Today, during a Zoom call, I was in the illustrious company of our leaders. I offered them my praises. They were mostly younger than me, the next generation who believe in book marathons, and have just completed one in December into early January. The books are of a revolutionary kind, in terms of altering consciousness.
The focus during that period of time was predominantly on the sponsoring and disbursement of Bhagavad-Gita’s. To accomplish this all involved worked very hard. In addition to expressing gratitude people on the call took turns reporting and conveying various techniques and practices for more effective ways of reaching out to a public that is receptive. Overall, it was meaningful sangha, as we say, a gathering, on a virtual level.
My second Zoom for the day was with family. Yes, I have five siblings and we like each other. Our conversation was less spiritual and yet not mundane. We kept it light enough. It was a sharing of our past as well as dreams of the future. Surely, we captured moments of the present; which is always pertinent.
I’m not a passionate lover of modern technical ways but I can appreciate the efficiency and utility of it at times. Technology is what it is — a vehicle or instrument. It should be used to bring about cohesion and enlightenment amongst us.
We do observe that many people exploit the good of it, which is sad.
Washington, DC -- Ever since the inauguration of President George Washington, the first American President, every four years the inauguration of the new, or re-elected, US President has been accompanied by an interfaith prayer service. This year’s service, recognizing the inauguration of the new US President, Joe Biden, will as always, include a variety of religious leaders. In addition, for the first time it will also include a representative of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).
There are some experiences in life that leave a deep impact on our consciousness. They are the life-changing instances that set an example for others. Here I am going to share the life story of an uncle of mine. Adorned with white turban carrying a medium height my GuruSikh uncle wore a serene though stern look. In all a simple man he was. My childhood memories are filled with beautiful pastimes in a very small town few miles away from the holy city of Amritsar in India. Continue reading "Fortunate Soul: ‘My Uncle’ → Dandavats"
Washington, DC — Ever since the inauguration of President George Washington, the first American President, every four years the inauguration of the new, or re-elected, US President has been accompanied by an interfaith prayer service. This year’s service, recognizing the inauguration of the new US President, Joe Biden, will as always, include a variety of […]
Anuttama Dasa, ISKCON’s Minister of Communications, will join with Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Muslims, Native Americans, and representatives of other faith traditions in a Presidential Inaugural Prayer Service that includes prayers, readings, hymns and blessings.
Hanuman.org is intended to be the premier children’s website based on the adventures of the monkey hero Hanuman. The site offers stories, games, and community service projects, for children 6-12 years old.Read More...
Mayapur Institute Bhakti Sastri Courses announces new Online Bhakti Sastri Courses for the year 2021 from 23rd January. Details are as follows: Batch 1: *Jan 23, from 7 AM IST* Batch 2: *Feb 27 , from 10 AM IST* Batch 3: *Mar 20, from 12 Noon IST* Batch 4: *Apr 24, from 2 PM IST* […]
It is 3:10 a.m. on the 16th and I’ve had my sleep and shower. I opened the window to welcome in the air with much prana, then sat down to compose another poem as a tribute to Esa Khalief, now departed, who, in many ways, was like a son to me. Before I wrap up a little about yesterday, I’m sharing my tribute in words to him. Bless you, Esa.
Esa
Esa, you’re gone, but you aren’t really
You’re simply moving on for a healing
It’s service you became acquainted with
The rewards as such are clearly no myth
You spent much time where prasadam was made
For that you’ll jump up to a higher grade
You trekked a holy trail at a very good pace
With conviction and purpose all over your face
Perhaps walking was your actual calling
As natural as found any baby’s crawling
While on that trek you held on to your beads
Knowing that chanting is the most noble of deeds
In your tasks you embraced a sense of duty
Just as in you’re rich, resonant voice that there was beauty
In reflection of this young man, I ambled along a row of sycamore trees acknowledging how great they are. Every person who comes to this world appears, stands by, contributes something and moves on. Each soul adds grace like the trees.
It appears to be the month of death. Not Covid related, however, another case of someone I know passing, was a young man from Philly who gave up his life — suddenly. I got to know him on my walk across the U.S. He joined me at a few spots on the east coast. It rather choked me up to hear about his ending.
After some time of grievance (it hit hard for a few hours) I thought less about the loss and his challenged upbringing. Rather, I focused more on his positive contribution. A man with a big heart who gave much time in the preparation of prasadam, is to his credit. Then he became, at least for some time, a walker. He did so with incredible conviction. There was an outward solitude to him. He was a real trooper as we sauntered along busy roads through New Jersey. He was tireless in his execution of walking.
His name is Esa and he won my admiration. May Krishna have his merciful glance on him and take Esa with Him. I was happy to know him. After having him with me for some days I had anticipated that we would journey together again at some time in the future. My prayers go to him. Like so many of us, Esa was influenced positively by our guru, Prabhupada. I hope Esa will have the opportunity to walk with a pure soul in the spiritual world.
In reflecting on the various walking partners that accompanied me on marathons, I feel they are all special people; some ventured through life on both smooth and rough trails.
I have been in touch with my sister, Rose Ann, who just lost her husband who was struggling with cancer. Jim Burgess was an amiable person. I don’t know where he stood on spirituality but he did live on a plant-based diet. Below is my poem about Jim:
One of my main inspirations behind the walking daily is our guru, Srila Prabhupada himself. The Jewish doctor, who came to diagnosed him when he had heart palpitations, in New York on Memorial Day weekend, prescribed walking. That’s how the program began. And that’s how I justify my doing it.
As long as there is no complete curfew, and walking to exercise is permitted, during this pandemic, I will take advantage of that. When the sun shines, I catch vitamin D, however, at night fewer people are about. While carefully roaming I encountered three areas where exercise was being taken very seriously, without walking, at night. College Park, Ramsden Park and Ryerson Campus were abuzz with people on skates.
Oh yes!
Skating was something I really had a problem with when young — I just didn’t have the ankle strength — but regular walking helped. So, there I was at the Ryerson rink, keeping a careful distance from skaters, envying the guys and gals who smoothly glided along on sharp blades. Oops! One guy fell after a faulty twirl. He just got back up and continued on.
I was really appreciating how these folks were building up their physicality in the face of Covid times.
I’m not sure if Prabhupada ever saw people moving on skates. In 1965 he saw his first snow in New York, let alone ice. If he did, I’m sure he was fascinated by how people adjust through different climatic conditions. He was born in 1896, so in his time he had lived through pandemics, two world wars, the depression and the partition with Hindu/Muslim riots. He had seen a lot and saw how people had to learn to adjust during dark times.
Much has been said about Prabhupada’s visionary leadership and scholarship in bringing India’s authentic culture, civilization, philosophy, and practice to the Western world. But very little is said about his vision for the future of the world as seen through the lens of science. In this post, I will try to capture his three big ideas (as I understand them), in the reverse order of greatness (from my perspective).
Science-Religion Antipathy
Scientific people the world over shy away from religion. They think that religion is based on faith, while science is based on reason and observation, so religion has nothing to say about the natural world.
The most charitable opinion about religion among scientists is that religion pertains to the soul and God, while science pertains to matter, so, religion would have almost nothing to say on scientific matters. The charitable opinions accept that religion is about a world beyond this one, and science is about this world, so religion must largely be irrelevant to the endeavors of the study of the natural world.
Religions too, by and large, conform to this view imputed upon them by science. Most religious people believe that by its difference in goals (the other world, rather than this world), religion should not want to involve with science. By the difference in methodology (faith, as opposed to reason and experience), religion is incapable of involving with science, even if it wanted to. And by a difference in subject matter (soul and God, rather than matter), religion cannot involve itself with science.
The most charitable view of this engagement with science, in the minds of religious people, is that it is a waste of time. That we must be preoccupied with transcendence, and not with the mundane world.
Thus, both science and religion largely agree upon each other’s roles in our lives. Science, it is generally accepted, will determine the public sphere which must be conducted using reason and observation. Religion, on the other hand, can determine the private sphere, such as marriage, property inheritance, and one’s method and style of worship based on their beliefs. This private-public separation was the “peace deal” brokered between Christianity and science, at the rise of European Enlightenment. It led to the separation of the Church from the state, the separation of mind and body in our lives, and the institutional separation of religion and science—science owns the body and religion owns the mind. Thereafter, it is religious heresy if you question the scriptures based on scientific evidence, and it is scientific heresy if you bring matters of soul and God, or other religious ideas, within science.
In the last 50 years, there have been some attempts to revise this “peace deal” between Christianity and science by saying that it did not include the Eastern religions, so we might look East and revise the peace deal. But all revisionist attempts have failed due to two reasons: (1) Christianity had undermined the Eastern religious systems through colonization, and they do not want a revision, and (2) scientists steeped in their conventional thinking are unable to grasp the significance of Eastern ideas. For example, even as the value of meditation and breath control is accepted today, it is not mainstream science. Medical schools don’t teach meditation and breath control; they teach anatomy, surgery, and drugs. Most people take to such alternatives only if the mainstream things are not working for them.
Krishna Consciousness is a Science
The situation was not better at Prabhupada’s time, and although hippies were experimenting with psychedelic drugs, claiming that there was more to this world than what we are taught through modern science and religions, everyone knew that their long-term effects were generally very harmful.
So, to wean away people from these habits, to give them an alternative culture and philosophy, was itself a huge step. Others would not dare to pick up the gloves and prepare for a conflict with science.
And yet, Prabhupada was not afraid to challenge the Moon landings, saying that the Moon was a heavenly planet, so you cannot go there in the present body. He was not afraid to challenge evolution, or the idea that humans have evolved from apes, or that life was comprised of chemicals. None of the yogis dared to challenge mainstream Western culture. They were merely trying to “fit in”, trying to mix whatever they knew with Western psychology, and a more “secular” Westernized practice of yoga. But Prabhupada ridiculed everything that he found to be inconsistent with Krishna consciousness.
To his disciples, he so often would say “Krishna consciousness is a science” meaning that it was amenable to rational inquiry, and that religion without a profound understanding was merely sentiment—hinting at the fact that this wasn’t yet another faith-based religion. That it had to be understood, and those who understood it were superior to those who did not. This idea has a history in the fact that bhakti or devotion to God has been criticized in India as sentimentalism. The impersonal philosophers have argued that they are superior to the devotees because the devotees are engaged in sentimental worship. This criticism is not very different from the one used by science against religion in the West; we just need to substitute “faith” with “sentimentalism”. But for Prabhupada, devotion was “scientific”. Indeed, he would invite intelligent people to study, understand, and analyze religion.
He wasn’t merely saying that we should study science to answer their questions. He was saying that scientists should study our religion. I cannot find a single instance in the entire recorded history after the advent of science where a religious person would invite a scientist to analyze the scriptures. The religious people already know that their books will not stand the scrutiny of a scientific inquiry. But Prabhupada was confident that a sincere and unbiased inquiry would affirm the scriptural truth.
Many people offer platitudes about religion being a science, but never do anything about it. Prabhupada set up a “Bhaktivedanta Institute” to present the “science of Krishna consciousness”. One of its goals was to teach scriptural knowledge in a “scientific manner”. In his own words, “the content would not be different from the temples, but the presentation would be scientific”. One of the educational programs that Prabhupada approved for the Institute was the offering of Bachelors, Masters, and Doctorate degrees based on Bhagavad-Gita, Śrīmad Bhagavatam, and Chaitanya Charitamrita, respectively.
The nature of material elements, the transmigration of the soul, the process of transition to heavenly planets, the laws of morality or karma, the structure of the universe, the nature of the soul and God, the different forms of God, and how some love of God is superior to others were all “scientific” topics. Chaitanya Charitamrita—as it describes the highest aspects of God’s person—was not outside scientific education. Rather, it was to be the subject of scientific research during a Ph.D. program. Barring Prabhupada, I don’t know of anyone who thinks that the soul and God are “scientific” topics.
Thus, everything from material elements to God’s personality is a scientific topic. This is such a radical idea, that I don’t know of anyone who is able to ingest, let alone digest, assimilate, circulate, and transform it into an expression. Personally, I think it is a testimony to Prabhupada’s extent of God realization. Only a person who sees something intimately can claim it to be amenable scientifically—i.e. experience and reason.
For example, for a long time prior to the advent of modern medicine, it was thought that the human body cannot be studied scientifically. The human body was a “living force” and it was only a chance detection of Uric Acid synthesis that changed people’s mind—if the urine from the body has the same chemical that we can synthesize in the lab, then life can also be studied scientifically. Similarly, Galileo and Newton were able to formulate theories after they observed planets though a telescope. Before that, the “heavens” were beyond the reach of anybody’s understanding or rational inquiry.
Therefore, intimacy with the object of study is essential to claim that it can be studied scientifically. And the person who makes such claims is necessarily intimate. Others, who are distant from a subject, can only accept it on faith, and say that it cannot be studied scientifically, because they are distant from it. In a sense, one’s ability to perform this scientific study of God requires intimacy with the object of study. It isn’t outside science, but it is outside science for those who don’t know the subject intimately.
Use Science to Prove God
Most religious people are comfortable just seeking peace with the scientist. They don’t want the scientist accusing them of being irrational or sentimental. Some cultures and religions also want to co-opt modern science by either saying that they invented parts of it, or they created the conditions of freedom and choice that culminated in scientific inquiry, or that they had invented things that others used to invent other things, or that many scientists in the past were also highly religious people.
Prabhupada had no such insecurities. He did not seek a scientist’s approval. He did not need to justify what good may or may not have happened in the past. He would nod approvingly if a scientist would appreciate God’s role in the creation, but then he wasn’t content with it. He would turn around and say: If you are intelligent, if you have some knowledge, then use it to prove God using your science. In other words, it wasn’t enough to appreciate God in front of a devotee; it had to be proven, demonstrated, and upheld in the public’s eye, and being able to do that was the proof of that person’s intellect.
The subtext of that exhortation was that if you cannot use science to prove God, then you are not truly a scientist. You are not very bright and intelligent, and you don’t truly understand nature’s working. Unlike most religious people who are uncomfortable with science, and seek peace, approval, and recognition from a scientist, Prabhupada would make his position the standard for approving the scientist. If you can prove God using science, then you are a scientist and your knowledge is valid, otherwise not.
Prabhupada was so confident of his position that one time he quoted a Bengali proverb, which says: “Using your mortar and pestle, I’m going to break your teeth”. In short, we can use science to disprove its materialism, atheism, evolutionism, determinism, etc., those very things that seem to give modern science its “teeth” against religious claims. This is a big idea, because nobody that I know of, has had the audacity to say that science can be overhauled using religious ideas. Also, nobody that I know of, believes that God’s existence can be proven from purely rational and empirical science.
The best current argument in support of this idea is the Fine-Tuning Design Argument, and it claims that the constants of nature (such as the Planck’s constant, Boltzmann’s constant, speed of light, Gravitational constant, etc.) are so finely tuned for life to arise, that they must have been tuned by God. But according to Sañkhya philosophy, all these constants operate on physical properties such as mass, charge, temperature, etc. which aren’t real; the real properties are taste, touch, sound, sight, and smell. Similarly, the idea that the world is governed by mathematical laws is also false because it is governed by demigods. Whatever order we see in nature is because these governors are responsible and rational, rather than freewheeling, whimsical, autocratic, or arbitrary rulers. If we reject the Fine-Tuning Design Argument (which, by the way, is widely accepted to be the best argument for God’s existence in modern science), then the idea that science can be used to prove God’s existence would turn out to be a false claim.
Again, this is where intimacy with a subject is important. Prabhupada had such a deep understanding of matter that he would write things like: (a) forms exist in the ether from which the gross world springs, (b) the planets are hanging off the pole star through “ropes of wind”, (c) with the advancement of science we will one day be able to communicate with Vaikunṭha, (d) space and time are correlative terms (i.e. they cannot be truly separated), and (e) space and time were related to atomism.
I did not understand any of these things when I began studying this subject. But today I understand how everything that Prabhupada wrote about matter is scientifically accurate. There is an ether or absolute space, different from relative space, but it is the space of possibilities, which comprises ‘forms’ from which the observations spring. This is the world that is poorly studied in atomic theory. The world of observations spring from this ether because of interactions between the possibilities due to prana (which Prabhupada also notes in his purport on these forms). The cause of the changes in this ether is time, so prana moves due to time, and the problems of this change are such that space cannot exist without time, and time cannot exist without space, so they are ‘correlative’ terms. If this interaction is properly understood, then the relativistic space and its properties such as length contraction and time dilation are easily explained. Prabhupada had the vision to use terms like “Causal Time” which is different from “parametric time”, because causality is not in matter but in time, as a result of which all the mathematical laws of nature are false, because they are the laws of matter causing change, when the change is caused by time. Prabhupada had sophisticated terms like “modes of nature” for the three guna of prakriti, and this is a radical scientific idea that nature cannot be known completely in a single observation; it must be known alternately through different perspectives, and each perspective is a different mode of knowing. This means that in each situation we will observe some limited facts, and provide a limited interpretation, but ultimately, we will be unable to reconcile these interpretations in a conventional logic. He had sophisticated counterintuitive logics to explain this problem, such as God is everything, but everything is not God—a blatant violation of the principle of identity in logic.
Again, Prabhupada believed that God will emerge out of science, because he knew matter better than any scientist on the planet. He saw things that nobody is seeing and based on what he was seeing, he was writing his purports explaining these complex ideas and telling his followers to present them. Only a person who intimately knows the nature of matter can say that even if you study matter deeply, you will come to the same conclusion. He would say: Go on studying deeper, deeper, and ultimately you will find God. In short, you don’t have to go to the other world to know what God is. You can also go deeper in this world, and by going deeper you will find the same truth as you find in the other world.
This is, of course, a very profound idea in Vedic philosophy, namely, that God is not just transcendent; He is also immanent. The transcendent form of God is called Bhagavan, and His immanent form is called Paramatma. These two forms are related as an idea is related to its symbol or representation. But nobody that I know of, truly believes that we can find God by studying matter. Prabhupada did. He wasn’t teaching anything anomalous. He was just teaching a deep realization about matter.
Engage with Scientists
Prabhupada had a very peculiar idea about engaging with the scientific world. For example, at Harvard University, he asked: Where is the department of the soul? This is surprising because other religions have previously established academic institutions to study subjects other than the soul. For example, there are Pontifical Academies dedicated to natural sciences, social sciences, life sciences, etc. But Prabhupada wasn’t talking about a department of economics, a department of biology, a department of physics, and so on. Just the department of the soul. This is a big idea because everything in Vedic philosophy is a soul. God is a soul, matter is a soul, and the individual living entity is a soul. If we can study the science of the soul, then we can influence every other department of knowledge.
The term ‘soul’ can be used specifically to indicate the living entity, as it is in most cases. But the ‘atma’ is not merely the living entity. God is also an atma, and the material energy and spiritual energies are also atma. All these atma have the same three fundamental qualities of sat, chit, and ananda. Owing to this fact, the Śuddhadvaita interpretation of Vedanta Sutra says that the soul and God are qualitatively identical. In short, if you know yourself, then you also understand God, matter, and vice versa. Therefore, the term atma is also used generically to describe ‘consciousness’ or all living entities.
The soul is a monolith for mostly everyone. Nobody studies the details of this monolith. But the three aspects of the soul are the causes of everything that we see. Again, as I have tried to apply this idea, I have found that all complexities of nature can be explained in terms of these three ideas, which I call relation, cognition, and emotion. It doesn’t matter whether we are studying economics, or sociology, or psychology, or linguistics, or physics, or mathematics. These three aspects are sufficient to study every subject. And none of these aspects can be neglected in any study, therefore, they are also necessary.
Over the years, as I have applied Prabhupada’s ideas to science, I have realized that the best way to describe matter is to describe it as a soul. The material nature, or prakriti, is a conscious person, and every ingredient in material nature—such as the mind, the senses, and their objects—is as much present in the spiritual world, and in God’s person, as they are present in this world. There is nothing called “matter”. Even the material energy is a form of consciousness. Matter and spirit are different only in the types of desires they harbor and not separate as “mind and matter” in Western thinking are.
All problems of modern academic inquiry arise when: (1) one or more of the aspects is neglected, or (2) when these aspects are impersonalized and depersonalized. For example, a soul relates to other souls through its consciousness or sat. But this relation also redefines the soul as a parent, child, brother, sister, employer, employee, etc. Similarly, the relation doesn’t exist universally; it is always invoked selectively both in a space and time sense—we relate to some entities in space, and we interact with these selected entities sometimes. Modern physics studies this relation as “physical force” and thereby universalizes it across space and time. As a result, it cannot explain how physical entities are “entangled” by a relation, how we are defined by our social connections, how our duties change as the contextual relations change, etc. Since the relation is universalized in physics, so it is also universalized in economics, sociology, and psychology. Linguistics cannot understand contextual meanings, and hence computers are Universal Turing Machines rather than Contextual Turing Machines. A simple problem of relationality pervades all of science.
Similar kinds of problems arise when the chit or the cognitive capacity and ananda or the emotive capacity are misunderstood. Modern science, for example assumes that all cognition must be of physical properties like mass and charge, rather than of taste, touch, smell, sound, and sight. Thus, we lose the ability to ascribe meanings to things, and a symbolic world of meanings is transformed into a world of physical objects. Likewise, when the ananda is not understood, then everything becomes purposeless. Then, nature has no goal, therefore, why our senses are attracted to their objects is inexplicable. If we cannot understand how sensual desire arises, then we cannot understand how to control the senses. As a result, we are reduced to animals and automatons who cannot but help enjoy recklessly.
Prabhupada’s idea of engaging with scientists was about explaining the nature of the soul, and how they can study their subjects better by applying the ideas about the soul in their universities and their departments. He wasn’t thinking that his followers would be the only change agents in the world. Rather, if the right ideas were mainstreamed in academia, then the academics can advance the cause of Krishna consciousness, without being directly affiliated with the Krishna consciousness movement. In effect, the knowledge was not limited to some institutions that he had initiated. These institutions were only catalysts for kickstarting the socializing process, but every department of education in the world can also take these ideas for advancing the understanding of economics, sociology, psychology, biology, physics, chemistry, and mathematics. Such pragmatic things must exist in this world. But who is going to do the right type of economics, sociology, psychology, biology, physics, chemistry, and mathematics? Unless people know how to do these subjects, they will only produce misleading theories.
And thus arose the mechanism of going from college to college, university to university, conference to conference, where other people talk their stuff, and the devotees will present the ‘atma paradigm’ of sociology, psychology, biology, physics, chemistry, and mathematics. You cannot obviously go to an academic conference and talk about religion. You will be kicked out of the conference, and never invited again. You must talk about the subject for which the conference is meant. And that entails presenting the same technical subject in a new way, creating new insights, and reformulating the subject.
The Execution Fails the Vision
Ultimately, the ideas are only as good as the execution. But the ideas are better than the current execution because they can be used to improve the execution. Each of Prabhupada’s big ideas about science have never seen the light of the day. In my writing, I have tried to implement each of these three ideas, but with very limited success, partly because the ideas are so big that they are not understood, not popularized, and generally not adopted due to other prevailing ideas which arise only because people are not intimate with God, not intimate with Nature, and not intimate with themselves.
If either of these intimacies were established, one of these three visions will naturally become powerful. If we become intimate with God, then we can say that Krishna consciousness is a science. If we become intimate with Nature, then we can say that science can be used to prove God. And if we become intimate with ourselves, then we can transform the system of education with an ‘atma paradigm’.
There is a profound science that lies ahead of us, but we don’t think it is a science because we are not intimate with God, Nature, or the self. We are wasting our time with superficial trivialities, and thereby wasting our lives. If you happen to read this long post, please consider becoming intimate with God, Nature, or yourself, and understand the subject so deeply that you can say: “this is a science”. It doesn’t matter which one of the three you understand first, because if you understand one of them, then you will understand all of them. It is not possible that you understand one subject and not the others.
A devotee of the Lord therefore knows the Lord, Nature, and the self perfectly. A perfect scientist will also know Nature, himself, and God perfectly. And a meditator who has understood the self perfectly, will also understand the Lord and Nature perfectly. These are non-negotiable standards. And we can also use them to judge the quality of a devotee, a scientist, or a meditator. If they fail any of these three tests, then they fail all the tests. And if they pursue any of these properly, they will find all of them. Hence, each process—whether it is jnana-yoga, karma-yoga, dhyana-yoga, or bhakti-yoga—is perfect. But some process is more suitable for some people, while another process is suitable for others. The result of these processes is the same—a perfect understanding of the Lord, the self, and Nature. If any of these three are not perfectly understood, then the process has failed, or remains incomplete.
Of course, the general recommendation of Vedic scriptures is to practice all of them with bhakti-yoga as the focus because God is the source of both the soul and Nature. God is also the source of the spiritual world. Therefore, extraordinary progress is made when God is understood. The process of bhakti-yoga is also simple because God becomes our guide, mentor, and the inspiration within the heart.
But we must understand that the goal is the perfect understanding of God, Nature, and the self. It is not merely the understanding of the self without God, or God without the self and Nature, or any of these exclusionary pretentious ideas, which are propagated by those who are neither close to God, nor self, nor Nature. If we have clarity on the goal, and the methods to achieve that goal, then we can progress.
If we can understand Prabhupada’s grand vision for science, and how science arises with intimacy, and increases intimacy, then we can see that his is not a sectarian vision. It includes everything and everyone, and it is meant for everything and everyone. I therefore request the readers to make this their priority, and teach this knowledge as a science, and not as a faith or sentimentality.
For more information about the author visit his website: www.ashishdalela.com. Visit this page to see books by the author.
Despite worldly events, pandemics, political upheavals, etc. the TOVP is still rising by the hands of every devotee. We are scheduled now to open in 2023, and with the Lord’s help this will be successfully accomplished.
This year, 2021, is the 125th Appearance Anniversary Year of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, 1896-2021. And two very special events are planned for October, 2021: the installation of the new Prabhupada murti in the TOVP, and the offering of the Book of Devotion. Both are historic events which will herald the opening of the temple in 2023 and the relocation of Their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Madhava, Sri Pancha Tattva and Sri Nrsimha into Their new home.
To celebrate this grand installation ceremony we encourage every single devotee in ISKCON, young or old, to participate by sponsoring an abhisheka. There are 6 options to choose from according to your means, and our combined Guru Dakshina offering goal to Srila Prabhupada is $1 million.
General Donors: www.tovp.org
Canada Donors: www.tovpcanada.org
UK and Europe Donors: Sukanti Radha dasi tovpuk@gmail.com or www.tovp.org
Russia Donors: www.tovp.org/ru/ or narayaniradha.jps@gmail.com
Ukraine Donors: Gopi Nandini dasi hornetf18@mail.ru
I am extremely delighted to present to you the very first edition of our monthly Kirtan Ministry Newsletter. In this newsletter, you will find activities that have taken place, upcoming events, inspirational moments, japa affirmation, interesting facts and much more. This introductory edition covers events and activities that took place from December 2020, as well as some events in January 2021 and we sincerely hope you enjoy reading it. The Kirtan Ministry and ISKCON centres around the world ushered in the new year with chanting and kirtan.
I am extremely delighted to present to you the very first edition of our monthly Kirtan Ministry Newsletter. In this newsletter, you will find activities that have taken place, upcoming events, inspirational moments, japa affirmation, interesting facts and much more. This introductory edition covers events and activities that took place from December 2020, as well as some events in January 2021 and we sincerely hope you enjoy reading it. The Kirtan Ministry and ISKCON centres around the world ushered in the new year with chanting and kirtan.
The Monk's Podcast with Krishna Kshetra Maharaja. Krishna Kshetra Swami – teacher, writer, and traveler – is a disciple of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).
The Monk's Podcast with Krishna Kshetra Maharaja. Krishna Kshetra Swami – teacher, writer, and traveler – is a disciple of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).
Shri Jagadish Pandit took birth in Gohati. His father’s name was Shri Kamalaksha Bhatta, and he was the son of Bhatta Narayana. Jagadish Pandit’s father and mother were both great devotees of Lord Vishnu.
After they passed away, Jagadish Pandit, along with his wife, went to live near the Ganges. Jagadish Pandit’s wife was named Dukhini Devi. Jagadish Pandit’s younger brother, Mahesh Pandit also wanted to live near the Ganges, and so he accompanied them on their journey. They moved nearby the house of Shri Jagannatha Mishra, in Mayapura.
In Bhaktivinod Thakur’s Anubhashya commentary on Caitanya Caritamrita, (CC Adi 11.30) there is further information about Jagadish Pandit: “He lived in the village of Yashora Gram in the district of Nadia near the Chakadoha railway station.
Shri Gaurasundara ordered Jagadish Pandit to preach the glories of the holy name of Krishna in Jagannatha Puri. On the order of Mahaprabhu, he went to Puri and there, taking permission from Lord Jagannatha, brought a Shri Murti of Jagannatha back to Yashora Grama, where the deity was installed. It is said that Jagadish Pandit carried him on a stick. At present the stick used to bear the Jagannatha deity by Jagadish Pandit is on display at the Jagannatha temple in Yashora Gram.”
Shri Gaurasundara and Shri Nityananda Prabhu used to visit Yashora Gram from time to time and hold sankirtan festivals. Shri Jagadish Pandit had a son named Ramabhadra Goswami. At the temple in Yashora Grama there are deities of Jagannatha Dev, Shri Radha-Vallabha, and Gaura Gopal.
It is said that the Gaura Gopal deities were installed by Jagadish Pandit’s wife, Dukhini Devi. The Gaura Gopal deities are a yellow color. It is said that once, after holding a festival at the house of Jagadish Pandit for many days, Shri Gaurasundara was about to depart for Puri.
Jagadish Pandit’s wife was overwhelmed with the pain of separation. At that time, Shri Gaurasundara gave her the Gaura Gopal murtis, saying, “I shall live eternally in your home in my deity form.” The Gaura Gopal murtis have been worshiped ever since that time.
According to the Gaura-Ganoddesh Dipika: “Some say that in Krishna-lila Jagadish Pandita and Hiranya were formerly the nagapatnis, wives of the serpent Kaliya. Others, however, are of the opinion that Jagadish Pandit was formerly a dancer named Chandrahas. They say that just as Chandrahas used to take pleasure in dancing before Lord Krishna, Jagadish Pandit used to enjoy dancing in the sankirtan party of Shri Chaitanya.”
On the Passing of Bhakta Esa Khalief January 14, 2021 Dear ISKCON Family, Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. We are shocked and saddened by the sudden demise of our beloved friend and resident member, Esa Khalief, on January 14, 2021, at ISKCON Gita Nagari. Many of us are […]
When I became of age, 18 years old, I joined the temple in Paris, France while traveling with my childhood friend, who also joined at the same time and she became Kanti & that was in 1973. Initiated by Srila Prabhupada in 1974 & brahmin initiation in 1975 Vrindavan.
“At every home, every family, you can sit down together at the end of their work and simply question about Krsna and try to understand the answers. The books are already there. Answers are already there. So this is our Krsna consciousness movement.” Srila Prabhupada Lecture -- Jakarta, 27 February 1973
Because of constant rain sent by the demigod Indra, the River Yamunā was filled with deep water, foaming about with fiercely whirling waves. But as the great Indian Ocean had formerly given way to Lord Rāmacandra by allowing Him to construct a bridge, the River Yamunā gave way to Vasudeva and allowed him to cross.
Appearing as the nephew of Sri Rupa and Sanatana Goswamis, Sri Jiva Goswami displayed all the charming features of a mahapurusa. He had lotus eyes, a high nose and forehead, broad chest, long arms, and a radiant golden body.
In his boyhood he made a Deity of Krishna-Balarama. Expressing his pure devotion, he would often cry while worshiping Them. After offering clothes, candana, flowers, ornaments, and tasty sweets to Krishna-Balarama he would take some and give maha-prasadam to his playmates. From the beginning Jiva showed his kindness to other jivas. Jiva was so much attached to Krishna-Balarama that at bedtime he would embrace his Deities and fall asleep. His parents thought he was only playing. But the villagers rejoiced to see Jiva’s love for Krishna-Balarama.
In school he quickly mastered Sanskrit grammar, poetry, logic, philosophy. Srimad Bhagavatam gave life to his life. Knshna-katha filled him with happiness. No one dared to speak to him about anything but Krishna. He toured Navadvipa-dhama with Sri Nityananda Prabhu, studied Sanskrit in Benares, and then resided in Vrndavana. After humbly serving Sri Rupa Gosvami by washing his feet, preparing his manuscripts, and editing his books he received diksa.
After the disappearance of Sri Rupa and Sri Sanatana Gos-vamis, Sri Jiva Gosvami became the Gaudiya Sampradayacarya to guide all Vaisnavas in Navadvipa, Vrndavana, Jagannatha Puri. Although he was the undisputed leader, he always acted as a humble servant of all the jivas. Whenever Bengali Vaisnavas visited Vrndavana he would lovingly receive them, arrange for prasadam and comfortable rooms, an even guide them on Vraja mandala parikrama.
A superexcellent Sanskrit scholar, Sri Jiva Gosvami would compose Sanskrit verses in his mind and write them down without changing anything. Write them down means he used a metal stylus to permanently etch them in palm leaves. This inscription method left no room for erasing, editing, rewriting, or running a spell-check. Yet, each verse was a priceless gem of perfect meter, rhythm, poetry, and meaning. He was the greatest philosopher in all of Indian history. Contemporary Sankritists call him the greatest scholar who ever lived.
At the request of Acaryarani Jahnava Devi Thakurani, Sri Jiva Gosvami had Srinivasa Acarya, Narottama Dasa Thakura, Syamananda Prabhu take the Gosvami’s writings from Vrndavana to Bengal. They translated them into Bengali and distributed them throughout Bengal and Orissa.
They also preached extensively and initiated hundreds of devotees. In 1542, Sri Jiva Gosvami established the worship Sri-Sri Radha-Damodara in Seva Kunja, Vrndavana. His samadhi stands in the temple compound. Sri Jiva Gosvami is Vilasa-manjari in Radha-Damodara’s nitya Vrndavana lila.
Diary of a Traveling Sadhaka, Vol. 17, No. 1 By Krishna Kripa Das (January 2021, part one) New York City and Orlando (Sent from Orlando on January 16, 2021)
Where I Went and What I Did
I continued staying at Radha Govinda Temple in New York City and assisting Rama Raya Prabhu with his NYC Harinam party, chanting several hours of Hare Krishna in public every day once I recovered my health on January 3. Then on January 13, I traveled to Orlando, where I joined a party of Krishna House devotees, many I knew from before, who are doing outreach at University of Central Florida.
I share many amazing quotes from Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Srimad-Bhagavatam, and Sri Isopanisad. I share a quote by Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. I share excerpts from the writings of Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami. I share notes on lectures at ISKCON NYC by Candrasekhara Swami, Hansarupa Prabhu, Rama Raya Prabhu, Hari Vilasa Prabhu, and Ananda Kirtan Prabhu. Thanks to Janardana Prabhu for the slogan that he shared on Facebook that has a nice Krishna conscious purport.
Thanks to Hansarupa Prabhu and his staff for facilitating my stay in ISKCON New York City. Thanks to Rama Raya Prabhu for allowing me to spend four months on his NYC Harinam party. Thanks to Lila Manjari Devi Dasi for her kind donation. Thanks to Kaliya Krishna Prabhu for taking the videos and photos in New York with me in them. Thanks to Amrita for taking the videos at UCF. Thanks to Alex for the lift to JFK and to Jeremiah for the lift from Orlando International Airport to ISKCON Orlando.
Itinerary
January 13–January 26: Orlando harinamas and college outreach January 26–February ?: Gainesville harinama and Bhaktivedanta Institute work February ?–April 5: Tallahasseeharinamas and college outreach
Chanting Hare Krishna in New York City
I would lead the kirtan for half an hour or forty-five minutes usually, and the rest of the time I would distribute “On Chanting Hare Krishna” and often dance.
Ananta Vallabha Prabhu, visiting from Krishna House in Gainesville, chants Hare Krishna in Downtown Manhattan (https://youtu.be/KQPddGA6Kwg):
Ananda Kirtan Prabhu, visiting from Los Angeles, chants Hare Krishna in Downtown Manhattan (https://youtu.be/X1lWhTkSEqc):
Natabara Gauranga Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Midtown Manhattan, a lady dances, and another lady takes an “On Chanting Hare Krishna” pamphlet (https://youtu.be/E4uTDoPGh4s):
Ananta Vallabha Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Queens, and people play instruments, dance, and take videos (https://youtu.be/rf89_0bF7Bs):
Ananda Kirtan Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Midtown Manhattan, and two guys becoming interested in Krishna consciousness who have come around for several months joined us, sitting in back (https://youtu.be/gplYLXJA43U):
Kaliya Krishna Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Midtown Manhattan, and passersby are attracted to sit and listen and to dance (https://youtu.be/IJ22pz7RvZQ):
Later as Kaliya Krishna Prabhu continued chanting Hare Krishna, a little girl delighted in dancing and playing the shakers, and then a man did his own little dance, also inspired by the chanting. I followed that man through the turnstile to give him an “On Chanting Hare Krishna” pamphlet (https://youtu.be/q2pG-PEEbBM):
Krishna Kripa Das chants Hare Krishna in Brooklyn, and Ananda Kirtan Prabhu distributes literature. [Video by Kaliya Krishna Prabhu.](https://youtu.be/6WR5iGIBqko):
Natabara Gauranga Prabhu chanted Hare Krishna in Brooklyn, and a man who became attracted to Krishna consciousness from the Wisdom of the Sages podcast of Raghunath Cappo and Kaustubha Das, participated along his two children, who played shakers and later distributed pamphlets. [Video by Kaliya Krishna Prabhu.](https://youtu.be/uCHHxGpraQA):
Rama Raya Prabhu chants Hare Krishna in Brooklyn, joined by ISKCON NYC Temple President Hansarupa Prabhu (https://youtu.be/a1JELQSRnA8):
Chanting Hare Krishna in Orlando
The day I flew into Orlando I chanted Hare Krishna at Blanchard Park in the afternoon for three hours. The next two days, I was able to assist Krishna House devotees who are doing outreach at University of Central Florida by chanting three hours with them at the University each day.
Mitra Prabhu, Prabhupada disciple and musician, who is visiting for a week or so from North Carolina also joined us, increasing the ecstasy. Here he chants Hare Krishna and plays guitar in front of the University of Central Florida Student Union (https://youtu.be/U-FO1YxcZPE):
Here Joao, a Brazilian UCF student, enjoys chanting Hare Krishna with Mitra Prabhu, Jeremiah, Amrita and myself (https://youtu.be/xp0_l552MZU):
Mitra Prabhu ultimately taught him two beats on the drum. Joao also promised to come to our program for students and to help out, in addition to buying several books.
I am impressed by the sincerity of the Krishna House devotees in distributing books, chanting Hare Krishna, and talking to the students and inviting them to the semi-weekly programs which they are beginning at the Orlando temple.
Insights
Srila Prabhupada:
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Adi 1.56, purport:
“One should try to purchase a ticket to go back home, back to Godhead. The price of such a ticket is one’s intense desire for it, which is not easily awakened, even if one continuously performs pious activities for thousands of lives. All mundane relationships are sure to be broken in the course of time, but once one establishes a relationship with the Personality of Godhead in a particular rasa, it is never to be broken, even after the annihilation of the material world.
“One should understand, through the transparent medium of the spiritual master, that the Supreme Lord exists everywhere in His transcendental spiritual nature and that the living entities’ relationships with the Lord are directly and indirectly existing everywhere, even in this material world. In the spiritual world there are five kinds of relationships with the Supreme Lord — santa, dasya, sakhya, vatsalya and madhurya. The perverted reflections of these rasas are found in the material world. Land, home, furniture and other inert material objects are related in santa, or the neutral and silent sense, whereas servants work in the dasya relationship. The reciprocation between friends is called sakhya, the affection of a parent for a child is known as vatsalya, and the affairs of conjugal love constitute madhurya. These five relationships in the material world are distorted reflections of the original, pure sentiments, which should be understood and perfected in relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead under the guidance of a bona fide spiritual master. In the material world the perverted rasas bring frustration. If these rasas are reestablished with Lord Krishna, the result is eternal, blissful life.”
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Madhya 24.353:
“By reading these instructions, a pure devotee can understand love of Krishna, the mellows of devotional service and the conclusion of devotional service. Everyone can understand all these things to their ultimate end by studying these instructions.”
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Madhya 25.21:
“As soon as people received instructions from Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, they began to chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. Thus everyone laughed, chanted and danced with the Lord.”
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Madhya 25.30:
“In this Age of Kali, one cannot attain liberation without taking to the devotional service of the Lord. In this age, even if one chants the holy name of Krishna imperfectly, he still attains liberation very easily.”
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Madhya 25.36:
“‘O supreme one, the transcendental form I am now seeing is full of transcendental bliss. It is not contaminated by the external energy. It is full of effulgence. My Lord, there is no better understanding of You than this. You are the Supreme Soul and the creator of this material world, but You are not connected with this material world. You are completely different from created form and variety. I sincerely take shelter of that form of Yours which I am now seeing. This form is the original source of all living beings and their senses.’” [Brahma speaking to Krishna in Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.9.3.]
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Madhya 25.128:
“‘Hari, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who destroys everything inauspicious for His devotees, does not leave the hearts of His devotees even if they remember Him and chant about Him inattentively. This is because the rope of love always binds the Lord within the devotees’ hearts. Such devotees should be accepted as most elevated.’” [From Srimad-Bhagavatam 11.2.55]
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Madhya 25.131:
“Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu continued, ‘Thus one’s relationship with the Lord, activities in devotional service, and the attainment of the highest goal of life, love of Godhead, are the subject matters of Srimad-Bhagavatam.”
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Madhya 25.140:
“‘Pure devotees manifest spiritual bodily symptoms of ecstatic love simply by remembering and reminding others of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Hari, who takes away everything inauspicious from the devotee. This position is attained by rendering devotional service according to the regulative principles and then rising to the platform of spontaneous love.’” [From Srimad-Bhagavatam 11.3.31.]
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Madhya 25.193, purport:
“From early histories it appears that the entire earth was under one culture, Vedic culture, but gradually, due to religious and cultural divisions, the rule fragmented into many subdivisions. Now the earth is divided into many countries, religions and political parties. Despite these political and religious divisions, we advocate that everyone should unite again under one culture — Krishna consciousness. People should accept one God, Krishna; one scripture, the Bhagavad-gita; and one activity, devotional service to the Lord. Thus people may live happily upon this earth and combine to produce sufficient food. In such a society, there would be no question of scarcity, famine or cultural or religious degradation. So-called caste systems and national divisions are artificial. According to our Vaishnava philosophy, these are all external bodily designations. The Krishna consciousness movement is not based upon bodily designations. It is a transcendental movement on the platform of spiritual understanding. If the people of the world understood that the basic principle of life is spiritual identification, they would understand that the business of the spirit soul is to serve the Supreme Spirit, Krishna. As Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita (15.7), mamaivamso jiva-loke jiva-bhutah sanatanah: “The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal fragmental parts.” All living entities in different life forms are sons of Krishna. Therefore they are all meant to serve Krishna, the original supreme father. If this philosophy is accepted, the failure of the United Nations to unite all nations will be sufficiently compensated all over the world by a great Krishna consciousness movement. Recently we had talks with Christian leaders in Australia, including the Catholic Bishop of Melbourne, and everyone there was pleased with our philosophy of oneness in religious consciousness.”
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Madhya 25.270, purport:
“It is very difficult to understand Krishna, but if one tries to understand Srimad-Bhagavatam through Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s bhakti cult, one will undoubtedly understand Krishna very easily. If somehow or other one understands Krishna, his life is successful.”
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Antya 1.2:
“My path is very difficult. I am blind, and my feet are slipping again and again. Therefore, may the saints help me by granting me the stick of their mercy as my support.”
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Antya 1.101:
“One has to learn about the beauty and transcendental position of the holy name of the Lord by hearing the revealed scriptures from the mouths of devotees. Nowhere else can we hear of the sweetness of the Lord’s holy name.”
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Antya 1.101, purport:
“As far as possible, therefore, the devotees in the Krishna consciousness movement gather to chant the holy name of Krishna in public so that both the chanters and the listeners may benefit.”
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Antya 1.117, purport:
“The special function of Srila Rupa Gosvami is to establish the feelings of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. These feelings are His desires that His special mercy be spread throughout the world in this Kali-yuga.
“prthivite ache yata nagaradi-grama sarvatra pracara haibe mora nama
“The desire of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu is that all over the world everyone, in every village and every town, know of Him and His sankirtana movement. These are the inner feelings of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.”
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Antya 1.177:
“‘The moonlike Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is known as the son of mother Saci, has now appeared on earth to spread devotional love of Himself. He is the emperor of the brahmana community. He can drive away all the darkness of ignorance and control the mind of everyone in the world. May that rising moon bestow upon us all good fortune.’” [Lalita-madhava 1.3]
From Sri Caitanya-caritamrita, Antya 1.197, purport:
“Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu bestowed His special favor upon Srila Rupa Gosvami because Rupa Gosvami wanted to serve the Lord to the best of his ability. Such is the reciprocation between the devotee and the Lord in the discharge of devotional duties.”
From Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.1.19:
“We never tire of hearing the transcendental pastimes of the Personality of Godhead, who is glorified by hymns and prayers. Those who have developed a taste for transcendental relationships with Him relish hearing of His pastimes at every moment.”
From Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.1.22, purport:
“This age is very difficult for those who want to utilize this life for self-realization. The people are so busy with sense gratification that they completely forget about self-realization. Out of madness they frankly say that there is no need for self-realization because they do not realize that this brief life is but a moment on our great journey towards self-realization.”
From Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.2.5, purport:
“Krishna is our most intimate master, friend, father or son and object of conjugal love.”
“Forgetting Krishna, we have created so many objects of questions and answers, but none of them are able to give us complete satisfaction. All things — but Krishna — give temporary satisfaction only, so if we are to have complete satisfaction we must take to the questions and answers about Krishna. We cannot live for a moment without being questioned or without giving answers. Because the Srimad-Bhagavatam deals with questions and answers that are related to Krishna, we can derive the highest satisfaction only by reading and hearing this transcendental literature. One should learn the Srimad-Bhagavatam and make an all-around solution to all problems pertaining to social, political or religious matters. Srimad-Bhagavatam and Krishna are the sum total of all things.”
From Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.2.8, purport:
“The need of the spirit soul is that he wants to get out of the limited sphere of material bondage and fulfill his desire for complete freedom. He wants to get out of the covered walls of the greater universe. He wants to see the free light and the spirit. That complete freedom is achieved when he meets the complete spirit, the Personality of Godhead. There is a dormant affection for God within everyone; spiritual existence is manifested through the gross body and mind in the form of perverted affection for gross and subtle matter. Therefore we have to engage ourselves in occupational engagements that will evoke our divine consciousness. This is possible only by hearing and chanting the divine activities of the Supreme Lord, and any occupational activity which does not help one to achieve attachment for hearing and chanting the transcendental message of Godhead is said herein to be simply a waste of time.”
From Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.2.10:
“Life’s desires should never be directed toward sense gratification. One should desire only a healthy life, or self-preservation, since a human being is meant for inquiry about the Absolute Truth. Nothing else should be the goal of one’s works.”
From Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.15.19, purport:
“The most important thing about the spiritual world is that there is no envy among the devotees there. This is true even among the flowers, which are all conscious of the greatness of tulasi. In the Vaikuntha world entered by the four Kumaras, even the birds and flowers are conscious of service to the Lord.”
From Sri Isopanisad 7, purport:
“The spiritual entities are meant for enjoyment, as stated in the Vedanta-sutra (1.1.12): ananda-mayo ’bhyasat. By nature and constitution, every living being—including the Supreme Lord and each of His parts and parcels—is meant for eternal enjoyment. The living beings who are encaged in the material tabernacle are constantly seeking enjoyment, but they are seeking it on the wrong platform. Apart from the material platform is the spiritual platform, where the Supreme Being enjoys Himself with His innumerable associates. On that platform there is no trace of material qualities, and therefore that platform is called nirguna. On the nirguna platform there is never a clash over the object of enjoyment. Here in the material world there is always a clash between different individual beings because here the proper center of enjoyment is missed. The real center of enjoyment is the Supreme Lord, who is the center of the sublime and spiritual rasa dance. We are all meant to join Him and enjoy life with one transcendental interest and without any clash. That is the highest platform of spiritual interest, and as soon as one realizes this perfect form of oneness, there can be no question of illusion (moha) or lamentation (soka).”
From Sri Isopanisad 10, purport:
“One should always remember that as long as he has a material body he must face the miseries of repeated birth, old age, disease and death. There is no use in making plans to get rid of these miseries of the material body. The best course is to find out the means by which one may regain his spiritual identity.”
“One should develop a liking for residence in a secluded place with a calm and quiet atmosphere favorable for spiritual culture.”
“One should become a scientist or philosopher and conduct research into spiritual knowledge, recognizing that spiritual knowledge is permanent whereas material knowledge ends with the death of the body.”
“More than fifty percent of a nation’s energy is devoted to defense measures and thus spoiled. No one cares for the cultivation of real knowledge, yet people are falsely proud of being advanced in both material and spiritual knowledge.”
From Sri Isopanisad 11, purport:
“From His kingdom the Personality of Godhead sends His bona fide servants to propagate this message by which one can return to Godhead, and sometimes the Lord comes Himself to do this work. Since all living beings are His beloved sons, His parts and parcels, God is more sorry than we ourselves to see the sufferings we are constantly undergoing in this material condition. The miseries of this material world serve to indirectly remind us of our incompatibility with dead matter. Intelligent living entities generally take note of these reminders and engage themselves in the culture of vidya, or transcendental knowledge. Human life is the best opportunity for the culture of spiritual knowledge, and a human being who does not take advantage of this opportunity is called a naradhama, the lowest of human beings.”
From Sri Isopanisad 13, purport:
“When one attains brahminical qualifications, he becomes happy and enthusiastic to render devotional service to the Lord. Automatically the science of God is unveiled before him. By knowing the science of God, one gradually becomes freed from material attachments, and one’s doubtful mind becomes crystal clear by the grace of the Lord. One who attains this stage is a liberated soul and can see the Lord in every step of life. This is the perfection of sambhava, as described in this mantra of Sri Isopanisad.”
From Sri Isopanisad 14, purport:
“By its so-called advancement of knowledge, human civilization has created many material things, including spaceships and atomic energy. Yet it has failed to create a situation in which people need not die, take birth again, become old or suffer from disease. Whenever an intelligent man raises the question of these miseries before a so-called scientist, the scientist very cleverly replies that material science is progressing and that ultimately it will be possible to render man deathless, ageless and diseaseless. Such answers prove the scientists’ gross ignorance of material nature. In material nature, everyone is under the stringent laws of matter and must pass through six stages of existence: birth, growth, maintenance, production of by-products, deterioration and finally death. No one in contact with material nature can be beyond these six laws of transformation; therefore no one—whether demigod, man, animal or plant—can survive forever in the material world.”
“Material scientists and politicians are trying to make this place deathless because they have no information of the deathless spiritual nature. This is due to their ignorance of the Vedic literature, which contains full knowledge confirmed by mature transcendental experience. Unfortunately, modern man is averse to receiving knowledge from the Vedas, Puranas and other scriptures.”
“We must therefore save ourselves and our fellow man in the right way. There is no question of liking or disliking the truth. It is there. If we want to be saved from repeated birth and death, we must take to the devotional service of the Lord. There can be no compromise, for this is a matter of necessity.”
From Sri Isopanisad 15, purport:
“In His village of Vrindavan He enjoyed Himself with His mother, brother and friends, and when He played the role of a naughty butter thief, all His associates enjoyed celestial bliss by His stealing. The Lord’s fame as a butter thief is not reproachable, for by stealing butter the Lord gave pleasure to His pure devotees. Everything the Lord did in Vrindavan was for the pleasure of His associates there. The Lord created these pastimes to attract the dry speculators and the acrobats of the so-called hatha-yoga system who wish to find the Absolute Truth.”
“Thus the Lord is always engaged in transcendental loving activities with His spiritual associates in the various relationships of santa (neutrality), dasya (servitorship), sakhya (friendship), vatsalya (parental affection) and madhurya (conjugal love).”
"This brahma-jyotir effulgence is described in detail in several mantras of the Mundaka Upanisad (2.2.10–12):
‘In the spiritual realm, beyond the material covering, is the unlimited Brahman effulgence, which is free from material contamination. That effulgent white light is understood by transcendentalists to be the light of all lights. In that realm there is no need of sunshine, moonshine, fire or electricity for illumination. Indeed, whatever illumination appears in the material world is only a reflection of that supreme illumination. That Brahman is in front and in back, in the north, south, east and west, and also overhead and below. In other words, that supreme Brahman effulgence spreads throughout both the material and spiritual skies.’”
“Srila Vyasadeva never states that the Supreme Truth is a jiva, an ordinary living entity. The living entity should never be considered the all-powerful Supreme Truth. If he were the Supreme, he would not need to pray to the Lord to remove His dazzling cover so that the living entity could see His real face.”
“In summary, a philosopher is better than a laboring man, a mystic is superior to a philosopher, and of all the mystic yogis, he who follows bhakti-yoga, constantly engaging in the service of the Lord, is the highest. Sri Isopanisad directs us toward this perfection.”
From Sri Isopanisad 16, purport:
“The brahma-jyotir is described in the Brahma-samhita as the rays emanating from that supreme spiritual planet, Goloka Vrindavan, just as the sun’s rays emanate from the sun globe. Until one surpasses the glare of the brahma-jyotir, one cannot receive information of the land of the Lord. The impersonalist philosophers, blinded as they are by the dazzling brahma-jyotir, can realize neither the factual abode of the Lord nor His transcendental form. Limited by their poor fund of knowledge, such impersonalist thinkers cannot understand the all-blissful transcendental form of Lord Krishna. In this prayer, therefore, Sri Isopanisad petitions the Lord to remove the effulgent rays of the brahma-jyotir so that the pure devotee can see His all-blissful transcendental form.”
From a class on Srimad-Bhagavatam 2.1.5 in Delhi:
We are opening so many branches just to give people the chance to hear about God.
If you hear Bhagavad-gita, you will learn everything about God. And that is our only duty.
Our only business is to get out of the matter.
I am not matter. I am spirit soul, part and parcel of God.
God is always cheerful. We can also always be cheerful if we go back to God.
From a class on Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.1.2 in London on August 15, 1971:
As soon as we enter this material world, we are conditioned. Just like as soon as I come to America I am conditioned by the immigration department.
“Why they have become conditioned? The reason is they revolted against Krishna. They wanted to imitate Krishna. That is the mentality everywhere. You know, everyone says, ‘Oh, I don’t care for God. I don’t care for anything. I am at liberty to do anything.’”
The difference between the human bodies and others bodies is that the human can ask, “Why am I conditioned?”
“So if a swan is provided with all the necessities of life, why I shall not be? I am so much developed human being. Why I am so much busy in economic development? This is called illusion. But one who is advanced in knowledge, he knows that ‘If the swan is already provided with all the necessities of life, then I shall also be provided with all the necessities of life. There is no need of endeavoring for it.’ That is a fact. That is the fact.”
“So Krishna has provided everything for you. Don’t worry. Therefore our main business should be how to develop Krishna consciousness.”
“So first thing is religion, to learn how to become God conscious. This is the first business of human society. But they have rejected religion. They have become secular. Secular..., what does it mean, ‘secular’? It means don’t care for any kind of religion; just work very hard for economic development day and night. This is the modern civilization. No. That is misleading.”
If you have heard nicely about Krishna, then naturally you will preach.
“Everyone should know what he is, what is his constitutional position, why he is under so many conditions of life, how to get liberation. These are the questions. . . . These questions are called brahma-jijñasa. That is the beginning of Vedanta. Vedanta. Veda means knowledge; anta means end.”
“People are gradually trying to understand the gravity of this movement, but at least you should know the gravity of this movement. It is not ordinary movement. It is not a sentimental. It is most scientific, authorized movement, how to make people happy in this world and in the next.”
Comment by Mitrasena Prabhu: Srila Prabhupada wrote the essay “Who Is Crazy?” Imagine a bald-headed monk comes up to you and hands you a pamphlet entitled “Who Is Crazy?”
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura:
From “108 Essential Instructions”:
“93. Just because mundane thoughts appear in the mind while we chant the holy name does not mean we should slacken our chanting. The useless thoughts will gradually disappear as the irrevocable fruits of chanting the holy names. Do not be in a hurry.”
From “Jagannatha Bliss” in Passing Places, Eternal Truths:
“O Lord Jagannatha, please save me, please keep me, take me home. Keep me traveling. Keep me sick. Make me well. Whatever You want. Keep Your name on my mind.”
From Memories:
“Without looking at our memories, how can we feel gratitude, repentance, even happiness or sadness?”
From Every Day, Just Write, Volume 2: Search for the Authentic Self:
“I want to improve. I’m desperate, or like Thoreau said, living a life of ‘quiet desperation.’ I’m quietly desperate because I don’t know by what method I’ll make radical progress during the remainder of my life. I already have an expert guru, perfect scriptures, disciples, Godbrothers, a spiritual movement, a preaching field, and God in my heart. If still I don’t cross the ocean of birth and death—I don’t know what to say. Where else can I expect help to come from? As I grow older I’m less bold, less capable of making big changes in my way of thinking. Aging makes you complacent and in want of peace and quiet to heal your wounds and nurse your aching body. They say we should grow old gracefully. Does that mean seeking a niche in ISKCON? Is that what it means?”
From The Wild Garden:
“‘If we ignore Vrindavan, which is flooded with the nectar of Radha’s lotus feet and filled with the bliss of love for Lord Hari’s feet, then what are the other things we will talk about?’ (Vrindavan-mahimamrta, Sataka 4.85).
“Well said, good friend and great sadhu, Prabodhananda Sarasvati. Why talk of other things? Why ever forget Vrindavan? Even these rolling choruses of bird calls and chirping and peacocks’ ‘kee-kaw’ are part of Vrindavan. And the trees dripping in the rain. Who can complain about dark morning monsoon clouds in Vrindavan? Not me. But the symptoms of inattentive japa mean I have a hard heart filled with unredeemed aparadhas. I say I live with it. Others are worse than I am, I say. I look for encouragement in that fact and find it. Then I shake that off and turn to the sadhu:
“‘Srimati Radhika’s forest is the perfect atonement of sins, the ultimate shelter from offenses to great souls, the crest jewel of all principles of religion, and the crest jewel of all goals of life’ (Vrindavan-mahimamrta, Sataka 4.88).
“Note: It is Radhika’s forest, and that is what makes it so glorious. Just by living here . . . it doesn’t mean you can misbehave here, but you can admit, ‘I am helpless to overcome my bad habits in prayer. I feel no love. Please, I don’t like this condition.’
“I sat in the darkness of my room. There was a little light from a high, barred window, but that light was really more of a lighter shade of darkness. It was similar to my mental conception of a dungeon. From my mat on the floor I chanted, and I heard the japa of my two devotee friends in the other part of the house.
“Later, I paced on the rain-soaked roof in the Vrindavan quiet—tenth round, eleventh . . . where was my heart? Where was my feeling for Hare, Krishna, and Rama? I ask why this has to be so.
“I can articulate better in writing, so here, on this page, on behalf of my japa-sadhana, I ask the Lord of Vrindavan to please help me. You make all arrangements in Vrindavan. I approach You through Your representatives, Vrnda-devi (who awards desires), Bhakti-devi, and Yogamaya. You have already given us so much mercy on this visit—this house to live in, permission to study and write, time to chant in peace. But if we cannot use it to love You, then what use is it? Please give me a clue as to how to find the essence.
“‘The fortunate bow down before a person who, always seeing the eternal and sweet spiritual forms of Vrindavan’s grass, bushes, and other living entities, and bowing down before them with great devotion, resides here in Vrindavan.’ (Vrindavan-mahimamrta, Sataka 4.90)”
From The Wild Garden:
“I remember the shock I felt when I heard Prabhupada was going to San Francisco for the first time. We never thought Krishna consciousness would go beyond the Lower East Side. Of course, that wasn’t meant to be.
“I still think fondly of Prabhupada’s days with us in New York City. I felt like we were living in a small family. We wanted to preach for him, but we had no vision beyond New York.
“In those days I had my job at the welfare department and I also had my own apartment a few blocks from the storefront. My apartment soon became an annex to the storefront. We did everything under his direction—Sundays in Tompkins Square Park, making a record, Sunday Love Feasts—at least a few devotees had joined. He began to teach us Caitanya-caritamrta in the morning, because ‘now you are a little mature.’ We were disappointed to hear that he was going to San Francisco.
“I was among those who thought it wasn’t a good idea. I remember discussing it with Raya Rama. How could we let our Swamiji go to San Francisco just because someone had arranged for a ‘mantra rock dance’? Our Swamiji shouldn’t be treated like that—it’s not respectful. And anyway, Back to Godhead magazine is in New York.
“I dared suggest to Prabhupada that he shouldn’t go, but I could tell immediately that he wasn’t even open to hearing my suggestion. He was determined to preach and to spread Krishna consciousness. But he didn’t abandon us. He left us with something special: his instructions and the mood of service in separation.
“He wrote us a letter from San Francisco explaining that serving the guru’s order was more important than serving his physical presence. I remember feeling excited to carry on in Krishna consciousness, even though his room was empty and I felt such an ache of emptiness. We knew we had something even the San Francisco devotees didn’t have: service in separation.”
From The Wild Garden:
“Srila Prabhupada, I think I saw your footprints in the sand at Juhu beach. You must have been wearing those canvas shoes this morning when you took your walk. I imagine that you were perspiring. Your strides were long, and we must have been struggling to keep up with you. You wore no kurta, so we didn’t either. We hoped to overcome any reluctance we might have been feeling in our services. The opportunity to become better disciples is ongoing.
“In my mind, I can hear the prayers your disciples made, silently, fervently, as they walked with you this morning. Please allow us to get close to you. Please call us to serve you. Please help us be sincere, serious, dedicated, honest. Please forgive us for praying without enough sincerity. We are trying to improve.”
From Passing Places, Eternal Truths:
“ . . . I said that last night’s meeting fulfilled the purpose of our travel to Italy, but tonight’s meeting was even better. I spoke my old memories of coming to Srila Prabhupada in 1966. I worried beforehand that it would be too much the same old thing and that I wouldn’t be able to speak from my heart. But I did. Having to pause for the translator helped. The audience laughed at the humor of the stories. As I told each story—the time I gave 600 dollars and then Prabhupada looked at me as if to say, ‘You haven’t surrendered yet,’ the time I didn’t get initiated and Swamiji said, ‘If you love me, then I’ll love you’—I recreated them and lived in them as I spoke them. Although the devotees may have had fun tonight, I was the one who benefited the most because I was able to feel those happy days again and my simple love for and surrender to Prabhupada. And to be able to joke about my own foolish self and to tell how he dragged me to his lotus feet was relishable.
“Afterwards, someone asked, ‘What is it that brings out the love of the disciple for the spiritual master?’ It is the loving force of the guru pulling the disciple forward.
“I had a bit of a headache at the beginning of the meeting, but I sailed through and the headache left during the ecstasy of talking. Now I’m back on the ground with less than an hour before I have to take rest. We leave in the morning. This is the reason to travel: to find new audiences and to tell the same old stories of Prabhupada’s saving me and my coming to love him in 1966.”
From Karttika Flame and Shadow:
“Krishna science will save us, I hope. It can as long you hold on through the worst things that start happening. Krishna won’t abandon you as long as you don’t abandon Him.”
From Remembering Srila Prabhupada: A Free-Verse Rendition of the Life and Teachings of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada:
“COLLEGE DAYS”
“Why should a nitya-siddha go to school? Why not? Must he walk without touching the ground? ‘By the order of the Supreme he remains within the material world like an ordinary man, but his only business is to broadcast the glories of the Lord.’
Throughout his life he sometimes told how at Scottish Church College he learned worldly knowledge: Shakespeare. Dickens, economist Marshall, psychology, chemistry, history. It neither baffled nor appealed to his soul.
Though the college was Christian, he remained pure Vaishnava. They gave him a new Bible and collegiate academics. ‘What are you thinking?’ asked a friend ‘I don’t like these things,’ Abhay replied.
When a professor disparaged transmigration of the soul— ‘How could a person be judged without a witness?’— Abhay rejected the flimsy logic: This is their Christian philosophy? Don’t they know there is a witness? Don’t they know the Lord is in the heart? As a lily on water remains dry, you remained unaffected.
“ . . . . Traveling alone to Puri to see Lord Jagannath, reading Srimad-Bhagavatam —he had no other plans. Yet just to live in Calcutta was the greatest preparation: his eternal spiritual master was waiting there, and the time drew near for them to meet.
“Krishna took over after Gour Mohan De had brought him as far as he could. Marriage and a job at Dr. Bose’s lab—a grhastha’s way. Minimizing but retaining worldly duties, he focused on Krishna as Supreme.
But when Krishna took over, Abhay was ready. He remained uncaught by the national passion, surging like a tide behind the figure of Gandhi. Abhay wore protestor’s khadi, but his heart was not in it. And Krishna took over.”
From Why Not Fiction?:
“And I thought about my own way of seeing. How do we gain access to that? Does it make a good enough story? Is it the truest story or just the same old thing? I answered that for myself. It’s not the same old thing. It’s new and fresh and changing. We have to see it clearly and stand up for it, our own little life, our life attached to Krishna. We who have nothing to do with this town, we have to see things in our own Krishna conscious way as we walk through it.”
From Progresso: A Ten-Day Book Seeking Krishna Consciousness:
“Those who seek relief from the vices of this age will take shelter in this Bhagavata Purana. What I write is not Purana, but I can still give the bhagavata on this page. I’m an authorized receiver and distributor of the philosophy of bhakti.”
Candrasekhara Swami:
One thing we can actually give Krishna is our attention, and to do to that we have to remove our attention from other things. That is not just a one time thing. We have to keep doing it. We have to always try to be connected with Krishna.
Hansarupa Prabhu:
At the gosala in Vrindavan, Srila Prabhupada allowed grhasthas to live together. At the guesthouse and other places on the temple compound they had to live separately.
We see with purified mind and intelligence, not these eyes.
This jail of the material world has no bars, but it is impossible to escape from without higher knowledge.
For Srila Prabhupada to translate the books or to travel around the world giving lectures was not difficult. What was difficult was to get an immature bunch of young Westerners to cooperate.
Some people think the GBC is irrelevant, but actually those people are irrelevant.
Without humility it is not possible to understand God.
The more we are in touch with the pure knowledge the more we become free from illusion.
Man is not inherently evil. All evil results from forgetfulness of God.
The greatest evil is to keep people from getting knowledge of the Absolute Truth.
Rama Raya Prabhu:
One disciple wanted to study astrology and make charts for the devotees. Srila Prabhupada said his guru, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, was the greatest astrologer of all times, but he gave it up to preach pure devotional service. Then he explained the pure devotee’s thoughts about the future: “Whatever will be will be. We will simply chant Hare Krishna.”
Radhanath Swami recalls when he first met Srila Prabhupada at the Bombay pandal program. Srila Prabhupada sent Brahmananda up into the seats to invite him to sit on the stage with Srila Prabhupada. While he was sitting on the stage, Sarasvati, the daughter of Malati and Shyamasundar, who was only a child, said to him, “Guess what? Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.” Srila Prabhupada liked Sarasvati doing this very much.
During Vedic times, because there were competent government leaders there was no need for all this mundane charity because people were properly taken care of it.
Harinama-sankirtana is like a rainfall that causes everything to flourish.
Hari Vilasa Prabhu:
Many animals are ready to go, to move around, and to eat the day after they are born, while a human child is practically helpless. Yet by education a human can be completely transformed, much more so than an animal.
Chhatrapati Shivaji was famous for keeping the Moguls out of Mumbai. How did he learn how to rule? His mother read Mahabharata to him every day as a kid.
Bharata Muni makes the point that if a playwright portrays sinful people as successful he will suffer a sinful reaction for that because of misleading people.
People cannot make the connection that the content of what they watch is the cause of their miserable lives.
The Bhagavatam uses very strong language to deprecate the hearing of mundane subject matter because it is so detrimental to one’s spiritual life.
The Lord incarnates in this world and enacts dramas to give human society some spiritually positive content to absorb their minds in to elevate them.
If you lapse into absorbing your mind in the mundane, bring it back to the Bhagavatam as soon as you can, and purify your mind.
We need big devotional production companies to produce devotional material to purify people’s minds.
We follow the four principles because if we do not then our lives will become so chaotic from the sinful reactions that we will not be able to endeavor for transcendence.
Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura says that the association of devotees is that pious activity referred to in Bhagavad-gita 7.28 as being required to be fixed in devotional service.
Ananda Kirtan Prabhu:
“Radhanath Maharaja was invited to a pandal program with Sri Vaishnavas. Maharaja sat on the end of the assembly somewhere in the crowd, while one of the head leaders of the sampradaya was speaking. Many sannyasis were in the front row, there must have been a hundred or more dandas. The speaker was glorifying the Sri Vaishnava sannyasis, explaining how austere, learned and strict they were. He explained how for many, many generations not onesannyasi has fallen from his vows. Then he said if you take all the sannyasis present in this assembly and all of them many generations back and put them together, they don’t equal one grain of dust on the lotus feet of one of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami’s disciples who are traveling the world preaching the glories and teachings of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. [Please note I am paraphrasing. I may be missing a detail or two, but this is what I can remember from Siddhanta Prabhus videos of Prabhupada Memories. I’ve seen this particular video two or three times a few years ago. I’m not sure what volume of Prabhupada Memories the video clip is on, but Siddhanta Prabhu knows off the top of his head because he told me one time the exact volume to find it on but I forgot.”
Janardana Prabhu:
From a Facebook post:
“Teamwork makes the dream work.” [This reminds me that Srila Prabhupada told his followers that their love for him would be shown by their working together to maintain his mission after his disappearance.]
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This verse makes an important point. We should not endeavor for material happiness but for spiritual gain. The argument is that we obtain distress without endeavoring, and we can achieve happiness in the same way. Thus we should endeavor spiritually for then our benefit will be eternal rather than endeavoring for material gain, which is always coming and going, and thus will never satisfy us.
tasyaiva hetoh prayateta kovido
na labhyate yad bhramatam upary adhah tal labhyate duhkhavad anyatah sukham kalena sarvatra gabhira-ramhasa
“Persons who are actually intelligent and philosophically inclined should endeavor only for that purposeful end which is not obtainable even by wandering from the topmost planet [Brahmaloka] down to the lowest planet [Patala]. As far as happiness derived from sense enjoyment is concerned, it can be obtained automatically in course of time, just as in course of time we obtain miseries even though we do not desire them.” (Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.5.18)
He is in the process of leaving this world. Those of you who have known him may want to offer prayers, good thoughts, or whatever you feel is appropriate.
Navadwipa Mandala Parikrama was initiated some 470 year ago with Lord Nityananda taking Srila Jiva Gosvami on a parikrama of the holy dham. Nityananda Prabhu said to Jiva, “Although in the eyes of common people, Visvambhara took sannyasa and left Navadvipa to go elsewhere, actually My Gauranga never gives up Mayapur or Navadvipa. The devotees […]
The aesthetic sense of the Lord is manifested in the artistic, colorful creation of varieties of birds like the peacock, parrot and cuckoo. The celestial species of human beings, like the Gandharvas and Vidyādharas, can sing wonderfully and can entice even the minds of the heavenly demigods. Their musical rhythm represents the musical sense of the Lord. How then can He be impersonal? His musical taste, artistic sense and standard intelligence, which is never fallible, are different signs of His supreme personality.
By Radhika Krpa Devi Dasi
