Planet ISKCON

H.G Saci Suta Dasa kirtan

Answer Podcast

Giriraj Swami gave class to devotees and guests in the Darshan Room in Dallas.

“This magazine had an article on the 25th anniversary of the Woodstock festival, with profiles of one hundred people who had been at the original Woodstock. There was a little photo of each, with a brief description of what they experienced then and what they were doing now. Ninety-six had become conventional mainstream people. All their idealism from the sixties when they went to the festival was gone. The other four still had ideals but were a bit wacky. And I thought, ‘Thank Srila Prabhupada. Now, twenty-five years later, we still have our ideals—and we’re not wacky.’ We do not do wacky things like some of the people, who still had long hair and drove around in psychedelic VW vans with strange ideas. So I thanked Srila Prabhupada. Twenty-five years later we still had the same ideals. And what he gave us—Krishna consciousness—is not crazy or impractical. It is revolutionary, but in a spiritual way. And it is eternal, and it continues. When Srila Prabhupada came to America he was seventy years old, but because it is eternal and universal, he was able to touch our hearts and infuse us with spiritual knowledge and inspiration.”

Bhagavad-gita talk

There are many possible motives for suicide. Saintly people sometimes commit suicide to attone for some serious mistake or as an involuntary expression of some extremely deep emotion. Śiva’s wife Sati, for example, committed suicide out of grief of being related to her father, who had disrespected her husband. Coṭa Haridāsa committed suicide by drowning himself in a sacred river as an expression of his grief over so seriously displeasing Sri Caitanya. Sanātana Goswāmī planned to kill himself under the wheels of Jagannātha’s cart during Ratha Yatra, feeling that his life was useless. Sri Caitanya stopped him, affectionately explaining, “Your life belongs to me, it is not yours to throw away.” Raghunātha dāsa Goswāmī attempted suicide by leaping from Goverdhan hill. Rupa and Sanātana Goswāmīs gave him the inspiration to continue living.

The result of suicide, like everything, depends on the motive. Sati’s result was that she became Parvatī, married Śiva again and was free from her inglorious previous family / father. This shows that suicide does not always have a negative result.

Almost always, however, suicide is an unrecognized expression of the desire for mokṣa. The pains and depressing inescapable realities of existence become too great to bear, they vastly outweigh the joys and pleasures of life – one decisively prefers not to exist at all, rather than exist amidst such unbearable circumstances.

Since the desire for mokṣa is unrecognized, the individual seeks to end their existence by some physical means – a bullet, a pill, a blade, a steep drop, etc. If the desire were recognized as a desire for mokṣa the individual would instead recourse to nihilistic spiritual disciplines to extinguish his or her existence altogether – a much more effective form of suicide – since it destroys not just the physical self, but also the emotional self.

What destination is attained by a person who physically kills themselves?

It depends on their consciousness at the time of death. yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvam tajantyante kalevaraṁ - “whatever your heart is absorbed in when you die will become the general condition of your next birth.” (Bhagavad Gita)

Not always, but most often the consciousness of a person committing suicide is tragic and filled with negative emotions. Therefore most often, the destination of those who commit suicide is tragic. It is not always the case, but it is arguably the norm. When a person dies with a lot of unfinished, unresolved emotional ties to people, places and things in their life, they will find themselves unable to move on to their next birth. A suicidal person, specifically, will also be loathe towards the proposal of starting the whole depressing cycle over again in another birth. When the mind is paralyzed from moving on to the next life, the being has to exist for a while without a physical form, only in an emotional “body” – a very troubled emotional body.

People tend to experience such beings as “ghosts” and so on. Often, people who commit suicide have many, many unresolved issues with their life, thus it is quite frequent that suicide produces what many people call “ghosts.”

Another problem is that suicide most often leaves behind unfulfilled responsibilities. This is a serious karmic problem incurred by committing suicide. If a person is old, legitimately renounced, or somehow has fulfilled or never incurred many familial and social responsibilities, this may not be an issue.

Eventually (it can take centuries) the ghost forgets his or her negative ties to the previous life and drifts slowly towards another birth. In that next birth they will have to again deal with what they wanted escape: being alive in a painful world.

If a person recognizes the suicide impulse as the desire for mokṣa and fulfills that impulse not by physical suicide, but by “spiritual” nihilism – what is the result?

Another type of “ghost” – really.

They extinguish their false existence, which is good, but they do so with a sense of disgust, disdain, frustration, or repulsion. These negative motives invariably generate negative results. The result of such mokṣa is to obliterate one’s false being, but not attain any true being – a type of ghostly existence in a sense, in between falsehood and truth, and neither of either. Like a ghost, they exist for sometime without any tangible existence. Eventually, the negative, unresolved emotional ties to the false world will again pull them into subdividing their consciousness into negative existence and they will again acquire a material birth.

In the end, suicide of either type fails to solve the problem. You eventually have to actually face your problems and solve them. The problem is suffering. Self-centered existence is the root of suffering. Selfless existence is the end of suffering and the root of joy. “Selfless existence” means an existence of pure love. Pure love is realized in its most perfect zenith when the beloved is absolutely pure and real - focused on the absolute reality as the supreme beloved.

The only real way to end suffering is love - bhakti. Practice of bhakti is the only way to accomplish what suicide would like to accomplish, but cannot.

Hare Krishna.

This was the story never told
By one who cared not for the world’s gold.

One of the idle and wise,
A beggar with unfathomable eyes.

One who had nothing but dreams to give
To men who are eager to labour and live.

For the world in its wisdom deep and dim
Had taken all pleasure and treasure from him.

This was the story his soul could tell,
Immortal and unfathomable.

There was no record in his brain,
He did not know he should live again.

But there was one who read the whole,
Buried deep in a dead man’s soul.

“In the days of Atlantis, under the wave,
I was a slave, the child of a slave.

When the towers of Atlantis fell,
I died and was born again in hell.

From that sorrowful prison I did escape
And hid myself in a hero’s shape.

But few years had I of love or joy,
A Trojan I fell at the Siege of Troy.

I came again in a little while,
An Israelite slave on the banks of the Nile.

Then did I comfort my grief-laden heart.
With the magic lore and Egyptian art.

Fain was I to become Osiris then,
But soon I came back to the world of men.

By the Ganges I was an outcast born,
A wanderer and a child of scorn.

By the Waters of Babylon I wept,
My harp amongst the willows slept.

In the land of Greece I opened my eyes,
To reap the fields of Plotinus the Wise.

When the great light shattered the world’s closed bars,
I was a shepherd who gazed at the stars.

For lives that were lonely, obscure, apart,
I thank the Hidden One, in my heart,

That always and always under the sun
I went forth to battle and never won.

A slayer of men, I was doomed to abide,
For ever and aye, on the losing side.

Whenever. I dream of the wonderful goal,
I thank the hidden God in my soul

That though I have always been meanly born,
A tiller of earth and a reaper of corn,

Whenever through ages past and gone
The light divine for a moment shone,

Whenever piercing laborious night
A ray fell straight from the Light of Light,

Whenever amid fierce, lightning and storm
The divine moved in a human form,

Whenever the earth in her cyclic course
Shook at the touch of an unknown force,

Whenever the cloud of dull years grew thin
And a great star called to the light within,

I have braved storm and labour and sun
To stand at the side that Holy One.

No matter how humble my birth has been,
There are few who have seen what I have seen.

Mine the shepherd’s star and the reaper’s reward,
And the dream of him who fell by the sword.

One thing I have learned the long years through,
To know the false words from the true.

The slave who toiled on the banks of the Nile
With wisdom gladdened his long exile.

From Buddha at eve by the Ganges’ side
An outcast learnt the worth of the world’s pride.

To the tired reaper, when day was done,
Did Plotinus unveil the hidden sun.

Amongst the stars, on a Syrian night,
A ragged shepherd found the Light of Light.

From dream to dream, o’er valley and hill,
I followed the Lord Christ’s wandering will.

Kings there are who would barter a throne
For the long day’s toil and the light unknown,

The deed of the strong and the word of the wise,
And the night under cold and starry skies—

The white light of dawn on the hillside shed
On Him who had nowhere to lay His head.

Behold there are kings who would change with me,
For the love of the ancient mystery.

Shepherd and reaper and slave I have been,
There are few who have seen what I have seen.

I have been a gipsy since those days,
And lived again in the wild wood ways.

Wise with the lore of those hidden things,
Learnt from Lord Christ in His wanderings,

Beggar and reaper and shepherd and slave,
I am one who rests not in any grave;

I will follow each stormy light divine,
And the secret of all things shall be mine.

These things have I seen, would you bid me mourn
That I was never an Emperor born?”

The post October 9th, 2013 – Darshan appeared first on Mayapur.com.

ONE DAY ON POLISH FESTIVAL OF INDIA TOUR 2013

The word ‘self-conscious’ refers to an excessive awareness of one’s appearance and actions. For example, when we give our first public speech, we may be self-conscious, that is, too worried about how we look and how we speak.

Self-consciousness can be crippling. It can divert our mental energy away from concentrating on doing our actions properly to conjuring images of what others are thinking about our actions.

When we are thus self-conscious, the self that we are conscious of is a pseudo-self. It is our surface appearance that is visible to the public eye. In fact, it is not even that – it is our conception of what the world is seeing when it sees us. This conception is derived mostly from our material desires, our notions of what kind of appearance will attract us and thereby make us feel good.

Gita wisdom helps us break free from such self-consciousness by enabling us to become conscious of the self, our authentic self – the soul. The best way to become conscious of the self is by becoming conscious of the Supreme Person Krishna with whom the self is eternally related as an integral part, as a beloved child.  The process of bhakti-yoga brings dynamism to our consciousness of our self by providing us multiple ways in which we can serve Krishna.

The Bhagavad-gita (06.18) urges us to give up material desires and thereby situate ourselves in consciousness of our true self. The more we live in our harmony with our spiritual identity, the less we worry about our material image because we understand that it is peripheral to our actual self.  Once we start relishing the fulfillment of our true spiritual identity and glory, the need to be self-conscious and seek flickering pleasure through a positive self-image in the world disappears.

***

06.18 - When the yogi, by practice of yoga, disciplines his mental activities and becomes situated in transcendence — devoid of all material desires — he is said to be well established in yoga.

Introduction to Krishna Consciousness 2013-07-27

I got a request via Contact Me on this blog for the recipe for oat water so here I am obliging.  I am going to attempt to rebrand it as oat broth.

The basic principle is to use more water that normal and cook it longer

Currently I use old fashioned oats and about 4 times the normal recommended amount of water but you can use more.  We used to cook it for an hour but I am too impatient anymore so stop after 25-30 minutes. The sign when it is cooked enough is you see the  “cream” starting to come out of it and the oats have mostly lost their shape.  If you add enough water it is almost like a drink you can sip instead of  spoon.

I add fresh ginger and cinnamon but you add whatever you want to taste, I like it quite gingery. I usually don’t cook with salt but do lightly salt this as it seems to really bring out the flavor.  A tablespoon of butter per gallon doesn’t hurt it.

I add  a tablespoon or two of plain yogurt  to a bowlful and sweeten to taste with honey or jam.

I make a large batch once and keep it in the refrigerator taking out a daily dose and heating it up. Sometimes I add fresh or dried fruit when reheating it.

You can do the same thing with rolled barley but it takes a little longer to cook.

It is the kind of food that when you eat it you can almost heat your cells screaming, this is so good for me and tastes good to boot.

Giriraj Swami read and spoke from Bhagavad-gita 9.3 at a home program in Dallas.

“The faithless cannot accomplish this process of devotional service; that is the purport of this verse. Faith is created by association with devotees. Unfortunate people, even after hearing all the evidence of Vedic literature from great personalities, still have no faith in God. They are hesitant and cannot stay fixed in the devotional service of the Lord. Thus faith is a most important factor for progress in Krishna consciousness. In the Caitanya-caritamrita it is said that faith is the complete conviction that simply by serving the Supreme Lord, Sri Krishna, one can achieve all perfection. That is called real faith.” — Bhagavad-gita 9.3 purport

Bhagavad-gita 9.3

The pure devotee does not endeavor for anything which is against the principles of devotional service. For example, constructing a big building requires great energy, and a devotee does not take to such business if it does not benefit him by advancing his devotional service. He may construct a temple for the Lord, and for that he may take all kinds of anxiety, but he does not construct a big house for his personal relations.

Bhagavad Gita As It Is 12.16 purport

The post October 8th, 2013 – Darshan appeared first on Mayapur.com.

Fountain in the Palace Pond

Krsna is in control. Many of our guests will remember the summer of 2012, when there were big electric storms in the New Vrindaban area, notably on the July 4 long weekend, and the electricity went down for a long time.  We were helpless to make things work more quickly. There was also a severe water shortage at this time in the Dhama, with drying wells and a damaged main water tank.  Many of our donors and pilgrims generously came to the aid of New Vrindaban by helping us repair the essential main water tank, and we send thanks to everyone for that.  We learned that Krsna, through His devoted well-wishers, has saved us, as He always does, from a similar fiasco re-occurring!

After much uncertainty, the final appearance of the public water line on the ridge allowed New Vrindaban to hook up the Palace of Gold to the local city water system.  Our main water tank (which is fed by our wells) also has city water hooked up as a back-up system. A new well has been drilled, which increases our own water production. The final approval to connect the new well from the government is currently on its way.

Gopisha das, the director of renovations and maintenance at New Vrindaban tells us,  “The main water line from the city terminates behind our temple apartment building #1. Should we ever have the need in the future, we are already set up to switch the entire temple complex over to city water, but will remain on our own wells for now..”

Gopisha das confirms, with relief, “With the repair and lining of the 90 thousand gallon main tank, the newly drilled well and the addition of city water as a back-up to our own system, we can hopefully put our festival water shortage days behind us.  Lord Krsna is very kind to His devotees.”