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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Ritvik guru - Not in line with our acaryas

Thakura Bhaktivinoda is acknowledged by all his sincere followers as possessing the powers of the pure devotee of Godhead. His words have to be received from the lips of a pure devotee. If his words are listened from the lips of a non-devotee they will certainly deceive. If his works are studied in the light of one's own worldly experience their meaning will refuse to disclose itself to such readers. His works belong to the class of the eternal revealed literature of the world and must be approached for their right understanding through their exposition by the pure devotee. If no help from the pure devotee is sought, the works of Thakura Bhaktivinoda will be grossly misunderstood by their readers. The attentive reader of those works will find that he is always directed to throw himself upon the mercy of the pure devotee if he is not to remain unwarrantably self-satisfied by the deluding results of his wrong method of study.

Guru bhakti, Krishna bhakti - Guest speaker: Swami B.V. Tripurari

There is no possibility of doing Krishna bhakti without Guru bhakti. You cannot engage in Krishna bhakti without honoring the Guru, without honoring the Vaishnavas. In Sri Bhakti Rasamrita sindhu by Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhupada there is a discussion about the angas of bhakti. Anga means limb, like my arms or my legs and angi means the body. So the angi has angas. Rupa Goswami gives the angas of Krishna bhakti, 64 limbs of bhakti to Krishna. In listing those angas of Krishna bhakti what is the first thing that he says? What is the first anga of Krishna bhakti? He says guru padasraya... we have to take shelter of the feet of the Guru, to come and sit and hear. So this is the first anga of the angi of Krishna bhakti.

The World Vaishnava Association - How to serve all Vaishnavas

There is a story in the Mahabharata about the Kauravas who sent the Pandavas into the forest to be in exile. And these Kauravas they thought: "Let us make the Pandavas envious by having a big party right next to were they are exiled, we are going to have a big feast and we are going to sing and dance and these guys (the Pandavas) cannot come out because they are in exile, let's really torture them in this way." So they (the Kauravas) were in the middle of their partying when suddenly the Gandharvas, who are some very powerful people, they found out about their party. Having a grudge against the Kauravas, the Gandharvas came and invaded their party and they took everybody prisoner. One messenger went to Yudhishtira and said: "Somebody took the Kauravas as prisoners, their whole party was destroyed by the Gandharvas." And then Yudhishtira said: "Oh, then we have to go and free them, we have to protect them, Bhima go and get your weapons, we are going to go and help the Kauravas." Bhima said: "Never, never I will do this, move one finger for these Kauravas. No Yudhishtira, you cannot ask me that, anything else you can ask me." Then Yudhishtira said: "Listen Bhima, you are right, they are rascals and they should be chastised, they are real nonsense and they have done real stupid things, but when we are under attack we are 105 (The Kauravas are 100 brothers and the Pandavas 5 brothers), because we have a family relationship. If a foreign interest, a foreign danger approaches, even though I have a misgiving with my brother or with my nephew, when we are under attack we are 105." In India the junior submits to the senior unlike in the west where we even fight with our father. We have no understanding of tradition, of keeping something unified and strong. So Bhima finally said that if this is your order Yudhishtira I obey. They went and they freed the Kauravas and defeated the Gandharvas. This shows you how powerful these 5 brothers were, what the whole Kauravas could not do. So in the same way when we are under attack, we are one Vaishnavas, doesn't matter wether we are Ramanujas, Madhvacharyas or Vallabhacharyas.

Egoism - Thinking that we are the center of the universe

There is a law in physics which says that every action has a corresponding reaction. People learn about it in school but they do not learn how to apply this law in real life. They think that this is a law for the mechanical department, or maybe it is a law for the chemical department, but they do not think that this is a law for the life department. You are functioning under this law. Every one of your actions will bring about a corresponding reaction, no exception to the rule. Everybody teaches it in every school in the world, but they do not apply it to their own life. If I use a little bit too much salt then what happens to the food? It becomes spoiled. If I cook it too long, or too little, too much salt, too little salt, every detail has a reaction. So then why do you think that life has no reactions? Why you think that you can kill, intoxicate, you can abort children, you can do anything without getting a reaction? You know why you think in that way? Because you idiot think that you are the center of the universe.

The Power of Determination - Trying to conquer the relative or submit to the absolute

Do we belong to the relative or to the absolute? If we would belong to the relative and it is natural to die then why we do not want this? It is natural that we need food so nobody is upset by the fact that he needs to take food. It is natural that we have to go to the bathroom, it is not such a pleasant thing but still we all submit to the process. But when it comes to death we are really upset about it and we do so many things in this world to try to avoid it. Death is a relative thing and we belong to the absolute, so we are in absolute opposition towards the relative impact of death. And even the announcements of death called old age and disease are very much against what we aspire to meet. But because we are in this relative existence with a body subjected to the rules and regulations of this relative world there is nothing we can do about it, we simply have to accept. So we are in confrontation between the absolute and the relative. Nobody can say that: "this is not my struggle, this is not my topic." Hiranyakasipu wanted to conquer the relative, he said: "I will do something about it. I will become a yogi and I will get so much power that death will not be able to touch me." So he became a great yogi and he was very determined in what he was doing. He went into yoga meditation and started to make extreme tapasya (austerities) in order to conquer death.

Loving Autocracy - Sri Ramachandra, The Perfect King

Srila B.B. Bodhayan Maharaja recently said that: "A community of Vaishnavas which is somewhat maintained but where nobody accepts anybody specifically, it is just a factory of laziness and chaos." These are a bit strong words but you see that in Vedic culture there is quite an autocratic system present which obviously only functions under the principles of love, trust and justice. We hear from the Ramayana that any complain any citizen had, specifically a brahmin, he could go right away to the king and complain to him: "My dear King, you are supposed to be the ideal ruler, why this is going on, why that is going on?" and the king had to respond to this complain. So please do not think that we are promoting a dictatorial style of imposition of anyone on top of others. This is not the meaning of autocracy in accordance with the spiritual community.

Worshipping Krishna - How Deity worship transforms our life

One of my godbrothers went to the beach in Jagannath Puri, he was a hippie. As he walked he saw something shining on the beach. He went down and looked and there was a little Krishna deity. So he picked Him up and immediately he was attracted to the Deity and without having any other introduction or knowledge about it he carried the Deity to his home and started to offer food to Him. Very shortly after that he went to Hyderabad and met the devotees on the street and they invited him to meet Srila Prabhupada. He went there and fell in love with Srila Prabhupada at once, became his disciple and Prabhupada made him the pujari of Radha Madhava in Mayapur. That was 28 years ago or more and he is still pujari there.

How important are we? - Understanding the cause and importance of our existence

How important are we? That is actually only answerable in connection with the cause of our existence. The cause supposedly is an indicator to the purpose, and when the purpose is fulfilled and the cause is thus satisfied we can thus define what was the value. How important are we, if we could not talk about this subject we would not know if we are important at all. If we want to be important without knowing the reason why we exist or why we are important then that would bring about a state of consciousness of self-righteousness which is artificial and not accepted by others and which would finally prove to be erroneous by the very development of the history of matter and your participation in it.

Secrets of Bhakti - Krishna is vanquished by love

Krishna is vanquished by exclusive devotion. This sentence alone should drive us mad, should let us fall on the ground and cry and cry and cry, if our hearts would be soft enough. God the Creator, vanquished by pure devotion. As a matter of fact He is addicted to pure devotion, He wants it. As a matter of fact He has given you your loving capacity so that you can reach to real devotion. Exclusive devotion is the goal of our life. Exclusive devotion means exclusive love to Krishna in every moment in every circumstance to everybody, this is something extraordinary. This is the love we have seen in our spiritual masters. My gurus had exclusive devotion and they gave us their love from their exclusive devotion.

Money Ruins the World - The rich become richer and the poor poorer

Money is a certain energy and it has the tendency of growing, it becomes more and more and more. There is a famous saying which says that the rich become richer and the poor poorer. Why the rich become richer? Because they use their riches to create circumstances in which the poor people cannot rise. This is called eliminating competition.

Summary of Oida Therapy - Faith will sustain us when everything else will be lost

Humanity is in great need for some new revival of spiritual, mystical, non-sectarian consciousness which puts love first and doctrine second. Because if love is first then doctrine will be helpful to realize more love, but if doctrine is first it usually becomes dogma and dogma is often being executed without love which results in loss of faith.

Oida therapy 5 - Healing meditation

Sit in a comfortable position, either in a yoga posture or in a chair which is not too soft. Try to keep your column in a position as straight as you can do comfortably. Now mentally thank all those who have helped you along your way, both physically as well as spiritually. To remove from your consciousness all the guilt ask mentally to be forgiven from all those whom you have caused pain and sadness either knowingly or unknowingly.

Sri Siksastakam - The intense revelation of loving relationships

Only dearest confidants are entitled to enter into the night-pastimes of Radha-Krishna. Sakhis always try for the union of Radha-Krishna. Actually Radha-Krishna are very much eager for mutual union at night. When Radha-Krishna's union is manifest, Vrinda devi with dearest Sakhis worship Radha-Krishna in various ways. After that Radha-Krishna with those Sakhis move in the forest, sing songs and perform the rasa-lila with dancing. Our revered guru-varga used to caution us by saying that only eligible votaries can remember the pastimes of Radha-Krishna of midday at Radha-kunda, dusk-pastimes and night-pastimes of rasa-lila. To meditate on this lila is a great privilege for those who are actually surrendered devotees.

Internal symptom of devotion - Worshiping Krishna in the mood of separation

The internal symptom of devotion is a stage of perfection. On that stage one worships Krishna in the mood of separation (vipralamabha). The Siksastakam describes this mood as follows: "My dear Lord Govinda, because of separation from you, I consider even a moment a great millennium, tears flow from my eyes like torrents of rains and I see the entire world as void. In my agitation a day never ends, for every moment seems like a millennium. Pouring incessant tears, my eyes are like clouds in the rainy season. The three worlds have become void because of separation from Govinda. I feel like I was burning alive in a slow fire."

Srila Prabhupada - A true saviour of our soul

Srila Prabhupada is the saviour of our soul. Of course he would give all the credit to Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityananda, but I knew that through him so he is my saviour. Srila Prabhupada was not only a saviour in the world of individual meditation processes and speaking about transcendence, he was also that utmost revolutionary of giving a spiritual guidelines and clarity to the whole world on how they should behave, how they can solve their problems, socially, politically, economically, etc. He was clearly a representative of the Absolute Truth even though he did not emphasize it, his only emphasis was that he tried to serve his spiritual master, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupada.

Emotional rapture - How to become captivated by spiritual attachment

O Supreme Lord Sri Krishna! When by uttering your Holy Name, my eyes will be adorned with sacred glamour of the rolling down of tears, while uttering, my voice will be choked, the whole body will be saturated with thrilling sensation?

Attachment to a sadhu - The cause of liberation and more

Even though attachment is the root cause of material downfall and pain, if that attachment is transfered to a sadhu and Krishna then that very attachment will automatically open the door to liberation. Have you ever seen an automatic door? You can see them in the Airports in Europe. You approach the door and by electronic sensor the door opens, knowing that somebody is coming. In a similar way your hearts feelings are scanned by a spiritual sensor and the obstruction from leaving this material world is removed automatically, with the attachment to a sadhu in your heart the doors to liberation opens, that means the door into the life of purity, the door into goodness, the door into dharma, the door into devotion.

Devotion & willpower - The willpower to want to serve comes from devotion

Devotion and willpower have very much in common. If you have devotion you get the willpower to do something. Usually when people are personally ambitious they have the highest performance. The willpower to do service, the willpower not to fight with others, the willpower to fulfill my duty, the willpower to expand Krishna-consciousness, this willpower is what Krishna wants to see and then He will give you His blessings and the chance to do more things for Him. The willpower here is devotion, wanting to serve. There is no more frustration in you when you decide that you want to serve.

Oida therapy 4 - Colors and characters

The colors in this world are mixed by 3 prime colors: blue, red and yellow. They create all the other colors which exist. White and black are also included there in a mysterious fashion. The colors are really an array, just like the rainbow, of showing the variety which exists in the development of characters.

Oida therapy 3 - Understanding our identity

The identity therapy is taking you to become more aware of your limitations in this world and it will show you how to go further. It will help you to understand that there is no underlying chaos in this creation, everything is orderly organized. Therefore our life also has to be orderly organized in order to get to some beautiful conclusion.

Oida therapy 2 - How to get peace of mind

The peace of mind therapy means you are born, educated and raised and thus you incur debts which you have to repay in order to be happy and progress. What are those debts? You have debts with nature and her agents like mother earth, the elements (water, fire,...). Then you have debts with your parents and the forefathers who brought you into existence, they were all instrumental to that. And then you are getting education, that means you have debts with the rishis and teachers of the past and the present. How can we repay our debts to them?

Krishna's associate - Becoming part of the family of the Lord

Becoming part of the family of the Lord is so fantastic that for most of the people this remains an abstract idea, they just cannot imagine that. Once an atheist gave a speech in Calcutta and my Gurudeva went, he wanted to hear what argument he is giving. The atheist argued that if God exists do not bother about Him, because He is too busy. He is managing universes which are so far away that their light has not even reached the earth yet. He is managing all that, then do you think that He has any time left for you tiny little fellow? So you better forget about Him. That was his argument. Then Srila Sridhara Maharaja answered that if such a Person could exist Who has created all that, do you think that He would be able to forget even one ant? He knows everyone and He cares for everyone.

Oida therapy - Positive and progressive sound

This life is complicated and we all wish to have a solid foundation and clarity about what we want in life. But we are facing so many lies and also we are coming in contact with revealed truth. In Oida therapy we start to discriminate what is truth for us and what is lie. This therapy will help us to increase discrimination so that we may not be carried away by advertisement and by other confusions which often propagate lies and make us ignore the truth about our own well being, about our own correct eating habits, etc.