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Vladivostok is a city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai, Russia, located at the head of the Golden Horn Bay, not far from Russia's borders with China and North Korea Read more › 
“Bhagavan will not accept anything which is offered by a person who doesn’t chant Harinama one-hundred thousand times daily and such a person is considered a ‘patita’.
By sincerely endeavoring to chant Harinama without offenses and remaining fixed in chanting constantly, one’s offenses will fade and pure Harinama will arise on the tongue.”
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur in an article in The Gaudiya, 1934 Read more › 
A small vegetarian "cafe" in downtown Vladivostok run by the local Hare Krishna devotees. Read more › HG Narakata Gopal Devi Dasi – SB 10.66.25-31 – 12.05.2014
Lord Nrsimha Janmastami 2013
ALL GLORIES TO LORD NRSIMHADEVA!
A Deity installation at New Vrindaban.
An article from the Brijabasi Spirit, 1986.
By Umapati dasa
Once, when Lord Nityananda took Jiva Gosvami on parikrama, They came to a place called Devapali, on the edge of the Navadvlpa district. Devapali had been well known in Satya-yuga, and Lord Nityananda told Jiva Gosvami that a temple of Lord Nrsimhadeva had once existed there.
After killing Hiranyakasipu, Lord Nrsimhadeva bathed in a river next to Ahovalam, a holy place in the mountains of South India. Rocks from this place are worshiped today as Nrsimha-tadiya, the paraphernalia of Lord Nrsimhadeva, and there are nine temples of Lord Nrsimhadeva in this region.
From Ahovalam, Lord Nrsimhadeva went to Devapali to rest on the bank of the MandakinI Ganga, accompanied by Lord Brahma and other demigods. Here Visvakarma, the celestial architect of the demigods, built jewelled houses for the demigods.
“Here is Surya’s house,” said Lord Nityananda, “and here is Brahma’s. Here is Ganesha’s, and here is Indra’s.
Sometime after the killing of Hiranyakasipu, a devotee came to live here. One day as he was bathing, he found a beautiful marble Deity of Nrsimhadeva killing Hiranyakasipu, with Praladha offering a garland. He established a large temple for the Lord and worshipped Him in great opulence. Nearby one can see the hills upon which the demigods resided, and a small lake marks the Mandakim river course.
Actually, the devotees of New Vrindaban had already decided to fulfill a long-cherished desire, so last October, Soma dasa, a devotee sculptor, started work on a Deity of Lord Nrsimhadeva.
Deities should not be confused with statues. The Scriptures say that the Deity is the Lord Himself, appearing in a form of wood or stone for the benefit of all. The materially conditioned living entity, who cannot see spirit but only wood or stone, can thus see the Lord and serve Him, and the self-realized soul, who indeed has spiritual vision, worships the Deity because he sees it as the Lord Himself.
His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the spiritual master who brought the Krsna consciousness movement to the Western world, compared the Deity to a mailbox. The mailbox is nondifferent from the post office, because whether a letter is deposited in a mailbox or at a post office, it will reach the same destination. But, he cautioned, it must be an authorized mailbox; an ordinary box will not do.
In this way, even a materialist can see that the Deity is nondifferent from the Lord because worship offered to the Deity bears the same fruit as worship offered to the Lord Himself—love of God. We cannot attain love of God by worshipping a statue, but if we worship the Deity according to the directions of the Vedic scriptures, the results are guaranteed.
Krsna is never alone. He is always with His devotees, and the liberated devotee can appear in Deity form, so Soma also started work on a Deity of Prahlada Maharaja.
Soma had been working the sculptures continuously, put the finishing touches on the Deities under supervision and with advice from Sampatkumar Bhattacarya, the head priest of the famous Tirupati temple in India.
But there was more to be done. Soma had made clay originals to be cast in resin. It was time for Kumar dasa, New Vrindaban’s casting specialist, to take over. Kumar made molds from Soma’s originals and poured in the resin. There was just one hitch: it had to work the first time or everything would be lost.
It worked. When the fateful day came, Kumar opened the mold to find a beautiful, 400-pound Deity of Lord Nrsimha, colored black with powdered West Virginia coal mixed in the resin. Prahlada Maharaja appeared the same day.
On January 6, 1986, Lord Nrsimhadeva and Prahlada were brought to New Vrindaban’s Temple of Understanding. They were greeted by devotees who had come from all over the world for the occasion. The appearance of the Lord and His pure devotee is always a joyous event, and the festivities—chanting, dancing, feasting— continued for three days.
Now, the devotees can look up and see Lord Nrsimhadeva, with His beloved devotee Prahlada Maharaja, as they chant the prayers in His honor:
“I offer my obeisances to Lord Nrsimhadeva, who gives joy to Prahlada Maharaja and whose nails are like chisels on the stonelike chest of the demon Hiranyakasipu.
“Lord Nrsimhadeva is here and also there. Wherever I go, Lord Nrsimhadeva is there. He is in the heart and is outside as well. I surrender to Lord Nrsimhadeva, the origin of all things and the supreme refuge.
“0 Kesava! 0 Lord of the universe! 0 Lord Hari, who have assumed the form of half-man half-lion! All Glories to You! Just as one can easily crush a wasp between one’s fingernails, so in the same way, the body of the wasp-like demon Hiranyakasipu has been ripped apart by the wonderful pointed nails on Your beautiful lotus hands.”
By the Madhavas Rock Band.
Here Krishna is giving a practical way of understanding the presence of the soul. He says that the one thing which is spread all over the body is immortal. So what is that which is spread all over the body? It is not the skin, the bone, the marrow, or the blood. The active principle within the body is consciousness or the soul.
Nowadays, by medical science they can replace bones, flesh, blood, all of the organs. It seems that everything can be replaced by scientific advancement. But that thing which is immortal, when gone, it cannot be replaced. Nowadays they can even replace the heart, but no medical science, or any science, is able to replace life. So Krishna is giving an example that the presence of the soul is perceived by consciousness. The flesh may be there, the bone may be there, the blood may be there, but if the consciousness is not there, there is no life. When the consciousness is in the body, the sensation of pain and pleasure can be experienced. Without consciousness, the body is a pile of dead matter.
Krishna teaches here that the consciousness is the symptom of the soul and it is immortal; it does not perish when the body perishes.
From Srila Prabhupada’s lecture on Bhagavad-gita 2.17 — Mexico, February 17, 1975
“Nowadays, by medical science they can replace bones, flesh, blood, all of the organs. It seems that everything can be replaced by scientific advancement.”
Here Krishna is giving a practical way of understanding the presence of the soul. He says that the one thing which is spread all over the body is immortal. So what is that which is spread all over the body? It is not the skin, the bone, the marrow, or the blood. The active principle within the body is consciousness or the soul.
Nowadays, by medical science they can replace bones, flesh, blood, all of the organs. It seems that everything can be replaced by scientific advancement. But that thing which is immortal, when gone, it cannot be replaced. Nowadays they can even replace the heart, but no medical science, or any science, is able to replace life. So Krishna is giving an example that the presence of the soul is perceived by consciousness. The flesh may be there, the bone may be there, the blood may be there, but if the consciousness is not there, there is no life. When the consciousness is in the body, the sensation of pain and pleasure can be experienced. Without consciousness, the body is a pile of dead matter.
Krishna teaches here that the consciousness is the symptom of the soul and it is immortal; it does not perish when the body perishes.
From Srila Prabhupada’s lecture on Bhagavad-gita 2.17 — Mexico, February 17, 1975
“Nowadays, by medical science they can replace bones, flesh, blood, all of the organs. It seems that everything can be replaced by scientific advancement.”
If we have observed the nature of love, we might have noticed that love has a tendency, a nature, a peculiar characteristic: it wants to expand and constantly so. It does not want to stop. It needs to grow unlimitedly. We see this, for example, in relationships between people. If love becomes stagnant, issues in the relationship begin. This happens because the progress of love has been obstructed.
Why does love expand? Because love is all-encompassing by its very nature. If love encompasses anything short of everything, it is not exactly love. It could be called love and many call it so, but it is an incomplete love. Incomplete love is not what love really is. For this reason, love has the tendency to constantly grow and expand. The moment you limit its expansion, the love begins to leave you.
One of the points made in Symposium, a work by Plato, is that there are different types of love. For example, Plato wrote: “The vulgar love of the body, which takes wing and flies away when the bloom of youth is over, is disgraceful, and so is the interested love of power or wealth.”
Throughout history many have come to conclude that love is not one, singular thing and that to merge it all together is to be naive about the nature of love. To the extent love does not encompass the totality of existence, to that extent it is something other than love. To distinguish love from its incomplete manifestations, different traditions have used varied terms. In Christian theology, for example, the complete love is addressed as agape, a word that describes a spiritual experience, specifically distinguished from erotic love or emotional affection for example. The word agape is a Greek word that is often translated as “selfless love” or “unconditional love.”
In the bhakti-yoga tradition we can find terms such as kama and prema. Kama refers to selfish interest in something or someone and is often translated as lust. Prema, on the other hand, refers to divine love. Some symptoms of such love are:
(a) It removes all material distress.
(b) It is all-good. It makes one be good to all, not only to those who one may be attracted to or to those who he can extract something from.
(c) If it comes to it, it makes one renounce even one’s own well-being in favor of the beloved.
This type of love is said to be the most valuable achievement and a rare commodity. So, unless and until, somehow or other, our love encompasses everything, we are definitely going to fail at love.
The next question is, how in the world do you include everything in your love? We can hardly be conscious of everything, let alone love everything. Loving everything is very difficult. This is the point that brings a lot of love seekers to the spiritual realm. When addressing this question, the Srimad Bhagavatam gives an example of a tree and a gardener. By watering the root of the tree, one gives nourishment to the whole tree. If one tries to water each leaf independently, one would have a hard time accomplishing the task due to the usually great number of leaves. Even if one were to somehow manage to water each leaf individually, the tree would not be nourished.
To detect the root of the whole existence, the tree of the world, and to water it is the intention of many spiritual traditions. People have throughout history used the word God to indicate different concepts. In the tradition of bhakti-yoga, God is the root of all existence. Therefore, prema or divine love can be recognized by its awesomeness, and it is a measure of spiritual advancement.
A symptom of a genuine spiritual advancement is that one’s love grows equally everywhere. Such a person would not love their boyfriend or girlfriend and roast a chicken. That kind of discrimination is obviously indicative of incomplete love.
Another symptom of genuine spiritual advancement is given in the sixth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, the topic of which is meditation. There it is stated that one who has actually found the root of all existence and is watering it, will have his or her consciousness transcend the boundaries of selfishness. Selfishness tends to manifest as concentrated or extended. When concentrated, selfishness does not allow such person’s concerns to extend beyond their own physical body. Extended selfishness will help one have concerns for beings and things beyond themselves, but it will continue to keep that person in the center of the selfish experience. Such a person may have concerns for his own family or nation, but only because that family and that nation are his family and nation. Concerns of such a person will not include other families of nations and will certainly favor his own over others’. Concentrated or extended selfishness is selfishness and it is a symptom of one who is not watering the root, but leaves.
The bhakti-yoga tradition conceives of God as the root of everything. Loving God is the way of having that love distributed everywhere equally, symptom of which is non-sectarian love and service.
“Genuine love makes one be good to all, not only to those who one may be attracted to or to those who he can extract something from. That kind of discrimination is obviously indicative of incomplete love.”
If we have observed the nature of love, we might have noticed that love has a tendency, a nature, a peculiar characteristic: it wants to expand and constantly so. It does not want to stop. It needs to grow unlimitedly. We see this, for example, in relationships between people. If love becomes stagnant, issues in the relationship begin. This happens because the progress of love has been obstructed.
Why does love expand? Because love is all-encompassing by its very nature. If love encompasses anything short of everything, it is not exactly love. It could be called love and many call it so, but it is an incomplete love. Incomplete love is not what love really is. For this reason, love has the tendency to constantly grow and expand. The moment you limit its expansion, the love begins to leave you.
One of the points made in Symposium, a work by Plato, is that there are different types of love. For example, Plato wrote: “The vulgar love of the body, which takes wing and flies away when the bloom of youth is over, is disgraceful, and so is the interested love of power or wealth.”
Throughout history many have come to conclude that love is not one, singular thing and that to merge it all together is to be naive about the nature of love. To the extent love does not encompass the totality of existence, to that extent it is something other than love. To distinguish love from its incomplete manifestations, different traditions have used varied terms. In Christian theology, for example, the complete love is addressed as agape, a word that describes a spiritual experience, specifically distinguished from erotic love or emotional affection for example. The word agape is a Greek word that is often translated as “selfless love” or “unconditional love.”
In the bhakti-yoga tradition we can find terms such as kama and prema. Kama refers to selfish interest in something or someone and is often translated as lust. Prema, on the other hand, refers to divine love. Some symptoms of such love are:
(a) It removes all material distress.
(b) It is all-good. It makes one be good to all, not only to those who one may be attracted to or to those who he can extract something from.
(c) If it comes to it, it makes one renounce even one’s own well-being in favor of the beloved.
This type of love is said to be the most valuable achievement and a rare commodity. So, unless and until, somehow or other, our love encompasses everything, we are definitely going to fail at love.
The next question is, how in the world do you include everything in your love? We can hardly be conscious of everything, let alone love everything. Loving everything is very difficult. This is the point that brings a lot of love seekers to the spiritual realm. When addressing this question, the Srimad Bhagavatam gives an example of a tree and a gardener. By watering the root of the tree, one gives nourishment to the whole tree. If one tries to water each leaf independently, one would have a hard time accomplishing the task due to the usually great number of leaves. Even if one were to somehow manage to water each leaf individually, the tree would not be nourished.
To detect the root of the whole existence, the tree of the world, and to water it is the intention of many spiritual traditions. People have throughout history used the word God to indicate different concepts. In the tradition of bhakti-yoga, God is the root of all existence. Therefore, prema or divine love can be recognized by its awesomeness, and it is a measure of spiritual advancement.
A symptom of a genuine spiritual advancement is that one’s love grows equally everywhere. Such a person would not love their boyfriend or girlfriend and roast a chicken. That kind of discrimination is obviously indicative of incomplete love.
Another symptom of genuine spiritual advancement is given in the sixth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, the topic of which is meditation. There it is stated that one who has actually found the root of all existence and is watering it, will have his or her consciousness transcend the boundaries of selfishness. Selfishness tends to manifest as concentrated or extended. When concentrated, selfishness does not allow such person’s concerns to extend beyond their own physical body. Extended selfishness will help one have concerns for beings and things beyond themselves, but it will continue to keep that person in the center of the selfish experience. Such a person may have concerns for his own family or nation, but only because that family and that nation are his family and nation. Concerns of such a person will not include other families of nations and will certainly favor his own over others’. Concentrated or extended selfishness is selfishness and it is a symptom of one who is not watering the root, but leaves.
The bhakti-yoga tradition conceives of God as the root of everything. Loving God is the way of having that love distributed everywhere equally, symptom of which is non-sectarian love and service.
“Genuine love makes one be good to all, not only to those who one may be attracted to or to those who he can extract something from. That kind of discrimination is obviously indicative of incomplete love.”
Some astrologers can be extremely pompous at our worst moments, but never are we more presumptuous, over-adoring of the potentials of astrology, and under-aware of its limits, than when we claim to state on the basis of astrology whether or not a person will attain moksha (emancipation from the cycle of birth and death).
Emancipation is beyond matter. It is beyond time and space. Karma, the mechanism of time and space, therefore cannot grant or impede it. This is not merely “my opinion” but the opinion of the Srimad Bhagavatam – the ripened fruit of all Vedic Literature, the exposition of Vedanta Sutra, which is itself the essence of the Upanishads, which are themselves the explanation of the philosophical content in the original Veda.
Srimad Bhagavatam (1.2.6):”The transcendental essence of all living beings is divine love for the Supreme, which is causeless and unobstructable, and which completely satisfies the self.”
Real Vedic texts (not just the rhetoric of people claiming to represent Vedic tradition) clearly state that genuine yogis don’t care at all about astrological circumstances – because their aim and interest is completely beyond the realm in which karma (and therefore astrology) operates. Astrology is based on the symbolic codex of heavenly configurations at various points in time and space. But the yogi is uninterested in various points in time and space.
The Bhagavad Gita (again not at all a minor or ancillary text in the Vedic library, but an essential bastion) explains this quite clearly in its Eighth Chapter, especially from the 17th verse till the chapter’s end at the 28th. Up to the 26th verse Krishna explains the afterlife-affect of dying under various light and dark astrological conditions. Then, the 27th verse (most powerful, because it is in the concluding position of the section) decisively states: “Yogis never worry at all about any of these conditions, my friend. Therefore, in all ways and at all times, try to be a yogi.”
If one concentrates one’s life upon that which is beyond karma – why should one worry about that which is within karma? As long as we worry about that which is within karma we will be worried, and we will not be able to pull ourselves above the waves. But as soon as we focus on that which is beyond karma we become free from worries, and surpass the waves.
Here is one more, of many possible, scriptural quotes to substantiate the authenticity of this assertion that astrology and karma has no sway over the ultimate destiny of the soul. Srimad Bhagavatam (2.2.15): “Whenever the yogi wants to cast off his worldly body, he simply sits firmly and comfortably – without a care in his mind about the right time or place – and fixes his attention on steadying his mind by regulating his breathing.”
“Whenever the yogi wants to cast off his worldly body, he simply…”
Some astrologers can be extremely pompous at our worst moments, but never are we more presumptuous, over-adoring of the potentials of astrology, and under-aware of its limits, than when we claim to state on the basis of astrology whether or not a person will attain moksha (emancipation from the cycle of birth and death).
Emancipation is beyond matter. It is beyond time and space. Karma, the mechanism of time and space, therefore cannot grant or impede it. This is not merely “my opinion” but the opinion of the Srimad Bhagavatam – the ripened fruit of all Vedic Literature, the exposition of Vedanta Sutra, which is itself the essence of the Upanishads, which are themselves the explanation of the philosophical content in the original Veda.
Srimad Bhagavatam (1.2.6):”The transcendental essence of all living beings is divine love for the Supreme, which is causeless and unobstructable, and which completely satisfies the self.”
Real Vedic texts (not just the rhetoric of people claiming to represent Vedic tradition) clearly state that genuine yogis don’t care at all about astrological circumstances – because their aim and interest is completely beyond the realm in which karma (and therefore astrology) operates. Astrology is based on the symbolic codex of heavenly configurations at various points in time and space. But the yogi is uninterested in various points in time and space.
The Bhagavad Gita (again not at all a minor or ancillary text in the Vedic library, but an essential bastion) explains this quite clearly in its Eighth Chapter, especially from the 17th verse till the chapter’s end at the 28th. Up to the 26th verse Krishna explains the afterlife-affect of dying under various light and dark astrological conditions. Then, the 27th verse (most powerful, because it is in the concluding position of the section) decisively states: “Yogis never worry at all about any of these conditions, my friend. Therefore, in all ways and at all times, try to be a yogi.”
If one concentrates one’s life upon that which is beyond karma – why should one worry about that which is within karma? As long as we worry about that which is within karma we will be worried, and we will not be able to pull ourselves above the waves. But as soon as we focus on that which is beyond karma we become free from worries, and surpass the waves.
Here is one more, of many possible, scriptural quotes to substantiate the authenticity of this assertion that astrology and karma has no sway over the ultimate destiny of the soul. Srimad Bhagavatam (2.2.15): “Whenever the yogi wants to cast off his worldly body, he simply sits firmly and comfortably – without a care in his mind about the right time or place – and fixes his attention on steadying his mind by regulating his breathing.”
“Whenever the yogi wants to cast off his worldly body, he simply…”
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 29 April 2014, Radhadesh, Belgium, Srimad Bhagavatam 6.4.49-50)
We see that Srila Prabhupada also had a positive outlook. He was seeing how nice it is that there are devotees who are chanting. How nice that we have the deities. How nice is it, this spiritual life. Prabhupada asked, “What is better? Who has a better way of life than the devotees?” He said, “The devotees, they have the best of everything.” They live in the best places. It is true. Who lives in a castle?
You know, “Where do you live?”
“Oh, I live in a castle.” (laughing) “You know, marble floors that are heated as well!”
Right, and who eats like we do? So many preparations, you don’t get that everywhere. So Prabhupada said we have the best of everything. Best place to stay, best, you know, best food, best clothes. You know, with dressing up, look at those borders (pointing at a devotees dhoti), fancy designs everywhere. Best! Best clothes… best food! Prabhupada said best of everything.
And Prabhupada said if you want to get married, if a man wants to be married, oh, from the male perspective, then you get the best wife, best! Because we get the very best! (laughing) Because they have good qualities. Because yasyāsti bhaktir bhagavaty akiñcanā (Srimad Bhagavatam 5.18.12), through devotional service, one develops good qualities. So Prabhupada said material fortune is rolling at our feet, rolling at our feet.
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On May 12th, 2014, TKG Academy students were excited to have the association of His Grace Deena Bandhu Prabhu. He visited the lower elementary students and upper elementary students separately, on two different occasions.
Deena Bandhu Prabhu, a pre-eminent disciple of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada has been living in Sri Vrindavan Dham for over 30 years. He is famous for his deep knowledge of all of the Sri Krishna’s pastime places of Vraja Mandal. HH Indradyumna Swami even respects him as his “parikrama guru”.
After performing kirtan with both groups of students, he told them beautiful stories of Sri Vrindavan Dham. He made the transcendental pastimes of the Lord come alive with his entrancing renditions. We hope he visits us again soon!
The Holy Name everywhere! Read more › The post May 12th, 2014 – Darshan – Chandan Yatra – Day 11 appeared first on Mayapur.com.
The centre has over the years hosted numerous events and functions and now the devotees of Krishna! Read more › 
With Devakinandan prabhu Read more › 
Vaiyasaki Das: I am traveling the world presenting Kirtan Rasa in the tradition of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. I am an initiated disciple of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami who introduced Krishna Kirtan to the western world in 1965 in New York City. Read more › I was crawling my way through a nine-hundred-and-sixty-nine page Mechanical Systems Modeling textbook, preparing for a final, when in a moment of weakness, I began pondering the college student’s quintessential concern, “is this really what I want to do for the rest of my life?”
The answer came as easy as algebra to an engineer, and was by far the most coherent thought I had all day. “No way man,” was my resounding confession. At the heart of my dissatisfaction was neither the tremendous amount of work that I had to deal with, nor was it my inability to fathom transient second order mechanical systems; rather, it was the prospect of a life consumed by the struggle to keep up with what society had deemed ‘the right path’ – get a job, marry, have kids, and then retire to aching bones, depleting memory and obsolescence. Not that these things are wrong or futile, but what concerns me is that there has to be something more to life. Having watched my parents and many others walk ‘the path’ for the past twenty years, I am convinced that this so-called ‘path’ is not the one to lasting happiness and fulfillment. Even with our horrendously low standards of happiness – which to many people mean simply the cessation of suffering, or in my current case, the end of exams – we’re rarely, consistently happy for more than a couple of days at the max! And if one were to dare suggest raising this shallow bar, such a person might be labeled naive.
At the root of this superstition is that we are brainwashed from the very beginning to believe that the above mentioned ‘path’ is actually indispensable; that hoarding money, family, and material security somehow directly equate to happiness and that no amount of scientific studies or personal experiential proof should convince us otherwise. In this regard, Jerome K. Jerome in his classic novel, Three Men in a Boat, writes, “Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need – a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love….” His words, ‘only what you need’ beg redefinition for each and every one of us at an honest and individual level. And so when I asked myself, “what do I really need?” I inevitably came to the conclusion that the Beatles had arrived at a long time ago, that all you need is love!
Every creature, whether it is cognizant of it or not, is ultimately looking for love. If not for love then why would we bother getting out of bed every single day to slog away at a cramped desk for long, tedious hours, solving abstract equations or writing convoluted papers about things that we couldn’t care less for? Without love, earning money and assimilating fame and power would be meaningless, because if no one would love you for it, then what would be the point of all that effort? My conclusion is that dead matter – anything devoid of a spirit soul – in and of itself cannot satisfy us, unless and until it causes a loving interaction between conscious living beings. And so when we emphasize material pursuits, we are effectively missing the forest for the trees.
In cultures and subcultures there tend to be different symbols of status and success.
For example, in rap culture, it’s the bling – the big chain made of precious metal that lets everyone know that the rapper is important. In a yoga/exercise studio, it might be some high-priced yoga pants or a special yoga mat that symbolizes the blessings of goddess Laksmi Devi (the goddess of wealth) in their life. Another symbol of success may be the car one is driving, or the kind of credit card one carries. Hence, it is very easy to notice materialistic success through external symbols, which inform others of their social status.
But what about success symbols for transcendentalists; those who endeavor on the spiritual path for a happiness not based on material possessions?
In materialistic endeavors, like capitalism, you can see the results of an investment. Someone makes a lot of money and their lifestyle reflects it. You can clearly perceive the material value that a sacrifice of physical labor bears. An outsider might see the success symbol of a business man/woman and immediately think, “Wow, what did they do? Maybe there is some opportunity for me as well? How can I get a similar lifestyle of enjoyment?” It inspires them and becomes a driving motivation for those that want to make money.
In the cultivation of God consciousness or spiritual consciousness, it may not be so easy to notice its value, because unlike matter, the fruits of spiritual labor are sometimes practically invisible.
Why? Because spiritual advancement is really something that is internal; something that is intangible. Yet, such non-material assets do have immense and incredible value to us everyday, which no one can deny.
Who among us would underestimate the value of an education, the value of a dear friendship, and especially the value of loving feelings toward another person? Such internal gains are the most vital factors in our own personal sense of happiness and wellbeing; though, it usually doesn’t appear externally.
Many who strive after wealth and fame only do so because of a lack of inner satisfaction and fulfillment. We feel that getting more wealth and fame will result in getting more attention, more affection, more education, and freedom from worries. Thus, even the attempt for material gain is really only for the purpose of getting deeper and meaningful things out of life.
Despite feeling a lack of satisfaction with material acquisitions, people may still be very reluctant to take up a spiritual discipline like meditation or bhakti-yoga, which is aimed at inner fulfillment because the results are seemingly intangible. Yet, we all should understand the symptoms of spiritual success and perceive it as a potential reality if we want to attain it.
What are the symptoms of a spiritually wealthy person?
The Bhagavad Gita describes the state of genuine self-realization:
“One who is transcendentally situated at once realizes the Supreme Brahman and becomes fully joyful. He never laments or desires to have anything. He is equally disposed toward every living entity. In that state he attains pure devotional service” (Bhagavad Gita 18.54).
In the material conception of life, people work hard for getting money for sensual pleasures such as good sex life, nice food, and a high social position. When they are able to get such a situation they consider themselves happy, and when they lose these pleasures they feel extremely depressed, and when they are not able to get them at all, they feel frustration.
To the contrary, a spiritually rich person has no anxiety or depression. Unlike the materialistic person who depends on material things for happiness, the transcendentalist who is fully God conscious is fully satisfied due to the absolute nature of their object of mediation, and they have no personal motives to fulfill since every endeavor is an act of loving devotion to the Supreme. Meditation is not merely an act of trying to void all thoughts and feelings in order to enter a state of non-perception. Real meditation means to achieve a state in which the mind is saturated by God consciousness – seeing God in everything and everyone at every step of life.
So in that vision of non-duality, a transcendentalist sees a plain piece of paper and a hundred dollar bill with equal vision in regard to both objects being a means for inner fulfillment.
Transcendentalists also see others equally in regard to their intrinsic spiritual identity and not based on their outward bodily appearance. The materially driven person often considers their self worth based upon what others think of them or will think of them. Thus they tend to categorize themselves and others based on what they own or possess, such as ugliness or beauty, wealth or poverty, etc. and treat others according to that perception. A transcendentalist on the other hand, adept in realization of the self, can see the soul of every living being beyond their external bodily designation. The transcendentalist recognizes their own spiritual worth apart from their possessions and can see others in the same way.
A transcendentalist’s vision far surpasses the very concept of material duality, which renders all material status symbols useless. People that rely on material status symbols are cultivating an identity that relies on things which are not intrinsic to their actual self.
Giving up the meaningless search for the self through attachment to material acquisitions, we should all strive towards our true identity as a spirit soul, which is eternal, full of bliss, and full of knowledge.
In conclusion, how can we know when we are truly becoming successful on the spiritual path? What is the “bling” of the spiritually rich?
Radhanath Swami, a modern day spiritual master in the bhakti-yoga tradition, has established a benchmark for recognizing spiritual success in our life: “If you want to find out how rich you are, then find out how many things you have that money cannot buy. That is real wealth.”
Hi. This is Mahat, the editor. In this issue of the 16Rounds magazine we used one model to illustrate all articles but this one. Here we broke the rule because while photo-shooting in Pacific Beach, San Diego, we ran into some peeps who wanted to model just for fun. Of several different shots, we ended up using this one.
Guest: How many other people are there on this planet who have made as much spiritual progress as you have?
Prabhupada: I don’t know, there are no statistics in my possession. But what is the use of taking such statistics? Why don’t you become one of them? Why waste time on statistics? You try to become enlightened. What is the use of taking record of who is enlightened or not? You should try to be enlightened yourself. For example, when you purchase a plane ticket, do you ask, “How many tickets have you sold?” What is the use of that? Just purchase your ticket, get on the airplane, and go. Don’t waste your valuable time. If you are serious, just purchase the ticket, get on the airplane, and take the journey.
(From Srila Prabhupada’s lecture on Bhagavad-gita 2.40-45 — Los Angeles, December 13, 1968)
Conversation with guests in Istanbul.
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