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Going against the tide

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 3 October 2012, Bhagavad-gita class, Sydney, Australia)

Krsna consciousness is not a process where the reward comes at the end only. There is a reward that will come at the end but there also is a reward that comes immediately!

Immediately, the quality of life improves tremendously therefore one should not miss the opportunity. It is a little difficult because the world at large, in this age of Kali, is going in another direction. And one has to have certain strength of character to stand up against the constant influence that is telling us to go there. Therefore, it is important that we are get support and for that reason we have temples and we have many programs and we meet again and again! Because just as with bathing, one has to do it again and again, and cannot say, "Well, I took bath yesterday. You have to believe it, I scrubbed for one hour!"

Very good but what about today? Bathing must be regular and in the same way, we must bathe the consciousness in sabda brahman, the transcendental sound!

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Who do you trust?

(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 15th April 2012, Lenasia, South Africa, Lecture: BG 6.30)  

In the Rigveda it is mentioned: 'Let the entire world look upon me with loving eyes and let me look upon the world with loving eyes.'

It's kind of the opposite in the world we live in now, where everyone looks at everyone else with suspicion. Suspicion is actually the normal attitude! You see someone and think,'Hmmm!?' If it is a stranger then you are absolutely suspicious and if it is somebody you know then still suspicious. I mean, even your own mother is suspicious, that is the situation in this modern age.

Love, yes but trust… who do you trust? It's very difficult to trust anyone…  we can't even trust ourselves. So it is very difficult because people are not in control of themselves. It is an age where this has become so rare, 'premāñjana-cchurita-bhakti-vilocanena,' (Śrī Brahma-saṁhitā, verse 38), to see with loving eyes; it has become something which is practically unheard of.

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Text communication is not complete in itself. There are many chances for the person reading the text to interpret the way their according to one's mind's capacity and past experiences and vocabulary or the present situation one is going through. In-person communication on the other hand is very effective because we have different media like sound-pitch, tone and gestures that helps one to express the self better with all emotions. 

So if we see we can prioritize like 

1. In-Person communication 

2. Sound only communication

3. Text only communication 

In today's world in-person communication is not always possible so at least voice communication is better because we can feel the person's mind clearly with the tone and pitch of the voice and there are little chances of communication gaps and relationship problems among ourselves.

There are times where even in-person communication might be mistaken, One time Jiva Goswami was in deep meditation and was seeing something funny in his meditation and then was laughing.There was a brahmana passing by his side who was limping. The brahmana thought that because he was limping which made Jiva Goswami laugh. He felt offended and soon after Jiva Goswami could no longer feel ecstasy in his meditation and went to Sanatana Goswami and asked what was the reason that he is no longer able to meditate properly.

Sanatana Goswami said that he would have offended someone. But Jiva Goswami said there's not anyone he consciously offended. Then Sanatana Goswami gave an idea to call upon all the residents of village for a meeting, whoever doesn't come to the meeting is the one who got offended. Those days in village everyone knows everyone else in the village unlike the nuclear families today in the cities. There was this brahman a who didn't come to the meeting. Then Jiva Goswami went to this person and explained the actual thing. 

It is always better to seek forgiveness from the vaishnavas and like this we might do something and some devotees may take some offense in their perception. So we should be very clear in our communication. How can we be clear in our communication? If we remain pure at heart it is very easy to have clear communication. 

Following are the ways to seek forgiveness and pacify the Vaishanavas who we offend knowingly or unknowingly,

1. Seek forgiveness in person

2. Offer prasadam feast to Vaishnavas

3. If the person is reluctant to forgive, then the only thing that we can do is take the dust/sand that the devotee has walked past and smear upon our body.

HH. Radhanath swami explains that the only offense that Jagai and Madhai didn't do is Vaishnava offense which is why they were able to get the mercy of Lord Caitanya.  All other offenses can be counteracted in one way or the other. There's no sinful activity in this world that Jagai and Madhai didn't commit. They did everything until they met Haridasa Thakura and Nityananda prabhu. Of course they offended Lord NItyananda but NItyananda prabhu forgave him. Maharaja also points out that they didn't commit Vaishanava offense because they didn't associate with Vaishnavas before.

Sometimes we might feel that we haven't done any offense consciously but unconsciously we are offending many devotees. And the key factor to identify if somebody got hurt is we will have  difficulty in our sadhana. We may think we can get rid of devotees rather than offending like this, but we have to face the other side of the coin then, the slaps of maya devi in the form of her illusory energy.

Our life in devotional service and with devotees is like walking on a razor. If we make slight mistakes we may hurt ourselves badly on our way towards the destination which is to attain Krishna prema!

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