Hearing

I was just talking to the mrdanga player and how mrdanga playing is the most difficult thing. Why is mrdanga playing so difficult? It's extremely difficult because it's not about different beats or different bauls, or even different mantras - It's not about intricate rythms and so on. That is the secondary part.The primary part is about hearing. It's all about hearing. A good mrdanga player is one who listens, who's totally attentive. He's attentive to the kirtana and he's following very carefully to what he hears. That's extremely difficult. Only possible if one chants attentively. If one is an inattentive chanter, one will be an inattentive mrdanga player. For sure. One will do everything inattentive! One goes through life as in a cloud, and just walking like that in that cloud, one will inadvertently do so many things that one later wonders:
"Why did I do that..?"

Transcribed by Bhakta Frederick
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Sweden 2010)

 

 

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Enthrone Him in the Heart.

Narada Muni is explaining in Bhagavatam that as the heart is being purified, then gradually one can enthrone the Supreme Personality of Godhead within the heart. So it's interesting because the Lord was already there as the Supersoul, and now we're going enthrone Him in the heart.

The enthroning of the Lord in the heart is referring to the istha-deva, or to our worshippable Deity which in our case is Krishna, and not so much the Supersoul. The Supersoul is described as being Lord Vishnu. Ksirodakasayi Vishnu. The Paramatma within the heart, and He is the four-armed form of Lord Vishnu. Helmet and ornaments and so on. All the attributes of Vishnu are there.
It is also said that although the followers of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu are most respectful towards Lord Vishnu and they certainly are accepting Him as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, still they focus on their worship on Lord Krishna and not on Lord Vishnu.
Srila Prabhupada also reminds us of that in the final chapter of the Bhagavad-gita in his purports - he points out that a devotee will certainly offer his obeisances to Lord Vishnu, and then continue His worship of Krishna, -exclusively focus on Krishna. So we are not starting an altar and beginning to kind of place all kinds of Narayana Deities there as well, no. The focus in our sampradaya is exclusively on Krishna.
So interesting that as the heart becomes purified and as we are enthroning the Lord within the heart, we are actually enthroning Lord Krishna in the heart! Then from within the heart it is Krishna who is guiding us.
It is not the Paramatma in It's four-armed form who is guiding us, then it's Krishna directly, within the heart, who is guiding us! ...
We can be very intimately connected with Krishna, and that Krishna within the heart is directly Krishna!
Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Not a picture of Krishna, but Krishna in person. Krishna who is directly relating with us.

Transcribed by Bhakta Frederick
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Radhadesh 2011)

 

 

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How Important are Memories of The Temporary

How important are memories? Some people are controlled by their memories for their whole life. It's like here, I met somebody of 40 years who was just still remembering that he had a bad time in school, and I go:

"Okay, that's bad. That's really bad, I feel for you. I do, I do, but how old are you?!"
"Forty."
"Okay, Forty, Right?
"Yeah."
"And when was school? Are you sure you can still remember?"
It's like ... well, I didn't have that much fun in school either, but at the age 57, it doesn't exactly… I don't feel much connection with school at this stage - I can hardly remember. A few grey memories of my school days, and it was maybe not so much fun. I remember that. I remember, it was not so much fun. Fun was not allowed in school, that I remember. So I didn't like school that much. But it's behind us. So much is behind us.

So memories, why make so much of memories?
"I have such beautiful memories…"
You have such beautiful soap bubbles!
"Beautiful... My beautiful memories, I will never forget." Okay, but it's finished now. It's over. Gone! And they'll never come back. Sorry! So why make so much of it? That's material life. At the end, there's just some memories left. If you're lucky! You may remember that I told about the man with the t-shirt, "Seen it all, heard it all, done it all, but can't remember it all!" I congratulated him!
I met him on an airport and congratulated him and — I said:

"Wow, that's a great t-shirt!"
He said, "You like it?"
I said "Yes!"
He said, "I made it myself."
I said, "Deep! Deep… Very deep!"

Right? It's a fact! So let's see how much we can still remember at the end. So we're speaking about the temporary. Why invest so much in that? It's so obvious that when we begin to invest in Krishna consciousness then it gets very nice, because there's eternal spiritual benefit in whatever we do, and whether the temporary part is okay or not, that is secondary.Like here, whether the program is boring or whether the program is exciting, right? That is secondary. You can say: "Ah, it was a great program! It was just so dynamic and so exciting and so interesting and everything and then the prasadam, it tasted so nice!" But how long will you remember that? What is really important is the eternal benefit even if it was a terrible program!

One of those programs that were like, everything went wrong - "Kirtan was terrible"
"The lecture was *yaaawn*'", and then
"The prasadam... the rice wasn't cooked!"
"Too much salt in the dahl!"
"The subji… It was hard."
"Oh God… And the sweet rice was burnt."
"It was a great program!…" "Yeah, it was a really great program"

Well, at least the eternal side was okay. At least the eternal side was still alright. So that's there, we always have these two elements. The eternal side and the temporary material side. And of the two, the eternal benefit, that's the most important.

Transcribed by Bhakta Frederick
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Sweden 2010)

 

 

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”Even if it's cheap, I'm not buying.”

This particular age of Kali is already going on for 5000 years, we can appreciate that we may have had one or more births, many births before, in this age of Kali.

So most likely, we have during those births engaged in so many sinful activities - and if some of them were human, we are responsible - because the human birth is the one birth where one is held responsible. That we have to understand.

Therefore we cannot expect that things will be smooth, that we will not be attacked by possibly strong material desires. …

We cannot expect that we will not be attacked by some very powerful material desires since the aprarabda-karma is not good in the age of Kali. The unmanifest karma stored in the heart is not good. Therefore it will happen to us! It will happen to us, that we will be attacked by strong, strong desires where we develop the inclination to act against our better knowledge.

Then we should remember, "Now I am a victim of external forces! This is not me! I am simply a playball! A playball on the waves of karma! I'm simply being controlled by external forces. This is not me!"

One has to understand that karma works in this way. We become controlled by simply previous impressions. In this way one must be detached - even detached of what may come in the future.

One has to have a detached attitude, "When material desire comes, I will not take it serious."

In this way we have to prepare. We have to prepare a mentality of being ready.
When material desire knocks on my door.

Knock!
"Sorry! Not home."
"No thank you."
"Not interested."
"No, no."
"Even if it's cheap, I'm not buying."
"No!"
Like that, one has to fix himself.

That is only possible for one who fixes himself while chanting the Holy Name. If we try sincerely to conquer the mind while chanting the Holy Name - to fix our mind on hearing the chanting, and if we simply do that, then we can get the strength to be fixed.

Transcribed by Bhakta Fredrick
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, Chowpatty 2010)

 

 

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