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"''It is above your calculation. What is really your inner aspiration, your calculation can never guide you there. It is more. That calculation path you are to shun, to abandon. And take another path - of faith. Your faith also very meagre. To infinite possibility - how your faith can conceive? That is also within limitation. But there are things, you will be astounded to think.
As Swami Maharaj told Acyutananda - You will faint. Your understanding can never reach that standard. Such great things are there. So please give up that mania, depending on your calculation, reason, judiciousness, all these things. Give up this shackle, undesirable shackle. Faith also - very meagre - how much you can put faith in? It is more and more infinite. And your internal aspiration is for that. So give up calculation life, come to faith, and try to increase the boundary of your faith, only in the company of the sadhus, who are dealing with that faith substance.
Give up life of calculation. Connect y
"Prabhupāda: When I was a child my father gave me one red gun, and then I was not more than eight years. Then, after getting one, I said, "I must have another one." Eh? Then father said, "Why another one? You have got already one." So I said, "No, I have got two hands. I must have two guns." Then my father, "No, you are not.... I am not going..." Then I made so much agitation, he was obliged to give me two guns. (laughter) I was very pet child of my father and very pet son-in-law also. And I am very pet guru also. (laughter) Hare Kṛṣṇa. Thank you. What is this?
Dr. Patel: This is Hanumān jayantī today.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Today is also the rāsa-yātrā of Balarāmajī.
Prabhupāda: Oh, rāsa-yātrā. Oh. So you have some festival?
Dr. Patel: Yes, they have got the festival in the Rāma-mandira.
Girirāja: We're having a bigger festival in our mandira.
Dr. Patel: Good.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: Also it is the appearance day of Śyāmānanda Gosvāmī and Vaṁśī-vadana Gosvāmī.
Prabhupāda: How many stories
Jaya Tamoji!
Yeah, I can relate to your pain, Prabhu. ..... Whatever it is, it's just another straw on the camel's back. (And I know all about camels!)
(Home sweet home -- the dry parched sands of the Arabian desert -- reminds me of my state of mind, i.e. very bleak and without a drop of nectar!)
Anyhoo, I hope you feel much better soon. They say that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." That may be true, but sometimes I wish I could figure out an easier way to become strong. Ain't it the damn truth that "youth is wasted on the young"? :(
Ha ha, funny story about the lota in New York. Hey cool, you did the freight train gig. Wow, you're my hero. I once hopped onto a freighter car parked in a train yard and waited for hours and hours for it to get moving. Finally I got fed up and decided to hitch-hike on the freeway. That probably saved my life, as knowing my luck, I probably would have fallen off the freight car or froze to death!
Yeah, that's my little
"In the Lalita-madhava, Rupa Gosvami explains that the movements of Krsna's eyebrows are just like the Yamuna, and the smiling of Radharani is just like the moonshine. When the Yamuna and the moonshine come in contact on the bank of the river, the water tastes just like nectar, and drinking it gives great satisfaction. It is as cooling as piles of snow."
(Nectar of Devotion, Chapter 44)
Krishna does not like to see His sincere devotee suffer or become frustrated or depressed. He will not stand idly by in any such case, so do not fear on that account. Krishna has got some plan for you, always think in that way, and very soon He will provide everything to your heart's desire.
Srila Prabhupada
( Letter to: TejiyasBombay19 December, 1972)
Lord Rama, of course, is Lord Krsna. In addition, just as Radha is with Krsna, Sita is with Rama, and Sita, as the feminine aspect of the divine, is known as the goddess of fortune, which shows providence to be on the Pandevas’ side. To aid in his battle, Shiva enters into the world in the form of a monkey, as Hanuman, who will serve Lord Rama.
Hanuman plays the role of suffering servant within the story. Hanuman is God, and has tremendous powers, yet He is so humble that unless reminded of those powers, He forgets that He has them. There is no sense of ego or arrogance within Hanuman. At one point, Hanuman asks Lord Rama for a teaching, and Sri Rama replies that the most beloved to him is the person who sees himself as the servant and everyone and everything else as his master. That is the image of the pure devotee, which Hanuman exemplifies. Hanuman has completely surrendered to Sri Rama to serve as His devotee, just as Arjuna will need to completely surrender to Sri Krsna, to se
B. Radha-Govinda Swami (ACBSP);
I came across this in regards to Mr. Sethi, the first life member in Mumbai, (obviously a gentleman who gave his heart to Srila Prabhupada), and felt to share with devotees. May we be blessed with such a sense of devotion and dedication to Srila Prabhupada and Sri Sri Radha-Krsna:
Although he was never officially initiated into ISKCON, Sethi always regarded Prabhupada as his guru. From the moment the two first met in 1971, Sethi became a life member and a staunch, loyal follower of Srila Prabhupada.
That same year, ISKCON acquired four acres near Juhu Beach in Mumbai, dubbed it “Hare Krishna Land,” and erected a temporary temple there. But former owner Mr. Nair wasn’t letting go easily. In the early 1970s, his wife Mrs. Nair convinced the Bombay Municipal Council through one of its members, Pushpakant Mhatre, to issue a demolition order on ISKCON’s temporary temple.
Backed up by a large team of police, Nair’s demolition squad invaded Hare Krishna Lan
ONLINE ACCREDITTED UNIVERSITY !!
Srila Prabhupada's ISKCON ; SPIRITNET would like to invite devotees to participate in the creation of a fully accreditted university level series of courses leading to Bhakti Sastri etc. We already have some eight or so graduates from our five year courses, and recently a full university professor with PhD. in philosophy and ethics and religious studies has taken diksha and is teaching a Gita class. We hope to implement a more rigorous and world-standard set of courses online for devotees seeking excellence.
Devotees are surprised that we offer such degrees and have been doing so for several years now. WE ARE THE REAL FOLLOWERS OF SRILA PRABHUPADA. JOIN US, HELP US, LET US FIGHT MAYA TOGETHER.
Please join, take up a class, teach a class, bring new students, lets us cooperatively push on the Hare Krsna Movement. We could use so many volunteers, we could use a lot of money donated, kindly consider to what extent and degree you may wish to be invovled in a
"Everything works according to His Divine purpose, and only the arrogant and foolish ego believes otherwise. So as Kshatriya, Arjuna’s duty is to fight. He must not allow human fears and anguish over the consequences of his actions, consequences he has no real knowledge of, prevent him from obedience.
One should not be afflicted by the extremes of humanity. Some people are led by their desire to always be happy, and others are led by their fears and anguish, but the person who wants to be eligible for liberation should not be disturbed by happiness or distress since these things are only found within the material world. The liberated soul will transcend beyond. Those few who reach this level will understand that the material body is nothing, the cares of this world are fleeting, and that only the eternal soul is absolute. Even modern science will tell us that the body is constantly changing. Not only does it grow over the course of life, but the cells within are constant
While reading the book, “If You Want To Please Me,” a compilation of “Selected Letters on Book Distribution and Publication” put together by the BBT in 1987, with 1,000 copies printed, I noticed there were ten letters from Srila Prabhupada instructing senior disciples on how to perform initiations, both first and second in his absence.
The book was printed to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of the formation of the BBT, and the BBT humbly presented the book in an effort to deepen enthusiasm and inspire all of us to continue in this most important mission of our spiritual master.
In the publishers Preface, it states, “The letters, presented in chronological order, outline an interesting history of our movement. We have produced each letter verbatim, without deletions feeling it best for the reader to understand Srila Prabhupada’s statements in as complete a context as possible.”
I wanted to dig into this “interesting history” especially as it had not been “edited, changed, revised
"Our only strength is chanting Hare Krishna Maha-mantra. So if we stick to the principle of chanting Hare Krishna Mantra, following the rules and regulations, that will give us strength to work on both sides - namely to enlighten people in Krishna Consciousness and cut down the bad government full of atheistic people."
Letter to Madhudvisa Maharaja 15 September, 1971
verse 11 of Sri Isopanisad explains;
“Only one who can learn the process of nescience and that of transcendental knowledge side by side can transcend the influence of repeated birth and death and enjoy the full blessings of immortality.”
RELIGIO-INSTITUTIONAL PSYWAR by HH Aindra Maharajah Thakura
[Principles of psychological disempowerment]
1. Convince the enemy [us, the laity] that there is no war – so we see no cause for alarm.
2. Make us believe that they [the institutional power elite] are stronger than they really are, and make us believe that we [the grass roots contingency] are weaker than we really are.
3. Hide the truth – cover-up, distort, lie, confuse, falsify . . . divert, pervert, put down, and demonize the truth . . . to manipulate the history, present, and future of society.
4. Quell the resistance before it has a chance to raise its ugly head. Slander, scorn, and/or eliminate dissenters [the audacious few who break the code of silence] to demoralize further potential protests.
5. Intimidation – compel by unilateral communication of increasingly ever-constraining institutional law. Supplant multi-angular philosophical discussion with sophistical dogma.
The institutional power elites are small in number
Sri Vrindavan Das posted an article here a couple days ago by Isa dasa, NM disciple, condemning so-called ritviks, " Ten Reasons ritvik is nonsense" or something like that, ie us! Suffice it to say, the article was not even realistic, pure propaganda made up by NM fanatics and Itsacon corps. CIA-inspired agents, whose desire is to divide and conquer Srila Prabhupada's disciples. SVD attached no comments to the post, explaining its purposes here. I asked him if he agreed with it, more than once, no reply received.
I contacted Isa dasa, who said that the article he wrote, and posted here by SVD, was old and now incorrect, that that was his past, he no longer thinks like that or agrees with what he wrote in the past, he accepts ritvik as an alternative that is real, now. Meanwhile, Sri Vrindavan Das is gone.
- Isa Dasa.....i used to comment on ritvik, But i found where Srila Prabhupada said He would appoint some "of you" so that finished the question Ritvik or not. Please forgive me if I
Lord Sri Ramacandra is a powerful incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead as an ideal king. He appeared in the Treta-yuga, more than two million years ago.
This is a verse from Brahma-samhita in which the incarnation of Lord Ramacandra is described. Ramadi. Not only Rama, but there are many other, innumerable incarnations. They are compared with the waves of a river. As the waves of the river or the waves of the ocean cannot be counted, similarly, how many incarnations are there of the Supreme Lord it is not possible to count. But out of them, the principal names are mentioned in the sastras. Therefore it is said ramadi. Ramadi means Rama and also other, many incarnations. And they are existing. Not that one incarnation appeared and it is finished. No. Not like that. Just like Lord Ramacandra appeared on this planet, say millions of years before. He appeared in the Treta-yuga. Treta-yuga means… We have passed only five thousand years of this age, Kali-yuga. Before that, there
rāmādi mūrtiṣu kalā-niyamena tiṣṭhan
nānāvatāram akarod bhuvaneṣu kintu
kṛṣṇaḥ svayaṁ samabhavat paramaḥ pumān yo
govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
[Bs. 5.39]
nānāvatāram akarod bhuvaneṣu kintu
kṛṣṇaḥ svayaṁ samabhavat paramaḥ pumān yo
govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
[Bs. 5.39]
This is a verse from Brahma-saṁhitā in which the incarnation of Lord Rāmacandra is described. Rāmādi. Not only Rāma, but there are many other, innumerable incarnations. They are compared with the waves of a river. As the waves of the river or the waves of the ocean cannot be counted, similarly, how many incarnations are there of the Supreme Lord it is not possible to count. But out of them, the principal names are mentioned in the śāstras. Therefore it is said rāmādi. Rāmādi means Rāma and also other, many incarnations. And they are existing. Not that one incarnation appeared and it is finished. No. Not like that. Just like Lord Rāmacandra appeared on this planet, say millions of years before. He appeared in the Treta-yuga. Treta-yuga means... We have passed only five thousand years of this age, Kali-yuga. Before that, there was
She grew up in a nishada family, and it was the day before her marriage, her father having brought thousands of goats and sheep to be sacrificed for her wedding. With compassion and sadness in her heart, not being able to bear to see the slaughter of those animals the young woman ran away into the forest and stayed.
She went to many rsis and asked them to accept her as their disciple and teach her true knowledge, but all of the rsis rejected her considering her unworthy to become their disciple because of her being of lower caste.
Not giving up in her determination the young girl was accepted by Matanga Rsi who immediately accepted her as his daughter and welcomed her into his ashram. He engaged Shabari in the service of taking the ashram cows to the pastures and seeing to the cleaning of the ashram, despite the criticism of the other rsis for his "accepting a lowly, nishada outcaste," the rsis now considering and criticising Matanga Rsi to be fallen and impure for his having accep
CC Adi 3.21
apane na kaile dharma sikhana na yaya
ei ta siddhanta gita bhagavate gaya
"Unless one practices devotional service himself, he cannot teach it to others. This conclusion is indeed confirmed throughout the Gita and Bhagavatam."
Bhakti Rasamrta Sindhu 1.1.11
anyabhilasita sunyam jnana karmadi anavrtam
anukulyena krsnanusilanam bhakti uttama
One should render [uninterrupted] transcendental loving devotional service exclusively for the pleasure of Lord Sri Krsna without any desire for material profit or gain through philosophical speculation or fruitive activities.
Any other desires or activities executed - such as looking to obtain money for our own materialistic purposes,looking for position, name/fame - which are outside of the realm of pure devotional service rendered exclusively for the pleasure of Krsna constitutes (compromised) devotional service mixed with other motive.
BG 11.54; 18.55
bhaktya tv ananyaya sakya aham evam vidho 'rjuna
jnatum drastum ca tattvena p
