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From: "kksblog.com" <info@kksblog.com>
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2011 05:04:56 +0000
Subject: KKSblog.com - The Spirit of Humility
To: dineshkrishna108@gmail.com
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The Spirit of Humility
Posted: 11 Jun 2011 04:29 PM PDT
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/kkswamiblog/~3/ERdH7IYI5kI/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 2005)
When I first came to this movement, there was an black American devotee
who was looking after me, and he was helping me in my spiritual life. I had
jaundice so I could not eat so many things. No halwa, which was a disaster!
You join and you cannot have halwa – so it was very serious. I was
depressed to say the least, and at prasadam time I was seriously depressed.
I had to let all that good stuff go.
So, he made some special banana bread for me, which was kind of very nice.
He would just put it in my cupboard and then write a note for me, and he
would sign it as:
"Your dog servant".
And I thought:
"Oh my God! How can anyone in the world call himself your dog servant? It's
like its too much! If he had written your servant, than I could have gotten
that. But your dog servant! It's too much – its over the top!"
I really felt that it was over the top, but he would write things like
that. When that bread was there, it was so good. It was not just bananas
inside, but there was also dried fruit, figs and so many things. It was too
good, and it was a big flat bread, that I would just break a piece off and
eat it. One day he told me:
"You're just eating like a mouse!"
Because, of the way I was eating the bread, that I looked like a mouse.
It's true actually.I felt caught. He was calling himself my 'dog servant'
and I could not understand how anyone could refer to himself as so low.
This is too much, but now I understand better, that a vaisnava is looking
at himself with a magnifying glass. He is very strict, and he is looking at
himself and saying:
" I have to grow…I have to grow and change. There is so many things in me
that have to change! For so long I have been living in the wrong way, and
for so long I have developed so many bad habits…and for so long I have just
automatically let it go and I carry with me – bad habits from my last life.
In this life I have picked up many more and some I picked up from my
parents and so on. Here I am and full of bad habits and now I have to deal
with that. So therefore I have to adjust and change!"
So he looks at himself with a magnifying glass to see where to make the
changes, and he always trying to make the changes. Therefore, he is trying
to take the humble position:
"So whatever I am is not important. If whatever I am is important, than I
cannot change. How can I change? I am like this – I have been like this my
whole life! How can I change?"
But if one is humble than he would say:
"Yes I have been like this so many lifetimes, because of my foolishness".
So in the spirit of humility, one can even change their habits of many
lifetimes, but in the spirit of pride, one cannot change their habit even
in a few years. Therefore, humility is required if we want to bring about a
change of heart, but it is a fact that if one gets too much into finding
faults, by looking at ones own faults with a magnifying glass to make it
worse. One might say:
"Well that's depressing…that's too depressing".
And all day long they will say:
"I'm so fallen. I'm a rat…I'm a dog…I'm low. I can't do anything. I've got
two left hands. I'm going to jump off the bridge".
This is what comes next. Therefore, with the combination that we realise
that we have also got the mercy of the Supreme Lord and because of the
mercy of the Supreme Lord, I am becoming qualified…because the mercy of the
Supreme Lord is such that it gives us the right activity, and if I simply
take to this mercy of the Lord and do the right activity – the activity
that is not destructive but the one that is auspicious. The activity that
with every step that I take, then I am coming closer to a perfect
destination, and with my every action towards anyone, than that person is
also coming closer to an ultimate better destination.
So in this spirit of embracing the mercy, one becomes very positive, then
one appreciates the greatness of Krishna, His kind mercy, and how we
ourselves are not qualified!
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Carrying the Vaishnavas
Posted: 11 Jun 2011 02:05 AM PDT
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/kkswamiblog/~3/W1-Ihf5iHqU/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Durban South Africa, April 2011)
Srila Prabhupada wrote 2 letters after the departure of his spiritual
master. In the first letter he said: My spiritual master has now
returned back to the spiritual world and taken up his eternal position as a
manjari in the spiritual world.
In the second letter he writes: But l know that my spiritual master,
although he is now in the spiritual world, he is always looking at
everything I do.
In other words, he is still actively involved with the here and now. And
thats the situation.
So the great and pure devotees, they can manifest themselves either by
appearing before devotees, either by appearing in the dreams of devotees,
or either by appearing through someone else, by arranging for Krsna
Conscious influence in the life of devotees. In this there is no doubt.
We can understand that as Srila Prabhupada wrote that his spiritual master
was watching over him, that Prabhupada is still watching over us. And isnt
that what we are experiencing?
One devotee had done so much service and still had some rounds left and
was chanting, and then, just so exhausted, went to bed. Immediately he
had a dream that there was someone at the door. He opened the door and it
was Prabhupada, and Prabhupada said: Did you finish your rounds? Which he
didnt!
So Prabhupada will help us, will help us, and the great and pure devotees
will continue to help us even though they are in the spiritual world. And
there are others, other pure devotees who will emerge, and who will
manifest themselves and who will carry the Vaisnavas.
So one should not just look at the pure devotees who have passed on, but
one should also look at the pure devotees in the present who will, somehow
or the other, give us shelter. We take shelter there and then everything
can be attained, because the same knowledge, the same mercy is coming in
disciplic succession.
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Yours
Dinesh
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