founder-acarya of ISKCON.
In every venue and in every forum in which Prabhupada spoke, he quoted Lord Caitanya’s verse ordering everyone to become a guru. In discussing it he would regularly explain that become a guru was simple—one simply had to repeat what Krishna has said. He did not make a distinction between diksa [initiating] and siksa [instructing] gurus.
The greatest guru of all was Lord Caitanya, and he was a siksa guru and not a diksa guru.
Only to businessmen did Prabhupada suggest that they did not have to become diksa gurus immediately.
Prabhupada’s fear was not that we would become gurus but that we would not become gurus.
The good news is: In Srila Prabhupada’s most important role, as founder-acarya of ISKCON, Gaura-Nitai’s emissary, we all have equal access to him.
Krishna explains in Bhagavad-gita 18.68–69: “Those who explain this secret among the devoted, having rendered the highest service, will attain Me. No one is more dear to me, nor will there ever be one more dear.”
Everyone has to find what he can do in his life to spread this knowedge. That is Prabhupada’s desire.
I never saw Srila Prabhupada when he was doing anything other than trying to spread Krishna consciousness. Ever since he met his guru that was his focus.
“There cannot be a movement made up of people who are not individually moving.” We have to be advancing. We must do japa or kirtana each day in such a way that we are advancing. When have group of advancing people with increasing enthusiasm, you get unstoppable irresistible force which is Prabhupada’s Hare Krishna movement.
When we are inviting people to our temple, we are in effect telling them their life is not complete without taking up this practice.
If we are moving ourselves, and not stagnating, then we have the right to ask other people to move.
You can drive yourself crazy worrying about your own desires, or you can stop the nonsense and put Srila Prabhupada’s desires in the center of you life, and if you do that,
Prabhupada will empower you to convince others to do that.
[If you would like to hear the Hridayananda Maharaja lecture yourself, you can find it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlboYozGo5k&feature=em-share_video_user ]
from a letter to his disciple Ali Krishna Devi Dasi: “The quality of our lives cannot exceed the quality of our japa.”
Niranjana Swami:
from a lecture to Chowpatty brahmacaris:
If we are satisfied with the simplicity of Krishna consciousness, then we are very fortunate.
If we are satisfied with just what Srila Prabhupada gave us that is very good.
Real renunciation means attachment to these simple activities of Krishna consciousness.
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura said in the age of Kali, brahmacaris will remain brahmacaris because household life is too difficult. But that is not a reason to be a brahmacari. If you are meditating on the potential difficulties of household life, you will not be able to relish the simple activities of devotional service as a brahmacari and you will not be satisfied.
Prahladananda Swami:
The purport of all this literature is to convince us that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and then to understand that we are His eternal servants.
For Krishna to hold up Govardhan Hill for a week is not difficult. In Bhagavad-gita 15.13, Krishna says He enters each planet and keeps them in orbit.
Brahma-samhita describes how the sun moves in its orbit by the grace of Govinda.
In my college someone got a grant for $80,000 back in the 1960s to research why spiders build webs. They came to the conclusion that the purpose was to catch flies.
Any wild speculation can be considered in academia except the idea that behind everything is a supreme person.
No one has been able to create a machine that produces its own parts. Imagine a lawn mower that could take grass and produce blades!
Imagine if scientists could produce male Rolls Royces and female Rolls Royces that could get together and produce little Rolls Royces that grow up to become big ones?
If people are really trying to be scientific they should at least consider the possibility the there could be a supreme person beyond everything.
If you tell a big enough lie, long enough, people will accept it. This has happened in the case of materialistic science.
Srila Prabhupada would challenge people who say the universe came by chance, “What do you spend so much time studying? What not sit at home and by chance you might get a Ph.D.? Why work so many hours? What not sit at home and by chance you might get your paycheck?”
Krishna’s plan is to take everyone back to the spiritual kingdom, and our plan is to stay material world as long as possible.
Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami:
from Shack Notes:
“Srila Prabhupada sometimes spoke of his disciples as experiencing advanced states of Krishna consciousness by chanting and dancing and serving without fatigue or remuneration. ‘It is not material, it is not ordinary.’ He especially liked to inform audiences in India about ‘these American and European boys and girls’ who were fully absorbed in Krishna consciousness. We should not reject this estimation but live up to it.”
Govardhan Dasi [commenting on a lecture]:
In the class I was teaching at public school where I work, I asked students to do a poster for or against vegetarianism. Although the students were all meat eaters, all but two did pro-vegetarian posters.
Dayananda Swami:
Because Nrsimha Tirtha Prabhu [who is getting brahmana initiation] has the quality of humility, he has been able to take instruction and therefore progress quickly. I see he has taken a lot of responsibility in last couple of years.
Isana Gaura Prabhu:
If you are attracted to devotees, that means you are a devotee.
The four syllables Gauranga are exactly the same as “Hare Krishna.”
Lord Caitanya, having tasted the ecstasy of love of Krishna and seeing the people in general bereft of such ecstasy, felt the desire to share it with them.
Just chanting the Hare Krishna will give us liberation, and chanting with affection will give us love of God.
from a seminar on “Uddhava Gita”:
To absorb ourselves in Krishna we have to renounce material nature.
One has potency if he practices what he preaches.
Bharata, the son of Rsabha, was considered advanced because he rejected the material world.
The nine yogendras, masters of yoga, worked vigorously although already perfect. King Nimi asked each of the nine a different question.
The top of the universe is light and warm and the bottom is dark, cold, and wet.
The yaksas do not like to give out money so they are engaged in treasury work.
Sacrifices should be performed according to the direction of a brahmana. In the Hare Krishna movement that brahmana is Srila Prabhupada.
The fear is inside you. You do not realize it, but if someone entered this room with a gun, it would arise, just like that. Only by worshiping the Supreme Lord can you become free from this fear.
The heavenly beings can tone down their effulgence so it is not blinding.
So many instructions are there in Gita and in the Bhagavatam, and we have the personal examples of Lord Caitanya and His pure devotee, Srila Prabhupada. Our behavior is perfect if we follow these.
It is stated if one commits offenses he has no taste to chant and dance in kirtana.
Rama Nrsimha Prabhu [from a conversation]:
Like Parasurama says, “You can do your time [in prison] or you can do community service.” In the same way, instead of doing your karma, you can do devotional service.
Srinivasa Dasa:
Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityananda Prabhu came to destroy five kinds of ignorance:
1. identification with body
2. thinking sense pleasure is the standard of happiness
3. lamentation
4. identification with the material
5. to consider there is something beyond the Absolute Truth
—–
ataeva ami ajna dilun sabakare
yahan tahan prema-phala deha’ yare tare
[Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu said:] “Therefore I order every man within this universe to accept this Krishna consciousness movement and distribute it everywhere.” (Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Adi-lila 9.36)
Travel Journal#8.12: London Ratha-yatra, Stonehenge, and More
→ Travel Adventures of a Krishna Monk
Diary of a Traveling Sadhaka, Vol. 8, No. 12
By Krishna-kripa das
(June 2012, part two)
By Krishna-kripa das
(June 2012, part two)
London Ratha-yatra, Stonehenge, and More
(Sent from Málaga, Spain, on Janmastami, August 10, 2012)
(Sent from Málaga, Spain, on Janmastami, August 10, 2012)
Where I Where and What I Did
London Ratha-yatra was wonderful as usual with a great parade, super prasadam, and various booths and a stage show that attracted people from all over the world. The next couple days, I did harinama in London, along with Sri Gadadhara and Trevor Prabhus, a couple new devotees I had been serving with in Newcastle. Next these friends and I joined with Parasurama Prabhu and his crew to go to Stonehenge for the annual solstice festival, joined by one attendee from the London Ratha-yatra I invited to come. Many people heard the holy name and took prasadam there on that cold, windy, and wet night. Then my little sankirtana party returned to London for a few more days of harinama. Trevor flew to Czech Republic, and on the way back to Newcastle, Sri Gadadhara, my remaining sankirtana partner, and I stopped in Leeds for their monthly Sunday feast. There the congregation pleasantly surprised me by joining us for an hour of harinama after the program. While waiting for the bus back to Newcastle the next morning, I took a break and chanted for a few minutes on the crowded sidewalks where the Olympic torch bearer was passing through Leeds. The final few days of the month we did harinama in Newcastle and nearby localities.
In the “Insights” section I include a great quote about spiritual pleasure from The Nectar of Devotion, and notes on a beautiful class given by Srila Prabhupada on Bhaktivinoda Thakura. It seems Candramauli Swami is making even better points in his lectures as the years go by. Hrdayananda Goswami makes wonderful observations about Srila Prabhupada and his intense desire that we all share the knowledge he gave us. Niranjana Swami shares observations about the simplicity of brahmacari life. Prahladananda Swami challenges materialistic science. Isana Gaura Prabhu speaks valuable words about bhakti, the holy name, and the Lord Krishna’s conversation with Uddhava, known as “Uddhava Gita.”
London Ratha-yatra
London Ratha-yatra was held on a beautiful day, such a relief from last year’s which was drenched with continuous rain. I talked to many people from a variety of countries. One young lady said she spent time with the devotees in Berlin recently and had attended Govinda’s restaurant in Soho when she previously lived in London. I told her about our program of chanting and food distribution on the Stonehenge solstice festival in a few days, and amazingly enough, she decided to come.
I loved the prasadam, especially the srikand. I had seconds or thirds, I cannot remember! Parasurama Prabhu who is in charge of the feast is determined to make a good impression on the public with great prasadam. The last kirtana on the stage was lively, and the audience was appreciating, including a couple of Scottish girls who were really charmed by it. Mahavishnu Swami did a harinama back to the Soho temple after the festival at Trafalgar Square.
Many people took great photos of London Ratha-yatra. I do not have time to look through them and choose the best, but I can share links to their galleries with you so you may look at them. Click on the picture or links below, to see the galleries:
On YouTube there are many videos of London Ratha-yatra, if you want to get an idea of what it is like:
Stonehenge Solstice Festival
Parasurama Prabhu, who does transcendental food distribution in London on a daily basis, brings food and a chanting party to the Stonehenge solstice festival each year. These activities go on usually from midnight to six or seven in the morning on the day of the summer solstice, June 21. If the weather is good, which it wasn’t this year, he even has a Ratha-yatra for two hours, from one to three. This year was the worst weather in the three years I have gone. It started raining not long after we started our walking harinama to the stone, and it did not let for some time. We all got soaked. I did not bring any socks, fearing they would get soaked, but in retrospect I think wet socks would have been better than no socks, as my feet would have been warmer. There was a little shelter from the rain where we were serving the spiritual food, but I was so wet that the cold wind made me suffer so much I took shelter of the van and Giridhari Prabhu’s sleeping bag from four to six just to stay warm, out of fear of getting sick, and I missed the height of the event. Sri Gadadhara and Trevor Prabhus, the two newer devotees who were traveling with me, were able, along with three others, somehow or other, to continue chanting the whole time up to the stones and then back, and they said many people were happy to see them and to sing and dance with them as usual. Someone took the following video of them and posted it on YouTube:
One blogger, Ross Merritt, commented on the devotees, “The hardcore, Hare Krishna types were there as usual, who for some reason were singing their mantra in the tune of ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’! They must be trying to reach out to a new fan base!”
One young lady named Paola, originally from Italy, who I met at the London Ratha-yatra, came with us to Stonehenge. She did not get as wet as we did because she did not go on the initial chanting party, helping to distribute food instead. Despite the bad weather, she had a positive experience, meeting the devotees, distributing prasadam, and helping the Indian ladies cook at the Manor before we left for Stonehenge. She told Parasurama Prabhu she would help him distribute prasadam in London sometimes.
Other Harinamas in England
Croydon:
I heard there was going to be a weekend warrior program in Croydon the Saturday after the London Ratha-yatra to advertise the Croydon Ratha-yatra the following day. Those programs usually involve chanting, book distribution, and talking to people about spiritual topics, so I generally like to go to them. Jai Nitai Prabhu, temple president of our Soho temple encouraged me to go to the one in Croydon, although I would have preferred to help my friend Giridhari Prabhu do a similar program in Ilford to advertise their spiritual cultural program to be held the following Thursday. It turns out neither of the two new devotees traveling with me wanted to go, no one else from the temple wanted to go. And when I got there, I found that no one else was there. I had gotten the number of the local contact person, so I explained that I was there and was determined to play my harmonium for three hours and chant, and if they supplied invitations for the next day’s Ratha-yatra I would gladly distribute them, and so they did. While I was chanting, waiting for the invitations, one jovial, black man came up to me, saying he wanted to give a donation. Noticing I had no receptacle for donations, he suggested if I get a bowl to put donations in, I would collect more money. I just wanted to chant and did not want to go shopping for a bowl. So, noticing there was a 99 pence store across the way, I suggested he might purchase a bowl for me as a donation. And so he did, placing the bowl before me with his penny in change being my first donation. By the end of the three hours, I collected over 27 pounds ($42) , more than covering the 8 pounds it cost me to get there and back. Some people, both Indians and Englishmen, simply seeing me chanting came up and asked about the Ratha-yatra, and others were happy to learn of the event for the first time. An Indian man from the Croydon congregation stopped by and helped by distributing the invitations as I sang for half an hour or so. As Janananda Goswami paid for my trip to London and the London temple paid for my trip to Croydon, I did not need to collect for my expenses, and so I gave all the money to the temple, and they used it to sponsor books for distribution. I learned from this experience that if you are determined to do your service despite all impediments, that Krishna definitely reciprocates.
Leeds:
After the monthly Sunday feast in Leeds, England, seven members of the congregation greatly inspired me by joining me and my friend Sri Gadadhara in chanting all around the center of the city for an hour. It was wonderful to see the devotees’ spiritual enthusiasm generated from the Sunday program utilized in sharing Krishna with others. We passed out many invitations to their weekly Tuesday evening program during the harinama. The post-feast program harinama reminded me of Kharkov, Ukraine, where devotees do two hours of chanting through the streets of their city after their weekly Sunday feast. When you think about it, for many devotees, especially those in the congregation, their greatest participation in devotional service to the Lord for the whole week comes from the weekly programs and so they are most appreciative of the value of Krishna consciousness in their life at this time. Therefore, it is actually the best time for them to engage in an activity like harinama, which involves sharing one’s enthusiasm for Krishna consciousness with others.
The next morning I took a break from waiting for my bus to Newcastle to play harmonium and chant Hare Krishna for a few minutes for a crowd watching the Olympic torch bearer run through the streets of Leeds. I followed the torch bearer for a block, along with several others. As I passed, one uniformed man smiled and shouted with confidence, “Gouranga!” I smiled back. I had heard that devotees from Scotland put up posters for years in Scotland, and perhaps The North of England as well, which said “Chant Gouranga!” Apparently this man took it seriously, and he was one of few who knew that the Hare Krishna’s were behind this “Chant Gouranga” campaign.
Newcastle area:
Soon after we returned to Newcastle, one day a boy named David joined us, chanting with us for a few minutes near the monument. Sri Gadadhara told me that while I was traveling to Manchester, David had met the harinama in Newcastle and come to the Sunday program. He was happy to meet the devotees again, and said he would again come by the temple.
On Thursday we did a one and a half hour harinama in Chester Le Street, near Newcastle. The sky grew dark, and it started to rain, so we left quickly. Later Prema Sankirtana Prabhu saw this video of the town posted on the internet.
Seeing the video reminded me of this verse, yajñat bhavati parjanyo, rains are produced by performance of yajña [sacrifice] (Bg. 3.14).
After narrowly escaping the inundation at Chester Le Street, we went to Sunderland, and chanted for another half hour without disturbance by the rain. It was only in the evening when we returned to Newcastle and saw many abandoned cars stuck on the roads and lakes of water covering the pavement that we realized the magnitude of the storm Krishna had protected us from, while at the same time facilitating our
sankirtana.Insights
Srila Prabhupada:
from The Nectar of Devotion:
“Without relishing some sort of mellow or loving mood in one’s activities, no one can continue to perform such activities. Similarly, in the transcendental life of Krishna consciousness in devotional service there must be some mellow or specific taste from the service. Generally this mellow is experienced by chanting, hearing, worshiping in the temple and being engaged in the service of the Lord. So when a person feels transcendental bliss, this is called ‘relishing the mellow.’ (The Nectar of Devotion, p. 152)
from a lecture on Bhaktivinoda Thakura:
Just as there is a material genealogical succession, there is a spiritual succession.
The Vedic injunction is not to acquire knowledge by speculation. That is useless. It is simply a waste of time. For thousands of years you can speculate, and you will never know God. You must approach a guru.
Although Bhaktivinoda Thakura was a grihastha (married man], he was guru. It does not matter about one’s material position. It does not matter. Anyone who knows the science can become guru.
Spiritual life means reducing eating, sleeping, mating, and defending. One should not sleep more than five to six hours. Sleeping is not a very important thing. Even some politicians sleep no more than two hours. Bhaktivinoda Thakura would rise at midnight.
Bhaktivinoda wrote a hundred books, sent books to foreign countries, gave instruction about developing Mayapur, and discovered Lord Caitanya’s birthplace.
Everyone should be educated in spiritual knowledge. There is a need for acaryas, spiritual teachers.
Prasadam is less available at the Jagannatha temple than formerly as the present administrators do not appreciate the value of it. Previously there were no restaurants since people could always get prasadam at the temples.
The rascal Bisika Sena said to Bhaktivinoda, “Jagannath is made of wood. I am directly the Supreme Lord Vishnu.” Thus Bhaktivinoda Thakura became angry, and understanding he was a cheater, had him arrested.
As you approach an important man through his secretary, you must approach God through a guru.
You cannot just study scriptures. There are different scriptures. The Bible was spoken in a desert region to people who were not very advanced. There was so much killing. They even tried to kill Lord Jesus Christ.
Just as a medical book is available in the market, but you have to study in the medical college. You cannot say. “I have read all the medical books you should recognize me as a doctor.” In the same way, you cannot just read the scriptures and understand God. You need a guru.
Bhaktivinoda Thakura wrote many important books such as Caitanya Siksamrita and Jaiva Dharma.
We are honoring Bhaktivinoda Thakura today so that we may get his blessings. Simply by the blessings of the acaryas, the great spiritual teachers, we get the mercy of the Lord.
We should try to become servant of the servant. We should not approach the Lord directly.
If one says he is God. He is a false guru.
Our Krishna consciousness is very bona fide because we say what Krishna says.
Anyone who is inquisitive to understand the highest knowledge requires a guru.
First-class knowledge is to know I am the eternal servant of Krishna and to engage in Krishna’s service. Second-class knowledge aspires for liberation and third-class knowledge is knowledge of how to be comfortable in this world, like the animals have.
We are to educate people of this opportunity to attain spiritual perfection in this human form of life. Unfortunately in the schools and universities people do not have the opportunity to study this science.
a Prabhupada memory:
Janananda Goswami drove Srila Prabhupada to Bhaktivedanta Manor. During the trip Srila Prabhupada merely asked one question, “How are the cows?” This indicates how important cows are to a pure devotee of Krishna.
Candramauli Swami:
A person born in a family of doctors cannot claim to be a doctor on the strength of that birth without going to medical school, becoming certified, and actually practicing medicine. In the same way, one cannot be considered a brahmana simply by being born in a family of brahmanas.
After Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura spoke so expertly about the qualities of the brahmana and the qualities of a Vaishnava and the relationship between them that the caste brahmanas realized there was nothing they could say to establish their erroneous viewpoint, they left the assembly.
It is not enough to eat pradasam, but one should also avoid eating food that is not prasadam.
Simply defeating someone is not preaching. Changing someone’s heart is preaching.
A devotee may avoid hostile people, but he does not consider them to be enemies.
Success can be more dangerous than reverses because one can become proud of success and commit offenses and make other mistakes.
A devotee is steady. He does not take a break from devotional service for variety’s sake, thinking, “When I return to devotional service, it will be fresh again.”
In 1976 because people with second initiation were leaving, Srila Prabhupada said that one must take the Bhakti-sastri course before accepting second initiation (brahmana initiation). We are just beginning to implement that now.
To tell a half-truth to protect a person from being hurt is not considered lying.
Suffering is a state of consciousness. It is a question of how one perceives a situation that makes it a cause of suffering.
According to Manu-samhita, a businessman is not supposed to make more than 25% profit.
The some of twelve qualities of a brahmana:
jnanam satyam ca damah srutam ca
hy amatsaryam hris titiksanasuya
yajnas ca danam ca dhrtih samas ca
maha-vrata dvadasa brahmanasya
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knowledgable
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truthful
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sense controlled
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has heard from authority
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without enemies
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modest
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tolerant
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performs yajnas (sacrifices)
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charitable
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steadiness
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peaceful
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celibate
Hridayananda Dasa Goswami [from a lecture given at the LA Prabhupada Festival]:
Srila Prabhupada would introduce himself as the founder-acarya of ISKCON.
In every venue and in every forum in which Prabhupada spoke, he quoted Lord Caitanya’s verse ordering everyone to become a guru. In discussing it he would regularly explain that become a guru was simple—one simply had to repeat what Krishna has said. He did not make a distinction between diksa [initiating] and siksa [instructing] gurus.
The greatest guru of all was Lord Caitanya, and he was a siksa guru and not a diksa guru.
Only to businessmen did Prabhupada suggest that they did not have to become diksa gurus immediately.
Prabhupada’s fear was not that we would become gurus but that we would not become gurus.
The good news is: In Srila Prabhupada’s most important role, as founder-acarya of ISKCON, Gaura-Nitai’s emissary, we all have equal access to him.
Krishna explains in Bhagavad-gita 18.68–69: “Those who explain this secret among the devoted, having rendered the highest service, will attain Me. No one is more dear to me, nor will there ever be one more dear.”
Everyone has to find what he can do in his life to spread this knowedge. That is Prabhupada’s desire.
I never saw Srila Prabhupada when he was doing anything other than trying to spread Krishna consciousness. Ever since he met his guru that was his focus.
“There cannot be a movement made up of people who are not individually moving.” We have to be advancing. We must do japa or kirtana each day in such a way that we are advancing. When have group of advancing people with increasing enthusiasm, you get unstoppable irresistible force which is Prabhupada’s Hare Krishna movement.
When we are inviting people to our temple, we are in effect telling them their life is not complete without taking up this practice.
If we are moving ourselves, and not stagnating, then we have the right to ask other people to move.
You can drive yourself crazy worrying about your own desires, or you can stop the nonsense and put Srila Prabhupada’s desires in the center of you life, and if you do that,
Prabhupada will empower you to convince others to do that.
[If you would like to hear the Hridayananda Maharaja lecture yourself, you can find it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlboYozGo5k&feature=em-share_video_user ]
from a letter to his disciple Ali Krishna Devi Dasi: “The quality of our lives cannot exceed the quality of our japa.”
Niranjana Swami:
from a lecture to Chowpatty brahmacaris:
If we are satisfied with the simplicity of Krishna consciousness, then we are very fortunate.
If we are satisfied with just what Srila Prabhupada gave us that is very good.
Real renunciation means attachment to these simple activities of Krishna consciousness.
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura said in the age of Kali, brahmacaris will remain brahmacaris because household life is too difficult. But that is not a reason to be a brahmacari. If you are meditating on the potential difficulties of household life, you will not be able to relish the simple activities of devotional service as a brahmacari and you will not be satisfied.
Prahladananda Swami:
The purport of all this literature is to convince us that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and then to understand that we are His eternal servants.
For Krishna to hold up Govardhan Hill for a week is not difficult. In Bhagavad-gita 15.13, Krishna says He enters each planet and keeps them in orbit.
Brahma-samhita describes how the sun moves in its orbit by the grace of Govinda.
In my college someone got a grant for $80,000 back in the 1960s to research why spiders build webs. They came to the conclusion that the purpose was to catch flies.
Any wild speculation can be considered in academia except the idea that behind everything is a supreme person.
No one has been able to create a machine that produces its own parts. Imagine a lawn mower that could take grass and produce blades!
Imagine if scientists could produce male Rolls Royces and female Rolls Royces that could get together and produce little Rolls Royces that grow up to become big ones?
If people are really trying to be scientific they should at least consider the possibility the there could be a supreme person beyond everything.
If you tell a big enough lie, long enough, people will accept it. This has happened in the case of materialistic science.
Srila Prabhupada would challenge people who say the universe came by chance, “What do you spend so much time studying? What not sit at home and by chance you might get a Ph.D.? Why work so many hours? What not sit at home and by chance you might get your paycheck?”
Krishna’s plan is to take everyone back to the spiritual kingdom, and our plan is to stay material world as long as possible.
Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami:
from Shack Notes:
“Srila Prabhupada sometimes spoke of his disciples as experiencing advanced states of Krishna consciousness by chanting and dancing and serving without fatigue or remuneration. ‘It is not material, it is not ordinary.’ He especially liked to inform audiences in India about ‘these American and European boys and girls’ who were fully absorbed in Krishna consciousness. We should not reject this estimation but live up to it.”
Govardhan Dasi [commenting on a lecture]:
In the class I was teaching at public school where I work, I asked students to do a poster for or against vegetarianism. Although the students were all meat eaters, all but two did pro-vegetarian posters.
Dayananda Swami:
Because Nrsimha Tirtha Prabhu [who is getting brahmana initiation] has the quality of humility, he has been able to take instruction and therefore progress quickly. I see he has taken a lot of responsibility in last couple of years.
Isana Gaura Prabhu:
If you are attracted to devotees, that means you are a devotee.
The four syllables Gauranga are exactly the same as “Hare Krishna.”
Lord Caitanya, having tasted the ecstasy of love of Krishna and seeing the people in general bereft of such ecstasy, felt the desire to share it with them.
Just chanting the Hare Krishna will give us liberation, and chanting with affection will give us love of God.
from a seminar on “Uddhava Gita”:
To absorb ourselves in Krishna we have to renounce material nature.
One has potency if he practices what he preaches.
Bharata, the son of Rsabha, was considered advanced because he rejected the material world.
The nine yogendras, masters of yoga, worked vigorously although already perfect. King Nimi asked each of the nine a different question.
The top of the universe is light and warm and the bottom is dark, cold, and wet.
The yaksas do not like to give out money so they are engaged in treasury work.
Sacrifices should be performed according to the direction of a brahmana. In the Hare Krishna movement that brahmana is Srila Prabhupada.
The fear is inside you. You do not realize it, but if someone entered this room with a gun, it would arise, just like that. Only by worshiping the Supreme Lord can you become free from this fear.
The heavenly beings can tone down their effulgence so it is not blinding.
So many instructions are there in Gita and in the Bhagavatam, and we have the personal examples of Lord Caitanya and His pure devotee, Srila Prabhupada. Our behavior is perfect if we follow these.
It is stated if one commits offenses he has no taste to chant and dance in kirtana.
Rama Nrsimha Prabhu [from a conversation]:
Like Parasurama says, “You can do your time [in prison] or you can do community service.” In the same way, instead of doing your karma, you can do devotional service.
Srinivasa Dasa:
Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityananda Prabhu came to destroy five kinds of ignorance:
1. identification with body
2. thinking sense pleasure is the standard of happiness
3. lamentation
4. identification with the material
5. to consider there is something beyond the Absolute Truth
—–
ataeva ami ajna dilun sabakare
yahan tahan prema-phala deha’ yare tare
[Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu said:] “Therefore I order every man within this universe to accept this Krishna consciousness movement and distribute it everywhere.” (Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Adi-lila 9.36)
Travel Journal#8.11: England
→ Travel Adventures of a Krishna Monk
Diary of a Traveling Sadhaka, Vol. 8, No. 11
By Krishna-kripa das
(June 2012, part one)
By Krishna-kripa das
(June 2012, part one)
England
(Sent from Sarcelles, France, on July 27, 2012)
(Sent from Sarcelles, France, on July 27, 2012)
What I Went and What I Did
The first weekend in June I attended the Birmingham Tweny-Four Hour Kirtana for the third straight year where Sacinandana Swami shared wonderful insights about kirtana. Afterward we continued doing harinama in Newcastle and other cities in The North of England, and we continued to see people taking an interest in the chanting. I went to Manchester for their monthly harinama and to give the lecture for the Sunday Feast. I also chanted in there in Piccadilly Gardens the next day. Fortunately two other devotees joined me. Then Sri Gadadhara Prabhu and I went to Leeds and Sheffield for the weekly nama-hatta programs, and we helped advertise them by doing harinama. Next we went with Dayananda Swami to Bhaktivedanta Manor for the UK Brahmacari Conference, with lectures by visiting swamis, many of which I have notes on. About thirty brahmacaris participated in the Borehamwood Ratha-yatra, the Manor’s entry in a local municipality’s parade where we won second place. Then some of my friends from Bhaktivedanta Manor went to Central London for the lively Saturday night harinama before the next day’s Ratha-yatra.
The insights are really great this issue. I especially like some from Srila Prabhupada himself, others by Prahladananda Swami on health, Candramauli Swami on cooperation in ashram life, and Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami on the glories of Srila Prabhupada.
Thanks to Lauris of BRR Films for all of the great pictures.
Birmingham Twenty-Four Hour Kirtana
Before the Birmingham Twenty-Four Hour Kirtana I attended the weekly Saturday harinama in Birmingham which was on New Street at a place so busy it reminded me of London. The devotees usually chant from 12:30 to 3:00 p.m., but were a little late setting it up. Many young people took pleasure in dancing with us. Several people stood and watched for awhile, and two or three devotees distributed many books to those in the crowd who were interested.
I foolishly left my harmonium on the city bus while traveling from the temple to the harinama. Bhakta Bob, a devotee who worked as a city bus driver tracked it down in the depot, and we went to pick it up after the Twenty-four Hour Kirtana. The men at the office joked that they would give it back to me, but only if I played a tune for them. So I got to play a Hare Krishna tune for the men in the bus company office!
At the Twenty-Four Hour Kirtana it was wonderful, as usual, to associate with so many devotees who have faith in the congregational chanting of the holy name of the Lord and to chant for twenty-four hours. It was very large crowd, and I could only find a little space near the wall to dance in. I usually take a nap for three hours in the middle and maybe another half an hour after a meal. When morning comes around, I chant my japa during the singing of the leader and then I chant the response, counting that as a mantra toward my japa quota, thus it takes me two and a half or three hours to chant my sixteen rounds instead of an hour and three-quarters, but I do not really miss too much of the kirtana that way. For next year, I hope they put a speaker near the prasadam queue and the room where the devotees take prasadam so we do not feel like we are missing out.
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| During the kirtana, there was an abhiseka (bathing ceremony) for the Birmingham deities of Lord Jagannatha, Lord Baladeva, and Lady Subhadra. |
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| Later, Jagannatha and Baladeva wore an elephant dress. |
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| Madhava Prabhu led many joyful meditative kirtanas. |
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| Janananda Goswami would encourage others by his example to dance with upraised arms. |
Here are some notes from speakers at the Birmingham Twenty-four Hour Kirtana:
Sacinandana Swami:
Use the body as a springboard to absorb yourself in Krishna consciousness with your mind.
The glorification of the Lord is first done externally and then within our heart. In this way it can be done twenty-four hours a day.
In the German language there are songs called “ear worms—songs that become so dear to you that they become embedded in your ears. The Hare Krishna mantra should become like that for us.
We should internalize the holy name so it becomes like our heartbeat or our breath.
On the platform of practice there is a struggle between our weaknesses and what we hope to attain.
Before Aindra Prabhu established the 24-hour kirtana in Vrindavan, I would participate in the night shift, from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. The karatala player fell asleep, the mrdanga player fell asleep. Even the guard fell asleep. I decided to stick with it, although I had four more hours to go.
Stay with the holy name until you realize there is someone listening and that someone is Krishna.
Sing for the ears of God and see how you are supplied with transcendental strength.
The names of God are not just names of God but God Himself.
One beggar would regularly insult the king. The king found out about it and disguised himself as another beggar. He came to the beggar, and said, “I heard you dislike the king.” “Yes,” said the beggar, “Not only do I dislike the king, but I want to kill the king.” The king disguised as a beggar said, “Oh, I happen to know a secret passage in the palace that goes right to the king’s throne.” The beggar was overjoyed. The king disguised as beggar showed the beggar a route so he passed so many saintly persons discussing the ultimate truth. The beggar decided, “No, evening is not a good time to kill the king, let us try morning.” In the morning, he saw arrangements by the king for giving charity and for the happiness of citizens. Thus he concluded that the king was not so bad after all. The king dressed as a beggar, showed him the secret path to the throne, and then excused himself while he put on his kingly robes and sat on the throne. When the beggar then saw the king was his friend, he apologized. The holy name is like that king. The holy name is always giving although we do not always appreciate.
The holy name is the bud of the flower of divine love. He is full of devotional tastes.
The mind is like this naughty child that will protest and run away.
You have ignored, neglected, and rejected, and the holy name still is desiring to benefit you.
Do not be absent-minded, be present-minded. Do not space out. Space in.
Remember I am not my body. I am not my mind. I am the soul within.
Chanting means to connect the heart with the deity who we praising.
By chanting, we are asking the Lord to accept us. So long we have turned away from Him, and now we want to turn back, and ask the Lord to accept us.
There is only so far you can go on your own strength. Krishna stands on the border and bring us further. He can capture you and pull you on.
O King of the country of love, I appeal to you for your affection. Somehow or other I am in adverse circumstances. Although I would like to I cannot find the ability to chant your holy name attentively. My soul will never be satisfied without Your companionship. Without your mercy, I cannot get beyond my imprisoned, restricted condition.
Sometimes with this prayer, Krishna will take us seriously and break down the wall.
I say this for two reasons. 1. As a reminder that Krishna wants us to give His mercy. 2. And to give us hope.
The formula to have a live-saving experience of kirtana:
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saintly association
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a peaceful place free from material influence
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a determined attitude
The chanting establishes the only relationship that is free from disappointment.
Some programs have more strength and others less strength, and this program of devotees chanting has great strength, and one of the strengths is the power to attract others, and thus this program [the Birmingham Twenty-four Hour Kirtana] has grown continuously since I have been coming to it. We outgrew this place, and some people had to stand outside in the rain last night while others returned to their hotel rooms and switched on their laptops to view it on the Internet. I suggest that we all make a commitment to each invite a new person, and then Krishna will see we are serious and will make an arrangement for a new place.
Kadamba Kanana Swami:
The Vaishnavas manifest the mercy of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. So much energy is released when they get together, and the hope is that Krishna will manifest Himself in that situation. Krishna manifests Himself according to the advancement of the devotee. And it is that experience that keeps us coming back for more. And that is the reason I came to this Birmingham 24-hour kirtana.
a Brijbasi guest to Birmingham 24-hour kirtana:
I was gone from Vrindavana three or four weeks, and the first hours of your kirtana here was the first time I wasn’t missing Vrndavana.
The sadhus are crying for Krishna for centuries, yet Krishna does not come. While the gopis are reprimanding Krishna for His rascaldom, saying they wish He would go away, yet He is away present with them. Why? Because the gopis chant the holy name of Krishna, the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.
Harinamas in the North of England
We would chant in Newcastle several days a week, and in small towns around Newcastle on other days. One day we went to Heaton, a small town where many students live.
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| Sri Gadadhara Prabhu tried to interest locals in the books of Srila Prabhupada. |
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| I led kirtana for some time, playing the harmonium, with Prema Sankirtan on the drum, and Vamana Prabhu on the cymbals. |
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| We had some friendly interactions with a few people. |
In Newcastle one college student from Kyrgyzstan loved hearing our chanting on harinama. One devotee said there were tears in her eyes. I suggested that the lady devotee on the party invite her to our special evening program with the visiting swamis that night, and thus the two of them left for the temple for the program which was soon starting. Although a Muslim, the college student felt at home with the chanting and the devotees and came to four evening programs in a row, as well as for lunch prasadam a couple times. Hopefully we shall she her again when she returns from her summer vacation in her native land.
Crazy Ken, who had met us on harinama about ten days before, joined us for another Wednesday program sporting a custom T-shirt he had made with the Hare Krishna maha-mantra on the front, and the phrase “Can you dig it?” underneath. I had not encountered such sixties slang in a while, and I think some younger people were unfamiliar with it. He was happy to get the maha-mantra hit single CD and few George Harrison songs that a devotee gave to him.
The harinama in Sheffield was especially memorable for several reasons. We encountered some street musicians who played along with us for some time and even began chanting Hare Krishna with us. Later a woman looking for directions came up to us, and it turned out she was looking for directions to our own evening program, not realizing it was we who were putting on. She was half an hour early, and so we invited her to join the harinama and she did. Usually we stop the harinama fifteen minutes before the program, but because I had not done my three hours of harinama that I day, I wanted to keep going for ten more minutes. An Indian man and his daughter heard the karatalas and found our kirtana party. They knew ISKCON from the Montreal Ratha-yatra. The girl was a student at Sheffield University and was happy to learn of the weekly program in that town. They came to that night to the program. While talking with them I learned they would be in London that weekend, and so I gave them an invitation to the London Ratha-yatra on Sunday, so they would have the chance to go.
Borehamwood Ratha-yatra
Midday on Saturday, June 16, Parasurama Prabhu, devotees from Bhaktivedanta Manor and Soho Street, as well as thirty brahmacaris from all over the United Kingdom, sang and danced for the pleasure of Lord Jagannath, Lord Baladeva, and Lady Subhadra in the Borehamwood Carnival, an annual parade in a community just five miles from the Manor. So many people were happy to see the kirtana of the devotees. Some smiled, some danced, some waved, and many took pictures and videos, including this one [the devotees participation starts around 1:44 minutes into the video]:
(If the embedded video above does not work, click this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vDbQ-DNRwQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=104s)
Devotees distributed books and invitations to the London Ratha-yatra. The brahmacaris by their enthusiasm and their numbers added a lot to the party. We did a harinama to the beginning of the parade, chanted in the parade for 45 minutes, and then did harinama back to the car, so lots of people got to connect with Krishna.
Insights
Srila Prabhupada:
from a lecture:
When people worship God with a motive, when they get what they want they may stop the worship and if they do not get what they want, they may become atheistic. Thus unmotivated devotion is superior.
Vedic culture is to train boys as brahmacaris to learn the purpose of life.
In the West I was surprised to see children 10 or 12 years old smoking. In India, I think that if they are less than 16 they are punished for smoking.
A computer is a wonderful machine, but still there must be some operator. Nature is a wonderful machine. Who is its operator? Scientists have no commonsense to see this.
Anyone who accepts the body as the self, has imperfect knowledge yet such people are posing as big, big professors. Therefore we are protesting because they are cheating the people.
The scientists are trying to create life but they have no knowledge that life is not created. Life is ever existing.
Comment: So the scientists are minutely analyzing the mirage and thus wasting their time.
They are wiping out Krishna, and your business is to establish Krishna. Prove that the background is Krishna. That will be the perfection of your education.
Candramauli Swami:
Love means to serve and to cooperate in order to serve. Without cooperation, it is just about me.
Srila Prabhupada would point out that the United Nations could not work as long as the individual nations were attached to their own self-interest.
I was with one yatra that was divided into two groups, each with a different way to serve Krishna. Prabhupada would say they are both right.
Material desires cause disunity.
Materialists when they try to unite on the material plane actually ending up creating more diversity.
Srila Prabhupada stressed that his followers could stay together by keeping his instructions in the center.
Living in an ashram is one of the greatest austerities in this age of Kali.
The basis of our spiritual life is good strong sadhana, and we should help each other to practice nicely.
The strength of a group can be seen by its weakest point not its strongest point. Therefore we all benefit by helping to bring up the weakest people to a higher level.
Devotees disagree but never fight.
My idea may be slightly better than your idea, but it is better for me to accept your idea than to fight for mine, unless your idea is completely off.
There is an analogy of two sons massaging father but quarreling among themselves and causing pain to the father.
Prabhupada asked a devotee he asked to find prasadam for guests, but the pujari who was in the middle of offering the food. The devotee took the food anyway, and the pujari became angry, not knowing Srila Prabhupada’s mind.
When maya sees someone is seriously practicing, she tests to see how serious he is. If he is very serious, he is not disturbed. If he is disturbed, soon he rectifies himself, and he goes on.
[Devotees often cite part of the letter Srila Prabhupada wrote to Atreya Rsi saying his criticism of devotees for quarreling was a manifestation of impersonalism but Candramauli Swami read the entire letter which was full of wisdom and valuable to hear.]
Q: It seems like we could get entangled in offending devotee who has a valid program for serving Krishna that differs from ours. How do we avoid this?
A: It is natural that disagreement is there. We do not criticize the people we disagree with but deal with the issue itself. In this way we can avoid Vaishnava aparadha.
To sacrifice for others is a feature of making advancement. You have to do that in a ashram.
Q: How to avoid conflicts?
A: Communicate with others.
If you are absorbed in Krishna by hearing and chanting, you can tolerate the small problems within the ashram.
Being proud of having philosophical knowledge, but not having proper behavior is a kind of false ego.
A leader has to be a visionary and create a team spirit.
One study showed leaders fail most often for not creating a team spirit among peers and subordinates, secondly, for not knowing what is expected of them, and thirdly, for not having the required skills.
The leader has to recognize unexpressed talents in others and figure out how to inspire them to engage those talents in Krishna’s service.
One article analyzed why Japanese businesses excelled American ones although having less facility. It was found the Japanese business people had better relationships and team spirit, and that made the difference. So it is also in Krishna consciousness.
Our advancement comes from serving others.
The Lord is never a debtor although he may appear to be.
The forest fire that Krishna swallowed was a demon who manifested in that way.
The reason that Krishna told the cowherd boys to close their eyes before He swallowed the forest fire was because previously Balarama had told Mother Yasoda that he had eaten dirt and
He was worried Balarama would now tell her that he had eaten fire.
At the 2004 World Parliament of Religions in the evenings there was a different program every night. One night was Hindu night. The Mayavadis spoke so much philosophy, telling stories, and captivating everyone’s mind.” Finally one of them said, “You can become the supreme enjoyer!” They and their followers were enlivened by this, but the devotees were disgusted. Bhakti Svarupa Damodara peacefully tolerated it all, and then spoke on the verse, “vasudeva para veda vasudeva para makha . . . ” Then we had kirtana and all the Mayavadi yogis left. They could not relate to the kirtana. Their followers, however, stayed. loved the kirtana and began to dance. Then we served prasadam.
We are simply meant for exchanging love with Krishna, and Krishna is simply meant for exchanging love with us.
Bhaktisiddhanta Saravati Thakura once said that Krishna is not your gardener, your stock broker, or your marriage counselor, He is the enjoyer of loving relationships with His devotees.
Lord Caitanya explains that through the congregational chanting of the holy name we can attain an ever increasing ocean of happiness.
Srila Prabhupada says that to think one is an incarnation of God is the last snare of maya.
Through service we can experience the presence of Krishna.
There are nine stages of prema.
To worship the Lord to get something material or to become the Lord are two illusions that have affected spiritualists since time immemorial.
Janananda Goswami:
Prabhupada says that if we keep ourselves in the consciousness of “I am the servant of the servant of the master of the gopis,” we will be always on the spiritual platform.
Prabhupada says that if we always chant Hare Krishna we will be in our svarupa, or constitutional position as servant of the Lord.
You can chant Hare Krishna anywhere, even in the toilet. The toilet is the perhaps the most important place to chant Krishna because it is so impure.
Before 1974 or so, book distribution would accompany the congregational chanting we would do in public. We would usually have two people distributing books and four people chanting, and we would take turns. There were no people who just did book distribution or just did chanting. The first day I went out, I was still a long-haired hippie, but I chanted and distributed books like the others. I distributed three Back to Godhead magazines, and I was the top distributor that day.
We are out there as representatives of Lord Caitanya and His associates to connect people with them. As jiva souls, living entities, we are meant to give pleasure to Krishna. That is the sankirtana movement. Sankirtana is really what pleases Krishna—complete glorification of Krishna, and so it really does include a variety of activities.
When I started the Newcastle Hare Krishna temple, I hitchhiked up here and stayed in a derelict’s house with a bum, not knowing where my next penny or next meal would come from.
Srila Prabhupada writes, “If there is one sincere soul, he can start a center.”
Srila Prabhupada writes, “If there is chanting going on, that will increase the book distribution.”
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura explained, “There is no other dharma than uttering the name of Krishna. . . . One who obstructs kirtana is the greatest atheist. There is no time to do mundane welfare work since the only dharma is Krishna kirtana.”
If we cannot directly do the sankirtana, we must assist it.
The prime symptom of love of God is that one wants the Lord’s name spread all over the world.
“Bless you” came from the time of bubonic plague because when the plague was happening, if you sneezed, that meant you had the plague and you would die.
In the early days of the Hare Krishna movement, we would have a bhajana class between 8:30 to 9:00 every night and always sing one or two bhajanas every day. The Vaishnavas gave us these songs to instruct us how to chant the holy name of Krishna properly.
There has to be some satisfaction in devotional service for us to proceed.
Usually chanting, dancing, and prasadam are attractive enough to everyone to stick with the process of devotional service.
When Vakresvara Pandit would dance, both the devotees and the demons were attracted.
Lord Caitanya said that Vakresvara Pandita was an embodiment of Krishna’s transcendental potency. When Krishna dances, so Vakresvara also dances.
The key which opens the door to chanting of the pure holy name and Krishna prema is the service of the Vaishnavas.
Lord Caitanya told Devananda Pandit, “You must use the same mouth that you used for blaspheme, to glorify the devotees and the Lord to become free from all offenses.”
It is not enough just to get the mercy of the Vaishnava you offended, but you have to admit your fault in public and to rectify it.
Prahladananda Swami:
Health is ephemeral. At the time of death practically no one has good health.
Our diet and medicine: Eat Krishna prasadam and chant Hare Krishna.
When through the holy name we experience happiness, we will not lament or hanker.
When we do not have a spirit of submission and surrender to the holy name, we will not
experience happiness in chanting.
We should listen and try to improve the chanting.
Krishna decides how much He will reveal to us.
We have faith that Krishna is present in the sound of his name
One time Srila Prabhupada was in car, and everyone in car began to fall asleep, even the person who was supposed to keep the driver awake, and the driver himself. Prabhupada started playing the karatalas and chanting Hare Krishna.
Just try to chant as nicely as possible and be receptive.
When we speak, we should hear ourselves and make sure we are speaking words that truthful, pleasing, beneficial, not agitating to others, and following the Vedic conclusions [Bg. 7.15].
Good mental health leads to good physical health.
Good health is valuable because then health is one less distraction to our Krishna consciousness.
A little bad health is not bad because we have to practice tolerance so we can be completely absorbed.
Krishna knows how fallen we are, but we do not know how fallen we are.
Brahmacari life means being satisfied with having nothing. If we are not satisfied with nothing, then we will end up having more.
If get married, we may be satisfied, but our wife may not be satisfied or our children may not be satisfied.
If we are not satisfied with chanting Hare Krishna, then we may engage in self-destructive habits that give us bad health. We may overendeavor, underendeavor, or make the wrong endeavor.
Q: How much should we drink?
A: Drink when you are thirsty. The problem is we do not realize when we are thirsty or hungry. If it looks good and it is not moving, we eat it, regardless of time of day or night.
Q: Sometimes the scream of the thoughts in our mind is so intense. What to do?
A: Still our business is to try to hear the chanting. Chant louder. If we are really sincere, maya will keep quiet. If we pay attention to maya, she will get louder and louder.
Q: How to surrender?
A: Follow the six items of saranagati. Absorb yourself in Krishna’s service and cultivate the feeling that because you are engaged in Krishna’s service, He will supply whatever you actually need.
We are not fasting from water or food. We are fasting from maya. Less attention on the body means more attention to Krishna.
Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami: from Calling Out to Srila Prabhupada:
“O Srila Prabhupada, whom we think of day and night;
“O Prabhupada, who came to America with Srimad-Bhagavatams as his only means, who sold volumes to bookstores in order to pay for groceries, and who thought in the beginning, ‘They will never accept this Hare Krishna mantra, but let me try;’
“O Prabhupada, who happily endured the austerities of New York winters on behalf of Lord Krishna; O master, who years later made thousands of disciples and had many houses to reside in but who said, ‘I was happier in the beginning in New York because I had no one to depend on but Krishna;’
“O Prabhupada, who favored New York City by opening his first ISKCON center there and by singing in Tompkins Square Park, who beat the one-headed drum hours at a time and sang strongly, who braved all the rudeness and strangeness just to deliver us from birth and death by giving us the holy names of Krishna;
“O Prabhupada, whose preaching was guided by Lord Krishna, whose preaching was to ‘go in like a needle and come out like a plow,’ whose preaching was pure and who stayed to do it, who fulfilled all the qualities of a saint, being tolerant, merciful, friendly to all and fixed in the Absolute Truth;
“O Prabhupada, who loved his disciples and nurtured them like a mother cares for her children, and who, like a father, imparted to his sons and daughters the gift of the courage to stand and fight;
“O Prabhupada, please live vibrantly in our thoughts and actions.
“O Srila Prabhupada, of whom I often think, ‘Where are you?’ O Prabhupada, who doesn’t belong as the exclusive property of any one disciple;
“O Prabhupada who is simultaneously giving thousands of instructions and yet is silent in Krishna meditation, please become more clear in my mind;
“O Prabhupada, of whom we say, ‘I wish you were present now to tell us what is right and wrong and what to do,’ and yet whom we fear to think of in that way because surely he would be angry with us and expose our cherished notions as foolish and disobedient;
“O Prabhupada, whom we sometimes prefer to worship at a distance, as is recommended in the
scriptures, but whose lotus feet we want to touch, whose hand we want to feel on our heads and backs;
“O Prabhupada, who is with us but also in another dimension, and of whom we think, ‘How can I reach you? When and where will we meet again?
“O Prabhupada, who is not just another link in the disciplic succession of gurus, but who is the founder-acarya of the Krishna consciousness movement, and who said, ‘None of these men could fulfill the desires of Bhaktivinoda Thakura in the matter of preaching in the foreign countries’;
“O Prabhupada, the remembrance of whom is like satori, whose moments are hundreds of haikus if we could only know them and see them rightly;
“O Prabhupada, who said, ‘Everything is all right,’ indicating that there was no need for anxiety because Krishna is the controller of everything, yet who also used to say, ‘What can be done?’ indicating that he wanted even more success for spreading Krishna consciousness, but obstacles remained in the way—this was also the will of providence.
“O Prabhupada, who didn’t speak of hidden, obscure meanings in the Vedas, who said it was very clear, and yet whose instructions may be looked at in new light, and whose sincere followers sometimes discover that they haven’t really understood what he meant even on basic issues;
“O Prabhupada, who is the source of all writings and teachings in the ISKCON sampradaya;
“O Prabhupada, who will always have true followers, and whose followers will keep up his standards in many places in the world;
“O Prabhupada, please keep us at your lotus feet; please keep us alive in your service.”
Bhagavat Asraya Prabhu:
Early in the Gita Krishna advises balance in eating, sleeping, work, and recreation. The proper amount of each is an individual thing. Margaret Thachter, former prime minister of Great Britain, would sleep at most five hours and felt fully refreshed.
If the world is too much with you, you will be too much with the world.
Once on a morning walk, Srila Prabhupada asked the devotees what was the most important thing in their lives. They offered suggestions like spiritual practice and spiritual service, but he said health was most important because without health you cannot do anything.
To help good health avoid exertion and suppressive medicines.
Srila Prabhupada explained to Govinda dasi that if you chant the mangalacarana prayers before anything, then that activity will be a success.
Comment by Radha, a Vaishnava youth: I always chant Mangalacarana before I take an exam.
We seek a teacher because we do not know. The qualification of a student is that he must know that he does not know.
Reading books to acquire knowledge has limitations. You cannot advertise yourself as a doctor because you read a few books on medicine.
Another qualification of the student is that he wants to know.
Wisdom is beyond mere knowledge and knowledge is beyond mere data. Wisdom could be considered a distillation of knowledge.
If you are unsuccessful and unhappy, you are going die. If you are successful and happy, you are still going to die. What then does it matter if you are successful and happy? It does no good to say to someone, “there is a terrible leak in your side of the boat,” because we are all going to sink.
Arjuna is experiencing anticipatory grief in the beginning of the Gita.
Verses 11 through 30 of chapter two of Bhagavad-gita,
Travel Journal#8.11: England
→ Travel Adventures of a Krishna Monk
Diary of a Traveling Sadhaka, Vol. 8, No. 11
By Krishna-kripa das
(June 2012, part one)
By Krishna-kripa das
(June 2012, part one)
England
(Sent from Sarcelles, France, on July 27, 2012)
(Sent from Sarcelles, France, on July 27, 2012)
What I Went and What I Did
The first weekend in June I attended the Birmingham Tweny-Four Hour Kirtana for the third straight year where Sacinandana Swami shared wonderful insights about kirtana. Afterward we continued doing harinama in Newcastle and other cities in The North of England, and we continued to see people taking an interest in the chanting. I went to Manchester for their monthly harinama and to give the lecture for the Sunday Feast. I also chanted in there in Piccadilly Gardens the next day. Fortunately two other devotees joined me. Then Sri Gadadhara Prabhu and I went to Leeds and Sheffield for the weekly nama-hatta programs, and we helped advertise them by doing harinama. Next we went with Dayananda Swami to Bhaktivedanta Manor for the UK Brahmacari Conference, with lectures by visiting swamis, many of which I have notes on. About thirty brahmacaris participated in the Borehamwood Ratha-yatra, the Manor’s entry in a local municipality’s parade where we won second place. Then some of my friends from Bhaktivedanta Manor went to Central London for the lively Saturday night harinama before the next day’s Ratha-yatra.
The insights are really great this issue. I especially like some from Srila Prabhupada himself, others by Prahladananda Swami on health, Candramauli Swami on cooperation in ashram life, and Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami on the glories of Srila Prabhupada.
Thanks to Lauris of BRR Films for all of the great pictures.
Birmingham Twenty-Four Hour Kirtana
Before the Birmingham Twenty-Four Hour Kirtana I attended the weekly Saturday harinama in Birmingham which was on New Street at a place so busy it reminded me of London. The devotees usually chant from 12:30 to 3:00 p.m., but were a little late setting it up. Many young people took pleasure in dancing with us. Several people stood and watched for awhile, and two or three devotees distributed many books to those in the crowd who were interested.
I foolishly left my harmonium on the city bus while traveling from the temple to the harinama. Bhakta Bob, a devotee who worked as a city bus driver tracked it down in the depot, and we went to pick it up after the Twenty-four Hour Kirtana. The men at the office joked that they would give it back to me, but only if I played a tune for them. So I got to play a Hare Krishna tune for the men in the bus company office!
At the Twenty-Four Hour Kirtana it was wonderful, as usual, to associate with so many devotees who have faith in the congregational chanting of the holy name of the Lord and to chant for twenty-four hours. It was very large crowd, and I could only find a little space near the wall to dance in. I usually take a nap for three hours in the middle and maybe another half an hour after a meal. When morning comes around, I chant my japa during the singing of the leader and then I chant the response, counting that as a mantra toward my japa quota, thus it takes me two and a half or three hours to chant my sixteen rounds instead of an hour and three-quarters, but I do not really miss too much of the kirtana that way. For next year, I hope they put a speaker near the prasadam queue and the room where the devotees take prasadam so we do not feel like we are missing out.
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| During the kirtana, there was an abhiseka (bathing ceremony) for the Birmingham deities of Lord Jagannatha, Lord Baladeva, and Lady Subhadra. |
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| Later, Jagannatha and Baladeva wore an elephant dress. |
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| Madhava Prabhu led many joyful meditative kirtanas. |
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| Janananda Goswami would encourage others by his example to dance with upraised arms. |
Here are some notes from speakers at the Birmingham Twenty-four Hour Kirtana:
Sacinandana Swami:
Use the body as a springboard to absorb yourself in Krishna consciousness with your mind.
The glorification of the Lord is first done externally and then within our heart. In this way it can be done twenty-four hours a day.
In the German language there are songs called “ear worms—songs that become so dear to you that they become embedded in your ears. The Hare Krishna mantra should become like that for us.
We should internalize the holy name so it becomes like our heartbeat or our breath.
On the platform of practice there is a struggle between our weaknesses and what we hope to attain.
Before Aindra Prabhu established the 24-hour kirtana in Vrindavan, I would participate in the night shift, from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. The karatala player fell asleep, the mrdanga player fell asleep. Even the guard fell asleep. I decided to stick with it, although I had four more hours to go.
Stay with the holy name until you realize there is someone listening and that someone is Krishna.
Sing for the ears of God and see how you are supplied with transcendental strength.
The names of God are not just names of God but God Himself.
One beggar would regularly insult the king. The king found out about it and disguised himself as another beggar. He came to the beggar, and said, “I heard you dislike the king.” “Yes,” said the beggar, “Not only do I dislike the king, but I want to kill the king.” The king disguised as a beggar said, “Oh, I happen to know a secret passage in the palace that goes right to the king’s throne.” The beggar was overjoyed. The king disguised as beggar showed the beggar a route so he passed so many saintly persons discussing the ultimate truth. The beggar decided, “No, evening is not a good time to kill the king, let us try morning.” In the morning, he saw arrangements by the king for giving charity and for the happiness of citizens. Thus he concluded that the king was not so bad after all. The king dressed as a beggar, showed him the secret path to the throne, and then excused himself while he put on his kingly robes and sat on the throne. When the beggar then saw the king was his friend, he apologized. The holy name is like that king. The holy name is always giving although we do not always appreciate.
The holy name is the bud of the flower of divine love. He is full of devotional tastes.
The mind is like this naughty child that will protest and run away.
You have ignored, neglected, and rejected, and the holy name still is desiring to benefit you.
Do not be absent-minded, be present-minded. Do not space out. Space in.
Remember I am not my body. I am not my mind. I am the soul within.
Chanting means to connect the heart with the deity who we praising.
By chanting, we are asking the Lord to accept us. So long we have turned away from Him, and now we want to turn back, and ask the Lord to accept us.
There is only so far you can go on your own strength. Krishna stands on the border and bring us further. He can capture you and pull you on.
O King of the country of love, I appeal to you for your affection. Somehow or other I am in adverse circumstances. Although I would like to I cannot find the ability to chant your holy name attentively. My soul will never be satisfied without Your companionship. Without your mercy, I cannot get beyond my imprisoned, restricted condition.
Sometimes with this prayer, Krishna will take us seriously and break down the wall.
I say this for two reasons. 1. As a reminder that Krishna wants us to give His mercy. 2. And to give us hope.
The formula to have a live-saving experience of kirtana:
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saintly association
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a peaceful place free from material influence
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a determined attitude
The chanting establishes the only relationship that is free from disappointment.
Some programs have more strength and others less strength, and this program of devotees chanting has great strength, and one of the strengths is the power to attract others, and thus this program [the Birmingham Twenty-four Hour Kirtana] has grown continuously since I have been coming to it. We outgrew this place, and some people had to stand outside in the rain last night while others returned to their hotel rooms and switched on their laptops to view it on the Internet. I suggest that we all make a commitment to each invite a new person, and then Krishna will see we are serious and will make an arrangement for a new place.
Kadamba Kanana Swami:
The Vaishnavas manifest the mercy of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. So much energy is released when they get together, and the hope is that Krishna will manifest Himself in that situation. Krishna manifests Himself according to the advancement of the devotee. And it is that experience that keeps us coming back for more. And that is the reason I came to this Birmingham 24-hour kirtana.
a Brijbasi guest to Birmingham 24-hour kirtana:
I was gone from Vrindavana three or four weeks, and the first hours of your kirtana here was the first time I wasn’t missing Vrndavana.
The sadhus are crying for Krishna for centuries, yet Krishna does not come. While the gopis are reprimanding Krishna for His rascaldom, saying they wish He would go away, yet He is away present with them. Why? Because the gopis chant the holy name of Krishna, the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.
Harinamas in the North of England
We would chant in Newcastle several days a week, and in small towns around Newcastle on other days. One day we went to Heaton, a small town where many students live.
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| Sri Gadadhara Prabhu tried to interest locals in the books of Srila Prabhupada. |
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| I led kirtana for some time, playing the harmonium, with Prema Sankirtan on the drum, and Vamana Prabhu on the cymbals. |
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| We had some friendly interactions with a few people. |
In Newcastle one college student from Kyrgyzstan loved hearing our chanting on harinama. One devotee said there were tears in her eyes. I suggested that the lady devotee on the party invite her to our special evening program with the visiting swamis that night, and thus the two of them left for the temple for the program which was soon starting. Although a Muslim, the college student felt at home with the chanting and the devotees and came to four evening programs in a row, as well as for lunch prasadam a couple times. Hopefully we shall she her again when she returns from her summer vacation in her native land.
Crazy Ken, who had met us on harinama about ten days before, joined us for another Wednesday program sporting a custom T-shirt he had made with the Hare Krishna maha-mantra on the front, and the phrase “Can you dig it?” underneath. I had not encountered such sixties slang in a while, and I think some younger people were unfamiliar with it. He was happy to get the maha-mantra hit single CD and few George Harrison songs that a devotee gave to him.
The harinama in Sheffield was especially memorable for several reasons. We encountered some street musicians who played along with us for some time and even began chanting Hare Krishna with us. Later a woman looking for directions came up to us, and it turned out she was looking for directions to our own evening program, not realizing it was we who were putting on. She was half an hour early, and so we invited her to join the harinama and she did. Usually we stop the harinama fifteen minutes before the program, but because I had not done my three hours of harinama that I day, I wanted to keep going for ten more minutes. An Indian man and his daughter heard the karatalas and found our kirtana party. They knew ISKCON from the Montreal Ratha-yatra. The girl was a student at Sheffield University and was happy to learn of the weekly program in that town. They came to that night to the program. While talking with them I learned they would be in London that weekend, and so I gave them an invitation to the London Ratha-yatra on Sunday, so they would have the chance to go.
Borehamwood Ratha-yatra
Midday on Saturday, June 16, Parasurama Prabhu, devotees from Bhaktivedanta Manor and Soho Street, as well as thirty brahmacaris from all over the United Kingdom, sang and danced for the pleasure of Lord Jagannath, Lord Baladeva, and Lady Subhadra in the Borehamwood Carnival, an annual parade in a community just five miles from the Manor. So many people were happy to see the kirtana of the devotees. Some smiled, some danced, some waved, and many took pictures and videos, including this one [the devotees participation starts around 1:44 minutes into the video]:
(If the embedded video above does not work, click this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vDbQ-DNRwQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=104s)
Devotees distributed books and invitations to the London Ratha-yatra. The brahmacaris by their enthusiasm and their numbers added a lot to the party. We did a harinama to the beginning of the parade, chanted in the parade for 45 minutes, and then did harinama back to the car, so lots of people got to connect with Krishna.
Insights
Srila Prabhupada:
from a lecture:
When people worship God with a motive, when they get what they want they may stop the worship and if they do not get what they want, they may become atheistic. Thus unmotivated devotion is superior.
Vedic culture is to train boys as brahmacaris to learn the purpose of life.
In the West I was surprised to see children 10 or 12 years old smoking. In India, I think that if they are less than 16 they are punished for smoking.
A computer is a wonderful machine, but still there must be some operator. Nature is a wonderful machine. Who is its operator? Scientists have no commonsense to see this.
Anyone who accepts the body as the self, has imperfect knowledge yet such people are posing as big, big professors. Therefore we are protesting because they are cheating the people.
The scientists are trying to create life but they have no knowledge that life is not created. Life is ever existing.
Comment: So the scientists are minutely analyzing the mirage and thus wasting their time.
They are wiping out Krishna, and your business is to establish Krishna. Prove that the background is Krishna. That will be the perfection of your education.
Candramauli Swami:
Love means to serve and to cooperate in order to serve. Without cooperation, it is just about me.
Srila Prabhupada would point out that the United Nations could not work as long as the individual nations were attached to their own self-interest.
I was with one yatra that was divided into two groups, each with a different way to serve Krishna. Prabhupada would say they are both right.
Material desires cause disunity.
Materialists when they try to unite on the material plane actually ending up creating more diversity.
Srila Prabhupada stressed that his followers could stay together by keeping his instructions in the center.
Living in an ashram is one of the greatest austerities in this age of Kali.
The basis of our spiritual life is good strong sadhana, and we should help each other to practice nicely.
The strength of a group can be seen by its weakest point not its strongest point. Therefore we all benefit by helping to bring up the weakest people to a higher level.
Devotees disagree but never fight.
My idea may be slightly better than your idea, but it is better for me to accept your idea than to fight for mine, unless your idea is completely off.
There is an analogy of two sons massaging father but quarreling among themselves and causing pain to the father.
Prabhupada asked a devotee he asked to find prasadam for guests, but the pujari who was in the middle of offering the food. The devotee took the food anyway, and the pujari became angry, not knowing Srila Prabhupada’s mind.
When maya sees someone is seriously practicing, she tests to see how serious he is. If he is very serious, he is not disturbed. If he is disturbed, soon he rectifies himself, and he goes on.
[Devotees often cite part of the letter Srila Prabhupada wrote to Atreya Rsi saying his criticism of devotees for quarreling was a manifestation of impersonalism but Candramauli Swami read the entire letter which was full of wisdom and valuable to hear.]
Q: It seems like we could get entangled in offending devotee who has a valid program for serving Krishna that differs from ours. How do we avoid this?
A: It is natural that disagreement is there. We do not criticize the people we disagree with but deal with the issue itself. In this way we can avoid Vaishnava aparadha.
To sacrifice for others is a feature of making advancement. You have to do that in a ashram.
Q: How to avoid conflicts?
A: Communicate with others.
If you are absorbed in Krishna by hearing and chanting, you can tolerate the small problems within the ashram.
Being proud of having philosophical knowledge, but not having proper behavior is a kind of false ego.
A leader has to be a visionary and create a team spirit.
One study showed leaders fail most often for not creating a team spirit among peers and subordinates, secondly, for not knowing what is expected of them, and thirdly, for not having the required skills.
The leader has to recognize unexpressed talents in others and figure out how to inspire them to engage those talents in Krishna’s service.
One article analyzed why Japanese businesses excelled American ones although having less facility. It was found the Japanese business people had better relationships and team spirit, and that made the difference. So it is also in Krishna consciousness.
Our advancement comes from serving others.
The Lord is never a debtor although he may appear to be.
The forest fire that Krishna swallowed was a demon who manifested in that way.
The reason that Krishna told the cowherd boys to close their eyes before He swallowed the forest fire was because previously Balarama had told Mother Yasoda that he had eaten dirt and
He was worried Balarama would now tell her that he had eaten fire.
At the 2004 World Parliament of Religions in the evenings there was a different program every night. One night was Hindu night. The Mayavadis spoke so much philosophy, telling stories, and captivating everyone’s mind.” Finally one of them said, “You can become the supreme enjoyer!” They and their followers were enlivened by this, but the devotees were disgusted. Bhakti Svarupa Damodara peacefully tolerated it all, and then spoke on the verse, “vasudeva para veda vasudeva para makha . . . ” Then we had kirtana and all the Mayavadi yogis left. They could not relate to the kirtana. Their followers, however, stayed. loved the kirtana and began to dance. Then we served prasadam.
We are simply meant for exchanging love with Krishna, and Krishna is simply meant for exchanging love with us.
Bhaktisiddhanta Saravati Thakura once said that Krishna is not your gardener, your stock broker, or your marriage counselor, He is the enjoyer of loving relationships with His devotees.
Lord Caitanya explains that through the congregational chanting of the holy name we can attain an ever increasing ocean of happiness.
Srila Prabhupada says that to think one is an incarnation of God is the last snare of maya.
Through service we can experience the presence of Krishna.
There are nine stages of prema.
To worship the Lord to get something material or to become the Lord are two illusions that have affected spiritualists since time immemorial.
Janananda Goswami:
Prabhupada says that if we keep ourselves in the consciousness of “I am the servant of the servant of the master of the gopis,” we will be always on the spiritual platform.
Prabhupada says that if we always chant Hare Krishna we will be in our svarupa, or constitutional position as servant of the Lord.
You can chant Hare Krishna anywhere, even in the toilet. The toilet is the perhaps the most important place to chant Krishna because it is so impure.
Before 1974 or so, book distribution would accompany the congregational chanting we would do in public. We would usually have two people distributing books and four people chanting, and we would take turns. There were no people who just did book distribution or just did chanting. The first day I went out, I was still a long-haired hippie, but I chanted and distributed books like the others. I distributed three Back to Godhead magazines, and I was the top distributor that day.
We are out there as representatives of Lord Caitanya and His associates to connect people with them. As jiva souls, living entities, we are meant to give pleasure to Krishna. That is the sankirtana movement. Sankirtana is really what pleases Krishna—complete glorification of Krishna, and so it really does include a variety of activities.
When I started the Newcastle Hare Krishna temple, I hitchhiked up here and stayed in a derelict’s house with a bum, not knowing where my next penny or next meal would come from.
Srila Prabhupada writes, “If there is one sincere soul, he can start a center.”
Srila Prabhupada writes, “If there is chanting going on, that will increase the book distribution.”
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura explained, “There is no other dharma than uttering the name of Krishna. . . . One who obstructs kirtana is the greatest atheist. There is no time to do mundane welfare work since the only dharma is Krishna kirtana.”
If we cannot directly do the sankirtana, we must assist it.
The prime symptom of love of God is that one wants the Lord’s name spread all over the world.
“Bless you” came from the time of bubonic plague because when the plague was happening, if you sneezed, that meant you had the plague and you would die.
In the early days of the Hare Krishna movement, we would have a bhajana class between 8:30 to 9:00 every night and always sing one or two bhajanas every day. The Vaishnavas gave us these songs to instruct us how to chant the holy name of Krishna properly.
There has to be some satisfaction in devotional service for us to proceed.
Usually chanting, dancing, and prasadam are attractive enough to everyone to stick with the process of devotional service.
When Vakresvara Pandit would dance, both the devotees and the demons were attracted.
Lord Caitanya said that Vakresvara Pandita was an embodiment of Krishna’s transcendental potency. When Krishna dances, so Vakresvara also dances.
The key which opens the door to chanting of the pure holy name and Krishna prema is the service of the Vaishnavas.
Lord Caitanya told Devananda Pandit, “You must use the same mouth that you used for blaspheme, to glorify the devotees and the Lord to become free from all offenses.”
It is not enough just to get the mercy of the Vaishnava you offended, but you have to admit your fault in public and to rectify it.
Prahladananda Swami:
Health is ephemeral. At the time of death practically no one has good health.
Our diet and medicine: Eat Krishna prasadam and chant Hare Krishna.
When through the holy name we experience happiness, we will not lament or hanker.
When we do not have a spirit of submission and surrender to the holy name, we will not
experience happiness in chanting.
We should listen and try to improve the chanting.
Krishna decides how much He will reveal to us.
We have faith that Krishna is present in the sound of his name
One time Srila Prabhupada was in car, and everyone in car began to fall asleep, even the person who was supposed to keep the driver awake, and the driver himself. Prabhupada started playing the karatalas and chanting Hare Krishna.
Just try to chant as nicely as possible and be receptive.
When we speak, we should hear ourselves and make sure we are speaking words that truthful, pleasing, beneficial, not agitating to others, and following the Vedic conclusions [Bg. 7.15].
Good mental health leads to good physical health.
Good health is valuable because then health is one less distraction to our Krishna consciousness.
A little bad health is not bad because we have to practice tolerance so we can be completely absorbed.
Krishna knows how fallen we are, but we do not know how fallen we are.
Brahmacari life means being satisfied with having nothing. If we are not satisfied with nothing, then we will end up having more.
If get married, we may be satisfied, but our wife may not be satisfied or our children may not be satisfied.
If we are not satisfied with chanting Hare Krishna, then we may engage in self-destructive habits that give us bad health. We may overendeavor, underendeavor, or make the wrong endeavor.
Q: How much should we drink?
A: Drink when you are thirsty. The problem is we do not realize when we are thirsty or hungry. If it looks good and it is not moving, we eat it, regardless of time of day or night.
Q: Sometimes the scream of the thoughts in our mind is so intense. What to do?
A: Still our business is to try to hear the chanting. Chant louder. If we are really sincere, maya will keep quiet. If we pay attention to maya, she will get louder and louder.
Q: How to surrender?
A: Follow the six items of saranagati. Absorb yourself in Krishna’s service and cultivate the feeling that because you are engaged in Krishna’s service, He will supply whatever you actually need.
We are not fasting from water or food. We are fasting from maya. Less attention on the body means more attention to Krishna.
Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami: from Calling Out to Srila Prabhupada:
“O Srila Prabhupada, whom we think of day and night;
“O Prabhupada, who came to America with Srimad-Bhagavatams as his only means, who sold volumes to bookstores in order to pay for groceries, and who thought in the beginning, ‘They will never accept this Hare Krishna mantra, but let me try;’
“O Prabhupada, who happily endured the austerities of New York winters on behalf of Lord Krishna; O master, who years later made thousands of disciples and had many houses to reside in but who said, ‘I was happier in the beginning in New York because I had no one to depend on but Krishna;’
“O Prabhupada, who favored New York City by opening his first ISKCON center there and by singing in Tompkins Square Park, who beat the one-headed drum hours at a time and sang strongly, who braved all the rudeness and strangeness just to deliver us from birth and death by giving us the holy names of Krishna;
“O Prabhupada, whose preaching was guided by Lord Krishna, whose preaching was to ‘go in like a needle and come out like a plow,’ whose preaching was pure and who stayed to do it, who fulfilled all the qualities of a saint, being tolerant, merciful, friendly to all and fixed in the Absolute Truth;
“O Prabhupada, who loved his disciples and nurtured them like a mother cares for her children, and who, like a father, imparted to his sons and daughters the gift of the courage to stand and fight;
“O Prabhupada, please live vibrantly in our thoughts and actions.
“O Srila Prabhupada, of whom I often think, ‘Where are you?’ O Prabhupada, who doesn’t belong as the exclusive property of any one disciple;
“O Prabhupada who is simultaneously giving thousands of instructions and yet is silent in Krishna meditation, please become more clear in my mind;
“O Prabhupada, of whom we say, ‘I wish you were present now to tell us what is right and wrong and what to do,’ and yet whom we fear to think of in that way because surely he would be angry with us and expose our cherished notions as foolish and disobedient;
“O Prabhupada, whom we sometimes prefer to worship at a distance, as is recommended in the
scriptures, but whose lotus feet we want to touch, whose hand we want to feel on our heads and backs;
“O Prabhupada, who is with us but also in another dimension, and of whom we think, ‘How can I reach you? When and where will we meet again?
“O Prabhupada, who is not just another link in the disciplic succession of gurus, but who is the founder-acarya of the Krishna consciousness movement, and who said, ‘None of these men could fulfill the desires of Bhaktivinoda Thakura in the matter of preaching in the foreign countries’;
“O Prabhupada, the remembrance of whom is like satori, whose moments are hundreds of haikus if we could only know them and see them rightly;
“O Prabhupada, who said, ‘Everything is all right,’ indicating that there was no need for anxiety because Krishna is the controller of everything, yet who also used to say, ‘What can be done?’ indicating that he wanted even more success for spreading Krishna consciousness, but obstacles remained in the way—this was also the will of providence.
“O Prabhupada, who didn’t speak of hidden, obscure meanings in the Vedas, who said it was very clear, and yet whose instructions may be looked at in new light, and whose sincere followers sometimes discover that they haven’t really understood what he meant even on basic issues;
“O Prabhupada, who is the source of all writings and teachings in the ISKCON sampradaya;
“O Prabhupada, who will always have true followers, and whose followers will keep up his standards in many places in the world;
“O Prabhupada, please keep us at your lotus feet; please keep us alive in your service.”
Bhagavat Asraya Prabhu:
Early in the Gita Krishna advises balance in eating, sleeping, work, and recreation. The proper amount of each is an individual thing. Margaret Thachter, former prime minister of Great Britain, would sleep at most five hours and felt fully refreshed.
If the world is too much with you, you will be too much with the world.
Once on a morning walk, Srila Prabhupada asked the devotees what was the most important thing in their lives. They offered suggestions like spiritual practice and spiritual service, but he said health was most important because without health you cannot do anything.
To help good health avoid exertion and suppressive medicines.
Srila Prabhupada explained to Govinda dasi that if you chant the mangalacarana prayers before anything, then that activity will be a success.
Comment by Radha, a Vaishnava youth: I always chant Mangalacarana before I take an exam.
We seek a teacher because we do not know. The qualification of a student is that he must know that he does not know.
Reading books to acquire knowledge has limitations. You cannot advertise yourself as a doctor because you read a few books on medicine.
Another qualification of the student is that he wants to know.
Wisdom is beyond mere knowledge and knowledge is beyond mere data. Wisdom could be considered a distillation of knowledge.
If you are unsuccessful and unhappy, you are going die. If you are successful and happy, you are still going to die. What then does it matter if you are successful and happy? It does no good to say to someone, “there is a terrible leak in your side of the boat,” because we are all going to sink.
Arjuna is experiencing anticipatory grief in the beginning of the Gita.
Verses 11 through 30 of chapter two of Bhagavad-gita, the analytical study of the soul, is like a chapter within a chapter.