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My New Year's Resolution

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Awakening that original hope!

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 30th Dec 2011, Munich, Germany) Lecture: Caitanya-caritāmṛta Adi 9-48

Devotional service captures the heart. It awakens a long dormant hope. In our hearts there is always this dormant hope for happiness. Maybe once when we were children we thought, yes, we will find it, but we didn't. Then we became adult, and as adults we come through this point life when we realise:

"Well, you cannot always get what you want, and you have to settle for the reality and so on."

So we settle for compromise. But this fruit of love of God, or fruit of devotional service awakens that original hope! That actually it may be possible after all to be fully satisfied. It awakens the very natural desire in us!

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Anchoring our vows

(Kadamba Kanana Maharaja, Dec 2011, Cape Town, SA) We have to build a very solid spiritual life. Vows don't stand by themselves. Just like a pole put in the sand doesn't stand very firm unless it is anchored in a strong foundation. Either you have to anchor it with a big concrete block on the ground or you have to put lines on four sides to sort of anchor it otherwise with time it will fall over. So we find that the vows in spiritual life also need to be anchored; they need support lines and a foundation then the forces of material nature will not knock over these vows. So the interesting part is that what was sort of relatively easy in the beginning… In the beginning you follow these vows on the strength of determination and it works. Then as time goes on, you actually realise that you have to do more than you were doing before to maintain these vows. When we are advancing we think we have to do less, but no, we actually have to do more to maintain these vows with time. That's the interesting part and one has to put more and more into place.

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The power of bhakti

(Kadamba Kanana Maharaja, Dec 2011, Cape Town, SA) Karma can never overcome bhakti. There is no question that karma, at any point, can overcome bhakti. Bhakti is always more powerful than karma and no matter what can happen, bhakti can rise above.

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