Carrying forward This Mercy

Kadamba Kanana Swami



When it comes to bhajan or being ourselves alone with Krishna – where we just chant the holy name of Krishna, not to preach but simply to glorify Krishna and to submit ourself before Krishna: purity and all seriousness, that is required.
And every once in a while we must take our days to be deeply absorbed like that: to read, to chant. I just booked Monday for that! So Monday forget about me, I’m not home! I’ll put a sign on my door: “Not here!” I am going to try to be somewhere else – at the lotus feet of Krishna, if I can.

Laws Of Karma! (Vid!)

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Giving Others Attachment To Krishna

(Talk Before Maha Harinama On Queensaday 2005)

We are assembling on the eve of the festival of Amsterdam. Amsterdam to start off is a crazy place! If you didn’t know it yet, that’s what it is. This is Amster Mad! or Amster Dump! This is a total mad house! The best thing to do with Amsterdam, as far as I’m concerned, is just above the city sign put “Pavillion” make it part of a “mental hospital!” and then everything is ok! Declare the whole city: A mental hospital! That would be my advise. So what shall we say, just wait a while for the neighbours to walk by and you will understand what I mean! On pills and everything! So tomorrow the city is going to celebrate, it’s going to be crazy!
But it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter because there is tremendous opportunity to somehow or other engage people in devotional service, which is all auspicious and which will begin to create some attachment – once you’ve tasted hot cauliflower pakoras, you have to have them again! There’s no way around it!

(Kadamba Kanana Swami 29/04/2005 Amsterdam)

Christmas Marathon!

Bhajan is needed to support our preaching, that personal bhajan will give us depth and strength but then beyond it we go and somehow or other preach - immediately there is ecstasy.

We remember the stories in Liamrita...the times when the first Christmas marathons were invented accidently.....
Rameswara was describing how he was the first one back in the temple. He thought he was the latest, he thought he had been the longest that day and he thought he had broken all world records! He done more books than he ever did and came back to the temple about midnight and ......Nobody was back yet! Everyone was out!
They had discovered the Christmas marathon!

(Kadamba Kanana Swami 29/04/2005)

Becoming Absorbed Giving Out The Mercy!

Kadamba Kanana Swami

When we begin to share Krishna consciousness with others and we are actually getting into the mood of giving Krishna consciousness then it becomes something really wonderful!
I was in South Africa and we were in the big Ratha Yatra last year - there was an incident:
Kavicandra Maharaja who is so skinny and so weak in a sense, physically - not strong, he got so fired up! So fired up to give the mercy, especially to the African people in a deplorable condition. He was running up and down from the cart! He was taking prasadam and carrying it in this cloth, running around and everyone was getting it! He was running around round the cart and he was so fired up – running from one person to another, jumping and giving it out! - like totally beyond himself in some sort of intoxication handing out just more and more of this mercy and running to give more and more!

We Have Changed And We Still Need To Change

Devotee's Question: In the Nectar of Devotion it says that if one comes before the Deities and claps their hands, then their minds change. So I was wondering, of course spiritual advancement is not so cheap, but I was trying to understand why we still remain so totally conditioned?

Kadamba Kanana Swami: There have been so many lifetimes in this world and we have been so entangled in materialistic activities, unlimited lifetimes that even although that we clap our karma changes, still there is so much karma left that we don’t notice it so quickly. But actually a lot of changes are there - What to then speak if we actually chant the Mahamantra.
It says that if one only chants the Mahamantra once he gets more purified than more sinful activities than one can commit in a lifetime. So in this way this Mahamantra is so powerful.
Yet we chant for years we still feel “ahh not so pure” although we have been changed by this chanting at the same time. We feel that something has really changed - but we still feel that we need to change a little more also.

(Kadamba Kanana Swami 21-06-2004)

Krishna’s smile is welcoming us

Kadamba Kanana Swami

The jnani is more concerned with that aspect that this world is temporary and full of misery. The devotee is seeing behind this material world is Krishna, for he sees everywhere Krishna, because the creations tell something about the creator.

Just as an example human beings have made so many things - example a car:
A car says a lot about human beings. It has eyes, it has a nose, it has a place where you put the petrol, the fuel, it has a tank , it has an exhaust! It has a nerve system-the electrical wiring, it has veins in the form of tubes!

There are so many similarities- it tells a lot about it’s maker, because it is fully relating to the senses of it’s maker. It’s serving those senses, therefore it is an extension of the senses. So this material world is also revealing something about the nature of Krishna and this is interesting to the devotee. In the tenth canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam it is stated that if you see beauty within this world then know it to be the smile of Krishna.

Mercy - Even Behind The Ghastly Feature

Kadamba Kanana Swami

We are speaking about the happiness and the unhappiness in the material world and is there really ugliness ...because ultimately everything is resting on Krishna‘s divine energy and He is unlimitedly beautiful?


So yes on the surface we are seeing happiness and distress. The eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad Gita shows how all the heroes of the battlefield are being crunched with the teeth of the universal form like potato chips, it’s ghastly, it’s heavy!
This is the ghastly feature of the Lord, that is there. But because we see behind it: the mercy of the Lord, we see that whatever harshness of the Lord is there in the material world is simply there to rectify our own harsh nature.

Visit to Cape Town

Kadamba Kanana Swami graced Cape Town from 27 September to 1 October 2009. It was barely 4 days, and apart from the daily morning classes, Maharaja gave the lecture at the Sunday program (excerpt below), did 2 house programs, BYS at Stellenbosch University, Yoga Lounge preaching program and found time for a Japa walk on the beach

Bhagavad-gita 2.11

In this way, in life, we are trying to enjoy as much as we can… that’s one thing. And at the same time we trying to duck the unpleasant things that are sometimes flying around.

I had experience, because onetime in India, I was riding on the train and … with an open window because it was bahur garam, very hot and just then… I don’t know who did it because when you travel on the train you don’t know, but suddenly a big ball of cow-dung flew into the train and hit me right in my face... and I tell you when that comes in with about 70 or 80 kilometres an hour… it was soft, so it didn’t injure my face although… but it splashed hard and it managed to cover everything… not just my face but my clothes from top to bottom and everything.

And you know how you feel at a moment like that. You can’t believe that this had just happened. You just thinking, this is not true… this hasn’t happened. The mind doesn’t want to accept. The mind sort of no, no! This is just, this is not possible. This cannot happen, this is not normal.

I still remember the experience – it took me hours to get it all off in a train. In a train, it is not exactly where you go take a shower. So it was quite an experience and at that moment anyone could have told me: But Prabhu, (because I was not a sannyasi then) but Prabhu, cow-dung is pure! (lots of laughter)

But you know, those are not the moments when you want to hear transcendental philosophy. (laughter) Those are moments, you really like hope that somebody has a solution, something practical, something absolutely practical.

So my point is that, although we try to enjoy in this world, it doesn’t always happen. Sometimes you get a certain substance straight in your face, and what you gonna do about it? You just have to take it.

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Kadamba Kanana Swami
Cape Town, 27 September 2009

BEAUTY + SUFFERING

Kadamba Kanana Swami

We are looking upon this unlimited material energy and we see both: The beauty and The suffering.

I was thinking – a beautiful lawn and how it stands as a symbol for enjoyment, a place for picnic. A place where one can sit and everything is very pleasant.

Peaceful bees humming and butterflies and birds chirping, beautiful musical arrangements, sunrays, nice, warm, pleasant and so on, beautiful colours and what not....

Entangled in Service - No time For Maya!!

All this attachment to the material energy – the best cure is to simply become preoccupied with engaging your energies in the service of Krishna.
Once you start doing it you become so entangled in engaging your energy in the service of Krishna that you don’t have any time anymore for sense gratification! That’s how it works.
That was Srila Prabhupada’s trick. He saw how attached we were to the material energy and instead of engaging us in chanting all the time, he engaged us in using the material energy in service. Since that time life has become so complicated that we can never finish our service! And absolutely no time for maya anymore!

(Kadamba Kanana Swami 01/07/2009)

Feeling separation....Krishna wants more now!

We should increase the quality of our chanting, that ‘s what it means: “The ten offences- it is also offensive to be inattentive while chanting the holy name.”
To not be inattentive but to really chant to increase the quality, improve the quality.
As soon as we feel even a little bit of separation from Krishna:
“Oh, Krishna is not fully satisfied, Oh a little bit of separation: Krishna wants more now!
Krishna for whatever reason He wants more surrender now!”
That is the note from Krishna: “ Time for you to make more endeavour”

(Kadamba Kanana Swami 07/09/2003)

Krsna's pastimes...brilliant and spectacular!

Just like a jewel shines more in a dark place, Krsna's eternal pastimes likewise are more brilliant and spectacular in the material world (vraja bhumi) than in the spiritual world...

HH Kadamba Kanana Swami

An adventure!

When you speak, you go from one thing into another, and it’s like an adventure! When we are speaking about Krsna consciousness it’s like an adventure because you don’t always know where you wind up! It’s not like the type of speech, which is completely written out...I was sitting next to someone on a plane who had a speech that he was supposed to give and it was completely written out- completely! My lecture this morning is not like that! It’s not that I wrote it out and memorized it or that I have a piece of paper sort of under the table and when I’m looking down in humility that I’m actually reading the note! (Laughter) It’s not like that- no. It’s…one point leads into the next…

(HH KKSwami, Sep 2009, Durban, SA)

The Meaning Of Love...

Love means to put our ideas aside for someone else. When we love someone we will put our own agenda aside and just try to please that person and we'll only do for that person what that person desires. So our love for Prabhupada has to show in how much we are ready to put our own agenda aside and embrace his agenda and do what is dear to him. That is where our love will show...

(HH KKSwami, Vrndavan, Oct 2009)