Where Time Ceases to Exist

Martha Graham and Mark Twain

2012-01-28T13:56:00.000-08:00

So I looked up their early lives, and it seems that life is not what you want it to be - it just is.

Mark Twain was bankrupt for a major portion of his life.

Martha was afraid of what was inside her and only had the chance to enjoy marital bliss for four or so years.

A conversation of Martha's friend with her that I found on Wikipedia is pasted below:

'I talked to Martha. I remember the conversation well. It was in a Schrafft's restaurant over a soda. I confessed that I had a burning desire to be excellent, but no faith that I could be. Martha said to me, very quietly: "There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.'

Slavery anyway

2011-12-08T01:52:00.000-08:00

I figured out that I am either a slave of my senses, or I can become a slave of Hrishikesha. Now whats better of the two? One gives you the illusion of being in control - the other gives you freedom of a completely new kind. I need discipline to be able to meditate everyday and slowly begin surrender.

For that, I need to be fit. And I need determination. I cant say "oh i'd like to be KC someday." I need to have a more passionate resolve than just that.

I am trying to find a short cut - I'm trying to find a solution through technology. I'm looking for a quick meditation tactic. I'm looking for the right time? I keep forgetting why its important. Keep forgetting why I'd decided to do what I had. I can become happy now. I can start living the mission I've been dreaming of. But its not easy. Its full of challenges. Am I up for it? Am I too chicken? Am I afraid of failure?

There is no better time to start than now. I should start now. Its okay even if there are setbacks. I'll learn as I go. Best way to learn is by making mistakes yourself. Thats the only way you'll never repeat them.

My mind is addicted to day dreams that give me some sense of happiness and keep me going. Those dreams have become the source of my joy. I need to get de-addicted from this escapism. I'm just fooling myself with my wishful thinking.

My consciousness - buzzing with songs and dance steps, buzzing with to-do lists, needs purification. I need to have a routine that allows me to exercise my mind's muscles.

Deception is easy when its you you want to deceive

2011-11-06T05:12:00.000-08:00

Simply wishing that you be able to surrender to your supersoul is not sufficient. There must be discipline in the way you live, discipline in your dietary and eating habits, and regular practice of meditation.

Only then can your body be converted from simply a source of sensual experiences into a conduit for spiritual progress.

My words and value system do not match my actions sometimes. This means that I live in illusion. There is a gap between what I like to think I believe and what I actually believe. How am I deceiving myself?

When my friends talk about "cool" things, which I know will take me away from self-discipline, I ignore my inner beliefs and agree with them about a lot of things in order to conform to the image that society has built for a youngster.

I have somehow given up on myself and lost hope of being able to walk on the challenging path of truth. I consider myself unfit, unready, and weak. Worldly pleasures and the reassuring acceptance from friends and relatives are quite alluring. I want to consider these things the goal of my existence. Why is the greatest passion of my life my greatest failure now? I am trying to "live it up," but I know that great lessons lie in store for me.

I am so used to lip balm that I will be miserable when I don't have access to it. I have set myself up. When misery strikes, I will not be prepared. I will not be able to remain calm and peaceful through life's journey. My myriad likes and dislikes, insatiable desires, and fears will imprison me further in illusion.

I must focus on my goal. I must make honest efforts. No more ignoring what I know is the truth.

I must remind myself of the truth everyday. My sleep seems to erase what I know.

Prep talk

2011-08-01T08:54:00.001-07:00

Toddlers can benefit from "prep talks." This is an exciting concept. Preparing someone, including your own mind, for what is to come, can make things very smooth, fun, and welcome.

An easy time to bring in change

2011-07-27T19:27:00.000-07:00

Right now, its easy for me to bring in change. I'm living in a totally different mode right now. I'm glad I'm going to have a fresh perspective for at least a week before I return to the auto-reflex life. When I return, I need to take a hard look at things that need changing. Like a diaper. It needs to be changed immediately. Otherwise, it just gives you a rash.

Its interesting how the mind works. It clamors for attention until you stare it in the eye. Then its confused. It tries to escape any monitoring. Just like a child clamoring for attention wants to run away when you start kissing the child crazy.

The absent minded life, where you're stuck in a rut, ceases when you start staring at your mind. The lapse of awareness is so dangerous. You aren't paying attention to where you're going because something else is more interesting. My niece was walking along, and looking back at a mom and a child talk to each other. It was as good as walking with ones eyes closed. Dangerous.

Living an unaware life is dangerous.

The mind and the child

2011-07-18T19:07:00.000-07:00

In many ways, the mind is like a child. Its incessant needs disallow us from having clarity in thought. When the child or the mind play the biggest roles in our life, we tend to become scatterbrained, unable to think, forgetful, numbed, and slow. Something inside of us that drives us to complete our tasks at hand is interrupted so many times that it just gives up. And you have this constant feeling of "I haven't done what I need to get done" "I have no time."

Like the child, the mind is demanding, needs to be trained, and is happy to consume all our living hours: giving us no time to reassess, unless we take time away from it. Both jump from one topic to another in a random fashion, for no rhyme or reason. Both play subtle games that can't be easily caught, and even when caught, the games can't be easily won.

The child and the mind: the two things most capable of giving us happiness, while also the most capable of giving us distress. Can't do without them, but its a pain to constantly have to give them attention.

The ability to take care of yourself

2011-07-08T18:22:00.000-07:00

You can spot toxic places and people. Sometimes, the wrong things attract us. We feel drawn to them because we have something left to learn. But I can now spot the dramas before im a part of them, and I have learned to stay away. I can see how it would harm me to approach these people and places.

Even then, I'm not sure if I've really understood and learned how to take care of myself. My roots are weak. I need to dance more often and reconnect. I also need to realign slightly more with my goals.

I've met a prospective groom online who is so clingy and presumptious that I should just say no. But I'm waiting for this person to take the compatibility test until I say no. Maybe I should just talk to him about it and be honest. Of course, he will deny it, and he will try and convince me that we should just marry. Zamn clingy people! And he has no clue who I am. Doesn't even care to get to know me better. All he is enamored by is my face! He has a boring monotonous voice. And he's not the one for me - i knew it when i saw the picture. The only reason I decided to talk to him is that I was hoping he'd be otherwise. Hes not. He apologized to me for not being renounced enough. That was what helped me take the final call.

Goals today and in this life

2011-05-28T14:27:00.000-07:00

My goals for the day and my goal for life have a huge correlation. Even then, I find that my goal for life remains somewhat unaccounted for in every passing moment. I need more correlation.

Its very useful to know who your boss is. Sab ka malik ek. And I'm not talking about the workplace. I'm talking about Krishna.

My thoughts are so incessant right now that I am unable to sleep. My mind is really giving me a hard time. So many things to process. So much to reminisce. Laugh about. Feel heartened for. Oh! the glory of transient bliss.

Yes. Transient. Think about it, what must spiritual everlasting bliss be like? Wait a minute. Vrajvasis forget that Krishna had ever left. Is that transient? Hmm. The memory is transient, the bliss is not.

Ah! what fun. Separation is such an interesting concept when its compared with that of a hole in a semiconductor. A hole is simply the absence of an electron. Holes aren't objects by themselves. But they are treated like objects anyway. Even separation is considered to exist anyway.

Anyway, coming back to the point. Love, acceptance, recognition... are these the things I hanker for? Now that it is time to experience some of them, does my heart feel warm? Do I feel safer?

No. I just feel like, this is how things should have been anyway. But ok, this is how they have turned out now. Better now than never. I wouldn't pray for something like that. But, yes, I would fear the enemy named pride if recognition were to come my way. Human beings have little clue of what power and fame could do to them.

Maya, maya. I decided the day I found out that I was completely your slave, that I should surrender to Krishna. Better to be His slave than yours. But look at my endeavors - so insignificant. Look at my enthusiasm, dedication, and planning - so weak. I need to reassess my priorities and revamp my life.

Gauranga

2011-03-23T09:14:00.001-07:00

And then one day before supermoon, I get to know via an email that its Gaur Poornima the next day. So I decide to fast the next day until moonrise. And then, my parents call me to the terrace for moonrise. And I realize, I miss those days, those activities. I message a few people who are dear to me, wishing them a blissful Gaur Poornima. I try to catch some action in Mayapur online. I go into complete nostalgia of all those times. I remembered how I couldn't say no, couldn't balance things. I plunged in completely. I even realized how the mercy has been pouring in day after day, without my noticing it. A question I had asked online, got answered now, when I realized how I was being cleansed, of something I didn't know how to cleanse myself of. I read many verses. And those verses brought me to the realization of how much sweetness there was. I thought about all the coincidences. I thought of all the things that had reinforced my faith. I missed the realizations. I missed having those strange inklings that led me to take positive actions, just in time. Then I thought of how much I miss having similar-minded people around.

I was so convinced. I was so driven. Fanatical even.

But then I also thought of the extra eagerness, the pretenses, the overt humbleness (or whatever it was), the incessant mindless chanting in the hope of finding happiness or achieving purity, the constant obsessive day dreams driven by the idea of what is good for you, the constant demands - you're not good enough - you should at least do x, and when you do x, you should at least do y, nothing was ever good enough (my childhood issue of being a people pleaser working heavily against me both inside and outside iskcon), and all my crazy offenses. crazy, crazy offenses. now that i think back, i should have promised myself that if i should ever think of starting all over again, there should be nothing that i would think of and say "i shouldn't have done that."

this person i met said correctly that one who does not regret anything has had no realizations from experiences.

and then the whole thought about lilas and their perverted reflections. just because its a reflection of the truth, doesnt mean its good. its still impure and based on the lie that matter is spirit, that we are our bodies.

shlokas came rushing back. names i had forgotten came back when i remembered "matt smitir gnyanam apohanam cha."

the whole concept of pure devotees, all the buttering up of senior devotees, comparing of people to Krishna to embarrass them, test their humility, or to make them offensive by inducing pride, focusing on the frills, liking only melodious kirtan - and even thirsting for it. feeling bound by circumstances and people around. feeling unable to free myself from responsibilities that would render me independent to pursue my own path my way. fear of committing newer offenses.

what is better? chanting and offending, or not chanting and offending?

have my experiences taught me sufficiently how not to commit offenses? that which i was aiming to achieve, is it possible to achieve by the cessation of chanting? those devotees that suffocate and disappoint me - do i need their association to advance, and is it impossible for me to advance without their association? is my need to judge my seniors on the basis of their decisions -wrong? am i ready to surrender?

The reason anxiety can get to you

2011-02-08T10:16:00.000-08:00

A few days ago my stomach knotted up. It stayed that way for a while and then even started to hurt. I couldn't focus so well. I remembered Gary Zukav's point about living consciously and with awareness.I realized that I should focus on this pain, feel it clearly, and allow myself to acknowledge that something was wrong. I could have taken some sugar and gotten temporary relief. But I was in no mood to escape. I had to confront this. True, I hid behind the sounds of music to relieve my constant fear of loneliness, but I tried to make sure I was honest about it all. Living consciously means to not blame others for how you feel. I realized that this was a wonderful opportunity for growth. I quickly searched for "knotted stomach." Came across anxiety, and its causes. I then read about living passively. Here are some descriptions:

Anxiety is caused by a behavioral disorder. Rather than it being an illness or disease, anxiety RESULTS from the behaviors we use (how we think, act, and behave). Naturally, the more unhealthy behaviors you have, the more likely you are to develop an anxiety condition.
One of those unhealthy behaviors is living your life passively (submissively, obeying without resisting).
Do you live life passively?

Now, I must say this is not elevating. Admitting to this requires some queer kind of courage. But the evidence was before me. My mental and physical experiences concurred with the words on that web site. I knew I wasn't over the doormat thing completely. Here's a chance for me to redeem myself. To find myself. Uncover my unaware parts and bring awareness to them. Could it be true that I've lived in anxiety all my life, and that I'm too accustomed to it now to even notice? Could it be possible that my body weighs as much as it does because my habitual anxiety has shaped it so? Does this mean that I will have to slowly start refusing those false beliefs that I have that cause me to act and think in such a way that it's causing me anxiety and harm? I think so.

Lets see how this proceeds, I cant wait to try and implement this. Till now, the combination of books and experiences has been very helpful in changing myself. Looks like in this life I'm going to use this strategy to progress. Wish me luck, my caretakers, thank you for sending these people and knowledge into my life. It feels great to know that I'm loved unconditionally. I love you too :)

Waking life

2011-01-29T03:13:00.003-08:00

So true.

Waking life

2011-01-29T03:13:00.001-08:00

So true.

Tangled

2011-01-26T11:02:00.000-08:00

Tangled in the meshes of maya indeed! To me, the movie Tangled allegorically maps the journey of a soul. Born to the divine couple, but lost to the lonely tower of the wicked witch called maya, who keeps the soul in perjury by using the fear of the unknown as her greatest weapon. The fearless soul, however, escapes the trap, after her path is illumined by a handsome young adventurer (something of a guru), who saves her from the confines of her world.

Spiritual Partnership

2011-01-24T08:48:00.000-08:00

I've almost finished reading a book by the same name, written by Gary Zukav. I believe, almost certainly, that this book has come my way to enlighten me. Its telling me how I can progress, showing me the way.

Now the practice of the concept is all thats needed. To progress, I need to remain aware of my feelings in every action/event. When I feel less powerful, hurt, or drained, I know now that I need to stop the outward flow of energy. I can do this by simply acknowledging the truth, speaking honestly, and letting go of irrational fear.

From The Celestine Insights, and Seat of the Soul short stories, to this. With all the added information, it all fits in the picture. I love life for bringing this to me.

2010-12-26T01:17:00.001-08:00

My priorities

The reality of reality

2010-03-14T01:44:00.000-08:00

I was wondering how we can distinguish dreams from reality. Then I realized, that we can't.

Alice knows that wonderland is as real as the real world. Because both are dreams. How can you make out the difference between a dream and a dream within a dream, if you're dreaming the whole time?

People think that riches are real. But mayavi ghosts who have siddhis can produce unlimited riches out of air.

People think that linear time exists.

Ultimately, being in this thick blanket of ignorance, where knowledge is lost or forgotten easily, being fully enlightened and in perfect knowledge, is an unstable state. It comes and goes away quickly.

Polarised World View

2010-03-02T04:53:00.000-08:00

I've had a very polarised world view for some time now.

This is good, that is bad. Only Prabhupada is right, Osho is not to be respected at all, he has absolutely no goodness in him, he is all bad. Just dehumanising people. Thinking well this Sai Baba is a cheat, completely bad, with not a tinge of goodness.

This extreme view has been detrimental to my existence. I've been rejecting money and materialism and mathematics as being bad. All of science as being misleading and bad. And only embracing abstract spiritual teachings. Well the whole world is full of beautiful people, who are all good in lots of ways.

In fact, nothing is all good, and nothing is all bad. Everything is a mix of the two, and in some situations, the good is bad and bad is good, depending on the circumstances, factors, time, place, favorability, etc.

Sometimes we accept something because it leads us to our desired goal, and then reject the same thing again at another time because it now does not lead us to our goal.

Our goal being: to live a life of surrender. Once you live a surrendered life, you don't even feel the need to go from this world to that world. In fact, you realise they're both right here, waiting for you to change the state of your mind.

If countries in the East and West unite in a common philosophy to embrace materialism and spirituality equally, if our left and right brains entrain and accept a world view of non-polarised beauty, then we can live in love, peace, harmony and happiness forever.

The only thing is - we need to come to a point in our life - driven to a point in our life - where this becomes clear to us.

Resistance serves as great a purpose as agreement. Discomfort serves as great a purpose as comfort. Pain serves as great a purpose as pleasure. We cannot have one and avoid the other. We must embrace both as two extremes that give each other meaning.

Without the existence of someone who is not God, the existence of someone who is God does not make sense. There cannot be a master without a servant, for who is he a master of?

Without the pain of separation, there cannot be joyful union. Without challenges there cannot be victory. Without ignorance, knowledge ceases to make sense. If there were no polarities, life would be ceaselessly meaningless.

Let love and hatred confront each other. Let beauty and ugliness be compared. Let there be resistance, opposition, pain and difficulties. For they allow their opposites to come into existence.

Let me realise what it is like to have a noisy mind and uncontrolled senses, that I may value control over the mind and senses.

Let me realise what it feels like to be surrendered and not surrendered, that I may choose one over the other. Let me come to a point where I neither detest nor prefer anything. And I will be truly at peace.

What use is life if we cannot serve? We look down upon service, only to realise that it makes way for - looking up at service - to exist. When you have nothing to serve, you become restless.

Parents want children so they can serve them selflessly. It gives them pleasure to neglect their own needs for their child. It is not bad, nor is it good. It just is. And in knowingly doing it, there is joy. It's simple, try living alone and cooking for yourself, cleaning, serving only yourself. And you will wish to die of feeling worthless. If you had but one person to cook for, clean for, look after, you would be so passionate about life - you would welcome it so much. You would realise the importance of having someone to look after.

The dramas we play out for energy are not bad, nor are they good. They just are. We can see how each story, each drama, each conflict, is actually helping time proceed, helping change occur, helping progress happen.

It's a game. And enjoying the game, means to understand it first.

I thank God for giving me the opportunity to come face to face with my so-called loneliness. It's helping me realise that I'm now going to embrace it to make peace with it. And that will give me purpose and drive in life.

Mental deadlines dont really help

2010-01-30T20:58:00.000-08:00

Long ago i wrote all this nonsense:

Sometimes we just tag along with time, going where it takes us, getting dragged.

And sometimes we have these mental deadlines. And they help!

It's true that if you don't achieve a goal you set due to blah blah reasons, you'll feel depressed. But it's also true that if you have a mental deadline, something automatically changes. Life moulds itself as per your expectation from it. Just holding onto the idea of a turning point, makes it appear sooner or later. Like +/- 5%.

Yup. I can bank on life's beautiful ways. It gives you just what you need.

****
But this stuff i wrote is wrong. The illusion of being in control of life is so strong.

The Secret to the Law of Attraction

2010-01-24T19:52:00.000-08:00

Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Śrī Īśopaniṣad 8

Such a person must factually know the greatest of all, the Personality of Godhead, who is unembodied, omniscient, beyond reproach, without veins, pure and uncontaminated, the self-sufficient philosopher who has been fulfilling everyone's desire since time immemorial.

The Secret works because there is a reason, a logic, a person behind it. It's not unexplained magic or miracle. It's because of a person.

The person that we don't know we are part of. The person who is the final witness of everything that ever can be witnessed.

The person whose mission no one clearly knows.

Need to use the momentum

2010-01-04T05:31:00.000-08:00

I've gathered. I need to capitalize on the speed I've got now - from my well-wisher, or it'll fizzle me down to depression, making it tougher for me to speed up again.

I have so many parts of me that I don't recognize and acknowledge, that I need to get down to the raw deal - meditate - and find out.

Indeed, meditation should be my most important priority always, and then I can integrate my personality, and then I can surrender it fully, and then I can attain perfection.

Meanwhile, partial surrender, although not preferable, will have to do for now. It's not as bad as you can make it sound. It's just what's possible for now. In fact, I'm counting on it now - to make my current, present moment (no matter which end of the dual spectrum it's in) special, happy and enjoyable.

Turns out..

2009-12-29T12:23:00.000-08:00

I'm an upper chakra type. My lower chakras are progressively more blocked. And my lowest chakra is probably closed. Almost.

I need to connect with Earthly energy. Or else I'll remain up there and never come back to ground reality. Literally - my head is up in the clouds.

I also need to find any other blockages and remove them.

I need to cover any gaps in my field. Now... how am I going to get my hands on dried white sage? Maybe a metaphysical store in Mumbai has some of it. Let's hope this place i just googled: Astral hub in goregaon, has it.

You will Never blunder

2009-12-25T04:33:00.000-08:00

How very perfect. Never blunder. You never blunder! You're always right. That would just make you so powerful. Someone who never blunders.

And here is that promise: http://vedabase.net/sb/11/2/35/en

O King, one who accepts this process of devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead will never blunder on his path in this world. Even while running with eyes closed, he will never trip or fall.

Wow. If that is true - that's all I want! Right? You bet!

State of my mind inspite of all I know

2009-12-18T08:14:00.000-08:00

I'm still a door mat. A pushover. I'm still at the bottom of the energy food chain. I attract energy parasites to myself. I'm wounded. How will I heal?

Let me love and honor myself more than ever. Let me express myself without fear. Let me value my time above everything else, including pleasing others.

Let me value my life and its goal to sustain surrender above all else.

Let me accept self discipline, to rid myself of my mind's frailties.

I'm currently worried, afraid and full of doubts. I forget easily. All this is inspite of all I know.

Knowledge is useless unless practiced. I've been gathering knowledge since 2005. It's time to use all that knowledge.

Let me overcome my own silly hurdles in my own mind and begin living a surrendered blissful life.

Tenth Insight points

2009-12-05T00:38:00.000-08:00

Maintain your vision/hunch
Dissonance reduces energy
Trust or have faith in hunches
Keep looking for signs
If you feel like sharing the information, go ahead
Manipulators lower your energy, disallow you from thinking straight
Disconnect from energy suckers, center yourself with love, and then think
We have an evolutionary reason to be born to specific parents
We have birth visions and world visions we can help make real
Fear is - refusing to accept the truth
The need to control is a function of fear
It is in crisis that faith can be measured more easily
Yes this is a dream
Yes you are energy
Yes everything around you is also just energy

:) From the Enneagram site

2009-10-30T20:34:00.000-07:00

The Stages of the Work

If we were to really observe ourselves,
we would become aware of our habits.

If we were to become aware of our habits,
we would let go and relax.

If we were to let go and relax,
we would be aware of sensations.

If we were to be aware of sensations,
we would receive impressions.

If we were to receive impressions,
we would awaken to the moment.

If we were to awaken to the moment,
we would experience reality.

If we were to experience reality,
we would see that we are not our personality.

If we were to see that we are not our personality,
we would remember ourselves.

If we were to remember ourselves,
we would let go of our fear and attachments.

If we were to let go of our fear and attachments,
we would be touched by God.

If we were touched by God,
we would seek union with God.

If we were to seek union with God,
we would will what God wills.

If we were to will what God wills,
we would be transformed.

If we were transformed,
the world would be transformed.

If the world were transformed,
all would return to God.

–from The Wisdom of the Enneagram
Don Richard Riso & Russ Hudson

I'm always on track

2009-10-11T09:57:00.000-07:00

I'm always on the right path. Now I don't even need to confirm, I just know it.

It's so obvious. And even if its not obvious, I have that faith that tells me I'm always on the right path. There is no wrong path. Theres only less time taken to learn, or more time taken to learn a lesson.

Everyone is on the right path. We're all on our way to perfection or Godhead. We've no other direction to go in, no matter what things may seem like.

My perception of the world has changed so much:

1. I used to see everything in terms of perfect and imperfect.

2. I used to enjoy criticizing others to feel good about myself.

3. I used to only see defects in other people.

4. The world was a dark, evil, dangerous and crooked place.

5. I hated most people.

6. I kept telling myself a story of my life. This happened to me, that happened to me.

7. I considered power as outside me. I never recognized that I have power within me.

8. I did not see any connection between physical illness and mental disease.

9. I used to punish and beat myself up for not being perfect.

10. I suppressed my emotions.

11. I thought I was ugly, and did not deserve love.

12. I could not tolerate people with defects.

13. I always judged people and myself very harshly.

14. I felt self-righteous beyond tolerance.

15. I never completely accepted myself or anyone.

16. I was constantly depressed, escaping reality, afraid, anxious and insecure.

17. I could not understand why me?

18. I felt inferior

19. I had no respect for myself, I loathed myself

20. I had several addictions

21. I could never think of giving myself joy

22. I carried around truck loads of resentment and guilt with me

23. I was a doormat

24. I could not negotiate for my gain. I felt powerless.

25. I could not assert myself, could not say no

26. I had no sense of responsibility. I did not take responsibility for my own feelings, but felt responsible for others feelings.

27. I had no sense of ownership of my body, time, energy or money.

...

Let it flow

2009-10-04T07:40:00.000-07:00

Life is beautiful.

Even the people who try to harm you are just there for the special effects and learning involved.

I trust nature, I trust the eternal laws, I know what must happen will happen. And I can understand "why" simultaneously. How fortunate that the why is answered. If I did not know why, I would go mad! I wouldn't be able to see the method to the madness.

I am here to learn. I open myself to all my lessons. And I understand that each moment of life is just full of love, full of bliss. I can be in it, if I can hang on to the knowledge of why its all happening.

The seemingly good and bad situations have turned into one solid indivisible absolute category - which is all good in its final purpose.

I can see the Sun shining in through all the occurrences in my life. Whether I have something or I have nothing - let me keep this knowledge forever. That no one can do anything to me. Nothing can harm me. I am eternal, I am life, I am love, I am learning. I cannot be overcome, I cannot stop existing. I am.

All the myriad of circumstances around me are like scenes from a play, a story, a dream. I am full of appreciation. As I face the right things at the right time, I can grow, I can open more fully, and I can bloom.

Let my Lord be pleased with me, let Him keep me aware that His hand is holding mine forever. Let Him keep me aware that no danger can ever befall me. Let me always remember His purpose of teaching me all I need to learn in this life.

Let me not think I am Vyoma. I am not. I have lived many lives. I have seen much, learned much, and yet an infinite remains to be learned. And this process, is joy. The moment to wait for... is not actually as enjoyable, as the journey to that moment.

And when time ceases to exist, I will see all these lives rising and falling simultaneously, forming a large collage of images and concepts.

What will happen tomorrow is something I truly do not know. I cannot anticipate it. I know I don't need to plan it. It will come, and carry me to my destination, slowly.

Let it flow.

I would like to thank all of the following people

2009-10-01T10:19:00.001-07:00

..for helping me become who I am today:

1. My father (I love you papa, I will always love you)

2. My mother (thank you for being my pillar of support)

3. My elder sister (without you, I would never have been able to learn the things I know)

4. Dear God (for giving me this family and this birth)

5. Srila Prabhupada (for giving me the highest philosophy)

6. James Redfield (for the Celestine Prophecy)

7. Dr. Harville Hendrix (for Getting the Love You Want)

8. Brian L Weiss (for Many Lives Many Masters)

9. Dolores Cannon (for Conversations with a Spirit BDaL)

10. Gary Zukav (for The Seat of the Soul)

11. Oprah Winfrey (for connecting all these wonderful authors by inviting almost all of them to your show)

12. Deepak Chopra (for teaching me how to relax my muscles and the secret of long life)

13. Ayn Rand (for revealing ideal human principles)

14. Jack Canfield (for the Principles of Success)

15. Stephen Covey (for all your books, and for inspiring Srila Sridhar Swami)

16. Thank you to all the people who have defamed me, detracted me, insulted me, ridiculed me, and warned me. Thanks to you I was able to have barriers to overcome. Overcoming the illusory barriers you constructed has made me strong and filled me with a sense of accomplishment :)

17. Thank you time, providence and fortune. I am ever indebted to the Lord and His multifarious energies, which create the circumstances I live in, and help me learn and test my knowledge everyday.

(I hope I haven't missed anyone...)

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Stage of my life

2009-09-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

This is the stage of my life that I call "Waiting to exhale."

My self discipline is not too low, but it could get better.

My self worth is up two notches and I'm happy about that.

My reflexes have been faster at other times so I'm hoping to rise up to that level soon.

My breath is shallow 50% of the time - its an improvement over 80%, but I want to do better in delivering fresh oxygen to my body.

I'm slightly aware and it's helpful and fun. The thing is, I know it can be more fun than this.

Having tasted that wonderful period of time - the six months I spent reading Bhagavatam in the united states - all other tastes have become bland. That one taste remains, and a desire to reattain it pushes me on.

However, blocks and discouraged thoughts keep me from working toward my goal.

I understand that when I learn a new lesson, it will take some experiences to completely reverse previous habits. If I can change the pattern I've been following, then I can move on to level two. But it doesn't happen overnight. It takes time, awareness and ambition to grow.

Let me endeavour with patience, do all the required deeds, not hanker for results and thus find that life is continual joy.

Let my inner plant bear flowers and fruits. Let me grow, let me grow, let me grow.

Maybe

2009-08-28T09:27:00.000-07:00

I just had this flash of an idea. And maybe its true. It makes sense.

It's highly possible that lonliness is encouraged by popular media and the result is that people get hooked on to popular media to overcome lonliness. If it was planned, it was well planned.

And if its a coincidence (I don't believe in coincidences by the way) then, it's a really surprising one.

It feels like a conspiracy to me. And I feel like I'm part of the whole thing without even knowing I'm part of it.

And now that I know I'm part of it, I should feel like escaping - except - I get reminded of my one failed attempt.

Book person

2009-07-21T19:12:00.000-07:00

I'm such a book person. In fact I've even visualized myself in an Earth School for subtle spirits, accessing books in the library that show moving pictures, which are alarmingly similar to books in Harry Potter movies.

I've even made a list of life changing books, in the order that I read them, to capture my progress through time. I'll post that later. My favourite is Celestine Prophecy of course. I also like the Seat of the Soul, written by Gary Zukav. This uncommon literature shows us why and how addictions start.

It also shows us how we can use our internal power and knowledge to rise above the addiction.

Combined with Chakra Handbook knowledge, and information from the book Getting the Love You Want, by Harvielle Hendrix, this makes for a huge piece of insider information. The whole world needs this now - including me. If we have this knowledge of how addictions start and can be stopped it would change everything.

Let me try to capture the essence:

1. Even a constant need to eat sugar or sweet things is an addiction.

comments: I have almost gotten rid of my sugar cravings. Prabhupada has quoted several times that excess sugar is an intoxicant. If anyone needs proof - I can email the list of bona fide comments. He kept mentioning how ants love sugar and can literally go to great heights to obtain a grain of sugar . They're ready to travel as high as a sky scraper just for one grain of sugar; because ants love to get intoxicated on it.

I used to get sugar cravings and satisfy them by binging on sweet food. Eventually, as with all types of addictive substances, the "kick" I got out of sugar would subside, and I'd be left feeling empty again. My blood sugar would drop, and I'd lose my "high" energy state, unable to function normally. Of course, I'd keep getting angry as a result. And why that's so obvious is explained by Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield.

2. Every addiction works on the principle of providing less "feel-good" every time for the same dosage. To experience a longer, stronger, high; one has to increase the dosage regularly.

comments: Over time, I had to increase my "dose" of sugar abuse to get the same high as before. My body was getting tolerant to the same dose, it stopped making a difference. I had to increase my doses to feel the same way as before.

3. Addictive substances force the body to feel good. Eventually, the body loses its ability to produce naturally those chemicals that give us a sense of being happy. We become dependent on the chemicals of the addictive substance to keep us happy and anxiety-free.

4. The solution is not in supressing or avoiding or guilt-tripping or any other such method.

comments: I tried to convince myself, look the other way, tie my hands, scold myself, feel like a criminal, pray, hope, beg, confide, and what not. But none of that worked. Obviously. The root was something else.

5. Everyone needs a healthy aura. Events related to beating, fighting, scolding, humiliation, insulting, cheating, hating, abandoning, blah... cause ruptures in the emotional subtle body. People lose energy from their wounded emotional bodies all the time because of events in the past.

6. These open wounds lose so much energy that a person literally needs constant transfusion to survive. The addiction provides that transfusion, providing a high, and rescuing the person who is constantly losing energy. Temporarily the person can feel powerful, energetic and happy while the substance is flowing in their system.

7. So to close these wounds one must go into childhood and subsequent times when wounds were caused.

8. And the wounds have to be healed.

By using the space of the time to decide between the occurence of an event and our reaction to it, we can choose our reaction to any event in a knowledgeable and responsible way (Read Stephen Covey - 7 Habits of Highly Effective People). Thus our response chooses the path of love over hatred, compassion over envy, pity over anger, etc. and our wounds heal, now that our behaviour has changed for the better.

This anartha removal, and becoming responsible, can be best understood by referring to Jack Canfield's How to get from where you are to where you want to be. Read the first principle - Take 100% responsibility for your life.

9. Once the wounds heal, the natural ability to the be happy and joyous removes the need for any transfusion/ addiction.

I've practically used this information in my life, and I love this knowledge.

Its not extra chanting, or extra dancing, singing, reading, association, etc. that will help.

All those things are means to get the information about what we need to do to become alright again. We chant - Krishna gives realizations in the form of thoughts. We read, again the same thing. We associate with devotees - they give us clues about the real issues. All these are means - not the end. Association does not solve problems - using the information gathered via association solves problems.

If we know our imago - an image of us - as defined by Harville Hendrix in Getting the Love you Want, we can use that imago information to heal ourselves.

When all anarthas, past misgivings, are gone, the body becomes whole again, complete. Without external needs, it becomes self sustaining. Nothing can then hold any power over us. We become powerful from within, and stop perceiving power as external.

I wish I could tell everyone about this. I wish everyone could help themselves the way Krishna has helped me help myself. In the end, all we need, is a desire to get out of our messes. And help comes.

My love to each spark of divinity that needs rescuing.

Hidden Motive

2009-06-17T01:02:00.000-07:00

Do the expectations of others make you want to live below your potential to satisfy them?

Energy dynamics

2009-06-13T21:33:00.000-07:00

I can see how Celestine Prophecy correctly explains energy dynamics between humans in a generalized fashion. The energy equations make sense to me, and I can also see how the person experiencing the energy flow usually can't make out what just happened.

Eventually, of course, with this knowledge and after observation of the internal bodily feelings a situation produces, one becomes aware of the energy dynamic occurring with one's own self.

This awareness is felt as long as the person is in a higher meditative state and has learned to maintain it somewhat. Eventually energy levels can be raised so high that one becomes aware of thought energy, the mind's chattering, and even auras.

Somehow I've always had a fascination for auric energy and have wanted to be able to see it. Especially when the energy dynamics are occurring.

I think that our world is diseased to a large extent. Most people are completely unaware of whats really happening and randomly react to situations as they see fit or their mood dictates. Such people generally have no regard or concern for life and choose to be selfish in such a way that harms others. This non-responsible way of life accounts for most of the public. If they were to see what is actually happening every time they yell at someone, or become submissive, they would change their patterns for the better and profit themselves and the world tremendously.

Some people who are slightly more aware are better, and sometimes act responsibly. And the fewest are those that are aware all the time, and act with responsibility and reverence at all times. This last category know how to preserve their energy and not let it flow out of their chakras out of weakness. They also know how to raise energy levels and exhibit calmness at all times.

Ego

2009-05-22T02:22:00.000-07:00

Our sense of self is enhanced by considering another as inferior. This is the work of the ego that helps us maintain a sense of self separate from the rest of the world. The idea that we are separate from others is an illusory one and is strengthened in the mind.

The mind considers the relative truth and not the absolute. The mind chatters on while we can notice this chatter and recognise that it is not us. It is something with a life of its own. We are awareness. We can then stop being controlled by the mind.

The ego dies when we disallow the old programming of the mind to create a distinction. Distinctions like good and bad. Like pleasurable and not pleasurable. Like inferior and superior.

The mind always convinces us that we already know all we need to know. That is the trick of the ego to survive. It needs an enhanced sense of self and needs others to be less knowledgeable and intelligent. We think that we're smart and right and this righteousness is the work of the ego.

Conflict is also a source of energy for the ego. Conflict produces the effect of two separate interests and two separate individuals, so the ego must create conflict in order to survive. Victim and oppressor, cheater and cheated, user and used, winner and loser, etc.

Note that the ego can go to any extent to protect its survival, it is very much alive and manipulative. We have to be alert to the ego's needs and stop providing them to slowly kill the ego and achieve love, compassion and serenity.

The Principles

2009-05-22T02:11:00.000-07:00

I was hoping to combine everything and make sense of it. Let's see. We have:

1. Knowing why you are here and deciding what you want
2. Letting go of fear and inhibitions, being positive
3. Visualizing the goal
4. Believing in the power of visualization, feel the fear, do it anyway
5. Improving habits
6. Maintaining daily focus and taking action
7. Ask how - to the one's who did it
8. Never giving up, rejecting rejection
9. Get with the ones who've made it and get rid of "ain't it awful", complainer people
10. Surrender to the plan that emerges, be flexible and allow the waves to create ripples
11. Ready? Fire! Aim. Use feedback to your advantage.

Ok. Very similar to utsahat nishchayat dhairyat, tat tat karma pravartanat, sanga tyaga sato vritti shad bhir bhakti prasidyati and atiaahara prayasasash cha, prajalpo niyam agraha, jana sangas cha laulyam cha, shad bhir bhakti pranashyati.

One additional thing - let the happiness and sadness create ripples on the surface only. Let the awareness below the surface remain unaffected and joyful as always.

The first and last word

2009-05-05T01:02:00.000-07:00

The first and last word when it comes to any philosophy or way of life is surrender. Be it mayavaad, be it Krishna Consciousness.

And unlike popular opinion, surrender does not imply voluntary permission to manipulate. It means allowing the waves to do their work and enjoy the ride.

The more you struggle to control the waves and fight them, the more resistance you create. And very soon you become exhausted and throw up.

Instead, when you let go, you allow the waves to guide you and enjoy yourself. There is no more resistance. Only fun.

So I should trust and let go. My joy ride in this universe is going to be just great!

The person I trust is more wise, and so I am completely ok with the guidance available.

Complete and unswerving surrender is possible only when the wants of the external personality that you have assumed in this birth are healed.

The cravings, need to control, desires and fears can be released one by one by remaining aware of your each emotion and discovering the root cause of every emotion. By choosing love, compassion and wisdom, you disallow your defects of anger and fear from controlling you. This results in healing.

Once you are completely healed, you will be able to sustain your surrender.

Otherwise there is every chance of falling back into old, familiar patterns.

Good luck on this mission dear friend. Thank you God for answering all my questions.

Authentic Power

2009-05-01T23:27:00.000-07:00

Thought is a form of light, which is created when light passes through your consciousness.

When you take birth, the most important mission is to learn and grow from the experiences. This is common to both theories of being one with God and becoming the servant of God. In any case, the aim is perfection.

I would like not to believe that there is some kind of punishment, some kind of "you're not good enough" treatment going on here. Its not that way. Its about learning. Nobody hates me, God loves me. He does not judge me and is not bitter. He is pure and He obviously loves every part of Himself, because it is His own self - thats natural. Its natural for all to love themselves.

How do you wish to learn? There are two main ways. One is to get jolted out of sleep after prolonged misuse of freedom. The other is to take guidance and use awareness in your present moment to learn.

Gaura and His associates take you directly from this human realm - because it maintains duality and is sufficient for learning all about being "there".

Promotion from this realm into non-dual ones may also take you there, but the idea of duality is completely destroyed, so i guess you'd have to come back down and then go? i don't know. I'm just guessing.

When you think strongly about an action, you create the intention for its execution. The power to execute the action comes from you, from your solar plexus.

Disempowered souls lose energy via their chakras due to emotions like hatred, vengeance, greed, jealousy, depression, helplessness, victim-mentality, low self-esteem, etc.

Empowered souls are powered by the truth, due to their awareness of each feeling that they feel - and the real reason behind it, the souls never loses energy to their surroundings. As soon as the soul realises where the energy is being lost from, the decision to act with love and compassion is taken instead of the decision to act out of fear, hatred or doubt for that instance, and bad habits are released. This causes the subtle body to heal and become full of energy that does not drain out easily.

When you trust or love someone your energy naturally flows out to them.

When you are addicted to anything - be it anger, sex, alcohol... it is because it fills the void created by the energy flowing out of you. Disempowered beings crave objects that externally provide satisfaction because they have a hole through which energy is continually lost.

When a person finds another weak person, that person feeds on the weaker persons energy to feel good, complete and secure.

All energy lost is primarily due to fear.

Identifying the root fear and releasing the fear by acting out of love and compassion causes the person to become whole again.

It is tough to do that and easy to pretend doing that.

The strength to do this comes from awareness, knowledge, idea of the repercussions (how it will harm all), acting out of responsibility - Is this what I really want? - considering all life and experiences here as sacred, support of the universe for every loving action and resisting the temptation of the moment. Know that you always have a choice.

The ability to resist temptation comes from having a detoxified mind and body. The ability comes from awareness.

Healing for humanity and one's own self is possible via Spiritual Psychology, that takes into consideration that we are a part of Planet Earth's life, that we are all connected, that we are souls who have projected themselves into this dimension of growth, and that evolution is a natural and unstoppable process.

When we can love without inhibition, fear or guilt, we can expect great changes in our surroundings.

You cannot love others, if you hate yourself. Love your true self, that part of you which is eternal, pure and beautiful. That is not ugly, that is not unworthy. Please do not beat yourself up.

Reacting to a situation in the realization that it is a learning event is positive. But reacting to a situation with only the abilities of the gross senses is negative. It does not account for the reason we are all here.

The bottom of all these issues is the issue of power. In the end, its either of these:

Considering power as external

Considering power as internal

Power that is acquired externally is fake. Beauty, fame, knowledge, strength, are not eternal - and these external dependencies cannot be called authentic power.

Power that is from within is real. The realisation that you are responsible for the experiences you create, and that the universe will provide you will all your needs, is to have real power, and no fear.

You must take responsibility for all the events around you. You must know that you cannot be harmed. You must be honest with yourself about why you feel how you feel.

Keeping yourself open to intuition and guidance is imperative.

The truth

2009-03-25T05:30:00.000-07:00

It's pretty tough, in a world of illusion, and darkness, to find the truth. And believe it!

We all come across the truth I'm sure. But we just give it up as too simple to be the truth. Just can't believe it. And there are so many other lies that we can believe in - that given the option - we're bound to choose lies over the truth. Makes it easier for us. Right? Well, we only think it makes it easier, while it actually makes things worse. But we can never tell - because we forget.

So first of all the truth is not very obvious or apparent. And then even if we do see it, we chance to forget it. How nice. The chances of getting to the truth and staying on are really few and unstable.

There is so much data out there, that we just don't know what to do. There is guilt, moral values, religiosity, and whatnot. And the exact thing that feels good and feels great to you - is supposedly the most harmful thing for you. What? No way. The body reports as feel good, those that are good for you, and bad as those that harm you! But smoking feels good to some people. So...

There is some contradiction here. We're assuming something, and that prevents us from seeing the point. Its the child who is being asked not to indulge too much in sweets to avoid dental cavities. For its own good. But without obvious logic.

Sometimes I find myself doing things I don't want to do - because somehow I believe that its good for me.

And sometimes I do things I want to do. But with a truckload of guilt.

And then I wonder. What purpose does guilt serve. Guilt is a inner voice that scolds you for being bad or naughty and punishes you. In an attempt to stop you from doing something harmful to you or to the collective whole.

So its not just to make you feel bad. Its there to help you. But you can allow it to ruin your living hours.

What should be done? And what should not be done? What causes bondage? What liberates us? What kind of sick game has no option to stop playing when you're done and over with? What kind of cruel fun is it when you're forced to go through things you would rather not? It's pretty dark to be something pre-selected. I'm sure it was not my idea. I would have asked for an obvious Escape button. Sadistic theories.

So... mayavadira bhasha sunila hoye sarva vinash. I have experienced some bliss. Now I want it back. So I'm trying to retrace my path. And on my way I come across something that can check my progress. Obviously I reject it.

The problem is - its now there in the form of a doubt. What if I'm being tricked. What if... the other theory is true? And what if I can get all those blissful things back, without having to compromise so much? Shouldn't I take that path?

Path less taken. Whenever in life you see two paths - there will be one that is easy, and one which is tough. Always choose the tough path. For that will give you the highest happiness. Hmm. Interesting. Blind gamble.

And we say gambling is prohibited. Well, life is a big gamble. So what are you talking about?

And the offenses? Well you know what, no matter how much you try to avoid them - it's obvious that these things will happen to us "oh-so-not-perfect" beings. Its meant to be that way. Offenses are going to happen. But you just try to avoid them. But don't kill yourself if it does happen. Because well - you aren't perfect. And you could use a lot of guidance, but you haven't got a clue how to get guidance you can trust, always, everywhere. (If you did have very clear instructions and the process was easy - it would spoil the game now, wouldn't it?) Gosh. I still dont want to believe the whole game funda.

Maybe it started off as a game. And now we're too far gone. We didn't know that this would happen, and its too late to save the day. So... blast it. Pralaya. All these bloody games end like that. The game ends with a big bang. (smirk)

Oh well, whats really going on? My past experiences confirm some things are valid. You're forced to take rebirth, its not like a wishy-washy - Ummm, I dunno, maybe I dont wanna be born jus yet. Let me rest awhile longer... or give me more options. No. There are some things that are pretty much forced upon you. This place is for rebels, not for some artistic playful types who are tired of being in the light. No. We've not fallen from the light, the story goes way into the past. We've fallen from Vaikuntha. Maybe this is a prep course for that game. I'm sure it doesn't end there. I'm sure its like one game after another. Where the obvious thing is actually not true. Gets tougher. Prep course. Hmm. Pretty macabre though. Because there is the whole thing about pain. What if I killed my intelligence, that distinguished between pleasure and pain and chose one of them for the higher good. What if I killed my mind, and made it stop distinguishing between pleasure and pain? What if the intensity was all that mattered?

Just like Krishna smaran - in enmity or hatred - feels the same to Krishna. He just sees the intensity, doesn't bother about the "good" "bad" part of it.

So kill the mind. Kill its ability to distinguish between pleasure and pain. Just make it long for intensity in either of those two things. ? I'm scared?

Naam aparadh

2009-02-06T00:08:00.000-08:00

There are offenses to the Holy Name that cause the chanter to incur great damage and trouble:

Envy of the Guru, thinking Him material, neglecting the Guru's instructions. Insulting or thinking badly about a great devotee of the Lord. Not beliving firmly that Krishna is the ultimate and the supreme. Not understanding that Krishna is non-different from His name, form, qualities and pastimes. To speak against the scriptures. To think chanting is pious activity. To preach to those with no faith, the confidential Glories of the Holy Name. To think that the Glories of the Holy Name are exaggerations. To chant while committing sins knowingly. To continue in the material conception of life and neglecting the Holy Name in spite of the knowledge available. To concoct some meaning of the Holy Name.

Once a person takes to chanting the Hare Krishna Mahamantra, that person must approach the Lord and ask forgiveness for his past sins.

Krishna forgives the past sins of such a person.

However, after this is done, the person may no longer commit any new sins. Committing sins after accepting the rules and regulations to chant the Mahamantra is most dangerous. One should not even look at the face of such a person.

One who indulges in illicit sex, intoxication, gambling or meat-eating becomes contaminated. Such a person cannot utter the Holy Name of Krishna. Even if such a person chants for millions of lifetimes he will never achieve the fruit of Krishna prema, because the offense holds the person back just like an anchor forces a boat to be stationary no matter how much you row. This offense is the worst Naam Aparadh. There is no remedy for such a person. He must give up bad activities, and chant day and night. Mahaprabhu will then consider such a person. But without giving up bad activities, such a person will never be considered.

One who chants while committing offenses slowly loses all taste for chanting. In the heart of such a person, the unwanted creepers of siddhi, bhukti and mukti start growing. The bhakti lata of such a chanter is completely stunted and curtailed.

One who chants thinking Krishna is different from His name, chants inattentively, and the result is that desires for material pleasure grow in the heart of the person, and he loses all taste for chanting.

If one is trinad api sunicena, taror iva sahisnuna, then he can be saved from this trouble.

That humility comes only if one chants offenselessly.

In order to reach the level of offenseless chanting, which is very easy, one should simply give up contaminating activities and offenses to the Holy Name. If one keeps chanting, slowly the offenses will be eradicated. One must be careful to avoid falling into offenses again.

One has to make an effort to chant without offenses. Otherwise one will become a victim of siddhi, mukti and bhukti kaama.

The solution is to chant constantly and offer prayers of Glorification to the Holy Name. In this way, the Holy Name may forgive the offender. One can then chant offenselessly.

Solutions after this are to develop service attitude, humility and understanding of who is the Holy Name.

Effects of offenseless chanting include development of the 8 siddhis and eventually Krishna prema.

One cannot obtain the result of chanting without taking initiation.

One must have full faith - unflinching faith - in the words of the Guru.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Ram Hare Ram Ram Ram Hare Hare

2008-11-24T08:37:00.000-08:00

The Mahamantra is the only other thing alive in this world of dead, besides the spirit souls here.

All the traffic movement, seasons, planetary movement, growth, all the things in this material world that change, are only due to the presence of the spirit soul.

Without spiritual energy nothing can move, nothing can change. This material world of chemicals and elements is dead. It cannot do anything by itself. It requires living entities to manipulate it, use it, change it.

And living entities - spirit souls are spiritual in nature, they belong to the dynamic spiritual world. The world which is alive. Everything is alive, nothing is dead there.

But somehow they have landed in this world of the dead. Martyaloka.

And the only way back is to take help of the only other spiritual presence in this world of dead.

The Hare Krishna Mahamantra.

It is a living spiritual entity who is present in this world, other than the spirit souls, and is the only connection between the spirit souls and the spiritual world. There is no other way to escape from here, other than to take shelter of these names, which become the rocket or spaceship to fly out of here - out of this mind, into reality.

Realisations by the mercy of Vaishnavas

2008-11-09T05:40:00.000-08:00

A lecture by Srila Gour Govind Swami Maharaj revealed to me the following truths:
1. The mind is the cause of liberation and bondage
2. The mind is awake and the soul is asleep
3. The mind is what links us to this material world
4. The soul is never trapped or bound, but it chooses to remain with the awareness of the material mind - this is the only binding factor.
5. Chanting the Mahamantra is the way to disconnect from the chaotic mind
6. Once you disconnect completely from the mind, you are free!

7. Janma karma cha me divyam - evam yo vetti tattvatah

One who knows the tattva, the science of how to descend to the material plane without becoming affected by it - is the one who never comes back to material life.

It can only be revealed by Krishna, how this is possible. Padma patram ivambhasa.

8. Jiva Krishna Das ei vishwas, korbe tohar dukha naash

The full conviction that every living entity is a servant of Krishna and is controlled by Him is the key to destruction of all miseries

9. The stupid mind is always saying enjoy - enjoy the material senses - ramanito, sleep, eat, have sex. That's all. But this perverted rasa is not to be accepted as a giver of happiness. Krishna is the embodiment of all rasas. When you engage in your eternal rasa with Him, you can be happy, otherwise not. The mind has us completely convinced that we are very happy here and are enjoying to the fullest even when old age, death and disease are causing so much anxiety. Believe the mind and stay in illusion - Maya, the matrix. Lots of people are so scared of the truth that they will gladly accept falsity and reject the truth under the banner of escapism. Cowardly persons who do not want to hear the truth can remain in Maya, in illusion, for as long as they please. One must avoid such hypocrites who support untruth.

10. Chant, train the mind, bring it under your control, and you'll be out of illusion.

But Krishna is known to elude even great sages - so never consider yourself above illusion, we are very much inclined towards being eluded.

11. Give up treating others as separate entities - see how we are all part of one person. Its like you're a finger and someone else is the neck. Now you both are part of the same body - obviously your goals, aims and interests are exactly the same. So where is the question of conflict? Or treating others differently than you would treat your own self?

Give up this enviousness of other living entities and see them as a part of your own Self.

Excited!

2008-09-10T23:40:00.000-07:00

The promise of a new sunrise is truly exciting...

But that sentence is kinda slow and doesn't convey the huge sudden burst of euphoria I'm feeling.

When you're morose, and you can't see any light, and you know you're lost, you just want to give up and be. But, you can, all of a sudden, find yourself looking at a small faint beam of light - and it charges you with some kind of extraordinary strength. It just pulls you and you're jubilant! you couldn't have been happier - and two moments ago you couldn't have been more upset.

What a change. phew! I wonder if everyone has the same extreme experiences. I like it kind of - to appreciate something with a lot of amazement because it was invisible some time ago. Life is full of promise, many desires look achievable, many dreams look like they will be coming true, all the tight shackles are loosening up, the prison gates are opening, and I'm going to be free. Free! to do as I like, be who I want, no dissatisfaction ever again, only contentment and bliss, and exciting, adventurous events. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! hahahhaa Whoo!.... yea.

Discovering oneself

2008-08-31T03:13:00.000-07:00

I thought when I was born and came into cognizance that I'm just like everyone else. It's true of course that we're all God's children and stuff. But even in the oneness there is so much diversity.

So who am I? I made this blog specifically for me to figure myself out. And have I been able to do that? Well, the thing is - you're sometimes not who you make yourself out to be.

You can strongly identify with some one thing and it almost becomes you. But then again, the world and you are somewhat like a complex fabric woven together. And you have no clue where you stop and where the rest of the world starts. And its easy to get lost.

This life has been like a dream. I can sometimes visualise myself as a man with a long white beard, wrinkled skin, in another mood altogether. But still know that its me alright. It's me.

So who am I? I feel and think most of the time. It's what I like doing with myself. This feeling thinking business has been on since a long time. It's fun, I admit. I like the whole spectrum - ranging from pure speculation to pure terror. Extreme joy, extreme melancholy. I like the emotions strong and nice. Extremes. I like extremes.

And thoughts - I like to be aware. What exactly I become aware of, I don't know. But that awareness. It's nice. It feels good. I feel powerful, influential, in control, calm, serene, sharp, intelligent, manipulative, controlling, free, careless, active, alive. Hmm. I like it when I'm very aware. New thoughts - concepts, ideas, explanations, realisations. Yes, awareness promises realisations. I like meditation because it leads to awareness.

And who am I? I can't classify myself. There is no slot. I'm always on a limbo - some extreme. Impulsive. What is my natural inclination with respect to others? Well, thats something I had no clue about up until recently. It seems,that I am an idealist.

I have very strong ideas about what is ideal. Included in this inclination is the propensity to help, teach and heal. I like doing those things. Now that I look back at my experiences - it makes total sense. I never thought it would be so difficult to figure myself out. Or that it would come as a surprise to me.

Well, so much for a superficial survey on the physical/ mental level of what I perceive as myself.

Somehow, I'm convinced its just the tip of the iceberg, and if I can see the big berg below the water I'm going to freak out! Lets hope my inclinations and patterns lead me one day to discovering all this.

Right now I'm pretty down. With no one else to blame. I've just been taking things too lightly, letting down all my guards. Fantasizing too much. I'm out of touch with reality. My awareness is probably at an all time low. And my head is aching. Boy, its very unlike me. I want to get out. But this weird inertia has set in. I hope I just get up and get out of this slump.

Nothing is very clear when you're in a slump. Life becomes boring and worrisome. Really bad point to be in during a life.

Undeserved Compassion

2007-12-24T20:53:00.000-08:00

The word undeserved makes it quiet obvious whether you need to feel undeserved compassion or not. Or does it?

The following is an excerpt from an article on ethics:

"Social programming (through media, TV, newspapers and surrounding society) changes our view points on what is morally right and what is not. For instance; when you are 10 years old, you will cry at the thought of a dead animal, which has been hit by a car, yet you will happily eat a meat pie. To most children death is an scary, dark thing, something they do not understand a lot of, they do not realize that by eating meat that they are in a secondary effect causing the death of an animal.

If you told a child that what was in a pie, was meat, and that meat came from a dead animal, they probably would burst out crying and not want to eat meat anymore. However as the child grows into a teenager, they realize that meat is in effect a piece of a dead animal, yet they are no longer disgusted by the fact. This is where social desensitization comes into effect, around the time of child arrogance, society twists its moral fibers to accommodate the new generations. It states the meat is natural and healthy, difference is a reason to be ostracized, heterosexuality is "normal", pornography is what sex is like, violence is okay. It seems that almost any angle that is economically viable in any sense is deemed acceptable by society. But of course by writing this I am being hypocritical, because everyone of us, except maybe some people, are desensitized to an extent. To prove this point, let me tell you that I ate meat, and all manner of animal produce until the time I was 19, now to say that I didn't know what I was eating, would be ridiculous."

"Its a strange feeling to realize that you don't care about animals, but when you were younger you cared so deeply, most children do. As we grow into adults, we loose the compassion for our fellow animals, this compassion lives on in our pets, and other animals that we consider to be "cute". The animals that we consume or exploit in many different ways, become little more then what we feel comfortable with them being. For instance, cows, pigs, chickens etc are easily considered to be worth less then a dog or cat. As children we simply consider a life to be equal, no matter what the life is, it is worthy of existence."

All life is sacred. And the fact that we have compassion for animals who are mercilessly butchered to satisfy someones palate is not an emotion to be surprised at. A human can survive on eating food obtained in a non-violent way. In fact he can be healthier and happier in that way. So what is the need to open so many slaughterhouses?

We say that God sees us living entities suffering in this miserable world and He feels undeserved compassion for us (there is no other reason than the one stated for Him to feel this way - if the world were not miserable there would be no need to feel compassion for us). The compassion becomes undeserved when it is felt for those who are ignorant and faithless. The ignorant and faithless have been socially programmed to be ignorant and faithless. The memes or thought viruses of modern media and social acceptability make victims so zombie-like that it indeed requires some reverse Brain-Washing to remove the damaging psychology (by the way, I don't feel like a victim at all when I'm watching TV).

Vegetarianism arising out of feelings of compassion and non-violence is a natural response to understanding that humans can survive on non-violently obtained foodstuff. There is another way to get food and it is actually a better way which is worth the effort (even though there is a slaughterhouse right next to where I live, making it practical, easy and convenient to get the meat instead).

Celibacy is something that naturally arises in a person who realizes that he is a spirit soul, and the way a spirit soul enjoys sexual experiences is different from the way the body enjoys it. While the time-space limited body deteriorates and exhausts itself out in trying to get a few moments of ecstasy, the spiritual sexual experience escalates endlessly into rising spirals of joy and pleasure unbound by time or space. In short the conclusion is: There is another way, and its a better way WHICH IS WORTH THE EFFORT.

Undeserved compassion for those suffering in this material world arises when we realize that we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by feeling this compassion as a spirit soul, and there is no harm or danger to us (Lord Jesus was crucified - the danger was physical, not spiritual - if there was really harm then He would not have been able to come back) even in feeling and acting upon our natural feelings of undeserved compassion. In short we should be willing to lose our covering of skin and bones over ourselves (spirit soul) in order to protect others from "deserved" suffering because it is natural for us and the better way to be for us. We can be hypocrites and allow others to suffer while we ourselves have "figured it all out" and attained misery-free nirvana. But this is against our nature. God blesses us with undeserved compassion and we also have the same capability and natural urge. AND ITS WORTH THE EFFORT. It is simply social programming that has suppressed and effectively murdered this natural emotion in us.

Upon being ordered to do so by the Lord Himself, Lord Indra and other demigods approached a sage for his bones because his bones would be needed to make a weapon to fight the war against demons. And the sage willingly gave up his body in accordance with the Lord's wishes.

Any modern day socially programmed mammal like us would just frown at the whole episode as bizarre. We cannot identify with a sense of compassion that would move us to give up our body for a war that some people have to fight for some sacred reason which is not really going to be the end of all misery for them anyways, and the whole sacrifice is just worthless.

Why would I do that? I would most definitely not. My love is reserved for those whom give me joy and pleasure, not for others. Be they a part of my own Self. Part of the very Self who is the origin and cause, my very brothers and sisters made of the same Self that I am.

Let all living entities who are created by our one Father in Heaven be related to me in an intimate bond of brotherhood - compassion, love and non-enviousness I will feel for them no more. Let my mind be programmed to be insensitive, let me be brainwashed, how is it going to affect anything. What difference does it make whether I am programmed or whether I am not? What difference does it make whether I an insensitive and eat animals or not? What difference does it make if this is what misery is supposed to be - something in which the result is always like poison. Let me not return to innocence. Let me not return to purity. Let me not practice morality and non-violence. Let me not feel undeserved compassion. Let me hanker and thirst for the impermanent pleasures of this ravaging world.

Morpheus and others risked their very lives to bring Neo out of the matrix. They didn't sit around in the matrix "enjoying" some good looking temporary food. They were clear about the mission - we have to get neo out of the matrix. Now who would do that? Love someone without knowing if they deserve your love? How can they have such a noble cause that would harm their very self? Well, in the wider perspective - the only way to save the Self is to become sensitive to its cause, and become a noble martyr to it without feeling noble at all, because it comes so naturally to you - you don't feel noble at all. Why its the obvious thing to do! Its and effort thats WORTH IT.

Since I stopped eating meat I have not gained any ecstatic moods. I did not get some kind of carnal pleasure from leaving it. In fact I miss it. So how does the act of going vegetarian become WORTH IT? Haven't we been programmed to know that anything which takes away pleasure is evil and anything that gives pleasure is good? Another programming. We've been wired to oppose our own nature.

So you still like the things that socially program us? Will you still watch TV? Oh yes, like hell, I will! And you damn well stay out of my way while I do it.

Hah! Undeserved compassion. Forgive them for the know not, know not what?! They KNOW EXACTLY what they're doing. They nailed you on a cross. They know what they did, they just don't know that they're a part of YOU because they're programmed! They refused to act upon compassion. They weren't blind. They have cognizance. So difficult my Lord, so difficult to act out undeserved compassion for socially programmed people. Still you do it. Because we are part of You, and even if a smallest part of You suffers, You are unhappy. You are not aloof from us even though it seems that way.

These suffering masses are not aloof from us, even though it seems that way. We are all connected. Thank you for being a part of me. I love you all as I love my own self.

We believe in Beef and Christ - Violence on Animals

2007-11-26T03:57:00.000-08:00

Animal sacrifice in the name of religion is current practically all over the world in every established religion. It is said that Lord Jesus Christ, when twelve years old, was shocked to see the Jews sacrificing birds and animals in the synagogues and that he therefore rejected the Jewish system of religion and started the religious system of Christianity, adhering to the Old Testament commandment "Thou shalt not kill." And if he meant that humans should not be killed and that killing animals is fine, he would have said "Thou shalt not murder." You think he had bad vocabulary to not know the difference between "kill" and "murder"?

Prahlad Maharaj

2007-11-04T21:30:00.000-08:00

As a young boy, Sri Prahlad Maharaj spoke these words of wisdom taught to him by Maharsi Narada Muni:

1. The real problem of life is the repetition of birth and death, which is like a wheel rolling repeatedly up and down.

2. And this wheel completely stops when one is in touch with the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

3. One's riches, beautiful wife/ husband, friends, one's sons and daughters, one's residence, one's domestic animals, one's treasury, economic development and sense gratification — indeed, even the lifetime in which one can enjoy all these material opulences — are certainly temporary and flickering. Since the opportunity of human life is temporary, what benefit can these material opulences give to a sensible man who has understood himself to be eternal?

4. A materialistic person, thinking himself very advanced in intelligence, continually acts for economic development. But again and again, as enunciated in the Vedas, he is frustrated by material activities, either in this life or in the next. Indeed, the results one obtains are inevitably the opposite of those one desires.

5. Since the body itself is ultimately meant to become stool or earth, what is the meaning of the paraphernalia related to the body, such as wives, husbands, residences, wealth, children, relatives, servants, friends, kingdoms, treasuries, animals and ministers? They are also temporary. What more can be said about this?

6. All this paraphernalia is very near and dear as long as the body exists, but as soon as the body is destroyed, all things related to the body are also finished. Therefore, actually one has nothing to do with them, but because of ignorance one accepts them as valuable. Compared to the ocean of eternal happiness, they are most insignificant. What is the use of such insignificant relationships for the eternal living being?

In the Bhagavad Gita Krsna says:

Na maam dushkritinoh mudhah
Prapadyante naraadhama
Maayayaa pahruta jnana
Aasuram bhaavam ashritah

"Those miscreants who are grossly foolish, lowest among mankind, whose knowledge is stolen by illusion, and who partake of the atheistic nature of demons, do not surrender unto Me." Because of ignorance and misfortune, the atheists and the narādhamas, the lowest of men, do not surrender unto the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Therefore although the Supreme Lord, Krsna, is full in Himself, He appears in different yugas to demand the surrender of the conditioned souls so that they will benefit by becoming free from the material clutches. In conclusion, the more we engage in Krsna consciousness and render service unto the Lord, the more WE benefit. Krsna does not need service from any of us.

Srila Prabhupada says in his purport: This material world is miserable, regardless of one's standard of life. Of this there is no doubt. Attempts to mitigate the miseries of material existence by material methods will never be successful. One must take to Krsna consciousness to become really happy; otherwise happiness is impossible. One might say that becoming advanced in spiritual life also involves tapasya, voluntary acceptance of some inconvenience. However, such inconvenience is not as dangerous as the material attempts to mitigate all miseries.

No need to spoil it for the others...

2007-11-04T10:04:00.000-08:00

"It’s almost as if life is some kind of a candy store. Some of the candy is poisonous and some of it just rots your teeth. In order to succeed while you are in the candy store you find that you shouldn’t eat any candy at all. It seems that those elusive conditions of joy and bliss and tranquility are achieved by forgetting about candy altogether. This flies in the face of the entire construct that depends on your wanting the candy. One might almost say that it makes you an enemy of the state. Pointing it out is almost certain to" - Les Visible.

People who have realized that there is something better than this, and we don't need this - these kind of people are not welcome anywhere. I mean, you may have decided to move on, but who are you to force us to listen to the truth? Who are you to cause us to remember why we're here and how we try to waste every minute by distracting ourselves from the truth? Why do you have to go ahead and spoil all the fun? C'mon! It's a candy store! Lose control! Forget yourself!

Well, compassion is the hardest thing, because you might want to be compassionate, but who's going to let you do it? Can you display compassion without being hurled abuses at? Part of the explanation about God liking humble people may be that He knows that unless you're humble, you can't really take it when your compassion backfires. So you go around being compassionate, and humble, and you're good to go.

If only it were that simple. How many times has my inner voice guided me to take a step towards healing and compassion? - and how many times have I dismissed the voice by thinking of my fragile false ego being shattered to pieces? I am so far away from becoming truly humble. I'm obviously not talking about the fickle temporary virtues of this flickering world that change with favourable and unfavourable circumstances. "It's benefiting me to lie today, so be it"; "It's benefiting me to stop being compassionate and understanding today, so be it". No, not those artificial virtues. I'm talking about the real and true nature of the soul, its actual tendency to be virtuous, in a real permanent way, where the virtues don't fall away under the pressure of trying circumstances.

when will real humility come? I hope there is a way to get there.

Stop the flow of intelligence - why?

2007-10-21T20:10:00.000-07:00

Why, its simple! The senses report to the mind, the mind conjures up thoughts which are analysed for how pleasurable or abhor-able they are. Once the appeal factor of the thought is determined, the intelligence decides to act upon the like/dislike and comes up with a fantastic desire.

And in one day we have more than a million desires. The unending flow of thoughts and desires converts us into containers of future karma. Outside the body, things may be calm. But inside the body - there is activity that we have no idea of. We don't really even think about becoming the person in the TV advert - but the mind registers the idea. And it's just a matter of time before we become that.

So what now. Well, great sages came up with many processes to stop future karma - like of course I may think a pig looks very cute, but I definitely don't want to live one life as a pig in any future - please! So how do you ask your intelligence to stop acting on the basis of random thoughts and inputs from the senses?

Yoga. You calm down the mind and focus it on the one most important thing - akincana - no desire except to satisfy the Self.

Wait a minute - you're stealing away my right to desire? No duffer, it only means that you have desires that don't force you to take rebirth in any species, these desires actually take you to a stage where you are aware always in charge and in control of your future.

People have desires like - hey look at angelina jolie - shes pretty. Well, there is your desire. You will get a chance to be angelina jolie in some future lifetime. No, no, no, no I didn't want to be her! Well, thats how nature works my dear friend - it does not consider that you may not really mean to desire that for YOURSELF. Any strong thought is a desire.

When people leave their body - they think of the one thing most dear to them. Their spouse, or favourite kid. So guess what - if a man thinks of his wife while dying - he gets a female birth in his next life because the "desire" is so strong. He may say - I just wanted to think of her. Well, nature is interpreting a strong memory of something as a positive desire for that state of existence or being. Consider what would happen in this case, if the man thought of his pet dog instead of his wife? Uh oh.

Isn't this why so many positive thinkers say that you can change things with your thoughts? It's because you actually can. You become what you desire. Everything becomes what it is because it was desired so by someone at some point in time. The sofa, the building, the.... the bombings? Oh yes. You can't stop people from thinking negatively - people can think any which way they like.

In this material world there are changing identities and time and space. In the spiritual world, time is conspicuous by its absence, identities are always constant. And you are in the region where the two - spiritual and material - almost overlap. You can choose one over the other.

Give up the false ego that tells you "you are this body". You know better - you are just consciousness - and the bonus mind and intelligence provided to you are no good unless they are under YOUR control. So take charge - go do some yoga. Calm down the monkey-like mind, and tame the intelligence to think spiritually instead of in a conditioned way.

Whatever happens to me, I can only deal with it if I accept my spiritual nature and reject the fallacy that I am this body. I am not limited by space or time. I am infinite.

And we have to take all of that with a pinch of salt and wisdom. Simply accept everything as the Lord's mercy without considering the appeal factor. What is happening is good, its not to be despised, loved, feared... just observed, without attachment, without reaction, without consideration of bodily pleasure or displeasure.

The human body and the human mind are the apparatus for making decisions dealing with favourability and unfavourability. If something is disadvantageous for my progeny, or bodily comfort, or mental satisfaction, or even intellectual satisfaction, then it is outright rejected. Even if it may be good for me - the spirit soul - the consciousness within, it is discarded as evil.

Thats probably what great men mean when they say "See no evil". You actually don't see it as evil anymore. You just see it and then say "oh here is something that exists". And it cannot touch you. Nothing can touch you, nothing can harm you, nothing can make you happy or unhappy. Your happiness is in you. And thats the highest form of control. You actually have it in you. You don't need to be secured from all directions to be happy. You don't need fulfillment of desires. You are a soul with full knowledge. Not lacking, complete.

In your uncovered state you are truly happy. In this bodily conception you think you are something that you are actually not. And this false ego will always stop you from attaining that realisation. So stop the flow of intelligence, focus the mind on the supreme, and attain the uncovered state of existence.

The Real Perils of Climbing an Invisible Mountain

2007-07-18T09:57:00.000-07:00

As we are born into nescience, and slowly make our way up by gaining into the various perspectives people have of the "so-called" reality around us. With every interaction comes conditioning.

The conditioning consists of having us believe that if we don't follow in the normal rules of the normal society then we're really just dumb, how can we not get it?

Of course you use the best face creams, because they're good for you, so what if your skin is just a wrapper on the bone/muscle machine that your body is. So what if your body is going to wear out soon, due to the transitory nature of all things material. So what if nothing lasts forever. Good skin is something you're earning all that money for, and good skin is what you will get.

Somehow in all the madness, we stop to question why. What is going on? This is like half-waking up from the deepest of deep sleeps. We begin to see how people who are negative affect us negatively. How people who have a bright aura help us immensely. How envious people sap our energy. And we begin to see that we are as related to each other as the ant is related to the bull.

Somewhere in the insanity, people are yelling that its not fair. Its just not fair that some people decide to progress, and try to leave the rest behind. How can they be selfish? And don't they know that in practical real life "on earth" things like this don't work, its too crazy a risk to take.

Our bodies are all machines being operated under the control of five factors: super soul, soul, field of activities, types of endeavour and the senses.

But we feel that the body is not under the control of any five things, its under our own control. Worse still we believe that we are the body. If death comes to the body, it scares us, although we are immortal souls. And when the Life Insurance Policy does not help us to live longer, we crib and hold on to our wasted old bodies like a parrot clinging to a cage. The calm in letting go is more desirable than compulsive attachment to the temporary body made of flesh, bones, blood and stool.

When a person embraces death he sees what a relief it really is. No more of the weight, no dirty smells, no noise, just beauty, purity, peace and knowledge. Everyone knows in the heart of their hearts that beyond this material world and its barrier, is the most beautiful divine light which attracts everything to itself. There is no fear, and no clinging.

But we chose to prolong our miserable stay on this planet. Where mother nature is most cruel to us, in spite of our many endeavours we have to tolerate so much. With every passing year summers are getting to be hotter, winters cooler.

Srimad Bhagvatam speaks of the future of Kali Yuga - there will be no food, electricity, water or shelter. People will run to the forests to live peacefully. There will be so much cheating and open-air stealing that people will lose their final straw of faith in the already hilarious thing called "law".

The material world is perverted reflection of the spiritual world. We are in a matrix whose opposite exists on the other side of a river. Here we have duality. There we have absolute, nothing is relative.

Temporary cessation of misery, or temporary distraction from misery, is the definition of happiness in this material world.

If we have sex pleasure, it lasts for exactly a few moments, after which it is gone. We are left tired. Nothing satisfies us permanently. Something is always lacking.

And in contrast, in the spiritual world, the bliss is ever increasing. There is no misery, only bliss. One has no bad qualities, no pains, no disease.

Meanwhile we think that disease is flu, or infection. But disease is actually the presence of a spiritual entity in the non-spiritual or material atmosphere. The very covering of the body on top of the soul is the disease. The soul can never be happy in material confinement. However, it has no choice to accept a body according to its own desire, and according to the results of past activities, whether good or bad.

The soul searches for spiritual happiness in material things: husband, wife, brother, sister, father, mother, baby, house, vehicle, tv serials, movies, thrill rides, thrill giving things, so called food, sports, flirting, etc. But in the end, instead of happiness, it is met with frustration. The effort to obtain fruits is spent, but the fruit does not taste the way the soul wants it to.

Finally, after exploring all the material pursuits, the soul comes to knowledge, I do not belong here. I have nothing to gain here. My place is in the spiritual sky - para vyoma.

How did I gain this temporary identity that I will lose as soon as the body is finished? What is my real identity?

When the questions are asked, the answers come themselves to decorate the fortunate soul, this is the beginning of all auspiciousness. Till then we are to be understood to be under the effect of deep sleep where we are watching a very interesting dream. In our state of dream we cannot see others who may have woken up. We cannot understand the actions of such individuals, and we cannot understand how their goals can be different from ours. We cannot ascertain what motivates them to act they way they do - they seem just like the rest of the crowd, but there is something very disturbing about them. What is that disturbing? The inability of the sleeping soul to recognise or understand the soul trying to wake up is disturbing to it. How dare someone try to wake up. How dare they ruin the dream? Why can't they just play the role they are expected to in the dream and allow the dream to proceed as planned, or desired by the sleeper? How dare a soul try to become dettached from the impermanent body? How can it ever decide that it has had enough of the material world. No matter how hard it tries, the whole current will oppose its motion.

Although swimming upstream is a fool's effort, discovering the fountainhead is a euphoria greatly unmatched with any material pleasure. And although climbing invisible mountains is strictly forbidden, the curious soul will always take the risk and go after its true happiness, not caring for any illusory obstructions.

The Perils of Climbing an Invisible Mountain

2007-06-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

Guys: This is my most loved blog article. So I stole this one just like the others.

The Perils of Climbing an Invisible Mountain.

by Les Visible (lesvisible.blogspot.com)

One of the first things you notice about climbing the invisible mountain is how many people are telling you, "You can't do it." or "You can't do it that way." Never mind the fact that you are discussing an invisible mountain; they will appear from nowhere with less actual substance than the invisible mountain and they will delineate, with shapes and gestures formed out of nothing, how impossible it is for you to climb this mountain. They will appear outside of you and they will appear in your head. They will have the characteristics of 'hit and run' graffiti and banner advertising and there may be lights flashing and there may be drinks served.

Nothing serves to create an argument like a space in which no argument exists. As soon as peace is in operation, pundits and pedants from the far corners of the world will appear to dissect the unity and it won't be long before politicians and salesmen and arms merchants and armies arrive along with row after row of specialists with measuring devices and clipboards. Some will appear in glorious anonymity- their pontifications to present and some few intrepid souls will arrive as members of whatever is standing in for the Royal Academy these days and they will all, after much arcane movement and conferring among one another, announce that you cannot climb the invisible mountain.

Certainly the majority of these yahoos will be immediately identifiable as manifestations of your fears and unresolved subconscious bugaboos. All will have some portion of the monkey in the mirror persona where they mimic your thoughts and movements in order to encourage or seduce you into a dance where you forget who you are and become a monkey. The clever tricks are legion and you have to keep in mind who it is that is being crushed under the stationary foot when Shiva Nataraja raises the other one in dance.

It will not matter what century you find yourself in; what the fashions and technology may be. The forces at work to convince you- dissuade you- and prohibit you from climbing the invisible mountain; even to the extent of putting an electrified fence around it and posting armed guards on the perimeter will always be around. It's not their invisible mountain but what's that got to do with it? It says right here on this sheet of paper that they have the right and you'd be advised to understand that and get with the program.

Some folk are going to come around with an armload of books written by some dead guy and if you don't respond with the right amount of hushed awe that they demand as the representative of this dead guy; who may have been a yogi or a writer about yogis or a minister or some society member whose parents friends were in publishing or just some guy who kept journals; as I was saying, if you don't respond with the proper humility to their claim that you can't ever be as good as the dead guy, or that it's really the dead guy's mountain or you don't catch on to the fact that they're really putting themselves forward as the better mountaineer then… you are going to catch some shit, make no mistake.

The shifting serpent of opposition can manifest in a million forms, each of them designed to probe for a weakness or create a doubt; convince you that you started the conversation and/or argument. The idea of opposition is created in the idea that separation can exist in reality and not merely for the purposes of illustration as our world so perfectly illustrates. In fact, no one is arguing with you, they're arguing with themselves. It's like the crazy guy on the streets who starts talking to you as if you were part of some conversation. That conversation has been going on for many thousands of years and it has always been crazy. It seems sane when delivered by a guy in a toga, or a $2000.00 suit- depending on your era- but that is because you bought into the power of appearances insofar as they indicate value; when value is placed on the object as opposed to the subject… which is my way of checking to see if you are paying attention and using words for my own purposes as I do so.

Why do they do this? Why should they give a shit if you climb some invisible mountain or disappear up a rope in an Indian marketplace? Well, there are many, many reasons. One reason is that there are rules in place that got put there by somebody in order to guarantee a certain uniformity of behavior on the part of the collective body of humanity as they proceed on rails between the points of birth and death. Some people get appointed to the job of enforcing these rules and a whole lot of people appointed themselves. Some people being miserable, really do love company. Some people will tell you straight off that climbing invisible mountains is bad for business; can anything be worse than that? Some will tell you it's unpatriotic or blasphemous or whatever it is in respect of whatever they are shilling for. There are those who will resent your having said or done anything about invisible mountains without having first sought out their advice and underwriting for the whole affair. Somehow you have diminished the light they were shining upon themselves when you went and shined that light on the invisible mountain.

You could hurt yourself if you fell off that invisible mountain. You could hurt someone else. What happens if impressionable children see you doing it? It is always best not to let people know you are climbing an invisible mountain. It is better if they think you are doing something else and it's always a good idea to have a cover story and an outfit. It doesn't hinder your ability to climb an invisible mountain if you are wearing a name tag that indicates you are Bill, an inspector for the phone company. You can even be the guy who talks to invisible people on the street; climbing an invisible mountain at that point is no big deal.

The worst of the 'nyah… nyah… nyah…" group are the ones who actively seek to kill your faith in your ability to climb that mountain; those who work to convince you that that mountain is not there, those who seek to engage you in argument and thereby prove their own bankrupt estate, those who seek to kill your Love and enthusiasm for the 'only' game in town; and there is only one game. These folk are those who failed at finding the mountain; those who could not see the mountain, those who fear the mountain and hate you for reminding them about the mountain.

All you got to remember is that it's nobody's business whether you climb invisible mountains or not. I don't care what kind of a badge they show you or whose army they got positioned behind them. I don't care how they talk or what they say. I don't care who they quote and I especially don't care whether they feel diminished by the fact that they can't even climb up out of their own bullshit much less up the side of your invisible mountain.

It's not easy climbing invisible mountains. It all goes by feel and it takes a great degree of faith to hold on to what you can't see, especially after you get some distance into the air. You may well wonder what happens when you get to that point when you reach up and find nothing above you to grab a hold of. I'm not saying this happens. Every invisible mountain is not the same. They don't conform to some sort of invisible standard.

Some say the last thing you catch on your way up is a hand. I believe that's happened in a number of cases. Some say what happens is that you disappear; whether by gradations or all at once, I suppose either is possible. Some say a door opens and you step through; this might account for the testimony of those who say you disappear, because if they can't see the mountain it's probably likely they can't see the door either. All I can say is that I don't know- but that's not likely to have any effect on whether I climb that mountain or not.

Whether one should climb that mountain or not is a personal affair; you'll hear there is no mountain. You'll hear you can only climb it once you have decided against climbing it. You'll hear a thousand farts in a windstorm and be glad that the wind was there.

Plagiarized blog article # 2

2007-06-11T12:07:00.000-07:00

By Les Visible

I notice old people, how they get around and what seems to occupy their minds. What I notice even more are the way young people consider old people, the way they often treat them, as if by some magical event they will never be an old person.

People develop a style of living to which they become attached. They don’t want to give it up. I’ve heard people say, “Well, if I can’t live the way I want to then I don’t want to live at all.” Things we can easily get away with when we are young become increasingly difficult to maintain as time moves on.

People eat a lot of meat. Your digestive system throws up a lot of mucus to deal with it. Maybe you have noticed this after eating a steak. Because of poor dietary choice people create a swamp in their bodies. Things breed in the swamp. So you get people hacking into their hands as soon as the weather changes. The aging process accelerates.

The main reason that people get obese is from drinking soda. More than anything else it is your Big Gulp pit stops that give you the wide load. People don’t make that association. Some of them think diet soda is the answer. I’m not going to deal with aspartame here. You can find out the ugly details on your own.

Designer coffee is the rage now; Coffee Anan double dense fruit surprise or what have you. What coffee does is fire your adrenals. It’s like starting your car over and over until you might even burn it out. Nobody think about this. No doubt there was an article recently about how coffee reduces heart attacks or improves you sex life. Actually it radically decreases sexual function at a certain point, as do cigarettes.

“I did it my way.” seems to be the theme these days. Your body is like a car. A new car can take a lot of abuse. The one thing most important in car maintenance is changing the oil. Impurities have the same effect on you that they have on a car. It’s a simple thing to keep your car running well. If you keep pouring bad gas into it; if you don’t flush it out and pay attention then you need to go to the mechanics.

I watch spiritual teachers. What is it that they do differently? One of the things is that they eat very little and not very often. This would of itself provide a healthy and long life. What’s the point of working yourself to death while consuming bad fuel so that you can live with chronic health concerns in your golden years?

I hesitate to use the word God sometimes because of all the bad associations religion has placed into intelligent minds. Let us think rather of an all embracing consciousness that is in everything and that it is possible, by letting go of the individual identity, to achieve a cosmic identity by uniting with it. This essence, this all pervading awareness is closer to you, at all times, than you imagine. Sometimes you may be closer to it and you notice something. Other times you do not but it is still there. You wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t alive inside you. It is the very life you live. It is in your mind and intimately aware of your thoughts.

If you were to assume what I say is true; you don’t need any facts to back it up… if you would just assume this and remind yourself of it constantly a dialogue would ensue. Like priming a pump, you get no water at first. If you talk to yourself in the mirror for awhile you come to notice at a certain point that someone is looking back at you and listening. You can talk yourself into anything. You have, you do.

I have said before that Heaven is not up in the sky. It begins where your feet touch the Earth. You don’t go anywhere when you appear to die. You go where you are. You are in Heaven already or you are not. You could be there quite soon actually. It’s a matter of aspiration. You already aspire to things and there you are. There isn’t anything here that is worth having except peace of mind. Out of the tranquility of merger with the one comes the magical vision of a new and shining world. We cheapen our vision by the quality of our desire. Some fires put out more smoke than others. It depends on the fuel.

Besides a rigidity of mind and a tighter circle of patterned recurrence, old people can count on a number of problems that affect nearly everyone. One of these things is the loss of range of motion. This is where a dance of some sort comes in. Daily limbering will add years of effective life. Even if you have lost considerable range of motion you can get a good deal of it back. The defeat in the mind from the memory of the life that led us to the point of despairing in our own efforts is what resists our capacity to renew.

The lure of cheap food and entertainments coupled with the innate laziness of a person, who is planning to change tomorrow, have never been more ubiquitous. It all hurts. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?

It is the pain we experience from ignorant desire that drives us to freedom eventually. Eventually, nothing is better than wanting nothing. There are hidden springs in the human system that pours forth incredible states of being. They can be tapped. You might have to dig out the well. You might have to dig. Eventually you will. Eventually the drive for freedom becomes everything. Eventually you can’t take the smoke and the noise any more. I’m not inferring that you can’t live in it and be out of it. These days sanctuary is a hard discovery.

I know these things because of my mistakes. I have made a lot of mistakes. Sorting out what doesn’t work often reveals what does. How often do you catch yourself in the midst of your life and ask, “What am I doing?” Everything we do leads to the specific resolution of what we do. Ignoring it, mocking it, disputing it, these don’t affect it. It is inexorable.

For a legitimate system of escape go to

BOTA

It takes years but it will delight those so inclined. Tai Chi is easily learned and satisfying beyond what you might imagine. It’s much more user friendly than yoga. Liberal macrobiotics is a fabulous health choice. It takes ten days for your taste buds to change. Remember this before you give up. A constant awareness that you are accompanied opens an internal phone line. The answers are all there to be had. It’s the motivation that is lacking. It is peculiar that people would prefer a state of bondage over the promise of freedom but so they do.

We don’t see things as they are. We see them through colored lenses. The whole of life is no more than a game of hide and seek. It brings me back to that Biblical phrase, “Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven and all these things will be added unto you.” People don’t’ seem to get that. If you find the source, the cornucopia appears. You literally get it all. It isn’t necessary to see this in a religious sense. See it as a practical application of a universal truth. These spiritual teachers aren’t trying to get you to the dinner table with Pat Robertson. They just want you to grasp certain truths that will grant you the keys to the kingdom. All manner of worlds overlap here.

Some burn with an intensity for a love affair with the divine. Some dispassionately seek it through intellectual inquiry. Some discover it through the practice of particular rituals. That it has been discovered we know. We have the life examples of these people. Don’t say there isn’t anything out there, or in there, until you have looked; until you have looked as hard as you can. Or you can just remember that it fills and surrounds you all the time. It doesn’t have to be discovered. It has always been there. Practice its presence and it will reveal itself.

Looking for Happiness?

2007-06-11T11:43:00.000-07:00

Everyone is convinced that they know what happiness is all about. They've felt it, and they know exactly what they want. And it is also a fact that no two people have the exact same ideas about what constitutes happiness. Here is an excerpt from a blog article I love:

"For those who are of and in this world there is one set of priorities and for those who are passing through it there is another. The hard men and women of the world cannot be convinced of anything but that the world must be shaped according to their needs. You cross them at your peril. Just as one who is caught up in the thrall of a nightmare will cry out and lash about them; so will those caught up in the dreams of merchants and banks and firms lash out from the fear of loss.

Some say the world is shit and you should have nothing to do with it. Some say we are all sinful. Some say good and evil are just constructs of the mind. Some say this and some say that. Some say you must surrender and some say you must strive. Whatever they say, here you are. So, where are you going and what do you want?

There are differences between saints and prophets and sages and mystics, just as there are between burglars and armed robbers and murderers; between wholesale and retail and second hand. Those who know very little, if anything, about these things believe that they are in a position to define and judge them. Often the hard men and women of the world point to those who would point the way ‘out’ and measure their behavior against standards of conformity; against dogma and doctrine and whatever. If they understood such things they would have little to say. They sneer at these things because the message in them compromises their justifications for the things they do. They are exposed by these things, so they make the truth an outlaw. They incite mobs and manufacture laws. All of what they do is to insure their own profit. The truth is your enemy if you are the enemy of truth.

So many systems of government and commerce have evolved out of the efforts of those who have engineered them for their own profit and sometimes to improve conditions for everyone. We all need to eat and somehow we need to get to the food and all of the things that contribute to the amenities of existence; therefore the markets and all of the shake and bake industries of form making and all of the industries that work within the many operations that spin in the realm of temporary wonder.

We fool ourselves and we fool each other for many different reasons that all have to do with what we think we want and the possibility that someone may keep us from it or get there before we do or take it away from us. The urgency and impatience of life are actual forces just like the invisible entities that haunt the highways and feed on the accidents, that haunt the battlefields and feed on the suffering and the blood, like the spirits in the bars that live in the bottles and the minds of the drunks.

We are not who we think we are and things are not what we think they are and we will suffer for just as long as it takes us to find that out."

Taken from http://lesvisible.blogspot.com/2006/03/how-we-fool-ourselves.html

Udilo Aruna

2007-05-24T08:27:00.000-07:00

udilo aruṇa pūraba-bhāge,
dwija-maṇi gorā amani jāge,
bhakata-samūha loiyā sāthe,
gelā nagara-brāje

1) When the eastern horizon in the East became tinged with the redness that heralds the rising of the sun, the crest jewel among the twice-born brahmanas, Lord Gaurasundara, immediately awakened, and, taking His devotees with Him, He journeyed the towns and villages of Nadia.

'tāthaī tāthaī bājalo khol,
ghana ghana tāhe jhājera rol,
preme ḍhala ḍhala soṇāra ańga,
caraṇe nūpura bāje

2) The mṛdangas (khol) resounded "tāthaī, tāthaī," and the jhājas [large metal karatālas that look like small cymbals] in that kīrtana played in time. Lord Gaurāńga's golden form slightly trembled in ecstatic love of Godhead, and His footbells jingled.

mukunda mādhava yādava hari,
bolena bolo re vadana bhori',
miche nida-baśe gelo re rāti,
divasa śarīra-sāje

3) They would call out to the still sleeping people, "You spend your nights uselessly sleeping and your days decorating your bodies! Now just fill your mouths with the holy names "Mukunda!", "Mādhava!" "Yadava!" and "Hari!" chanting without offense.

emana durlabha mānava-deho,
pāiyā ki koro bhāva nā keho,
ebe nā bhajile yaśodā-suta,
carame poribe lāje

4) You have achieved such a rare human body. Do you not care for this gift? If you do not worship the darling of mother Yaśodā now, then great sorrow awaits you at the time of your death.

udita tapana hoile asta,
dina gelo boli' hoibe byasta,
tabe keno ebe alasa hoy,
nā bhaja hṛdoya-rāje

5) With every rising and setting of the sun, a day passes and is lost. Then, why do you remain idle and not serve the Lord of the heart?

jīvana anitya jānaha sār,
tāhe nānā-vidha vipada-bhār,
nāmāśraya kori' jatane tumi,
thākaha āpana kāje

6) You should understand this essential fact: this temporary life is full of various miseries. Take shelter of the holy name and remain engaged in His service as your eternal occupation.

jīvera kalyāna-sādhana-kām,
jagate āsi' e madhura nām,
avidyā-timira-tapana-rūpe,
hṛd-gagane birāje

7) Desiring to bless all living entities, this sweet name of Krishna has descended to this material world and shines like the Sun in the sky of the heart, destroying the darkness of ignorance.

kṛṣṇa-nāma-sudhā koriyā pān,
jurāo bhakativinoda-prāṇ,
nāma binā kichu nāhiko āro,
caudda-bhuvana-mājhe

8) Drink the pure nectar of the holy name of Krishna, and satisfy the soul of Thakura Bhaktivinoda. There is nothing of value except the Holy names within all the fourteen worlds.

Ekchakra Dhaam

2007-05-24T07:26:00.001-07:00

Sri Nityananda ki Jai! Ekchakra dhaam ki Jay!

Sri Nityananda was born in Ekchakra. He is Balaram. He took birth as the son of Hadai Pandit and Padmavati mata(Rohini devi). The birthplace is in a remote area, and there is no settlement for miles around. Nitai prabhu has so many wonderful childhood pastimes here. Near the tree where He was born is a large pond. I took some dust from below the tree and put it carefully in my little plastic bag reserved for collecting raj.

It's called ekchakra, because the wheel of a chariot that Krishna picked up to kill Bhishma with, was thrown away by Him instead (as He had vowed to not use any weapons in Kuruksetra), and that wheel fell here. In navadvip. In west bengal. The chariot wheel from Kuruksetra, which is near Delhi. It flew, and fell here.

This is a dhaam. The pandavas stayed here, at Veda Sharma's home, during Agyat vaas (incognito). Bhima killed a demon here that was troubling the villagers for cartloads of bhoga along with one human sacrifice everyday. Arjuna was scared that Bhima was out too long, and tried to help him by releasing the Naga weapon. But the weapon snake had no one to kill when he reached the spot. So the pandavas advised the snake to remain there at that spot and eat away all the sins of people who came there. To date the snake is said to live here, and devour all the sins of passerby s.

At nadi tala, Nitai's umbilical cord is said to be buried. Over it is a bakula tree.

At Vishram tala with His friends Nitai played Laxman in a drama and fell unconscious from the poisonous baan released by Ravana's son. The friends forgot how to get sanjeevani from the nearby makeshift "gandhamadan parvat" and Nitai would simply not get up. Villagers came there and began crying for Nitai, unable to get Him to breathe at all. One villager asked a boy what happened. Upon hearing this he asked the boy to continue the play as Hanuman, and reminded him about getting the sanjeevani for Laxman. The boy ran to the little rock mound, picked it up, got it to Nitai, and gave the grass from it (herbs, if you please) to heal Laxman. Very soon Nitai was on His feet and everyone was happy. This pastime shows how Nitai was completely absorbed in His mood as Laxman. This is Laxman Murchita Lila from Ramayan.

Jahnava devi would hear Nitai's pastimes from villagers here and they would stay up all night discussing these pastimes. One such pastime was the Gajendra Mokshan Lila. Lord Nityanand's friends complied by playing crocodile and elephant respectively. The friend who was Vishnu, was to come save Gajendra. He automatically started floating in the air!!! to his utter bewilderment, on his friend who was the bird Garuda. He then rescued the elephant. This was by Nityanand's will. The Lila brings much joy to the ears when heard from the lotus mouth of a devotee.

Nearby are three temples where Deities that Nityananda worshiped are rotated. They are special deities, as Nityananda disappeared into one of the deities here.

Vishnupriya's House

2007-05-24T07:13:00.000-07:00

Vishnupriya is a very veiled personality, nobody knows how she lived, where she went, what she did and when she left. She would cover her self whenever she went out. Nobody knows how she made ends meet financially. She lived an austere life from what we know. She would chant, and as much as she had chanted, only those many morsels she would eat. She served her own deities of Mahaprabhu. He had left His paduka with her as well.

The deity I cannot remember, photographs were not allowed. But the paduka I photographed. The pujari placed them on our heads one by one. I banged my head onto them while trying to touch my forehead to them. I obviously felt nothing. There was no feeling like - "Oh wow" or "This is something, something special". I just walked out again. There was a huge hall in front of the deities, and half the village had assembled there to sing evening bhajans.

Shantipur - Haribol!!!!

2007-05-24T06:49:00.000-07:00

Sita-nath Advaita charan aravinda bhavanam!

At Advaita Acharya's house, we all literally went insane with delight. The loud kirtan was reverberating, and we were dancing like there was no tomorrow...

The bhajan kutir there was small and looked inviting for someone who wants solace to chant and meditate in.

An old woman there was dancing to harinaam with us, and I marveled at her enthusiasm. Her skin is hanging down from her face, and here she is dancing happily with us! Harinaam Sankirtan ki Jay!

She spoke in Bengali saying that there is no other place in the world where you can recreate such magical sankirtan, she says this is the mercy of pure devotees, and I know what she is saying is true. Here Mahaprabhu and His associates had many tumultuous harinaam sankirtans. The energy of the place is self-evident.

We all sang Sri Advaita's glories there, and I still have the song print-out with me. The song is so majestic. Hu Hunkar Garjanadi ... so powerful, so much energy in this song. It's so compelling. I loved it! This is love. Sri Advaita is Mahavishnu, and He compelled Sri Krishna Chaitanya to descend here for the upliftment of the lost souls of Kali Yuga who are engrossed in economic development and sense gratification (artha and kama).

I felt while dancing there that everyone was not on the same plane, some people were dancing consciously, some were dancing enviously (pretending to be ecstatic), some peacefully, and some ecstatically. I moved away from the group feeling like it did not match my energy, and I danced separately. One of the girls tried to dance with the old woman, but she was in her own mood, and did not reciprocate. The girl then gave up. I felt at that time, that if I had the whole room to myself I would dance like a lion and fill the space up with my frenzied dancing. But I had very little space, so I simply closed my eyes and jumped on the spot as high as I could, feeling very light.

I was not bothered about anything, where are my shoes, my belongings, what time is it, when will we eat, I am a girl, I am alive, I have feet, there are all these people, it is day time, nothing. I lost all sense of the present. I was not thinking of any thing. I was just hearing, singing and dancing. It became me. I was engulfed. And I was happy. Haribol!!!

As we walked out Hara Prabhu said - "Kisko bhagvat prem nahi mila?", I said "Mujhko". So he asked suprised "Maine tto le liya, apne nahi liya?". And I understood what he was saying - the ecstatic chanting of the Holy Names is bhagvat prem.

Jagannath Das Babaji's Samadhi

2007-05-24T06:22:00.000-07:00

As we entered Jagannath Das Babaji's samadhi we met with a mystical environment. A crowded and small bhajan area was resounding with indistinguishable sounds. Inevitably these were songs in praise of Krishna and Radha. From the sound of it, I felt intuitively that these songs were about some very secret and profound pastimes of Sri Sri Radha-Krishna.

After taking darshan of the Deities there, we felt quite as if we were intruding in the private get together of some rasik devotees, so we quietly shuffled out of the area. Flanking this area was a tiny room. In the room not more than four people could fit at a time. So there was some furor over hurrying up and outsiders had no clue what was inside the room. Inside the room was Jagannath Das Babaji's son. He was old beyond imagination. He must have been over 110 years. He was moving his lips with great difficulty, obviously to chant the mahamantra, but there was no audible sound emanating from his lips.

I saw him, felt very ashamed at shouting outside the room for people to hurry out. I sat down on the floor next to him, there was no privacy here, the poor vaishnava was almost blind and chanting, and people around were yelling as if to cause him to be annoyed, but they were unsuccessful. The old man did not turn to look in any direction, and simply kept chanting. I hesitantly offered a note of money to the man close by who asked me to place it in the babji's hand. I then put the note in his shaking fingers, feeling wretched at treating a pure devotee like a beggar, and touched the soles of his toes and put my hands on my forehead. Wanting to take more darshana I tried sitting there without making a sound, hurt by the yelling going on there. Then I moved out, thinking in my mind about how much love it requires to chant ceaselessly even in this condition.

I went away feeling disgusted with our Indian tendency to make the most of everything, even at the cost of the peace and quiet of others.

Bhaktivinoda's Mayapur Home

2007-05-24T05:53:00.001-07:00

Across the ganges from the Radha-Madhav temple complex, is Bhaktivinod Thakur's house.

When he served as a magistrate, the government offered him a private railway track and a small two boogie train so that he could travel to work and back home conveniently. We can only imagine how much they wanted him to work as a magistrate...

His daily schedule was well-planned and timed. He would sleep a maximum of three hours at night. The remaining time was spent solving and preparing analysis of cases, reading Srimad Bhagvatam, constructing poetry, worshiping his deities, reading the local newspaper for a bit, eating breakfast and leaving for work, returning in the afternoon, checking mail and replying to letters, evening was spent meeting people who needed to speak with him. Later he would invite vaishnavas for bhajan and dinner prasad. He is a pure devotee. We cannot understand how he lived life as a family man, serving in a mundane job, sleeping just a few hours everyday, and still remained absorbed in devotional thoughts all the time. I should learn from him, how to live the perfect grihasta life.

His samadhi is in the same place as his home. There is a samadhi mandir, opposite to it is a bhajan hall. Behind the hall is a stairway to the bedrooms upstairs. One room is for Thakur Bhaktivinode and one room is for Srila Siddhanta Sarawati Goswami Maharaj, his son.

The balcony is large outside his bedroom and presents a nice view. I am sure he could see the ganges flowing swiftly from where he stood.

The bed has a photo of him on it, and it's difficult for me to imagine how a delicate and beautiful beyond imagination manjari like her took the body of a man and served in her mission here as Lord Chaitanya's servant to spread the Holy Names in this world. Manjari's are twelve year olds who serve in Sri Vrindavan under the guidance of Sri Radhika and her Sakhi's, who are all teenagers.

Pleased with my visit here, I reflected on how I had first read about Prabhupad, then the entire parampara linking him with Lord Chaitanya, and how I had read about Bhaktivinoda Thakur in particular. The bhajan, "Ohe Vaishnava Thakura.." reminded me how the six good qualities automatically develop in a servant aspiring for devotional service by the mercy of a pure devotee like Bhaktivinoda. I pray now that the six bad qualities of Moha, Mada, Matsarya, Krodha, Kaam and Lobha that are filled in my heart be emptied out so that I can stop being offensive in spiritual life.

I feel close to our sampradaya, especially close to Srila Siddhanta Sarawati Thakur and Bhaktivinoda Thakur. Probably because I have read so much about them, and even visited their homes and samadhis in Jagannath Puri and Mayapur.

Mayapur - Panihati

2007-05-24T05:41:00.000-07:00

On our first day we stop at Panihati. Raghav Pandits home is close by from here.

Here amongst several lakes of clear cool water are a few homes. It is where Raghunath Das lived. This teertha is a location of a pastime called dahi-chuda. Mahaprabhu ate here rice chips soaked in dahi with sugar. The preparation is sweet. The taste is something that cannot be recreated. It was a very different sweet taste. Nitai asked Raghunath Das to prepare dahi-chuda and feed all vaishnavas as part of some sweet punishment. It was a grand festival.

In the temple area is a banyan tree. Nityanand prabhu would meditate under this tree.

We also visited a temple of Madana Mohan walking distance from here. The pujari looked very absorbed in devotional thoughts. We had nice darshan from very close and I remember being mesmerised by the beauty of the deities.

Mayapur - Ganga Snan

2007-05-24T05:34:00.000-07:00

After a long 2 day train ride and a short bus ride, we were ready for a bath. What better way to enter Mayapur than to enter after a nice refreshing dip in the pure ganges!

Ganga water is transcendentally pure. Very few people understand what that means. To see the truth you need different vision. When you see with that vision you can see beyond material, you can see on the spiritual platform. So if you took a look at the Ganges with those eyes, you would be able to tell how exalted she is. She is rose pink in color because she touches Lord Vishnu's toe before coming to earth. The Lord's feet are decorated with read kumkum powder.

This Ganga purifies us. Lord Chaitanya performed many pastimes in Ganga water, and so we have special love for Ganga maiya.

Mayapur - Day one

2007-05-24T05:13:00.000-07:00

1. Raghav Pandit's Home:

We cannot directly approach the rasasthali and other important places of Mahaprabhu's pastimes with His associates. We must first take blessings of His pure devotees who can reveal the mahima of those important places to us. So it was arranged that upon entering Mayapura mandala we would visit Raghav Pandit's home.

I have never seen mango trees with such short trunks! The mangoes on the tree were hanging down from cord like stems so low that one could simply ask a child to go fetch all the mangoes from the tree. The trees were shaped like large umbrellas, the whole grove was filled with chirping birds and cool breeze. The scene was quite captivating. One would get the feeling of complete peace and satisfaction simply by walking around amongst those humble trees stooping low and offering so many fruits at the feet of devotees.

The house itself was very peaceful. The frontal portion was the mandir for the Deities. The building at the back consisted of a wonderful large hall for serving prasadam and upstairs was a retiring room and small terrace. The backyard had a nice dunky - a common sight in Mayapur. The water was cool and clean. I stood for sometime yanking the long handle to pump out water. The precious water flows out so fast that one feels guilty of waste.

The prasad was served in the way close personal associates are served. With love, care and warmth. The sweet dish was yum. All of the food had so many different tastes and textures that I was completely taken in by the food. Prasad obviously has its own magic, and people who eat food without offering to Krishna, or who have never eaten food grown, cooked, offered and served by devotees, will never understand what I am talking about. I took special care to fill my belly as much as possible, realising that this was mercy.

We then moved on from there, noticing that no one plucked mangoes from the trees although they were so accessible. The mangoes are all Lord Chaitanya's and we understood that one should not indiscriminately pluck them. Human nature is so selfish. Any city breed would simply look around and snatch a few mangoes even if he wasn't hungry. Just because they're free. City folks don't understand that we actually do and can use everything for free, if we simply understand that it belongs to God and not to anyone else.

My visit to Jagannath Puri

2007-05-23T00:15:00.000-07:00

Jagannath Puri is the only place in the universe that survives total universal devastation. It is a beautiful island, shaped like a conch.

It is a small city, and one is bewildered as to how this same city houses lakhs of people during rath yatra. Most locals are dependent on tourists for business. The remaining seem to be in the fishing business.

The cooking never stops at the Temple of Lord Jagannath. And the eating never stops either - even at night. On ekadashi the Lord is dressed in the Bada Singar vesha. I had the privilege of being in the temple at night when this Bada Sringar vesha was going on.

The deity of Lord Jagannath - the archa vigraha - is the most strangely carved one. Balabhadra and Shubhadra have narrower eyes, and smaller forms. Jagannath captures all the presence by His large form and big rotund eyes. He is Kaliya. His attendants are all liberated souls. The pandas who serve here all have four handed vishnu rupas as their etheric bodies even while they have the outer gross material body. They move about doing their business. The temple garbha is cleaned with water regularly. The bhoga offerings are so many and so heavy that one is boggled. One thin man dressed in a small read and pale yellow checkered dhoti moves out of the garbha. On his shoulder is a log stick. The ends of the stick support a stack of five large earthen pots each. This means at least 20 kgs of weight. The thin mans walks awkwardly due to the heavy weight. Only his legs move quickly, the rest of his body simply tolerates the strain put on it. He does not even move his head while walking.

Is he retarded? Why is he carrying such a heavy load, five to six time a day almost, for all the years of his life? He is a servant of Jagannath. He knows his duty and he is performing it. He is not free to do as he likes with his life. His mind, body and soul belong to Krishna. That is true for all of us, but he is living that truth, while we are not.

All the pandas in that temple are aware of who Jagannath is. They can understand how the Lord has His own pastimes and how He accepts all the foodstuff prepared for Him. Unless the head panda sees the image of Jagannath in the achaman water during bhoga offering, He cannot offer the bhoga to the deity, because it means Jagannath is not present.

Why does the Lord interact in this way? We seem to deserve no better for wanting to forget God and live our lives separate from Him. But it is a very high form of interaction with God. Faith is needed. And more the faith, more is the reciprocation from God towards such a relationship. Everyone then can have his own personal dealings with God. Other than faith nothing else is needed.

So coming back to Puri. It is covered by a thin layer of material dust to cover the glories of the dhaam from materialistic people. But in truth the whole city is just transcendental. It is full of everlasting knowledge and bliss - sat cit ananda.

Every night as Jagannath prepares to nod off, some of His dear associates come and sing Geet Govind to Him. This long poem was written by Jayadev Goswami. The point to ponder on is - how did Jayadev managed to write if he was completely illiterate and did not know how to write!? It seems he simply took a pen in his hands and the writing came naturally.

This is not even a farthing of all the glories of Puri and its residents. But I will have to end here.

Where am I and who am I?

2007-04-23T21:56:00.000-07:00

Lost again. I came to this blog to find out who I am. But it is not helpful. I still don't know who I am. I must be a conscious entity. With some attributes.

But now who am I? I am right now covered. Shrouded in some kind of black cloud of ignorance. Ignorant of my real identity, or my real location. Even somewhat asleep and groggy.

When will I wake up? When will the truth become something that is forever with me, that I don't have to wonder about?

All I want is to be able to get more and more realizations. To feel truly alive again. But my old habits, and old attachments are blocking me. My preconceived notions are becoming the barricades in my progress. How to deal with this?

And now, when I need guidance, there is nothing really that can help me. All the help is invisible to me. I can't see it or take it. As days pass by with little gandharvas causing the illusion of solar time, I feel as though I am quickly approaching a terrible situation of permanent sorrow. A place where I will be put through difficult examinations, all of which I am about to fail in. I am so unprepared.

My recurring dream of not being prepared for my examination is indicating this to me. Although aware, I don't know what I should do to be more prepared.

This is what defines totally lost.

And so I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Stuck forever in a loop

2006-06-09T03:14:00.001-07:00

I am stuck again. And now its high time that I learn how to come unstuck on my own. I read, and I interact with people. Theres very little outside of this routine of mine. And my interactions with people are because of my previous interactions with them. I can't seem to break away from all of them. Its not helping however to keep sliding down the sheer cliff that I'm trying to hang onto, while others are unintentionally weakening my grip.

The devotee association that is my only source of nutrition in this desert of life is far far away from me. And everytime I need strength I have to travel all the way. It's becoming more and more difficult to travel back and forth.

And although I would love to be munificent and distribute my pot of nectar amongst everyone, I would rather come back with enough for everyone. Unless I am capable of helping people out how does it make sense to get a bucket of water from the river and allow all of it to just evaporate.

First I need to selfishly move forward and leave everyone aside. I need to forget about nicities and compassion. Once I have something that I can never loose I don't mind moving into the middle of the hurricane and staying put.

But let me find that which I have been looking for in my every lifetime. Let me approach that source and destination. Let me connect myself. If some deserving candidate wishes to hang onto my feet on the edge of the sheer cliff, then so be it.

By what relation is the world denying me my bliss? Which law states that I cannot be selfish because its not communistic to think so? Why should I feel guilty about leaving behind invalids who I cannot even begin to help?

I came alone into this world and I am leaving alone too. The truth is that we are all alone in our struggle. Spiritual life is a very personal experience. No one else can share in it.

Everything is already alright

2006-04-14T01:19:00.000-07:00

Because,

"...His chest is religion, and irreligion is His back..." - SB. Canto 2. Ch 1.

One sees what one is looking for. A doctor will notice things like illness, health, medicine and other health related items. An MBA grad will notice business enterprises, new ventures, share prices, news related to economics, etc. Similarly the Vedantist will search for Advaita in everything. The Devotee will search for Krishna in everything. The curious soul will search for answers in everything. Each person’s world is governed by what he seeks. Each one will perceive different relative realities, except for one who is situated in the absolute truth. Only that one will see things as they are, not in the incorrect ways that they are usually perceived in.

I realize that the Absolute truth is not separate, it is not far away, nor is it concentrated in one region… it is everywhere. But if you look at something and refuse to see the truth in it, you will only see falsehood. You will only see ignorance, you will only see untruth. But when you are aware, you will see the truth in everything, you will see it everywhere.

Which is why I say, everything is already alright. Nothing is wrong, nothing is bad, nothing is ever going to go wrong. Its all under control. Just enjoy your pleasure as much as your pain.

The Celestine Prophecy

2005-10-21T08:45:00.000-07:00

Insight 1: The whole world is undergoing a massive shift in perception. People are feeling restless and want to stop their preoccupation with creating economic security. They want to find the truth.

Insight 2: The span of history shows us how the world is being set for a new changed culture. The passage of time relates how religion was very controlling in nature. People broke out of their orthodox environs and brought about revolutions in culture. Women who were used to allowing all their energy to be drained out of them by their children and husbands realised what was happening [subconsciously] stopped taking the ill treatment and decided to play to gain power. The world was left without religion to support spiritual inquisition. So while certain people were asked to get actively involved in finding out the truth, the remaining people obsessed over making material life more comfortable. For centuries economic development remained the main aim of life. Now the world is being set to face a shift from human to divine nature. Therefore people are restless.

Insight 3: The entire universe is an energy pattern. Dense and rare energies make up the whole world. Interactions between energies and transformation of energy from one form to another is what makes up all the events that take place in it. Ecological evolution corresponds to spiritual evolution. The next step for humanity is divinity. Everything is only energy.

Insight 4: Due to disconnection from our source our creator, we lack energy that is need to have a feeling of well-being. The result is that we sap energy from our adjacent sources. We beat up innocent animals, use manipulations like intimidation, interogation, criticism, aloofness or invoking of sympathy to attract energy to ourselves. This causes people to constantly interact with each other for controlling energy. The power game results in total neglect of love. The love that defines us. The love that connects all of us to each other and to God.

Insight 5: Message of the Mystics. Energy can be gained from food. Projecting loving energy on plants, natures beauty like waterfalls, lakes, sunsets, and on people. Noticing the good things about a person enables us to energise him/her and induces them to help give us a message. To block stealing of energy name the power game and don't play it as it is expected of you. React in a shocking manner. This brings the other person out of his/her control drama. In their childhood people develop control dramas complementing their parents so that they may win back energy lost to parents. This continues into their adulthood and subconsciously they keep using this drama with everyone as it ensures them of energy. Food grown with loving care and then eaten as well as interaction with nature in love helps regain the divine contact.

Insight 6: Identify your own control drama and get rid of it. It will only put you in a loop and cease your own progress. Once you get out only will you be able to progress. Identify the reason you were born to your parents. Your path is about discovering a truth that is the higher synthesis of what your parents believe. Your energy flow from God remains as long as you remain aware of it. Constant remembrance will ensure you never run out of energy because more will flow in whenever some flows out. Sliding back into a control drama will cut off your supply.

Insight 7: Dreams and intuitions guide us. Compare any dream, day dream or remembered night dream, to your prsent situation and analyse how it can help you modify your position, or prevent a mishap. Project your energy on people to enable them to give you messages. Approach anyone who invokes simultaneous eye contact. They are mostly there to give you a message.

Insight 8: Treat childrean with care and respect. Always refer to them only in their absence. Talk to them when they are present. Do not let people praise them as if they weren't around, ask people to give the children the compliments and not to you or their parents. They must have the constant attention and protection of one elder. Be truthful with children, never play on their fears or misdirect their curiosity.

Don't allow any relationship to become a dependancy. Because it indicates that partners have lost contact with the supreme and need to trap each others energy. Two persons complete within themselves can combine to form a super person.

Everything around you is deliberately there. Nothing is a coincidence or nothing happens by chance. The situations, people and circumstances are pre-decided contributors to any scene. Locate your messengers by looking for signs, eye contact, bright colors, attractive condition... Project energy on them to help them give you information.

Conscious conversations allow a group of people to raise energy levels of the entire group by focussing energy on the naturally selected next speaker. No one should speak endlessly to attract energy to oneself. Everyone should contribute in a flow which comes naturally. This forms a single body with many heads.

Insight 9: The future impact of these teachings is that people will volutarily reduce population to have old energy filled forests and abundance. The luxuries of material life will be taken care of by automation. The time available will be used to progress to divinity. There will be no exchange of currency and life spans will increase. People will gift one another and thus maintain financial stability. No one will feel the need to control resources. All this while the world has been preparing for this stage. Vibrations of atoms of the body will vibrate at the highest possible frequencies, and the body will completely disappear from normal human vision range.

The tenth is about past lives and group souls.

Where time ceases to exist?

2005-07-11T19:45:00.000-07:00

Sceptics may question why the Supreme Lord has created the material world, which is full of birth, maintenance and death. Śrī Krsna actually desires that all conditioned souls live with Him in His eternal kingdom, but those forgetful souls who are inimical to their loving relationship with God must go to the material world and be subjected to the conditions of time. The fortunate conditioned souls are startled into remembrance of their actual position as loving servants of the Lord, and from within the heart the Lord then encourages them to come back home, back to Godhead, where time is conspicuous by its absence and where eternal, blissful existence supersedes the dramatic but disturbing functions of cosmic creation and annihilation.

A Message

2005-07-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

Just look and you will see the single message clearly printed everywhere - GET OUT OF THIS CYCLE OF BIRTH AND DEATH, GET OUT OF THIS MATERIAL WORLD!

"The Eternal Message, by Master Daryl

The moment you were born into this world all the odds started going against you. You were met by helplessness, utter inability to do anything on your own, including putting food in your own mouth. As a child you struggled to learn things: walking, speaking, reading, writing and other skills that were in fact previously known to you in former lives. You keep on forgetting and relearning the exact same things; you keep on coming back. And now what are you doing?

Still you are clinging to a body that you know will eventually rot. Clinging to an intelligence that will eventually return to zero. You are endlessly hoping that perhaps next month or next year everything will improve, that life will eventually become "ideal" or at least better. You are afraid to face the truth, so you simply disregard it and instead poison your mind to believe that real happiness can be experienced through this limited body-mind medium.Why deceive yourself? Why act complacently? What are you holding onto? Your body is dying each and every day, it will eventually be buried. It will be consumed by worms and termites and will disintegrate. Your mind, your pride, everything that you thought are"yours," everything that you view as "your qualities" will end up as food for various parasitical organisms.

You cannot escape what's going on. It's a very tragic thing. And it is even more tragic to repeat the tragedy over and over again in countless incarnations, which is exactly what is happening to you and to everyone else like you. God said that as His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, so are His ways higher than our ways. As a student perhaps there were subjects that you found more challenging than others, those that gave you a hard time ... Physics?Calculus? The ones that you felt so lucky just to pass. But even these seemingly difficult subjects are preschool matters when compared to the matters of God. His logic is beyond the capacity of your puny reasoning; His majesty is greater than your grandest imagination.You were planted in this dimension to collect experiences, gain wisdom, expand and grow. But instead you are mindlessly obeying the whims and wishes of a material vehicle that is predestined to perpetual desolation. You are hopelessly stuck to an illusory concept of happiness due to fear. You are afraid to admit that you know nothing.

You think you understand God, you think you understand His Representation, but you don't even understand your own Self. Regardless of how you may look or feel, you are in fact nothing but a helpless infant at the edge of a cliff. The knowledge to save yourself from the cycle of suffering is completely absent. Like the others, you may be saving money, you may be hoarding objects. But even if you reach the age of one hundred, even if you prosper materially, you will still remain miserable because the nature of this life is misery, pain, anxiety, and frustration. Life upon life you behave like this, and so life upon life you stay like this. Why not turn this one incarnation into an experiment? You have nothing to lose, you still have an entire eternity to fall back on. Change the way you're behaving, change the way you're Thinking ... SURRENDER.

There are two main things to consider:

1. There is a God, One Great Power, the Primeval First Cause, the Source and Sustainer of everything that was, is and may be. His nature is bliss (the highest level of happiness) and eternal progression.

2. Life in this world is essentially miserable. Nobody who is trapped in mundane consideration is happy, not a single one. But they are all pretending. Everyone wants every other to believe that way.

These two considerations are related and teaches a very valuable lesson. In their connection you can find the healing balm for the core wound of humanity. The wealthiest person is not the happiest, nor is the most impoverished person. The most educated person is not the happiest, nor is the least educated person. Wordly achievement and non-achievement are equal. This world is a trick, it is a hopeless labyrinth. We are all in Hell and we don't know it, instead we hold on to everything it has to offer. You see your loved ones dying, but you refuse to reflect and learn from it. Somehow you still manage to hypnotize yourself that it won't happen to you. Death will happen to you, and it has happen to you many times. That is why you are so afraid of it. Inwardly you know how horrible it is to go through death. Your soul has somehow retained your memories of it. Who is the closest person to your heart? Your mother? Your love partner? Your son or daughter? That person too will die, and you might even be there to witness it. That is how brutal this place is. The place that you're so desperately clinging to.

The body that you're using, it is growing old, isn't it? It's becoming ugly not only in your eyes but also in other people's eyes. It has certain diseases that are beyond your control, causing you pain. This is the body that you worship. It will sooner or later expire with so much pain, then numbness, then blackout. And again you'll find yourself in the body of a helpless suckling. You'll go through the entire cycle of defecating in your nappies, familiarizing with language, learning to walk, to read and write, to work with numbers .. . and then you start growing old again. You were not created to suffer like this, all scripture states that our Maker is loving and merciful and compassionate—but you keep on resisting Him and insisting on your old ways. Why don't you try something different and dedicate all your might, mind and strength in this incarnation to be Free? Give up your pride, your vain sense of "I." Liberation is the only worthwhile goal. Learn your lesson and leave this place for good ... and, while you're still here, live in a state beyond it."

And now, my own take on the issue. I'm saying the same thing, but I'm pointing to a solution or at least a starting step.

Life is chance to discover who God is and who you are.

The mundane things in life like earning money, marrying, having children and eating food, are extremely unimportant and in fact useless. All these things are only for keeping the body happy. The life force (soul) inside the body is the real you and needs love and care as much as dry feet need moisturizer.

So take care of your soul, feed it its needed diet, give it the care it needs. One way to start would be to find out what the Life Force is. For this there is no other book in the world that explains the Life Force in the most true and real way than The Bhagvad Geeta As it Is. It is the one and only strong and authorative book on the matters of God and Soul.

Happiness in the material world is a temporary respite from pain and misery. When the pain and misery become relatively less, we call it happiness. Like achieving something great, winning, enjoying thrill rides, falling in love. It is only a matter of time before the misery takes over again. Misery comes in the form of birth, old age, disease, death, catastrophes, bad health, anxious thoughts, etc.

To free yourself from this temporary world and its misery make efforts to satisfy the needs of your soul. Your soul needs internal balm, externally satisfying the body will not help. So go ahead and discover the truth, work for your future, beyond this life. What you are involved in right now is only for this life, this short duration of your stay in that temporary body of yours. When you die you will come to realize that you are indestructible, you are immortal, and you have a goal to accomplish before the Kali Yuga ends. Either book a place in the real permanent home, where there is only knowledge and happiness; or wait until the end of Kali, living in various painful bodies, going through the most horrific events and all sorts of torturous catastrophes and tsunamis, till its time to be sent to a lower planetary system to restart your progress as a soul.

The Kali is filled with crazy people, sick actions and dirty lifestyles. The hearts of people are filled with poison and bad thoughts. Just observe the world around you going to tatters. Look at the once clean temples, one beautiful locales, the waters have gone putrid and the cities are full of gamblers, intoxication, prostitutes, gang wars, sex crimes, blah. There is fighting, jealousy, murders and other such negativities. To escape from this you must use the Geeta as an instruction manual.

Once your chance to learn who you are and promote yourself to the spiritual sky is over, you will have to go through the worse kind of life, below the standard of Earth, in order to learn and value the real things of importance. Believe me, life as a lower astral plane entity is disgusting and very difficult.

We are in a school, and we have reached fifth standard, now we have a choice to promote ourselves to sixth standard, or fail and go back to fourth standard. That's the deal because at the end of Kali this fifth standard will be completely destroyed.

Prepare yourself for the future.

Human kind has proved very little to itself. A lot of questions remain to be answered and verified. But if we use some other methods to find the truth and come to conclusions, we will realize that this short cut method is very useful and does not lie to us. The only thing is we need to try. Its not about faith, its about trying out the method to see if it works. Especially because the way things are going, no scientist is going to come up with answers about why we are here and what our final destination is anytime soon. Time, although it doesn't exist in the spiritual world, is the enemy of the material world.

Keep planning, buy five six homes, buy cars, buy insurance, buy pets to keep you happy, marry to become happy, drink to be merry, eat tasty things, sleep more than you need, study further to get a higher paying job, keep trying. Just go on doing all the things you think you need to do to be happy. All you will get from the planning is some temporary respite from unhappiness, little bit of elation when your kid learns to walk, when you get promoted, when you go for a second honeymoon. Drown yourself in wine and try to keep remaining happy.

If you think that happiness is always something that comes and goes then you think so because no one told you it was possible otherwise. Because you never thought permanency was a reality, you never considered wondering whether permanent happiness was possible or something you could ask for and obtain somehow. Then find out now, forget everything else, find out what real happiness is and how to get it. And hurry.

Vaikuntha

2005-06-30T06:30:00.000-07:00

Vaikuntha means "without anxiety," and the material world means full of anxiety. As stated by Prahlāda Mahārāja: sadā samudvigna-dhiyām asad-grahāt. The living entities who have accepted this material world as a residence are full of anxiety. A place immediately becomes Vaikuntha whenever the holy topics of the Personality of Godhead are discussed by pure devotees. This is the process of śravanam kīrtanam visnoh [SB 7.5.23], chanting and hearing about the Supreme Lord Visnu. As the Supreme Lord Himself confirms:

nāham tisthāmi vaikunthe

yoginām hrdayesu vā

tatra tisthāmi nārada

yatra gāyanti mad-bhaktāh

"My dear Nārada, actually I do not reside in My abode, Vaikuntha, nor do I reside within the hearts of the yogīs, but I reside in that place where My pure devotees chant My holy name and discuss My form, pastimes and qualities." Because of the presence of the Lord in the form of the transcendental vibration, the Vaikuntha atmosphere is evoked. This atmosphere is without fear and anxiety. One living entity does not fear another. By hearing the holy names and glories of the Lord, a person executes pious activities. Śrnvatām sva-kathāh krsnah punya-śravana-kīrtanah (Bhāg. 1.2.17). Thus his material hankerings immediately stop. This sańkīrtana movement started by the Society for Krishna Consciousness is meant for creating Vaikuntha, the transcendental world that is without anxiety, even in this material world. The method is the propagation of the śravanam kīrtanam process throughout the world. In the material world everyone is envious of his fellow man. Animalistic envy exists in human society as long as there is no performance of sańkīrtana-yajña, the chanting of the holy names — Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. The Pracetās therefore decided to remain always in the society of devotees, and they considered that to be the highest benediction possible in human life.

What is Hare Krishna.

2005-06-21T19:49:00.000-07:00

The answers to what is Hare Krishna is given on this link:

http://olordkrishna.blogspot.com/

Ever since I have discovered who I am in reality and what my purpose in life is I have come across people who have very little idea what I'm trying to say when I say Hare Krishna. So for those of you who've always been curious, go check it out.

Dharma

2005-06-08T23:53:00.000-07:00

Dharma is sometimes translated as "religion," but that is not exactly the meaning. Dharma actually means "that which one cannot give up," "that which is inseparable from oneself." The warmth of fire is inseparable from fire; therefore warmth is called the dharma, or nature, of fire. Similarly, sad-dharma means "eternal occupation." That eternal occupation is engagement in the transcendental loving service of the Lord.

The First

2005-02-09T23:39:00.000-08:00

Life brings with itself events that one does not anticipate. After going through many sets of experiences one tends to become immune to the starkness and extreme emotion in all of them. What happens to be the biggest argument of the century to one person, seems to me the most insignificant event in the entire era.

How I have developed the ability to cope with sad and outrageous things in life by just letting them pass is something I do not know. I am somehow too unaffected by things - and the fact that someone else in my place would have been devastated makes me feel like I am powerful. When I have the knowledge that nothing can be so bad, I release myself from worries, pain and stress. I am so relaxed in life. Its not that I have no drive, no enthusiasm, or that I freeze in panic. I take actions as per my knowledge. And I am perfectly calm while I go through them.

If anything peturbs me it is the unexpected behaviour of companions. It angers me that their outlook of things does not match mine, or their course of action is unappealing to me. I wonder why a person like me should get angry at something that should be dealt with understanding. And deal with understanding something that would cause most people to fume.

In a word the lesson I have learnt today is that I am a very different person and the solution of my anger lies somewhere within me.