Samadhi, A Kirtan Band of Seven – IndieGoGo
→ ISKCON News

In a dimly lit room, a sweet jazzy chord rings off the strings of a guitar, quickly progressing into a swaying rhythm. A drum pulses in followed by a familiar and warm harmonium. Anchoring both rhythm and melody, an electric bass booms and then a deep, soulful voice starts the invocation, “Nama Om Vishnu Padaya.” In this way, Samadhi ignites another evening of electrifying kirtan. To help Samadhi make the bands debut CD click here: http://igg.me/Samadhi

What Kind of a Lover Are You?
→ ISKCON News

People are hungry to fill the hole in their hearts. Honest individuals will recognise they are dying for want of real love. We want others to see our sacrfice, we crave to be appreciated, we desire others to make us feel wanted and hope that others will be concerned for our happiness.

Srila Prabhupada’s Brahmananda Dasa
Giriraj Swami

SJI-Swamiji-Book-01Upon awaking this morning, my heart was flooded with emotion in appreciation of Srila Prabhupada and his divine gifts to us, and I knew it was Brahmananda Prabhu’s mercy. Any association with Brahmananda Prabhu—whether by vani or vapuh—had that effect: it enhanced my loving feelings for Srila Prabhupada.

While hearing Sri Caitanya-bhagavata this morning, I was struck by a verse that seemed to perfectly describe Brahmananda Prabhu. “Visnu and the Vaisnavas are equal, but atheists and blasphemers think otherwise. One who worships the lotus feet of Krsna without discriminating . . . is delivered.” Brahmananda Prabhu had the firm conviction that the worship and service of Srila Prabhupada was equal to—if not more pleasing than—that of the Supreme Lord. And he was surely delivered by Srila Prabhupada’s grace.

Then I heard a prayer, offered to Lord Caitanya, that seemed to reflect Brahmananda Prabhu’s mood in relation to Srila Prabhupada—and the mood for which I aspire. “Birth after birth, You are our father, mother, son, and master. May we never forget Your lotus feet. O Lord, it does not matter where we take birth, but may we always have loving devotion for Your lotus feet.”

To mitigate my feelings of separation from Brahmananda Prabhu and to share remembrances and realizations about him, I will join the memorial program for him in New Dvaraka, Los Angeles, tomorrow, Saturday, from 3 to 7:30 p.m.—and then honor the feast in his memory.

Brahmananda Prabhu, please think kindly upon us and keep us close to your lotus feet, that we may engage in everlasting service to our eternal lord and master in the association of all his beloved servants.

Hare Krishna! Awaking to Thoughts of Brahmananda Prabhu Giriraj…
→ Dandavats.com



Hare Krishna! Awaking to Thoughts of Brahmananda Prabhu
Giriraj Swami: Then I heard a prayer, offered to Lord Caitanya, that seemed to reflect Brahmananda Prabhu’s mood in relation to Srila Prabhupada—and the mood for which I aspire. “Birth after birth, You are our father, mother, son, and master. May we never forget Your lotus feet. O Lord, it does not matter where we take birth, but may we always have loving devotion for Your lotus feet.” Brahmananda Prabhu, please think kindly upon us and keep us close to your lotus feet, that we may engage in everlasting service to our eternal lord and master in the association of all his beloved servants.
Read the entire article here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=17869

Sydney, May 2015
→ KKSBlog

During his recent visit to Australia, Kadamba Kanana Swami spent some days in Sydney after visiting Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane. Here are recordings from the various programs that he did.

Audio – Sydney

KKS_AUS_SYD_27 May 2015_Lecture_SB_7.10.23

KKS_AUS_SYD_26 May 2015_Evening Lecture_CC

KKS_AUS_GovindaValley_25 May 2015_ Initiation_Bhajan

KKS_AUS_GovindaValley_25 May 2015_ Initiation_Lecture

KKS_AUS_SYD_24 May 2015_Sunday Feast_Lecture_BG_ 7.20

KKS_AUS_Cronulla_23May 2015_Heart_and_Soul_Yoga_Kirtan

KKS_AUS_Cronulla_23 May2015_Lecture_SB_1.8.35

KKS_AUS_Cronulla_22 May 2015_UNSW_Kirtan

KKS_AUS_Cronulla_22 May 2015_Govindas Ashrama_Kirtan

KKS_AUS_Cronulla_22 May 2015_Govindas Ashrama_Intro_to_Kirtan

 

Audio – Canberra and Melbourne

KKS_AUS_Canberra_21 May 2015_Lecture_SB_4.14.45

KKS_AUS_Canberra_20 May 2015_Kirtan

KKS_AUS_MEL_19 May 2015_Bhakti Vrksha_Program_Part2

KKS_AUS_MEL_19 May 2015_Bhakti Vrksha_Program_Part1

KKS_AUS_MEL_19 May 2015_Lecture_SB_3.10.3

KKS_AUS_MEL_17 May 2015_40th Anniversary_Gaura Nitai_Abhishek_Kirtan

 

Govardhana Meditations There’s not a more charming or…
→ Dandavats.com



Govardhana Meditations
There’s not a more charming or mysterious place in the universe than Govardhana Hill in Vraja Mandala, some ninety miles south of Delhi. While present on earth Krishna lifted Govardhana Hill and held it for seven days to protect the residents of Vrindavan. He also revealed that Govardhana is identical to Himself. Now, fifty centuries later, millions of pilgrims come here to perform parikrama—a reverential walk around the hill—during the holy month of Karttika.
Read the entire article here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=17856

ISKCON Europe Communications Seminar, Radhadesh, Belgium
→ ISKCON News

It was the first time Anti-Cult members have visited an ISKCON temple and did a presentation. It was held during Radhadesh’s hosting of the ISKCON Europe Communications conference. ISKCON is no stranger to the organisation. Over the years Anuttama Das, ISKCON Global Communications Director, has built a relationship with the organisation by attending conferences and speaking openly about ISKCON’s issues.

Srimad Bhagavatam, The Postgraduate study of the science of…
→ Dandavats.com



Srimad Bhagavatam, The Postgraduate study of the science of Godhead
NBS # 14 Features: 1) Catuh-Shloki-Bhagavata His Divine Grace A .C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada 2) Means To Achieve Unflinching Faith Srila Sukadev Goswami 3) Listening Harikatha Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur 4) The Ten Basic Principles Srila Bhakti Vinode Thakur 5) The Ten Topics of Bhagavatam Srila Jiva Goswami
Read the entire article here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=17853

2015 Gita Essay Competition- Open to everyoneWe are running the…
→ Dandavats.com



2015 Gita Essay Competition- Open to everyoneWe are running the ‘Bhagavad Gita As It Is’ Essay Competition for the second year running.
This year it is open for everyone globally to enter the competition.
There are over A$10,000 in prizes over 3 categories.
A devotee living near the New Govardhana farm in Northern New South Wales, Australia, Padma devi dasi, won the $10,000 prize last year (see picture).
Bhakti Charu Swami gave a speech on the Gita, at the award night presentation in Sydney.
Please tell everyone in your congregation about the Essay Competition and that it is open to everyone. It can be used as an outreach preaching tool, especially Youth Outreach.
Read the entire article here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=17850

Hare Krishna! Giving and Accepting Shelter Bhaktisiddhanta…
→ Dandavats.com



Hare Krishna! Giving and Accepting Shelter
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur states in Amrta Vani: “One who gives personal instruction to each and everyone does more for others than the platform speakers do. Generally, whatever platform speakers say cannot solve the problem of everyone in the audience, nor can it always benefit every individual. A person’s defects are better rectified in a private tutorial class or private coaching than in hearing lectures in a school or college. Therefore those who instruct particular persons separately can award them something more permanent.”
Read the entire article here: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=17844

CC daily 127 – M 6.179 – Understand scripture not by coming up with an original interpretation, but by coming to the original intention
→ The Spiritual Scientist

CC daily Podcast:


Download by “right-click and save content”

Obituary: His Grace Brahmananda Das
→ Sri Sri Radha Govinda Mandir, Hare Krishna Temple. ISKCON New York

Brahmananda Das, one of Srila Prabhupada’s very first disciples, passed away at his residence in the holy land of Vrindavana, India, at 3:31pm local time on June 7th, the auspicious day of Vakresvara Pandit’s disappearance. He was 71 years old.

Devotees all over the world are mourning the loss of the ISKCON legend, while at the same time rejoicing that “Prabhupada’s son” is surely back with his father now.

“His love for Srila Prabhupada is almost unparalleled,” said Bhakti Madhurya Govinda Swami, adding, “Brahmananda will go down in history as one of the foundational pillars in the founding of this movement.”

Brahmananda Das was born Bruce Scharf on July 14, 1943 in upper Manhattan. At 20 years old, he visited India while serving as a kitchen assistant on a tramp ship. He saw temples and appreciated the culture there, and upon returning, studied Hindu philosophy at NYU. But it was when he met Prabhupada at 26 2nd Avenue in New York, that his life truly changed.

“I felt as though I was leaving something behind and going to a new place,” says Brahmananda in Satyaraja Dasa’s book Swamiji. “I knew it was the beginning of an important transformation, a major turning point.”

He joined ISKCON in late summer of 1966, and his younger brother Gargamuni followed in mid-September.

Then came a series of firsts. In the fall of 1966, Brahmananda became the first temple president at the first ISKCON temple – 26 2nd Avenue. That October, he was among the first disciples to get up and dance at the very first outdoor kirtan in the Western world in Tompkins Square Park.

Then during the winter of 1966 to 1967, he and Gargamuni acquired ISKCON’s first Deity. As told to ISKCON New York president Ramabhadra Das, they were preaching to Mr. Sarana, the Indian owner of a Manhattan store called The Bells of Sarana, when they noticed a beautiful black Jaipur-style Deity of Lord Krishna. Mr. Sarana donated Him to them, and they took the Lord back to 26 2nd Avenue in a checkered cab. The Deity, whom they first named Govinda, later became ISKCON of Washington D.C.’s Madana-Mohana.

Next, in 1968, Brahmananda helped publish Srila Prabhupada’s first book in the West. As he recalls in Siddhanta Dasa’s Memories of Srila Prabhupada video series, Prabhupada’s Bhagavad-gita As It Is had been rejected by multiple publishers when the devotees got an order for their “Krishna consciousness” album from the major publishing company MacMillan.

Prabhupada told Brahmananda that he should personally bring the record to the company the next day, and tell them that he had a Bhagavad-gita to publish. “Should I bring the manuscript with me?” Brahmananda asked. “No, just tell them,” Prabhupada said. “But I have to say something about you as the author,” Brahmananda said. “Maybe I should bring some of the books you published in India.” “No,” Prabhupada insisted. “Just tell them that you have a Bhagavad-gita to publish.”

The next day, Brahmananda went uptown to the MacMillan Company skyscraper, but the person who bought the record was an accountant who had nothing to do with publishing. Brahmananda was wondering what to do when the door opened and in walked a man whom the accountant introduced as James Wade, MacMillan’s senior editor.

“I shook hands with Mr. Wade, looked him right in the face, and said, ‘I have a Bhagavad-gita to publish,’” Brahmananda recalled. “He said, ‘A Bhagavad-gita? That’s exactly what I am looking for to fill out our religion section. We will publish it.’ I couldn’t believe what had happened. He agreed to publish it without seeing the manuscript. I flew back to Prabhupada and told him the news. I was so excited. Prabhupada nodded as if he had expected it.”

In 1971, Brahmananda was the first to bring Krishna consciousness to Turkey, Pakistan, and Africa, often braving dangerous circumstances, which he described himself in a Back to Godhead magazine article.

In Erzurum, Turkey, when he and one other devotee performed Harinama sankirtana in the town square, they drew a crowd of several hundred curious onlookers but were arrested, had their passports confiscated, and spent several days in jail.

In war-torn Pakistan, Brahmananda was invited to speak at a philosophy class at the University of Punjab when he told students that the Bhakti Rasamrita Sindhu had been written by a high official in the Muslim Government (Rupa Goswami). But the situation later became hostile.

 “Students accused us of being spies and called us ill names,” Brahmananda wrote. “Some people once rubbed the tilaka off our foreheads and warned us not to walk on the streets or we’d be stabbed.”

Brahmananda escaped to Bombay, where Srila Prabhupada was holding a preaching program. “Although I had been traveling and was dirty and sweaty, Srila Prabhupada was so relieved to see me unharmed that he embraced me again and again,” Brahmananda recalled.

Next, Brahmananda went to Africa. At first, because of his bad experiences in Turkey and Pakistan, he was reluctant to hold public kirtans in Nairobi, and preached to the Indian population instead. But Prabhupada told him, “It is an African country. They are the proprietors. We should be preaching to them.”

Following Prabhupada’s directions, Brahmananda organized an event in a hall in a predominantly African downtown area and held kirtan with the hall doors open onto a busy street. Within five minutes, the hall began to fill up with curious people who joined the kirtan, smiling, clapping and dancing. On another occasion, he organized for Prabhupada to give a lecture at the University of Nairobi auditorium, which became so crowded with African students that people had to stand outside to look through the doors and windows.

In a replication of Tompkins Square Park, Brahmananda also organized Nairobi’s first outdoor kirtan performance under the largest tree in Kamakunji Park. As devotees stood chanting beneath the tree, a large crowd gathered, and many began chanting.

Brahmananda and other devotees then embarked on a series of extensive preaching safaris throughout northern and western Kenya, to neighboring Tanzania and Zambia, and even down to Rhodesia.

Next, Brahmananda had a major role in securing licenses for the Krishna-Balarama temple in Vrindavana. As described in the book Swamiji, he would take a two-hour tanga (donkey cart) ride to the Mathura government offices every day and report back to Prabhupada, who would tell him exactly how to reply.

Big, strong Brahmananda is also remembered as a protective, and rather intimidating presence next to Prabhupada. But he was also jolly, very friendly, affectionate, and had a heart of gold.

“Devotees used to call him ‘The Big B,’” says Ramabhadra Das. “He had a big heart, he had a big body, he had a big vision.”

Later in his life, Brahmananda moved to Vrindavana, India, with his brother Gargamuni. He spent the rest of his days there, making himself available to devotees and inspiring one and all with his talks about Prabhupada.

Battling obesity and diabetes for most of his later years, he suddenly developed a lung infection two years before passing away. On June 7th, when he couldn’t breathe, devotees arranged for an ambulance to take him to a hospital in Delhi. But he collapsed and expired as he sat waiting for it, while listening to Srila Prabhupada singing bhajans. His brother Gargamuni and local devotees Dharmatma Das, Saranga Thakura Das, and Mahadevi Dasi, who had been caring for him, were present.

Brahmananda had previously told several devotees that he didn’t want to go to the hospital in Delhi and wanted to stay in Vrindavana.

“In 1967, Srila Prabhupada didn’t want to go to the hospital,” recalled Gargamuni. “I brought Brahmananda upstairs to Prabhupada’s hospital room and next day Brahmananda took him out. This is Prabhupada’s way of reciprocating with Brahmananda for saving him from the hospital. He is saying, ‘My son will not die in Delhi or in a hospital; he will pass here in Vrindavan.’”

Brahmananda’s body was cleaned and dressed in a fresh dhoti, and tilak was applied on his forehead, along with Prabhupada’s name across his chest in tilak. He was decorated with maha flower garlands, and beside his head was a picture of him with Srila Prabhupada. Devotees streamed in to pay their last respects, and held sweet kirtan throughout the night.

At 7:00am the next morning, Brahmananda was brought on a beautifully decorated bullock cart in a Harinama procession to Srila Prabhupada’s Samadhi, then through Vrindavana town and to the banks of the Yamuna. There his body was sprinkled with Yamuna water and cremated, and the ashes cast into the sacred river.

“He was Prabhupada’s son in every sense of the word,” says Swamiji author Satyaraja, who was close friends with Brahmananda. “His love for Prabhupada was the closest thing to love in this world. In almost every respect — from the early organization of his movement, to overseeing the printing of his books, to pioneering Krishna consciousness in various parts of the world — he was among Prabhupada’s most trusted and loved right hand men.”

And Brahmananda’s legacy will continue on in his absence. “He inspires devotees in their love for Prabhupada by his own contagious love for Prabhupada,” says Satyaraja. “What greater gift can one give the world?”

Enlightened or Blind?
→ The Enquirer

Here is Bhāgavatam’s description of Dhruva’s oldest son (4.13.6~11):

When Dhruva retired finally to the forest, his eldest son Utkala had no interest in the opulence and kingdom granted by the royal throne. From the beginning, Utkala was a detached and desireless person, seeing everything in the world as having the same value, since the Supersoul expands as everything.

He recognized himself as pure spiritual energy, without any wants or needs. The taste of this enlightenment compelled him to cast away all separatism and embrace the continuous bliss of unity. His incessant fire of yoga burned away all traces of his karma. He could then see that the true form of everything was nothing but the soul.

Although he certainly was not retarded, blind, deaf, insane, or stupid, childish people saw him like that. He was like a fire that showed no flame. The family elders and ministers assumed that he was retarded or insane, so they enthroned his younger brother Vatsara, Bhrami’s son.

comments: Everything is divine (“Supersoul expands as everything”), so nothing is better or worse than anything else. To be rich is no better or worse than to be poor. To be pretty is no better or worse than to be ugly. A diamond is no better or worse than a common stone. Knowing this deeply, Utkala had not interest in trying to avoid  or attain anything – he was “detached and desireless.”

“He recognized himself as pure spiritual energy” – he recognized that the essence of all things (including himself – ātmānām) was homogenous spiritual energy (brahman) which has no wants or needs (nirvāṇa). This is a delightful thing to recognize, it has rasa — “avabodha-rasa” (it is an experience included in śāntra-rāsa, and therefore in all spiritual rāsa). So, it gave him a “higher taste.” This inspired him to discard the common prejudices based on wants and needs. He embraced unity, absolute equality, and therefore experienced uninterupted bliss (ānandam anusantata).

Still, he practiced sādhana (yoga) to refine this inspiration and make it a complete, perfect realization. Upon attain that he saw it everywhere constantly – “He could then see that the true form of everything was nothing but the soul.” (nātmano’nyaṁ tadaikṣata).

“A fire without flame” – his consciousness (fire/light) was not active externally, therefore the childish people in the external world (bālānām) could not see much light from his consciousness – he seemed deaf, dumb and blind, etc. “retarded” (jaḍa).

Even the ministers and elders of Dhruva’s earthly kingdom seem to have had this opinion. Or, we might insert the idea that they realized that functionally he was as good as a retarded or insane person.

Vraja Kishor dās

VrajaKishor.com


Tagged: Brahman, equality, Oneness, shanti, unity