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(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 27 June 2014, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Srimad Bhagavatam 5.13.17)
People say, many times, that the greatest enjoyment in the material world is sex! Well, we can also say that greater than that is to be free from such desires. If you do not have the desire then it saves a lot of trouble! You know, then you do not have to worry about Saturday night. You do not have to buy flowers. You do not have to spend a lot of money in bars and all these things. So many things you do not have to do if you do not have sex desire. You do not have to spend a fortune on all kinds of clothes and things like that. Think about it, the consequences of sex desire are quite far reaching!
The other day, I was writing about this and I was comparing it to being addicted to cigarettes, to smoking. Say that we are smokers and airports now are all smoke free zones so then you have this glass box and people smoke in the glass box. It looks kind of foolish, these people in the glass box! Everyone looks at them and it is just a handful of them in a small glass box. So, those are the smokers and everyone can see them. They just sit in there, trying to feel at ease but meanwhile it is embarrassing to go sit in a glass box and smoke, obviously. But if you would ask the people that come out of the box, ‘Do you like smoking?’ They would say, ‘Oh yes, very much! Yes, I like it very much.’
But then, if there is someone who is not a smoker, when they see all that and hear all that, they will say, ‘This is foolish. You like it very much because you are addicted!’ So, the same we can apply to sex also. We are addicted! We are just addicted but when we take up serving Krsna then gradually our interest changes from enjoying the body to enjoying serving. Instead of taking – enjoying the body means taking for our senses – instead of taking for our senses, we now become very active in satisfying the senses of Krsna.
Srila Prabhupada wrote a letter where he explains to Kirtananda, ‘You please worship the deity and if you decorate the deity very beautiful, and when you make the deity very beautiful, then you will forget everything about the beauty of the material world.’ The beauty of the material word, it cannot satisfy the heart. So we are not proposing a life of giving up. We are not proposing of a life of giving up mundane pleasure; that is not our focus. We are proposing a life of embracing spiritual pleasure.
Krishna-valley / New Vraja-dhama is more than 250 hectares of typical Mid Europian rural area, located in Hungary about 30 Kms from the well known tourist place Lake Balaton, in a beautiful natural environment. New Vraja-dhama is the transcendental realm of the world’s most beautiful deities Sri Sri Radha-Syamasundara. Please visit Krishna-valley for a spiritual journey. Read more › 
Garden Blog
By Kacey Orr
7-16-2014
The last few weeks have been VERY busy in the gardens. We have had many new volunteers. A family from Maryland came to work and camp in the garden. Currently we have two volunteers from WWOOF (world wide opportunities on organic farms) that have been helping with our abundant harvest of green beans. The Roots & Shoots 4-H Cloverbud Club came and spent a day touring the gardens and picking flowers. The kids had a wonderful time and learned all about farming and flowers.
The first week of July we planted four varieties of squash. This is the last big planting until fall. Our sweet potatoes are looking great and the vines are filling in all the spaces in their beds. Twice a week we harvest herbs and greens for the temple (lettuce, kale, swiss chard, and arugula). This week brought us our first full sized red tomatoes and bitter melons. Our current pick list also includes red raspberries, peppers, beets, basil, oregano, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, dill, and tons of green beans. Two of our local contract growers have been also making weekly deliveries of carrots and cilantro.
Both the Teaching Garden and the Garden of Seven Gates are bursting with beautiful flowers. The temple staff has been picking hundreds of marigolds for garlands and a variety of flowers for vases. As we move further into the summer harvest we hope to have more volunteers to continue to provide the community with a bounty of vegetables and flowers.
The District Forestry Office is working on a plan to make a peacock sanctuary. The team of the environment activist raised various issues related to deforestation in Vrindavan. They were particularly concerned about recent reports about peacock deaths in the district. The DFO assured the team that steps are taken to protect the peacocks in Vraja. As per the forest office, they are also working to make a “monkey safari,” for which they have already sent a proposal to the government. Once the project is approved, monkeys from Vrindavan and other places will be translocated to forest land in Farah, between Mathura and Agra. Monkeys have become danger for trees, birds, peacocks and even for the humans. Read more › 
One who chants the holy name of the Lord is immediately freed from the reactions of unlimited sins, even if he chants indirectly to indicate something else (sanketya), jokingly (parihasya), for musical entertainment (stobha), or even neglectfully (helana). This is accepted by all the learned scholars of the scriptures. SB 6.2.14 Read more › 
As a fire burns dry grass to ashes, so the holy name of the Lord, whether chanted knowingly or unknowingly, burns to ashes, without fail, all the reactions of one's sinful activities. SB 6.2.18
etävän eva loke 'smin
puàsäà dharmaù paraù småtaù
bhakti-yogo bhagavati
tan-näma-grahaëädibhiù
Devotional service, beginning with the chanting of the holy name of the Lord, is the ultimate religious principle for the living entity in human society. SB 6.3.22 Read more › We are happy to announce the festival schedule for next year’s Gaura Purnima Festival, please stay tuned for more updates, and opportunities to donate for the festival. 11 Feb Devotee’s arrival 12 to 15 Feb Sravna Utsava 15 Feb Kirtan Mela Adivas Ceremony 16 to 20 Feb Kirtan Mela 21 Feb Parikrama Adivasa 22 to 28 Feb Navadvipa […]
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When I was 19, I sat up in my bed one night and tangibly experienced reality — the impossibly infinite magnificence of existence itself. I could literally see and feel divinity saturating, permeating, being everything — even the most hum-drum of all stuff — like the walls I sat up to stare at.[0]
Since then I haven’t been normal.
Of course, I was never “normal,” but this amazing experience made my abnormalities escalate radically. There is such a deep feeling of happiness in truly experiencing reality — it is euphoric like a sustained, breathtaking, almost “orgasmic” wholeness. Suddenly my normal experience of life felt like a small box with very little inside. I lost interest in everything else and pretty recklessly threw my life on whatever tracks seem to lead towards this divine experience. [1]
The good news is that I have gotten somewhere on those tracks: I have been able to have this sort of experience with increasing regularity and increasing depth. The bad news, especially if you are my relative or old friend, is that it’s hard to relate to and easy to misunderstand me, because my spheres of interest intersect with most everyone else’s only momentarily and in ways always connected to mysterious spheres of things people often aren’t conversant in. I am not proud of my inability to connect with the “normal” level of reality. I realize that it is a hallmark of immature personal evolution on my part. Over the years I have improved, becoming able to interact with normal reality more and more fully while simultaneously having a satisfyingly deep spiritual experience of it.
But still, certain things that particularly challenge me. Unfortunately, these things are quite ubiquitous in today’s world. I dislike these things not because they are “evil” in and of themselves (which they definitely aren’t), but because the way that we usually deal with them is markedly antithetical to the profundity I experienced at 19, exacerbating the shallowness and disconnectedness of our live. Sports is one — but it’s not so bad, since at least it can be healthy and has lots of good side effects. A more annoying dislike is our obsession with being sexy. Often I feel like being a member of the Human Race in this day and age is like being a dog who is in heat 12 months a year, non-stop. Sex is wonderful, and the love of children is probably the single most inherently joyful thing in this world, but the way we are obsessed with being sexy profoundly “short-circuits” and reduces our ability to truly experience reality. Eating meat disturbs me far more then the “lets always be sexy” thing. To me meat eating symbolizes the short-circuited, short-cited mentality of putting one’s own wants before the needs and rights of other people and other living things. The fourth and worst of my pet-peeves: getting drunk. For many people it seems impossible to relax or have a decent time without drinking. This really disconnects us from reality and stunts our perception.
These four dislikes present challenges to my relationships. I don’t hold anyone in contempt for being immersed in these things, but I want people to know why I don’t have fun with such things.
Yesterday, I turned 44. Surely old age will pose increasing challenges to my health, maybe the fact that I was jet-lagged and quite sick at my birthday party is symbolic of that. But other than the worry that perhaps my body and mind will not remain operable, I am nothing but eager to turn 45, 55, 85, and hopefully even 108. “Age before beauty,” because age can give wisdom, wisdom is the key keeping the gates of reality, and within the gates of reality lie true beauty in its most opulent and abundant form.
I am thankful to my parents, and my aunt and uncle and their son and his nice girl-friend for making the effort to celebrate my birthday, which is merely a symbol of how deeply they have always made themselves and their resources lovingly available to help me, a blind-fool in pursuit of something abstract.
I am thankful to my mother-in-law, who called me from Japan twice with so much love in her voice.
I am thankful to my many, many superb friends who expressed birthday blessings towards me in such gracious ways.
I am, most of all, thankful to my wife for giving me her trust, her very heart, and for giving me four children who are unfailing sources of inspiration and anchors for my wayfaring life.
Above all else, always and forever, I am thankful to the Supreme Reality, whom I affectionately know as my Rādhā and Krishna.
Finally, I ask the forgiveness of everyone whose life my non-conformity has made more difficult than it already needs to be.
——–
[0]:I was “straight-edge” — no drugs were involved.
[1]: My exposure to Hare Krishna began just prior to this experience, and probably triggered it.
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Therefore it should be understood that one is easily relieved from all sinful reactions by chanting the holy name of the Lord and chanting of His qualities and activities. This is the only process recommended for relief from sinful reactions. Even if one chants the holy name of the Lord with improper pronunciation, he will achieve relief from material bondage if he chants without offenses. Ajamila, for example, was extremely sinful, but while dying he merely chanted the holy name, and although calling his son, he achieved complete liberation because he remembered the name of Narayana. SB 6.3.24 Read more › Hare Krishna Kirtan 02 by H G Anirudh Swaroop Das on 16 July 2014 at ISKCON Juhu
There are many pseudo devotees of Lord Śiva who want to indulge in smoking gañjā(marijuana) and similar intoxicating drugs, forgetting that by so imitating the acts of Lord Śiva they are calling death very near. Similarly, there are some pseudo devotees of Lord Kṛṣṇa who prefer to imitate the Lord in His rāsa-līlā, or dance of love, forgetting their inability to lift Govardhana Hill. It is best, therefore, that one not try to imitate the powerful, but simply follow their instructions; nor should one try to occupy their posts without qualification.
(Srila Prabhupada, Bhagvad Gita-As It Is, 3.24 Purport)
This talk is a part of the "Fascinating Mahabharata Characters" series. To know more about this course, please visit: bhakticourses.com
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 07 July 2014, Serbia, Summer Camp, Caitanya Candramrta Seminar Part 1)
Sri Caitanya-candramrta by Srila Prabodhananda Sarasvati
Chapter 1, Verse 5:
“For those who have attained the merciful sidelong glance of Lord Gaura, impersonal liberation becomes as palatable as going to hell, the heavenly cities of the demigods become as real as flowers imagined to float in the sky, the poisonous fangs of the untameable black snakes of the senses become broken, the whole world becomes full of joy, and Brahma, Indra, and all the great demigods become like tiny insects. Let us glorify that Lord Gaura.”
This verse was quoted many times by Srila Prabhupada, who pointed out that the poisonous fangs of snakes are no longer of any danger when they are broken. The senses are compared to such teeth. The senses are constantly biting us and the poison of the senses is injected into our consciousness. When we see something… we want it. When we smell, we want. We want to touch and so on, constantly, the whole day, again and again.
But now this poison cannot really affect us very much. Even if a devotee gives up devotional service, even if a devotee is again embracing material life, how long can he continue like this? It is said that a devotee is rasagraha: he is one who has tasted nectar. So once you’ve tasted, how can you go back to ordinary life?
Can you again believe in one life, just one little life? Prabhupada used to speak about Professor Kotovsky from Moscow. “He believes that there’s one life? Just one little life is everything? That’s all?
So once the bigger concept is here, the concept of eternal, ever-growing love, the concept of loving exchange between Krsna and his devotees (even if we’re not there yet), can we again strive for something ordinary and mundane?
