I was reading in the Padma Purana that all the holy places of the universe are in one tulsi leaf. Just think about that….when you are a sannyasi, they always give you a tulsi leaf when you get the caramrta and it gets stuck in your throat! There were moments when I was thinking, 'oh God here comes the tulsi leaf!' Then Krsna made me read that all the holy places of the entire universe are in one tulsi leaf…

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 2011)

Time…..time is very short……very short. Can anyone think of who they were in their last life? One can go to India to some fortune teller. They will tell you of course, that usually it's a prince or a sannyasi…yes…for a good price! I never heard of anyone who was a dog and somehow or other had some prasadam in that life! Or a worm who was being spat upon by a vaisnava!

But whatever it maybe, something went wrong in the last life and somehow or other we didn't make it. Suppose we would have been already engaged in devotional service in last life – it is possible:

'nehābhikrama-nāśo 'sti
pratyavāyo na vidyate' (BG.2.40)

That there is no loss or diminishing in this devotional service, which means in the last life, we could have been engaged in devotional service, and in this life we continued to where we left off, which means we blew it last time – basically, and these are interesting thoughts to contemplate from time to time!

I'm sometimes thinking about it:

"My God…possibly I was deeply sunken into a sinful lifestyle and upraised by the mercy of the vaisnavas. Or I was already pulled up by the vaisnavas to somewhat level of devotional service and then I blew it….and what was it in me, that made me blew it in the last life, that is still there in me in this life?"

Well if you think life in that way then it is not so difficult to deal with. Everyone can find some quality. In my case it would be my stubbornness and my tendency towards independence, which I have successfully protected all throughout my Krishna Consciousness in various ways. For that I moved to India because there was more space. For that I took sannyas because there was more space!

So somehow or other one does not surrender to that one thing….that particular quality – stubbornness and independence, but what can we do? Krishna has ways! He pulls the rug from under us at times and just upsets our whole comfortable life…..he does that!

We have to appreciate why Krsna consciousness is better in so many ways. And we have to be thoroughly convinced that our life is much better than the life of others and when we are actually experiencing that then we know that of course it's better.

We have the four regulative principles- the regulative principles of freedom. We have it and everyone else is caught in sinful activity, which is just creating a network of reactions leading to death and we are free. All the activities of a devotee, each act, is making us more and more free from distress, whereas a materialist, each activity is pulling him down more. From early in the morning, as soon as a materialist will open his eyes it will begin….put some coffee in there, put some cigarettes in there, put some unedible things in there and just sinful activity after sinful activity the whole day! And karma upon karma upon karma! So each day collecting more and more karma whereas a devotee each day is throwing off karma. Throwing it off, less and less and the burden becomes removed. It is mentioned that a devotee is in this way becoming released from the darkness of the sinful reactions.

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, June 2011, Helsinki, Finland)

On the occasion of Lord Krishna's appearance day, the African BBT has released its first book in Xhosa, one of the eleven official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is the native language for about 8 million people. The book is a translation of Srila Prabhupada's Beyond Birth and Death. Tota Gopinatha Dasa First printing: 5,000 copies. The translator: Tota Gopinatha Dasa. The graphic designer: Khotso Kholopane.

read more