Diary of a Traveling Sadhaka, Vol. 3, No. 37b
By Krishna-kripa das
(9/14/07 - 9/16/07)
The Best Ukraine Festival Yet (Part 2)
(Sent from Katowice, Poland, on 9/25/07)
Highlights:
Sarvatma Prabhu leads bhajans at the Ukraine festival.
9/14/07 Notes on Prabhavishnu Swami's class on Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.2.20
These five verses, which Srila Prabhupada quotes in a Bhagavad-gita 7.1 purport, tell how the living entity by performing devotional service can be purified from the lower modes of nature, passion and ignorance. Goodness is better than passion and ignorance, but goodness also conditions one to material existence. In India, brahmanas often do not progress past the Brahman conception to realize Krishna.
Narada explained to Vyasadeva that by encouraging people in pious life without pure devotional service he was dissatisfied because without devotional service one cannot satisfy the Lord. Thus he advised Vyasadeva to glorify Krishna and the path of devotional service to Him. We also will not be satisfied unless we are engaged in pure devotional service. We must always hear from sadhus about the scripture to understand the goal of life and how to attain it. We are indebted to Srila Prabhupada for giving us, who live outside of India, the opportunity of engage in devotional service and ultimately attain the spiritual world where we can serve the Lord eternally. We are fortunate to have the association of many devotees with whom we can perform the congregational chanting of the holy name. Especially if we can preach the glories of the Lord, we can easily please the Lord and come back to Him. We may have difficulties from time to time, but if we take shelter of the Lord and His devotees, we can overcome the obstacles (Bg. 18.58), so we should always be encouraged. Srila Prabhupada once said, "What ever happens, don't leave ISKCON."
Thank you for coming to this festival. When you return to your homes, preach Krishna consciousness enthusiastically and invite as many people as possible to come to the festival next year.
Notes on Prahladananda Swami's seminar on Chapter Thirteen of Bhagavad-gita
One time Srila Prabhupada disbanded the entire GBC because they made an unauthorized plan to centralize the entire society as one corporation. He chastised them for making such big, big plans and asked them to deal with important practical issues like the cleanliness of the devotees. He mentioned that many devotees do not properly wash their hands before and after eating.
In the material world, the souls are simply desiring, and Krishna is manipulating the material energy. How do we get our desires? By association we get our desires. Our present society is set up to help us associate as much as possible with the material energy. Modern society teaches people to acquire wealth and to enjoy sense gratification. How do we get spiritual desires? We get spiritual desires by spiritual association. The souls in the material world are practically dead by associating with their dead bodies. By spiritual association with devotees, the soul comes to life again. "In the association of pure devotees, discussion of the pastimes and activities of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is very pleasing and satisfying to the ear and the heart. By cultivating such knowledge one gradually becomes advanced on the path of liberation, and thereafter he is freed, and his attraction becomes fixed. Then real devotion and devotional service begin" ( Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.25.25).
In any circumstance, we can we direct our consciousness to Krishna. Prahlada Maharaja is the ideal example. He was boiled in oil, pierced with swords, thrown from a cliff, etc. Although devotional service will not pay our bills or cure all our maladies, it will put us on a transcendental plane of consciousness in which we will be happy in all circumstances.
If we associate with devotees, we can get a spiritual body. The spiritual world does not have limited occupancy. There is plenty of room for everyone.
The unfortunate thing is that people do not know they can go back to the spiritual world. It is up to the devotees to explain to people there is pleasure beyond beer, vodka, and watching football games. There is a world where you can play and dance all day.
Q: Some define humility as passivity and others as action in knowledge, could you explain?
A: We are a ten-thousandths the size of a hair in size, so we are actually quite small. Everything is controlled by Krishna, and compared to Him we are all insignificant. Therefore it is natural for us to be humble. Srila Prabhupada defines humility as not desiring the satisfaction of being honored by others. Even if we have some good quality or we are honored, we should not take it very seriously. It is easy to be humble if you have nothing.
I showed the intelligent design video called "Unlocking the Mysteries of Life". It uses the bacterial motor, which has forty parts, as a good example of irreducible complexity. The video is so long that we had to continuing showing it in the early evening because we ran out of time before lunch.
Bhakti Visrambha Madhava Swami's Quotes for the Brahmacarya conference:
1) "Sannyasis comfort the distressed and give distress to the comfortable."—Jayadvaita Swami
2) "Srimad-Bhagavatam is the ideal low-cost maintenance program."—Devamrita Swami
3) "Male/female relationships begin by courting and end in court."—Jayadvaita Swami
Opening Ceremonies
9/15/07 Niranjana Swami's Address to the Ukraine Festival Devotees via Internet
"As most of you know I am staying in New Vraja Dhama. All my needs are taken care of. I have to do extra rest and exercise for my health. We have kirtana here two hours every night and I find it very invigorating. I have heard the theme of this year's festival is kirtana and I hope you are all feeling the enlivening effects of kirtana. As Krishna told Satyabhama, he could never repay His debt to the Vraja-vasis for their service, I feel I cannot pay the debt to all you devotees for your service. Once Indradyumna Swami wrote, "The desire to make Srila Prabhupada happy is our real religion." We do not need anything else. I fully agree with that statement. And I pray every night that I may accomplish something for Srila Prabhupada. For those of you who realize the importance of making Srila Prabhupada happy, I express my gratitude to you again and again. I am especially grateful to you who are following my recommendations and are taking care of Krishna's devotees. As far as my future plans, I have an indefinite plan to remain in New Vraja Dhama. Sivarama Swami is personally seeing to all my needs. I am especially grateful to him for his friendship. I also pray every night that the time I am taking for my health is not wasted. I see no value having a healthy body if it does not bring me back to your association of hearing and chanting. I feel confident that time will pass quickly and that by Krishna's grace, this will be the last time I miss this festival. I wanted to make one point about letters. I am always eager to receive personal reports. No one should hesitate to send them to me. I realize that there will not always only be happy news. Life in the material world is not always happy. There will always be problems and difficulty. I don't expect people to always hide their difficulty. But they should include how they are dealing with their problems. By association of senior Vaishnavas, find the ways to deal with your problems, as you are doing in this festival, or from my previous instructions, either personally or from lectures. Don't expect a response from your letters.
I cannot express in words how thankful I am. Words are inadequate. I hope to be healthy soon. I hope you are having a wonderful festival, and there is a lot of hearing and chanting. I think you should have a Srimad-Bhagavatam class. Who is giving class?" Acyuta Priya: "Krishna-kripa dasa." Niranjana Swami: "Ah."
I felt bad that it was I who was giving class and one of the greater luminaries. But then again, it was not my doing. I thought that as a younger person, if I spoke it should be the last day of the festival, and so they scheduled me for that.
Yadubara Prabhu leads guru-puja at the Ukraine festival.
Notes on Class by Krishna-kripa dasa on Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.2.21
Since we just heard from Niranjana Swami, I introduced the class by expressing gratitude to him for my engagement in Krishna consciousness. I said that twenty-eight years ago I met Niranjana Swami, then Niranjana Prabhu, who was a brahmacari in charge of the bhakta program in New York. I had taken time off from school and was planning to hitchhike around the West Coast of the United States with a friend to see a mutual friend who had graduated the previous year. After I stayed at the temple three days and was about to commence my trip, Niranjana Swami told me, "If you go out to the West Coast, you will do the same, old, hackneyed, materialistic activities that you have been doing back here. Better you use your time off from school to live in the temple and see how much spiritual advancement you can make." I thought that made a lot of sense. However, I had been planning my trip for a long time and my friend wanted to continue on it. Therefore my mind was being pulled in two directions. Niranjana Swami later said that I was the hardest person he ever convinced to stay in a temple and that he had to pray to Krishna. Therefore, I am here speaking to you today by the mercy of Niranjana Swami.
Srila Prabhupada mentions in the purport to this verse his motto for Back To Godhead magazine. "Godhead is light. Nescience is darkness. Where there is Godhead, there is no nescience." He explains the two basic misgivings people have about spiritual life:
(1) Materialism (which is ultimately voidism).
(2) Impersonalism
I mention that these are the same ones mentioned in Srila Prabhupada's pranama mantra.
Srila Prabhupada explains the actual truth is that both ourselves and Krishna are spiritual beings. We are qualitatively the same and quantitatively different. Elsewhere Srila Prabhupada uses the analogy of the sparks and the fire and the analogy of the drop of water and the ocean. Both the sparks and the fire radiate heat and light, but the quantity is much different. When the sparks are associated with the fire, they retain their fiery quality but separated from the fire they are extinguished.
Srila Prabhupada quotes Bhagavad-gita 10.11: "To show them special mercy, I, dwelling in their hearts, destroy with the shining lamp of knowledge the darkness born of ignorance." Prabhupada explains that the other spiritual practitioners, such as karma-yogis, jnana-yogis, and astanga-yogis, have to struggle to acquire spiritual knowledge, but Krishna enlightens the devotee from within, and so the path of bhakti-yoga is superior.
Krishna gives the knowledge which unties the knot between spirit and matter in the heart of the devotees. Then the devotee full engages in devotional service and becomes free from all karma.
I explain that these verses are in a sequence describing how one serves devotees, gets a taste for hearing about Krishna, hears about Krishna, becomes free from passion and ignorance and rises to goodness, attains scientific knowledge of God, and sees the Lord and becomes free from all karmic activity. The next verse, however, is the conclusion. Because I am not sure if we are having a class tomorrow, I just wanted to give you that verse as well: "Certainly, therefore, since time immemorial, all transcendentalists have been rendering devotional service to Lord Krishna, the Personality of Godhead, with great delight, because such devotional service is enlivening to the self." This is the conclusion: Because of the great auspicious of devotional service, throughout time, all the great souls have performed it with great delight, and therefore we should follow in their footsteps.
I just want to thank all the devotees for there enthusiasm to hear and chant about Krishna and to serve the Vaishnavas. I am a puffed up American, and I am always humbled to see how nicely you treat the senior devotees, and I always feel I have something to learn from you. Thank you very much.
Some people apparently really liked my class. A couple people even gave donations making my trip to Ukraine a slightly profitable adventure, and so I can go to more places and try to promote the yuga-dharma, the congregational chanting of the holy name of the Lord.
Today was a real marathon day as far as my seminar went. At 10:00 a.m. I showed the "Simulated Worlds" video and talked about the idea of this world being like a virtual reality. I distributed the maha-prasadam grapes I was given from the altar on the previous night to the devotees who came.
Then I took a break for half an hour and gave a seminar on how Krishna consciousness is a science. I explained many similarities. They have their professors, and we have our gurus. They have their scholars, and we have our community of senior devotees ( sadhus). They have their authoritative literature, and we have our revealed scriptures. They have empirical evidence backing up the theories in their books and so do we. I gave many examples of empirical evidence consistent with different ideas from the Vedic literature. I told about Dhira Govinda Prabhu's thesis on the effect of chanting the maha-mantra which showed it decreased stress, depression, and the mode of ignorance and increased the mode of goodness. I talked about cases of people who took prasadam or chanted Hare Krishna and became free from anger. I talked about cases of prayer and healing. We discussed case of Deities growing to be too big for their clothes, and cases of some Christians and Moslems, who often deride Hindu deities, but who in these cases developed faith in them because of how the deities reciprocated with them. We also discussed empirical evidence for the soul and its transmigration, such that coming from out-of-body experiences and past life memories.
One enterprising devotee lady named Tanya is interested in opening an educational institution in Crimea to teach Vedic culture to devotees and other people who are attracted to a purer way of life. I sent her references on some of the empirical studies I spoke about in the class, which she appreciated.
At 5:30 p.m., I showed the "Simulated Worlds" to people who could not come in the morning. They decided they would come again the next day, although the festival is over, and see "Mysterious Orbits".
There was a closing ceremony, and the organizers gave small cow statues and festival T-shirts to the people who helped make the festival possible. There were many tales told of great self-sacrifice, and it was inspiring to hear. Considering that 3,500 devotees came to the festival, at least 1,000 more than last year, everything had gone very smoothly. With so many devotees, the evening kirtanas were very powerful. Our tent was the biggest one in Ukraine and reminded me of the one we had for the Polish Woodstock festival. At some times, such as the beginning of the evening kirtana, it was full of devotees. The devotees are very friendly in general and very appreciative of the devotees who come and do presentations. People even give donations, which helps cover the cost of traveling there. The prasadam arrangement for the presenters is always opulent, with curd sabjis, and varieties of sweets, including some made from just dry fruits. My problems were getting to prasadam on time as my seminar often went overtime, and there were people to talk to along the way, and avoiding eating too much prasadam, because of its palatable taste.
Indradyumna Swami led kirtana for an hour and a quarter, singing melodies the festival tour devotees were all intimately familiar with, and that really made the festival complete for me. The devotees participated nicely, and I was on the stage where I danced in whatever space I could find, as I did each night. The stage in Odessa was much bigger with plenty of room for dancing, and enlarging the stage is one of very few suggestions for improvement I could give for next year.
Indradyumna Swami leads a kirtana at the Ukraine festival.
The final night the kirtana went till about 1:00 a.m., with Sarvatma and later Yadubara Prabhu, and others, continuing the chanting. Because I was tired of being tired, I left at 10:30 p.m., contrary to my natural inclination. I prefer to chant japa in a wakeful state between mangala-arati and guru puja than in either a half awake state or at a later time. Perhaps that is a symptom of my old age.
9/16/07 Notes on Class by Sarvatma Prabhu on Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.2.22
I want to thank you for making this festival an unforgettable experience for me. Most endeavors have pros and cons. This festival has practically all pros and only three cons.
(1) This seat is the most uncomfortable seat I have ever sat on.
(2) I lost my voice in the kirtana.
(3) The crying babies and cell phones were a disturbance during the lectures.
Please turn off your cell phones and take your crying babies outside. Once someone's cell phone went off in my lecture. Its ring tone was a crying baby, so I had two disturbances in one.
Srila Prabhupada says to think that we are God or that we are number one is very presumptuous of us. We are not number one, or even number two.
We come to the material world because we are envious of Krishna in the spiritual world, seeing all the enjoyment He is experiencing. We forget that actually the pure devotees enjoy more than God by serving God. Lord Caitanya is Krishna coming to experience the pleasure the devotees enjoy by serving Krishna.
The posts of servant of Krishna are already taken. Even the posts of servant of a servant of Krishna are taken. The only thing available is the servant of the servant of the servant, etc. Unlike in the material world, the more you are removed from the action, the more action you have.
All the happiness that has no connection to service to Krishna and the Vaishnavas is controlled by material nature. Dealing with material nature is like dealing with a merciless loan shark. No matter how much you pay, you never pay off the interest.
"Both the lowest of fools and he who is transcendental to all intelligence enjoy happiness, whereas persons between them suffer the material pangs" (SB 3.7.17). Therefore if we are happy, we are one of these two kinds of people. If we are the fool, then at the time of death, we will suffer when everything taken away.
"In 1986, I met a sannyasi named Mangala Maharaja who was a brahmacari when Srila Prabhupada was starting his mission in America. He was the only person in India that Srila Prabhupada corresponded with who wanted to help Srila Prabhupada, but his guru would not let him, so he waited to his guru left his body and then he came to preach in America. He was a very nice devotee. Once a devotee gave class in the presence of Mangala Maharaja and five or six other sannyasis. The devotee said so many things in the class. Mangala Maharaja interrupted and said, 'What you have said is very nice, but for forty-five minutes you have addressed neither the verse nor the purport.' He then chastised the devotee for fifteen minutes. I was to give class the next day, and you better believe, I studied that verse and purport like anything. Since then I always speak about the verse and purport because in my mind I can still see Mangala Maharaja chastising that devotee."
He talks about the Christian conception of heaven. You stand on a cloud, playing the harp in the same tune, wearing starched clothes that do not need ironing for eternity.
There is an idea of God as the judge, but even a judge has varieties of relationships. He has relationships with the lawyers, the accused, his friends, his wife, and his children. So some people see God as a judge, but we see him as an intimate friend or lover.
If God was not recognized to be God, he would be the person is so qualified, everyone would want him to be God. Despite His many good qualities, still Krishna is the most humble.
Krishna is so qualified that no matter what we do or say, he will never leave us.
What do you give to someone who has everything? He has everything, but he does not have our love, unless we give it to him.
Charity does not mean that we give what we don't like or what is left over. It means we gift what is most dear. We should give Krishna what He wants, our love.
Q: How do will tell if our faith is too sentimental? A (by Purnacandra Prabhu): Our sentiments should be consistent with practical reality that we can see objectively.
Q: (about devotional sentiments) A: We have to deepen our devotional sentiments, but we have to weed out any nondevotional sentiments that may also arise. As an example of unwanted sentiment he told one story. "One bhaktin once told me in order to understand women, I had to understand one incident she felt had universal application. Once she saw a woman in the store who looked at the orange juice and then started crying."
I showed the "Mysterious Orbits" videos to Purnamasi Mataji, her husband, and one other devotee.
As the presenters' lunch was coming to an end, they served out the Vyasa Puja feast for Bhakti Vijnana Goswami, and we had to squeeze in a pizza, cake, and a variety of sweets along with the lunch we had previously eaten. There was one sweet called lugloos that I hadn't had for years. We all said our goodbyes. Some people we will see again in India, and others at next years festival. I also may come to Ukraine for the Ratha-yatras a devotee named Bala does beginning in late May.
I walked with Purnacandra Prabhu, a Prabhupada disciple who was one of the presenters, and we discussed how appreciative the devotees are for what we have to offer, and how it inspires us to give more. In a previous year, he told me that is one reason he preaches in Ukraine, that the people appreciate. Previously he preached in America and the UK. Lord Caitanya accepted the idea of preaching where it was favorable, and so He went on his tour of South India. Srila Prabhupada also accepted this principle and came to the America. He found the Indians were more interested in imitating the materialistic Westerners than realizing the jewels coming from their own tradition.
The devotees had a small kirtana for me as I went to the train station with another devotee going to Kharkov. It was typical Ukrainian devotional hospitality. The devotees in the car agreed to my proposal that we sing the "Gaura Arati" song during the ride. I missed the three hours of kirtana in the evening we had for the last week, but it felt good to chant with the other devotees as we all felt very joyful and fulfilled after such a nice festival.
It appears to me that both the organizers and attendees of the Ukraine festival have understood Lord Caitanya's essential instructions which he discloses in the two verses below:
"As in the previous year, one of the inhabitants of Kulina-grama submitted a petition to the Lord, saying, 'My Lord, kindly tell me what my duty is and how I should execute it.' The Lord replied, 'You should engage yourself in the service of the servants of Krishna and always chant the holy name of Krishna. If you do these two things, you will very soon attain shelter at Krishna's lotus feet.'" (Caitanya Caritamrita, Madhya 16.69-70).
Srutakirti Prabhu signs his book, "What is the Difficulty", about his memoirs of traveling with Srila Prabhupada
Comments
Sannyasi quote- that one was great!
"Sannyasis comfort the distressed and give distress to the comfortable."—Jayadvaita Swami