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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

Jyotisar The holy Banyan Tree, which is supposed...

Jyotisar  The holy Banyan Tree, which is supposed to have witnessed Lord Krishna delivering the sermon of Bhagavad Gita Jyotisar is a town on the Kurukshetra-Pehowa road, 5 km west ofThanesar in the Kurukshetra district of Haryana. 'Jyoti' means light and 'Sar' means the core meaning. Hence the name of place is a reference to the 'core meaning of light' or ultimately of God. It is one of the most revered holy sites of the holy city of Kurukshetra. A Vat (Banyan tree) stands on a raised plinth. Local traditions say that this tree is an offshoot of the holy Banyan tree under which Lord Krishna delivered the sermon ofBhagavad Gita, the doctrine of Karma and Dharma to his wavering friendArjuna. It is here that He showed his Virat rupa (Universal form), the terrifying image of Himself as the Destroyer God.  A marble chariot depicting Lord Krishna delivering the sermon to Arjunamarks the site of the Srimad Bhagwad Gita. In one secluded section of this center, an old Shiva temple can also be seen. Hundreds of years ago, a holy water tank was present here and it can still be seen in the rainy season. The Kurukshetra Development Board has renovated the site in recent times. A mango shaped lake has been constructed here with covered bathing ghats for ladies. Cement parapets and enclosures have been built for protection. A light and music show is organized by the tourism department at the site, on a regular basis, which recreates episodes from Mahabharta. A restaurant and accommodation wing forYatrees have been built and the entire area has been landscaped with flowering bushes and eucalyptus trees.
Jagdish Kisla 12:44pm Dec 17
Jyotisar

The holy Banyan Tree, which is supposed to have witnessed Lord Krishna delivering the sermon of Bhagavad Gita
Jyotisar is a town on the Kurukshetra-Pehowa road, 5 km west ofThanesar in the Kurukshetra district of Haryana. 'Jyoti' means light and 'Sar' means the core meaning. Hence the name of place is a reference to the 'core meaning of light' or ultimately of God. It is one of the most revered holy sites of the holy city of Kurukshetra. A Vat (Banyan tree) stands on a raised plinth. Local traditions say that this tree is an offshoot of the holy Banyan tree under which Lord Krishna delivered the sermon ofBhagavad Gita, the doctrine of Karma and Dharma to his wavering friendArjuna. It is here that He showed his Virat rupa (Universal form), the terrifying image of Himself as the Destroyer God.

A marble chariot depicting Lord Krishna delivering the sermon to Arjunamarks the site of the Srimad Bhagwad Gita. In one secluded section of this center, an old Shiva temple can also be seen. Hundreds of years ago, a holy water tank was present here and it can still be seen in the rainy season. The Kurukshetra Development Board has renovated the site in recent times. A mango shaped lake has been constructed here with covered bathing ghats for ladies. Cement parapets and enclosures have been built for protection. A light and music show is organized by the tourism department at the site, on a regular basis, which recreates episodes from Mahabharta. A restaurant and accommodation wing forYatrees have been built and the entire area has been landscaped with flowering bushes and eucalyptus trees.




--
Yours
Dinesh

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He does not leave the devotee's material desires unfulfilled

So Intimidating!!! About the hidden desires which remain for eons in the heart.
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if a devotee has a particular motive, the Lord directly or indirectly knows it, and therefore He does not leave the devotee's material desires unfulfilled
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via Mayapur TV Archives by ashok on 12/16/10

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

His Grace Jananivas prabhu joined Srila Prabhupada in Mayapur from the beginning of the project (1972) and has been the personal servant of their Lordships Sri Sri Radha Madhava ever since. He enlivens the world by the ever increasingly high standard of the deity worship performed in Mayapur under his guidance. The world can now also benefit from his association via these classes. Prabhu never fails to bring the consciousness of the listener to a higher level, always deeper realizations. He knows the art of opening the heart to be ready to welcome devotional service. My obeisances onto him.

Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 4.9.29

maitreya uvāca
mātuḥ sapatnyā vāg-bāṇair
hṛdi viddhas tu tān smaran
naicchan mukti-pater muktiḿ
tasmāt tāpam upeyivān

SYNONYMS
maitreyaḥ uvāca — the great sage Maitreya replied; mātuḥ — of his mother; sa-patnyāḥ — of the co-wife; vāk-bāṇaiḥ — by the arrows of harsh words; hṛdi — in the heart; viddhaḥ — pierced; tu — then; tān — all of them; smaran — remembering; na — not; aicchat — desired; mukti-pateḥ — from the Lord, whose lotus feet give liberation; muktim — salvation; tasmāt — therefore; tāpam — grief; upeyivān — he suffered.

TRANSLATION
Maitreya answered: Dhruva Mahārāja's heart, which was pierced by the arrows of the harsh words of his stepmother, was greatly aggrieved, and thus when he fixed upon his goal of life he did not forget her misbehavior. He did not demand actual liberation from this material world, but at the end of his devotional service, when the Supreme Personality of Godhead appeared before him, he was simply ashamed of the material demands he had in his mind.

PURPORT
This important verse has been discussed by many stalwart commentators. Why was Dhruva Mahārāja not very pleased, even after achieving the goal of life he desired? A pure devotee is always free from any kind of material desires. In the material world, one's material desires are all most demonic; one thinks of others as one's enemies, one thinks of revenge against one's enemies, one aspires to become the topmost leader or topmost person in this material world, and thus one competes with all others. This has been described in the Bhagavad-gītā, Sixteenth Chapter, as asuric. A pure devotee has no demand from the Lord. His only concern is to serve the Lord sincerely and seriously, and he is not at all concerned about what will happen in the future. In the Mukunda-mālā-stotra, King Kulaśekhara, author of the book, states in his prayer: "My dear Lord, I don't want any position of sense gratification within this material world. I simply want to engage in Your service perpetually." Similarly, Lord Caitanya, in His Śikṣāṣṭaka, also prayed, "My Lord, I do not want any amount of material wealth, I do not want any number of materialistic followers, nor do I want any attractive wife to enjoy. The only thing I want is that I may engage life after life in Your service." Lord Caitanya did not pray even for mukti, or liberation.

In this verse Maitreya replied to Vidura that Dhruva Mahārāja, influenced by a revengeful attitude towards his insulting stepmother, did not think of mukti, nor did he know what mukti was. Therefore he failed to aim for mukti as his goal in life. But a pure devotee also does not want liberation. He is a soul completely surrendered to the Supreme Lord, and he does not demand anything from the Lord. This position was realized by Dhruva Mahārāja when he saw the Supreme Personality of Godhead present personally before him because he was elevated to the vasudeva platform. The vasudeva platform refers to the stage at which material contamination is conspicuous by absence only, or in other words where there is no question of the material modes of nature — goodness, passion and ignorance — and one can therefore see the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Because on the vasudeva platform one can see God face to face, the Lord is also called Vāsudeva.

Dhruva Mahārāja's demand was for a position so exalted that it was never enjoyed even by Lord Brahmā, his great-grandfather. Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is so affectionate and kind towards His devotee, especially to a devotee like Dhruva Mahārāja, who went to render devotional service in the forest alone at the age of only five years, that although the motive might be impure, the Lord does not consider the motive; He is concerned with the service. But if a devotee has a particular motive, the Lord directly or indirectly knows it, and therefore He does not leave the devotee's material desires unfulfilled. These are some of the special favors by the Lord to a devotee.

Dhruva Mahārāja was offered Dhruvaloka, a planet that was never resided upon by any conditioned soul. Even Brahmā, although the topmost living creature within this universe, was not allowed to enter the Dhruvaloka. Whenever there is a crisis within this universe, the demigods go to see the Supreme Personality of Godhead Kṣīrodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, and they stand on the beach of the Milk Ocean. So the fulfillment of Dhruva Mahārāja's demand — a position more exalted than that of even his great-grandfather, Brahmā — was offered to him.

Here in this verse the Lord is described as mukti-pati, which means "one under whose lotus feet there are all kinds of mukti." There are five kinds of mukti — sāyujya, sārūpya, sālokya, sāmīpya and sārṣṭi. Out of these five muktis, which can be achieved by any person engaged in devotional service to the Lord, the one which is known as sāyujya is generally demanded by Māyāvādī philosophers; they demand to become one with the impersonal Brahman effulgence of the Lord. In the opinion of many scholars, this sāyujya-mukti, although counted among the five kinds of mukti, is not actually mukti because from sāyujya-mukti one may again fall down to this material world. This information we have from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (10.2.32), wherein it is said, patanty adhaḥ, which means "they again fall down." The monist philosopher, after executing severe austerity, merges into the impersonal effulgence of the Lord, but the living entity always wants reciprocation in loving affairs. Therefore, although the monist philosopher is elevated to the status of being one with the effulgence of the Lord, because there is no facility for associating with the Lord and rendering service unto Him, he again falls into this material world, and his service propensity is satisfied by materialistic welfare activities like humanitarianism, altruism and philanthropy. There are many instances of such falldowns, even for great sannyāsīs in the Māyāvāda school.

Therefore Vaiṣṇava philosophers do not accept sāyujya-mukti to be within the category of mukti. According to them, mukti means transferal to the loving service of the Lord from one's position of serving māyā. Lord Caitanya also says in this connection that the constitutional position of a living entity is to render service to the Lord. That is real mukti. When one is situated in his original position, giving up artificial positions, he is called mukta, or liberated. In the Bhagavad-gītā this is confirmed: anyone who engages in rendering transcendental loving service to the Lord is considered to be mukta, or brahma-bhūta. It is said in Bhagavad-gītā that a devotee is considered to be on the brahma-bhūta platform when he has no material contamination. In the Padma Purāṇa this is also confirmed: mukti means engagement in the service of the Lord.

The great sage Maitreya explained that Dhruva Mahārāja did not desire in the beginning to engage in the service of the Lord, but he wanted an exalted position better than his great-grandfather's. This is more or less not service to the Lord but service to the senses. Even if one gets the position of Brahmā, the most exalted position in this material world, he is a conditioned soul. Śrīla Prabodhānanda Sarasvatī says that if one is elevated to real, pure devotional service, he considers even great demigods like Brahmā and Indra to be on an equal level with an insignificant insect. The reason is that an insignificant insect has a desire for sense gratification and even a great personality like Lord Brahmā also wants to dominate this material nature.

Sense gratification means domination over material nature. The whole competition between conditioned souls is based upon domination of this material nature. Modern scientists are proud of their knowledge because they are discovering new methods to dominate the laws of material nature. They think that this is the advancement of human civilization — the more they can dominate the material laws, the more advanced they think they are. Dhruva Mahārāja's propensity in the beginning was like that. He wanted to dominate this material world in a greater position than Lord Brahmā. Therefore elsewhere it is described that after the appearance of the Lord, when Dhruva Mahārāja thought and compared his determination to his final reward, he realized that he had wanted a few particles of broken glass but instead had received many diamonds. As soon as he saw the Supreme Personality of Godhead face to face, he immediately became conscious of the unimportance of his demand from the Lord to have an exalted position better than Lord Brahmā's.

When Dhruva Mahārāja became situated on the vasudeva platform due to seeing the Lord face to face, all his material contamination was cleared. Thus he became ashamed of what his demands were and what he had achieved. He was very much ashamed to think that although he had gone to Madhuvana, giving up the kingdom of his father, and he had gotten a spiritual master like Nārada Muni, he was still thinking of revenge against his stepmother and wanted to occupy an exalted post within this material world. These were the causes for his moroseness even alter he received all the desired benedictions from the Lord.

When Dhruva Mahārāja factually saw the Supreme Personality of Godhead, there was no question of a revengeful attitude towards his stepmother nor any aspiration to lord it over the material world, but the Supreme Personality is so kind that He knew that Dhruva Mahārāja wanted these. Speaking before Dhruva Mahārāja, He used the word vedāham because when Dhruva Mahārāja demanded material benefits, the Lord was present within his heart and so knew everything. The Lord always knows everything a man is thinking. This is confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā also: vedāhaḿ samatītāni.

The Lord fulfilled all Dhruva Mahārāja's desires. His revengeful attitude towards his stepmother and stepbrother was satisfied, his desire for a more exalted position than that of his great-grandfather was also fulfilled, and at the same time, his eternal position in Dhruvaloka was fixed. Although Dhruva Mahārāja's achievement of an eternal planet was not conceived of by him, Kṛṣṇa thought, "What will Dhruva do with an exalted position within this material world?" Therefore He gave Dhruva the opportunity to rule this material world for thirty-six thousand years with unchangeable senses and the chance to perform many great sacrifices and thus become the most reputed king within this material world. And, after finishing with all this material enjoyment, Dhruva would be promoted to the spiritual world, which includes the Dhruvaloka.

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H.G. Jananivas prabhu speaks on S.B. 4.9.29
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Déhätmì-One who considers the body as soul.Almost every1today is so!

Wen sombody is dead,y do v say d person has gone? It means d person is
different from d body.D body was dead even when he
was alive.It's just matter(some blood,bone,flesh thats all)&was active
with consciousness becoz of soul in it.A car moves when there's
driver.It's foolish2think car-body as driver-soul

--
Yours
Dinesh
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Sleeping means2forget our identity!

Sleeping means Sunyavadi-to make oneself zero or forget 1's
identity.When asleep,v forget v r son/husband/wife of such&such
person&in dream v create a new body or have a diff experience&is
forgotten upon a wake up.It is with this mind v(soul) travel across
bodies.Our present body is 1such,created by Mind!

--
Yours
Dinesh
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Better Safe Than Sorry (part 3)

 
 

Sent to you by dinesh via Google Reader:

 
 

via KKS Blog by noreply@blogger.com (aatish) on 12/14/10

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Chowpatty, 11th Dec 2010)

Ashrama that's a matter of choice. There is no ashrama which is free from austerity- every ashrama brings it's austerities one has to simply adjust to it. Every ashram requires lots of adjustment but that is required for us to be successful to rise above the karma. We don't know what karma is still there, the aprarabda karma is stored within the heart - it is stored in the heart, so many sinful reactions from so many lifetimes, we don't know what is there. We don't know what reactions are still to come.
It is mentioned that Ajamila at the time of being a student, he was a brahamin. It is said that he was the best student among all the others, he was exemplary and there was no one like him. So, his teachers were very impressed by him and they were just wondering what kind of karma does this Ajamila have and so therefore one day they thought let's consult an astrologer.
So, the astrologer calculated the birth chart of Ajamila and he saw to his astonishment that soon Ajamila would go into a very dark phase and then he would fall down in his brahaminical standards and would get involved in illicit activities with a prostitute. He could see it in the chart and the teachers were shocked! ...


They knew it that, ' Yes the astrologer is qualified'
and therefore they immediately made arrangements for Ajamila to get married.
They said 'You get married' and they said:
'You just stay here in the ashrama, no need to go looking for a job.'
They made maximum arrangements for his protection, but it was not successful because the sinful reactions stored within the heart from the previous life finaly caught up with him and over took him even though the stars seemed to be good. Therefore the nature of aprarabda karma cannot be over seen and obviously in the age of kali it is already going for 5000 years, we can appreciate that we have had many births before in this age of kali and most likely during those births engaged in so many sinful activities and if some of them were human then we are responsible.
The human birth is the one birth where one is held responsible - that we have to understand. We cannot accept that things will be smooth and that we will not be attacked by possiblly strong material desires.
We were studying in Mayapur the pastimes of Dhruva Maharaja in the Bhakti Vaibhava course and I was teaching, so I was really studying and reading commentaries and this and that and then I came across in the Vishnu Purana that it is stated that Dhruva Maharaja in his previous life was a brahamana. As a brahamana he was very qualified and in due course of time he became friends with the king and in his friendship with the king, Dhruva Maharaja started to develop desires to have similar opulence as the king - and then we see in his next life he becomes Dhruva. He is denied to sit on the thrown and is denied to sit on the laps of his father and becomes very angry and what does he want? ….a kingdom greater than his father and grandfather and where did it come from?
We can see it was a desire which was already there from his previous life and he carried it with him, just see. So, we cannot expect that we will not be attacked by some very powerful material desires since the aparabda Karma is not so good in the age of Kali. The un-manifested karma stored in the heart is not so good. Therefore it will happen to us, - we will be attacked with strong desires and we will develop the inclination to act against our better knowledge.
Then we should remember that now I am a victim of external forces - this is not me. I am simply a play ball on the waves of karma. I am simply being controlled by external forces, this is not me. One has to understand that karma works in this way and we become controlled simply by previous impressions. This way one must be detached of even what may come in the future.
One already has to have a detached attitude when desires come that:
'I will not take it serious'
In this way we have to prepare a mentality that if material desire knocks on my door.
"No, sorry, no thank you, not interested - even if it is cheap I am not buying. No!"
Like that one has to fix himself. That is only possible for one who fixes himself while chanting the Holy Name. Try sincerley to conquer the mind while chanting the Holy Name and to fix our mind on hearing the chanting and if we simply do that then we can get the strength to be fixed also in ordinary dealings.
Just like inattentive chanting leads to inattentive service. I was just talking to the mridanga player of how mridanga playing is the most difficult thing.
Why is mridanga playing so difficult? It is difficult because it is not about different beats or of different bols or of different mantras, it is not about intricate rhythms, that is the secondary part - the primary part is all about hearing.
A good mridanga player is one who listens, who is totally attentive to the kirtan and is following very carefully to what he is hearing. That's extremely difficult and that is only possible if one chants attentively. If one is an inattentive chanter one will be an inattentive mridanga player for sure. One will do everything inattentive, one goes through life as if in a cloud and just walking like that in the cloud one would inadvertedly do so many things that one later wonders why did I do that and later on forgets.
The sage, who when he was a child grabbed a little stick and pierced an insect and later was visited when he was an adult suddenly in the middle of the night by these strangers that came asking for shelter. He then gave them shelter and an hour later the soldiers arrived and they were arrested - they were all thieves and they were going to kill these thieves and the sentence was that they were going to be pierced by lance. The sage was almost pierced by a lance and somehow or other it was found out and the sage was released.
The sage got so upset, How is this possible? How is this that I was almost been pierced by a lance? I am going to find out and check this out with Yamaraja. So he went to Yamaraja to find out what it was and it turned out that it was his karma as a child piercing an insect with a stick.
Alright so, we are simply attentive in spiritual life, attentive to take shelter, attentive in our chanting, attentive to take shelter, attentive to act properly, attentive to act accordingly to the desire of Krishna.

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Chowpatty, 11th Dec 2010)

 
 

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