On entering Vrndavana I asked o

15 марта

The Lord is sitting in everyone's heart as the super soul. He must have known that I love Vrindavan and I wanted to let off some steam.

Thus in reply to the gentleman who has written below:

The paradox is that the “Indian” Born Mahatma who revealed the sacred and holy dham, our respected Founder-Acarya Srila Prabhupada,

PLEASE NOTE,

that the Srimad Bhagavatam instructs that we should never see a pure vaisnava from the material, bodily, perspective based upon birth, because if you do you are a fit resident for hell,

Yes, that Mahatma, Srila Prabhupada was quite fed up with the situation in Vrindavan, and the general loss of the culture of India.

This is all documented.

So please read it prabhu before excreting noxious gasses.

It's been going on since the beginning of Kali Yuga, beginning with the degradation of the Brahman order, and is continuing now with a globalized fever pitch.

SRS asked his question to a very high class Indian gentleman with whom he was coming to Vrindavan.

Gentlemen do have the tendency to speak about topical issues without losing their heads.

And that gentleman replied that in all countries you find the good and you find the riff-raff. Thus, in India there is certainly much good and certainly much riffraff.

Well, based on what Sivarama Swami said in his podcast,

and may I ask did you even listen to the podcast?,

and based on Prabhupada’s hopes that an agrarian culture of self sustainability could be established and maintained, it seems that Sivarama Swami was saying that it’s wrong to exploit farmers, trash the earth, and make bricks to build trashy buildings.

By the way, that Yamuna Expressway has India's first Formula One race track along it's side.

When people have no education and are starving everywhere, why in the hell does India need to spend millions of dollars on a Formula One Race Track.

Oh, it's good to screw the farmers for some quick cash.

Let's pay them for the topsoil, rape the earth, make bricks, build these ungodly ugly buildings, and then say, OK farmer boys, go back and grow something in the nutrition-less earth.

Sir, have you got any idea how many farmers in India commit suicide every year because they cannot support their families?

So rape the earth, build 30 story luxury apartments from the bricks, and let the farmers die.

Or, OK, cool, lets build skyscrapers in Vraja.

Vraja has become trashed.

Face it, whether you have eyes to see it or not, Vraja has become trashed.

Why, because if you pay the proper gift you will be allowed to build whatever damn, ugly, unsafe, no civic planning, no proper sewage, thing that you want. And by so doing you are;

USING THE HOLY DHAM FOR MAKING MONEY...

Which, sir, in case you are not aware, is a dham aparadha.

But, as SRS indicated, if development must be there, let that development reflect the spiritual and sacred atmosphere of the holy dham.

I have visited the sacred areas of Jerusalem and it was beautifully kept. I've seen amazing pictures of Mecca and it is beautiful.

I have prayed in your Notre Dame, the Vatican, in Buddhist Temples, Cathedrals and Mosques throughout the world.

Why not keep Vrindavan in the same manner?

Is monkey stool vedic. Is monkey pee vedic. Is that the beauty of Vraja that we must wade through when we bring guests?

Do dogs and Parisian cats piss in Notre Dame?

So, lets trash Vraja. That’s OK.

And if someone who loves Vraja says something about the perversion of culture taking place, call him a Sahib.

Let’s respect the greedy, lusty, money-grabbing people who exploit the poor men. Let us offer them our highest respect because they are from India.

Sir, that is not for me.

How about this?

Last month I was sitting in Max Hospital in Delhi waiting for a check up and two dignified Arab men sat down next to me.

You smile and say,

“Gentleman where are you from, and they smile and reply Iraq.”

Then they smile and say,

“Sir, where are you from?” And you reply America.”

And immediately you see rage in their faces.

And with dignity they say,

“we love the people of America, but why, with your lust and greed, did you destroy our lives, cause our beloved families to be killed, and cause the deaths of so many of the young and brilliant people of your country”

And then you just swallow it.

Look at the pictures of the parikrama I posted a few weeks ago.

It shows the sheer beauty of Vraja.

And one vaisnava asked, “why was it not kept that way?”

And I simply answered, “Lust and greed destroyed it all.”

Or as Prabhupada said, “the problem of the westerners is their lust for sex and the problem of the Indians is greed.”

And as far as that horrid Sahib disease is concerned:

Did you ever start a food program to feed starving school kids in 1992, start collecting money in India, and then abroad to make it happen?

Then the idea catches fire, others take it up, and millions of poor kids are fed daily, based on one bloody Sahib’s idea in Vraja?

Or, without having a job, did you ever pay the education of 4 kids from a poor Vrindavan family, from elementary school through university, so they would be empowered with education to change the sad situation?

Did you ever bring hundreds and thousands of people to India to see the crest jewel of Bharat Mata, Sri Vrindavan Dham? And now you get asked,

“Why did you bring me here?”

Did you ever make a movie to attract the non-initiated class people of the world to Vrindavan?

How many years have you lived in Vrindavan? How many years have you lived anyplace in India for that matter?

And as much as we love the place we have been forced to see the sad decline of what we saw when we first came here.

And even what we saw in the 1970’s, that place and culture which we fell madly in love with, Srila Prabhupada had already described in the 1960’s when he was writing the first canto at Radha Damodar, as “the burnt remnants of Vedic culture.”

Was Prabhupada a Sahib also?

In conclusion,

As being a person who has spent the majority of his life based in Asia, came to Vraja in 1976 and realized I had come back to my home, fell in love with Vraja and India, fell in love with the culture, by the grace of my spiritual master have had a home in Vraja for 25 years, have taught the culture and philosophy of Vraja all over the world, and daily pray that I will die here;

From that perspective, attempting to be very traditionally Vedic, Indian loving and Vraja-abhasa.. not Vrajavasi:

I must say:

Sir, I think your logic is like the gober, the dung, which is excreted from the south side of our father Dharma the bull, as he is walking in a northern direction.

Salaam Aleichum!! Radhe Shyam!! Hare Krishna!!

16 марта

Jai Gaura Haribol!! Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu Ki Jai!!

I wish all of my friends a blessed Sri Gaura Purnima, enriched with remembrance of the golden avatar, Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

May we all be blessed by His divine grace to become absorbed in the sublime process of loving God.. given through the pure chanting of the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

vande gurūn īśa-bhaktān
īśam īśāvatārakān
tat-prakāśāṁś ca tac-chaktīḥ
kṛṣṇa-caitanya-saṁjñakam

I offer my respectful obeisances unto the spiritual masters, the devotees of the Lord, the Lord’s incarnations, His plenary portions, His energies and the primeval Lord Himself, Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya.

vande śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya-
nityānandau sahoditau
gauḍodaye puṣpavantau
citrau śan-dau tamo-nudau

I offer my respectful obeisances unto Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya and Lord Nityānanda, who are like the sun and moon. They have arisen simultaneously on the horizon of Gauḍa to dissipate the darkness of ignorance and thus wonderfully bestow benediction upon all.

yad advaitaṁ brahmopaniṣadi tad apy asya tanu-bhā
ya ātmāntar-yāmī puruṣa iti so ’syāṁśa-vibhavaḥ
ṣaḍ-aiśvaryaiḥ pūrṇo ya iha bhagavān sa svayam ayaṁ
na caitanyāt krṣṇāj jagati para-tattvaṁ param iha

What the Upaniṣads describe as the impersonal Brahman is but the effulgence of His body, and the Lord known as the Supersoul is but His localized plenary portion. Lord Caitanya is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa Himself, full with six opulences. He is the Absolute Truth, and no other truth is greater than or equal to Him.

anarpita-carīṁ cirāt karuṇayāvatīrṇaḥ kalau
samarpayitum unnatojjvala-rasāṁ sva-bhakti-śriyam
hariḥ puraṭa-sundara-dyuti-kadamba-sandīpitaḥ
sadā hṛdaya-kandare sphuratu vaḥ śacī-nandanaḥ

May the Supreme Lord who is known as the son of Śrīmatī Śacī-devī be transcendentally situated in the innermost chambers of your heart. Resplendent with the radiance of molten gold, He has appeared in the Age of Kali by His causeless mercy to bestow what no incarnation has ever offered before: the most sublime and radiant mellow of devotional service, the mellow of conjugal love.

rādhā kṛṣṇa-praṇaya-vikṛtir hlādinī śaktir asmād
ekātmānāv api bhuvi purā deha-bhedaṁ gatau tau
caitanyākhyaṁ prakaṭam adhunā tad-dvayaṁ caikyam āptaṁ
rādhā-bhāva-dyuti-suvalitaṁ naumi kṛṣṇa-svarūpam

The loving affairs of Śrī Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa are transcendental manifestations of the Lord’s internal pleasure-giving potency. Although Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa are one in Their identity, previously They separated Themselves. Now these two transcendental identities have again united, in the form of Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya. I bow down to Him, who has manifested Himself with the sentiment and complexion of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī although He is Kṛṣṇa Himself.

śrī-rādhāyāḥ praṇaya-mahimā kīdṛśo vānayaivā-
svādyo yenādbhuta-madhurimā kīdṛśo vā madīyaḥ
saukhyaṁ cāsyā mad-anubhavataḥ kīdṛśaṁ veti lobhāt
tad-bhāvāḍhyaḥ samajani śacī-garbha-sindhau harīnduḥ

Desiring to understand the glory of Rādhārāṇī’s love, the wonderful qualities in Him that She alone relishes through Her love, and the happiness She feels when She realizes the sweetness of His love, the Supreme Lord Hari, richly endowed with Her emotions, appeared from the womb of Śrīmatī Śacī-devī, as the moon appeared from the ocean.

ananda-lila-maya-vigrahaya
hemabha-divyac-chavi-sundarya
tasmai maha-prema-rasa-pradaya
caitanya-candraya namo nams te

Obeisances unto Him, Sri Caitanya-candra, the giver of the mellow of the higest love of Godhead, who is the embodiment of blissful pastimes, and who is so beautiful, having a dazzling luster, like gold.

16 марта

Vrindavan is a roar with so many different kirtans taking place.

Jai Gaura Hari Bol!!

17 марта

Yesterday was a fine day.

I was blessed to be asked to sing mangala arati, went home for japa, went to the temple for darshan.. I think the devotees spent lakhs of rupees just for the gorgeous flowers.. and heard class, later in the afternoon Sivarama Swami and I went for abhishek, sat in beautiful kirtans sung by Agnideva prabhu, and broke our fast with Giriraja's and Radha Damodar's fruit Maha Prasadam.

But, I think that the nicest thing is that SRS and I sat in my room and aloud read Srila Kavikarnupur's "Caitanya Candrodaya Nataka."

I think that we must have read together for about 3 or 4 hours, and, have more to read today to finish the drama.

All I can say is that hearing the nectar pastimes of the Lord in the association of pure vaisnavas is the goal of life, not only the goal, but also the process of attaining that goal.

Gee, if I would just do that and kirtan, I think the Lord would show some mercy and lift me out from the material modes of nature.

Today is "Dirty Holi".. the day when people go completely crazy and throw colours, waters, stools.. both wet and dry.. bricks, trees, cars, horses, bikes, cows, pigs, even sometimes monkeys are used, well, they get Koo Koo and try to throw any animate or inanimate object they can to have some good fun and irritate the hell out of others.

Lock your doors if you hear a mad screech of "Holi He!" coming in your direction.

PS.. SRS is giving Srimad Bhagawatam class at 8 AM this morning. Please check the ISKCON Vrindavan website and you can watch and listen.

17 марта

We have a very high-volume loudspeaker kirtan roaring next door.

It seems to be inspired by crystal methedrine, pumped up steroids, a bipolar harmonium player, a singer with an extraordinarily bad case of sinusitis, advanced gastroenteritis, and either labour pains or shingles.

O Krishna!! Could this really be the end?? I'm stuck way down in Vraja with the kirtan blues again!!

17 марта

13:30.. An eery silence has overcome Vrindavan!!

17 марта

At 15:30 I was taking a post-lunch snooze and was awakened with Bengali Kirtan from Baba's kutir.

Harmonium, kartalas, 2 amazing mrdanga, flute, and singing mantra all in raga style.

Boy, these Bengalis can really get dramatic with the singing and mrdanga.

But fortunately, this singer is dying neither of stomach disease or labor pains.

Just a funky, steady in the groove, at times rocking Kirtan that takes about 5 minutes to get through one Maha Mantra

17 марта

Sivarama Swami and I walked on the parikrama to Kesi-ghat, then turned right to walk by Gokulananda, Radha Raman, and then up to Loi Bazaar. Maharaja has not been there for around 15 years and wanted to say hello to our shop keeping brothers.

Not a drop of colour in sight. Everyone is wearing fresh clean cloth and wishing all happy Holi and happy Gaura Purnima.

Took rickshaws back home, had milk and bananas, and now we are off to sleep.

Good Night to all from Sri Vrindavan Dham.

18 марта

At noon today we served prasadam for a total of 3,000 Vrindavan sadhus and acaryas in honour of my mother.

We pray the saints bless her journey to Krishna with their grace.

18 марта

Today we served the Vrindavan sadhus and acaryas.

Tomorrow we will serve a feast to all of the ISKCON devotees at Krishna Balaram Mandir, as well as sponsor all of the Deities Seva's and feeding the cows in the Bhaktivedanta Goshalla.

May Gaura Nitai, Krishna Balaram, Radhe Shyam, the vaisnavas, and the cows bestow their grace upon the soul of my mother.

18 марта

And in conclusion, HH Balaram Baba invited SRS and I to take prasadam in his kutir tonight. Hot puris, hot chapattis, two or three sabzi... Baba just never tires of serving devotees wonderful prasadam.

19 марта

Hare Krishna To All The Devotees In Vrindavan!!

Tonight HH Sivarama Swami and I will be reading from Caitanya Candradoya Nataka and having Kirtan from 6 PM.

Everyone welcome.. please come.. добро пожаловать... bienvenido.. Ласкаво просимо.. స్వాగతం.. ברוך הבא... សូមស្វាគមន៏... Siyakwamukela... ოგესალმებით... Zoo siab txais tos... Lorem ipsum dolor sit.. Ya'll Come!!

19 марта

Does anyone know where is Satyanarayam Mrdanga Walla?

19 марта · отредактировано

Today for seva in honour of my mother we fed all the cows, offered all the Deity sevas in the temple, and offered a really first class feast for about 1,000 devotees at our temple.

I didn't eat the cows grasses, but I whacked back a few of their laddus,
and they were great.

And bring the chef I am.. I was amazed at how excellent and tasty was the temple prasadam.

I am extraordinarily thankful for all the gracious vaisnavas who assisted in making these offerings possible; Mukunda Datta Prabhu, Dharmatama Prabhu, Saci Gaura Sundar Prabhu, and the amazing head cook at Krishna Balaram Mandir.

21 марта с помощью iOS

Radhe Shyam's Boat Festival This Afternoon At Krishna Balaram Mandir

23 марта

Parikrama Marg, 24 degrees, pleasant breeze.

23 марта · отредактировано

Lots of rain and thunder and lightning in Vrindavan.

Good night to all from Vrindavan Dham.

PS... the rain has all the monkeys going crazy 🙊🙊🙊

24 марта · отредактировано

On the Yamuna Expressway to Delhi.

Dawn is filled with many lightning flashes, trees swaying like bhaktas in Kirtan, heavy rain has started falling.

It's wheat harvest period. This rain will spoil much of the crop and the farmers will be left in difficulty.

24 марта

Hare Krishna Vrindavan Friends;

We will have Kirtan tonight at 7 PM.

Our sound master Shyam Kumar has fever.. So we may not have sound.

But as compensation, our neighbour Balaram Baba really wants to offer you all some Prasadam tonight.

So please come at 7 PM and be a little bit hungry

26 марта

This morning I've got the blahs.

I missed a chance to sing the Mangala Arati for Radhe Shyam and I lost a recording of Saci Suta's beautiful kirtan that he sang at home last night.

If anyone has a size 13 foot and a very big boot please bring both to my house as I need some good therapy.

On a brighter note HH Sivarama Swami is giving class this morning and you can view it on Vrindavan TV in about 40 minutes.

Radhe Shyaam!! Hare Krishna!!

27 марта

Very pleasant times spent with Sivarama Swami in Vraja.

Alas, we have both left Vraja.

He to Hungary. I, Dubai, and on to distant lands.

Friendship is such a gift. I am surely blessed to have a friend as he.

Rolling down the road on naked tires, seeing the smoke stacks, a car that smells like a wet dog...

But happy that I have a friend.

28 марта с помощью iPhoto · отредактировано

This was the beautiful small kutir as you make the last bend off of the back of the parikrama where it was said that Srila Vyasadeva sat and compiled 10th canto Srimad Bhagavatam.