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Bhakti Yoga-Devotional Service to the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna

Bhakti Yoga-Devotional Service to the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna
Gopis performing Devotional Service to the Lordships Sri Sri Radha Krishna

A humble beginning



by KKSBLOG on 20 MAR 2018  0 COMMENTS

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 18 October 2017, Melbourne, Australia, Srimad Bhagavatam 4.3.17)

As eternal servants of Krsna, our natural position is to render service. Our happiness lies not in any other endeavour, but only in service. As soon as we try to become the master ourselves, we are in an artificial position. Since we are not very good masters, we have to ‘pretend’ and start hiding our defects.
We start on the wrong footing. If we only started properly from an early stage in life, we would be strong. However, we do not. We pick up bad habits even before we are adults. Then, by the time we are grown up, we are thoroughly fixed in all kinds of nonsense.
Srila Prabhupada liked using the words ‘nonsense rascal.’ In India, this is a big thing to say this to someone. I saw a certain senior devotee once calling a bank manager ‘nonsense rascal’ and then that devotee had to change his bank – that was it and it could not be fixed. So, it is a big thing to call someone ‘nonsense rascal’ in India but it sums it up really nicely!
A rascal is inclined towards all kinds of activities that are not beneficial, inclined towards activities that will bring suffering upon themselves and others; therefore it is nonsense – his actions do not make sense.
So if one comes to the point where one can actually admit, “I am a nonsense rascal!” this is the beginning of becoming a devotee. I get the question asked a thousand times, “How do I become humble?” Well, today I am answering it in a way that I have never answered it before. I say, “Admit to yourself that you are a nonsense rascal.” Then it is up to us to also understand, “Yes, I have all these foolish attachments somehow. Foolish attachments I developed that I have no benefit for whatsoever.”
This is our situation – being addicted to many things that are in fact sinful; life after life this is our situation. It is not necessary to do anything in this life to develop this addiction to sinful activities; it is already there. Even children are not as innocent as they look and neither are we for that matter. Srila Prabhupada understood this and in one sense he was not shy to point it out by saying things like ‘nonsense rascal’. He was not shy to point out the defects and yet somehow, he was not rejecting anyone in the end. Rather, he was welcoming everyone. That is the essence of Lord Caitanya’s movement!


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I want you to hear Krishna Kirtan Madhava He on SoundCloud

Hey, check out this track on SoundCloud: Krishna Kirtan Madhava He!

https://soundcloud.com/krsnakirtan/madhava-he

Home à Song Lyrics à M

Song Name: Madhava Bahuta Minati Kari Toya

Official Name: None

Author: Vidyapati

Book Name: None

Language: Maithili

 

LYRICS:

(1)

mādhavabahuta minati kari toya

dei tulasī tiladeha samarpinu,

dayā jāni  chāḍabi moya

 

(2)

gaṇaite doṣaguṇaleśa  pāobi,

yab tuhuñ karabi vicāra

tuhuñ jagannāthjagate kahāosi

jag-bāhira nahi muñi chāra

 

(3)

kiye mānuṣa paśu pakhī ye janamiye,

athavā kīṭa patañge

karam vipākegatāgati punaḥ punaḥ

mati rahu tuyā parasañge

 

(4)

bhaṇaye vidyāpatiatiśaya kātara,

taraite iha bhava-sindhu

tuyā pada-pallavakari avalamban,

tila eka deha dīna-bandhu

 

TRANSLATION

1) Madhava, with this offering of a tulasi leaf and sesame seeds I beseech You and pledge my body in Your service. I know Your compassion is such that You will not reject me. 

 

2) While considering this appeal, You will only be able to count my faults. You will not find even a trace of good qualities in me. You are known throughout the creation as Jagannatha (master of the universe). Therefore do I, a worthless soul living within this universe, not have the right to accept You as my master?

 

3) Birth after birth, as a result of my karma, I repeatedly come and go, sometimes as a human, sometimes as an animal and sometimes as a bird, worm or insect. But in whatever birth I take may my mind always remain fixed on Your narrations.

 

4) With great remorse, the poet Vidyapati humbly prays, "O Madhava, O friend of the fallen, please give this insignificant person shelter at the tender leaf of Your lotus feet. In this way, I may cross over this ocean of material existence."




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The reawakening




KKSBlog Newsletter
The latest news articles

The reawakening

By KKSBlog on Mar 19, 2018 12:05 am

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 26 December 2017, Govinda Valley, Australia, Initiation Lecture)

Krsna has a deep personal relationship with every living entity and he is conscious of every thought the every living entity has – just imagine that! Krsna is unlimitedly great in this aspect. And so, Krsna enters into a deep personal relationship with every devotee and can become attracted and captured by their loving service. This is called sri krsna-akarsanito attract Krsna by devotional service. This is our aim: to go deeper into devotional service and attract Krsna.

Krsna states in the Bhagavad-gita that by remaining covered by his illusory energy, people will not be able to see him in this material world. Therefore, there is sometimes doubt or strong opinions where some may say, "He is an old man with a beard." Once a professor referred to Srila Prabhupada as "dogmatic" for saying that Krsna is God. The professor was of the opinion that we should be more universal to all religions and not become narrow-minded; this is what he meant by dogmatic. In response, Srila Prabhupada said, "Why is he so dogmatically saying that Krsna is not God when he has never seen God?".

Ultimately, one has to see the Supreme Lord but because of the cover by the illusory energy, we have forgotten our origins, our connection with Krsna. Even if we remember a little, by some mercy or have some knowledge, it is still very incomplete. We are not seeing Krsna face-to-face. So, our purpose is to reawaken our natural love for Krsna and to restore our original relationship with him; to dedicate our lives in service to Krsna, so that we can attract him. Once that is happening, we naturally become more and more attached to Krsna by hearing, chanting and serving him. This is completely natural because Krsna is not an ordinary person!

The article " The reawakening " was published on KKSBlog.




A friendly movement

By KKSBlog on Mar 16, 2018 02:07 pm

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 18 October 2017, Melbourne, Australia, Srimad Bhagavatam 4.3.17)

ISKCON has to be a very friendly movement. A very accommodating movement that is ready to give everyone a chance; ready to not find fault in others. To not find fault in others is hard. We may catch someone lying and say, "He is a liar! Shame! This person needs to be rejected!" Well, have we ever lied? Never, ever? That is a lie! So yes, even if we catch someone lying, it does not mean that that person has some weakness. It does not mean that we can say, "This person is a write-off! I do not want to deal with such people!" Because then, we cannot deal with ourselves either. We are all fallen. We are all simply here by the mercy of great devotees and by the mercy of Lord Krsna.

But then, "How do you correct someone?"

Chanakya Pandit has mentioned that you cannot correct anyone unless you are in a senior position to that person. And even when you are in a senior position to that person, you cannot correct them unless you have a heartfelt friendship with them. If you are not senior and do not have a heartfelt relationship, then you do not correct them. Instead, you go to someone who has that relationship and say, "Well, these things are going on. I do not know what to do, but if you think something should be done…  I just want you to know." That is all!

It is not that we go around, "That is not really right, Prabhuji. That is not our standard… That is very offensive!" Through this, we just create a movement that nobody wants to be a part of it for a long time. If it is fine to tell everyone off then we cannot live in such a movement for a long time.

We need a movement which is based on deep friendship and deep appreciation. We do not need a boarding school. If we create a movement which is like a boarding school where everyone is looking at everyone else like, "Prabhuji, are you doing this correctly? That should go over there!" Then, in one's mind, one may start to think, "I want to break loose. I want to run free. I want to go."  

We become split personalities in such an environment. We have a façade and the façade is all external rules, regulations and standards. And behind the closed curtains, the real self comes out. No, we do not want that. We want a very mature movement. A movement with deep friendships amongst everyone. And then, we help each other and we realise, "Today I help you and tomorrow you help me."

The article " A friendly movement " was published on KKSBlog.




A vaisnava's security is his goodwill!

By KKSBlog on Mar 13, 2018 05:00 pm

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 01 April 2014, Cape Town, South Africa, Evening Lecture)

We may think, "What about my security? I need some security; like a little money in the bank, a credit card maybe. You know, just in case, something happens. Need to be prepared. What about my security?"

But vaisnava's security is his goodwill; his goodwill with the people. That is the best security because goodwill goes much further than the bank. You know, the banks may say, "Well, sorry!"  If you have maybe 150 000 and the bill is 160 000. The bank is not paying the extra 10 000. No way! But goodwill, oh, goodwill can pay anything. Yes!

"A million? Alright, what to do. We'll pay." Goodwill is like that because goodwill has a heart and the bank has no heart; that's for sure. The bank is just cold, making profit and impersonal. So what kind of security is that?

You know, plastic! Plastic money, plastic card and one day, there might be no money in the bank! It happened already, in some places there was no money in the bank. People went to the bank to take their money and the bank had no money. What do you do? Put your money in the bank all this time and when you want to take it out, it's not there! So what kind of guarantee is that? But goodwill will never be depleted. So this is really how the vaisnava community functions, away from this artificial society which is based on impersonal security.

Insurance!? Previously, again goodwill was the insurance. When relationships were there, that was the insurance. It still works for many people in the world. The family is your insurance and life was going on as much it is going on now. It is not like, "Oh my God, before we invented insurance, life was so terrible. People were dropping dead like flies, left and right! Serious! Imagine – they were depending on their friends and family and maybe even on the village! That must have been terrible!" No, it worked fine! It helped also to have good relationships.

In countries where the government took over – an interesting country is Sweden because it has a very socially supportive structure, a socialistic structure actually. Basically the idea is the state takes care of everything. So family is something that is really not relevant. You rely on the state and not on your family. Therefore people don't really want families.They want to minimize families – less family and more state; everything comes from the state. It's interesting how it really works like that. The state is very benevolent, gentle and always provides. No problem! Everything provided by the state. But you know, everything is impersonal, very impersonal in such a condition.

In a family situation, everything depends on relationships. So vaisnavism depends on that, depends on service, depends on giving people something valuable, giving them valuable knowledge so that they become indebted. Giving them valuable support, giving answers, real answers…  It works, there is no difficulty at all in maintaining in such an environment and yes, that is how the world should be. The world should not depend on an artificial, global economy and so on. No need for families to be spread out over six countries; every family is sort of going that way these days. A relative in one corner, a relative in another corner. What a weird world? Strange!

Just a village – everyone in the village and then, it all is simple because there are relationships and relationships become important. It's like when you live in a city, it doesn't really matter because people are just faces. You don't know them. There are all these faces of people you don't know. So it's just endless faces, meaningless faces. But living in the village, you know everybody and well, you have to live with them, so you, you know, you better invest in the relationships so that it works. So that is actually the natural way of life.

The article " A vaisnava's security is his goodwill! " was published on KKSBlog.




The holy dhamas

By KKSBlog on Mar 12, 2018 05:00 pm

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 14 November 2017, Mayapur, India, Nectar of Devotion Seminar)

In the Nectar of Devotion, Chapter 13, we are talking about residing in Mathura dhama or Mathura mandala which refers to the holy dhama of Vrindavan. Mayapur dhama is non-different. "So this attainment of transcendental loving devotional service to the Lord is the goal of life and it can be achieved very easily for one who lives in Mathura mandala even for a few seconds."  EVEN FOR A FEW SECONDS! Just see all the benefit we are getting by being part of this Movement and understand why Srila Prabhupada wanted to develop projects in these holy dhamas where we could stay.

Of course, the Navadvipa Dhama Mahatmya is pointing out that in the age of Kali, Vrindavan will become less and less manifest and Mayapur will become more and more manifest – not that it is any less transcendental; Vrindavan will stay equally transcendental but less manifest to the perception.

So gradually that will happen; materialistic society will enter into the layer that is covering Vrindavan – the layer of yoga-maya, the illusory energy. That layer then becomes polluted and then that layer which covers the dhama is less transparent. The dhama itself, of course, cannot be touched by anything material or by Kali-yuga but the dhama will be less visible. But still, we appreciate it.

It used to be so nice… When I went to the Krsna Balaram mandir, it was so nice. We had neighbours on either side and then on either side of that was open space. Across the road was a big park. After us, basically, Vrindavan would end. Then at the back was Raman Reti – you could see sixty peacocks in Raman Reti. There were even peacocks on the side of the road. The road was small and there would be one car a day going by. There were no scooters, nothing like that. Cycles and tongas, horse carts with wobbly wheels and tiny little horses, that was it.

In Loi Bazar, the shopkeepers would be sleeping. If you wanted to buy something, you had to wake them up. That is how it was. A totally different Vrindavan than what it is now. What can I say? There were no Western things. And there were not all these other people; just people who were coming for a yatra, for a pilgrimage. There were no hotels and guesthouses. There were ashramas. People would stay in ashramas. There was no television so in every house, at night there was kirtan. If you just walk to anywhere in Vrindavan at night, there was kirtan.  Forty years ago – a different time. So now, I can see how Vrindavan is becoming more covered; like Yamuna, little bit polluted and so on. What can we say? But Mayapur will become more and more manifest.

The article " The holy dhamas " was published on KKSBlog.




Previous published articles


Second chances
There is no other way…
Devotees like the Lord
The movement of nectar bhaktas
Powerful vows
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Spiritual advancement


KKSBlog Newsletter
The latest news articles

The right time to pray…

By KKSBlog on Feb 11, 2018 03:53 pm

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 30 June 2013, Vrindavan, India, Srimad Bhagavatam 6.16.34)

Ultimately, the mercy of Mahaprabhu is what we are hoping for but only after we have given our everything – NOT BEFORE and NOT while lying on our back saying, "Oh, I really hope for the mercy of Mahaprabhu." Not like that but instead, after we have given our everything and we have reached our limits by trying hard and when we reached our limit, that is when we start praying! When we have tried everything to conquer the unconquerable Krsna then miracles can happen by mercy.

Read this article online...


Spiritual advancement

By KKSBlog on Feb 09, 2018 12:00 pm

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 19 September 2017, Petite Riviere, Mauritius, Lecture)

Some people say, "After 36 years that I have been chanting, I can see no result!"

Do not worry, one day we will all realise that making spiritual advancement is not easy. It takes time. It is a slow process. We make spiritual advancement but we do not see it. One may have no taste for chanting but if one day, it is forbidden to chant; we still cannot stop it. It is not possible. That is how it is. It is deeper that we think it is. At the end of life, all that counts is spiritual advancement. All material things become insignificant.

In South Africa, Syamalal Prabhu, a Prabhupada disciple left his body as he was suffering from a brain tumour. He forgot everything except Srila Prabhupada and the sannyasis. He remembered that he was born in Navadwip and followed all the traditions of Navadwip. He used to say that Srila Prabhupada wants sweets and told the same stories again and again. That was an incredible blessing that took from him away from all undesirable things. He was just left with Srila Prabhupada. That is wonderful. That is the essence of our being. And it does not stop there. The Maha Mantra enters the heart and awakes our sleeping consciousness. Chanting is very powerful!

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Captured by Krsna

By KKSBlog on Feb 07, 2018 12:00 pm

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 19 September 2017, Petite Riviere, Mauritius, Lecture)

Srila Rupa Goswami said, "Do not go to Kesi Ghat if you have material desires." But when Krsna plays his flute in Vrindavan how can one not go. We should all go to Vrindavan. Srila Prabhupada used to tell the story of the thief in a village…

Krsna is unlimitedly beautiful. One of His flutes is called sammohini, the bewildering flute. Krsna is always dressed beautifully and on His chest He has a big Kastubha jewel. Once a thief heard about that and he thought that his life would be made if he would have that jewel. He fantasised about stealing that jewel from Krsna. He searched for Krsna everywhere near Govardhan. He walked near Govardhan every day and then one day he saw Krsna covered with jewels. He said to Krsna, "Come on now! Give me all your jewels!" Krsna refused, he said, "Mother Yashoda will be angry if I give you my jewels." Still the thief insisted that Krsna should give him all the jewels. Then finally Krsna gave him all His jewels and all desires that the thief had were fulfilled and he said to Krsna, "Would it be alright if I decorate you with these jewels!" When Krsna returned home, Mother Yashoda looked at him and said, "I did not dress you like that." Krsna replied, "It was my devotee who did!"

Krsna does not look at what we give but He looks at what we are holding back.

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Removing fear and attachment

By KKSBlog on Feb 06, 2018 12:00 pm

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 19 September 2017, Petite Riviere, Mauritius, Lecture)

All our material activities, our karma, leave many impressions on our mind. All our actions in all our past lives have left impressions on our mind. All these impressions are still in our subconscious and they still affect us. It is just like eating sugarcane. We chew and remove all the juice but still, we keep on chewing – chewing the chewed. Like that, we have so many desires. Again and again the same desires. Even something that we may not like, still we will accept it out of fear of losing that also. All fears and attachment are removed by chanting the holy name. We just have to be attached to the holy name and Krsna.

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The maha mantra

By KKSBlog on Feb 05, 2018 12:00 pm

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 19 September 2017, Petite Riviere, Mauritius, Lecture)

The chanting of the Hare Krsna Maha Mantra is very interesting because we are giving and receiving while chanting. We are giving our ears and tongue; and we are receiving darshan, mercy and attention of Krsna. We are making an offering and Krsna is accepting.

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Previous published articles


High aspirations
Invest in your spiritual life
Toughen up
The Bhagavatam is the book of this movement!
My right or My duty?
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