As my plane lands, I try to make sure where to put my legs- where do I stand? Of course I am no pilot, so this is figurative, but one thing this year has really brought is turbulent weather. Good turbulent weather.
At some point in my childhood I was obsessed with religious ritual; I would go to morning mass everyday, pray my rosary reverently- everything about the whole service was sort of romantic. I studied the lives of Saints. Name a saint and I could tell you how they lived.
By the will of providence, as I grew up, that romance ended aprubtly when I was practically forbidden to go to Church. It was a subtle forbiddance, but the result was me running away to "find myself." What I found was the Hare Krsna movement. A romance rekindled! A slightly different mood. With God as the same goal, but awe and reverence not the main point. I was fascinated to know about different ways of approaching God. Loving service was now emphasized. Now go find others who may be spinning in their own cocoons, looking for a similar experience.
So as young monks we romantically took to Krsna's movement, putting aside every other consideration the world had to offer. We were on our way back to Godhead! Young enthusiasm, leave no prisoners, onward spiritual soldiers, march against illusion's snare. It's easy to march when you have a leader in front of you, giving you goals, cheering you on, smashing you, pushing you back to Godhead.
Then at some point the question came, " so what do YOU want to do for Krsna? What responsibilities can you take? Which shoulder would you like to lend for leaning? Who me? Oh, I thought all you big men would stick around forever and I'll just do as you command? Me? Responsibility? Ok, I guess.
So with what tools I had I scurried along, meeting and inviting others- " leave no prisoners, onward spiritual warriors!"
Then came responsibility: feed em, make sure they're trained for battle, mentally, physically, Spiritually. And then reality hit. Mistakes were made, people were pushed too pushed, etc etc. Fights were fought for the cause of the mission, and in most cases, I wondered if anyone was even listening? So came 2012. The year when it all will end, according to some. Nah, according to others. I braced myself, " if it ends, I'll go down swinging! If it doesn't, I'll stay up swinging! But something had to end. For me. Maybe not the world, maybe not the fight, maybe not even the playful-happy-go-super-lucky me! Immature enthusiasm has to die.
So the turbulence was of my own making; all my romantic conceptions placed before me. I now have to solidify them, or let them go. The love for Krsna must increase, for if I don't mend my shaky relationship with him, I am and will always remain incapable of loving anything! Krsna is the root cause of everything. So should I push? Yes, push those who need pushing. Should I march? Yes, with those who like marching. And prisoners? Yes, leave none. But only if I work in conjunction with pushing myself, marching myself, and freeing myself from illusion.
Leave aside immaturity. Mature through chanting, through studying the map out of here (Srila Prabhupada's books), through good association, through breaking the chains that weakens the heart.
I think I'll land here:
With the conviction that love of God is in every living entity. Deep within in each heart, under the envy, the greed, the lust, the madness, the pride, the illusion, is that covered spark who knows nothing but how to love. To Truly love Krsna. And what is my duty? To amuse, to inspire to delight, to somehow other reach deep and give what was given me- a chance to have turbulences, to solidify my desire to re love Krsna, to re meet Krsna, to again have it all be about Krsna.
As my plane lands, I try to make sure where to put my legs- where do I stand? Of course I am no pilot, so this is figurative, but one thing this year has really brought is turbulent weather. Good turbulent weather.
At some point in my childhood I was obsessed with religious ritual; I would go to morning mass everyday, pray my rosary reverently- everything about the whole service was sort of romantic. I studied the lives of Saints. Name a saint and I could tell you how they lived.
By the will of providence, as I grew up, that romance ended aprubtly when I was practically forbidden to go to Church. It was a subtle forbiddance, but the result was me running away to "find myself." What I found was the Hare Krsna movement. A romance rekindled! A slightly different mood. With God as the same goal, but awe and reverence not the main point. I was fascinated to know about different ways of approaching God. Loving service was now emphasized. Now go find others who may be spinning in their own cocoons, looking for a similar experience.
So as young monks we romantically took to Krsna's movement, putting aside every other consideration the world had to offer. We were on our way back to Godhead! Young enthusiasm, leave no prisoners, onward spiritual soldiers, march against illusion's snare. It's easy to march when you have a leader in front of you, giving you goals, cheering you on, smashing you, pushing you back to Godhead.
Then at some point the question came, " so what do YOU want to do for Krsna? What responsibilities can you take? Which shoulder would you like to lend for leaning? Who me? Oh, I thought all you big men would stick around forever and I'll just do as you command? Me? Responsibility? Ok, I guess.
So with what tools I had I scurried along, meeting and inviting others- " leave no prisoners, onward spiritual warriors!"
Then came responsibility: feed em, make sure they're trained for battle, mentally, physically, Spiritually. And then reality hit. Mistakes were made, people were pushed too pushed, etc etc. Fights were fought for the cause of the mission, and in most cases, I wondered if anyone was even listening? So came 2012. The year when it all will end, according to some. Nah, according to others. I braced myself, " if it ends, I'll go down swinging! If it doesn't, I'll stay up swinging! But something had to end. For me. Maybe not the world, maybe not the fight, maybe not even the playful-happy-go-super-lucky me! Immature enthusiasm has to die.
So the turbulence was of my own making; all my romantic conceptions placed before me. I now have to solidify them, or let them go. The love for Krsna must increase, for if I don't mend my shaky relationship with him, I am and will always remain incapable of loving anything! Krsna is the root cause of everything. So should I push? Yes, push those who need pushing. Should I march? Yes, with those who like marching. And prisoners? Yes, leave none. But only if I work in conjunction with pushing myself, marching myself, and freeing myself from illusion.
Leave aside immaturity. Mature through chanting, through studying the map out of here (Srila Prabhupada's books), through good association, through breaking the chains that weakens the heart.
I think I'll land here:
With the conviction that love of God is in every living entity. Deep within in each heart, under the envy, the greed, the lust, the madness, the pride, the illusion, is that covered spark who knows nothing but how to love. To Truly love Krsna. And what is my duty? To amuse, to inspire to delight, to somehow other reach deep and give what was given me- a chance to have turbulences, to solidify my desire to re love Krsna, to re meet Krsna, to again have it all be about Krsna.
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is by far the biggest of its kind in the world. The average daily trading reaches $170 billion, while the total capitalisation of listed companies on the NYSE is well over $14 trillion. As you can imagine, daily events there can often reach fever-pitch. In the late 60’s, a few artful “yippies” conspired to create a publicity stunt at the Wall Street establishment. While swarms of brokers were cutting deals worth millions of dollars, these individuals quietly climbed to a vantage point overlooking the manic trading floor. They attracted everyone’s attention with a loud call, and proceeded to shower down fistfuls of fake dollar bills! As the individuals on the trading floor saw this astonishing sight, a frantic scramble ensued, as they shrugged each other off to grab the cash, while leaving all their lucrative deals hanging! It was incredulous – there was practically no financial benefit in their petty scramble, yet the mere sight of physical cash completely captivated them. For those few moments, their better intelligence lost them. As they realized the trick they quickly retreated back to their business in a desperate attempt to recoup their losses!
The world is full of temptations, allurements and a variety of attractive enticements. A cool-headed analysis of them confirms their ultimate uselessness and striking inability to bring us what we really desire. Unfortunately, in the heat of the moment, such temptations are practically irresistable. The opportunity for instant gratification captures our mind. The urge within seems too intense to tolerate. We know it would be a mistake, but we dont have the inner strength to say 'no'. Nevertheless, the comical Wall Street episode teaches us an age-old lesson. The net result of giving-in to empty, insubstantial temptations is that we feel frustrated, angry, cheated, and disappointed with ourselves. Furthermore, we simultaneously neglect and damage our progressive path in life which is more valuable, fulfilling and long-lasting. The necessity of forgoing immediate pleasure to attain something far greater holds true in every sphere of life – material or spiritual. The Bhagavad-gita offers a variety of solutions for those looking to embrace long-term wellbeing. Learning that art will COST you:
Conviction – be convinced of the great thing you are trying to achieve, and why it requires a certain discipline and self-restraint.
Openness – regardless of success or failure, be open with a friend and seek their advice, support, guidance and feedback.
Safety – be conscious to avoid provoking situations, people and mindsets which may compromise your principles.
Taste – work hard to experience the ‘better life’, and solidify your resolve by feeling the benefits of your restraint.
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is by far the biggest of its kind in the world. The average daily trading reaches $170 billion, while the total capitalisation of listed companies on the NYSE is well over $14 trillion. As you can imagine, daily events there can often reach fever-pitch. In the late 60’s, a few artful “yippies” conspired to create a publicity stunt at the Wall Street establishment. While swarms of brokers were cutting deals worth millions of dollars, these individuals quietly climbed to a vantage point overlooking the manic trading floor. They attracted everyone’s attention with a loud call, and proceeded to shower down fistfuls of fake dollar bills! As the individuals on the trading floor saw this astonishing sight, a frantic scramble ensued, as they shrugged each other off to grab the cash, while leaving all their lucrative deals hanging! It was incredulous – there was practically no financial benefit in their petty scramble, yet the mere sight of physical cash completely captivated them. For those few moments, their better intelligence lost them. As they realized the trick they quickly retreated back to their business in a desperate attempt to recoup their losses!
The world is full of temptations, allurements and a variety of attractive enticements. A cool-headed analysis of them confirms their ultimate uselessness and striking inability to bring us what we really desire. Unfortunately, in the heat of the moment, such temptations are practically irresistable. The opportunity for instant gratification captures our mind. The urge within seems too intense to tolerate. We know it would be a mistake, but we dont have the inner strength to say 'no'. Nevertheless, the comical Wall Street episode teaches us an age-old lesson. The net result of giving-in to empty, insubstantial temptations is that we feel frustrated, angry, cheated, and disappointed with ourselves. Furthermore, we simultaneously neglect and damage our progressive path in life which is more valuable, fulfilling and long-lasting. The necessity of forgoing immediate pleasure to attain something far greater holds true in every sphere of life – material or spiritual. The Bhagavad-gita offers a variety of solutions for those looking to embrace long-term wellbeing. Learning that art will COST you:
Conviction – be convinced of the great thing you are trying to achieve, and why it requires a certain discipline and self-restraint.
Openness – regardless of success or failure, be open with a friend and seek their advice, support, guidance and feedback.
Safety – be conscious to avoid provoking situations, people and mindsets which may compromise your principles.
Taste – work hard to experience the ‘better life’, and solidify your resolve by feeling the benefits of your restraint.
World Renowned kirtan leader, His Grace Gauravani Prabhu visited TKG Academy in the first week of school. He sat right on the floor with all 23 students, completely at home with the kids. He introduced himself as a former Gurukula student and a father. One by one, the children introduced…
I say "again" in the title, because I've gone down this path before. When I first moved out of the temple in 2002 I went back to Michigan to live with my father. I lived in his basement and became a stereotypical artist-slacker. I had been living in the temple for the past seven years and became "fried out" as the devotees say. I had no taste for devotional service. I was having a devotional mid-life crisis and wanted to go out and explore the wonderful world of maya again. And I did it with a gusto. By the end of my experiments with sense gratification though (around 2004), I was left feeling empty, depressed and miserable. That's when my now wife, Kadamba mala, contacted me and pulled me out of the gutter and depression I was falling into. I was getting back on track, back on the devotional path.
So it's curious that I now find myself eight years later going back to the thing that I rejected. In the Srimad Bhagavatam there's that verse about "chewing the chewed". The example is that a man chews some sugar cane to get the sweetness out of it and then discards it. Then he again picks it up to try and chew more sweetness from it, but it's of course long gone. This is what I'm doing. I know there's no real enjoyment in drinking, yet here I am going back to it and trying to pretend its enjoyable.
As I woke up this morning with a migraine I realized it was a wake-up call. Why am I wasting my time in these sorts of activities? There are reasons why I ventured back into it, but to discuss it at length would betray the trust and privacy of others.
One thing I realized by openly talking about drinking is that I don't have very many friends in the devotional community. Not one devotee has contacted me to say, "Is everything okay?" Even those devotees that I served with for years and had many wonderful devotional experiences with. Why is this? Are they too busy "doing service"? What happened to all of the compassion, concern and empathy they had for me when my Guru Maharaja was physically around? Odd.
I'm not bringing this up as a criticism. I'm also guilty of not caring that much about others. Maybe that's the lesson here. Maybe that's the point Krishna and Sri Guru are trying to show me: I don't care about others, so why will they care about me?
Everyone is eager to criticize the sinful activity of my drinking, yet no one is eager to know or question why I started doing it again. Of course, like I said, I wouldn't even really be able to get into much detail about it, so maybe it's all a moot point. We should know though that most people don't act without purpose. There is purpose behind our actions and behind our words. The drinking for me was some kind of way to cope with something personal that's going on. It was also a means of trying to create commonalities in relationships.
Ultimately all of my reasons for drinking again were quite flawed. It's a pointless activity and one that apparently yields negative results for me with migraines. Kind of an obvious choice to stop such an activity, isn't it? I'm getting older and more fragile. I'm no longer a spry young teenager.
We're constantly making choices in our lives and we have to reap the results of our actions. Everyday the devotees are making choices to either be selfless and more Krishna Conscious or they're making choices to be selfish and more entangled in sense gratification. It's an eternal struggle so long as this material body and mind exist. If I continually and simply give up and give in to the sense gratification then what is the point of my existence? How than can I even call myself a devotee or a Vaishnava? It's all a farce.
I know why I dabbled with drinking again. I also know why I have to stop. I've never considered myself to be a pure devotee. I've always been keenly aware of my deficiencies and short-comings. Recently a devotee friend of mine told me that we're all just human. I have to wonder though, at some point we need to stop thinking that we're human. "I'm just a human, I'm just falible" can become a justification mantra. At what point do we fight it? At what point do we stop trying to enjoy our senses? At what point do we stop giving in to our lower natures? We're such poor, selfish creatures. At this point I can only pray to Sri Nityananda Prabhu to continue kicking me...and kicking me He is.
I say "again" in the title, because I've gone down this path before. When I first moved out of the temple in 2002 I went back to Michigan to live with my father. I lived in his basement and became a stereotypical artist-slacker. I had been living in the temple for the past seven years and became "fried out" as the devotees say. I had no taste for devotional service. I was having a devotional mid-life crisis and wanted to go out and explore the wonderful world of maya again. And I did it with a gusto. By the end of my experiments with sense gratification though (around 2004), I was left feeling empty, depressed and miserable. That's when my now wife, Kadamba mala, contacted me and pulled me out of the gutter and depression I was falling into. I was getting back on track, back on the devotional path.
So it's curious that I now find myself eight years later going back to the thing that I rejected. In the Srimad Bhagavatam there's that verse about "chewing the chewed". The example is that a man chews some sugar cane to get the sweetness out of it and then discards it. Then he again picks it up to try and chew more sweetness from it, but it's of course long gone. This is what I'm doing. I know there's no real enjoyment in drinking, yet here I am going back to it and trying to pretend its enjoyable.
As I woke up this morning with a migraine I realized it was a wake-up call. Why am I wasting my time in these sorts of activities? There are reasons why I ventured back into it, but to discuss it at length would betray the trust and privacy of others.
One thing I realized by openly talking about drinking is that I don't have very many friends in the devotional community. Not one devotee has contacted me to say, "Is everything okay?" Even those devotees that I served with for years and had many wonderful devotional experiences with. Why is this? Are they too busy "doing service"? What happened to all of the compassion, concern and empathy they had for me when my Guru Maharaja was physically around? Odd.
I'm not bringing this up as a criticism. I'm also guilty of not caring that much about others. Maybe that's the lesson here. Maybe that's the point Krishna and Sri Guru are trying to show me: I don't care about others, so why will they care about me?
Everyone is eager to criticize the sinful activity of my drinking, yet no one is eager to know or question why I started doing it again. Of course, like I said, I wouldn't even really be able to get into much detail about it, so maybe it's all a moot point. We should know though that most people don't act without purpose. There is purpose behind our actions and behind our words. The drinking for me was some kind of way to cope with something personal that's going on. It was also a means of trying to create commonalities in relationships.
Ultimately all of my reasons for drinking again were quite flawed. It's a pointless activity and one that apparently yields negative results for me with migraines. Kind of an obvious choice to stop such an activity, isn't it? I'm getting older and more fragile. I'm no longer a spry young teenager.
We're constantly making choices in our lives and we have to reap the results of our actions. Everyday the devotees are making choices to either be selfless and more Krishna Conscious or they're making choices to be selfish and more entangled in sense gratification. It's an eternal struggle so long as this material body and mind exist. If I continually and simply give up and give in to the sense gratification then what is the point of my existence? How than can I even call myself a devotee or a Vaishnava? It's all a farce.
I know why I dabbled with drinking again. I also know why I have to stop. I've never considered myself to be a pure devotee. I've always been keenly aware of my deficiencies and short-comings. Recently a devotee friend of mine told me that we're all just human. I have to wonder though, at some point we need to stop thinking that we're human. "I'm just a human, I'm just falible" can become a justification mantra. At what point do we fight it? At what point do we stop trying to enjoy our senses? At what point do we stop giving in to our lower natures? We're such poor, selfish creatures. At this point I can only pray to Sri Nityananda Prabhu to continue kicking me...and kicking me He is.
What a week it had been! One full of activities with preparations of the advent of Sri Krishna. At Sri Jagannatha Mandir, it was one of the best Janmastami ever experienced. Thousands of people showed up. Stage show coupled with … Continue reading →
The clock is ticking down to midnight. I approach the glowing temple - I see hundreds of people inside all singing to the thrum of drums, and many more crowd outside on the verandah, peering in.
The time is coming! The curtains will open soon! I dash to the doors and slip inside.
I stand at the back in a pocket of space, exchanging grins with some friends. Suddenly, someone flips off the lights, which plunges the templeroom into darkness. Now all we can see is the glow that seeps around the curtains of the altar, which dimly illuminates the sea of people with upturned faces.
I can't stay at the back. No way.
I catch sight of a friend, and with a huge grin I motion my head towards the altar. "Let's go!" I say. Her eyes widen and she smiles back. I grab her hand and we weave our way through the densely packed crowds, all the way... all the way to the very heart of the templeroom.
The anticipation of hundreds of people to see the Lord washes around me like deep ocean currents.
Suddenly, three men emerge from behind the curtains and place conch shells to their lips. The sound reverberates like trumpets through the night and hundreds of voices rise in response.
Midnight has arrived.
And when at last, at last.... at last the curtains swish open, hands rise to the sky in surrender, the entire templeroom is filled with cries of exhilaration and joy, every atom of my being seems to be ringing with awe. I raise my own arms. I feel as though a tidal wave of beauty is crashing over and around me.
I fall to the ground in obeisance. Cool marble tingles beneath my hands.
When I rise, I take in the breathtaking form of Radha and Krishna, bedecked with flowers and silks. So begins the midnight arati, the most spectacular kirtan of the year, for midnight on the 8th day of the waxing moon was the moment that Lord Krishna was born.
Just when I think I'm getting a little too overwhelmed with the sound and the heat and the crowds, I look over to see a group of women dancing with zero inhibition. Zero. So I head on over and jump in to the fantastic fray! The dancing spreads and spreads until the entire templeroom of people is dancing and singing at the top of our lungs. I experience all barriers, all judgments, all sins, all pain dissolve. We simply lose ourselves to the bliss and celebration of Krishna and His holy name.
We're throwing a birthday party for God - how can it get any better than this?
The clock is ticking down to midnight. I approach the glowing temple - I see hundreds of people inside all singing to the thrum of drums, and many more crowd outside on the verandah, peering in.
The time is coming! The curtains will open soon! I dash to the doors and slip inside.
I stand at the back in a pocket of space, exchanging grins with some friends. Suddenly, someone flips off the lights, which plunges the templeroom into darkness. Now all we can see is the glow that seeps around the curtains of the altar, which dimly illuminates the sea of people with upturned faces.
I can't stay at the back. No way.
I catch sight of a friend, and with a huge grin I motion my head towards the altar. "Let's go!" I say. Her eyes widen and she smiles back. I grab her hand and we weave our way through the densely packed crowds, all the way... all the way to the very heart of the templeroom.
The anticipation of hundreds of people to see the Lord washes around me like deep ocean currents.
Suddenly, three men emerge from behind the curtains and place conch shells to their lips. The sound reverberates like trumpets through the night and hundreds of voices rise in response.
Midnight has arrived.
And when at last, at last.... at last the curtains swish open, hands rise to the sky in surrender, the entire templeroom is filled with cries of exhilaration and joy, every atom of my being seems to be ringing with awe. I raise my own arms. I feel as though a tidal wave of beauty is crashing over and around me.
I fall to the ground in obeisance. Cool marble tingles beneath my hands.
When I rise, I take in the breathtaking form of Radha and Krishna, bedecked with flowers and silks. So begins the midnight arati, the most spectacular kirtan of the year, for midnight on the 8th day of the waxing moon was the moment that Lord Krishna was born.
Just when I think I'm getting a little too overwhelmed with the sound and the heat and the crowds, I look over to see a group of women dancing with zero inhibition. Zero. So I head on over and jump in to the fantastic fray! The dancing spreads and spreads until the entire templeroom of people is dancing and singing at the top of our lungs. I experience all barriers, all judgments, all sins, all pain dissolve. We simply lose ourselves to the bliss and celebration of Krishna and His holy name.
We're throwing a birthday party for God - how can it get any better than this?
Diary of a Traveling Sadhaka, Vol. 8, No. 12 By Krishna-kripa das (June 2012, part two)
London Ratha-yatra, Stonehenge, and More (Sent from Málaga, Spain, on Janmastami, August 10, 2012)
Where I Where and What I Did
London Ratha-yatra was wonderful as usual with a great parade, super prasadam, and various booths and a stage show that attracted people from all over the world. The next couple days, I did harinama in London, along with Sri Gadadhara and Trevor Prabhus, a couple new devotees I had been serving with in Newcastle. Next these friends and I joined with Parasurama Prabhu and his crew to go to Stonehenge for the annual solstice festival, joined by one attendee from the London Ratha-yatra I invited to come. Many people heard the holy name and took prasadam there on that cold, windy, and wet night. Then my little sankirtana party returned to London for a few more days of harinama. Trevor flew to Czech Republic, and on the way back to Newcastle, Sri Gadadhara, my remaining sankirtana partner, and I stopped in Leeds for their monthly Sunday feast. There the congregation pleasantly surprised me by joining us for an hour of harinama after the program. While waiting for the bus back to Newcastle the next morning, I took a break and chanted for a few minutes on the crowded sidewalks where the Olympic torch bearer was passing through Leeds. The final few days of the month we did harinama in Newcastle and nearby localities.
In the “Insights” section I include a great quote about spiritual pleasure from The Nectar of Devotion, and notes on a beautiful class given by Srila Prabhupada on Bhaktivinoda Thakura. It seems Candramauli Swami is making even better points in his lectures as the years go by. Hrdayananda Goswami makes wonderful observations about Srila Prabhupada and his intense desire that we all share the knowledge he gave us. Niranjana Swami shares observations about the simplicity of brahmacari life. Prahladananda Swami challenges materialistic science. Isana Gaura Prabhu speaks valuable words about bhakti, the holy name, and the Lord Krishna’s conversation with Uddhava, known as “Uddhava Gita.”
London Ratha-yatra
London Ratha-yatra was held on a beautiful day, such a relief from last year’s which was drenched with continuous rain. I talked to many people from a variety of countries. One young lady said she spent time with the devotees in Berlin recently and had attended Govinda’s restaurant in Soho when she previously lived in London. I told her about our program of chanting and food distribution on the Stonehenge solstice festival in a few days, and amazingly enough, she decided to come.
I loved the prasadam, especially the srikand. I had seconds or thirds, I cannot remember! Parasurama Prabhu who is in charge of the feast is determined to make a good impression on the public with great prasadam. The last kirtana on the stage was lively, and the audience was appreciating, including a couple of Scottish girls who were really charmed by it. Mahavishnu Swami did a harinama back to the Soho temple after the festival at Trafalgar Square.
Many people took great photos of London Ratha-yatra. I do not have time to look through them and choose the best, but I can share links to their galleries with you so you may look at them. Click on the picture or links below, to see the galleries:
Parasurama Prabhu, who does transcendental food distribution in London on a daily basis, brings food and a chanting party to the Stonehenge solstice festival each year. These activities go on usually from midnight to six or seven in the morning on the day of the summer solstice, June 21. If the weather is good, which it wasn’t this year, he even has a Ratha-yatra for two hours, from one to three. This year was the worst weather in the three years I have gone. It started raining not long after we started our walking harinama to the stone, and it did not let for some time. We all got soaked. I did not bring any socks, fearing they would get soaked, but in retrospect I think wet socks would have been better than no socks, as my feet would have been warmer. There was a little shelter from the rain where we were serving the spiritual food, but I was so wet that the cold wind made me suffer so much I took shelter of the van and Giridhari Prabhu’s sleeping bag from four to six just to stay warm, out of fear of getting sick, and I missed the height of the event. Sri Gadadhara and Trevor Prabhus, the two newer devotees who were traveling with me, were able, along with three others, somehow or other, to continue chanting the whole time up to the stones and then back, and they said many people were happy to see them and to sing and dance with them as usual. Someone took the following video of them and posted it on YouTube:
One blogger, Ross Merritt, commented on the devotees, “The hardcore, Hare Krishna types were there as usual, who for some reason were singing their mantra in the tune of ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’! They must be trying to reach out to a new fan base!”
One young lady named Paola, originally from Italy, who I met at the London Ratha-yatra, came with us to Stonehenge. She did not get as wet as we did because she did not go on the initial chanting party, helping to distribute food instead. Despite the bad weather, she had a positive experience, meeting the devotees, distributing prasadam, and helping the Indian ladies cook at the Manor before we left for Stonehenge. She told Parasurama Prabhu she would help him distribute prasadam in London sometimes.
Other Harinamas in England
Croydon:
I heard there was going to be a weekend warrior program in Croydon the Saturday after the London Ratha-yatra to advertise the Croydon Ratha-yatra the following day. Those programs usually involve chanting, book distribution, and talking to people about spiritual topics, so I generally like to go to them. Jai Nitai Prabhu, temple president of our Soho temple encouraged me to go to the one in Croydon, although I would have preferred to help my friend Giridhari Prabhu do a similar program in Ilford to advertise their spiritual cultural program to be held the following Thursday. It turns out neither of the two new devotees traveling with me wanted to go, no one else from the temple wanted to go. And when I got there, I found that no one else was there. I had gotten the number of the local contact person, so I explained that I was there and was determined to play my harmonium for three hours and chant, and if they supplied invitations for the next day’s Ratha-yatra I would gladly distribute them, and so they did. While I was chanting, waiting for the invitations, one jovial, black man came up to me, saying he wanted to give a donation. Noticing I had no receptacle for donations, he suggested if I get a bowl to put donations in, I would collect more money. I just wanted to chant and did not want to go shopping for a bowl. So, noticing there was a 99 pence store across the way, I suggested he might purchase a bowl for me as a donation. And so he did, placing the bowl before me with his penny in change being my first donation. By the end of the three hours, I collected over 27 pounds ($42) , more than covering the 8 pounds it cost me to get there and back. Some people, both Indians and Englishmen, simply seeing me chanting came up and asked about the Ratha-yatra, and others were happy to learn of the event for the first time. An Indian man from the Croydon congregation stopped by and helped by distributing the invitations as I sang for half an hour or so. As Janananda Goswami paid for my trip to London and the London temple paid for my trip to Croydon, I did not need to collect for my expenses, and so I gave all the money to the temple, and they used it to sponsor books for distribution. I learned from this experience that if you are determined to do your service despite all impediments, that Krishna definitely reciprocates.
Leeds:
After the monthly Sunday feast in Leeds, England, seven members of the congregation greatly inspired me by joining me and my friend Sri Gadadhara in chanting all around the center of the city for an hour. It was wonderful to see the devotees’ spiritual enthusiasm generated from the Sunday program utilized in sharing Krishna with others. We passed out many invitations to their weekly Tuesday evening program during the harinama. The post-feast program harinama reminded me of Kharkov, Ukraine, where devotees do two hours of chanting through the streets of their city after their weekly Sunday feast. When you think about it, for many devotees, especially those in the congregation, their greatest participation in devotional service to the Lord for the whole week comes from the weekly programs and so they are most appreciative of the value of Krishna consciousness in their life at this time. Therefore, it is actually the best time for them to engage in an activity like harinama, which involves sharing one’s enthusiasm for Krishna consciousness with others.
The next morning I took a break from waiting for my bus to Newcastle to play harmonium and chant Hare Krishna for a few minutes for a crowd watching the Olympic torch bearer run through the streets of Leeds. I followed the torch bearer for a block, along with several others. As I passed, one uniformed man smiled and shouted with confidence, “Gouranga!” I smiled back. I had heard that devotees from Scotland put up posters for years in Scotland, and perhaps The North of England as well, which said “Chant Gouranga!” Apparently this man took it seriously, and he was one of few who knew that the Hare Krishna’s were behind this “Chant Gouranga” campaign.
Newcastle area:
Soon after we returned to Newcastle, one day a boy named David joined us, chanting with us for a few minutes near the monument. Sri Gadadhara told me that while I was traveling to Manchester, David had met the harinama in Newcastle and come to the Sunday program. He was happy to meet the devotees again, and said he would again come by the temple.
On Thursday we did a one and a half hour harinama in Chester Le Street, near Newcastle. The sky grew dark, and it started to rain, so we left quickly. Later Prema Sankirtana Prabhu saw this video of the town posted on the internet.
Seeing the video reminded me of this verse, yajñat bhavati parjanyo, rains are produced by performance of yajña [sacrifice] (Bg. 3.14).
After narrowly escaping the inundation at Chester Le Street, we went to Sunderland, and chanted for another half hour without disturbance by the rain. It was only in the evening when we returned to Newcastle and saw many abandoned cars stuck on the roads and lakes of water covering the pavement that we realized the magnitude of the storm Krishna had protected us from, while at the same time facilitating our sankirtana.
Insights
Srila Prabhupada:
from The Nectar of Devotion:
“Without relishing some sort of mellow or loving mood in one’s activities, no one can continue to perform such activities. Similarly, in the transcendental life of Krishna consciousness in devotional service there must be some mellow or specific taste from the service. Generally this mellow is experienced by chanting, hearing, worshiping in the temple and being engaged in the service of the Lord. So when a person feels transcendental bliss, this is called ‘relishing the mellow.’ (The Nectar of Devotion, p. 152)
from a lecture on Bhaktivinoda Thakura:
Just as there is a material genealogical succession, there is a spiritual succession.
The Vedic injunction is not to acquire knowledge by speculation. That is useless. It is simply a waste of time. For thousands of years you can speculate, and you will never know God. You must approach a guru.
Although Bhaktivinoda Thakura was a grihastha (married man], he was guru. It does not matter about one’s material position. It does not matter. Anyone who knows the science can become guru.
Spiritual life means reducing eating, sleeping, mating, and defending. One should not sleep more than five to six hours. Sleeping is not a very important thing. Even some politicians sleep no more than two hours. Bhaktivinoda Thakura would rise at midnight.
Bhaktivinoda wrote a hundred books, sent books to foreign countries, gave instruction about developing Mayapur, and discovered Lord Caitanya’s birthplace.
Everyone should be educated in spiritual knowledge. There is a need for acaryas, spiritual teachers.
Prasadam is less available at the Jagannatha temple than formerly as the present administrators do not appreciate the value of it. Previously there were no restaurants since people could always get prasadam at the temples.
The rascal Bisika Sena said to Bhaktivinoda, “Jagannath is made of wood. I am directly the Supreme Lord Vishnu.” Thus Bhaktivinoda Thakura became angry, and understanding he was a cheater, had him arrested.
As you approach an important man through his secretary, you must approach God through a guru.
You cannot just study scriptures. There are different scriptures. The Bible was spoken in a desert region to people who were not very advanced. There was so much killing. They even tried to kill Lord Jesus Christ.
Just as a medical book is available in the market, but you have to study in the medical college. You cannot say. “I have read all the medical books you should recognize me as a doctor.” In the same way, you cannot just read the scriptures and understand God. You need a guru.
Bhaktivinoda Thakura wrote many important books such as Caitanya Siksamrita and Jaiva Dharma.
We are honoring Bhaktivinoda Thakura today so that we may get his blessings. Simply by the blessings of the acaryas, the great spiritual teachers, we get the mercy of the Lord.
We should try to become servant of the servant. We should not approach the Lord directly.
If one says he is God. He is a false guru.
Our Krishna consciousness is very bona fide because we say what Krishna says.
Anyone who is inquisitive to understand the highest knowledge requires a guru.
First-class knowledge is to know I am the eternal servant of Krishna and to engage in Krishna’s service. Second-class knowledge aspires for liberation and third-class knowledge is knowledge of how to be comfortable in this world, like the animals have.
We are to educate people of this opportunity to attain spiritual perfection in this human form of life. Unfortunately in the schools and universities people do not have the opportunity to study this science.
a Prabhupada memory:
Janananda Goswami drove Srila Prabhupada to Bhaktivedanta Manor. During the trip Srila Prabhupada merely asked one question, “How are the cows?” This indicates how important cows are to a pure devotee of Krishna.
Candramauli Swami:
A person born in a family of doctors cannot claim to be a doctor on the strength of that birth without going to medical school, becoming certified, and actually practicing medicine. In the same way, one cannot be considered a brahmana simply by being born in a family of brahmanas.
After Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura spoke so expertly about the qualities of the brahmana and the qualities of a Vaishnava and the relationship between them that the caste brahmanas realized there was nothing they could say to establish their erroneous viewpoint, they left the assembly.
It is not enough to eat pradasam, but one should also avoid eating food that is not prasadam.
Simply defeating someone is not preaching. Changing someone’s heart is preaching.
A devotee may avoid hostile people, but he does not consider them to be enemies.
Success can be more dangerous than reverses because one can become proud of success and commit offenses and make other mistakes.
A devotee is steady. He does not take a break from devotional service for variety’s sake, thinking, “When I return to devotional service, it will be fresh again.”
In 1976 because people with second initiation were leaving, Srila Prabhupada said that one must take the Bhakti-sastri course before accepting second initiation (brahmana initiation). We are just beginning to implement that now.
To tell a half-truth to protect a person from being hurt is not considered lying.
Suffering is a state of consciousness. It is a question of how one perceives a situation that makes it a cause of suffering.
According to Manu-samhita, a businessman is not supposed to make more than 25% profit.
The some of twelve qualities of a brahmana:
jnanam satyam ca damah srutam ca
hy amatsaryam hris titiksanasuya
yajnas ca danam ca dhrtih samas ca
maha-vrata dvadasa brahmanasya
knowledgable
truthful
sense controlled
has heard from authority
without enemies
modest
tolerant
performs yajnas (sacrifices)
charitable
steadiness
peaceful
celibate
Hridayananda Dasa Goswami [from a lecture given at the LA Prabhupada Festival]:
Srila Prabhupada would introduce himself as the founder-acarya of ISKCON.
In every venue and in every forum in which Prabhupada spoke, he quoted Lord Caitanya’s verse ordering everyone to become a guru. In discussing it he would regularly explain that become a guru was simple—one simply had to repeat what Krishna has said. He did not make a distinction between diksa [initiating] and siksa [instructing] gurus.
The greatest guru of all was Lord Caitanya, and he was a siksa guru and not a diksa guru.
Only to businessmen did Prabhupada suggest that they did not have to become diksa gurus immediately.
Prabhupada’s fear was not that we would become gurus but that we would not become gurus.
The good news is: In Srila Prabhupada’s most important role, as founder-acarya of ISKCON, Gaura-Nitai’s emissary, we all have equal access to him.
Krishna explains in Bhagavad-gita 18.68–69: “Those who explain this secret among the devoted, having rendered the highest service, will attain Me. No one is more dear to me, nor will there ever be one more dear.”
Everyone has to find what he can do in his life to spread this knowedge. That is Prabhupada’s desire.
I never saw Srila Prabhupada when he was doing anything other than trying to spread Krishna consciousness. Ever since he met his guru that was his focus.
“There cannot be a movement made up of people who are not individually moving.” We have to be advancing. We must do japa or kirtana each day in such a way that we are advancing. When have group of advancing people with increasing enthusiasm, you get unstoppable irresistible force which is Prabhupada’s Hare Krishna movement.
When we are inviting people to our temple, we are in effect telling them their life is not complete without taking up this practice.
If we are moving ourselves, and not stagnating, then we have the right to ask other people to move.
You can drive yourself crazy worrying about your own desires, or you can stop the nonsense and put Srila Prabhupada’s desires in the center of you life, and if you do that,
Prabhupada will empower you to convince others to do that.
from a letter to his disciple Ali Krishna Devi Dasi: “The quality of our lives cannot exceed the quality of our japa.”
Niranjana Swami:
from a lecture to Chowpatty brahmacaris:
If we are satisfied with the simplicity of Krishna consciousness, then we are very fortunate.
If we are satisfied with just what Srila Prabhupada gave us that is very good.
Real renunciation means attachment to these simple activities of Krishna consciousness.
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura said in the age of Kali, brahmacaris will remain brahmacaris because household life is too difficult. But that is not a reason to be a brahmacari. If you are meditating on the potential difficulties of household life, you will not be able to relish the simple activities of devotional service as a brahmacari and you will not be satisfied.
Prahladananda Swami:
The purport of all this literature is to convince us that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and then to understand that we are His eternal servants.
For Krishna to hold up Govardhan Hill for a week is not difficult. In Bhagavad-gita 15.13, Krishna says He enters each planet and keeps them in orbit.
Brahma-samhita describes how the sun moves in its orbit by the grace of Govinda.
In my college someone got a grant for $80,000 back in the 1960s to research why spiders build webs. They came to the conclusion that the purpose was to catch flies.
Any wild speculation can be considered in academia except the idea that behind everything is a supreme person.
No one has been able to create a machine that produces its own parts. Imagine a lawn mower that could take grass and produce blades!
Imagine if scientists could produce male Rolls Royces and female Rolls Royces that could get together and produce little Rolls Royces that grow up to become big ones?
If people are really trying to be scientific they should at least consider the possibility the there could be a supreme person beyond everything.
If you tell a big enough lie, long enough, people will accept it. This has happened in the case of materialistic science.
Srila Prabhupada would challenge people who say the universe came by chance, “What do you spend so much time studying? What not sit at home and by chance you might get a Ph.D.? Why work so many hours? What not sit at home and by chance you might get your paycheck?”
Krishna’s plan is to take everyone back to the spiritual kingdom, and our plan is to stay material world as long as possible.
Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami:
from Shack Notes:
“Srila Prabhupada sometimes spoke of his disciples as experiencing advanced states of Krishna consciousness by chanting and dancing and serving without fatigue or remuneration. ‘It is not material, it is not ordinary.’ He especially liked to inform audiences in India about ‘these American and European boys and girls’ who were fully absorbed in Krishna consciousness. We should not reject this estimation but live up to it.”
Govardhan Dasi [commenting on a lecture]:
In the class I was teaching at public school where I work, I asked students to do a poster for or against vegetarianism. Although the students were all meat eaters, all but two did pro-vegetarian posters.
Dayananda Swami:
Because Nrsimha Tirtha Prabhu [who is getting brahmana initiation] has the quality of humility, he has been able to take instruction and therefore progress quickly. I see he has taken a lot of responsibility in last couple of years.
Isana Gaura Prabhu:
If you are attracted to devotees, that means you are a devotee.
The four syllables Gauranga are exactly the same as “Hare Krishna.”
Lord Caitanya, having tasted the ecstasy of love of Krishna and seeing the people in general bereft of such ecstasy, felt the desire to share it with them.
Just chanting the Hare Krishna will give us liberation, and chanting with affection will give us love of God.
from a seminar on “Uddhava Gita”:
To absorb ourselves in Krishna we have to renounce material nature.
One has potency if he practices what he preaches.
Bharata, the son of Rsabha, was considered advanced because he rejected the material world.
The nine yogendras, masters of yoga,worked vigorously although already perfect. King Nimi asked each of the nine a different question.
The top of the universe is light and warm and the bottom is dark, cold, and wet.
The yaksas do not like to give out money so they are engaged in treasury work.
Sacrifices should be performed according to the direction of a brahmana. In the Hare Krishna movement that brahmana is Srila Prabhupada.
The fear is inside you. You do not realize it, but if someone entered this room with a gun, it would arise, just like that. Only by worshiping the Supreme Lord can you become free from this fear.
The heavenly beings can tone down their effulgence so it is not blinding.
So many instructions are there in Gita and in the Bhagavatam, and we have the personal examples of Lord Caitanya and His pure devotee, Srila Prabhupada. Our behavior is perfect if we follow these.
It is stated if one commits offenses he has no taste to chant and dance in kirtana.
Rama Nrsimha Prabhu [from a conversation]:
Like Parasurama says, “You can do your time [in prison] or you can do community service.” In the same way, instead of doing your karma, you can do devotional service.
Srinivasa Dasa:
Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityananda Prabhu came to destroy five kinds of ignorance:
1. identification with body
2. thinking sense pleasure is the standard of happiness
3. lamentation
4. identification with the material
5. to consider there is something beyond the Absolute Truth
-----
ataeva ami ajna dilun sabakare
yahan tahan prema-phala deha’ yare tare
[Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu said:] “Therefore I order every man within this universe to accept this Krishna consciousness movement and distribute it everywhere.” (Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Adi-lila 9.36)
Diary of a Traveling Sadhaka, Vol. 8, No. 12 By Krishna-kripa das (June 2012, part two)
London Ratha-yatra, Stonehenge, and More (Sent from Málaga, Spain, on Janmastami, August 10, 2012)
Where I Where and What I Did
London Ratha-yatra was wonderful as usual with a great parade, super prasadam, and various booths and a stage show that attracted people from all over the world. The next couple days, I did harinama in London, along with Sri Gadadhara and Trevor Prabhus, a couple new devotees I had been serving with in Newcastle. Next these friends and I joined with Parasurama Prabhu and his crew to go to Stonehenge for the annual solstice festival, joined by one attendee from the London Ratha-yatra I invited to come. Many people heard the holy name and took prasadam there on that cold, windy, and wet night. Then my little sankirtana party returned to London for a few more days of harinama. Trevor flew to Czech Republic, and on the way back to Newcastle, Sri Gadadhara, my remaining sankirtana partner, and I stopped in Leeds for their monthly Sunday feast. There the congregation pleasantly surprised me by joining us for an hour of harinama after the program. While waiting for the bus back to Newcastle the next morning, I took a break and chanted for a few minutes on the crowded sidewalks where the Olympic torch bearer was passing through Leeds. The final few days of the month we did harinama in Newcastle and nearby localities.
In the “Insights” section I include a great quote about spiritual pleasure from The Nectar of Devotion, and notes on a beautiful class given by Srila Prabhupada on Bhaktivinoda Thakura. It seems Candramauli Swami is making even better points in his lectures as the years go by. Hrdayananda Goswami makes wonderful observations about Srila Prabhupada and his intense desire that we all share the knowledge he gave us. Niranjana Swami shares observations about the simplicity of brahmacari life. Prahladananda Swami challenges materialistic science. Isana Gaura Prabhu speaks valuable words about bhakti, the holy name, and the Lord Krishna’s conversation with Uddhava, known as “Uddhava Gita.”
London Ratha-yatra
London Ratha-yatra was held on a beautiful day, such a relief from last year’s which was drenched with continuous rain. I talked to many people from a variety of countries. One young lady said she spent time with the devotees in Berlin recently and had attended Govinda’s restaurant in Soho when she previously lived in London. I told her about our program of chanting and food distribution on the Stonehenge solstice festival in a few days, and amazingly enough, she decided to come.
I loved the prasadam, especially the srikand. I had seconds or thirds, I cannot remember! Parasurama Prabhu who is in charge of the feast is determined to make a good impression on the public with great prasadam. The last kirtana on the stage was lively, and the audience was appreciating, including a couple of Scottish girls who were really charmed by it. Mahavishnu Swami did a harinama back to the Soho temple after the festival at Trafalgar Square.
Many people took great photos of London Ratha-yatra. I do not have time to look through them and choose the best, but I can share links to their galleries with you so you may look at them. Click on the picture or links below, to see the galleries:
Parasurama Prabhu, who does transcendental food distribution in London on a daily basis, brings food and a chanting party to the Stonehenge solstice festival each year. These activities go on usually from midnight to six or seven in the morning on the day of the summer solstice, June 21. If the weather is good, which it wasn’t this year, he even has a Ratha-yatra for two hours, from one to three. This year was the worst weather in the three years I have gone. It started raining not long after we started our walking harinama to the stone, and it did not let for some time. We all got soaked. I did not bring any socks, fearing they would get soaked, but in retrospect I think wet socks would have been better than no socks, as my feet would have been warmer. There was a little shelter from the rain where we were serving the spiritual food, but I was so wet that the cold wind made me suffer so much I took shelter of the van and Giridhari Prabhu’s sleeping bag from four to six just to stay warm, out of fear of getting sick, and I missed the height of the event. Sri Gadadhara and Trevor Prabhus, the two newer devotees who were traveling with me, were able, along with three others, somehow or other, to continue chanting the whole time up to the stones and then back, and they said many people were happy to see them and to sing and dance with them as usual. Someone took the following video of them and posted it on YouTube:
One blogger, Ross Merritt, commented on the devotees, “The hardcore, Hare Krishna types were there as usual, who for some reason were singing their mantra in the tune of ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’! They must be trying to reach out to a new fan base!”
One young lady named Paola, originally from Italy, who I met at the London Ratha-yatra, came with us to Stonehenge. She did not get as wet as we did because she did not go on the initial chanting party, helping to distribute food instead. Despite the bad weather, she had a positive experience, meeting the devotees, distributing prasadam, and helping the Indian ladies cook at the Manor before we left for Stonehenge. She told Parasurama Prabhu she would help him distribute prasadam in London sometimes.
Other Harinamas in England
Croydon:
I heard there was going to be a weekend warrior program in Croydon the Saturday after the London Ratha-yatra to advertise the Croydon Ratha-yatra the following day. Those programs usually involve chanting, book distribution, and talking to people about spiritual topics, so I generally like to go to them. Jai Nitai Prabhu, temple president of our Soho temple encouraged me to go to the one in Croydon, although I would have preferred to help my friend Giridhari Prabhu do a similar program in Ilford to advertise their spiritual cultural program to be held the following Thursday. It turns out neither of the two new devotees traveling with me wanted to go, no one else from the temple wanted to go. And when I got there, I found that no one else was there. I had gotten the number of the local contact person, so I explained that I was there and was determined to play my harmonium for three hours and chant, and if they supplied invitations for the next day’s Ratha-yatra I would gladly distribute them, and so they did. While I was chanting, waiting for the invitations, one jovial, black man came up to me, saying he wanted to give a donation. Noticing I had no receptacle for donations, he suggested if I get a bowl to put donations in, I would collect more money. I just wanted to chant and did not want to go shopping for a bowl. So, noticing there was a 99 pence store across the way, I suggested he might purchase a bowl for me as a donation. And so he did, placing the bowl before me with his penny in change being my first donation. By the end of the three hours, I collected over 27 pounds ($42) , more than covering the 8 pounds it cost me to get there and back. Some people, both Indians and Englishmen, simply seeing me chanting came up and asked about the Ratha-yatra, and others were happy to learn of the event for the first time. An Indian man from the Croydon congregation stopped by and helped by distributing the invitations as I sang for half an hour or so. As Janananda Goswami paid for my trip to London and the London temple paid for my trip to Croydon, I did not need to collect for my expenses, and so I gave all the money to the temple, and they used it to sponsor books for distribution. I learned from this experience that if you are determined to do your service despite all impediments, that Krishna definitely reciprocates.
Leeds:
After the monthly Sunday feast in Leeds, England, seven members of the congregation greatly inspired me by joining me and my friend Sri Gadadhara in chanting all around the center of the city for an hour. It was wonderful to see the devotees’ spiritual enthusiasm generated from the Sunday program utilized in sharing Krishna with others. We passed out many invitations to their weekly Tuesday evening program during the harinama. The post-feast program harinama reminded me of Kharkov, Ukraine, where devotees do two hours of chanting through the streets of their city after their weekly Sunday feast. When you think about it, for many devotees, especially those in the congregation, their greatest participation in devotional service to the Lord for the whole week comes from the weekly programs and so they are most appreciative of the value of Krishna consciousness in their life at this time. Therefore, it is actually the best time for them to engage in an activity like harinama, which involves sharing one’s enthusiasm for Krishna consciousness with others.
The next morning I took a break from waiting for my bus to Newcastle to play harmonium and chant Hare Krishna for a few minutes for a crowd watching the Olympic torch bearer run through the streets of Leeds. I followed the torch bearer for a block, along with several others. As I passed, one uniformed man smiled and shouted with confidence, “Gouranga!” I smiled back. I had heard that devotees from Scotland put up posters for years in Scotland, and perhaps The North of England as well, which said “Chant Gouranga!” Apparently this man took it seriously, and he was one of few who knew that the Hare Krishna’s were behind this “Chant Gouranga” campaign.
Newcastle area:
Soon after we returned to Newcastle, one day a boy named David joined us, chanting with us for a few minutes near the monument. Sri Gadadhara told me that while I was traveling to Manchester, David had met the harinama in Newcastle and come to the Sunday program. He was happy to meet the devotees again, and said he would again come by the temple.
On Thursday we did a one and a half hour harinama in Chester Le Street, near Newcastle. The sky grew dark, and it started to rain, so we left quickly. Later Prema Sankirtana Prabhu saw this video of the town posted on the internet.
Seeing the video reminded me of this verse, yajñat bhavati parjanyo, rains are produced by performance of yajña [sacrifice] (Bg. 3.14).
After narrowly escaping the inundation at Chester Le Street, we went to Sunderland, and chanted for another half hour without disturbance by the rain. It was only in the evening when we returned to Newcastle and saw many abandoned cars stuck on the roads and lakes of water covering the pavement that we realized the magnitude of the storm Krishna had protected us from, while at the same time facilitating our sankirtana.
Insights
Srila Prabhupada:
from The Nectar of Devotion:
“Without relishing some sort of mellow or loving mood in one’s activities, no one can continue to perform such activities. Similarly, in the transcendental life of Krishna consciousness in devotional service there must be some mellow or specific taste from the service. Generally this mellow is experienced by chanting, hearing, worshiping in the temple and being engaged in the service of the Lord. So when a person feels transcendental bliss, this is called ‘relishing the mellow.’ (The Nectar of Devotion, p. 152)
from a lecture on Bhaktivinoda Thakura:
Just as there is a material genealogical succession, there is a spiritual succession.
The Vedic injunction is not to acquire knowledge by speculation. That is useless. It is simply a waste of time. For thousands of years you can speculate, and you will never know God. You must approach a guru.
Although Bhaktivinoda Thakura was a grihastha (married man], he was guru. It does not matter about one’s material position. It does not matter. Anyone who knows the science can become guru.
Spiritual life means reducing eating, sleeping, mating, and defending. One should not sleep more than five to six hours. Sleeping is not a very important thing. Even some politicians sleep no more than two hours. Bhaktivinoda Thakura would rise at midnight.
Bhaktivinoda wrote a hundred books, sent books to foreign countries, gave instruction about developing Mayapur, and discovered Lord Caitanya’s birthplace.
Everyone should be educated in spiritual knowledge. There is a need for acaryas, spiritual teachers.
Prasadam is less available at the Jagannatha temple than formerly as the present administrators do not appreciate the value of it. Previously there were no restaurants since people could always get prasadam at the temples.
The rascal Bisika Sena said to Bhaktivinoda, “Jagannath is made of wood. I am directly the Supreme Lord Vishnu.” Thus Bhaktivinoda Thakura became angry, and understanding he was a cheater, had him arrested.
As you approach an important man through his secretary, you must approach God through a guru.
You cannot just study scriptures. There are different scriptures. The Bible was spoken in a desert region to people who were not very advanced. There was so much killing. They even tried to kill Lord Jesus Christ.
Just as a medical book is available in the market, but you have to study in the medical college. You cannot say. “I have read all the medical books you should recognize me as a doctor.” In the same way, you cannot just read the scriptures and understand God. You need a guru.
Bhaktivinoda Thakura wrote many important books such as Caitanya Siksamrita and Jaiva Dharma.
We are honoring Bhaktivinoda Thakura today so that we may get his blessings. Simply by the blessings of the acaryas, the great spiritual teachers, we get the mercy of the Lord.
We should try to become servant of the servant. We should not approach the Lord directly.
If one says he is God. He is a false guru.
Our Krishna consciousness is very bona fide because we say what Krishna says.
Anyone who is inquisitive to understand the highest knowledge requires a guru.
First-class knowledge is to know I am the eternal servant of Krishna and to engage in Krishna’s service. Second-class knowledge aspires for liberation and third-class knowledge is knowledge of how to be comfortable in this world, like the animals have.
We are to educate people of this opportunity to attain spiritual perfection in this human form of life. Unfortunately in the schools and universities people do not have the opportunity to study this science.
a Prabhupada memory:
Janananda Goswami drove Srila Prabhupada to Bhaktivedanta Manor. During the trip Srila Prabhupada merely asked one question, “How are the cows?” This indicates how important cows are to a pure devotee of Krishna.
Candramauli Swami:
A person born in a family of doctors cannot claim to be a doctor on the strength of that birth without going to medical school, becoming certified, and actually practicing medicine. In the same way, one cannot be considered a brahmana simply by being born in a family of brahmanas.
After Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura spoke so expertly about the qualities of the brahmana and the qualities of a Vaishnava and the relationship between them that the caste brahmanas realized there was nothing they could say to establish their erroneous viewpoint, they left the assembly.
It is not enough to eat pradasam, but one should also avoid eating food that is not prasadam.
Simply defeating someone is not preaching. Changing someone’s heart is preaching.
A devotee may avoid hostile people, but he does not consider them to be enemies.
Success can be more dangerous than reverses because one can become proud of success and commit offenses and make other mistakes.
A devotee is steady. He does not take a break from devotional service for variety’s sake, thinking, “When I return to devotional service, it will be fresh again.”
In 1976 because people with second initiation were leaving, Srila Prabhupada said that one must take the Bhakti-sastri course before accepting second initiation (brahmana initiation). We are just beginning to implement that now.
To tell a half-truth to protect a person from being hurt is not considered lying.
Suffering is a state of consciousness. It is a question of how one perceives a situation that makes it a cause of suffering.
According to Manu-samhita, a businessman is not supposed to make more than 25% profit.
The some of twelve qualities of a brahmana:
jnanam satyam ca damah srutam ca
hy amatsaryam hris titiksanasuya
yajnas ca danam ca dhrtih samas ca
maha-vrata dvadasa brahmanasya
knowledgable
truthful
sense controlled
has heard from authority
without enemies
modest
tolerant
performs yajnas (sacrifices)
charitable
steadiness
peaceful
celibate
Hridayananda Dasa Goswami [from a lecture given at the LA Prabhupada Festival]:
Srila Prabhupada would introduce himself as the founder-acarya of ISKCON.
In every venue and in every forum in which Prabhupada spoke, he quoted Lord Caitanya’s verse ordering everyone to become a guru. In discussing it he would regularly explain that become a guru was simple—one simply had to repeat what Krishna has said. He did not make a distinction between diksa [initiating] and siksa [instructing] gurus.
The greatest guru of all was Lord Caitanya, and he was a siksa guru and not a diksa guru.
Only to businessmen did Prabhupada suggest that they did not have to become diksa gurus immediately.
Prabhupada’s fear was not that we would become gurus but that we would not become gurus.
The good news is: In Srila Prabhupada’s most important role, as founder-acarya of ISKCON, Gaura-Nitai’s emissary, we all have equal access to him.
Krishna explains in Bhagavad-gita 18.68–69: “Those who explain this secret among the devoted, having rendered the highest service, will attain Me. No one is more dear to me, nor will there ever be one more dear.”
Everyone has to find what he can do in his life to spread this knowedge. That is Prabhupada’s desire.
I never saw Srila Prabhupada when he was doing anything other than trying to spread Krishna consciousness. Ever since he met his guru that was his focus.
“There cannot be a movement made up of people who are not individually moving.” We have to be advancing. We must do japa or kirtana each day in such a way that we are advancing. When have group of advancing people with increasing enthusiasm, you get unstoppable irresistible force which is Prabhupada’s Hare Krishna movement.
When we are inviting people to our temple, we are in effect telling them their life is not complete without taking up this practice.
If we are moving ourselves, and not stagnating, then we have the right to ask other people to move.
You can drive yourself crazy worrying about your own desires, or you can stop the nonsense and put Srila Prabhupada’s desires in the center of you life, and if you do that,
Prabhupada will empower you to convince others to do that.
from a letter to his disciple Ali Krishna Devi Dasi: “The quality of our lives cannot exceed the quality of our japa.”
Niranjana Swami:
from a lecture to Chowpatty brahmacaris:
If we are satisfied with the simplicity of Krishna consciousness, then we are very fortunate.
If we are satisfied with just what Srila Prabhupada gave us that is very good.
Real renunciation means attachment to these simple activities of Krishna consciousness.
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura said in the age of Kali, brahmacaris will remain brahmacaris because household life is too difficult. But that is not a reason to be a brahmacari. If you are meditating on the potential difficulties of household life, you will not be able to relish the simple activities of devotional service as a brahmacari and you will not be satisfied.
Prahladananda Swami:
The purport of all this literature is to convince us that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and then to understand that we are His eternal servants.
For Krishna to hold up Govardhan Hill for a week is not difficult. In Bhagavad-gita 15.13, Krishna says He enters each planet and keeps them in orbit.
Brahma-samhita describes how the sun moves in its orbit by the grace of Govinda.
In my college someone got a grant for $80,000 back in the 1960s to research why spiders build webs. They came to the conclusion that the purpose was to catch flies.
Any wild speculation can be considered in academia except the idea that behind everything is a supreme person.
No one has been able to create a machine that produces its own parts. Imagine a lawn mower that could take grass and produce blades!
Imagine if scientists could produce male Rolls Royces and female Rolls Royces that could get together and produce little Rolls Royces that grow up to become big ones?
If people are really trying to be scientific they should at least consider the possibility the there could be a supreme person beyond everything.
If you tell a big enough lie, long enough, people will accept it. This has happened in the case of materialistic science.
Srila Prabhupada would challenge people who say the universe came by chance, “What do you spend so much time studying? What not sit at home and by chance you might get a Ph.D.? Why work so many hours? What not sit at home and by chance you might get your paycheck?”
Krishna’s plan is to take everyone back to the spiritual kingdom, and our plan is to stay material world as long as possible.
Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami:
from Shack Notes:
“Srila Prabhupada sometimes spoke of his disciples as experiencing advanced states of Krishna consciousness by chanting and dancing and serving without fatigue or remuneration. ‘It is not material, it is not ordinary.’ He especially liked to inform audiences in India about ‘these American and European boys and girls’ who were fully absorbed in Krishna consciousness. We should not reject this estimation but live up to it.”
Govardhan Dasi [commenting on a lecture]:
In the class I was teaching at public school where I work, I asked students to do a poster for or against vegetarianism. Although the students were all meat eaters, all but two did pro-vegetarian posters.
Dayananda Swami:
Because Nrsimha Tirtha Prabhu [who is getting brahmana initiation] has the quality of humility, he has been able to take instruction and therefore progress quickly. I see he has taken a lot of responsibility in last couple of years.
Isana Gaura Prabhu:
If you are attracted to devotees, that means you are a devotee.
The four syllables Gauranga are exactly the same as “Hare Krishna.”
Lord Caitanya, having tasted the ecstasy of love of Krishna and seeing the people in general bereft of such ecstasy, felt the desire to share it with them.
Just chanting the Hare Krishna will give us liberation, and chanting with affection will give us love of God.
from a seminar on “Uddhava Gita”:
To absorb ourselves in Krishna we have to renounce material nature.
One has potency if he practices what he preaches.
Bharata, the son of Rsabha, was considered advanced because he rejected the material world.
The nine yogendras, masters of yoga,worked vigorously although already perfect. King Nimi asked each of the nine a different question.
The top of the universe is light and warm and the bottom is dark, cold, and wet.
The yaksas do not like to give out money so they are engaged in treasury work.
Sacrifices should be performed according to the direction of a brahmana. In the Hare Krishna movement that brahmana is Srila Prabhupada.
The fear is inside you. You do not realize it, but if someone entered this room with a gun, it would arise, just like that. Only by worshiping the Supreme Lord can you become free from this fear.
The heavenly beings can tone down their effulgence so it is not blinding.
So many instructions are there in Gita and in the Bhagavatam, and we have the personal examples of Lord Caitanya and His pure devotee, Srila Prabhupada. Our behavior is perfect if we follow these.
It is stated if one commits offenses he has no taste to chant and dance in kirtana.
Rama Nrsimha Prabhu [from a conversation]:
Like Parasurama says, “You can do your time [in prison] or you can do community service.” In the same way, instead of doing your karma, you can do devotional service.
Srinivasa Dasa:
Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityananda Prabhu came to destroy five kinds of ignorance:
1. identification with body
2. thinking sense pleasure is the standard of happiness
3. lamentation
4. identification with the material
5. to consider there is something beyond the Absolute Truth
-----
ataeva ami ajna dilun sabakare
yahan tahan prema-phala deha’ yare tare
[Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu said:] “Therefore I order every man within this universe to accept this Krishna consciousness movement and distribute it everywhere.” (Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Adi-lila 9.36)
THE FOLLOWING LECTURE ON SRIMAD-BHAGVATAM, THIRD CANTO, CHAPTER NINE, “BRAHMA’S PRAYERS FOR CREATIVE ENERGY”, WAS GIVEN BY HIS HOLINESS BHAKTI CHARU SWAMI ON 17 FEBRUARY 2009 IN ISKCON UJJAIN, INDIA. Transcription & editen : Her Grace Ranga Radhika Dasi Audio reference: click here Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya […]
Our second outing to the Multicultural Festival (June 23-24), located in the beautiful Victoria Park, Kitchener-Waterloo was another tremendous team effort, with more than 40 joyful Sankirtan enthusiasts working together. The organizers gave us a much better location than last year and we had enough space to conduct over 14 hours of nonstop Harinam from our "Hare Krishna Hill", one-on-one guided Mantra meditation sessions, beautiful conversations, and much more. Over 1,500 persons received Krishna Prasadam, more than 20 individuals chanted their first round of Hare Krishna Mahamantra, at least 250 people chanted the Hare Krishna Mahamantra for the very first time, and more than 330 books were taken home in return for generous donations. Above all, we made many new friends, renewed connections with some of our old friends, and it was a great opportunity by the grace of Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Srila Prabhupada and the spiritual masters to extend ourselves in the service of Krishna.
Our second outing to the Multicultural Festival (June 23-24), located in the beautiful Victoria Park, Kitchener-Waterloo was another tremendous team effort, with more than 40 joyful Sankirtan enthusiasts working together. The organizers gave us a much better location than last year and we had enough space to conduct over 14 hours of nonstop Harinam from our "Hare Krishna Hill", one-on-one guided Mantra meditation sessions, beautiful conversations, and much more. Over 1,500 persons received Krishna Prasadam, more than 20 individuals chanted their first round of Hare Krishna Mahamantra, at least 250 people chanted the Hare Krishna Mahamantra for the very first time, and more than 330 books were taken home in return for generous donations. Above all, we made many new friends, renewed connections with some of our old friends, and it was a great opportunity by the grace of Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Srila Prabhupada and the spiritual masters to extend ourselves in the service of Krishna.
I sit on the porch of the Krishna House in Gainesville, reading. I look up from my book to the quiet street and see a man walk by. Something about his face speaks of such sadness, such... sorrow. I feel this urge in me to somehow walk out to him and hand him a plate of sanctified food, prasadam. Or ask him a question.
Something.
But he keeps walking by, and I feel very shy. How silly! Who am I to run out and start bombarding some stranger with food and questions?
He starts to disappear around a corner.
But a voice murmurs to me in my heart: When will this moment come again?
I put aside my book and dash off the porch, running towards the man. I call out, "Excuse me! Excuse me!"
The man turns, surprised to see a girl running towards him. "Yes?" he says gruffly.
When I reach him I say, "May I ask you a question?"
"Is this about parking?"
I take in his uniform, which I realize is a polo shirt which has embroidered on its front Parking Attendant. "Oh, no, this isn't about parking," I say.
"Then what? What's your question?"
I take in a deep breath. I look him in the eyes and say, "May I ask you what you feel is the purpose of your life?"
He furrows his eyebrows. "I need to work,"
"Work?"
"Yes, I need to go to work, I don't have time for this,"
"So you feel the purpose of your life is to work," I clarify for him.
"No," he says sardonically, "The purpose of my life is to be happy and make others happy,"
My eyes light up in wonder.
The man finishes, "Now if you'll excuse me I need to pay my rent,"
I fold my palms to him, smiling. "Thank you for your answer," And we part ways. I head back to the porch, reveling in the moment.
This parking attendant, who is a complete stranger to me, knows the purpose of his life. Just like that. The answer is clean and clear. His soul knows. I realize that we all know. The purpose of our lives is at the tip of each of our tongues. No need to force or debate or convince.
As the parking attendant put it so eloquently, "Be happy and make others happy."
Be happy and serve.
Something is amiss in this equation, though. I return to my spot on the porch to ponder. In my experience of this man, he was miserable. He knew and could speak the purpose of his life, and yet I did not experience him as aligned with his words.
I realize that to the degree that we're not aligned with our purpose, we cover it over with work. To the degree that we are not connected with the source of true happiness - God, Krishna - then we cover it over with work, work, work. Pleasure. Distractions.
I offer my respects to the man I met in the street today. He has taught me the simplicity of knowing the purpose of my life, and the lifelong adventure and challenge to align my knowing with my being.
And if I see this man again, the parking attendant, I think I shall go out and offer him a plate of prasadam.
(I feel moved to mention that this post is very much inspired by the Satvatove 3 course that I participated in this past weekend, which is facilitated by Dhira Govinda dasa (David Wolf) and Malini dasi (Marie Glasheen). I thank them for their guidance and compassion.)
I sit on the porch of the Krishna House in Gainesville, reading. I look up from my book to the quiet street and see a man walk by. Something about his face speaks of such sadness, such... sorrow. I feel this urge in me to somehow walk out to him and hand him a plate of sanctified food, prasadam. Or ask him a question.
Something.
But he keeps walking by, and I feel very shy. How silly! Who am I to run out and start bombarding some stranger with food and questions?
He starts to disappear around a corner.
But a voice murmurs to me in my heart: When will this moment come again?
I put aside my book and dash off the porch, running towards the man. I call out, "Excuse me! Excuse me!"
The man turns, surprised to see a girl running towards him. "Yes?" he says gruffly.
When I reach him I say, "May I ask you a question?"
"Is this about parking?"
I take in his uniform, which I realize is a polo shirt which has embroidered on its front Parking Attendant. "Oh, no, this isn't about parking," I say.
"Then what? What's your question?"
I take in a deep breath. I look him in the eyes and say, "May I ask you what you feel is the purpose of your life?"
He furrows his eyebrows. "I need to work,"
"Work?"
"Yes, I need to go to work, I don't have time for this,"
"So you feel the purpose of your life is to work," I clarify for him.
"No," he says sardonically, "The purpose of my life is to be happy and make others happy,"
My eyes light up in wonder.
The man finishes, "Now if you'll excuse me I need to pay my rent,"
I fold my palms to him, smiling. "Thank you for your answer," And we part ways. I head back to the porch, reveling in the moment.
This parking attendant, who is a complete stranger to me, knows the purpose of his life. Just like that. The answer is clean and clear. His soul knows. I realize that we all know. The purpose of our lives is at the tip of each of our tongues. No need to force or debate or convince.
As the parking attendant put it so eloquently, "Be happy and make others happy."
Be happy and serve.
Something is amiss in this equation, though. I return to my spot on the porch to ponder. In my experience of this man, he was miserable. He knew and could speak the purpose of his life, and yet I did not experience him as aligned with his words.
I realize that to the degree that we're not aligned with our purpose, we cover it over with work. To the degree that we are not connected with the source of true happiness - God, Krishna - then we cover it over with work, work, work. Pleasure. Distractions.
I offer my respects to the man I met in the street today. He has taught me the simplicity of knowing the purpose of my life, and the lifelong adventure and challenge to align my knowing with my being.
And if I see this man again, the parking attendant, I think I shall go out and offer him a plate of prasadam.
(I feel moved to mention that this post is very much inspired by the Satvatove 3 course that I participated in this past weekend, which is facilitated by Dhira Govinda dasa (David Wolf) and Malini dasi (Marie Glasheen). I thank them for their guidance and compassion.)
(Excerpt from Advancements of Ancient India’s Vedic Culture)
By Stephen Knapp (Sri Nandanandana dasa)
When we talk about the planet’s earliest civilization, we are talking about the world’s earliest sophisticated society after the last ice age. This means that according to the Vedic time tables, various forms of civilization have been existing for millions of years. But the first record of an organized and developed society was the Vedic culture that arose in ancient India with the Indus Sarasvati civilization, and then spread out from there in all directions around the world.
Often times we see that students, even in India’s academic system, have not studied or encountered the contributions that were made by early civilization in the area of ancient India. Not only are they not aware of such developments that had been given from India, but there is often a lack of such knowledge to be studied. Therefore, this book is to help fill that gap of information and to show how this area of the world, indeed, had a most advanced civilization, but was also where many of society’s advancements originated.
It can be found that what became the area of India and its Vedic culture was way ahead of its time. This can be noticed in such things as industry, metallurgy, science, textiles, medicine, surgery, mathematics, and, of course, philosophy and spirituality. In fact, we can see the roots of these sciences and metaphysics in many areas of the world that can be traced back to its Indian or Vedic origins.
Furthermore, we often do not know of all the progress that had been made during the ancient times of India, which used to be called Bharatvarsha or Aryavrata. Nor do most people know all that ancient India gave to the world. So let us take a serious look at this.
From the Preface of Indian Tradition of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, the authors relate most accurately: “Hindus are a race who have dwelled on the most fundamental questions about life (& death), about nature and its origins. The bold questioning by Hindus gave birth to theories, axioms, principles and a unique approach to and a way of life. The approach to life and the way of life led to the evolution of one of the most ancient and grand cultures on the face of the earth. The spiritual aspects of Hindu culture are more commonly known, the fact that science, technology and industry were a part of their culture is little known.
“For historical reasons, the achievements of ancient Hindus in various fields of science and technology are not popularly known to Indians. The recent research by Sri Dharmpal and others has shown that the colonial invaders and the rulers had a vested interest in distorting and destroying the information regarding all positive aspects of Hindu culture. The conventional understanding today is that Hindus were more concerned about rituals, about spirituality, and the world above or the world after death. That Hindus were an equally materialistic people, that India was the industrial workshop of the world till the end of 18th century, that Hindus had taken up basic questions of the principles of astronomy, fundamental particles, origins of the universe, applied psychiatry and so on, are not well documented and not popularly known. That ancient Hindus had highly evolved technologies in textile engineering, ceramics, printing, weaponry, climatology and meteorology, architecture, medicine and surgery, metallurgy, agriculture and agricultural engineering, civil engineering, town planning, and similar other fields is known only to a few scholars even today. There are about 44 known ancient and medieval Sanskrit texts on a technical subject such as chemistry alone. The information about the science and technological heritage of India is embedded in the scriptures, the epics and in several of the technical texts. The information needs to be taken out of these and presented.
“Facts like Hindus had the knowledge that the sun is the center of the solar system, about the geography of the earth, the way the plants produce food, the way blood circulates in the body, the science of abstract mathematics and numbers, the principles of health, medicine and surgery and so on at a time in history when the rest of the world did not know how to think, talk and write has to be exposed to people. This can draw the attention of these communities, especially the future generation towards ‘ideas’ that are essentially Indian.
“There are several published works on the history of India. Such works are written by Indian scholars as well as western researchers in oriental and Indological studies. Many of these works are highly scholastic and are not amenable to the common man. There is a need to make the knowledge of science heritage of India known to one and all. Further, there is need for studying scriptures, epics, and other ancient literature (in Sanskrit as well as other regional languages) to unearth the wealth of knowledge of our ancestors. Reports of such studies also need to be published continuously.” 1
This is the goal of the present volume, to easily and simply convey this knowledge for the benefit of everyone, for the correct view of history, and to give credit where credit is due.
THE ADVANCED NATURE OF ANCIENT INDIAN SCIENCES
Achievements in the sciences of ancient India were known all over the world, even in Arabia, China, Spain, and Greece, countries in which medieval scholars acknowledged their indebtedness to India. For example, the Arab scholar Sa’id ibn Ahmad al-Andalusi (1029–1070) wrote in his history on science, called Tabaqat-al’umam:
“The first nation to have cultivated science is India… India is known for the wisdom of its people. Over many centuries, all the kings of the past have recognized the ability of the Indians in all the branches of knowledge. The kings of China have stated that the kings of the world are five in number and all the people of the world are their subjects. They mentioned the king of China, the king of India, the king of the Turks, the king of the Persians, and the king of the Romans. …they referred to the king of India as the ‘king of wisdom’ because of the Indians’ careful treatment of ‘ulum [sciences] and all the branches of knowledge.
“The Indians, known to all nations for many centuries, are the metal [essence] of wisdom, the source of fairness and objectivity. They are people of sublime pensiveness, universal apologues, and useful and rare inventions. …To their credit the Indians have made great strides in the study of numbers and of geometry. They have acquired immense information and reached the zenith in their knowledge of the movements of the stars [astronomy]. …After all that they have surpassed all other people in their knowledge of medical sciences…”
Furthermore, “Whether it was astronomy, mathematics (specially geometry), medicine or metallurgy, each was a pragmatic contribution to the general Hindu ethos, viz., Man in Nature, Man in harmony with Nature, and not Man and Nature or Man Against Nature, that characterizes modern science. The Hindu approach to nature was holistic, often alluding to the terrestrial-celestial correspondence and human-divine relationship. Hindu and scientific and technological developments were an integral part of this attitude that was assiduously fostered in the ancient period.” 2
In his article, Indic Mathematics: India and the Scientific Revolution, Dr. David Grey lists some of the most important developments in the history of mathematics that took place in India, summarizing the contributions of luminaries such as Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, Mahavira, Bhaskara, and Madhava. He concludes by asserting, “the role played by India in the development (of the scientific revolution in Europe) is no mere footnote, easily and inconsequentially swept under the rug of Eurocentric bias. To do so is to distort history, and to deny India one of its greatest contributions to world civilizations.”
Lin Yutang, Chinese scholar and author, also wrote that: “India was China’s teacher in trigonometry, quadratic equations, grammar, phonetics…” and so forth. Francois Voltaire also stated: “… everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges.”
Referring to the above quotes, David Osborn concludes thus: “From these statements we see that many renowned intellectuals believed that the Vedas provided the origin of scientific thought.”
The Syrian astronomer / monk Severus Sebokhy (writing CE 662), as expressed by A. L. Basham in his book The Wonder That Was India (p. 6), explained, “I shall now speak of the knowledge of the Hindus… Of their subtle discoveries in the science of astronomy – discoveries even more ingenious than those of the Greeks and Babylonians – of their rational system of mathematics, or of their method of calculation which no words can praise strongly enough – I mean the system using nine symbols. If these things were known by the people who think that they alone have mastered the sciences because they speak Greek, they would perhaps be convinced, though a little late in the day, that other folk, not only Greeks, but men of a different tongue, know something as well as they.”
There have been many scholars, both old and new, who readily agree and point out the progressive nature of the early advancements found in ancient India’s Vedic tradition. So let us take a quick overview of some of what was known and developed in earlier times in the Vedic culture of the East.
American professor Jabez T. Sunderland (1842-1936), President of the India Information Bureau of America, spent many years in India. He was the author of India in Bondage, wherein he wrote, “India created the beginnings of all sciences and she carried some of them to a remarkable degree of development, thereby leading the world. India has produced great literature, great arts, great philosophical systems, great religions, and great men in every department of life–rulers, statesmen, financiers, scholars, poets, generals, colonizers, skilled artisans and craftsmen of every kind, agriculturalists, industrial organizers, and leaders in far reaching trade and commerce by land and sea.”
Sunderland went on to say, “India was a far greater industrial and manufacturing nation than any in Europe or than any other in Asia. Her textile goods–the fine products of her loom, in cotton, wool, linen, and silk–were famous over the civilized world; so were her exquisite jewelry and her precious stones, cut in every lovely form; so were her pottery, porcelains, ceramics of every kind, quality, color and beautiful shape; so were her fine works in metal iron, steel, silver, and gold. She had great architecture–equal in beauty to any in the world. She had great engineering works… Not only was she the greatest ship-building nation, but she had great commerce and trade by land and sea which extended to all known civilized countries.” 3
In India in Bondage, Sunderland also quotes Lord Curzon, the British statesman who was viceroy in India from 1899 to 1905, as saying in his address delivered at the great Delhi Durbar in 1901: “Powerful empires existed and flourished here [in India] while Englishmen were still wandering, painted in the woods, while the English colonies were a wilderness and a jungle. India has left a deeper mark upon the history, the philosophy, and the religion of mankind, than any other terrestrial unit in the universe.”
Lord Curzon had also stated: “While we [the British] hold onto India, we are a first rate power. If we lose India, we will decline to a third rate power. This is the value of India.”
Similar to this, Beatrice Pitney Lamb, former editor of the United Nations News, first visited India in 1949 on an assignment for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes in her book, India: A World in Transition: “In addition to the still visible past glories of art and architecture, the wonderful ancient literature, and other cultural achievements of which educated Indians are justly proud, the Indian past includes another type of glory most tantalizing to the Indians of today–prolonged material prosperity. For well over a millennium and a half, the Indian subcontinent may have been the richest area in the world.” 4
Many other writers and scholars had commented on their high regard for what had been developed in India. For example, to recognize a few, General Joseph Davey Cunningham (1812-1851) author of A History of the Sikhs, writes: “Mathematical science was so perfect and astronomical observations so complete that the paths of the sun and moon were accurately measured.”
There was much admiration even of the language of India. William Cooke Taylor (1800-1849), author of A Popular History of British India, stated in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. II: “It was an astonishing discovery that Hindusthan possessed, in spite of the changes of the realms and changes of time, a language of unrivaled richness and variety; a language, the parent of all those dialects that Europe has fondly called classical–the source alike of Greek flexibility and Roman strength.” 5
French scholar Buffon presented a coherent theory that scholars of ancient India had preserved the old learning from the creators of its sciences, arts, and all useful institutions. Voltaire had also suggested that sciences were more ancient in India than in Egypt. Russian born philosopher Immanuel Kant placed the origin of mankind in the Himalayas and stated that our arts like agriculture, numbers, even the game of chess, came from India.
German scholar Friedrich Schlegel also had a high regard for India, stating that everything of high philosophy or science is of Indian origin. French scholar and judge Louis Jacolliot, in his Bible in India, writes: “Astonishing fact! The Hindu Revelation (Vedas) is of all revelations the only one whose ideas are in perfect harmony with modern science, as it proclaims the slow and gradual formation of the world.” Of course, we can see the videos in which the astrophysicist Carl Sagan says, “The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths, dedicated to the idea that the cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed, an infinite number of deaths and births. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond to those of modern cosmology.”
The point is that all science of the Vedic tradition was developed with or in continuation of the ancient Vedic or spiritual knowledge that was a central point in understanding life. It was part of the Absolute Truth, or Sanatana-dharma, by which we could understand how to function in this world, and what is the purpose of both this world and our life in it. From this point, so many other developments took place, not as a means to control the environment, but as a means to know how to work holistically with nature for our material and spiritual progress and growth.
People like the Nobel Prize winner Maurice Maeterlinck wrote in The Great Secret: “…This tradition attributes the vast reservoir of wisdom that somewhere took shape simultaneously with the origin of man, or even if we are to credit it, before his advent upon this earth, to move spiritual entities, to beings less entangled in matter.”
The popular American author Mark Twain also had a high opinion of India, and wrote in Following the Equator: “This is India… cradle of the human race, birth place of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition, whose yesterdays bear date with the moldering antiquities of the rest of the nations… India had the start of the whole world at the beginning of things. She had the first civilization; she had the first accumulation of material wealth; she was populous with deep thinkers and the subtle intellects; she had mines, and woods, and a fruitful soil.” 6
Even in scientific discoveries, there are those who acknowledge the knowing that has taken the rest of the world ages with which to catch up. For example, Fredric Spielberg writes in Spiritual Practices of India, with an introduction by Alan Watts: “To the philosophers of India, however, relativity is no new discovery, just as the concept of light years is no matter for astonishment to people used to thinking of time in millions of kalpas [days of Brahma]. The fact that the wise men of India have not been concerned with technological applications of this knowledge arises from the circumstance that technology is but one of innumerable ways of applying it. It is, indeed, a remarkable circumstance that when Western civilization discovers relativity, it applies it to the manufacture of atom bombs, whereas, Oriental (Vedic) civilization applies it to the development of new states of consciousness.”
Another simpler example is when Dick Teresi, author of The God Particle and co-founder of Omni magazine, writes in Ancient Roots of Modern Science, “In India, we see the beginnings of theoretical speculations of the size and nature of the earth. Some 1,000 years before Aristotle, the Vedic Aryans asserted that the earth was round and circled the sun.”
Dick Teresi also acknowledges how much of the knowledge we understand today did not necessarily come from the Greek civilization, but actually existed much earlier in the Vedic traditions of India. He again writes in Ancient Roots of Modern Science: “Two thousand years before Pythagorus, philosophers in northern India had understood that gravitation held the solar system together, and that therefore the sun, the most massive object, had to be at its center. Our Western mathematical heritage and pride are critically dependent on the triumphs of ancient Greece. These accomplishments have been so greatly exaggerated that it often becomes difficult to sort out how much of modern math is derived from Greece and how much from …the Indians and so on. Our modern numerals 0 through 9 were developed in India. Mathematics existed long before the Greeks constructed their first right angle.” 7
THE ANTIQUITY OF VEDIC CULTURE
Many are those who have mentioned the antiquity of the Vedic tradition, but how far back does it go? Traditionally, it was there since the beginning of time. However, even archeologically we can ascertain its very early dates.
For example, archeologists have found 7000-year-old rock paintings in the Aravalli mountain range near Benari dam in the Kotputli area of Jaipur district in Rajasthan in 1991. These paintings are adjacent to the site of the famous Indus Valley Civilization. Such 7000-year-old (5000 BCE) paintings were also found in Braham Kund Ki Dungari and Budhi Jeengore in Rajasthan. This discovery makes the Vedic civilization more ancient than the Egyptian and Greek and Mesopotamian civilizations. This also negates the Aryan Invasion Theory, the hypothesis that the Vedic Aryans were not indigenous, but established themselves after invading the area, which is completely wrong as we will show later in the book. 8
Along these same lines, further verification was also supplied by the Times of India (May 30th, 1992, New Delhi edition) wherein it was reported that the department of Archeology and Museums in the city of Jaipur, Rajasthan discovered as many as 300 prehistoric paintings on Kanera rocks in an area of 400 square miles near the town of Nimbahera in Chittorgarh district. These paintings are dated between 50,000 to 60,000 years old. That pushes the earliest reaches of Vedic civilization to at least 50,000 years back.
Additional finds such as these are discovered on a regular basis. Another one is reported in the publication called Science (February 23, 2010). It was reported therein that newly discovered archaeological sites in southern and northern India have revealed how people lived before and after the colossal Toba volcanic eruption 74,000 years ago.
The international, multi-disciplinary research team, led by Oxford University in collaboration with Indian institutions, unveiled to a conference in Oxford what it calls “Pompeii-like excavations” beneath the Toba ash.
According to the team, a potentially ground-breaking implication of the new work is that the species responsible for making the stone tools in India was Homo sapiens. Stone tool analysis has revealed that the artefacts consist of cores and flakes, which are classified in India as Middle Palaeolithic and are similar to those made by modern humans in Africa. “Though we are still searching for human fossils to definitively prove the case, we are encouraged by the technological similarities. This suggests that human populations were present in India prior to 74,000 years ago, or about 15,000 years earlier than expected based on some genetic clocks,” said project director Dr Michael Petraglia, Senior Research Fellow in the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford. This exciting new information questions the idea that the Toba super-eruption caused a worldwide environmental catastrophe.
An area of widespread speculation about the Toba super-eruption is that it nearly drove humanity to extinction. The fact that the Middle Palaeolithic tools of similar styles are found right before and after the Toba super-eruption, suggests that the people who survived the eruption were the same populations, using the same kinds of tools, says Dr Petraglia. The research agrees with evidence that other human ancestors, such as the Neanderthals in Europe and the small brained Hobbits in Southeastern Asia, continued to survive well after Toba.
The team has not discovered much bone in the Toba ash sites, but in the Billasurgam cave complex in Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh, the researchers have found deposits which they believe range from at least 100,000 years ago to the present. They contain a wealth of animal bones such as wild cattle, carnivores and monkeys. They have also identified plant materials in the Toba ash sites and caves, yielding important information about the impact of the Toba super-eruption on the ecological settings.
Dr Petraglia said: “This exciting new information questions the idea that the Toba super-eruption caused a worldwide environmental catastrophe. That is not to say that there were no ecological effects. We do have evidence that the ash temporarily disrupted vegetative communities and it certainly choked and polluted some fresh water sources, probably causing harm to wildlife and maybe even humans.” 9
In this way, recent discoveries show that the area of ancient India was one of the locations for the oldest civilizations the world has known.
CONCLUSION
THE GREATNESS OF INDIA AND VEDIC CULTURE
History certainly proves that India was also one of the wealthiest countries on the planet in its earlier days. Not only did she have vast treasures of knowledge and developments, but ancient India also had great wealth, such as sapphires, rubies, emeralds, pearls, and other gems, along with sunny climate, great fertility, and much more that was exported to various parts of the world, but the deep levels of knowledge and development was another of her greatest assets. For this reason, the ambition of all conquerors was to possess the area of India.
The pearl presented by Julius Caesar to Servilia, the mother of Brutus, as well as the famous pearl ear-ring of Cleopatra, were obtained from India. The Koh-i-noor diamond, weighing at 106.5 carats, one of the most fabled of diamonds, was taken to England from India. In fact, when Alexander left Persia, he told his troops that they were now going to “Golden India” where there was endless wealth, which made the beauty and riches of Persia look puny.
When the Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni destroyed the famous Somnath temple, he found astonishing wealth in diamonds and jewels. He also sacked Mathura and gathered numerous Deities in gold and silver. Thereafter he went to Kanauj which astonished the tyrant and his followers to such a degree in its wealth and beauty at the time that they declared that Kanauj was only rivaled in magnificence by heaven itself.
Ultimately, it was the wealth of India that drew the barbaric Arabs to the country, and then let the half-civilized Tartars to overrun it. It was the wealth of India that attracted Nadir Shah to ancient India, and from where he captured immense booty, which motivated the Abdali chiefs to renew their attacks on the country.
The people of India were actually not so barbaric as the invaders that forced their way into the country, but rather some of the most civilized in the world, primarily because of their sophisticated level of consciousness and gentleness towards one another caused by their training in the principles of the Vedic spiritual culture.
The character of the Hindus of the day had been described by some of those Europeans who had traveled there back in the 19th century, such as Max Muller, wherein he said: “Warren Hastings thus speaks of the Hindus in general: ‘They are gentle and benevolent, more susceptible of gratitude for kindness shown them, and less prompted to vengeance for wrongs inflicted than any people on the face of the earth; faithful, affectionate, submissive to legal authority.’
“Bishop Heber said: ‘The Hindus are brave, courteous, intelligent, most eager for knowledge and improvement; sober, industrious, dutiful parents, affectionate to their children, uniformly gentle and patient, and more easily affected by kindness and attention to their wants and feelings than any people I ever met with.’
“Sir Thomas Munro bears even stronger testimony. He writes: ‘If a good system of agriculture, unrivaled manufacturing skill, a capacity to produce whatever can contribute to either convenience or luxury, schools established in every village for teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic, the general practice of hospitality and charity amongst each other, and above all, a treatment of the female sex full of confidence, respect, and delicacy, are among the signs which denote a civilized people–then the Hindus are not inferior to the nations of Europe, and if civilization is to become an article of trade between England and India, I am convinced that England will gain by the import cargo.'” 10
Besides all these considerations, Max Muller also once related: “I wished to point out that there was another sphere of intellectual activity in which the Hindu excelled–the meditative and transcendent–and that here we might learn from them some lessons of life which we ourselves are but too apt to ignore or to despise.” 11
Finally, in what could be a conclusive statement made by a European who had spent many years living and studying the Vedic culture and Sanskrit literature of early India, Max Muller said, “If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power and beauty that nature can bestow–in some parts a very paradise on earth–I should point to India. If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant–I should point to India. And if I were to ask myself from what literature we, here in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of one Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human, a life not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life–again I should point to India.” 12
CHAPTER NOTES
1. Prof. A. R. Vasudeva Murthy and Prasun Kumar Mishra, Indian Tradition of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Samskrita Bharati, Bangalore, India, August, 1999, pp. i-v.
2. Science and Technology in Ancient India, by Editorial Board of Vijnan Bharati, Mumbai, August, 2002, Foreword by B. V. Subbarayappa.
3. Niranjan Shah, Indian Tribune Newspaper, December 8, 2007.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Niranjan Shah, Indian Tribune Newspaper, December 1, 2007.
7. Niranjan Shah, Indian Tribune Newspaper, December 9, 2005.
THE FOLLOWING LECTURE ON SRIMAD-BHAGAVATAM, FIRST CANTO, CHAPTER TWO, DIVINITY AND DIVINE SERVICE, WAS GIVEN BY HIS HOLINESS BHAKTI CHARU SWAMI ON 22 DECEMBER 2006 IN ISKCON UJJAIN, INDIA. Transcription : His Grace Suhrid-Krishna Dasa Editing : Her Grace Ranga Radhika Dasi Audio reference: click here Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya Om […]
Diary of a Traveling Sadhaka, Vol. 8, No. 11 By Krishna-kripa das (June 2012, part one)
England (Sent from Sarcelles, France, on July 27, 2012)
What I Went and What I Did
The first weekend in June I attended the Birmingham Tweny-Four Hour Kirtana for the third straight year where Sacinandana Swami shared wonderful insights about kirtana. Afterward we continued doing harinama in Newcastle and other cities in The North of England, and we continued to see people taking an interest in the chanting. I went to Manchester for their monthly harinama and to give the lecture for the Sunday Feast. I also chanted in there in Piccadilly Gardens the next day. Fortunately two other devotees joined me. Then Sri Gadadhara Prabhu and I went to Leeds and Sheffield for the weekly nama-hatta programs, and we helped advertise them by doing harinama. Next we went with Dayananda Swami to Bhaktivedanta Manor for the UK Brahmacari Conference, with lectures by visiting swamis, many of which I have notes on. About thirty brahmacaris participated in the Borehamwood Ratha-yatra, the Manor’s entry in a local municipality’s parade where we won second place. Then some of my friends from Bhaktivedanta Manor went to Central London for the lively Saturday night harinama before the next day’s Ratha-yatra.
The insights are really great this issue. I especially like some from Srila Prabhupada himself, others by Prahladananda Swami on health, Candramauli Swami on cooperation in ashram life, and Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami on the glories of Srila Prabhupada.
Thanks to Lauris of BRR Films for all of the great pictures.
Birmingham Twenty-Four Hour Kirtana
Before the Birmingham Twenty-Four Hour KirtanaI attended the weekly Saturday harinama in Birmingham which was on New Street at a place so busy it reminded me of London. The devotees usually chant from 12:30 to 3:00 p.m., but were a little late setting it up. Many young people took pleasure in dancing with us. Several people stood and watched for awhile, and two or three devotees distributed many books to those in the crowd who were interested.
I foolishly left my harmonium on the city bus while traveling from the temple to the harinama. Bhakta Bob, a devotee who worked as a city bus driver tracked it down in the depot, and we went to pick it up after the Twenty-four Hour Kirtana. The men at the office joked that they would give it back to me, but only if I played a tune for them. So I got to play a Hare Krishna tune for the men in the bus company office!
At the Twenty-Four Hour Kirtana it was wonderful, as usual, to associate with so many devotees who have faith in the congregational chanting of the holy name of the Lord and to chant for twenty-four hours. It was very large crowd, and I could only find a little space near the wall to dance in. I usually take a nap for three hours in the middle and maybe another half an hour after a meal. When morning comes around, I chant my japa during the singing of the leader and then I chant the response, counting that as a mantra toward my japa quota, thus it takes me two and a half or three hours to chant my sixteen rounds instead of an hour and three-quarters, but I do not really miss too much of the kirtana that way. For next year, I hope they put a speaker near the prasadam queue and the room where the devotees take prasadam so we do not feel like we are missing out.
During the kirtana, there was an abhiseka (bathing ceremony) for the Birmingham deities of Lord Jagannatha, Lord Baladeva, and Lady Subhadra.
Later, Jagannatha and Baladeva wore an elephant dress.
Madhava Prabhu led many joyful meditative kirtanas.
Janananda Goswami would encourage others by his example to dance with upraised arms.
Here are some notes from speakers at the Birmingham Twenty-four Hour Kirtana:
Sacinandana Swami:
Use the body as a springboard to absorb yourself in Krishna consciousness with your mind.
The glorification of the Lord is first done externally and then within our heart. In this way it can be done twenty-four hours a day.
In the German language there are songs called “ear worms—songs that become so dear to you that they become embedded in your ears. The Hare Krishna mantra should become like that for us.
We should internalize the holy name so it becomes like our heartbeat or our breath.
On the platform of practice there is a struggle between our weaknesses and what we hope to attain.
Before Aindra Prabhu established the 24-hour kirtana inVrindavan, I would participate in the night shift, from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. The karatala player fell asleep, the mrdanga player fell asleep. Even the guard fell asleep. I decided to stick with it, although I had four more hours to go.
Stay with the holy name until you realize there is someone listening and that someone is Krishna.
Sing for the ears of God and see how you are supplied with transcendental strength.
The names of God are not just names of God but God Himself.
One beggar would regularly insult the king. The king found out about it and disguised himself as another beggar. He came to the beggar, and said, “I heard you dislike the king.” “Yes,” said the beggar, “Not only do I dislike the king, but I want to kill the king.” The king disguised as a beggar said, “Oh, I happen to know a secret passage in the palace that goes right to the king’s throne.” The beggar was overjoyed. The king disguised as beggar showed the beggar a route so he passed so many saintly persons discussing the ultimate truth. The beggar decided, “No, evening is not a good time to kill the king, let us try morning.” In the morning, he saw arrangements by the king for giving charity and for the happiness of citizens. Thus he concluded that the king was not so bad after all. The king dressed as a beggar, showed him the secret path to the throne, and then excused himself while he put on his kingly robes and sat on the throne. When the beggar then saw the king was his friend, he apologized. The holy name is like that king. The holy name is always giving although we do not always appreciate.
The holy name is the bud of the flower of divine love. He is full of devotional tastes.
The mind is like this naughty child that will protest and run away.
You have ignored, neglected, and rejected, and the holy name still is desiring to benefit you.
Do not be absent-minded, be present-minded. Do not space out. Space in.
Remember I am not my body. I am not my mind. I am the soul within.
Chanting means to connect the heart with the deity who we praising.
By chanting, we are asking the Lord to accept us. So long we have turned away from Him, and now we want to turn back, and ask the Lord to accept us.
There is only so far you can go on your own strength. Krishna stands on the border and bring us further. He can capture you and pull you on.
O King of the country of love, I appeal to you for your affection. Somehow or other I am in adverse circumstances. Although I would like to I cannot find the ability to chant your holy name attentively. My soul will never be satisfied without Your companionship. Without your mercy, I cannot get beyond my imprisoned, restricted condition.
Sometimes with this prayer, Krishna will take us seriously and break down the wall.
I say this for two reasons. 1. As a reminder that Krishna wants us to give His mercy. 2. And to give us hope.
The formula to have a live-saving experience of kirtana:
saintly association
a peaceful place free from material influence
a determined attitude
The chanting establishes the only relationship that is free from disappointment.
Some programs have more strength and others less strength, and this program of devotees chanting has great strength, and one of the strengths is the power to attract others, and thus this program [the Birmingham Twenty-four Hour Kirtana] has grown continuously since I have been coming to it. We outgrew this place, and some people had to stand outside in the rain last night while others returned to their hotel rooms and switched on their laptops to view it on the Internet. I suggest that we all make a commitment to each invite a new person, and then Krishna will see we are serious and will make an arrangement for a new place.
Kadamba Kanana Swami:
The Vaishnavas manifest the mercy of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. So much energy is released when they get together, and the hope is that Krishna will manifest Himself in that situation. Krishna manifests Himself according to the advancement of the devotee. And it is that experience that keeps us coming back for more. And that is the reason I came to this Birmingham 24-hour kirtana.
a Brijbasi guest to Birmingham 24-hour kirtana:
I was gone from Vrindavana three or four weeks, and the first hours of your kirtana here was the first time I wasn’t missing Vrndavana.
The sadhus are crying for Krishna for centuries, yet Krishna does not come. While the gopis are reprimanding Krishna for His rascaldom, saying they wish He would go away, yet He is away present with them. Why? Because the gopis chant theholy name of Krishna, the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.
Harinamas in the North of England
We would chant in Newcastle several days a week, and in small towns around Newcastle on other days. One day we went to Heaton, a small town where many students live.
Sri Gadadhara Prabhu tried to interest locals in the books of Srila Prabhupada.
I led kirtana for some time, playing the harmonium, with Prema Sankirtan on the drum, and Vamana Prabhu on the cymbals.
We had some friendly interactions with a few people.
In Newcastle one college student from Kyrgyzstan loved hearing our chanting on harinama. One devotee said there were tears in her eyes. I suggested that the lady devotee on the party invite her to our special evening program with the visiting swamis that night, and thus the two of them left for the temple for the program which was soon starting. Although a Muslim, the college student felt at home with the chanting and the devotees and came to four evening programs in a row, as well as for lunch prasadam a couple times. Hopefully we shall she her again when she returns from her summer vacation in her native land.
Crazy Ken, who had met us on harinama about ten days before, joined us for another Wednesday program sporting a custom T-shirt he had made with the Hare Krishna maha-mantra on the front, and the phrase “Can you dig it?” underneath. I had not encountered such sixties slang in a while, and I think some younger people were unfamiliar with it. He was happy to get the maha-mantra hit single CD and few George Harrison songs that a devotee gave to him.
The harinama inSheffield was especially memorable for several reasons. We encountered some street musicians who played along with us for some time and even began chanting Hare Krishna with us. Later a woman looking for directions came up to us, and it turned out she was looking for directions to our own evening program, not realizing it was we who were putting on. She was half an hour early, and so we invited her to join the harinama and she did. Usually we stop the harinama fifteen minutes before the program, but because I had not done my three hours of harinama that I day, I wanted to keep going for ten more minutes. An Indian man and his daughter heard the karatalas and found our kirtana party. They knew ISKCON from the Montreal Ratha-yatra. The girl was a student at Sheffield University and was happy to learn of the weekly program in that town. They came to that night to the program. While talking with them I learned they would be in London that weekend, and so I gave them an invitation to the London Ratha-yatra on Sunday, so they would have the chance to go.
Borehamwood Ratha-yatra
Midday on Saturday, June 16, Parasurama Prabhu, devotees from Bhaktivedanta Manor and Soho Street, as well as thirty brahmacaris from all over the United Kingdom, sang and danced for the pleasure of Lord Jagannath, Lord Baladeva, and Lady Subhadra in the Borehamwood Carnival, an annual parade in a community just five miles from the Manor. So many people were happy to see the kirtana of the devotees. Some smiled, some danced, some waved, and many took pictures and videos, including this one [the devotees participation starts around 1:44 minutes into the video]:
(If the embedded video above does not work, click this link:
Devotees distributed books and invitations to the London Ratha-yatra. The brahmacaris by their enthusiasm and their numbers added a lot to the party. We did a harinama to the beginning of the parade, chanted in the parade for 45 minutes, and then did harinama back to the car, so lots of people got to connect with Krishna.
Insights
Srila Prabhupada:
from a lecture:
When people worship God with a motive, when they get what they want they may stop the worship and if they do not get what they want, they may become atheistic. Thus unmotivated devotion is superior.
Vedic culture is to train boys as brahmacaris to learn the purpose of life.
In the West I was surprised to see children 10 or 12 years old smoking. In India, I think that if they are less than 16 they are punished for smoking.
A computer is a wonderful machine, but still there must be some operator. Nature is a wonderful machine. Who is its operator? Scientists have no commonsense to see this.
Anyone who accepts the body as the self, has imperfect knowledge yet such people are posing as big, big professors. Therefore we are protesting because they are cheating the people.
The scientists are trying to create life but they have no knowledge that life is not created. Life is ever existing.
Comment: So the scientists are minutely analyzing the mirage and thus wasting their time.
They are wiping out Krishna, and your business is to establish Krishna. Prove that the background is Krishna. That will be the perfection of your education.
Candramauli Swami:
Love means to serve and to cooperate in order to serve. Without cooperation, it is just about me.
Srila Prabhupada would point out that the United Nations could not work as long as the individual nations were attached to their own self-interest.
I was with one yatra that was divided into two groups, each with a different way to serve Krishna. Prabhupada would say they are both right.
Material desires cause disunity.
Materialists when they try to unite on the material plane actually ending up creating more diversity.
Srila Prabhupada stressed that his followers could stay together by keeping his instructions in the center.
Living in an ashram is one of the greatest austerities in this age of Kali.
The basis of our spiritual life is good strong sadhana, and we should help each other to practice nicely.
The strength of a group can be seen by its weakest point not its strongest point. Therefore we all benefit by helping to bring up the weakest people to a higher level.
Devotees disagree but never fight.
My idea may be slightly better than your idea, but it is better for me to accept your idea than to fight for mine, unless your idea is completely off.
There is an analogy of two sons massaging father but quarreling among themselves and causing pain to the father.
Prabhupada asked a devotee he asked to find prasadam for guests, but the pujari who was in the middle of offering the food. The devotee took the food anyway, and the pujari became angry, not knowing Srila Prabhupada’s mind.
When maya sees someone is seriously practicing, she tests to see how serious he is. If he is very serious, he is not disturbed. If he is disturbed, soon he rectifies himself, and he goes on.
[Devotees often cite part of the letter Srila Prabhupada wrote to Atreya Rsi saying his criticism of devotees for quarreling was a manifestation of impersonalism but Candramauli Swami read the entire letter which was full of wisdom and valuable to hear.]
Q: It seems like we could get entangled in offending devotee who has a valid program for serving Krishna that differs from ours. How do we avoid this? A: It is natural that disagreement is there. We do not criticize the people we disagree with but deal with the issue itself. In this way we can avoid Vaishnava aparadha.
To sacrifice for others is a feature of making advancement. You have to do that in a ashram.
Q: How to avoid conflicts? A: Communicate with others.
If you are absorbed in Krishna by hearing and chanting, you can tolerate the small problems within the ashram.
Being proud of having philosophical knowledge, but not having proper behavior is a kind of false ego.
A leader has to be a visionary and create a team spirit.
One study showed leaders fail most often for not creating a team spirit among peers and subordinates, secondly, for not knowing what is expected of them, and thirdly, for not having the required skills.
The leader has to recognize unexpressed talents in others and figure out how to inspire them to engage those talents in Krishna’s service.
One article analyzed why Japanese businesses excelled American ones although having less facility. It was found the Japanese business people had better relationships and team spirit, and that made the difference. So it is also in Krishna consciousness.
Our advancement comes from serving others.
The Lord is never a debtor although he may appear to be.
The forest fire that Krishna swallowed was a demon who manifested in that way.
The reason that Krishna told the cowherd boys to close their eyes before He swallowed the forest fire was because previously Balarama had told Mother Yasoda that he had eaten dirt and He was worried Balarama would now tell her that he had eaten fire.
At the 2004 World Parliament of Religions in the evenings there was a different program every night. One night was Hindu night. The Mayavadis spoke so much philosophy, telling stories, and captivating everyone’s mind.” Finally one of them said, “You can become the supreme enjoyer!” They and their followers were enlivened by this, but the devotees were disgusted. Bhakti Svarupa Damodara peacefully tolerated it all, and then spoke on the verse, “vasudeva para veda vasudeva para makha . . . ” Then we had kirtana and all the Mayavadi yogis left. They could not relate to the kirtana. Their followers, however, stayed. loved the kirtana and began to dance. Then we served prasadam.
We are simply meant for exchanging love with Krishna, and Krishna is simply meant for exchanging love with us.
Bhaktisiddhanta Saravati Thakura once said that Krishna is not your gardener, your stock broker, or your marriage counselor, He is the enjoyer of loving relationships with His devotees.
Lord Caitanya explains that through the congregational chanting of the holy name we can attain an ever increasing ocean of happiness.
Srila Prabhupada says that to think one is an incarnation of God is the last snare of maya.
Through service we can experience the presence of Krishna.
There are nine stages of prema.
To worship the Lord to get something material or to become the Lord are two illusions that have affected spiritualists since time immemorial.
Janananda Goswami:
Prabhupada says that if we keep ourselves in the consciousness of “I am the servant of the servant of the master of the gopis,”we will be always on the spiritual platform.
Prabhupada says that if we always chant Hare Krishna we will be in our svarupa, or constitutional position as servant of the Lord.
You can chant Hare Krishna anywhere, even in the toilet. The toilet is the perhaps the most important place to chant Krishna because it is so impure.
Before 1974 or so, book distribution would accompany the congregational chanting we would do in public. We would usually have two people distributing books and four people chanting, and we would take turns. There were no people who just did book distribution or just did chanting. The first day I went out, I was still a long-haired hippie, but I chanted and distributed books like the others. I distributed three Back to Godhead magazines, and I was the top distributor that day.
We are out there as representatives of Lord Caitanya and His associates to connect people with them. As jiva souls, living entities, we are meant to give pleasure to Krishna. That is the sankirtana movement. Sankirtana is really what pleases Krishna—complete glorification of Krishna, and so it really does include a variety of activities.
When I started the Newcastle Hare Krishna temple, I hitchhiked up here and stayed in a derelict’s house with a bum, not knowing where my next penny or next meal would come from.
Srila Prabhupada writes, “If there is one sincere soul, he can start a center.”
Srila Prabhupada writes, “If there is chanting going on, that will increase the book distribution.”
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura explained, “There is no other dharma than uttering the name of Krishna. . . . One who obstructs kirtana is the greatest atheist. There is no time to do mundane welfare work since the only dharma is Krishna kirtana.”
If we cannot directly do the sankirtana, we must assist it.
The prime symptom of love of God is that one wants the Lord’s name spread all over the world.
“Bless you” came from the time of bubonic plague because when the plague was happening, if you sneezed, that meant you had the plague and you would die.
In the early days of the Hare Krishna movement, we would have a bhajana class between 8:30 to 9:00 every night and always sing one or two bhajanas every day. The Vaishnavas gave us these songs to instruct us how to chant the holy name of Krishna properly.
There has to be some satisfaction in devotional service for us to proceed.
Usually chanting, dancing, and prasadam are attractive enough to everyone to stick with the process of devotional service.
When Vakresvara Pandit would dance, both the devotees and the demons were attracted.
Lord Caitanya said that Vakresvara Pandita was an embodiment of Krishna’s transcendental potency. When Krishna dances, so Vakresvara also dances.
The key which opens the door to chanting of the pure holy name and Krishna prema is the service of the Vaishnavas.
Lord Caitanya told Devananda Pandit, “You must use the same mouth that you used for blaspheme, to glorify the devotees and the Lord to become free from all offenses.”
It is not enough just to get the mercy of the Vaishnava you offended, but you have to admit your fault in public and to rectify it.
Prahladananda Swami:
Health is ephemeral. At the time of death practically no one has good health.
Our diet and medicine: Eat Krishna prasadam and chant Hare Krishna.
When through the holy name we experience happiness, we will not lament or hanker.
When we do not have a spirit of submission and surrender to the holy name, we will not experience happiness in chanting.
We should listen and try to improve the chanting.
Krishna decides how much He will reveal to us.
We have faith that Krishna is present in the sound of his name
One time Srila Prabhupada was in car, and everyone in car began to fall asleep, even the person who was supposed to keep the driver awake, and the driver himself. Prabhupada started playing the karatalas and chanting Hare Krishna.
Just try to chant as nicely as possible and be receptive.
When we speak, we should hear ourselves and make sure we are speaking words that truthful, pleasing, beneficial, not agitating to others, and following the Vedic conclusions [Bg. 7.15].
Good mental health leads to good physical health.
Good health is valuable because then health is one less distraction to our Krishna consciousness.
A little bad health is not bad because we have to practice tolerance so we can be completely absorbed.
Krishna knows how fallen we are, but we do not know how fallen we are.
Brahmacari life means being satisfied with having nothing. If we are not satisfied with nothing, then we will end up having more.
If get married, we may be satisfied, but our wife may not be satisfied or our children may not be satisfied.
If we are not satisfied with chanting Hare Krishna, then we may engage in self-destructive habits that give us bad health. We may overendeavor, underendeavor, or make the wrong endeavor.
Q: How much should we drink? A: Drink when you are thirsty. The problem is we do not realize when we are thirsty or hungry. If it looks good and it is not moving, we eat it, regardless of time of day or night.
Q: Sometimes the scream of the thoughts in our mind is so intense. What to do? A: Still our business is to try to hear the chanting. Chant louder. If we are really sincere, maya will keep quiet. If we pay attention to maya, she will get louder and louder.
Q: How to surrender? A: Follow the six items of saranagati. Absorb yourself in Krishna’s service and cultivate the feeling that because you are engaged in Krishna’s service, He will supply whatever you actually need.
We are not fasting from water or food. We are fasting from maya. Less attention on the body means more attention to Krishna.
Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami:
from Calling Out to Srila Prabhupada:
“O Srila Prabhupada, whom we think of day and night;
“O Prabhupada, who came to America with Srimad-Bhagavatamsas his only means, who sold volumes to bookstores in order to pay for groceries, and who thought in the beginning, ‘They will never accept this Hare Krishna mantra, but let me try;’
“O Prabhupada, who happily endured the austerities of New York winters on behalf of Lord Krishna; O master, who years later made thousands of disciples and had many houses to reside in but who said, ‘I was happier in the beginning in New York because I had no one to depend on but Krishna;’
“O Prabhupada, who favored New York City by opening his first ISKCON center there and by singing in Tompkins Square Park, who beat the one-headed drum hours at a time and sang strongly, who braved all the rudeness and strangeness just to deliver us from birth and death by giving us the holy names of Krishna;
“O Prabhupada, whose preaching was guided by Lord Krishna, whose preaching was to ‘go in like a needle and come out like a plow,’ whose preaching was pure and who stayed to do it, who fulfilled all the qualities of a saint, being tolerant, merciful, friendly to all and fixed in the Absolute Truth;
“O Prabhupada, who loved his disciples and nurtured them like a mother cares for her children, and who, like a father, imparted to his sons and daughters the gift of the courage to stand and fight;
“O Prabhupada, please live vibrantly in our thoughts and actions.
“O Srila Prabhupada, of whom I often think, ‘Where are you?’ O Prabhupada, who doesn’t belong as the exclusive property of any one disciple;
“O Prabhupada who is simultaneously giving thousands of instructions and yet is silent in Krishna meditation, please become more clear in my mind;
“O Prabhupada, of whom we say, ‘I wish you were present now to tell us what is right and wrong and what to do,’ and yet whom we fear to think of in that way because surely he would be angry with us and expose our cherished notions as foolish and disobedient;
“O Prabhupada, whom we sometimes prefer to worship at a distance, as is recommended in the scriptures, but whose lotus feet we want to touch, whose hand we want to feel on our heads and backs;
“O Prabhupada, who is with us but also in another dimension, and of whom we think, ‘How can I reach you? When and where will we meet again?
“O Prabhupada, who is not just another link in the disciplic succession of gurus, but who is the founder-acaryaof the Krishna consciousness movement, and who said, ‘None of these men could fulfill the desires of Bhaktivinoda Thakura in the matter of preaching in the foreign countries’;
“O Prabhupada, the remembrance of whom is like satori, whose moments are hundreds of haikus if we could only know them and see them rightly;
“O Prabhupada, who said, ‘Everything is all right,’ indicating that there was no need for anxiety because Krishna is the controller of everything, yet who also used to say, ‘What can be done?’ indicating that he wanted even more success for spreading Krishna consciousness, but obstacles remained in the way—this was also the will of providence.
“O Prabhupada, who didn’t speak of hidden, obscure meanings in the Vedas, who said it was very clear, and yet whose instructions may be looked at in new light, and whose sincere followers sometimes discover that they haven’t really understood what he meant even on basic issues;
“O Prabhupada, who is the source of all writings and teachings in the ISKCON sampradaya;
“O Prabhupada, who will always have true followers, and whose followers will keep up his standards in many places in the world;
“O Prabhupada, please keep us at your lotus feet; please keep us alive in your service.”
Bhagavat Asraya Prabhu:
Early in the Gita Krishna advises balance in eating, sleeping, work, and recreation. The proper amount of each is an individual thing. Margaret Thachter, former prime minister of Great Britain, would sleep at most five hours and felt fully refreshed.
If the world is too much with you, you will be too much with the world.
Once on a morning walk, Srila Prabhupada asked the devotees what was the most important thing in their lives. They offered suggestions like spiritual practice and spiritual service, but he said health was most important because without health you cannot do anything.
To help good health avoid exertion and suppressive medicines.
Srila Prabhupada explained to Govinda dasi that if you chant the mangalacarana prayers before anything, then that activity will be a success.
Comment by Radha, a Vaishnava youth: I always chant Mangalacarana before I take an exam.
We seek a teacher because we do not know. The qualification of a student is that he must know that he does not know.
Reading books to acquire knowledge has limitations. You cannot advertise yourself as a doctor because you read a few books on medicine.
Another qualification of the student is that he wants to know.
Wisdom is beyond mere knowledge and knowledge is beyond mere data. Wisdom could be considered a distillation of knowledge.
If you are unsuccessful and unhappy, you are going die. If you are successful and happy, you are still going to die. What then does it matter if you are successful and happy? It does no good to say to someone, “there is a terrible leak in your side of the boat,” because we are all going to sink.
Arjuna is experiencing anticipatory grief in the beginning of the Gita.
Verses 11 through 30 of chapter two of Bhagavad-gita, the analytical study of the soul, is like a chapter within a chapter.
It was a revelation for me when in the course of reading Bhagavad-gita As It Is, I came to understand that “I am the soul.” From the religious training we receive in the west, we get the understanding that the soul is something that we possess rather than being our actual identity. [We think we have souls rather than we are souls.]
We are not going to learn the truth that “I am the soul” in any educational institution in the world.
You will not get such a clear presentation of the soul as you find in just a couple of verses of Bhagavad-gita [2.12 and 2.13]: “Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.”
“In the Middle Ages, at public gatherings there were reality plays that would illustrate moral lessons, and the character who was supposed to represent the common man was named “Everyman.” That is like the role Arjuna plays in the Gita.
The degree that we accept this knowledge and the degree that we apply this knowledge are always our free choice.
Surrender we must do, but the question is where we surrender and the result of the surrender.
We have to digest and then assimilate this knowledge of the soul.
Descartes was not so sharp. It is not “I think therefore I am” but rather “I am therefore I think.”
Even if by introspection you come to the understanding that you have nothing to do with your body, you still do not know what you are supposed to be doing.
The second part of spiritual knowledge is understand that you are a servant of Krishna.
Q: Is Krishna consciousness something that we acquire ourselves or something that is given to us? A: It is something that is given to us. It is theoretical technical knowledge that you have to apply.
Srila Prabhupada said, “Chant Hare Krishna and your life with become sublime.” How are we going to know if it true? By applying it.
The difference between doing and realizing it and not doing it and not realizing it, is doing it.
The result of applying it, is you come to the realization that it is so satisfying that you do not want be to distracted from it.
Srila Prabhupada once said, “Do not trust me. Trust Krishna.” He explained that the guru’s business is very simple. Krishna says, “Surrender to me.” And the guru said, “Surrender to Krishna.”
Jagatatma Prabhu:
Dambhanda, a Sanskrit compound, means blinded by pride.
When devotees fly into Manchester they say it is like descending into a cloudy region of darkness.
Why? Because Manchester is full of animal factories where the animals live under abominable conditions until they are merciless killed for food.
Kali-yuga is the age of vanity. People grow their hair just to look beautiful.
People are proud of possessing external symbols of religiosity thinking that makes them actually religious.
Some people think advancement is measured by what ashram you are in, how good an orator you are, how good a singer you are, or how good a dancer you are, whereas Bhagavatam speaks of obedience principles of religion and humility as characteristics of the advanced.
We are encouraging people to glorify Krishna and not to glorify ourselves. When we do that, there is no fighting because everyone has the same interest.
If varnasrama is implemented, then the positions in the varnas will be taken by those who are actually qualified for them. Varnasrama is practically very difficult to implement because the unqualified people presently in those positions will object to attempts to implement it.
We should be ambitious to serve guru and Krishna, and measure our advancement by our humility.
People appear to flourish by deceit, but that is not real flourishing. A mafia man may have a lot of money and a big house, but that does not mean he is successful.
When the disciples of Srila Prabhupada were so completely dedicated to his service, because of that dedication, their chanting was so pure.
Anyone who is more advanced than us is a guru.
Srila Prabhupada once explained that finding a guru is not as difficult as becoming a disciple.
If you apply what Krishna as the guru within has given, he will give you more, and ultimately he will give you an external guru.
Bhaktisiddhanta Saravati Thakura has written that the pure devotees are the back-benchers, the devotees who do all the work behind the scenes.
Nitai Carana Prabhu:
The demigods were so absorbed in the sense gratification of their assembly they neglected to respect their spiritual master, but the demons properly honored their guru, and so they become victorious over the demigods.
The quality of the spiritual master is not to curse anyone but to help them to come to a higher spiritual level, thus Brihaspati left the assembly of demigods without saying anything.
Bhakti Rasamrita Swami:
Surrender has connotations of humiliation, defeat, and disgrace. But spiritual surrender is victory, bliss, and supreme grace.
In the Gita, Krishna says He came to establish religion (4.8), yet he says to abandon all varieties of religion. How is that? Krishna came to teach the highest religion. Surrender to Krishna.
Srila Prabhupada explained that blind surrender will not sustain. It must be born of knowledge.
Even though Vyasadeva was such an enlightened soul he lamented when his son left home to seek Krishna.
A worthy disciple surrendering to a worthy spiritual master feels very happy.
It may seems as celibates we are giving up so many things of this world, but that is all ephemeral. What we get, however, is very tangible.
The most important quality of the Vaishnava is his complete surrender to Krishna.
There are main characteristics (svarupa-laksana) and marginal characteristics (tatastha-laksana). The only main characteristic of a Vaishnava is his complete surrender to Krishna.
The devotee is fearless due to his complete surrender to Krishna.
A brahmacari should be happy. That is the nature of a brahmacari. A brahmacari should not be morose.
On a very simple level surrender means obedience.
There is no spiritual life without accepting authority. Each of us follows an authority and some people accept us as an authority. In ISKCON no one has no authority. For the GBCs [Governing Body Commissioners] the whole GBC body is their authority. For Srila Prabhupada, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura is his authority.
Comment by Syamananda Prabhu: When someone complains that surrender is hard, I tell them that surrender is not so hard. We are always surrendered—only to maya or to Krishna.
Dayananda Swami:
In the material world everyone is egocentric, and so there is so much chaos. Prabhupada used the analogy of throwing pebbles into a pond to illustrate this. If all the pebbles are thrown in the same place the concentric waves will not interfere with each other, but if they are thrown in different places the ripples will all interfere with each other. When everyone tries to please the Lord it is like throwing all the pebbles in one place.
Sometimes we thinking pleasing our own mind is devotional service, but we must please the soul by pleasing the Supersoul.
What is our usual consciousness? Are with thinking about the body or the soul? That is why we talk of Krishna consciousness.
We cannot understand the material universe and the spiritual world beyond it anymore than an ant can understand what is going on in this room.
Faith is developed in this transcendental process in the association of those who are following it.
I went to a church on Sunday recently. There were ten people there. Churches are closing because having a business relationship, where we are seeking material benefits from God, does not satisfy the soul.
We have to come to understand that Krishna is the well-wishing friend of all living entities.
If we do not act according to the scripture, with our higher intelligence we will create more harm than the animals create as is evident in atrocities like the atom bombs exploded on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and chemical warfare.
There was one prisoner who read the Bhagavad-gita in the prison library. The devotees were not allowed to do programs in the prison so he had no one to explain the Gita to him. From his reading he came to the conclusion that there were three people he should kill when he got out of prison. That is a true story and shows why we need a devotee to explain Bhagavad-gita to us.
What is Krishna’s first instruction? To tolerate. (Bg. 2.14)
Suppose you hear some girl is asking questions about you. You would be attracted to know who is she. Similarly when we are asking about Krishna. He becomes attracted to know us.
Animal sacrifice was a program to gradually elevate the consciousness of those who take pleasure in killing to a higher level.
Before I was devotee, I considered myself fortunate to be able to eat beef, because a lot of people could not afford it.
At a program in England one Christian blasphemed Srila Prabhupada for glorifying the name of Krishna. Prabhupada asked Revatinandana Swami to answer. Revarinandana Swami prayed for inspiration, and spoke about how the Christians talk about love of God and loving thy neighbor but in reality they are killing animals and killing themselves. They are killing, killing, killing. Finally the Christian went away.
In America a person who had his own farm grew vegetables without chemical fertilizer and sold unpasteurized milk. He was put in jail for forty years. The penalty was so serious because the demoniac people in control want to discourage people from being self-sufficient so they can exploit them.
I saw a documentary on Borneo, a primitive culture. I learned they kill their elders when they become unproductive and eat them. That sounds outrageous, but the that mentality of killing the unproductive is there in our society there as far as the cows and oxen are concerned.
Lust is the original cause of envy.
Instead of being envious, we should think about how we can do good to the people.
The enlightened person does not try to enjoy this world nor does he try to renounce it. He just carries on with his devotional service.
Q: What if one has two authorities and they disagree? A: If you have two authorities, they should negotiate so you do not get conflicting instructions.
We do not think of Yudhisthira Maharaja as a preacher, but he arranged for all the kings of the world to hear of and worship Krishna as the supreme person in the Rajasuya sacrifice.
By following the instructions of the great acaryas like Srila Prabhupada and Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, who had anxiety for pleasing Krishna, we can also develop such transcendental anxiety.
Srila Prabhupada, in the presence of the chief minister in Madras, hid a little statue of Krishna he received from him, from Sarasvati, the child of his servant, causing her to feel separation from Krishna, and causing all those watching to see a glimpse of what is anxiety of separation from Krishna.
A devotee must be sure he gets enough association and keeps himself spiritually and materially satisfied.
comment by Caitanya Vallabha Prabhu: Lack of facility facilitates surrender.
If there is too much facility that is not good as we tend to expect such a standard everywhere we go.
Prabodhananda Sarasvati Maharaja:
Bhagavatam is the essence of all Vedic literature.
Once one man asked Srila Prabhupada why just 200–300 people were hearing his Bhagavatam lecture although he was the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, while other reciters got thousands of people to hear. Srila Prabhupada said, “The other people are selling vegetables, and I am selling jewels, so which market has more people?”
The speaker of Bhagavatam must be free from the four primary sinful activities [meat eating, illicit sex, intoxication, and gambling] and the four defects of a conditioned soul [imperfect senses, the tendency to make mistakes, the tendency to be illusioned, and the cheating propensity].
To understand the purport of Bhagavatam one must hear from one in the line of disciplic succession.
Even though Daksa cursed Narada, Narada continued to teach everyone the path of liberation.
The only business of the brahmacari is live in the ashram and to serve his guru. We chant everyday “guru-mukha-padma-vakya, cittete koriya aikya, ar na koriho mane asa.” We just want to serve the guru. We do not want anything else.
The disciple has faith that the guru is his only friend because he is representing Krishna.
Parasurama Prabhu [from a conversation]: Religion is for people who want to avoid going to hell, and spiritual life is for those who have already been there.
Mohnish [from a conversation]: Srila Prabhupada wanted 11 temples in Delhi alone.
-----
nimna-ganam yatha ganga devanam acyuto yatha vaishnavanam yatha sambhuh? purananam idam tatha
“Just as the Ganges is the greatest of all rivers, Lord Acyuta [Krishna] the supreme among deities and Lord Shambhu [Shiva] the greatest of Vaishnavas, so Srimad-Bhagavatam[the Bhagavata Purana] is the greatest of all Puranas.” (SB 12.13.16)
Diary of a Traveling Sadhaka, Vol. 8, No. 11 By Krishna-kripa das (June 2012, part one)
England (Sent from Sarcelles, France, on July 27, 2012)
What I Went and What I Did
The first weekend in June I attended the Birmingham Tweny-Four Hour Kirtana for the third straight year where Sacinandana Swami shared wonderful insights about kirtana. Afterward we continued doing harinama in Newcastle and other cities in The North of England, and we continued to see people taking an interest in the chanting. I went to Manchester for their monthly harinama and to give the lecture for the Sunday Feast. I also chanted in there in Piccadilly Gardens the next day. Fortunately two other devotees joined me. Then Sri Gadadhara Prabhu and I went to Leeds and Sheffield for the weekly nama-hatta programs, and we helped advertise them by doing harinama. Next we went with Dayananda Swami to Bhaktivedanta Manor for the UK Brahmacari Conference, with lectures by visiting swamis, many of which I have notes on. About thirty brahmacaris participated in the Borehamwood Ratha-yatra, the Manor’s entry in a local municipality’s parade where we won second place. Then some of my friends from Bhaktivedanta Manor went to Central London for the lively Saturday night harinama before the next day’s Ratha-yatra.
The insights are really great this issue. I especially like some from Srila Prabhupada himself, others by Prahladananda Swami on health, Candramauli Swami on cooperation in ashram life, and Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami on the glories of Srila Prabhupada.
Thanks to Lauris of BRR Films for all of the great pictures.
Birmingham Twenty-Four Hour Kirtana
Before the Birmingham Twenty-Four Hour KirtanaI attended the weekly Saturday harinama in Birmingham which was on New Street at a place so busy it reminded me of London. The devotees usually chant from 12:30 to 3:00 p.m., but were a little late setting it up. Many young people took pleasure in dancing with us. Several people stood and watched for awhile, and two or three devotees distributed many books to those in the crowd who were interested.
I foolishly left my harmonium on the city bus while traveling from the temple to the harinama. Bhakta Bob, a devotee who worked as a city bus driver tracked it down in the depot, and we went to pick it up after the Twenty-four Hour Kirtana. The men at the office joked that they would give it back to me, but only if I played a tune for them. So I got to play a Hare Krishna tune for the men in the bus company office!
At the Twenty-Four Hour Kirtana it was wonderful, as usual, to associate with so many devotees who have faith in the congregational chanting of the holy name of the Lord and to chant for twenty-four hours. It was very large crowd, and I could only find a little space near the wall to dance in. I usually take a nap for three hours in the middle and maybe another half an hour after a meal. When morning comes around, I chant my japa during the singing of the leader and then I chant the response, counting that as a mantra toward my japa quota, thus it takes me two and a half or three hours to chant my sixteen rounds instead of an hour and three-quarters, but I do not really miss too much of the kirtana that way. For next year, I hope they put a speaker near the prasadam queue and the room where the devotees take prasadam so we do not feel like we are missing out.
During the kirtana, there was an abhiseka (bathing ceremony) for the Birmingham deities of Lord Jagannatha, Lord Baladeva, and Lady Subhadra.
Later, Jagannatha and Baladeva wore an elephant dress.
Madhava Prabhu led many joyful meditative kirtanas.
Janananda Goswami would encourage others by his example to dance with upraised arms.
Here are some notes from speakers at the Birmingham Twenty-four Hour Kirtana:
Sacinandana Swami:
Use the body as a springboard to absorb yourself in Krishna consciousness with your mind.
The glorification of the Lord is first done externally and then within our heart. In this way it can be done twenty-four hours a day.
In the German language there are songs called “ear worms—songs that become so dear to you that they become embedded in your ears. The Hare Krishna mantra should become like that for us.
We should internalize the holy name so it becomes like our heartbeat or our breath.
On the platform of practice there is a struggle between our weaknesses and what we hope to attain.
Before Aindra Prabhu established the 24-hour kirtana inVrindavan, I would participate in the night shift, from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. The karatala player fell asleep, the mrdanga player fell asleep. Even the guard fell asleep. I decided to stick with it, although I had four more hours to go.
Stay with the holy name until you realize there is someone listening and that someone is Krishna.
Sing for the ears of God and see how you are supplied with transcendental strength.
The names of God are not just names of God but God Himself.
One beggar would regularly insult the king. The king found out about it and disguised himself as another beggar. He came to the beggar, and said, “I heard you dislike the king.” “Yes,” said the beggar, “Not only do I dislike the king, but I want to kill the king.” The king disguised as a beggar said, “Oh, I happen to know a secret passage in the palace that goes right to the king’s throne.” The beggar was overjoyed. The king disguised as beggar showed the beggar a route so he passed so many saintly persons discussing the ultimate truth. The beggar decided, “No, evening is not a good time to kill the king, let us try morning.” In the morning, he saw arrangements by the king for giving charity and for the happiness of citizens. Thus he concluded that the king was not so bad after all. The king dressed as a beggar, showed him the secret path to the throne, and then excused himself while he put on his kingly robes and sat on the throne. When the beggar then saw the king was his friend, he apologized. The holy name is like that king. The holy name is always giving although we do not always appreciate.
The holy name is the bud of the flower of divine love. He is full of devotional tastes.
The mind is like this naughty child that will protest and run away.
You have ignored, neglected, and rejected, and the holy name still is desiring to benefit you.
Do not be absent-minded, be present-minded. Do not space out. Space in.
Remember I am not my body. I am not my mind. I am the soul within.
Chanting means to connect the heart with the deity who we praising.
By chanting, we are asking the Lord to accept us. So long we have turned away from Him, and now we want to turn back, and ask the Lord to accept us.
There is only so far you can go on your own strength. Krishna stands on the border and bring us further. He can capture you and pull you on.
O King of the country of love, I appeal to you for your affection. Somehow or other I am in adverse circumstances. Although I would like to I cannot find the ability to chant your holy name attentively. My soul will never be satisfied without Your companionship. Without your mercy, I cannot get beyond my imprisoned, restricted condition.
Sometimes with this prayer, Krishna will take us seriously and break down the wall.
I say this for two reasons. 1. As a reminder that Krishna wants us to give His mercy. 2. And to give us hope.
The formula to have a live-saving experience of kirtana:
saintly association
a peaceful place free from material influence
a determined attitude
The chanting establishes the only relationship that is free from disappointment.
Some programs have more strength and others less strength, and this program of devotees chanting has great strength, and one of the strengths is the power to attract others, and thus this program [the Birmingham Twenty-four Hour Kirtana] has grown continuously since I have been coming to it. We outgrew this place, and some people had to stand outside in the rain last night while others returned to their hotel rooms and switched on their laptops to view it on the Internet. I suggest that we all make a commitment to each invite a new person, and then Krishna will see we are serious and will make an arrangement for a new place.
Kadamba Kanana Swami:
The Vaishnavas manifest the mercy of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. So much energy is released when they get together, and the hope is that Krishna will manifest Himself in that situation. Krishna manifests Himself according to the advancement of the devotee. And it is that experience that keeps us coming back for more. And that is the reason I came to this Birmingham 24-hour kirtana.
a Brijbasi guest to Birmingham 24-hour kirtana:
I was gone from Vrindavana three or four weeks, and the first hours of your kirtana here was the first time I wasn’t missing Vrndavana.
The sadhus are crying for Krishna for centuries, yet Krishna does not come. While the gopis are reprimanding Krishna for His rascaldom, saying they wish He would go away, yet He is away present with them. Why? Because the gopis chant theholy name of Krishna, the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.
Harinamas in the North of England
We would chant in Newcastle several days a week, and in small towns around Newcastle on other days. One day we went to Heaton, a small town where many students live.
Sri Gadadhara Prabhu tried to interest locals in the books of Srila Prabhupada.
I led kirtana for some time, playing the harmonium, with Prema Sankirtan on the drum, and Vamana Prabhu on the cymbals.
We had some friendly interactions with a few people.
In Newcastle one college student from Kyrgyzstan loved hearing our chanting on harinama. One devotee said there were tears in her eyes. I suggested that the lady devotee on the party invite her to our special evening program with the visiting swamis that night, and thus the two of them left for the temple for the program which was soon starting. Although a Muslim, the college student felt at home with the chanting and the devotees and came to four evening programs in a row, as well as for lunch prasadam a couple times. Hopefully we shall she her again when she returns from her summer vacation in her native land.
Crazy Ken, who had met us on harinama about ten days before, joined us for another Wednesday program sporting a custom T-shirt he had made with the Hare Krishna maha-mantra on the front, and the phrase “Can you dig it?” underneath. I had not encountered such sixties slang in a while, and I think some younger people were unfamiliar with it. He was happy to get the maha-mantra hit single CD and few George Harrison songs that a devotee gave to him.
The harinama inSheffield was especially memorable for several reasons. We encountered some street musicians who played along with us for some time and even began chanting Hare Krishna with us. Later a woman looking for directions came up to us, and it turned out she was looking for directions to our own evening program, not realizing it was we who were putting on. She was half an hour early, and so we invited her to join the harinama and she did. Usually we stop the harinama fifteen minutes before the program, but because I had not done my three hours of harinama that I day, I wanted to keep going for ten more minutes. An Indian man and his daughter heard the karatalas and found our kirtana party. They knew ISKCON from the Montreal Ratha-yatra. The girl was a student at Sheffield University and was happy to learn of the weekly program in that town. They came to that night to the program. While talking with them I learned they would be in London that weekend, and so I gave them an invitation to the London Ratha-yatra on Sunday, so they would have the chance to go.
Borehamwood Ratha-yatra
Midday on Saturday, June 16, Parasurama Prabhu, devotees from Bhaktivedanta Manor and Soho Street, as well as thirty brahmacaris from all over the United Kingdom, sang and danced for the pleasure of Lord Jagannath, Lord Baladeva, and Lady Subhadra in the Borehamwood Carnival, an annual parade in a community just five miles from the Manor. So many people were happy to see the kirtana of the devotees. Some smiled, some danced, some waved, and many took pictures and videos, including this one [the devotees participation starts around 1:44 minutes into the video]:
(If the embedded video above does not work, click this link:
Devotees distributed books and invitations to the London Ratha-yatra. The brahmacaris by their enthusiasm and their numbers added a lot to the party. We did a harinama to the beginning of the parade, chanted in the parade for 45 minutes, and then did harinama back to the car, so lots of people got to connect with Krishna.
Insights
Srila Prabhupada:
from a lecture:
When people worship God with a motive, when they get what they want they may stop the worship and if they do not get what they want, they may become atheistic. Thus unmotivated devotion is superior.
Vedic culture is to train boys as brahmacaris to learn the purpose of life.
In the West I was surprised to see children 10 or 12 years old smoking. In India, I think that if they are less than 16 they are punished for smoking.
A computer is a wonderful machine, but still there must be some operator. Nature is a wonderful machine. Who is its operator? Scientists have no commonsense to see this.
Anyone who accepts the body as the self, has imperfect knowledge yet such people are posing as big, big professors. Therefore we are protesting because they are cheating the people.
The scientists are trying to create life but they have no knowledge that life is not created. Life is ever existing.
Comment: So the scientists are minutely analyzing the mirage and thus wasting their time.
They are wiping out Krishna, and your business is to establish Krishna. Prove that the background is Krishna. That will be the perfection of your education.
Candramauli Swami:
Love means to serve and to cooperate in order to serve. Without cooperation, it is just about me.
Srila Prabhupada would point out that the United Nations could not work as long as the individual nations were attached to their own self-interest.
I was with one yatra that was divided into two groups, each with a different way to serve Krishna. Prabhupada would say they are both right.
Material desires cause disunity.
Materialists when they try to unite on the material plane actually ending up creating more diversity.
Srila Prabhupada stressed that his followers could stay together by keeping his instructions in the center.
Living in an ashram is one of the greatest austerities in this age of Kali.
The basis of our spiritual life is good strong sadhana, and we should help each other to practice nicely.
The strength of a group can be seen by its weakest point not its strongest point. Therefore we all benefit by helping to bring up the weakest people to a higher level.
Devotees disagree but never fight.
My idea may be slightly better than your idea, but it is better for me to accept your idea than to fight for mine, unless your idea is completely off.
There is an analogy of two sons massaging father but quarreling among themselves and causing pain to the father.
Prabhupada asked a devotee he asked to find prasadam for guests, but the pujari who was in the middle of offering the food. The devotee took the food anyway, and the pujari became angry, not knowing Srila Prabhupada’s mind.
When maya sees someone is seriously practicing, she tests to see how serious he is. If he is very serious, he is not disturbed. If he is disturbed, soon he rectifies himself, and he goes on.
[Devotees often cite part of the letter Srila Prabhupada wrote to Atreya Rsi saying his criticism of devotees for quarreling was a manifestation of impersonalism but Candramauli Swami read the entire letter which was full of wisdom and valuable to hear.]
Q: It seems like we could get entangled in offending devotee who has a valid program for serving Krishna that differs from ours. How do we avoid this? A: It is natural that disagreement is there. We do not criticize the people we disagree with but deal with the issue itself. In this way we can avoid Vaishnava aparadha.
To sacrifice for others is a feature of making advancement. You have to do that in a ashram.
Q: How to avoid conflicts? A: Communicate with others.
If you are absorbed in Krishna by hearing and chanting, you can tolerate the small problems within the ashram.
Being proud of having philosophical knowledge, but not having proper behavior is a kind of false ego.
A leader has to be a visionary and create a team spirit.
One study showed leaders fail most often for not creating a team spirit among peers and subordinates, secondly, for not knowing what is expected of them, and thirdly, for not having the required skills.
The leader has to recognize unexpressed talents in others and figure out how to inspire them to engage those talents in Krishna’s service.
One article analyzed why Japanese businesses excelled American ones although having less facility. It was found the Japanese business people had better relationships and team spirit, and that made the difference. So it is also in Krishna consciousness.
Our advancement comes from serving others.
The Lord is never a debtor although he may appear to be.
The forest fire that Krishna swallowed was a demon who manifested in that way.
The reason that Krishna told the cowherd boys to close their eyes before He swallowed the forest fire was because previously Balarama had told Mother Yasoda that he had eaten dirt and He was worried Balarama would now tell her that he had eaten fire.
At the 2004 World Parliament of Religions in the evenings there was a different program every night. One night was Hindu night. The Mayavadis spoke so much philosophy, telling stories, and captivating everyone’s mind.” Finally one of them said, “You can become the supreme enjoyer!” They and their followers were enlivened by this, but the devotees were disgusted. Bhakti Svarupa Damodara peacefully tolerated it all, and then spoke on the verse, “vasudeva para veda vasudeva para makha . . . ” Then we had kirtana and all the Mayavadi yogis left. They could not relate to the kirtana. Their followers, however, stayed. loved the kirtana and began to dance. Then we served prasadam.
We are simply meant for exchanging love with Krishna, and Krishna is simply meant for exchanging love with us.
Bhaktisiddhanta Saravati Thakura once said that Krishna is not your gardener, your stock broker, or your marriage counselor, He is the enjoyer of loving relationships with His devotees.
Lord Caitanya explains that through the congregational chanting of the holy name we can attain an ever increasing ocean of happiness.
Srila Prabhupada says that to think one is an incarnation of God is the last snare of maya.
Through service we can experience the presence of Krishna.
There are nine stages of prema.
To worship the Lord to get something material or to become the Lord are two illusions that have affected spiritualists since time immemorial.
Janananda Goswami:
Prabhupada says that if we keep ourselves in the consciousness of “I am the servant of the servant of the master of the gopis,”we will be always on the spiritual platform.
Prabhupada says that if we always chant Hare Krishna we will be in our svarupa, or constitutional position as servant of the Lord.
You can chant Hare Krishna anywhere, even in the toilet. The toilet is the perhaps the most important place to chant Krishna because it is so impure.
Before 1974 or so, book distribution would accompany the congregational chanting we would do in public. We would usually have two people distributing books and four people chanting, and we would take turns. There were no people who just did book distribution or just did chanting. The first day I went out, I was still a long-haired hippie, but I chanted and distributed books like the others. I distributed three Back to Godhead magazines, and I was the top distributor that day.
We are out there as representatives of Lord Caitanya and His associates to connect people with them. As jiva souls, living entities, we are meant to give pleasure to Krishna. That is the sankirtana movement. Sankirtana is really what pleases Krishna—complete glorification of Krishna, and so it really does include a variety of activities.
When I started the Newcastle Hare Krishna temple, I hitchhiked up here and stayed in a derelict’s house with a bum, not knowing where my next penny or next meal would come from.
Srila Prabhupada writes, “If there is one sincere soul, he can start a center.”
Srila Prabhupada writes, “If there is chanting going on, that will increase the book distribution.”
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura explained, “There is no other dharma than uttering the name of Krishna. . . . One who obstructs kirtana is the greatest atheist. There is no time to do mundane welfare work since the only dharma is Krishna kirtana.”
If we cannot directly do the sankirtana, we must assist it.
The prime symptom of love of God is that one wants the Lord’s name spread all over the world.
“Bless you” came from the time of bubonic plague because when the plague was happening, if you sneezed, that meant you had the plague and you would die.
In the early days of the Hare Krishna movement, we would have a bhajana class between 8:30 to 9:00 every night and always sing one or two bhajanas every day. The Vaishnavas gave us these songs to instruct us how to chant the holy name of Krishna properly.
There has to be some satisfaction in devotional service for us to proceed.
Usually chanting, dancing, and prasadam are attractive enough to everyone to stick with the process of devotional service.
When Vakresvara Pandit would dance, both the devotees and the demons were attracted.
Lord Caitanya said that Vakresvara Pandita was an embodiment of Krishna’s transcendental potency. When Krishna dances, so Vakresvara also dances.
The key which opens the door to chanting of the pure holy name and Krishna prema is the service of the Vaishnavas.
Lord Caitanya told Devananda Pandit, “You must use the same mouth that you used for blaspheme, to glorify the devotees and the Lord to become free from all offenses.”
It is not enough just to get the mercy of the Vaishnava you offended, but you have to admit your fault in public and to rectify it.
Prahladananda Swami:
Health is ephemeral. At the time of death practically no one has good health.
Our diet and medicine: Eat Krishna prasadam and chant Hare Krishna.
When through the holy name we experience happiness, we will not lament or hanker.
When we do not have a spirit of submission and surrender to the holy name, we will not experience happiness in chanting.
We should listen and try to improve the chanting.
Krishna decides how much He will reveal to us.
We have faith that Krishna is present in the sound of his name
One time Srila Prabhupada was in car, and everyone in car began to fall asleep, even the person who was supposed to keep the driver awake, and the driver himself. Prabhupada started playing the karatalas and chanting Hare Krishna.
Just try to chant as nicely as possible and be receptive.
When we speak, we should hear ourselves and make sure we are speaking words that truthful, pleasing, beneficial, not agitating to others, and following the Vedic conclusions [Bg. 7.15].
Good mental health leads to good physical health.
Good health is valuable because then health is one less distraction to our Krishna consciousness.
A little bad health is not bad because we have to practice tolerance so we can be completely absorbed.
Krishna knows how fallen we are, but we do not know how fallen we are.
Brahmacari life means being satisfied with having nothing. If we are not satisfied with nothing, then we will end up having more.
If get married, we may be satisfied, but our wife may not be satisfied or our children may not be satisfied.
If we are not satisfied with chanting Hare Krishna, then we may engage in self-destructive habits that give us bad health. We may overendeavor, underendeavor, or make the wrong endeavor.
Q: How much should we drink? A: Drink when you are thirsty. The problem is we do not realize when we are thirsty or hungry. If it looks good and it is not moving, we eat it, regardless of time of day or night.
Q: Sometimes the scream of the thoughts in our mind is so intense. What to do? A: Still our business is to try to hear the chanting. Chant louder. If we are really sincere, maya will keep quiet. If we pay attention to maya, she will get louder and louder.
Q: How to surrender? A: Follow the six items of saranagati. Absorb yourself in Krishna’s service and cultivate the feeling that because you are engaged in Krishna’s service, He will supply whatever you actually need.
We are not fasting from water or food. We are fasting from maya. Less attention on the body means more attention to Krishna.
Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami:
from Calling Out to Srila Prabhupada:
“O Srila Prabhupada, whom we think of day and night;
“O Prabhupada, who came to America with Srimad-Bhagavatamsas his only means, who sold volumes to bookstores in order to pay for groceries, and who thought in the beginning, ‘They will never accept this Hare Krishna mantra, but let me try;’
“O Prabhupada, who happily endured the austerities of New York winters on behalf of Lord Krishna; O master, who years later made thousands of disciples and had many houses to reside in but who said, ‘I was happier in the beginning in New York because I had no one to depend on but Krishna;’
“O Prabhupada, who favored New York City by opening his first ISKCON center there and by singing in Tompkins Square Park, who beat the one-headed drum hours at a time and sang strongly, who braved all the rudeness and strangeness just to deliver us from birth and death by giving us the holy names of Krishna;
“O Prabhupada, whose preaching was guided by Lord Krishna, whose preaching was to ‘go in like a needle and come out like a plow,’ whose preaching was pure and who stayed to do it, who fulfilled all the qualities of a saint, being tolerant, merciful, friendly to all and fixed in the Absolute Truth;
“O Prabhupada, who loved his disciples and nurtured them like a mother cares for her children, and who, like a father, imparted to his sons and daughters the gift of the courage to stand and fight;
“O Prabhupada, please live vibrantly in our thoughts and actions.
“O Srila Prabhupada, of whom I often think, ‘Where are you?’ O Prabhupada, who doesn’t belong as the exclusive property of any one disciple;
“O Prabhupada who is simultaneously giving thousands of instructions and yet is silent in Krishna meditation, please become more clear in my mind;
“O Prabhupada, of whom we say, ‘I wish you were present now to tell us what is right and wrong and what to do,’ and yet whom we fear to think of in that way because surely he would be angry with us and expose our cherished notions as foolish and disobedient;
“O Prabhupada, whom we sometimes prefer to worship at a distance, as is recommended in the scriptures, but whose lotus feet we want to touch, whose hand we want to feel on our heads and backs;
“O Prabhupada, who is with us but also in another dimension, and of whom we think, ‘How can I reach you? When and where will we meet again?
“O Prabhupada, who is not just another link in the disciplic succession of gurus, but who is the founder-acaryaof the Krishna consciousness movement, and who said, ‘None of these men could fulfill the desires of Bhaktivinoda Thakura in the matter of preaching in the foreign countries’;
“O Prabhupada, the remembrance of whom is like satori, whose moments are hundreds of haikus if we could only know them and see them rightly;
“O Prabhupada, who said, ‘Everything is all right,’ indicating that there was no need for anxiety because Krishna is the controller of everything, yet who also used to say, ‘What can be done?’ indicating that he wanted even more success for spreading Krishna consciousness, but obstacles remained in the way—this was also the will of providence.
“O Prabhupada, who didn’t speak of hidden, obscure meanings in the Vedas, who said it was very clear, and yet whose instructions may be looked at in new light, and whose sincere followers sometimes discover that they haven’t really understood what he meant even on basic issues;
“O Prabhupada, who is the source of all writings and teachings in the ISKCON sampradaya;
“O Prabhupada, who will always have true followers, and whose followers will keep up his standards in many places in the world;
“O Prabhupada, please keep us at your lotus feet; please keep us alive in your service.”
Bhagavat Asraya Prabhu:
Early in the Gita Krishna advises balance in eating, sleeping, work, and recreation. The proper amount of each is an individual thing. Margaret Thachter, former prime minister of Great Britain, would sleep at most five hours and felt fully refreshed.
If the world is too much with you, you will be too much with the world.
Once on a morning walk, Srila Prabhupada asked the devotees what was the most important thing in their lives. They offered suggestions like spiritual practice and spiritual service, but he said health was most important because without health you cannot do anything.
To help good health avoid exertion and suppressive medicines.
Srila Prabhupada explained to Govinda dasi that if you chant the mangalacarana prayers before anything, then that activity will be a success.
Comment by Radha, a Vaishnava youth: I always chant Mangalacarana before I take an exam.
We seek a teacher because we do not know. The qualification of a student is that he must know that he does not know.
Reading books to acquire knowledge has limitations. You cannot advertise yourself as a doctor because you read a few books on medicine.
Another qualification of the student is that he wants to know.
Wisdom is beyond mere knowledge and knowledge is beyond mere data. Wisdom could be considered a distillation of knowledge.
If you are unsuccessful and unhappy, you are going die. If you are successful and happy, you are still going to die. What then does it matter if you are successful and happy? It does no good to say to someone, “there is a terrible leak in your side of the boat,” because we are all going to sink.
Arjuna is experiencing anticipatory grief in the beginning of the Gita.
Verses 11 through 30 of chapter two of Bhagavad-gita, the analytical study of the soul, is like a chapter within a chapter.
It was a revelation for me when in the course of reading Bhagavad-gita As It Is, I came to understand that “I am the soul.” From the religious training we receive in the west, we get the understanding that the soul is something that we possess rather than being our actual identity. [We think we have souls rather than we are souls.]
We are not going to learn the truth that “I am the soul” in any educational institution in the world.
You will not get such a clear presentation of the soul as you find in just a couple of verses of Bhagavad-gita [2.12 and 2.13]: “Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.”
“In the Middle Ages, at public gatherings there were reality plays that would illustrate moral lessons, and the character who was supposed to represent the common man was named “Everyman.” That is like the role Arjuna plays in the Gita.
The degree that we accept this knowledge and the degree that we apply this knowledge are always our free choice.
Surrender we must do, but the question is where we surrender and the result of the surrender.
We have to digest and then assimilate this knowledge of the soul.
Descartes was not so sharp. It is not “I think therefore I am” but rather “I am therefore I think.”
Even if by introspection you come to the understanding that you have nothing to do with your body, you still do not know what you are supposed to be doing.
The second part of spiritual knowledge is understand that you are a servant of Krishna.
Q: Is Krishna consciousness something that we acquire ourselves or something that is given to us? A: It is something that is given to us. It is theoretical technical knowledge that you have to apply.
Srila Prabhupada said, “Chant Hare Krishna and your life with become sublime.” How are we going to know if it true? By applying it.
The difference between doing and realizing it and not doing it and not realizing it, is doing it.
The result of applying it, is you come to the realization that it is so satisfying that you do not want be to distracted from it.
Srila Prabhupada once said, “Do not trust me. Trust Krishna.” He explained that the guru’s business is very simple. Krishna says, “Surrender to me.” And the guru said, “Surrender to Krishna.”
Jagatatma Prabhu:
Dambhanda, a Sanskrit compound, means blinded by pride.
When devotees fly into Manchester they say it is like descending into a cloudy region of darkness.
Why? Because Manchester is full of animal factories where the animals live under abominable conditions until they are merciless killed for food.
Kali-yuga is the age of vanity. People grow their hair just to look beautiful.
People are proud of possessing external symbols of religiosity thinking that makes them actually religious.
Some people think advancement is measured by what ashram you are in, how good an orator you are, how good a singer you are, or how good a dancer you are, whereas Bhagavatam speaks of obedience principles of religion and humility as characteristics of the advanced.
We are encouraging people to glorify Krishna and not to glorify ourselves. When we do that, there is no fighting because everyone has the same interest.
If varnasrama is implemented, then the positions in the varnas will be taken by those who are actually qualified for them. Varnasrama is practically very difficult to implement because the unqualified people presently in those positions will object to attempts to implement it.
We should be ambitious to serve guru and Krishna, and measure our advancement by our humility.
People appear to flourish by deceit, but that is not real flourishing. A mafia man may have a lot of money and a big house, but that does not mean he is successful.
When the disciples of Srila Prabhupada were so completely dedicated to his service, because of that dedication, their chanting was so pure.
Anyone who is more advanced than us is a guru.
Srila Prabhupada once explained that finding a guru is not as difficult as becoming a disciple.
If you apply what Krishna as the guru within has given, he will give you more, and ultimately he will give you an external guru.
Bhaktisiddhanta Saravati Thakura has written that the pure devotees are the back-benchers, the devotees who do all the work behind the scenes.
Nitai Carana Prabhu:
The demigods were so absorbed in the sense gratification of their assembly they neglected to respect their spiritual master, but the demons properly honored their guru, and so they become victorious over the demigods.
The quality of the spiritual master is not to curse anyone but to help them to come to a higher spiritual level, thus Brihaspati left the assembly of demigods without saying anything.
Bhakti Rasamrita Swami:
Surrender has connotations of humiliation, defeat, and disgrace. But spiritual surrender is victory, bliss, and supreme grace.
In the Gita, Krishna says He came to establish religion (4.8), yet he says to abandon all varieties of religion. How is that? Krishna came to teach the highest religion. Surrender to Krishna.
Srila Prabhupada explained that blind surrender will not sustain. It must be born of knowledge.
Even though Vyasadeva was such an enlightened soul he lamented when his son left home to seek Krishna.
A worthy disciple surrendering to a worthy spiritual master feels very happy.
It may seems as celibates we are giving up so many things of this world, but that is all ephemeral. What we get, however, is very tangible.
The most important quality of the Vaishnava is his complete surrender to Krishna.
There are main characteristics (svarupa-laksana) and marginal characteristics (tatastha-laksana). The only main characteristic of a Vaishnava is his complete surrender to Krishna.
The devotee is fearless due to his complete surrender to Krishna.
A brahmacari should be happy. That is the nature of a brahmacari. A brahmacari should not be morose.
On a very simple level surrender means obedience.
There is no spiritual life without accepting authority. Each of us follows an authority and some people accept us as an authority. In ISKCON no one has no authority. For the GBCs [Governing Body Commissioners] the whole GBC body is their authority. For Srila Prabhupada, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura is his authority.
Comment by Syamananda Prabhu: When someone complains that surrender is hard, I tell them that surrender is not so hard. We are always surrendered—only to maya or to Krishna.
Dayananda Swami:
In the material world everyone is egocentric, and so there is so much chaos. Prabhupada used the analogy of throwing pebbles into a pond to illustrate this. If all the pebbles are thrown in the same place the concentric waves will not interfere with each other, but if they are thrown in different places the ripples will all interfere with each other. When everyone tries to please the Lord it is like throwing all the pebbles in one place.
Sometimes we thinking pleasing our own mind is devotional service, but we must please the soul by pleasing the Supersoul.
What is our usual consciousness? Are with thinking about the body or the soul? That is why we talk of Krishna consciousness.
We cannot understand the material universe and the spiritual world beyond it anymore than an ant can understand what is going on in this room.
Faith is developed in this transcendental process in the association of those who are following it.
I went to a church on Sunday recently. There were ten people there. Churches are closing because having a business relationship, where we are seeking material benefits from God, does not satisfy the soul.
We have to come to understand that Krishna is the well-wishing friend of all living entities.
If we do not act according to the scripture, with our higher intelligence we will create more harm than the animals create as is evident in atrocities like the atom bombs exploded on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and chemical warfare.
There was one prisoner who read the Bhagavad-gita in the prison library. The devotees were not allowed to do programs in the prison so he had no one to explain the Gita to him. From his reading he came to the conclusion that there were three people he should kill when he got out of prison. That is a true story and shows why we need a devotee to explain Bhagavad-gita to us.
What is Krishna’s first instruction? To tolerate. (Bg. 2.14)
Suppose you hear some girl is asking questions about you. You would be attracted to know who is she. Similarly when we are asking about Krishna. He becomes attracted to know us.
Animal sacrifice was a program to gradually elevate the consciousness of those who take pleasure in killing to a higher level.
Before I was devotee, I considered myself fortunate to be able to eat beef, because a lot of people could not afford it.
At a program in England one Christian blasphemed Srila Prabhupada for glorifying the name of Krishna. Prabhupada asked Revatinandana Swami to answer. Revarinandana Swami prayed for inspiration, and spoke about how the Christians talk about love of God and loving thy neighbor but in reality they are killing animals and killing themselves. They are killing, killing, killing. Finally the Christian went away.
In America a person who had his own farm grew vegetables without chemical fertilizer and sold unpasteurized milk. He was put in jail for forty years. The penalty was so serious because the demoniac people in control want to discourage people from being self-sufficient so they can exploit them.
I saw a documentary on Borneo, a primitive culture. I learned they kill their elders when they become unproductive and eat them. That sounds outrageous, but the that mentality of killing the unproductive is there in our society there as far as the cows and oxen are concerned.
Lust is the original cause of envy.
Instead of being envious, we should think about how we can do good to the people.
The enlightened person does not try to enjoy this world nor does he try to renounce it. He just carries on with his devotional service.
Q: What if one has two authorities and they disagree? A: If you have two authorities, they should negotiate so you do not get conflicting instructions.
We do not think of Yudhisthira Maharaja as a preacher, but he arranged for all the kings of the world to hear of and worship Krishna as the supreme person in the Rajasuya sacrifice.
By following the instructions of the great acaryas like Srila Prabhupada and Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, who had anxiety for pleasing Krishna, we can also develop such transcendental anxiety.
Srila Prabhupada, in the presence of the chief minister in Madras, hid a little statue of Krishna he received from him, from Sarasvati, the child of his servant, causing her to feel separation from Krishna, and causing all those watching to see a glimpse of what is anxiety of separation from Krishna.
A devotee must be sure he gets enough association and keeps himself spiritually and materially satisfied.
comment by Caitanya Vallabha Prabhu: Lack of facility facilitates surrender.
If there is too much facility that is not good as we tend to expect such a standard everywhere we go.
Prabodhananda Sarasvati Maharaja:
Bhagavatam is the essence of all Vedic literature.
Once one man asked Srila Prabhupada why just 200–300 people were hearing his Bhagavatam lecture although he was the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, while other reciters got thousands of people to hear. Srila Prabhupada said, “The other people are selling vegetables, and I am selling jewels, so which market has more people?”
The speaker of Bhagavatam must be free from the four primary sinful activities [meat eating, illicit sex, intoxication, and gambling] and the four defects of a conditioned soul [imperfect senses, the tendency to make mistakes, the tendency to be illusioned, and the cheating propensity].
To understand the purport of Bhagavatam one must hear from one in the line of disciplic succession.
Even though Daksa cursed Narada, Narada continued to teach everyone the path of liberation.
The only business of the brahmacari is live in the ashram and to serve his guru. We chant everyday “guru-mukha-padma-vakya, cittete koriya aikya, ar na koriho mane asa.” We just want to serve the guru. We do not want anything else.
The disciple has faith that the guru is his only friend because he is representing Krishna.
Parasurama Prabhu [from a conversation]: Religion is for people who want to avoid going to hell, and spiritual life is for those who have already been there.
Mohnish [from a conversation]: Srila Prabhupada wanted 11 temples in Delhi alone.
-----
nimna-ganam yatha ganga devanam acyuto yatha vaishnavanam yatha sambhuh? purananam idam tatha
“Just as the Ganges is the greatest of all rivers, Lord Acyuta [Krishna] the supreme among deities and Lord Shambhu [Shiva] the greatest of Vaishnavas, so Srimad-Bhagavatam[the Bhagavata Purana] is the greatest of all Puranas.” (SB 12.13.16)
Lecture (filmed by Bh. Michel) about the new temple project in Den Haag, The Netherlands by HH Bhakti Charu Swami on 23 July 2012 at Partycentre “Ons Huis” Den Haag, The Netherlands. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gti9dIuWCfM
So far, the first 6 months of 2012 has been, what i would like to call it, a "molding by doing" 6 months. Growing in the Krsna consciousness movement, I always avoided big lessons simply by watching and observing others learn through their own lessons, how to serve Krsna. I would watch my god-siblings get chastised for spacing out, being tardy, being neglectful, or whatever it was, and would try hard not to repeat what they were chastised for. In this way I eluded chastisement by observing. Of course there were times I was also on the receiving end for something I became over confident of, or some other reason Krsna wanted me to learn something. In this way we hope to learn and advance on the spiritual path with a focus- determined focus on cutting out deeply rooted attachments to the material conception of life. This year, the lessons has been mostly about relating to, or caring for others. When I joined the movement as a teenager, it was all about this mission to give Krsna consciousness to others, it was about the people. We woke up early, chanted, worshipped the Deity, ate, and did everything to prime ourselves for meeting people and being beacons so that through our interactions, people could awaken within themselves an interest in Krsna. As I grew, and that good old Mr. Lethargy and Mrs Complacency moved in with me, it became all about me again. And although I did the same activities, it wasn't from a perspective of "for others,". It was just routine. Or so it seemed. So back to this year: I got sick with hives all over my body in Vrindavan in January. Talk about purification. And up until the last week of that three week experience, I had no help from anyone; almost like the people around me were afraid they might catch whatever was happening to me. But when you're lying there for hours, you get to think. And one thing that always came to mind was what is the lesson here. Then I came to the conclusion that I was getting some purification in the dahm. True, but why? I may not know, but one lesson was, I am experiencing this so that I know what someone else is going through in case i stumble upon a new devotee in this situation.
Then I went home to Liberia after 18 years. I spent a lot of time observing my mother and her interaction with others, trying to get a glimpse into my roots- why do I behave a certain way. Sharing Krsna consciousness was always simple for me because growing up I saw my family invite so many people in. There are five us, biologically, but umpteen of us, nurtured and cared for by my mother. There was always, and still is, 18 years later, at least 4 or 5 other people living with us, cared for equally, etc etc. So the asram atmosphere was simple, at least in my head; invite people in, care for them, and now, add Krsna. And give them knowledge so that they can become fearless in the material ocean. One statement I heard my mom say this year: "if you speak truthfully, you are protected by that truth and God." I learned to be more grateful to people who open their houses to me, and to be clear in my communication. I come from a different country and culture, and so sometimes, although speaking English, some things said could be taken completely out of context- and used against you!
About time and dealing with people, I learned that we have limited time when introducing a new person to Krsna consciousness. For whatever time you have their attention, give them Krsna, be a medium. I'm not there to be psychologist, or fix-you-upper. No. I'm there to show the benefits of focused consciousness- to the extent that I have experienced it. To create good fortune for others, just as someone did for me 15 years ago. I really learned through some not so good experiences not to waste time. You snooze, you loose. If someone is inspired to do some service, and they approach you, and you have a capacity or facility to help them, do it. Don't hesitate. They slip out of your hands like a castle built upon a sandy beach! *gone too soon* So I have to be sharp and learn urgency. I have seen many young enthusiastic people looking for something to do, and then fall away with the flickering mind simply because I was preoccupied with something else. Most importantly, as this year goes on with its lessons, I am learning that Krsna is the driving force behind it all. Yes it's hard to see him in everything, and something I see him after the fact that I fell face flat into some fresh cow dung :). Deep inside, as I go through certain experiences and still keep a small spark of hope that it too shall pass, and learn available lessons, I see that Krsna is teaching me like the mother in law teaching the daughter in law by using the daughter as medium. I must say I can't claim to be that intimate with Krsna, but I want to be; to be dedicated to his mission one hundred percent. And it will happen in due course. And yes it scares the living daylights out of me to ask such a thing, because the cutting of material consciousness isn't pretty. But in the end, everything will be OK. And if its not OK, its not the end :)
So far, the first 6 months of 2012 has been, what i would like to call it, a "molding by doing" 6 months. Growing in the Krsna consciousness movement, I always avoided big lessons simply by watching and observing others learn through their own lessons, how to serve Krsna. I would watch my god-siblings get chastised for spacing out, being tardy, being neglectful, or whatever it was, and would try hard not to repeat what they were chastised for. In this way I eluded chastisement by observing. Of course there were times I was also on the receiving end for something I became over confident of, or some other reason Krsna wanted me to learn something. In this way we hope to learn and advance on the spiritual path with a focus- determined focus on cutting out deeply rooted attachments to the material conception of life. This year, the lessons has been mostly about relating to, or caring for others. When I joined the movement as a teenager, it was all about this mission to give Krsna consciousness to others, it was about the people. We woke up early, chanted, worshipped the Deity, ate, and did everything to prime ourselves for meeting people and being beacons so that through our interactions, people could awaken within themselves an interest in Krsna. As I grew, and that good old Mr. Lethargy and Mrs Complacency moved in with me, it became all about me again. And although I did the same activities, it wasn't from a perspective of "for others,". It was just routine. Or so it seemed. So back to this year: I got sick with hives all over my body in Vrindavan in January. Talk about purification. And up until the last week of that three week experience, I had no help from anyone; almost like the people around me were afraid they might catch whatever was happening to me. But when you're lying there for hours, you get to think. And one thing that always came to mind was what is the lesson here. Then I came to the conclusion that I was getting some purification in the dahm. True, but why? I may not know, but one lesson was, I am experiencing this so that I know what someone else is going through in case i stumble upon a new devotee in this situation.
Then I went home to Liberia after 18 years. I spent a lot of time observing my mother and her interaction with others, trying to get a glimpse into my roots- why do I behave a certain way. Sharing Krsna consciousness was always simple for me because growing up I saw my family invite so many people in. There are five us, biologically, but umpteen of us, nurtured and cared for by my mother. There was always, and still is, 18 years later, at least 4 or 5 other people living with us, cared for equally, etc etc. So the asram atmosphere was simple, at least in my head; invite people in, care for them, and now, add Krsna. And give them knowledge so that they can become fearless in the material ocean. One statement I heard my mom say this year: "if you speak truthfully, you are protected by that truth and God." I learned to be more grateful to people who open their houses to me, and to be clear in my communication. I come from a different country and culture, and so sometimes, although speaking English, some things said could be taken completely out of context- and used against you!
About time and dealing with people, I learned that we have limited time when introducing a new person to Krsna consciousness. For whatever time you have their attention, give them Krsna, be a medium. I'm not there to be psychologist, or fix-you-upper. No. I'm there to show the benefits of focused consciousness- to the extent that I have experienced it. To create good fortune for others, just as someone did for me 15 years ago. I really learned through some not so good experiences not to waste time. You snooze, you loose. If someone is inspired to do some service, and they approach you, and you have a capacity or facility to help them, do it. Don't hesitate. They slip out of your hands like a castle built upon a sandy beach! *gone too soon* So I have to be sharp and learn urgency. I have seen many young enthusiastic people looking for something to do, and then fall away with the flickering mind simply because I was preoccupied with something else. Most importantly, as this year goes on with its lessons, I am learning that Krsna is the driving force behind it all. Yes it's hard to see him in everything, and something I see him after the fact that I fell face flat into some fresh cow dung :). Deep inside, as I go through certain experiences and still keep a small spark of hope that it too shall pass, and learn available lessons, I see that Krsna is teaching me like the mother in law teaching the daughter in law by using the daughter as medium. I must say I can't claim to be that intimate with Krsna, but I want to be; to be dedicated to his mission one hundred percent. And it will happen in due course. And yes it scares the living daylights out of me to ask such a thing, because the cutting of material consciousness isn't pretty. But in the end, everything will be OK. And if its not OK, its not the end :)
The following is a seminar given through a Teleconference on 21 July 2012 hosted by Atma Prabhu. See below for more details. H.H. Bhakti Charu Swami spoke on ‘Ten Symptoms of a Maha-Purana’ – Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 2.10.1 and ‘Five Conclusions of Lord Chaitanya’s Teachings’ from (Caitanya-manjusa(a commentary on Śrīmad Bhāgavatam by Srila Visvanatha Cakrvati Thakura). […]
What is it that makes us perceive the world in the way that we do? How is it that some devotees can be so stalwart, faithful, enthusiastic and dedicated to Guru and Krishna and yet others struggle to find meaning and relevance within the process?
My whole devotional life has been a struggle. Some would suggest that means it doesn't work and to just give it up. Others would say it's just my karma. Some might say it's Guru and Krishna's mercy in that it's purifying me and making me more surrendered.
I feel like most of my blog musings come back to this central theme of questioning what this process is and why I'm doing it. One time my Guru Maharaja said to me, after I had asked him how I could become more selfless, "Do you realize you keep asking the same question over and over? Maybe you should take a look at that." I think his point was that he already gave me the answer, but I wasn't hearing it, I wasn't accepting it, because I didn't WANT to accept it. The point being that I wasn't really sincere or honest in my desire to become selfless.
Selflessness is the crux to all devotional advancement and realization. Without it the whole thing seems quite impossible, difficult, unreal, irrelevant and unattainable. The fact is that selfishness and selflessness cannot co-exist on the path of devotional service. As the old saying goes about wanting our cake and eating it to, we can't do whatever selfish, self-centered sense gratification that we want and expect to attain anything tangible within the process of bhakti-yoga, Krishna Consciousness.
We can't hold on to a selfish mentality and consciousness and be a genuine Vaishnava. It just doesn't work. If we think it can work then we are completely delusional. It's like thinking you can start a fire by simultaneously pouring water on it.
The fact is I don't WANT to be Krishna Conscious. I don't WANT to be selfless. I don't want to put Guru and Krishna before my own wants and desires. That's a fact. And I have to be ready to accept the consequences of my selfish desires and self-centered focus. One of those consequences happens to be a loss of faith, interest and enthusiasm in hearing and chanting about Krishna.
Selfishness leads to misery. There is no doubt about this. It's not a devotee thing. It's just a fact of life. I have seen it in others and I have experienced it myself first hand. Selfish people are miserable, angry and depressed. It's just a natural result of a selfish mentality. Conversely, a selfless person is full of joy, happiness and free from all anxiety.
Our whole problem of why we can't accept the simplicity of the path of devotional service, nor experience those higher states of realization and consciousness, is because of selfishness. We waste so much time focusing on our self: our problems, our wants, our sorrows, our desires, our comfort, our stress, our anxiety, our this, our that. It's no wonder there's little room for anything else. We can barely take the time to care about close loved ones, what to speak of Krishna (God).
This current life has been an ongoing struggle for me in terms of becoming selfless. My Guru Maharaja wrote to me once, "Yours in the struggle for unconditional love". There's no doubt it's a struggle. Very rare is the person who actually wants to be selfless and who actually experiences the joy from it. But how amazing it is when one actually becomes selfless, because then ALL of one's problems instantly disappear.
Those Vaishnavas that are very advanced and "fixed up" and enthusiastic and joyful on the path are those that are selfless. Just take a close look at their qualities and examine their lives. And those devotees that struggle and are miserable half the time and doubt everything are those that are completely selfish and self-centered.
To become genuinely selfless is a gift. I humbly bow down to those who have attained such a lofty goal. Like I said, most people you meet don't even want to be selfless (or they have a mix of selflessness and selfishness; sometimes doing things for and caring about others, but mostly looking out for their own happiness and pleasure), so it's quite amazing to actually meet someone who is not living for their own self at every moment of their existence.
I'd like to end this post with a lecture by Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja. It's worth watching even if you randomly skip to any part and listen for just 5-minutes:
What is it that makes us perceive the world in the way that we do? How is it that some devotees can be so stalwart, faithful, enthusiastic and dedicated to Guru and Krishna and yet others struggle to find meaning and relevance within the process?
My whole devotional life has been a struggle. Some would suggest that means it doesn't work and to just give it up. Others would say it's just my karma. Some might say it's Guru and Krishna's mercy in that it's purifying me and making me more surrendered.
I feel like most of my blog musings come back to this central theme of questioning what this process is and why I'm doing it. One time my Guru Maharaja said to me, after I had asked him how I could become more selfless, "Do you realize you keep asking the same question over and over? Maybe you should take a look at that." I think his point was that he already gave me the answer, but I wasn't hearing it, I wasn't accepting it, because I didn't WANT to accept it. The point being that I wasn't really sincere or honest in my desire to become selfless.
Selflessness is the crux to all devotional advancement and realization. Without it the whole thing seems quite impossible, difficult, unreal, irrelevant and unattainable. The fact is that selfishness and selflessness cannot co-exist on the path of devotional service. As the old saying goes about wanting our cake and eating it to, we can't do whatever selfish, self-centered sense gratification that we want and expect to attain anything tangible within the process of bhakti-yoga, Krishna Consciousness.
We can't hold on to a selfish mentality and consciousness and be a genuine Vaishnava. It just doesn't work. If we think it can work then we are completely delusional. It's like thinking you can start a fire by simultaneously pouring water on it.
The fact is I don't WANT to be Krishna Conscious. I don't WANT to be selfless. I don't want to put Guru and Krishna before my own wants and desires. That's a fact. And I have to be ready to accept the consequences of my selfish desires and self-centered focus. One of those consequences happens to be a loss of faith, interest and enthusiasm in hearing and chanting about Krishna.
Selfishness leads to misery. There is no doubt about this. It's not a devotee thing. It's just a fact of life. I have seen it in others and I have experienced it myself first hand. Selfish people are miserable, angry and depressed. It's just a natural result of a selfish mentality. Conversely, a selfless person is full of joy, happiness and free from all anxiety.
Our whole problem of why we can't accept the simplicity of the path of devotional service, nor experience those higher states of realization and consciousness, is because of selfishness. We waste so much time focusing on our self: our problems, our wants, our sorrows, our desires, our comfort, our stress, our anxiety, our this, our that. It's no wonder there's little room for anything else. We can barely take the time to care about close loved ones, what to speak of Krishna (God).
This current life has been an ongoing struggle for me in terms of becoming selfless. My Guru Maharaja wrote to me once, "Yours in the struggle for unconditional love". There's no doubt it's a struggle. Very rare is the person who actually wants to be selfless and who actually experiences the joy from it. But how amazing it is when one actually becomes selfless, because then ALL of one's problems instantly disappear.
Those Vaishnavas that are very advanced and "fixed up" and enthusiastic and joyful on the path are those that are selfless. Just take a close look at their qualities and examine their lives. And those devotees that struggle and are miserable half the time and doubt everything are those that are completely selfish and self-centered.
To become genuinely selfless is a gift. I humbly bow down to those who have attained such a lofty goal. Like I said, most people you meet don't even want to be selfless (or they have a mix of selflessness and selfishness; sometimes doing things for and caring about others, but mostly looking out for their own happiness and pleasure), so it's quite amazing to actually meet someone who is not living for their own self at every moment of their existence.
I'd like to end this post with a lecture by Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja. It's worth watching even if you randomly skip to any part and listen for just 5-minutes:
The 2012 update for the content of the Bhaktivedanta VedaBase is now available to download. If you already have the VedaBase, the update is free. You can download the VedaBase update here.
The 2012 update for the content of the Bhaktivedanta VedaBase is now available to download. If you already have the VedaBase, the update is free. You can download the VedaBase update here.
Many geneticists view that modern man developed and came out of Africa where they migrated across lands to settle in ancient India. From there they spread out in all directions, even into Europe. This is called the “Out of Africa” theory. This certainly helps contradict the Aryan Invasion Theory, which proposes that the Vedic Aryans were not indigenous to the region of India, but came from the Caucasus Mountains, bringing their culture into India. However, over the past several years, an increasing number of finds have been made that suggest modern humans also lived in other regions besides Africa, and at older dates. This is giving rise to the “Multi-Regional Theory,” putting into question the “Out of Africa” theory. This also gives rise to the “Simultaneous Multi-Species” view, in which different species of human-like beings existed at the same times. These two later theories seem to be much closer to the Vedic version as well. So let us take a closer look at this.
THE GENERAL PREMISE ON HUMANITY’S EVOLUTIONARY DEVELOPMENT
Modern views of evolution place the first appearance of apelike beings on the planet during the Oligocene period, from about 38 million years ago. The first apes considered to be in line with humans are said to have appeared in the Miocene period, which is about 5 to 25 million years ago. The first hominids or erect walking humanlike primates appeared in the Pliocene period, which is said to have started about 5 million years ago. The earliest hominid is the Australopithecus, the southern ape, which dates back about 4 million years ago. This near human is said to have stood about 4 to 5 feet tall with a cranial brain capacity of 300 to 600 cubic centimeters. The head appeared somewhat ape-like, while from the neck down appeared more human-like. Once this brain capacity enlarged, it is said to have developed the branch known as the Homo habilis around 2 million years ago. This gave rise to the Homo erectus around 1.5 million years ago, and stood 5 to 6 feet tall with a cranial capacity of 700 to 1300 cubic centimeters, appearing more like modern humans, but the forehead slanted back behind massive eye brow ridges, with large jaws and teeth, and no chin. It is this Homo erectus which is said to have lived in Africa, Asia, and then Europe until about 200,000 years ago (some say 500,000 years ago). It is from this Homo erectus that modern humans, or Homo sapiens sapiens emerged gradually, first appearing around 300,000 to 400,000 years ago. These early Homo sapiens sapiens still had lesser degree of receding forehead from large brow ridges. Examples of this have been found in Swanscombe in England, Steinheim in Germany, and Fontechevade and Arago in France. These are classified as pre-Neanderthals.
It is these classic Western European Neanderthals from the last glacial period which are considered the direct ancestors of modern humans. The faces and jaws were much larger, with low foreheads, and large eyebrow ridges. Remains of Neanderthals have been found in Pleistocene deposits from 30,000 to 150,000 years ago. However, finding remains of early Homo sapiens in deposits far older than 150,000 years effectively removed the Western Neanderthals from the direct line of descent leading from Homo erectus to modern humans.
The Cro-Magnon appeared in Europe around 30,000 years ago, and look anatomically modern. Scientists used to say that modern humans appeared first around 40,000 years ago, but many have changed that view after the findings in South Africa and other places to 100,000 years or more. Thus, again the views are always changing based on new discoveries of fossils. 1
Only gradually, based on increasing evidence, did a consensus grow in the scientific community to accept that possibly modern human beings had existed as far back as the Pliocene and Miocene periods (5 to 25 million years ago), or even earlier. Anthropologist Frank Spencer admitted in 1984: “From accumulating skeletal evidence it appeared as if the modern human skeleton extended far back in time, an apparent fact which led many workers to either abandon or modify their views on human evolution.” 2
THE OUT OF AFRICA THEORY
Most scientists today think that modern human beings, Homo sapiens sapiens, appeared first on earth in Africa between 200,000 and 500,000 years ago. They first became fully developed in Africa, and then about 80,000 to 125,000 years ago began to expand and migrate out of the continent to the northeast and into the Middle East and to India. As they grew, they out-competed and replaced all other species of humans, such as the Homo erectus, Neanderthal, and archaic humans with no or very little interbreeding.
The Homo erectus supposedly came into existence about 1.8 million years ago and existed up to about 300,000 years ago. At least this is what evidence from the fossils seem to tell us, along with DNA analysis, although the estimation of the time when Homo sapiens sapiens appeared and when the Homo erectus disappeared keeps changing with every new discovery that takes place.
It is explained that some of the oldest known fossils of modern humans had been discovered in Herto, Ethiopia. An international team let by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, found the skulls of two adults and a child dating from 160,000 years ago, 40,000 years earlier than the previous oldest remains of Homo sapiens. The discovery as described in Nature, fills a gap in the human fossil record; the absence of accurately dated hominid remains in Africa between 120,000 and 300,000 years ago. As related by Clark Howell of UC of Berkeley, “The fossils are unmistakably non Neanderthal and show that (modern) humans had evolved in Africa long before the European Neanderthals disappeared. They demonstrate conclusively that there was never a Neanderthal stage in human evolution.” 3
This leads to some serious controversy because not everyone accepts this analysis. Others feel that the Neanderthals were a separate species of humans, and, for the most part, did not interbreed with other species. They evolved through time in a particular direction, distinct from modern humans, but separated about 400,000 years ago from the human lineage, with a separate evolutionary history, and, as many suggest, became extinct about 30,000 years ago.
When it comes to DNA analysis, humans and all mammals have two sets of DNA which do not recombine; the male sex chromosomes Y, which is passed from father to son and never recombines with its partner the X chromosome (X chromosomes do recombine in women, so these are less useful), and mitochondrial DNA; DNA found outside the nucleus in organelles called mitochondria, and which are always inherited through the female line. It is therefore easy to assess the rate at which these chromosomes have accumulated mutations, making them a prime target for scientists interested in tracing the divergence of human populations.
When scientists examined the X chromosome they came to the conclusion that all humans had a common female ancestor approximately 160,000 years ago. This hypothetical female ancestor is sometimes known as the ‘Mitochondrial Eve’. The Y-chromosomal DNA yielded even more surprising evidence, all male humans apparently shared a single male ancestor 60,000 years ago, sometimes called the ‘Y-chromosomal Adam’.
This was not the end of the DNA story. Scientists were also able to analyze the entire human genome to look for diversity within different groups. By analyzing the DNA of thousands of volunteers from around the world it was possible to build up a rough family tree for humanity. This suggested that the greatest human diversity was found within African populations – all non-African populations, no matter what they look like – are comparatively closely related to one-another.
When we combine the strong belief in Darwin’s evolutionary theories with paleontology, we get a bias that accepts all fossil evidence as proof of mankind’s evolutionary development. And this is basically what the “Out of Africa” theory provides.
However, when depending on nothing but fossils, we have to take something into consideration, and that is that fossils alone may not be a sure way of determining the past, or an evolutionary process of mankind’s development. As Bernard Heuvelmans stated in a letter (April 15, 1986) to researcher Stephen Bernath, who was working for Michael Cremo and Richard Thompson; “Do not overestimate the importance of the fossil record. Fossilization is a very rare, exceptional phenomenon, and the fossil record cannot thus give us an exact image of life on earth during the past geological periods. The fossil record of primates is particularly poor because very intelligent and cautious animals can avoid more easily the very conditions of fossilization–such as sinking in mud or peat, for instance.”
In this way, the most advanced or intelligent beings are the most likely not to be found as fossils. Furthermore, in the Vedic civilization, the common way to deal with the dead was through ritual cremation. Therefore, fossils of humanlike beings from that society is least likely, though there have been some buried bodies that have been found. Nonetheless, when we put all of the evidence together, including whatever fossils have been found from ancient layers of earth, and recent sightings of humanlike beings that wander in the wilderness, the conclusion is that many species of humanlike creatures have been simultaneously existing throughout the world in various environments for millions of years, rather than displaying a sequential pattern of evolution from one type of body or species to the next. We will discuss this more as we proceed through this article.
EVIDENCE AGAINST OUT OF AFRICA
The fact is that up till a few years ago, the “Out of Africa” theory was generally accepted by most scientists. But from 2007 onwards, there have been an increasing number of discoveries that are putting that theory into question. Recently, for example, discoveries of early human remains in China and Spain have done just that. As reported in December of 2010 in England’s The Daily Mail, archeologists from Tel Aviv University say that eight human-like teeth found in the Qesem cave near Rosh Ha’Ayin, 10 miles from Israel’s international airport, are 400,000 years old, from the Middle Pleistocene age, making them the earliest remains of Homo sapiens yet discovered anywhere in the world. The size and shape of the teeth are very similar to those of modern man. Until now, the earliest examples found were in Africa, dating back to 200,000 years. Other scientists have argued that human beings originated in Africa before moving to other regions 150,000 to 200,000 years ago. Previously, Homo sapiens discovered in Middle Awash, Ethiopia, from 160,000 years ago, were believed to be the oldest ‘modern’ human beings.
Therefore, the findings of Professor Avi Gopher and Dr. Ran Barkai of the Institute of Archeology at Tel Aviv University, published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology in early December, 2010, suggest that modern man did not originate in Africa as previously believed, but in the Middle East. The Qesem Cave was discovered in 2000 and has been the focus of intense study ever since. Along with the teeth–the parts of the human skeleton that survive the longest–the researchers found evidence of a sophisticated early human society that used sharpened flakes of stone to cut, along with other impressive prehistoric tools.
The Israeli scientists said the remains found in the cave suggested the systematic production of flint blades, the habitual use of fire, evidence of hunting, cutting and sharing of food, and mining raw materials to produce flint tools from rocks below ground. Thick-edged blades, shaped through retouch, were used for scraping semi-hard materials such as wood or hide, whereas blades with straight, sharp working edges were used to cut soft tissues. Thus, a rather developed society is indicated by the findings in the cave, where they expect to continue their research for additional evidence. 4
In the scientific journal called Nature, there was the news that humans seemed to have organized sea journeys as far back as 800,000–880,000 years ago. The evidence was the finding of stone tools on the island of Flores, 340 miles east of Bali. The intricacies of organizing such trips from South Asia would have required the use of language way back then to make it possible. 5
It was previously considered that the first major sea journey took place around 40,000–60,000 years ago, when anatomically modern humans are said to have arrived at Australia from eastern Indonesia.
Another example is that a news item on January 9, 2012, relates that Australian scientists had analyzed the oldest DNA ever taken from human remains, and that the results challenge the theory that humans developed only in Africa. Researchers at Australian National University said they had analyzed DNA taken from remains unearthed in 1974 at Lake Mungo in the state of New South Wales. Dating them in May 1999 put the age of the skeleton at between 56,000 and 68,000 years old. ANU anthropologist Alan Thorne said that neither “Mungo Man’s” completely modern skeleton nor its DNA had any links with human ancestors from Africa found in other parts of the world. Thorne said that there are modern humans in Australia that have nothing to do with Africa at all. These findings, as reported in The Australian newspaper, challenge the prevailing “Out of Africa” theory because “Mungo Man” has a genetic line which has vanished yet his skeleton is completely modern.
The previously oldest human DNA tested from the area came from the Neanderthal remains–a 45,000-year-old specimen in western Germany and 28,000-year-old from Croatia. ANU evolutionary geneticist Simon Easteal told Reuters, “If he [Mungo Man] was part of a wave of modern people that had come out of Africa and spread, eventually reaching Australia, then his mitochondrial DNA would reflect that.” Thorne also said that dating Mungo Man meant that there was no doubt that ancestors of Australia’s Aborigines came to the continent from Asia about 70,000 years ago–some 30,000 years earlier than thought. “There’s no question that somewhere in southeast Asia is where watercraft got invented. The first oceanic crossings were to Australia.” 6
For the evolutionists, this means that at least one group of Homo erectus descendants evolved outside of Africa. It could also mean that modern man was a completely separate species who had already been evolved and traveled the globe, remnants of which we are only now discovering. And that ancient India was indeed where watercraft was invented and from where came the earliest residents of Australia.
What this seems to indicate is that modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens, have been wandering the earth for quite some time, meaning many hundreds of thousands of years. Many instances of proof can be supplied that can help verify that.
For example, the Ph. D. degree holding geologist Dr. Virginia Steen McIntyre was a fellow of the United States Geology Survey. When in Mexico she carefully presented research conclusions about the stone tools found at Hueyatlaco that dated back to 250,000 years BCE. Then, while using four different methods of dating the material, two other USGS certified members agreed with her. This went drastically against the notion that humans that made stone tools did not appear until 100,000 years ago in Africa.
Another item of January 11, 2012 reports that scientists from Germany, Bulgaria and France discovered a hominid pre-molar tooth near the Bulgarian town of Chirpan, which is estimated to be seven million years old. This means that great apes survived in the area two million years longer than previously estimated. It had been thought that they could not have survived because of a lack of food. However, alongside the hominid tooth, scientists found the remains of animals typical of a savannah environment with seasonal changes, such as several species of elephant, giraffes, antelopes, rhinos, and saber-toothed cats. The implication is that hominids had adopted efficiently to the area. They said the discovery may cast doubt on the “Out of Africa” theory. Professor Madelaine Bohme of the University of Tubingen related, “We now also need to rethink where the origin of humans took place. There is increasing evidence… that a significant part of human evolution happened outside Africa, in Europe and Western Asia.”
This brings about what some people call the multi regional theory, meaning that various human species have been developing and existing in many areas of the world at the same time.
THE MULTI-REGIONAL THEORY
The Multi-Regional Theory postulates that various species of humans spread around the globe about 2 million years ago, and that these separate species evolved into modern races of humans, possibly by interbreeding. For example, the Homo erectus has been found in a range that includes eastern Africa, Georgia in southeast Europe, Turkey, India, China, Vietnam, and Java, which is a wide range of territory, though not all scientists accept that all these specimens belonged to the same species. Nonetheless, it would give evidence that not all modern humans may have developed in Africa directly.
For example, in April of 2007 it was reported that the ancient remains of an early modern human found near Beijing, in the Tianyuan Cave in Zhoukoudian in 2003. This suggests that the “Out of Africa” theory may be more complex than first thought. A fossilized remains dated to 38,000 to 42,000 years old makes it the oldest modern human skeleton from eastern Eurasia.
The specimen is basically a modern human, but with a few archaic characteristics in the teeth and hand bone. It is this discovery that casts further doubts on the longstanding “Out of Africa” theory which holds that when modern Homo sapiens spread eastwards from the sub-Saharan Africa to Eurasia about 65,000 to 25,000 years ago, they simply replaced the native late archaic humans, as explained by anthropologist Erik Trinkaus of Washington University. This leads to the growing idea, with respect to western Eurasia, that modern humans interbred with local archaic humans before becoming fully developed. 7
What this also means is one of two things: 1. That it is likely that they interbred to develop the Homo sapien species, or 2. That they were already two separate species that interbred at various places which produced these fossils that display both modern human and Homo erectus characteristics in one skeleton.
In November of 2009, an article submitted by Michael Kan, “110,000-year-old Chinese Fossil Poses Challenge to ‘Out of Africa’ Theory” explains that China’s Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology announced the discovery of a human jawbone fragment, found a year previous in southern China’s Guangxi province. Jin Changshu, a researcher with the institute, said the find of the 110,000-year-old jawbone was especially important since very few human fossils from this evolutionary period have been found in China. He added that the jawbone is that of an early modern human, but also bears the traits of our more primitive ancestors.
Wu Xinzhi, a professor with the institute, said he believes the discovery presents evidence to challenge the “Out of Africa” hypothesis. He says that if the “Out of Africa” theory is true, then in China, they should not be able to find a mandible (jaw) of a fossil with modern features older than 60,000 years. “But this Guangxi mandible is 110,000 years old. This means that this ‘Out of Africa’ theory is not true, at least not for China.”
Instead, Wu said the fossil find lends support for another theory called the multi-regional hypothesis. Under this scenario, humanity’s ancestors from Africa spread themselves across other continents and developed locally, and possibly interbred with earlier forms of humans, such as the Homo erectus, which gives the reason for the blend of characteristics in the fossil found in China. However, other scholars disagreed that such conclusions could be made from a mere jawbone to determine if it was really a Homo sapien. Still, the discovery presents a challenge to present theories.
However, now a much younger date, possibly as recent as 35,000 years ago, has been suggested for the Solo River site. The Homo erectus species of humanity, which many think became extinct about 200,000 to 500,000 years ago, appears to have survived in Indonesia until about 35,000 to 50,000 years ago at the site of Ngandong on the Solo River. This means that these Homo erectus would have shared the environment with early members of Homo sapiens, who are said to have arrived in Indonesia about 40,000 years ago. This means that they may have been two separate species, not necessarily an outgrowth of one from the other. 8
The existence of the two species in the same area simultaneously has important implications, one of which is that they were indeed separate species and not a sequential development of one from the other.
However, another piece of evidence outdates the above Solo River findings. In June 30 of 2011, in an article written by Daniel Smith, and to show how fast things change in this field of study, it claims that an ancestor of modern humans, the Homo erectus, widely considered a direct ancestor of Homo sapiens, migrated out of Africa 1.8 million years ago. The article claims that by around 500,000 years ago it had vanished from Africa and much of Asia, but until now was thought to have co-existed with their ancestors. The new research suggests this assumption was wrong, and Homo erectus disappeared long before the arrival of Homo sapiens in Asia.
New excavations and dating analysis indicate that Homo erectus was extinct by at least 143,000 years ago, and perhaps more than 550,000 years ago. If this is the case, it challenges the widely accepted “Out of Africa” hypothesis which holds that modern humans became fully evolved in Africa before emigrating to other parts of the world. The model presupposes an overlap between Homo sapiens and the older species of humans they replaced outside Africa. This late survival of Homo erectus in Indonesia had previously been held up as evidence supporting this theory.
Dr. Etty Indriati, from Gadjah Mada university in Indonesia, who co-led the investigations at two sites on Indonesia’s Solo river, said “Homo erectus probably did not share habitats with modern humans.” In this way, a “Multi-Regional” hypothesis proposes that modern humans evolved from ancestor species in Africa, Asia and Europe. Thus, Africa was not the only place where modern humans developed.
However, here we can also see that the evolutionary idea of Darwin, along with the “Out of Africa” theory, is still itself evolving through many ideas and proposals as time goes by. My prediction is that the “Out of Africa” theory will itself change or even be thrown out as more investigations and discoveries take place.
“In the early 1950s, Thomas E. Lee of the National Museum of Canada found advanced stone tools in glacial deposits at Sheguiandah, on Manitoulin Island in norther Lake Huron. Geologist John Stanford of Wayne State University argued that the oldest Sheguiandah tools were at least 65,000 years old and might be as much as 125,000 years old. For those adhering to standard views on North American Prehistory, such ages were unacceptable. Humans supposedly first entered North America from Siberia only about 12,000 years ago.” 9
This was the standard view, that waves of hunter gatherers crossed into America over the Bering Straights about 12,000 years ago, but now some authorities are willing to place that date back to 30,000 or even 65,00 or more years ago, while a growing few are willing to place that entrance into America back to Pleistocene time frame, beyond 2 million years ago. For humans to reach America that far back in time certainly places the “Out of Africa” theory in doubt that it can continue to hold up under the pressure of newer and newer discoveries.
THE VEDIC VIEW
As we can plainly see, the dates for the development of modern man continue to go further and further back in time. For those of us who are familiar with the Vedic view and its ancient time frame in which it presents on when the creation of the cosmos took place and the development of modern man, this is not all surprising. The ancient Sanskrit texts of India, along with other ancient traditions, agree that humans have existed for many millions of years, going back to the very beginnings of creation, the very beginning of time. I have described the basics of the Vedic view of the process of universal creation in my book, How the Universe was Created and Our Purpose In It, which everyone can read to gain further insights into the Vedic view of this.
Furthermore, in light of the question of whether mankind had sequentially developed or evolved from apes, or whether there were many separate species of human-like beings, the Vedic texts, such as the Padma Purana, explain that there are 8,400,000 species of life throughout the multi-dimensions of the universe. Out of all these, it says there are 400,000 species of humans. What this means is that what are presently called modern humans, or Homo sapiens sapiens, have existed for millions of years along with other types or branches of humans on this planet, though paleontologists and others may call them by so many names.
The Vedic view also includes the premise that evolution does take place, but that living beings evolve through the different species of life that are created in order to acquire the best species or body (a set of senses) that suites the consciousness of that particular living being. Thus, as the living entity grows in consciousness, he or she naturally climbs the ladder of higher and higher species of life to be able to express oneself more appropriately, but to also have the intellect to accommodate the person’s natural search for his real spiritual identity, and to not only understand it, but to actually realize and perceive it. Then the person can live on that level of understanding and reality, and, thus, attain the spiritual dimension wherein there is freedom from any further existence in the material world or material bodies. (I have written much more about this in my books, such as The Secret Teachings of the Vedas, and others.)
THE SOURCE OF HUMANITY
The Vedic texts say that the source of humanity, and all life, is a matter of devolving from higher dimensions, namely from the spiritual dimension. All living beings are not only physical, but also the subtle body of mind, intelligence, ego, and, ultimately, the spiritual soul which is beyond everything else. Therefore, living beings have not evolved out of matter, or evolved up from the apes, but are only traveling through matter and the various forms that nature provides, each form or species based on our level of consciousness. This is to acquire all the experiences that this three-dimensional world can provide, and that our consciousness deems necessary for our own growth. Then, once we are finished with this material realm of existence by regaining our spiritual identity and acting on that level, we make our way back to the spiritual domain.
Furthermore, the Vedic philosophy explains that the universal or material creation is a matter of Divine arrangement, not that it merely happened by chance and here we are. There was and is a plan behind everything, which means there was also an original plan-maker. Therefore, the Vedic texts point out that though species can change to some small degrees, all species of life were planned and created at the beginning of time, and only now have we been discovering, through the excavation of fossil remains, some of the forms of these species that have existed before, thus confirming the Vedic view. Plus, though we may call them as Homo erectus, or Neanderthal, etc., and consider them to be extinct, they may still be existing around the world in various environments, though they may not be so well known or observable at present, such as the wildmen, Sasquatch, Almas, etc., which we will discuss next.
THE SIMULTANEOUS MULTI-SPECIES VIEW
Combining the Vedic view with the evidence for the various forms of human and human-like beings, there is also the idea of the simultaneous multi-species view, which means that not only were all species originated at the beginning of creation, but they have all been existing together in various environments at the same time. And we can find further evidence for this in other areas of research, for example, as described by Michael Cremo:
“If we look back into the history of hominid paleontology, we find that Louis Leakey rejected Homo erectus and the Neanderthals (and Australopithecus) as human ancestors, just because of their strangely nonhuman brow ridges. He explains in his book Adam’s Ancestors (1960, p. 164): ‘The brow-ridge over each eye is made up of two component parts in Homo sapiens. One part in each case starts just above the nose and extends sideways and slightly upwards to overlap that second part, which on either side, starts at the extreme edge to the right and left of the eye-socket respectively, and extends inwards and slightly downwards. Thus, above the center of each eye-socket, there is an overlap of the two elements.’ The quite different single horizontal bar of bone found in the Homo erectus ‘suggested not an ancestral stage of human evolution, but a side branch that has become more specialized, in this respect, than any Homo sapiens type.’ Leakey thought it exceedingly unlikely that evolution should take the ancestors through a phase where they had no bar-like brow ridge to a phase where they had a massive bar-like brow ridge, and then back again to a phase with no massive bar-like brow ridge. I think Leakey was correct.” 10
This would indicate that this is a separate species of human-like beings that existed that were not merely an evolving form of humans. Not only were separate species of humanity existing at the same time, but they existed with ancient creatures as well, as explained:
“For example, Dr. J. D. Whitney, in his book The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California (1880) published by Harvard University, details numerous discoveries of anatomically modern human bones and artifacts in layers of rock up to 50 million years old. One human skull fragment, which was sent to the Museum of Natural History in Boston, was found by Col. Paul K. Hubbs in the Valentine Mine shaft at Table Mountain, 180 feet below the surface in gold-bearing deposits, next to fossil bones of mastodons. The fossil-bearing layers were sealed off from the surface by thick layers of volcanic deposits at least 9 million years old. Whitney wrote (1880 p. 265): ‘The essential facts are, that the Valentine Shaft was vertical, that it was boarded up to the top, so that nothing could have fallen in from the surface during the working under ground, which was carried on in the gravel channel exclusively, after the shaft had been sunk. There can be no doubt that the specimen came from the drift [gold-bearing gravels] in the channel under Table Mountain, as affirmed by Mr. Hubbs.’ And reports of human skeletal remains go even further back than that. In the December 1862 edition of The Geologist, we find a report that a complete anatomically modern human skeleton was found ninety feet below the surface of the ground in Macoupin County, Illinois, in deposits about 300 million years old.” 11
“In 1979, researchers at the Laetoli, Tanzania site in East Africa discovered footprints in volcanic ash deposits that were over 3.6 million years old. Mary Leakey and others said the prints were indistinguishable from those of modern humans. To these scientists, this meant only that the human ancestors of 3.6 million years ago had remarkably modern feet. But according to other scientists, such as physical anthropologist R. H. Tuttle of the University of Chicago, fossil foot bones of the known australopithecines of 3.6 million years ago show they had feet that were distinctly apelike. Hence they were incompatible with the Laetoli prints. However, in an article in the March 1990 issue of Natural History, Tuttle confessed that ‘we are left with somewhat of a mystery.’ It seems possible, therefore, to consider a point that neither Tuttle nor Leakey mentioned–that creatures with anatomically modern human bodies to match their anatomically modern human feet existed some 3.6 million years ago in East Africa. Perhaps they coexisted with more apelike creatures.” 12
Even now, after reviewing the fossil hominids of China, there has been signs that humans may have coexisted with more apelike hominids throughout the Pleistocene era. Even today this may be the case when we consider the ongoing sighting of what would appear to be Homo erectus or other humanlike beings around the world. What follows are a few description of these:
“Over the past century, scientists have accumulated evidence suggesting that humanlike creatures resembling Gigantopithecus, Australopithecus, Homo erectus, and the Neanderthals are living in various wilderness areas of the world. In North America these creatures are known as Sasquatch. In Central Asia, they are called Almas. In Africa, China, Southeast Asia, Central America, and South America, they are known by other names. Some researchers use the general term ‘wildmen’ to include them all. Scientists and physicians have reported seeing live wildmen, dead wildmen, and footprints. They have also catalogued thousands of reports from ordinary people who have seen such wildmen, as well as similar reports from historical records. 13
Let us review a few of the cases that are provided in the book, Hidden History of the Human Race:
On June 10, 1982, Paul Freeman, a U. S. Forest Service patrolman tracking elk in the Walla Walla district of Washington State observed a hairy biped around 8 feet tall, standing about 60 yards from him. After 30 seconds, the large animal walked away. Gover S. Krants, an anthropologist at Washington State University, studied casts of the creature’s footprints and found dermal ridges, sweat pores, and other features in the proper places for large primate feet. Detailed skin impressions on the side walls of the prints indicated the presence of a flexible sole pad. 14
The reason why many anthropologists keep quiet about such sightings, or about working with such information, is that they are scared for their reputations or their jobs. Working outside of the mainstream standards of information or accepted theories can cost a person the respect of their peers, even though studying such mysteries is what the business should be in order to get to the truth of such matters.
Nonetheless, another documented example took place in 1963 when Ivan Ivlov, a Russian pediatrician. He was traveling through the Altai mountains in the southern part of Mongolia and saw several humanlike creatures standing on a mountain slope. They appeared to be a family of a male, female, and a child. After watching them with his binoculars until they moved out of his field of vision, his Mongolian driver, who also saw them, said that they were common in that area. Then Ivan talked to the local children in the region, feeling that they may be more open about it than some adults. The children did indeed provide many reports about the Almas, one saying that when he and other children were swimming in a stream, he saw a male Almas carry a child Almas across it. 15
Another most interesting case was when in 1941, V. S. Karapetyam, a lieutenant colonel in the medical service of the Soviet Army, performed a direct physical examination of a living wildman captured in the Dagestan autonomous republic, just north of the Caucasus mountains. He said that he was taken to a shed by two members of the local authorities, and could see the creature before him, barefoot and naked. Its entire shape was human, but the chest, back and shoulders were covered with shaggy hair, one inch in length. The fur was thinner and softer below the chest, and the palms and soles of the feet were free of hair. The hair on its head reached to its shoulders, and was rough to the touch. His face was covered with a light growth of hair but without beard or moustache. Its height was about 5 feet 11 inches, considerably bigger than local inhabitants. He was quite large, and had thick and strong fingers. But his eyes were dull and empty. Such reports like this have led scientists such as British anthropologist Myra Shackley to conclude that the Almas may represent surviving Neanderthals or perhaps even Homo erectus that still live amongst us. It is reported that the Soviet captors shot the creature when they were forced to retreat before the advancing German army. 16
Additional reports similar to this are documented in The Hidden History of the Human Race, and many other books as well, citing such incidents from areas of China, Malaysia, Indonesia, South America, the Himalayas, and Africa. The standard view is that the australopithecines perished more than 750,000 years ago, and the Homo erectus died out around 200,000 years ago, while the Neanderthals vanished about 35,000 years ago. Since that time, only modern humans are said to have populated the earth. However, with sightings like these all over the world, this view may be strongly contested. Some other and older species of humanlike beings still remain amongst us.
Of course, how can science take this seriously when it goes so much against the theories of the day? Nonetheless, there are numerous such incidents that have happened to counter the idea that modern man is but a recent evolutionary development, and that fossils are only of ancient beings that no longer exist.
CONCLUSION
Considering this evidence we have to admit that regardless of whether you call the various species of humans or human-like beings Australopithecus afarensis, Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus robustus, Australopithecus boisei, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Neanderthals, Cro Magnons, or Homo sapiens sapiens, and designate and catalogue them according to whatever changes there may be in their physique, whether great or small, the conclusion is that we are only discovering the great varieties of humans and humanlike beings that have existed, or even continue to exist, and that anatomically modern humans have been here for many millions of years, along with the other variations of primates, and have co-existed with each other for tens of millions of years. This also coincides with the Vedic view, regardless of whether evolutionists can ever accept this or not.
REFERENCES
1. The Hidden History of the Human Race, by Michael Cremo and Richard A. Thompson, Govardhan Hill Publishing, Badger, CA, 1994, pp. 4-6.
One of the most wonderful aspects of our society of devotees in ISKCON is the tremendous level of diversity we all share. Within this diversity of race, nationality, and gender, there is a multiplicity of opinions as to how we should create and make enduring our culture of devotional service together. It is always my hope that within this diversity there is also the requisite respect towards the differences that do exist between us, but that is certainly not always the case, therefore I tread forward with what I am going to say carefully. I deeply pray that the sentiments and ideas I express here going forward does not offend the reader. If I do, I beg your forgiveness and understanding.
The foundation of what I want to say is that we need a deep cultural change within ISKCON. The substance of this change means moving from impersonalism towards personalism. This is not a philosophical issue, but rather an issue of relationship, of community. The history of our relationships, of our communities in ISKCON, have been marred by a deep-rooted impersonalism which has harmed many devotees' lives, and which has prevented ISKCON from being what it could truly be, from what Prabhupada wanted it to be. Many devotees of my generation, and many devotees of generations older and younger than mine, have also expressed this realization.
There is so much we have to do to insure that ISKCON thrives and grows as we move into the 21stCentury, but I do not think there is anything more important that in improving the health of our culture of relationships and communities within ISKCON. Without addressing the stones of this essential foundation of our society, all of our aspirations will trend towards an inadequate and disappointing outcome.
I want to frame this essay around a lecture a good friend of mine recently gave. He titled the lecture “Presenting Our Best Offering to Krishna” and he based his lecture around a very wonderful and thought-provoking essay by HH Sacinandana Swami. The name of this essay is “From My Heart: Beloved of God” and can be found online via the Saranagati Newsletter.1
We must first understand that the purpose of our lives as devotees is to learn how to give the best offering of ourselves to Krishna. The very substance of this offering should be of love and affection towards Krishna, with intentionality and meaning in everything that we do.
The profundity of our offering can be so much greater if the love that is its substance is also directed towards our own self. HH Sacinandana Swami has us consider a line from “Prayer of a Lover of God” by Bhaktivinoda Thakur, in which the Thakur says "Let me also love myself who am inclined towards Krishna so that I may attain devotion to Him."2 What does this mean? To my own heart, this is a very common sense statement. If we are parts and parcels of Krishna, who is the ultimate object of our love, then we are also worthy of love. This love must be directed towards our personal reality as spirit soul and servant of the Lord, and not towards our temporary identities as body and mind.
We are called to love all of Krishna's parts and parcels, and that includes our own selves. We are not excluded. Spiritual life, in this sense, comes full circle. We are trying to transcend our narcissistic tendencies, and we have the tendency to do this in a very impersonal and unhealthy way, at the expense of our self, and at the expense of our relationships and communities. We complete the circle when we learn to include ourself in the package of love.
The very meaning of the deepest surrender is rooted in a pure and selfless love towards Krishna and His devotees. In the history of ISKCON, the meaning of surrender, and its practical applications, has often been something different. Often it is translated as “work until you drop.” Who is asking for this kind of surrender? Is it Krishna? Yes, sometimes Krishna is asking from us a surrender which tests and pushes back our boundaries, but is Krishna taking pleasure from the pain that results?
When we have the maturity to understand the bigger picture of our spiritual journey, we understand why Krishna is putting us into such a situation. We experience His love for us as the reason why, and the difficulties that we experience take on a different and deeper meaning.
If this kind of intense surrender is instead based on our own self-imposed expectations, or on the unrealistic expectations of others, then the tendency we have seen is that we will burn out. This is based as well on the tendency that we place on ourselves, and which is placed on ourselves by others, to act as if we were a pure devotee, but we cannot be a pure devotee until we are a pure devotee. Acting in this kind of charade is a big source of the pain we experience in our life as a devotee.
Often this concept of surrender means to forget our humanity. The joke I've heard is that first you become a pure devotee, and then you become a human being. To transcend our identification as a material human being doesn't mean to become inhumane in our devotional lives. The human nature we carry with us features many tools, such as the ability to be selfless and compassionate, which can only enhance our devotional lives if we choose to engage with them.
In his article, HH Sacinandana Swami quotes from an article by HH Bir Krishna Goswami, entitled “Love Yourself.” HH Bir Krishna Goswami writes:
I am writing about this subject matter because many devotees have contacted or talked to me about this mental state. When I hear devotees talking like this it causes tears to come to my eyes because I know that all the devotees are very, very dear to Krishna.
Even though ontologically we may be small-we are important to Krishna. We are not small in Krishna’s eyes.
Take the story of Gopa Kumar in the Brhad Bhagavatamrta for example. Krishna was feeling so much love for Gopa Kumar and so much hankering for his association in the spiritual world, that Krishna personally became Gopa Kumar’s spiritual master.
You may say that Gopa Kumar is a special devotee, and that is true. But, it is a fact that Krishna personally is the Caitya Guru of all of us residing in our hearts and personally takes the trouble to direct us to our spiritual master.
Even before we take to Krishna consciousness, Krishna is residing in the heart waiting for us to realize that our real happiness is in relating to Him rather than this external energy.
So, Krishna considers us significant, important, etc.
When Gopa Kumar finally goes back to Krishnaloka, Krishna faints in ecstasy upon receiving him. Even Krishna’s associates can not understand what is going on.
Krishna feels the same way about us.
There is an interesting statement in the Isopanisad (Mantra 6):
“He who sees systematically everything in relation to the Supreme Lord, who sees all living entities as His parts and parcels, and who sees the Supreme Lord within everything never hates anything or any being.”
So we are parts and parcels of Krishna. Therefore we should not hate ourselves. On the other hand since we are supposed to love Krishna we should love all his parts and parcels and that includes ourselves too!
What does that mean, to love oneself?
It means to picture or visualize or imagine how you want to be. Forget about all the negativity; whether the negativity comes from yourself or from others.
If you think negatively that is what you are meditating on and those thoughts will impede your spiritual life.
Here are some things you can think about:
1. Radha and Krishna love me and want me to be with Them in the spiritual world!
2. Taking care of my spiritual needs will not impede my spiritual progress
3. Taking care of my material needs will not impede my spiritual progress
4. I am an eternal soul, full of bliss and knowledge!
5. I have an eternal relationship with Radha and Krishna and will realize this relationship.
And don’t remain in a situation where others are denigrating you. You owe it to yourself and to Krishna to reject situations that are unfavorable for Krishna consciousness and accept favorable situations. Have positive spiritual self-esteem!
It is not mayato take what we need in our Krishna conscious lives. It is not maya to find the proper situation in our Krishna conscious lives to make the best offering of ourselves. It is not mayato have a positive sense of self-esteem to ourselves in our Krishna conscious lives. Again, I feel very strongly that this is common sense, but sometimes it can be quite difficult to discern, either from our own perspective or within the expectations of our community, what we really need to be healthy and happy as a devotee.
We may fear that by taking what we need, we may take too much, and cross that fine line into selfishness based on sense gratification. What is essential for us, and which strikes at the heart of the need for healthy community, is having guides who we can trust, who are very attentive, introspective, and progressive, and who can help us to strike the balance between need and sacrifice in our lives.
Ultimately we have to, as the saying goes, “fly our own planes.” This is not to say that we become bereft or aloof of relationships to authorities in our lives, but that we must also develop a sufficient sense of self-discernment. We have to know, in the fiber of our being, in the shape of our consciousness on a everyday level, when a mood of indulgence may be taking us away from our sadhanaand service. This may be a mood of indulgence in our bad habits and illusions. It may also be a mood of indulgence in trying to fulfill the unrealistic and impersonal demands of the devotees in our community.
We have to learn to give ourselves the time of day. If we are just jumping all over the place, trying to be selfless, we may become resentful, because we have deprived ourselves of our needs. If we don't fulfill our real needs, then we set up ourselves to fall back into these patterns of indulgence again and again.
If we can just see the good we have in ourselves, and addressing our relevant needs both material and spiritual will help us do that, then we will be more willing, and be more able, to make sacrifices and to enter into that mysterious realm of surrender. As HH Sacinandana Swami often quotes, from the mind of famed French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery: "If you want to build a boat, don't just drum up people together to collect wood and assign tasks. Teach people to long for the endless immensity of the sea."
One of the most wonderful aspects of our society of devotees in ISKCON is the tremendous level of diversity we all share. Within this diversity of race, nationality, and gender, there is a multiplicity of opinions as to how we should create and make enduring our culture of devotional service together. It is always my hope that within this diversity there is also the requisite respect towards the differences that do exist between us, but that is certainly not always the case, therefore I tread forward with what I am going to say carefully. I deeply pray that the sentiments and ideas I express here going forward does not offend the reader. If I do, I beg your forgiveness and understanding.
The foundation of what I want to say is that we need a deep cultural change within ISKCON. The substance of this change means moving from impersonalism towards personalism. This is not a philosophical issue, but rather an issue of relationship, of community. The history of our relationships, of our communities in ISKCON, have been marred by a deep-rooted impersonalism which has harmed many devotees' lives, and which has prevented ISKCON from being what it could truly be, from what Prabhupada wanted it to be. Many devotees of my generation, and many devotees of generations older and younger than mine, have also expressed this realization.
There is so much we have to do to insure that ISKCON thrives and grows as we move into the 21stCentury, but I do not think there is anything more important that in improving the health of our culture of relationships and communities within ISKCON. Without addressing the stones of this essential foundation of our society, all of our aspirations will trend towards an inadequate and disappointing outcome.
I want to frame this essay around a lecture a good friend of mine recently gave. He titled the lecture “Presenting Our Best Offering to Krishna” and he based his lecture around a very wonderful and thought-provoking essay by HH Sacinandana Swami. The name of this essay is “From My Heart: Beloved of God” and can be found online via the Saranagati Newsletter.1
We must first understand that the purpose of our lives as devotees is to learn how to give the best offering of ourselves to Krishna. The very substance of this offering should be of love and affection towards Krishna, with intentionality and meaning in everything that we do.
The profundity of our offering can be so much greater if the love that is its substance is also directed towards our own self. HH Sacinandana Swami has us consider a line from “Prayer of a Lover of God” by Bhaktivinoda Thakur, in which the Thakur says "Let me also love myself who am inclined towards Krishna so that I may attain devotion to Him."2 What does this mean? To my own heart, this is a very common sense statement. If we are parts and parcels of Krishna, who is the ultimate object of our love, then we are also worthy of love. This love must be directed towards our personal reality as spirit soul and servant of the Lord, and not towards our temporary identities as body and mind.
We are called to love all of Krishna's parts and parcels, and that includes our own selves. We are not excluded. Spiritual life, in this sense, comes full circle. We are trying to transcend our narcissistic tendencies, and we have the tendency to do this in a very impersonal and unhealthy way, at the expense of our self, and at the expense of our relationships and communities. We complete the circle when we learn to include ourself in the package of love.
The very meaning of the deepest surrender is rooted in a pure and selfless love towards Krishna and His devotees. In the history of ISKCON, the meaning of surrender, and its practical applications, has often been something different. Often it is translated as “work until you drop.” Who is asking for this kind of surrender? Is it Krishna? Yes, sometimes Krishna is asking from us a surrender which tests and pushes back our boundaries, but is Krishna taking pleasure from the pain that results?
When we have the maturity to understand the bigger picture of our spiritual journey, we understand why Krishna is putting us into such a situation. We experience His love for us as the reason why, and the difficulties that we experience take on a different and deeper meaning.
If this kind of intense surrender is instead based on our own self-imposed expectations, or on the unrealistic expectations of others, then the tendency we have seen is that we will burn out. This is based as well on the tendency that we place on ourselves, and which is placed on ourselves by others, to act as if we were a pure devotee, but we cannot be a pure devotee until we are a pure devotee. Acting in this kind of charade is a big source of the pain we experience in our life as a devotee.
Often this concept of surrender means to forget our humanity. The joke I've heard is that first you become a pure devotee, and then you become a human being. To transcend our identification as a material human being doesn't mean to become inhumane in our devotional lives. The human nature we carry with us features many tools, such as the ability to be selfless and compassionate, which can only enhance our devotional lives if we choose to engage with them.
In his article, HH Sacinandana Swami quotes from an article by HH Bir Krishna Goswami, entitled “Love Yourself.” HH Bir Krishna Goswami writes:
I am writing about this subject matter because many devotees have contacted or talked to me about this mental state. When I hear devotees talking like this it causes tears to come to my eyes because I know that all the devotees are very, very dear to Krishna.
Even though ontologically we may be small-we are important to Krishna. We are not small in Krishna’s eyes.
Take the story of Gopa Kumar in the Brhad Bhagavatamrta for example. Krishna was feeling so much love for Gopa Kumar and so much hankering for his association in the spiritual world, that Krishna personally became Gopa Kumar’s spiritual master.
You may say that Gopa Kumar is a special devotee, and that is true. But, it is a fact that Krishna personally is the Caitya Guru of all of us residing in our hearts and personally takes the trouble to direct us to our spiritual master.
Even before we take to Krishna consciousness, Krishna is residing in the heart waiting for us to realize that our real happiness is in relating to Him rather than this external energy.
So, Krishna considers us significant, important, etc.
When Gopa Kumar finally goes back to Krishnaloka, Krishna faints in ecstasy upon receiving him. Even Krishna’s associates can not understand what is going on.
Krishna feels the same way about us.
There is an interesting statement in the Isopanisad (Mantra 6):
“He who sees systematically everything in relation to the Supreme Lord, who sees all living entities as His parts and parcels, and who sees the Supreme Lord within everything never hates anything or any being.”
So we are parts and parcels of Krishna. Therefore we should not hate ourselves. On the other hand since we are supposed to love Krishna we should love all his parts and parcels and that includes ourselves too!
What does that mean, to love oneself?
It means to picture or visualize or imagine how you want to be. Forget about all the negativity; whether the negativity comes from yourself or from others.
If you think negatively that is what you are meditating on and those thoughts will impede your spiritual life.
Here are some things you can think about:
1. Radha and Krishna love me and want me to be with Them in the spiritual world!
2. Taking care of my spiritual needs will not impede my spiritual progress
3. Taking care of my material needs will not impede my spiritual progress
4. I am an eternal soul, full of bliss and knowledge!
5. I have an eternal relationship with Radha and Krishna and will realize this relationship.
And don’t remain in a situation where others are denigrating you. You owe it to yourself and to Krishna to reject situations that are unfavorable for Krishna consciousness and accept favorable situations. Have positive spiritual self-esteem!
It is not mayato take what we need in our Krishna conscious lives. It is not maya to find the proper situation in our Krishna conscious lives to make the best offering of ourselves. It is not mayato have a positive sense of self-esteem to ourselves in our Krishna conscious lives. Again, I feel very strongly that this is common sense, but sometimes it can be quite difficult to discern, either from our own perspective or within the expectations of our community, what we really need to be healthy and happy as a devotee.
We may fear that by taking what we need, we may take too much, and cross that fine line into selfishness based on sense gratification. What is essential for us, and which strikes at the heart of the need for healthy community, is having guides who we can trust, who are very attentive, introspective, and progressive, and who can help us to strike the balance between need and sacrifice in our lives.
Ultimately we have to, as the saying goes, “fly our own planes.” This is not to say that we become bereft or aloof of relationships to authorities in our lives, but that we must also develop a sufficient sense of self-discernment. We have to know, in the fiber of our being, in the shape of our consciousness on a everyday level, when a mood of indulgence may be taking us away from our sadhanaand service. This may be a mood of indulgence in our bad habits and illusions. It may also be a mood of indulgence in trying to fulfill the unrealistic and impersonal demands of the devotees in our community.
We have to learn to give ourselves the time of day. If we are just jumping all over the place, trying to be selfless, we may become resentful, because we have deprived ourselves of our needs. If we don't fulfill our real needs, then we set up ourselves to fall back into these patterns of indulgence again and again.
If we can just see the good we have in ourselves, and addressing our relevant needs both material and spiritual will help us do that, then we will be more willing, and be more able, to make sacrifices and to enter into that mysterious realm of surrender. As HH Sacinandana Swami often quotes, from the mind of famed French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery: "If you want to build a boat, don't just drum up people together to collect wood and assign tasks. Teach people to long for the endless immensity of the sea."
