Avoiding excess luggage

Posted by dinesh

Sent to you by dinesh via Google Reader:

Avoiding excess luggage

via kksblog.com by hina on 2/2/12

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Radhadesh, Belgium, January 2012) Lecture: SB 5.18.9

By being merciful, Lord Caitanya spreads His net very wide, and is ready to bring in all kinds of people from different walks of life – and that is us. Therefore, we bring with us all kinds of things. So the movement of Lord Caitanya's is a movement, which is accommodating all kinds of people. But that's no excuse to stay like that. We bring all this stuff in our hand luggage. Just like when you fly on Ryan Air, you put on a coat with big pockets and stuff every pocket that you possibly can, because you are not going to let them cheat you out of a lot of money for that little extra kilo – no way!

There are devotees who have special vests, with special pockets that are behind (on the back) which holds computer….a forty kilo vest. That is certainly going on and I won't mention any names. But anyway, at one point you say:

"Do you really need that much luggage? You are a regular traveller and every time you get so much extra kilos and you have to cheat. You put your suitcase on the scale when it is being weighed and meanwhile you keep the end hanging over the edge and with your foot you lift the suitcase – five kilos just like that and if you are strong then even more."

There are so many tricks being employed when boarding a plane, when somehow or other we want to bring extra luggage. Yes, so that is what we are doing here also, in our movement – in our spiritual life, we are just bringing our extra luggage. And that extra luggage is creating a lot of ballast – a lot of extra dead weight. So in our movement there is a lot of dead weight! I know people who are perfect in saying:

"Haribol, Jai….nectar…bliss Prabhu."

And who can offer the flowers exactly at the right moment, but they are not chanting sixteen rounds – that's dead weight! That is ballast…..that kind of association makes it heavy – makes our movement heavy. When we are living in a community, and there a lot of people within that community who are not very much into actively cultivating spiritual activities, then that creates a burden on the community, which weighs the community down!