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His Holiness Bhakti Charu Swami Maharaj visited ISKCON Vadodara on 6th Decemeber 2016 and delivered the following lectures : 1. Srimad Bhagavatam 5.6.15 – Krishna always gives credit to His devotees 2. Address to the Bhakti Vriksa Students – How to receive Vedic knowledge 3....

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There’s not a more charming or mysterious place in the universe than Govardhana Hill in Vraja Mandala. Apparently, the word is spreading because nowadays, during Karttika season, millions of pilgrims come here to perform parikrama.* [*Literally, “parikrama” means “walking around.”] Only by the mercy of the Vaisnavas have I been allowed to stay for a while here in this magical place under the shelter of the Bhaktivedanta Ashrama, nestled at the base of Govardhana Hill, presided over by HH Keshava Bharati Das Goswami. For my own purification, I’ve been making some notes. Today’s are as follows: The precious powder clinging to the feet of the pilgrims who walk around Govardhana Hill is Cintamani dust. One particle of this dust is more valuable than all the wealth in the material world.

This December, devotees in India face a unique challenge in distributing Srila Prabhupada’s books. Due to recent actions taken by the Government of India viz., the demonetization of large currency notes, everyone here is literally in a cash crunch, whether or not one is a millionaire as per the bank accounts. And distributing books in such a scenario could be tough if we follow the usual techniques of hand to hand distribution on streets, or at doors, which depend on collecting cash. This could potentially have a large impact on the annual scores for India in 2016 (the 50th anniversary of ISKCON!), because it is an open secret that MOST of the book distribution in India happens during the December marathon! Continue reading "Unflinching Book Distribution
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Congratulations to Tarakanatha Prabhu and all his team for securing this wonderful new property in the heart of Cardiff which will serve as the main ISKCON temple in Wales as well as ISKCON's headquarters there. Wales has produced many wonderful devotees over the years, so it is very encouraging to now see the yatra itself develop and expand in the way that it is. Continue reading "ISKCON Wales’s new Headquarters
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A visit to ISKCON Kurukshetra - 30th Nov, 2016 (Album with photos) Srila Prabhupada: During correspondence I read a letter from Bhagavata dasa about Bhuvanesvara. Money was scarce. Prabhupada gave the same recommendation he had given in so many letters. Building was not as important as prasadam distribution and kirtana. If there was money, we could build later. From TKG's Diary Find them here: https://goo.gl/wYDbc3

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Prabhupada said, "This is Vaishnava. A Vaishnava is kind to every living entity. Not this squishing business." Sukadeva: Prabhupada said that you have to become like the bumblebee and not like the fly and Prabhupada proved it by his own example. Once Nara-Narayan—who does not sing like a nightingale—was in the temple room singing and Prabhupada said, "Who is that singing?" Karandhar said, "It's Nara-Narayan, Srila Prabhupada." Prabhupada said, "Hmm, he keeps very good time." Once Hari Sauri's alarm clock went off and Prabhupada said, "What is that sound?" Hari Sauri said, "That's the alarm clock, Srila Prabhupada." Prabhupada said, "Oh? Who is in danger?" I looked at Hari Sauri and thought, "Wow! My spiritual master has a sense of humor!"

Swamiji’s Thriving 26 Second Avenue Center

The entrance way to New Vrindaban, along the start of the famed Aghasura Road.

Excerpted from an article written by Cintamani Dasi and previously published in the Brijabasi Spirit, October 1985.

It was May 9th, 1969. Before coming to New Vrindaban, Srila Prabhupada visited the Columbus, Ohio center. By some inconceivable good fortune I met him and was initiated. After breaking open the storehouse of love of God in Columbus, Krishna sent Srila Prabhupada to New Vrindaban to bless the ground with his lotus feet.

From Columbus two carloads of devotes went to New Vrindaban. Kirtanananda Swami and Srila Prabhupada drove in a black Lincoln. I was eager to ride in the other car that was going, but Jaya Gopal, the temple president told me, “You can’t go. Srila Prabhupada doesn’t want any bramacarinis in New Vrindaban. Only brahmacharis and married couples.” I was devastated. An Indian lady who was visiting the center asked what was wrong, and I told her. She ran upstairs and told Srila Prabhupada.

“She can come,” he said. “Tell her she can stay as long as I am there.” Srila Prabhupada was so merciful! I got back in the car. Soon, Srila Prabhupada was sitting in the front seat of the other car, and they were off. We tried to keep up with them, but it was not easy.

After a couple of hours, we were driving on the winding roads of West Virginia. Then we went down a bumpy little road and parked next to the old school house.

We (Labangalatika, Nara Narayana, Hrisikesa and I) started walking up a narrow grass path that we could barely see. I was carrying a sleeping bag and a small suitcase, and after the first mile I was wondering if I was going to make it. “Oh God! Oh Krishna! When are we ever going to get there?”

Srila Prabhupada speaking with his followers outside the original New Vrindaban farmhouse, Spring 1969.

Finally, the small house came into view. As we got nearer, I saw Srila Prabhupada. He was sitting outside on the grass with several devotees around him. He was beaming. It was a beautiful, sunny, transcendental spring day. Seeing Srila Prabhupada made everything perfect. He was just sitting there, looking around at the devotees. It was obvious he really liked it in New Vrindaban.

Satyabhama brought prasadam out for the devotees, and along with Srila Prabhupada we honored the tasty prasadam. Satyabhama then served out more prasadam, but I was skipped. I was thinking, “I want more prasadam, but I don’t want to ask in front of my spiritual master.” Just then Srila Prabhupada looked at me and asked, “You want more?” Amazed, I said, “Yes.” I knew I had to be careful what I thought because Srila Prabhupada knew everything.

Later on, I looked over the “facilities.” The women – Syama Dasi, Labangalatika, and I – stayed on the second floor of the barn, above Kaliya, the cow. There was a well outside for water. In the afternoon we would literally slide down a steep hillside to Kesi Ghat to bathe. It was a little austere, but just being with Srila Prabhupada made everything ecstatic.

It was cold the first night we stayed in the barn. Morning came, and someone hit a gong – time to get up! Near the temple there was a small room where everyone put on tilak before entering the temple. Mangala arotika was so ecstatic! Srila Prabhupada would come downstairs and sit on a raised platform that had a gold pillow on it. Kirtanananda Swami would play harmonium. Sometimes Hayagriva would blow his kelp horn that was so long he practically had to stand in the kitchen to play. Everyone danced ecstatically. Afterwards, Srila Prabhupada would give classes on Srimad Bhagavatam.

After the morning program, the devotees would go to work. I washed pots and dishes. Outside the kitchen there was a wooden platform with a big tin tub on it, and I used to haul up well water and wash pots in the tub. We didn’t have scouring powder or soap. We used sand or pebbles to scrub the posts. They had to be very clean or Srila Prabhupada would complain. The best part about the service was that a few times a day Srila Prabhupada would come outside and walk right by, so even washing pots was ecstatic.

Once, when Srila Prabhupada walked by, a brahmachari was standing in front of the wooden platform playing his guitar, trying to teach me “Govinda Jaya Jaya.” He said he wanted to make a record, but since I was a new devotee, I didn’t know too much. Srila Prabhupada came over and said to him, “Why are you standing so near?” All of a sudden I could feel my face turning red. I realized that Srila Prabhupada didn’t want the women to be talking to the brahmacharis, even if it was just to learn a song. I was thinking, “I wish he would move.” But the brahmachari just stood there and said, “Oh, Srila Prabhupada, I was just teaching her this song.” “Oh,” said Srila Prabhupada, “You are teaching her?” And he just walked away.

After Srila Prabhupada took his lunch he always left some remnants. Often, the brahmacharis would run with his remnants into the woods, tackling each other to get the most. One day a new couple arrived. When the girl saw the brahmacharis running into the woods, she couldn’t understand the meaning of it. I explained that the remnants form the spiritual master’s plate are very potent.

On several occasions devotees came down from New York to visit Srila Prabhupada. The brothers Brahmananda and Gargamuni came one day, wearing jeans and suspenders. They came without notice, which produced some anxiety. “Would there be enough prasadam for Brahmananda?” He really could eat a lot of prasadam.

Srila Prabhupada & devotees enjoying prasadam near the original New Vrindaban cow barn, Spring 1969.

Although there were only a few devotees, we would still have a Sunday feast. During the feast the pots of prasadam were lined up outside. Every devotee would eat to their full satisfaction. Finished, some of the men would fall asleep on the grass near the pots, wake up later and eat more.

Srila Prabhupada’s lifestyle was so simple in New Vrindaban. Every morning his servant Devananda would heat up water in an aluminum pail over an outside fire. Srila Prabhupada would take the water and bathe in it in a little shack next to the temple. Sometimes in the morning, Srila Prabhupada would get a massage. One day Bhurijana dasa came and was taking some pictures of Srila Prabhupada getting a massage. Srila Prabhupada laughed and said, “These pictures are not for the Back to Godhead magazine!”

In the cool mornings, Srila Prabhupada would often take walks and a servant would follow, fanning him with a big leaf. I used to clean Srila Prabhupada’s room above the temple. In one closed off section he had small Radha Krishna Deities, and in the main section there was a mattress. Next to the mattress were two black trunks with some of Srila Prabhupada’s belongings and books. He used the trunks as a desk.

Srila Prabhupada seated in his quarters during his first visit to New Vrindaban, Spring 1969.

Early one morning, he came upstairs, surprising me. I was still cleaning his room. On the desk was a garlanded picture of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta. Srila Prabhupada took the garland off the picture and handed it to me saying, “This is from Krishna, with blessings.”

Then the day came for Srila Prabhupada to leave New Vrindaban. Srila Prabhupada walked at a brisk pace down the two mile path with all the New Vrindaban devotees behind him. I felt sad when he left but knew we couldn’t keep him there forever, although I would have liked that. We understood he had to spread Lord Caitanya’s mercy to other fallen souls.

Srila Prabhupada sat outside daily under a persimmon tree, Spring 1969.

New Memories Video, 63.
A great way to end the 50th Year of ISKCON’s birthday with a gift for yourself and/or your friends as the “Memories” series continues with Part 63 featuring the following 10 devotees:
Atitaguna dasi, Krsnarupa dasi, Mishra Bhagavan das, Niranjan das, Pancharatna das, Riddha das, Sauri das, Sevananda das, Surabhi dasi and Tribhangananda das. You will learn what fragrance is Srimati Radharani’s favorite, who was Srila Prabhupada’s favorite secretary, how Srila Prabhupada appreciated his spiritual daughters, what is your relationship with Krishna and many many more anecdotes in this 2 hour DVD.

This DVD is not yet on our website so please order this DVD for only $15 in the U.S. and $20 outside the U.S. by emailing Siddhanta at itvproductions1@gmail.com for payment instructions.
Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biGy4FPe2PQ

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, September 2008, Cape Town, South Africa, Lecture)

When the principles of the mode of goodness becomes our second nature, this is the point where you begin to enjoy spiritual life. Spiritual life is very nice! We are chanting and having nice association and we are very happy.

But this is not all. Still we must sacrifice, we must do whatever we can to save condition souls. You may say, “Well, you know, they’re very sinful, very fallen and I don’t know if I can associate too much with those people because I might fall down. It is better to stay safe.”

Sit there safe in your nice little spiritual life, in your sweet little Krsna bubble but know one thing for sure, you are STILL-NOT-FULFILLED! There is STILL-SOMETHING-LACKING! In spite of everything, in spite of having all the Krsna conscious videos that you can imagine, in spite of having 3 000 cd’s, in spite of having 12 000 lectures and 78 000 pictures of Krsna… in spite of all of that still… still somehow or other, a sense of emptiness just hits you every once in a while.

So, if we do not make that sacrifice, if we do not take the trouble to save the condition souls, it will not happen, we will not be truly fulfilled and satisfied.

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Rupa Goswami describes this type of hope as asha-bandha (“bound by hope”): One thinks, “Because I’m trying my best to follow the routine principles of devotional service, some way or other I will be able to approach the Lord and will certainly receive His favor. Surely I will go back to Godhead, back home.” In the mood of asha-bandha a devotee feels, “I wasn’t born in a good family, I haven’t done good works, I have no knowledge of the Lord or love for Him, and no attraction for the processes of hearing about, chanting about, and remembering Him, which will develop that love. Yet still, I want to approach Him. And that very want upsets me because I am completely unfit to do so. In terms of justice, my case is hopeless; all I have are demerits. So, I seek my fortune in the Lord’s mercy.” Continue reading "Hope: The Bedrock of Spiritual Progress
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Quotes by Thomas a Kempis
(Thomas à Kempis, (1420) was a Dutch canon regular of the late medieval period and the author of The Imitation of Christ, one of the most popular and best known Christian books on devotion.)
Be thankful for the least gift, so shalt thou be meant to receive greater. Endeavor to be always patient of the faults and imperfections of others for thou has many faults and imperfections of thine own that require forbearance. If thou are not able to make thyself that which thou wisest, how canst thou expect to mold another in conformity to thy will?

Love flies, runs, and rejoices; it is free and nothing can hold it back.

Never be entirely idle; but either be reading, or writing, or praying or meditating or endeavoring something for the public good.

- More quotations on: [Laziness]
Of two evils we must always choose the least.

- More quotations on: [Evil]
Remember that lost time does not return.

The good devout man first makes inner preparation for the actions he has later to perform. His outward actions do not draw him into lust and vice; rather it is he who bends them into the shape of reason and right judgement. Who has a stiffer battle to fight than the man who is striving to conquer himself.

Who has a harder fight than he who is striving to overcome himself.

First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.

- More quotations on: [Peace]
And when he is out of sight, quickly also is he out of mind.

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.

Rama’s forsaking Sita is the Ramayana’s most challenged and most challenging incident. A man’s abandoning his pregnant wife because of an unproven accusation seems troublingly wrong.

Reputation

Why did Rama do such a thing? Was he excessively reputation-conscious? Did he abandon Sita just because he didn’t want his good name sullied by having a wife suspected to be impure? But if he had been so obsessed with his reputation, then why did he not remarry after sending Sita away? A king overly concerned about appearances would want a trophy queen by his side; being a queen-less king was hardly a reputation-enhancer.

As a wealthy, powerful emperor, Rama could have married anyone of his choice. He refused to remarry because he wanted to honor his word to Sita. Soon after their marriage, Rama had promised Sita that she would be his only wife. By keeping that pledge lifelong, Rama showed his respect for Sita, thereby rebutting her accusers.

If Rama had wanted to remarry, he could have justified giving up that pledge on the grounds of religious duty. As a king, he was expected to perform sacrifices meant for his state’s welfare. And tradition mandated that the sponsor perform such sacrifices with his wife. When priests pointed out this requirement and exhorted Rama to remarry, he respectfully but firmly refused. He honored the traditional requirement by making a golden image of Sita and seating it besides him during the sacrifices. By according this honor to her through her image, he proclaimed that he still considered her his wife. And that he still considered her pure, so pure in fact that her image could sit next to him in rituals that often required exacting standards of purity.

Ethical crisis

If Rama considered Sita pure, why did he abandon her? Because the ethical dilemma confronting him didn’t seem amenable to any other solution.

We need to see the actions of characters in the epics in the light of the prevailing culture and its cherished values. The Ramayana depicts a deeply spiritual culture. Therein, people saw success not just in terms of prosperity in this world, but also in terms of the spirituality cultivated during one’s journey through this world. Cultivating spirituality, in its highest sense, meant developing devotion to the source of everything, God, and harmonizing one’s whole life accordingly. In such a culture, all relations and positions were seen as opportunities for sacred service, service to God and to others in relationship with him. One service was the service of exemplifying detachment, especially from things that came in the way of one’s spiritual growth.

Most people are attached materially to their relations and positions. Such attachments can keep them alienated from God, who is the ultimate provider of everything including family members and who is the ultimate shelter after death, when all family members are left behind. Materially attached people are naturally attracted to those with lavish material assets. The person with the most impressive material assets is usually the king. If the king demonstrates detachment by not letting material things come in the way of spiritual cultivation, then the king’s example forcefully edifies citizens about the importance of life’s spiritual side. So, integral to the king’s duty was the duty of demonstrating to his citizens that worldly attachments couldn’t sway him from his spiritual dharma. This duty conflicted with Rama’s duty as a husband.

When Rama heard the accusation leveled against Sita, he was faced with an ethical dilemma. Whereas a moral dilemma confronts us with two choices, one moral and the other immoral, an ethical dilemma confronts us with two choices, both moral. For resolving an ethical dilemma, we need to discern the higher moral principle and harmonize the lower moral principle as much as possible. Rama’s dilemma was ethical because his duty as a king conflicted with his duty as a husband.

As a husband, he was dutybound to protect his wife. But as the king, he was dutybound to exemplify and teach detachment to his citizens. If his citizens felt that he was so attached to Sita as to keep her despite her impurity, then they would, consciously or subconsciously, use Rama’s alleged attachment to rationalize their own attachments to unworthy things. Of course, Sita was not impure. She had not left Rama and gone to Ravana; Ravana had abducted her against her will. Because Ravana had been cursed to die if he ever violated a woman against her will, he had tried to gain Sita’s consent by alternately tempting and threatening her. She had heroically preserved her purity by spurning his temptations and braving his threats for an endlessly long year. Rama himself had no doubts about Sita’s purity. But anticipating people’s objections, he had prepared to address them. After the fall of Ravana in Lanka, when Sita was brought into his presence, he had her purity dramatically demonstrated through the test of fire. Moreover, after that test, the gods led by Brahma had certified Sita’s spotless character.

If despite all this, people were still questioning Sita’s purity, Rama felt that nothing would ever convince them. If he neglected such people and continued to live with Sita, he would appear attached. If he silenced them, he would come off as so blinded by attachment as to be vindictive. He felt that his duty as a king required him to show his detachment from Sita.

Exhibiting a stoic spirit of sacrifice, Rama deemed his duty as king more important than his duty as husband, and so sent Sita away to the forest. But he didn’t entirely neglect his duty as a husband; he did that duty too because the forsaken Sita was still in his kingdom and thus indirectly in his protection.

When the distraught Lakshmana informed Sita of Rama’s decision, she was devastated. But soon she regained her composure, understood her Lord’s heart and gracefully accepted her part in the heart-wrenching sacrifice that both of them had to be part of. She didn’t resent Rama and didn’t poison her sons against their father. She raised them lovingly, accepting with fortitude the role of a single mother that had been thrust on her.

Of course, she was not a single mother in the modern sense; she didn’t have to single-handedly earn a living and care for her children. After being forsaken, she lived in Valmiki’s hermitage, where the matronly female hermits took care of her and helped her to take care of her children.

It’s worth noting that banishment may not be the best word for describing Sita’s abandonment. Banishment implied being evicted from the kingdom into the forest – as had happened to Rama earlier in the Ramayana. Though Sita lived in the forest, she was still in Rama’s kingdom. She did not have to scour for food, clothing, shelter; these were arranged for in Valmiki’s hermitage.

Sacrificers, not victims

The whole Ramayana is permeated with the spirit of sacrifice – a spirit that attains its summit in the separation of Rama and Sita. The mood throughout the epic is not of demanding one’s rights, but of sacrificing one’s rights for a higher cause.

When Rama was exiled because of the promise of his father Dasharatha, Rama didn’t demand his rights as the rightful heir. He could have argued: “I am utterly blameless, yet I am being not only disinherited but also exiled, as if I were the worst of criminals. And all this just for honoring some undocumented promise made by my father to my stepmother. How unfair!” Far from arguing thus, Rama immediately agreed to sacrifice his right for the higher cause of honoring his father’s words. He even calmed those who wanted to rebel against the king.

On hearing about Rama’s exile, Sita too didn’t fight for her rights. She didn’t claim that she as a princess deserved to live in royal comforts. She willingly, even insistently, sacrificed those comforts for accompanying her husband to the forest.

This spirit of sacrifice is illustrated by Lakshmana too when he accompanied Rama to the forest. Sita being Rama’s wife was expected to stick by his side through thick and thin. But nothing of that magnitude was expected from Rama’s brother. Yet Lakshmana didn’t demand his right to royal comfort; instead, he sacrificed that comfort for the cause of serving Rama.

Bharata too demonstrated this spirit of sacrifice. He could have ascended the throne, justifying that it had come of its own accord; he himself had done nothing wrong to get it. Yet, he didn’t. Even when Rama entrusted the kingdom to him, he didn’t consider royal luxury as his right. Though he discharged the responsibilities of a ruler, he placed Rama’s sandals on the throne and sat at their feet. Emulating his brother’s hermit lifestyle, he lived in a cottage outside Ayodhya and eating austere fare.

Importantly, none of these characters saw themselves as helpless victims deprived of their rights; they saw themselves as conscious agents who chose to sacrifice their rights for a higher cause. In that same spirit, Sita, on being forsaken, didn’t see herself as a victim of a judgmental husband. Recognizing that she had been called to bear a particularly heavy cross, she gracefully, even gallantly, accepted the necessary sacrifice. Those who portray her as a victim do grave injustice to her awesome strength of character.

Such people err even more if they portray Rama as a victimizer. In this incident, his position is similar to that of Sita – both are partners in an excruciating sacrifice. Perhaps the best parallel to appreciate Rama’s agony in sending Sita away is Dasharatha’s agony in sending Rama away.

Just as Dasharatha wanted with all his heart to offer the best of everything to his son, Rama too wanted to do everything he could for his wife. After all, she had endured, for his sake, thirteen years of austere life as a hermit and one year of agonizing life as an abductee. Just as Dasharatha was bound by duty to do something that broke his heart, so too was Rama bound by duty. At least, Dasharatha could point the finger at Kaikeyi and could vent his anger at her machinations. Rama couldn’t do even that, for people would have thought him vindictive. So, he had to not only give the wrenching order of exiling Sita, but also keep the storm of his anger and agony contained within himself.

Just as Dasharatha was not punishing Rama, Rama too was not punishing Sita. Just as father and son had to make a painful sacrifice for a higher cause, husband and wife too had to make an anguishing sacrifice for a higher cause.

Esoteric explanations

For those seeking explanations based on past-life causes, the Valmiki Ramayana offers one and the broader Rama tradition offers many. The epic (6.51.15) mentions an ancient curse that ordained the separation of Vishnu and Lakshmi. Once, when the demons were fleeing from the gods led by Indra, they took shelter of the sage Bhrugu’s wife, Khyati. When the gods asked that the demons be handed over to them so that they could be duly punished, Khyati became incited by a misguided sense of compassion. Summoning her mystic powers, she started attacking the gods, who beseeched Vishnu for help. A hard-earned win against deadly demons was being undone because of Khyati’s misplaced protectiveness. To prevent such a catastrophe, Vishnu was constrained to use his own mystical disc Sudarshan Chakra for slaying her. When Bhrugu came to know about this, he became enraged. He cursed Vishnu to take multiple births in the material world and, in one such birth, to be separated from his wife – just as Bhrugu was now separated from his.

Of course, Rama as the Supreme Being is not subject to anyone’s curse. Still, he accepted it out of deference to the sage and for furthering his own pastimes. The enactment of that curse comprised the chain of events that led to the separation of Rama and Sita, who were Vishnu and Lakshmi incarnated on earth.

The Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition explains that the separation of the divine couple facilitates viraha-bhakti, devotion in separation. Separation intensifies the devotee’s remembrance of the Lord. And as the Lord is not a finite person, but is the Supreme Person, he is always present in the devotee’s heart. When the devotee remembers him intensely, he reciprocates by increasingly manifesting himself in the devotee’s heart, thereby intensifying the devotional trance. Externally such separation seems like agony, but internally it is the summit of spiritual ecstasy. Separation does to love what wind does to fire – spreads it more and more. When separated from Rama, Sita relished such intense devotion.

Injustice towards women?

Some people see this incident as representing Indian culture’s repressive attitude towards women. But is Rama’s forsaking Sita meant to be a benchmark for judging all women based on unfounded suspicions? Not at all. The pastime is meant primarily to illustrate the mood of sacrifice. Its specific details aren’t meant to be universalized, as is evident from Rama’s conduct in other situations.

That very Ramayana which describes Rama’s abandoning Sita also describes Rama’s mercifulness towards everyone, including women, even women looked down upon by mainstream society. The sage Gautama’s wife had been literally petrified, turned into stone, because of a curse triggered by her accidental unchastity. Rama, far from being judgmental towards her, mercifully released her from that curse and reinstated her in the respectable position of the sage’s wife. The female hermit Shabari was treated as an outcaste, but Rama graced her by accepting the berries she offered. Tara had become widowed after the demise of her husband Vali, but Rama ensured that she was given a place of dignity in the Kishkinda palace. Considering the cultural conservatism of those times, Rama’s actions were exceptionally inclusive and magnanimous.

The bhakti tradition explains that the same Absolute Truth who manifested as Rama manifested later as Krishna. And Krishna demonstrated an even more inclusive attitude towards women deemed fallen by society. Once, he was beseeched to rescue many kings who had been imprisoned by a demon named Bhaumasura. Krishna freed the world from the menace of Bhaumasura and then freed the kings. During the rescue and release operation, he came across the many princesses who had been abducted by that demon. In the prevailing conservative society, these princesses had become permanently stigmatized, even though the demon hadn’t violated them. Driven by a peculiar idea of gaining religious merit, he had been waiting for an auspicious day to slay all the kings in a macabre rite of human sacrifice and thereafter take the princesses for himself. Still, because these princesses had lived in the demon’s captivity, society considered them defiled.

They thanked Krishna for having rescued them from the demon and begged him to rescue them from their destitute condition too. When he asked them what exactly they wanted, they requested that he accept them as his maidservants. He more than consented, making them not his maidservants, but his queens. He not only reinstated them, but also elevated them to the status of royalty in a phenomenally powerful kingdom.

Consider the contrast between the Lord’s dealing with Sita and these princesses.

1. He asked Sita to pass a test by fire, but he didn’t ask these princesses to undergo any such test.
2. Sita was already his queen, yet he sent her away. These princesses were unrelated to him, yet he made them his queens.
3. Sita was already pregnant with his children, so he had a major obligation to her. He had no such obligation to the princesses, yet he accepted an obligation to them and reinstated them to respectability.

The point of this contrast is to illustrate that the Lord is too great to be reducible to any mundane characterization based on any one incident. The Lord’s activities, known as lila or pastimes, are enacted to serve varying purposes. Accordingly, different pastimes demonstrate different qualities. As Rama, his pastime primarily demonstrated the principle of sacrifice. As Krishna, his pastime primarily demonstrated the principle of compassion.

Inspiration for selflessness

The Ramayana’s extreme examples of sacrifice can inspire us to infuse a healthy dose of selflessness into our relationships. Significantly, Indian society that has drawn enduring inspiration from the Ramayana is characterized by robust family relationships. In many parts of the world, families are falling apart. But in India, the family structure is still strong. Much of this strength comes from the readiness of family members to sacrifice for each other.

Appreciating Rama’s forsaking Sita as an act of supreme sacrifice harmonizes with the Ramayana’s seminal starting question: whowas the ideal person? The eponymous epic declares Rama the ideal person. A person who abandons his pregnant wife can hardly be considered ideal. But a person who consistently demonstrates the signal virtue of sacrifice, no matter what it costs him, even if it costs him separation from his pregnant wife – that person is indeed extraordinary. And when both husband and wife demonstrate such sacrificing spirit, meditating on those exalted exemplars can offer immortal inspiration.

The post Why did Rama abandon Sita? appeared first on The Spiritual Scientist.

Focus of the Mentorship System (MS) is on the all-encompassing care, both spiritual and material, of existing devotees and not on expansion. Mentees have the facility also of having one-to-one personal meetings with their mentor based on Sacinandana Swami’s “Tree of Life” concept. Devotees feel part of an extended family and by regular training and positive, healthy, devotee association, they will naturally become more stronger in their spiritual lives and happier too! After some years of being in ISKCON we often tend to mechanically perform our sadhana and service, by getting together in the mentee groups we are reminded of the most important regulation which is to “Always remember Krsna, and never forget Him”. Mentors assist us in becoming more conscious of Krsna and keep us focused on our ultimate goal of life of going back home, back to Krsna. As a result of feedback, to cater for devotees of differing levels, our meeting formats have flexibility to be more tailor-made for the individual groups. We are very delighted to be able to offer a new prasadam service to those in the MS and we are looking for more devotees to assist in our new initiative of cooking and/or delivering prasad to mentees in times of illness etc. Please email us at mentorship@krishnatemple. com if you can help. To find out more about the MS visit the “departments” section on krishnatemple.com

Bhaktivedanta Manor - Shree Krishna Haveli Model.
“At the Manor, one hopes to be able to serve Lord Krishna at their highest levels of cognizance,” explained Harish Patel, “This dream became a reality for me when Gauri and Srutidharma prabhus approached us to make the model for the Shree Krishna Haveli. With assistance from my graduating students Amit Bhagat and Pradeep Hirani, this devotional service was taken on. Kamal Chunilal from India helped us overcome the most complicated parts! After about 300 hours of service our prayers were answered and the model was complete!” The model of the Haveli can be found within the visitor’s section of New Gokul farm.

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