Ecstacy of Devotion, Uddhava and Vidura
→ The Enquirer

In the 3rd canto we meet Uddhava for the first time. In the 1st Chapter, Vidura asks him many questions about Krishna, and in the 2nd Chapter Uddhava tries to reply – but cannot, because he is overwhelmed by emotion as a result of contemplating the answers to those questions.

All these ślokas in chapter 2 are ecstatic, but the 6th śloka has particularly appealed to my heart and mind today. It says, śanakair bhagaval-lokān nṛlokaṁ punar āgataḥ, which literally means “Gradually, from the world of Bhagavān to the world of humans, returned.” Uddhava’s memories of Krishna literally carried his consciousness to Krishna’s location! In that location, he experienced divine, transcendental emotions – and the side effects of these were visible even in Uddhavas form that was rooted in the normal plane, the human-world, the “mortal location.” And gradually he returned his consciousness to the human location so that he could reply to Vidura’s questions.

While his consciousness had gone to the spiritual location, tears and horripilation and so on erupted from his physical form. But as he returned to this plane, the śloka says, vimṛjya netre viduraṁ prītyāhoddhava utsmayan, which literally means “wiping dry his eyes, out of affection for Vidura, Uddhava smiled.” The word for smiled indicates a sudden, smile, almost like being jolted or shocked back into external consciousness – but in a pleasant way.

Śrīla Viśvanātha comments that while with Bhagavān in Bhagavān-loka, Krishna had told him, “now please return to the normal world to answer the questions of my beloved Vidura.”


New Vrindaban Celebrates Gaura Purnima Sun. Mar. 16, 2014
→ New Vrindaban

Everyone is invited to come and celebrate the auspicious, sacred Appearance Day of Lord Caitanya, Who personally inaugurated the chanting of the maha mantra for the liberation of all souls   

Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare!!
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare!!

GAURA PURNIMA  will be honored on Sunday March 16, 2014 at Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra's temple.

The Schedule is:

5:00 AM                 MANGAL  ARATI
5:30 AM                 NRSIMHA PRAYERS                                       
5:45 AM                 TULASI PRAYERS
6:00 AM                 JAPA
7:30 AM                 GURU PUJA
8:00 AM                 GREETING THE DEITIES IN THEIR NEW  GAURA PURNIMA OUTFIT
8:20 AM                 SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM CLASS
11:00 AM              GOVARDHAN PARIKRAMA ( weather permitting)

1:00 PM                ARATI
1:30 PM                CLASS
2:15 PM                Lunch  Prasadam (for those  who are not fasting)
5:00 PM                ABHISHEKA ON THE ALTAR
6:00 PM                LECTURE BY HIS HOLINESS VARSANA SWAMI
7:00 PM                ARATI
7:40 PM                 MAHA KIRTAN     
8:00 PM                 PRASADAM FEAST

Your preparations for the Lord are welcome.  Please bring them by 5:45 PM.

If any second initiated devotees are interested in helping cook in the deity kitchen on Gaura Purnima day, please contact Abhinanda das either on facebook or email:

FB: Abhinanda Das               E-MAIL: abhinanda_bcs@yahoo.co.in

There is much Gaura Purnima service available, such as in the devotee kitchen (all morning), prasadam transfer (12:30 PM), or cleaning the prasadam hall after the festival.

Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu ki jaya!

NEW MEDITATION CLASSES
→ The Loft Yoga Lounge Auckland

Monday mantra meditation & mantra chanting (also known as KIRTAN). Each session will include powerful mantra chanting together as a group, using styles with beads and also chanting to kirtan music. These forms of yoga are extremely powerful yet so joyful and easy to do. Don’t feel like you need some prior experience, just come along and enjoy the […]

The post NEW MEDITATION CLASSES appeared first on The Loft Yoga Lounge Auckland.

Turn on the light
→ KKSBlog

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 25 December 2013, Mayapur, India, Srimad Bhagavatam 5.9.3)

DBN_sept 2013The brahma-jyotir is known to be the effulgence of Krsna but if we read a little more about the brahma-jyotir then we read that it is filled with cit-kaṇaḥ. The cit-kaṇaḥ are the endless infinitesimal souls that are in there. So the whole brahma-jyotir is actually made up of souls that are in the state of being merged in brahman. So, although it looks like one all pervading effulgence, it actually consists of endless living beings.

So, in the same way, one can look at the sankirtan movement of Lord Caitanya. Although it looks like one movement, it is actually made up of individuals and each individual has to make an endeavour towards his own purity. It is not that we have to wait, ”Oh when or when, will I be a pure devotee? Oh when or when, will the light go on?” No, the light will go on when we decide to turn it on. In other words, when we decide to make the commitment, at that point we will be pure devotees.

 

 

 

Lord Siva’s Compassion Makes Him the Greatest Vaisnava, March 2, New Dvaraka, Los Angeles
Giriraj Swami

Siva_with_PracetasSiva_Drinking_Poison
————————————————————————-
Giriraj Swami read and spoke from Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.24.30 during the Sunday program.

“Because Lord Siva is a great devotee of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he loves all the devotees of the Supreme Lord. Lord Siva told the Pracetas that because they were devotees of the Lord, he loved them very much. Lord Siva was not kind and merciful only to the Pracetas; anyone who is a devotee of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is very dear to Lord Siva. Not only are the devotees dear to Lord Siva, but he respects them as much as he respects the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Similarly, devotees of the Supreme Lord also worship Lord Siva as the most dear devotee of Lord Krishna. They do not worship him as a separate Personality of Godhead.” (SB 4.24.30 purport)

Maha Siva-ratri Los Angeles 2014

Don’t concoct purpose in purposeless material existence
→ The Spiritual Scientist

…one should first of all understand that this material existence is anartham. Anartham means purposeless life. There is no purpose. Real purpose should be how to get out of the spell of material nature. That is real purpose. They do not know. They are taking very seriously some temporary purpose of life, which will be changed with the change of body. Now, as human being, I am manufacturing so many purposes of life, but as soon as the body is changed and I get the body of a cat or dog or tree, the whole purpose is changed. Therefore it is purposeless life, anartham.

- Srila Prabhupada lecture on Srimad Bhagavatam 3.26.6, Bombay, December 18, 1974

Srila Prabhupada

Prabhupada Letters :: Anthology 2014-03-03 17:20:00 →

1968 March 3: "One God, one scripture, one mantra, this idea is not manufactured by me, but it is authoritative statement. In Life Magazine, Feb. 9, 1968, there you will see how nicely the American boys and girls are dancing and chanting the Holy Name of the Lord. I think a very nice Sankirtana party can be organized to travel all over the world."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1968

The tenth anniversary of Sri Panchatattva’s installation in Mayapur Maha-Abhiseka huge ceremony! (Album 138 photos)
→ Dandavats.com

Who are the Pancha-tattva? The Pancha-tattva are a five-fold manifestation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, featured as five tattvas (truths), namely, isha-tattva (the Supreme Lord), His expansion tattva, His incarnation tattva, His energy tattva and His devotee tattva. These five tattvas incarnate with Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and thus the Lord executes His sankirtana movement with great pleasure. In Srimad-Bhagavatam (11.5.32) there is the following statement regarding Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu:-"In the Age of Kali, people who are endowed with sufficient intelligence will worship the Lord, who is accompanied by His associates, by performance of the sankirtana-yajna." Lord Chaitanya is always accompanied by His plenary expansion Sri Nityananda Prabhu, His incarnation Sri Advaita Prabhu, His internal potency Sri Gadädhara Prabhu and His marginal potency Sriväsa Prabhu. He is in the midst of them as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. One should know that Lord Chaitanya is always accompanied by these other tattvas. Therefore our obeisances to Lord Chaitanya are complete when we say:- sri-krishna-chaitanya, prabhu-nityananda sri-advaita gadadhara, srivasadi-gaura-bhakta-vrinda. Read more ›

New Personal website Jayadvaita Swami
→ KKSBlog

jayadvaita-swami-smiling

The renewed website of HH Jayadvaita Swami has been launched today, the 3rd of March 2014. Jayadvaita swami has been writing extensively for the Back to Godhead magazine, published and co-edited several books and is in charge of editing the BBT books of Srila Prabhupada and other contemporary devotees.

His website has been refreshed with a new layout and navigation menu. You can now easily find interesting articles about reincarnation, 9/11 and even about health issues. you can comment on articles and even subscribe to receive new articles by email when they are published. So you will not miss anything.

Visit : www.jswami.info

Here are some jewels of articles

 

 

 

 

New Vrindaban Celebrates Gaura Purnima 2014
→ New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

Gaura Purnima is coming up in less than two weeks and everyone is invited!

Lord Caitanya and His Sankirtan Party

Lord Caitanya and His Sankirtan Party

Here is the schedule, below, for the celebrations on Sunday March 16, 2014:

5:00 AM                 MANGAL  ARATI
5:30 AM                 NRSIMHA PRAYERS
5:45 AM                 TULASI PRAYERS
6:00 AM                 JAPA
7:30 AM                 GURU PUJA
8:00 AM                 GREETING THE DEITIES IN THEIR NEW  GAURA PURNIMA OUTFIT
8:20 AM                 SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM CLASS
11:00 AM               GOVARDHAN PARIKRAMA ( weather permitting)
1:00 PM                 ARATI
1:30 PM                 CLASS
2:15 PM                 Lunch  Prasadam (for those  who are not fasting)
5:00 PM                ABHISHEKA ON THE ALTAR
6:00 PM                 LECTURE
7:00 PM                ARATI
7:40 PM                 MAHA KIRTAN
8:00 PM                 PRASADAM FEAST

Your preparations for the Lord are welcome.  Please bring them by 5:45 PM to Sri Sri Radha Vrindaban Chandra’s pujari room.

If any second initiated devotees are interested in helping cook in the deity kitchen on Gaura Purnima day, please contact Abhinanda das either on facebook or email:

FB: Abhinanda Das               E-MAIL: abhinanda_bcs@yahoo.co.in

Much Gaura Purnima service is available, such as in the devotee kitchen (all morning), prasadam transfer (12:30 PM), cleaning the prasadam hall after the festival.

Prabhupada Letters :: Anthology 2014-03-03 15:55:00 →

1974 March 3: "We will present our program exactly in the line of Lord Caitanya, by kirtana, prasadam distribution and speaking from Bhagavad-gita. We cannot deviate even an inch in order to attract the followers of the ecology philosophy or any other materialistic, utopian movement. Our ideal Vedic community will attract everyone on its own merit."
Prabhupada Letters :: 1974

Sri Panchatattva in Mayapur never seen so happy! Maha Abhisheka 2014 (Album 130 photos)
→ Dandavats.com

In the Pancaratra scriptures there is a saying that in the ultimate analysis devotion is the only element which might cause the Lord to appear. That’s how the small Panca-tattva came, due to the great desire and devotion of His devotees. Then, as long as the devotee wishes to serve Him, the Lord reciprocates in the same way. Regarding the big Panca-tattva Deities, a whole book has been written on how They were manifested, first in South India, and then installed in Sri Mayapur dhama. Read more ›

Ecstatic Pancha-Tattva Maha-Abhiseka ceremony in Mayapur with more than 10.000 devotees present! (Album 19 photos)
→ Dandavats.com

On 3rd March, 2014, the worldwide vaisanva community gathered at Mayapur to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Sri Panca Tattva Installation in Mayapur. Around 6000 devotees were already in Mayapur, taking part in the kirtan mela. Thousands more devotees arrived yesterday and today from all over the world. A Maha Abhiseka was performed to Sri Panca Tattva. This is the mercy of Their Lordship Sri Panca-Tattva, who have manifested at Mayapur in Their magnificent 7ft deity form. Once again, They are gathering devotees together so they can relish the pastimes of the Lord in the association of His dear devotees. Read more ›

Planned food safety rules rile organic farmers
→ View From a New Vrindaban Ridge

la-la-na-food-safety-jpg-20140221

From the LA Times

HUSTONTOWN, Pa. — Jim Crawford was rushing to load crates of freshly picked organic tomatoes onto trucks heading for an urban farmers market when he noticed the federal agent.

A tense conversation followed as the visitor to his farm — an inspector from the Food and Drug Administration — warned him that some organic-growing techniques he had honed over four decades could soon be outlawed.

“This is my badge. These are the fines. This is what is hanging over your head, and we want you to know that,” Crawford says the official told him.

Crawford’s popular farm may seem a curious place for the FDA to move ahead with a long-planned federal assault on deadly food poisoning. To Crawford’s knowledge, none of the kohlrabi, fennel, sugar snap peas or other crops from his New Morning Farm have ever sickened anyone. But he is not the only organic grower to suddenly discover federal inspectors on his land.

In 2010, after a years-long campaign, food-safety activists persuaded Congress to give the FDA authority to regulate farm practices. The next year, an outbreak of food poisoning that killed 33 people who ate tainted cantaloupes put pressure on the FDA to be aggressive.

Now, farmers are discovering that the FDA’s proposed rules would curtail many techniques that are common among organic growers, including spreading house-made fertilizers, tilling cropland with grazing animals, and irrigating from open creeks.

Suddenly, from small family operations nestled in the foothills of Appalachia to the sophisticated organic-grower networks that serve Los Angeles and San Francisco, the farms that celebrity chefs and food-conscious consumers jostle to buy from are facing an unexpected adversary.

They’re fighting back. Even though full enforcement of the rules is still years away, they are warning customers that some farms would have to close.

“They are going to drive farms out of business,” said Dave Runsten, policy director for Community Alliance with Family Farmers in Davis, Calif.

“The consumer groups behind this don’t understand farming,” Runsten says. “They talk out of both sides of their mouth. They demand these one-size-fits-all regulations, then say, ‘I don’t want to hurt those cute little farmers at the farmers market. I shop at the farmers market.’ It is frustrating.”

Many farmers who take part in the locally grown food movement argue that contamination is a problem of industrial-sized farms and that some of the practices the FDA might ban actually make consumers safer.

Food safety advocates have urged regulators to hang tough. “We don’t believe large facilities are the only place where outbreaks are happening,” said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington. Farm-to-fork growers, she said, need to accept that emerging strains of E. coli and other bacteria can just as easily seep into the produce sold at a farmers market as into the batches of salad bagged at giant processing plants, and they need to tweak their methods to protect against it.


Filed under: Cows and Environment

My Filtered Bio, Briefly
→ View From a New Vrindaban Ridge

I am on the Board of Directors for ECOV  and was recently requested to give a brief bio.

According to our website”ECOV is a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to cow protection, local production of food, sustainable housing, alternative energy production and energy conservation. Cow protection includes not sending cows to the slaughter house and letting them live out their lives until a natural death. We are also working towards having active teams of oxen, planting 1000 fruit and nut trees and building earth sheltered low impact housing using recycled or locally produced materials. “

So applying the filter of what would be relevant to that here goes.

I was raised on a farm. My father put me on a tractor at age 11 in the flat and long fields of North Dakota. By the time I came to New Vrindaban at age  24 I had had my fill of industrial agriculture and wanted to get into a simple living scenario.  In the beginning  I trained a team of oxen, Bala and Deva, and worked the community vegetable gardens.

After a year in 1974 I was approached by the community leaders and asked to take over the field side of agriculture in New Vrindaban. As they wanted to free up labor to work at the Palace I was asked to use tractors and assured it was a temporary situation and we would go back to oxen later. It is now 40 years later and I am still trying to get back there thus supporting efforts to train ox teamsters and oxen and build an ox barn.

In the meantime I have had various services including Purchasing when we had 600 people here and were doing major construction projects many of which  you see  today.  For a couple of year I ran the Finance department of New Vrindaban. I  was also involved in various businesses New Vrindaban did to help support the community, including spending 3 years over a ten year period in New York City.

When I came back from NYC the final time I noted there was zero vegetables being grown in NV and have dedicated a lot of energy to reintroducing growing into NV culture.

I have 5 children and 3 grandchildren and still live in New Vrindaban where I garden, burn wood for heat, support my wife’s crafted gourd business,  and try to enable Srila Prabhupada’s vision for NV of  living simply dependent on the land and the cow.

I have also been keeping a blog  for 8 years that may   give some insight.


Filed under: Cows and Environment