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HG Madhava das at the 12 hour Kirtan at ISKCON Toronto – 12th July 2013
Sometimes worldly desires, especially immoral and anti-devotional sexual desires, seem irresistible. No matter how much we try to resist them, they seem to keep returning again and again till we become too exhausted to resist and give in to them.
The Bhagavad-gita (05.22) provides the intellectual impetus for continuing the resistance: worldly pleasures are sources of misery. The enjoyment is fleeting, whereas the resulting emotional entanglement is lasting.
Even when we understand this intellectually, worldly desires still seem irresistible emotionally. At such times, it’s critical that we don’t mistake the irresistible to be essential. Just because it seems as if we can’t live without something doesn’t mean that we actually can’t live without it.
Addicts serve as unfortunate but universal examples. Drug addicts feel they can't live without their shot of cocaine. But the reality is that cocaine prevents them from living properly. Their addiction deprives them of life’s essential aspects – mental clarity, financial security, family stability, for example.
The same distraction from the essential happens, though in a less visible degree, for those of us who mistake irresistible material desires to be essential. We are souls, and our eternal necessity for real fulfillment is love for Krishna. As long as we keep pandering to our irresistible-seeming worldly desires, we leave ourselves with little time or energy to cultivate devotion to Krishna. And thus we deprive ourselves of spiritual happiness.
Thankfully, bhakti-yoga shows the way out of this trap of mistaking the irresistible to be essential. When we fix the mind on Krishna, then the resulting divine thoughts offer deep fulfillment, thereby gradually freeing us from the evil grip of our specific psychological illusions. The Bhagavad-gita (05.23) assures that those who successfully resist material desires attain lasting happiness.
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Before giving up this present body, if one is able to tolerate the urges of the material senses and check the force of desire and anger, he is well situated and is happy in this world.
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 30 June 2013, Vrndavan, India, Srimad Bhagavatam 6.16.34)
Often, when I read the Srimad Bhagavatam, I think of Bhismadeva with the hundreds of arrows that pierced his body yet he was still totally peaceful. He was still instructing Yudhisthira, whereas we – with one arrow, then call the ambulance. And we wonder which would be louder, our scream or the siren of the ambulance! So it is like we have such little tolerance and such little determination. We have no training or austerity.
I have been on Indian unreserved trains. You have these people, they can sit on the door for ten hours. I cannot sit on the door for ten hours! It is not a yogi but an ordinary villager who can sit on the door for ten hours. I can sit on the door for ten minutes then a certain part of my body turns black and blue. Literally, on these trains, by sitting on the floor I have bruises. I was not made for these kinds of conditions - did not grow up with that.
So what is our capacity for austerity? Coming from the West to modern India, it is catching up quick that gradually we become really soft. I was once carrying suitcases with cash on the train as a service for some purchase of land. So I took a first-class air-conditioned coach and it cost just as much as a plane.
On this train, you have a bell. It was just me and one other man in the compartment. This man, he was like extremely soft; I was not sure whether there were any bones inside of him. He was draped on the seat and he had this button. Whenever he pushed the button a servant would come and he would say, “In ten minutes the station is coming, go and see if there are any samoosas…” He would send this guy onto the platform to buy something more to eat. At every stage, he would call by ringing the bell.
Gradually, we are all becoming like that – no more bones but soft and jellyfish like - just pushing buttons to satisfy the senses so what austerity can we take!?
Nescience… is compared to the disease called jaundice, which is caused by bilious secretions. Attacked by jaundice, the tongue of a diseased person cannot palatably relish sugar candy. Rather, a person with jaundice considers something sweet to taste very bitter. Avidya (ignorance) similarly perverts the ability to relish the transcendentally palatable name, quality, form and pastimes of Krishna. Despite this disease, if one with great care and attention takes to Krishna consciousness, chanting the holy name and hearing Krishna's transcendental pastimes, his ignorance will be destroyed and his tongue enabled to taste the sweetness of the transcendental nature of Krishna and His paraphernalia. Such a recovery of spiritual health is possible only by the regular cultivation of Krishna consciousness.
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JANDA BAIK - A total of 80 kids of Sugam Karnatica’s Sunday School gathered excitedly at 8.00 a.m on 28th July 2013 at the Taman Jaya carpark to make our way to the HareKrishna Goshala (cow- farm) located at Janda Baik, Pahang. The kids, accompanied by facilitators of Sugam Karnatica and parents boarded 2 buses which had been chartered to take us there.The bus left at 8.30am and we reached Janda Baik at about 10.00 a.m. The bus had to stop along the mainroad and we had to walk along a narrow road for about 3 kilometres before we reached the farm.
When we reached, we were briefed by Goloka Prabhu of ISKCON Malaysia, which is the body that runs and operates the farm. We also had a short video presentation and briefing by Goloka Prabhu, where he explained how an entire community lived on a farm in Hungary. The video showed us how the people there live with natural resources, yet they are fully equipped with all facilities such as schools and other amenities.
After that, we joined in a bhajan chanting session led by the devotees of ISKCON Malaysia. During the bhajan, we were treated to ‘Bliss Bars’ – sweet white and brown chocolate bars made from pure unadulterated cow’s milk! Yummy!
Soon after, it was time to bathe and feed the cows. The group was broken into two and took turns bathing and feeding the cows. We used a hose to spray water on the cows and brushes to brush their coats.
As for feeding, the cows were fed with grass and brown sugar, which they truly relished! It was fun feeding the cows, especially feeling the rough surface of the cow’s tongue on our palms. An experience to remember!
The children also took the opportunity to stroke and pet the cows. It was a wonderful hands-on experience for all the kids, and for most of them, this was the first time in contact with a real life cow.
By noon, everyone was exhausted and hungry and treated to wonderful prasada.
Then it was time for some pop quiz. Many students were successful in answering the questions posed and won Krishna and Shiva masks!
This was followed by a presentation of cheque of RM1000 to the Hare Krishna Goshala, contributed by all Sugam Sunday School students. Very soon, it was time to say goodbye to the cows and the lovely people at the Hare Krishna farm, but not before we had a round of extremely yummy fresh ice cream made from cow’s milk in various flavors – strawberry, green apple and chocolate. All in all, we had a fun and enjoyable time while learning more about Mother Cow.
Thank you Sugam Sunday School and ISKCON Malaysia! Till the next field trip! Hare Krishna
Evening program in Budapest.
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What does Gita says on Love? What if we love someone dearly but they are not with us for some ills of our society? Also, what has Gita said for marriages in such cases?
We all need willpower for doing anything worthwhile. In fact, willpower is the power that unleashes our other powers such as undeveloped talents. Without willpower, potential geniuses end up becoming prodigals instead of prodigies.
Strong willpower is a great power to have, but it’s not all that great if it’s divorced from spiritual reality. Let’s understand how.
Gita wisdom offers us a vivid vision of spiritual reality. We are all souls, parts of Krishna. All our abilities come from him – even our willpower, as the Bhagavad-gita (07.09) indicates. We can glimpse this truth when the willpower we think is ours sometimes suddenly deserts us, leaving us struggling to do the things that we normally do effortlessly.
As long as we think that willpower is our power, we labor under the illusion that doing the things that we want to do will make us happy. But we as souls can't be satisfied by anything except spiritual love for Krishna. We keep erecting new goals and maybe even attaining them, but happiness keeps eluding us. Still, our willpower intoxicates us with vanity, making us pretend to be happy at our achievements or making us believe that the next achievement will make us happy.
To end this vain intoxication, we need to see willpower not as our power but as Krishna’s power. This vision inspires us to surrender to Krishna and use all our willpower to serve him single-mindedly. Such service wins his heart, and he grants the supreme power of love for him. When we are animated and guided by the power of love for Krishna, our willpower enables us to do wonderful things in his service. These devotional achievements enrich and flavor our love for Krishna, thereby propelling us towards an everlasting life of love with him.
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I am the penances of all ascetics.
Everyone falls down. Gurus fall down, nobodies fall down. Men fall down, women fall down. Old people fall down, young people fall down. People who write books fall down, people who never say a single word fall down. People who practice rāgānugā-sādhana fall down, people who practice vaidhi-sādhana fall down. Brahmacaris fall down, grhasthas too, sanyassis too, and “that other āśrama” as well; even those who are uncultured on both ends of the spectrum fall down. People who travel and preach fall down, people who stay in one place fall down. People in Vrndavana fall down, people in Govardhan fall down, people in Radha Kunda fall down, and people in Nebraska fall down too.
The purusha abhiman can regain its beginningless hold over the miniscule jiva at any point in time, anywhere, under any circumstances. I don’t think its profitable to overanalyze the circumstances, therefore, pretending that the circumstances cause the falldown. It is the purusha-abhiman which causes the fall down, the circumstances it exploits to do so can be anything.
The best advice is therefore to continually try our best to always do Harinam-Samkirtana; not feeling respectable, but always feeling respectful; very meek like grass, and very patient like trees.
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 30 June 2013, Vrndavan, India, Lecture to the kirtan group)
Krsna is so kind, he gives us the spiritual world. I often think about that. Krsna thought to himself:
“Oh, there are those living beings who have turned away from me. Things are not complete without them. Let me do something for them. Let me give them some mercy. But why would I give them only some mercy? Why don’t I just give them all the mercy? Why would I hold back and give them only some? I’ll give them all the mercy!”
And then he placed the spiritual world in the material world. How it mathematically fits, the tripada-vibhuti fits into the eka-pada vibhuti – that I leave to the mathematicians. But Krsna did it, you know. He did it! He put it in! So that is something.
When I think about that, then I know that Krsna is not just supplying us with mercy in reciprocation for our service but even causeless mercy.