(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Radhadesh, May 2011)

We have to be ready to be changed by the Vaisnavas, by the directions of the Vaisnavas.  We have to be ready to give up our own ways, our own ideas, and so on.  We have to become soft.

It is said that as one is advancing in spiritual life, gradually the heart softens.  At first it is like a rock.
"I am what I am and who is going to tell me anything!  I am here surrendering to Krsna and that's it!  I am not going to listen to anybody, except, okay, the temple president, but that's about it!"

Hard!  But gradually, you must become softer.  The heart melts, it is explained.  Gradually one becomes pliable and one becomes like clay or like dough.  It becomes possible for us to be shaped by the desires of someone else.  We had a plan and they'll ask you to do just the opposite, and we'll say, "Yeah, sure!"  And there goes our plan!

That kind of flexibility is possible – that we can just give ourselves to the needs and desires of others.  That is Vaishnava.

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Radhadesh, May 2011)

When I speak about different levels of commitment to different levels of authorities, then I'm speaking about a matter of the heart. When it comes to our spiritual master, we must give our heart, and we must try, we must try cent percent. Although we will not make it, we must have a desire, and we must have that kind of commitment in our heart. With others, we may maintain a certain inner privacy, and yet co-operate in the social context.

The two hour procession of the London Ratha Yatra made its way from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square with hundreds of devotees pulling three chariots and chanting the Holy Names in ecstasy. Although the Ratha Yatra was on Nirjala Ekadasi, it turned out to be Jala Ekadasi because there was typical English rain. But it was much more than just water, as Maharaja said, it rained the inconceivable mercy of Their Lordships Jagannatha, Baladeva and Subadhra. Enjoy the pictures!

If you cannot vie the slide show below, please visit flickr.

Maharaja's tour through Germany continued from Weimar to the small preaching temple in Leipzig. Here he stayed for approximately four days and apart from giving daily morning and evening classes, he continued to write his book. After Leipzig, he traveled to Berlin to give the Saturday feast lecture. It was a mellow program and the lecture focused on "how we treat temporary situations as permanent ones".

After the program it was an early night as the next morning we were on our way to London to attend the famous Ratha Yatra!

If you cannot view the slide show below, please visit flickr.

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 2005)

It is a fact that the previous sinful reactions can create a sinful disposition in the heart, and bring out a strong impulse to engage in a certain activity. One can check it with the intellect. But its true that everyone of us is caught up in our previous karma. You see that is the sinfulness in us – just like anything. So we are conditioned already, and if we are not at all tabula rasa or blank personality.

We already have a whole load of hand baggage with us from our last life that will come out throughout, and that is the so called subconscious. The subconscious is nothing but impressions from our last life, and just as Freud was saying that:

"The subconscious is a very powerful force in the individuals!"

And that is true – it is simply the leftover remnants from the last life that push us. So that is understood here in this circle. Even if the tendency is there, then one can check it and in this way one can also by self control and by getting some moral knowledge – lift himself above this sinful disposition, but one cannot change it in that way. It will still be there, but one can control it, and this is what you see in the world – you see many people who are either good religious people and they are good citizens, but then they are caught in some compromising situation, and it's all over. It's a wide spread and its all over the papers.

This is the result of such compulsive behaviour, due to previous reactions stored in the sinful disposition. So it maybe difficult for someone to give it up, even by knowledge, intelligence and by the attempt to control. But if you take to the process of bhakti – devotional service, then it immediately diminishes the sinful disposition… not completely but it begins to diminish it.

So in bhakti we also have to control ourselves by the intellect through knowledge. But simultaneously we are breaking down the sinful disposition and with time….. you just change and it's gone…it just disappears. No other process can offer you a means to make the sinful disposition disappear – it can only give you knowledge and techniques to control it:

"Sit and do breathing exercises and cool down…control your mind. Stay calm and just keep it under control. Go in that quiet room again and look at your triangle. And if you keep on doing it long enough then stay calm with self control then you can do it. Go and meditate….stay cool."

So that's just exercise to control the mind, but it doesn't change the heart!

BBT press release

Why so few revisions for this chapter? And why the change for the title?

See for yourself in the annotated scans for chapter six, now online at www.BBTedit.com/changes.

You'll see all the revisions done for the purports, along with explanatory notes. And for nearly all the changes you'll see images from the earliest manuscripts in the BBT's files.

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