Bewildered Civilization

A conditioned soul is hampered by four defects: he is sure to commit mistakes, he is sure to become illusioned, he has a tendency to cheat others, and his senses are imperfect. Consequently we have to take direction from liberated persons. This Kṛṣṇaconsciousness movement directly receives instructions from the Supreme Personality of Godhead via persons who are strictly following His instructions. Although a follower may not be a liberated person, if he follows the supreme, liberated Personality of Godhead, his actions are naturally liberated from the contamination of the material nature. Lord Caitanya therefore says: "By My order you may become a spiritual master." One can immediately become a spiritual master by having full faith in the transcendental words of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and by following His instructions. Materialistic men are not interested in taking directions from a liberated person, but they are very much interested in their own concocted ideas, which make them repeatedly fail in their attempts. Because the entire world is now following the imperfect directions of conditioned souls, humanity is completely bewildered.


(Srimad Bhagavatam 4.18.5 Purport)

Real goal of Religion - to always remember God

  

Krishna appeared as Mahaprabhu with the sentiments and complexion of Radharani to give the highest ecstatic rasa to anyone without considering their qualification or disqualification.

Unless theoretical knowledge is applied to our life, there will be no realization.

Krishna does not require our scholarship; He knows everything.

When a devotee honestly and sincerely tries to please the Lord, the Lord accepts the position of being conquered by that devotee.

Knowledge is to understand that we are eternally part and parcel of Krishna.

Conditioned life means to think we are this body and to act according to the interests of this body. To think we are this body and act to serve the purposes of the mind and body, it is illusion.

Less intelligent people think religion is something beside our normal routine life. Actually, everything we do, it has to be on the service of God- that is applied knowledge.

How to apply these spiritual endeavors is that one who actually understands Bhagavad-gita is striving and struggling to serve Krishna at every moment. When you serve God, you will not be appreciated by people as everyone is too much engrossed in materialism.

Mode of ignorance - people like violence

Mode of passion - sex, making money

Mode of goodness - charity, nice classical music

All this is material as it is concerned with body and mind. But Krishna says all that is to be done, should be done as an offering to the Lord.

People will find this crazy and will create so many philosophies to satisfy their mind and senses.

Sense gratification and devotional service to the Lord are opposites.

Some people believe that work is worship.  Krishna told Arjuna in what consciousness we are meant to perform our duty. He is teaching us the application of spirituality in our daily life.

Whatever our varna and ashrams may be, our goal should be to purify our heart and serve Krishna.

Krishna teaches us that we should learn to always remember Him. The older you get, the faster your life passes. Pada pada yad vipadam  na tesam- the success of life is not how much money you have, all these things will be washed away by the waves of time as at the time of death everything is striped away. We may have wonderful family, homes- all this is extinguished at the time of death.

Purpose of life is to remember Krishna at the time of death and all our relatives in past and present get liberated-that is compassion.

All relative responsibilities should be related to Krishna.

While we work for money, we should understand that this money will be used for Krishna. To facilitate a home which is temple of Krishna. To buy foodstuffs offered to Krishna. To offer charity so that others can get Krishna.

Prabhupada was very tolerant of whatever fallen condition a soul would be but the knowledge he gave, was without compromise.

A person who teaches fruitive activities to be real religion is cheating you. Whatever our level of consciousness is, we should be striving for perfection.

- HH Radhanath Swami

Drops of Transcendental Wisdom on Grihasta Ashram

The purpose of household life is to attain pure devotional service.


Within this world, the divine service of Radha and Krishna is the sole purpose of the relationship and they are practically living those principles , then the two become one in spirit.That doesn't mean they merge into each others existence but becoming one means they are living for the same purpose and they share the same concerns and goals. One is I will do anything to protect you and you will do anything to protect me; that is oneness that we are there for each other. It means to give up the false ego. This faithfulness and devotion to each other is the common principle of marriage and when there are children, we will tolerate any amount of differences for the welfare of the children.


When children are there, they see our anger and they become insecure and they suffer internally and it will mould their consciousness for the rest of their lives. Even when they become the age of parents, they will have insecurities and miserable elements running within themselves because of reckless behavior of parents.


We have to give up our ego and preferences - principle of marriage. It's a divine relationship because we are responsible to Krishna on behalf of one another. Oneness of interest. Krishna says if you surrender, I carry what you lack. In marriage, Krishna works through your partner to carry what you lack. If both partners understand this principle, then they go back home, back to godhead


Srila Prabhupada writes a husband and wife who live together congenially (to be congenial means tapasya) when they have Krishna in the center, then Lakshmi and Narayana are living in that house even if you don't have deities; They want to live there because of your devotion to each other. If you don't have the congenial relationship for the higher purpose, then They are not in your house; They will be only statues.


Q. A devotee quitting his body Krishna sees how much false ego we have? In Grihasta life the biggest issue is the false ego. Even after devotional life, if our anarthas are not going, what should we do?


A. It is that burning desire to be rescued from the shackles of false ego which impedes our progress on the path of pure love. Execution of devotional service with that desire, will attract Krishna's special mercy. Ahankara is the most powerful element in material creation. False ego is the foundation for the rest of material creation; it is very strong and what keeps us here. As long as ego is there, we have to keep taking birth. So we should eagerly serve the mission of Krishna, chant, hear SB and be the servant, that includes the wife. It doesn't mean you become foolishly attached to the wife like a menial servant, a menial servant in the sense of whats best for service, to do the needful and actually help each other. We have to be humble servant; the wife to husband and husband to wife. We conquer our ego through humble service and respecting others. What drives the men crazy, is when the wife doesn't respect them even though she does and also the wife goes crazy too when husband doesn't respect them. So we have to be humble in our dealings with devotees, with family. That is our austerity and that will show our sincerity to Krishna; the way we act. When we show that sincerity with enthusiasm and patience, we should have faith that Krishna will rescue will us.




Q. What about our responsibility towards parents? We as husband and wife may be wanting to do much more, but due to expectations of family that must be interrupted. Sohow to tackle that?
A. We should honestly try our best. The oneness in commitment if service to each other as husband and wife. Anyone connected to a devotee has the opportunity to make great spiritual progress. Because Prahalad surrendered to the Lord, 10 generations past and 10 generations future got liberated. If child is krishna conscious, parents and relatives get special mercy. If they are favorable then even more. They will make tremendous progress; every time you surrender, everytime you chant the holy mane sincerely, Krishna is going to give more mercy to his/her parents. After death of parents, they will share the results because of your devotion. It's Krishna's promise. The greatest act of love you can perform to your parents is not just to satisfy their material expectations but to become a pure devotee, so that they get liberated. For a Grihasta, because you are in that realm, you have to harmonize your social obligations in such a way that it does not impede your spiritual progress; that happens with proper intelligence,good guidance and sincere motivation.




Q. Parents have certain expectations, and fulfilling them creates friction between husband and wife because it is performed as impeding spiritual progress. So how to tackle that?
A. If someone marries in Krishna consciousness, it is his duty to protect the wife and that often means from your parents. If you allow parents to disturb their spiritual life, you are implicated in the offense before God. You should be as respectful to parents but you cannot allow the wife to be denied the right to be God conscious.


Q. Can we subsidize devotional service for friends?
A. If he's really a close friend, you may want to do but in husband and wife it's a vow before God and it's very serious; it's an offense if you dont. You can choose your friends, but once you are married, you are trapped. But it is Krishna's trap to take you out material nature.
India helps you to become Krishna conscious, because at every step you need to surrender and take shelter.
Once Srila Prabhupada was overseeing a construction, and devotees was saying we cannot concentrate on sadhana because of the construction. SP said you go on with construction, I will chant for you. Krishna is bhavagrahi. We need to pray for each other and offer our Bhakti to each other. Both husband and wife have taken a life long vow to do that - it is very serious. Grihastas should take their vows very seriously. 


(Adapted from a lecture by HH Radhanath Swami)

ISKCON Deity Darshan - 08.07.2012

nirmana-mohajita-sanga-dosa adhyatma-nitya vinivrtta-kamah

dvandvair vimuktah sukha-duhkha-samjnair gacchanty amudhah padam avyayam tat

Those who are free from false prestige, illusion and false association, who understand the eternal, who are done with material lust, who are freed from the dualities of happiness and distress, and who, unbewildered, know how to surrender unto the Supreme Person attain to that eternal kingdom.

The Ideal Prayer of a Devotee

Lord Krsna in Dvaraka enjoyed the pastimes of a perfect human being. Therefore, when He washed the feet of the sage Narada and took the water on His head, Narada did not object, knowing well that the Lord did so to teach everyone how to respect saintly persons. The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna, who is the original Narayana and eternal friend of all living entities, thus worshiped the sage Narada according to Vedic regulative principles. Welcoming him with sweet, nectarean words, He addressed Narada as bhagavan, or one who is self-sufficient, possessing all knowledge, renunciation, strength, fame, beauty and other, similar opulences. He particularly asked Narada, "What can I do in your service?

Narada replied, "My dear Lord, this kind of behavior by Your Lordship is not at all astonishing, for You are the Supreme Personality of Godhead and master of all species of living entities. You are the supreme friend of all living entities, but at the same time You are the supreme chastiser of the miscreants and the envious. I know that Your Lordship has descended to this earth for the proper maintenance of the whole universe. Your appearance, therefore, is not forced by any other agency. By Your sweet will only, You agree to appear and disappear. It is my great fortune that I have been able to see Your lotus feet today. Anyone who becomes attached to Your lotus feet is elevated to the supreme position of neutrality and is uncontaminated by the material modes of nature. My Lord, You are unlimited -- there is no limit to Your opulences. Great demigods like Lord Brahma and Lord Siva are always busy placing You within their hearts and meditating upon You. 

The conditioned souls, who have now been put into the blind well of material existence, can get out of this eternal captivity only by accepting Your lotus feet. Thus, You are the only shelter of all conditioned souls. My dear Lord, You have very kindly asked what You can do for me. In answer to this I simply request that I may not forget Your lotus feet at any time. I do not care where I may be, but I pray that I constantly be allowed to remember Your lotus feet."

By asking this benediction from the Lord, the sage Narada showed the ideal prayer of all pure devotees. A pure devotee never asks for any kind of material or spiritual benediction from the Lord; his only prayer is that he may not forget the lotus feet of the Lord in any condition of life. A pure devotee does not care whether he is put into heaven or hell; he is satisfied anywhere, provided he can constantly remember the lotus feet of the Lord. Lord Caitanya taught this same process of prayer in His Siksastaka, in which He clearly stated that all He wanted was devotional service, birth after birth. A pure devotee does not even want to stop the repetition of birth and death. To a pure devotee, it does not matter whether he has to take birth again in the various species of life. His only ambition is that he not forget the lotus feet of the Lord in any condition of life.

>>> Ref. VedaBase => KB 69: The Great Sage Narada Visits the Different Homes of Lord Krsna

When something happens – is it Karma? Or Krishna?

(HH Kadamba Kanana Swami, Leicester, England, 4th June 2012) Lecture: SB 1.2.7

When something happens to a devotee, then is it karma? Or Krishna? Or what is it?
That is sometimes the big question:
'That's your karma Prabhu?'
But then the other times, you know:
'But isn't it Krishna who is behind this?'
Of course Srila Prabhupada has explained about how karma works for a devotee in 'The Nectar of Devotion' book. 'The fan is spinning and you turn off the electricity at the time you take on devotional service.' So we are getting diminished reactions of karma. So are we under the influence of karma? And then is it waiting until that karma is gone? Or is it directly under Krishna's influence? The pure devotee, is he under the influence of Krishna? And is everyone else under the influence of diminished karma? One could think like that! Giriraj Maharaja had shed some light on this matter. He describes that:
'Yes as Prabhupada said that there is that diminished reaction, but Krishna is behind it and Krishna is sort of watching that karma – that diminished karma. Sometimes He interferes, then other times He just lets it act, and He's just watching it. Anumantā upadrasta – He just witnesses it and oversees everything. In anumantā He gives ajna diba – the permission. So in this way Krishna permits it.'

Or sometimes Krishna says:
'No, scrape that off the bill. That's okay, there is not need for that.'

Sometimes Krishna puts an extra test, there is no karma but He just puts an extra test – a little extra! According to our entire karma it was not suppose to happen but Krishna puts it in there! So it's interesting how we are under the influence of simultaneously Krishna's direction and karma as devotees. Ultimately, Krishna is the ultimate cause and therefore we are always seeing Krishna. So whenever something happens to us we are seeing that it's Krishna 'pūruṣa' – He's our maintainer, He is with us every step of the way. He's caring for us there is no doubt! He doesn't leave us alone. Although He puts us through things that we really don't want to go through it, but it's good for us. He's prodding us, activating us like a buffalo, because after all we have become like buffalos!
In India you see the buffalos walking in the street and some Indian cars are coming from behind, 'Honk, honk,' as Indian cars do…but the buffalo doesn't move an inch, and just keeps on walking. Even when a car touches the buffalo a bit (I've seen that happen) it doesn't move, but with anyone else they would have moved, and a monkey would also fly off the tree and bounce off the ground but the buffalo, when the car hits it, it just keeps on walking! So we have a bit of that buffalo consciousness, by being under the influence of the 3 modes of material nature. I know we don't usually look in the mirror and say:
'You buffalo!'
But that is actually the case since we are dull, as Prabhupada has said many of times:
'You are dull.'
So due to the influence of the 3 modes of material nature we have become dull, we have lost our sensitivity. Gradually it again awakens and we rise above. So when things are happening in our life then Krishna is prodding us. Sometimes you see a little boy or a little girl is walking next to the buffalo with a stick, and they are not shy, and 'whack' with a stick and that's what gets through the buffalo. Then the buffalo thinks:
'Oh yeah, better to go through the side.'

So sometimes Krishna also does it to us!

Reading Srimad Bhagavatam

(HH Kadamba Kanana Swami, 11th May 2012, Sydney, Australia) Lecture: House programme

(Transcribed by Smita Krishna Devi Dasi)

We have to hear from Srimad Bhagavatam. If we don't hear, then how can we enjoy in our spiritual life?
And this is the one thing nobody does somehow or other – that part reading. When was the last time we were reading one of those books? In some houses it's still in original plastic! What can we say? It's just one of those things, and then if we do read it's usually on facebook. So I don't know what you get from there. But it's exactly there in Srimad Bhagavatam that we can have the vision and sooner or later if we want to get serious about spiritual life and if we want to survive then it has to come from the Srimad Bhagavatam.
Sanatana Goswami when he was only quite young (still a boy but old enough) then one night he had a dream and in the dream, one brahmana came and offered him Srimad Bhagavatam. So he was quite happy because in those days it was quite rare. Srimad Bhagavatam had to be hand copied; some brahamanas had to hand copy the whole manuscript, huge manuscripts. So most brahmanas would go for the Bhagavad-Gita or something shorter. There were not many manuscripts of the Bhagavatam around, so then in his dream the brahamana gave him Srimad Bhagavatam and he was in ecstasy and then he woke up from the dream.
So that very day, the same brahmana came to his house and gave him Srimad Bhagavatam. That really was something mystic, since he dreamt about it before and then he got it. It was not just someone gave him the Bhagavatam. So he took it very seriously. So this story is found in the 'Bhakti-Ratnakara,' which is a very interesting book because it gives a lot of history of our movement from just after Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and something about six Goswamis, Narottama Das Thakura, Srivasa Acharya and Krishnadas Kaviraja Goswami who lived very long time. Like that Bhakti-Ratnakara is a book to read.

Seriously Engaged in Devotional Service

"When one seriously engages in the devotional service of the Personality of Godhead, fixing the Lord's lotus feet within one's heart as the only goal of life, one can destroy the innumerable impure desires lodged within the heart as a result of one's previous fruitive work within the three modes of material nature. When the heart is thus purified one can directly perceive both the Supreme Lord and one's self as transcendental entities. Thus one becomes perfect in spiritual understanding through direct experience, just as one can directly experience the sunshine through normal, healthy vision." 

[ SB. 11.3.40 purport ]

05.06.2012 Daily Darshan - ISKCON Vrindavan, Mayapur & Mumbai

Growing Deities at Bhaktivedanta Manor

When I joined ISKCON at Bhaktivedanta Manor in 1975 the devotees were so poor that there was no heating inside, although there was snow outside. Sri Sri Radha Gokulananda were offered garlands largely made of leaves, and the bhoga offerings were tiny. Devotees would queue up to supplement their daily semolina porridge and chickpea breakfast with a mite of maha-prasada.

Then Jayatirtha Prabhu, famed for his opulent Deity worship in LA, became the new GBC. He immediately ordered superb garlands for Their Lordships, along with massive bhoga offerings starting at 4 a.m. with 108 whopping milk sweets. He also enthused the hitherto torpid devotees to get out and collect for this increased service.

And although Sri Sri Radha Gokulananda cannot be perceived by mundane vision, it soon became obvious that Their previously slender forms were becoming rather chubby. So much so that a whole new wardrobe had to be made for Them, as the old clothes no longer fitted.


(by His Holiness Bhakti Vikasa Swami)