Nothing Else Is Equally Meaningful

(HH KKS 04/2005)
In Krishna conciousness if you celebraete Lord Nityananada's Appearance Day, that's a cause for celebration and if you celebrate the birthday of Mr X, somebody out there, what's there to celebrate. He is a year older, is it really anything to celebrate..nothing auspicious or wondeful about it but when we celebrate the appearance day of the Supreme Lord it is actually auspicious, anyone who will be celebrating that, will be blessed, anyone who partakes in the festival is blessed, makes spiritual advancement so it really is a cause of celebration but material celebration is just empty therfore at one point intoxication is just taking over, because it is artificial, there is no real meaning.
So Krishna Consciousness is therfore becoming predominant, it will become predominant because it makes things meaningful, makes things really meaningful and once one has tasted that, very difficult to stop because nothing else is equally meaningful!
Yeah we can do the...one can go back to the family and just for a moment step into the old role, for a moment sit on the same sofa, in the same world as before but you can't really partake in it any longer.

Can You Throw Away The Biscuit?!

Question by Youth: What do you mean by higher taste?

(HH JAS 10/2007) :
Well just like if you had a little biscuit in your hand and you were hungry and I said throw the biscuit away. You’ll say: "Wait a second that is my biscuit and I’m hungry, I’m not going to throw it away. Get lost!"
But if i come to you with a big plate of whatever your favourite food is, fancy delicious and everything and I say I’ll give you all of this but you have to throw away the biscuit...would you do that?
Yeah sure because there was a higher taste there. There is taste of the biscuit but there is more taste in the fifty other varieties of well prepared things. So there is a taste to material enjoyment, there’s a taste to a cigarette, I smoke it and there’s a taste. There is a taste to whatever, name something in the material world there is a taste to it. But the taste is not very satisfying. It’s advertised as satisfying! They advertise that you smoke this cigarette and it’s so smooth, it’s so satisfying, but it’s a lie! And more than that it is destructive, harmful, humm, so for the sake of satisfaction we are getting some little little taste..which is not satisfying: you smoke one , you throw it away, you then pick up the next one and we are harming ourselves at the same time.
So higher taste means beyond the taste of these temporary things which are no.1 temporary and no.2 unrewarding and no.3 even troublesome! When we come to the spiritual platform there’s a taste which is free from trouble, which is natural and which is permenent and which is constitutionally joyful.

Demons!

(HH KKS 04/2005)
Let us say a few words about demons.... Demons are those personalities who are not accepting the authority of Krishna and who are always trying to misrepresent Krishna, Srila Prabhupada said in this purport. So obviously there are many many demons and Prabhupada was the first to call them fools and rascals. So it appears there was a condemning mood towards the demons ... but the fact of the matter is this movement can turn demons in to devotees!
Therefore a vaishnava although he condemns demons, he at the same time is merciful also. Generally condemnation invokes a mood of hate but in the case of a vaishnava: he may condemn the demon but at the same time try to transform the demon.
Therefore we are not concerned, the majority of mankind is under the demoniac influence, but that we do not take that serious, this movement can very effectiveley change that. This is our hope and our aim, that that will be done very soon.

Ratha Yatra in Soweto

(HH KKS: 10/2007)
Soweto with its 2 million people, is the heart of South Africa, the stage of oppression for Black South Africa. Where in 1976 african high schoolkids protested against education in Afrikaans instead of their own language, a protest which was crushed by the local police firing bullets in to the crowd. That day Soweto had enough and the revolution began. Soweto today is going through face-lift, it has the second biggest shopping mall on the African sub continent, and it will host the 2010 Soccer Worldcup finale in Orlando Stadium. Still there are plenty of people living in tin sheds in extreme poverty. ISKCON has had a small temple there since 1995, run by Mahaprabhu, a dedicated Sowetan disciple of Giriraja Swami, who maintains a regular Food for Life program. On October 13 & 14 a historical event took place, Lord Jagannatha’s Ratha Yatra festival came to town. Amongst the crowds were several busses of African students from all over the country and also many schoolkids joined in as well as devotees from all over South Africia and many more local people..

Andrew Whitlock, a reporter wrote the following;
“Soweto residents were treated to a new experience at the weekend when the first ever Rathayatra (chariot festival) was held in the township. The colourful festival has been held in India for thousands of years and has also been held in most major cities worldwide. Hundreds of Hare Krsna devotees from around the country, descended on Soweto to follow the three-metre high chariot through the busy streets, and were joined by excited residents, many of them young children. The first Rathayatra was held in the West some forty years ago after the International Society for Krsna Consciousness (Iskcon) founder, Srila Prabhupada, brought Krsna Consciousness to America. “We are very happy that this event is taking place in Soweto for the first time” said Dobsonville resident Lehopo Lechaba. “You are promoting God and that is great after all the crime and violence we have had here. I really like what I am hearing today,” he said.

After a short journey through the streets the chariot, carrying five of Iskcon’s leading spiritual masters arrived at Mofolo Park, where guests were treated to a free lunch and an afternoon of singing and dancing.

It was quite a happening on the open air stage in Mofolo Park. Besides powerful kirtanas by various sannyasis, and the famous plays of Bhakti Marga Swami, there was also ample opportunity for local talent to perform on the stage with lots of Hip Hop, traditional Zulu dances and more Local TV celebrities came and the band Dhira from Europe was a big hit. It was very nice that everyone got an opportunity to actively take part in the festival and make it their own. Our guess is that Ratha Yatra has come to Soweto to stay!

How to keep one’s relationship with Vrndavana

(HH KKS 07/2006)
1.) First let us analyze what our relationship is with Vrndavana and then see how we can develop it. Lord Caitanya explained that these are the five most important aspects in devotional service, which if even a little bit performed, can quickly bring one to the stage of love of God.

sadhu-sanga, nama-kirtana, bhagavata-sravana, mathura-vasa, sri-murtira sraddhaya sevana

One should associate with devotees, chant the holy name of the Lord, hear Srimad-Bhagavatam, reside at Mathura and worship the Deity with faith and veneration.

Mathura-vasa to reside at Mathura or Vrndavana.” So we must become a resident of Vrndavana. We must realize that Vrndavana is our home. Now you are in Czech republic and I am in New Govardhana, Australia. But part of us is always in Vrndavana, because Vrndavana is our home. We are now far away from home in foreign countries Czech or Australia, and even although it may be very nice at times still how can we be fully satisfied it is just not like Vrndavana, being in a foreign country we are always feeling the desire to go back to home. In my passport my “place of residence” is written as: “Vrndavana”, I feel quite good about that and consider it auspicious and I hope it will bring me back to that Holy land. No one in Vrndavana, nor man, nor animal ever steps on the footprints of Krsna, which are decorating the fine Yamuna sand. “Its great branches extending from one side to the other, a banyan tree is like a bridge across the Yamuna. Playing on that bridge, again and again the cowherd boys cross from one side to the other”. “In one place it had a hollow like a palace. In another place it had a delightful branch like a couch. In another place was a vine-covered branch like a swing. What pastime-place did that banyan tree not provide for Lord Krsna?” Gopal Campu 1.84-85 How can I ever forget Vrndavana?

Another point to remember is that the reason why Vrndavana is so wonderful is because it is the abode of Krsna. It is Krsna that make Vrndavana wonderful and without him, we would not be interested in Vrndavana at all. When Krsna left Vrndavana for Mathura some of the cowherd boys decided to also leave Vrndavana, because there was nothing remaining for them there.

3.) Bhauma Vrndavana, the earthly Vrndavana in this world is non different from the spiritual world. However it is covered with a layer of yoga maya which makes it appear to be a temple village in North India. However the spiritual nature is shining like an effulgence through that covering and although we can not actually perceive the Dhama in its full transcendental glory, still whatever we do perceive is already very inspiring. Prabhupada pointed out that one can not just buy a ticket to Vrndavana. Vrndavana will be revealed by the mercy of Krsna. We have visited that place in North India, south of Delhi, yet the question may be asked, have we actually been in Vrndavana and still we will never forget.

Seeing that the time has come to milk the cows, Krsna and the gopas bring the cows to the barns made of jewels, barns surrounded by lotus flowers and kalpa-vrksa trees.” from Gopal Campu 1.74, by Srila Jiva Gosvami

“When Krsna does not play His flute, the Yamuna flows with waters like melted sapphires. When Krsna does play His flute, the Yamuna, stunned in ecstasy, becomes like the land paved with sapphires. In these ways, as either water or land the Yamuna serves Lord Krsna.” Gopal Campu 1.80, Srila Jiva Gosvami

4.) In his commentary on the first chapter of the 10th Canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, Madhvacarya refers to Mathura as a state of consciousness. It is a fact that if one really wants to enter Vrndavana, than we must realize it internally. Even while physically one may be in Vrndavana (North India), internally one may not have actually entered Vrndavana. To internally enter in to Vrndavana one must enter in to the mood of service. Such devotional service is done under the authority of a superior vaisnava. So to really become Mathura vasa we must develop our internal relationship with Vrndavana by developing our relationship with Krsna, through devotional service.

5.) You can transform your home in to Vrndavana by chanting the holy name and the bhajans of the vaisnava acaryas, by inviting vaisnavas, by hanging transcendental pictures which Prabhupada called windows to the spiritual world. By bringing Srimad Bhagavatama to your house and reading it. You can transform your heart in to Vrndavana by always chanting the Holy name non-stop in a humble state of mind. You can attain Vrndavana by serving Srila Prabhupada who is a pure resident of Vrndavana. You can attain Vrndavana by patiently rendering devotional service in the temple of the Lord. You can attain Vrndavana by the mercy of a bona fide spiritual master.

Sankirtana!

HH KKS: Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, was not just teaching a process...... Basically He was bringing down the spiritual activity of the spiritual world to this world!



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Can You Spot Maharaja?!

HH KKS: This is a festival of hearing and chanting; these are the most important things in spiritual life. By hearing about Krsna, one develops some attachement to Krsna and one develops some desire to become a pure devotee, one develops some desire to do some service for Krsna. So this hearing is very valuable and then there is chanting…Everywhere in this festival there is something transcendental, something spiritual, so the whole site is vibrating with spiritual blessings- the mercy of Krsna…

RATHA YATRA GERMANY COLOGNE, 20TH JUNE 2009



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Nrsimha Caturdasi Kirtan Simhacalam Germany May 2009



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Chant!

HH KKS: So this cleansing of the heart has to be done throught chanting Hare Krishna, that is our immediate connection to Krishna and it gives us life, it is the life of all transcendental knowledge, without the chanting there is no more life!

Become A Servant

HH KKS: We must become a personal servant, not only of Krishna but also of the Vaisnavas, particularly of a senior Vaisnava

Srila Prabhupada Ki Jaya!

(HH KKS 18/06/1999)
There was a group of people who approached Prabhupada and one man wrote a letter and asked Prabhupada to become the chairman of the International Society for Christ Consciousness.... and Prabhupada wrote a letter back and he said he was very honored that they had chosen him to become the chairman of the International Society for Christ Consciousness...and Prabhupad said yes I’ll be glad to accept that position but there is one condition and that is that the members of the society must follow the 4 regulative principles and chant the holy name of Christ...and if they do that I’ll accept to become the chairman of the society.
So Prabhupada was very broad minded, very very broad minded, considering that the name of Christ came from Christa, as he explained many times, which is non-different than the name from Krishna: therefore he had faith that if that name was chanted that ultimately the realization about Krishna would come and that one at one point would understand that there is no difference between Christ Consciousness and Krishna Consciousness. Not in the sense that just we worship Christ and everything is automatically revealed, no,but Prabhupad was ready to guide them and by this chanting of the name, yes, everything can come and in this way Prabhupada was ready to unite all different kinds of people together in one movement and he was able to work with people from all over the world!

No such thing as a 5 or 10 minute kirtan!

…from kirtanam comes smaranam and from smaranam comes kirtanam. I mean, if you remember Krsna, you will glorify Him-you will, you cant help; you cant help to glorify His name, His qualities…the more we know about Krsna, the more we remember Him, the more we feel like chanting. Like sometimes they tell me, “Well you know, just have a 5 or 10 minute kirtan…” There is no such thing as 5 or 10-minute kirtan! I mean you know, that’s bizarre! It’s like let’s go for a spin…you just sort of get out of the starting block- “1, 2, 3- stop!”- how’s it possible? I mean, we’re just sort of warming up, get the rust off our voice, sort of take a few good deep breaths and the first manta is sort of a croak, the second one is a cuff, the third one sort of begins to come. But then after a while it begins to flow and the mantra begins to carry us. And after one hour of chanting you really start to feel like- whew! We’re going to another level! After two hours of chanting you begin to forget yourself- or you get pain in your back- one of the two! Anyway, after four hours of chanting, it’s definitely extraordinary. After twelve hours of chanting, you definitely lose your voice but you’re absolutely ecstatic!
Sometimes we do; we have these special festivals which would just go for the whole day from morning till night chanting. And of course, that was the early ISKCON where the devotees would go out eight hours, eight hours on the harinama. And they had special ways to survive it. It is said that Visnujana would have gloves and that he had taped coins at the end of the gloves so that you’d still get a bit of good sound out of the mrdanga! And he would have the gloves otherwise his hands would’ve cracked open and they go on all day- eight hours a day, go strong!
So this spirit of just chanting a long time is possible when there’s some taste...

(HH KKS, Vrndavana 2007)

See Krishna Behind Everything

HH KKS: We always see Krishna behind everything. Thus we always are taking it: Krishna is dealing with me and thus a Vaishnava can accept, Krishna is dealing with everything!

It Is Krishna Who Is Doing Everything!

(HH KKS 13/06/1999)
when we are buying yogurt from a shop the cow is being purified the factory is being purified everything is being purified...the effect of this movement is amazing That’s not due to the devotees, that has nothing to do with the devotees. The devotees themselves they cannot claim any qualities rather all qualities in man comes from Krishna. So no one has any reason to feel really big and proud and important because nobody can claim proprietorship to his qualities. It’s kind of like we find some qualities in ourselves we never knew we had and then they can also go, they're there and then they're gone, we have nothing to do with it, you can’t control that, you can’t decide to become something your not...like I will never become a ballet dancer! For sure...I might go in the circus as the dancing elephant man! But I will not be successful in ballet! I just don’t have it, I know my limitations by now, so that’s it. We all know our limitations don’t we? And if we don’t time will teach us! So we cannot say that any qualities in us are our own qualities rather Krishna gives us the qualities so therefore the devotees cannot claim that they are the power by which this movement is influencing the world...the devotees are amazed themselves to see it happen, we go out and chant Hare Krishna...right? We do our song and our dance and we ourselves don’t know actually what the effect is, we have no idea, ok, we have heard that if you chant, it resolves Karma...so that all the people get rid of Karma, so that helps a lot, so if we go in the city and everybody points at their forehead or people walk by and they say ‘Go get a job!’...as if its not a job as if Hare Krishna’s don’t work...little do they know or someone comes up to you and says ‘Get married!’...as if many devotees are not married! What do they know about these things, but anyway they say these things in ignorance and we don’t care we just go on chanting Hare Krishna. Some people stuff their ears, they don’t want to hear, we only chant a little louder, some people they are looking as if they are not affected at all, they are not interested...but we notice that they can sense that something is going on here, but what is it, nobody knows...actually even we don’t know,but a little bit, we know that it has a transcendental effect but how much effect we don’t know.
Yesterday we did a little tour of Stockholm like that and we even made it on TV, but I don’t know what the effect of this chanting will be, we cannot see how much it changes the fate of Stockholm. I remember before I was a devotee I used to read all kinds of books and sometimes I used to read these books about some Yogis somewhere far in India and it was their mystic power that the world did not fall to pieces, some sort of story like that, that there are some wise men somewhere in the Himalayas and they meditate and by their arrangement the whole world stays together otherwise it would fall to pieces. Well I got news for you, it’s not in the Himalayas it's happening here in Stockholm: This chanting of Hare Krishna is in itself so powerful that anyone who comes in touch with it becomes transformed: It is knows as Cintamani.


HARE KRSNA HARE KRSNA
KRSNA KRSNA HARE HARE
HARE RAMA HARE RAMA
RAMA RAMA HARE HARE

Please Krishna

HH KKS: Alright well in this age, it is very difficult to become free from the modes of material nature, we are so much condition by the lower modes of material nature that to develop pure goodness is very difficult but it will develop when we become absorbed in pleasing Krishna.

The Movement Is Amazing!

(HH KKS 13/06/1999)
The Sankirtan movement is infiltrating invisibly and changing the world in an amazing way. Prabhupada explained it as follows he said the effect of this movement is quite amazing because if anything is used by a devotee then the person who has been involved in making that is becoming purified and is making spiritual advancement so if the devotees use 1 screw, only 1 screw then the whole factory where they make the screws is getting benefit, especially the director and that one person who packed that screw in a box is getting special mercy. In this way when the devotees do anything the effect of this movement is amazing, when the little kids ride around on their bicycles they are purifying the bicycle makers, when we are buying yogurt from a shop the cow is being purified the factory is being purified everything is being purified, the effect of this movement is amazing!

Stop trying To Eat Flies

(HH KKS 12/06/1999)
In India I saw a drawing, it was a little serious, it was a drawing of a frog. What’s so serious about a frog? Well this particular frog was in a somewhat precarious position because a snake had crawled up from the back and it had half swallowed the frog. And you may have never seen this in Stockholm, maybe on TV, they swallow them whole, they don’t chew them up first. He swallowed the frog with the mouth slowly going around the frog. So the front of the frog was still sticking out. Then a little fly went by the nose of the frog and his tongue shot out to catch the little fly...Who is the frog?! Who is the snake?! That’s the question.
The snake is time and the frog is the living entity who is trying to enjoy all kinds of opportunities that fly by his nose although he is already half eaten by the snake...depending on the age, lets say 35-40 already that means half eaten...only 25, not yet half but at least the hind legs are half digested...75, you can imagine the eyes are still sticking out and the tongue and the rest is in the snake but this little bit is sticking out still catching flies. 80, you don’t even see the frog anymore but the tongue is sometimes coming out!
Like this the serpent of time is doing it’s work, it’s doing it very silently and only sometimes do we notice it: No I’m not getting old, well maybe a little bit but not really but sometimes do we notice it, boy I’m getting old! It is a fact, time is doing it’s work and sooner or later every living entity will have to experience that.
So the Yogi he is interested in uplifting himself in consciousness...that is his business. Now the whole exercise of this particular Yogi who went in a box trying to protect himself from this illusionary energy is really too much work, it’s not required, there is an easier system and that system is just eat in Govindas! By eating in Govindas the same result can be attained as what the Yogi attained because it’s a another type of Yoga it is not necessary that one locks oneself from the world...No,.... one can stay in the world. ................so Yoga is actually a process by which one can conquer the influence of the material energy and one can rise above and come to a different level of consciousness...