Parikrama in Vrindavan
This is the 21 Parikrama of the Vrinda mission. We started to do parikrama 1984. It is such an important task (parikrama), I do not feel qualified to lead the parikrama... devotees have come from different countries. Vrindavan is very personal, it is the land of love, affection and personal guidance. That is the reason why Lord Krishna has manifested so many spiritual teachings so that so many aspiring devotees can actually get some personal attention.
Here in Vrindavan we feel very much at home, such a feeling again is the gift of Prabhupada. We come here specifically to make spiritual advancement; the same as when we chant the holy name or hear the Holy Scriptures or do devotional service. Everything has the divine purpose of bringing us closer to the lotus feet of the divine couple Radha Govindaji and their most merciful expansion, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and His most merciful manifestation as Nityananda Prabhu, the Original spiritual master.
Servant of the servant
One of the top secrets to be understood in our devotional line is that we should try to become the servant of the servant of the servant of the Lord. We should not try to serve Him directly. We should be very happy if He has situated us under the guardianship of His devotees. Those specific devotees who guide us, our diksha guru and other important Vaishnavas in our life, they sustain us with their prayer and their affection. We need them so much and we can please Lord Krishna very clearly by becoming their trusted helpers and associates. It is very important that we make ourselves beloved to all the other Vaishnavas around us, and of course that also means to make yourself trusted by them. Trust is put into such a person who keeps up whatever he has promised, who does not let down others, who tries everything possible to help others in their spiritual term. If we somehow or other can become instruments of the love of Lord Krishna and our Gurudev by helping to encourage others in their spiritual journey, then our life is surely fortunate.
To serve others even by doing some very humble and menial service, you can become very close to the Supreme Lord. Govinda Prabhu, who was serving his Gurudev, Madhavendra Puri, in a very humble and menial form, actually achieved the blessings to become the personal assistance of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
To be proud of one’s service, to think that I am worth more than other devotees because one may be doing some influential service is definitely rejected. We are eternally tiny little recipients of causeless mercy. We should never think that we deserve that mercy. We do not even deserve anything of all the divine gifts Lord Krishna is giving us every day, both materially and spiritually. We are maintained by His kindness and by His willingness to forgive our so many shortcomings. He has given us so many chances already and He keeps giving us more chances.
If we become the humble assistance of our guardian and always serve him by humbly serving all the others joyfully and giving the others the same right to do service, as you wish to get yourself, and not feeling superior to those who you are serving, but rather seeing them as very merciful because they allow you to serve them, you will sure endear yourself to Sri Guru and Ishtadev
Dancing for Lord Krishna – a sacred tradition
Tomorrow we will start our divine celebration with the Sharad purnima, the full moon at the beginning of Rasa lila season, that day the deities of the Vrindakunja temple coming outside into the garden and the devotees celebrate with singing and dancing traditionally. There is a manipuri rasa lila dance in Vrindakunja. Sometimes Lalita Madhava’s wife and his sister, who are manipuri dancers, come and do that dance in Vrindakunja. In the past when the Queen of Manipur was managing that temple, she had her own big group of devotees coming with all the dance paraphernalia.
Dancing for Lord Krishna is a sacred and sweet holy tradition, just like we dance in Harinam Sankirtan, and sometimes the devotee dancing groups prepare some nice offerings for the Deities in different styles such as Bharat natyam, odissi... and others. We have also seen that in the temples of South America, many of the devotees have taken up devotional dancing with great enthusiasm. Anything which we can do for our Lord with a pure heart will be successful.
Pure heart and innocence
It’s very hard for us to speak about pure heart or about innocence. Questions arise where we get a pure heart from and how can we become innocent after having been brought up in a western society or to say in kali yuga. The answer is: if we assist our spiritual guardians with humility, then they will give us this innocence... and they will grant us the mercy to become pure in purpose. To be too sophisticated, too intellectual, and then become proud of yourself will not help you at all. And one symptom of those who are proud is, that they easily get angry. You’ve got to be proud in order to become angry, because it is only when you are proud that you feel that you have any reason or right to treat others in an angry mood.
Of course there may be some exceptions to that rule when a pure devotee gets angry, because he sees that you are going in the wrong direction or when he sees another devotee being attacked. But we have seen that our Gurudevs have instructed with great kindness, great understanding, love, compassion and tolerance, even though they always stuck to the strict principles of the parampara.
If you want to overcome pride, you have to show humility in helping others. These are my thoughts as I have arrived today in Vrindavan.
Serving Sri Guru and the Vaisnavas
Going on Parikrama is a chance for me to have your close association, to be with you for more days than usual and also to make plans for the future of our service. It is good to know there is unlimited service. This is also the 12th year of our efforts to serve the Vaishanvas in the world Vaishnava Association. That has been my great luck, because I get to meet so many sweet Vaishnavas from so many other spiritual groups as well.
I pray to Mahaprabhu that He may allow us to really serve all the Vaishnavas, because I know for sure that will make my spiritual master Srila Prabhupada very happy. And for me there is nothing better I could ever do in my existence than making Srila Prabhupada happy. It is not easy, the standards are very high, because he is a pure devotee of Lord Krishna. So I pray to Srimati Radharani, the Supreme loving potency of Lord Krishna, that She may put Her kindness upon me and allow me to become a real assistant of my Gurudev; somebody of some real value to him. And I pray to my Gurudev that I may serve you in this parikrama so that we will not commit any offences in the holy dham and no offences against the holy name, so that our spiritual life will truly be successful.
Being in Vrindavan is an intensive experience, and once again my Gurudev has let me to be here in this kartik. Let us try to intensify our commitment, and also let us try to go very deep into our relationship with the Holy Name.
The potency of Sadhu sanga
Sometimes devotees speak to each other, asking each other to pray for them. Actually, the association with the sadhu is so potent, that just by seeing him and approaching him and asking for his blessings, his blessings are already obtained, his prayers are already obtained. Only one thing should be taken into consideration; that the blessings of the sadhus are their instructions, and those who really want to be blessed, have to take them to heart. That is the practical advice on sadhu sanga. If you are lucky, you get some personal service from your Gurudeva to do, and you are also lucky if you get some service to someone who has gotten a personal service of him.
Devotional service should have the accompany attribute that you feel enthusiastic about it and that you understand how wonderful and how important it is that this service is actually accomplished. How do we know that? Well, if we see that our spiritual master is striving for accomplishing a certain service, then if I can be helpful to that.... that is very good.
Preaching is the greatest gift
Lord Krishna and Srila Prabhupada made it clear that they favour that service which encourages others in their spiritual life. Preaching is the greatest gift, therefore I always request the devotees to somehow or other get to participate in the preaching, specifically to make sure that in all our centres there is daily delivery of high quality hari katha on different subjects. That is why we started the Vaishnava Academy and why we conduct every morning the classes of Srimad Bhagavatam. If every initiated devotee, or at least every Brahmin, gives a class every day on the transcendental literature, the whole world would be inundated with spiritual instructions.
There are may devotees out there. Sometimes they are too shy or maybe they are too lazy. If you feel that ‘I am not expert’, then you are just like me. I also feel that I am not expert in explaining transcendental topics. If anything useful is flowing from my mouth, I can guarantee you that is only due to divine grace. He has all the rights reserved, and if you try to talk on His behalf, He will come and give you His grace. He will make your tongue move, He will make your heart become a transparent transmitter, and you will be surprised to hear yourself what is flowing from your mouth. Of course at some point in the past, you probably heard those topics from other Vaishnavas, but that they would come in a clear frame and flowing from your lips, you will be surprised yourself. Therefore preaching is one of the most intense transcendental experiences.
If you do not give classes, you deprive yourself of that transcendental realisation and you deprive others from hearing your Gurus message. You do not have to give your ideals. When you preach you are delivering your Gurus message and he has a message, be sure and he wants others to know his message; that’s why he is a preacher himself. Attachment to his lotus feet is the perfection that fulfils all desires, so fulfilling his order and preaching everyday, or lets say almost everyday, will create such a wonderful panorama in every town and city of the world, because it means that all the initiated devotees will start organize small, medium and larger gatherings to deliver the message of their guru.
The true Vaisnava’s compassion
And if you feel extremely incapable, then just sit down and read from his book and say something when you remember some other instruction he has given you from the same topic. In this way you will become a first class preacher, do not worry. And if you are a preacher, your life will be so joyful. You will not even have time for your mental trips, for your confusions, lamentations, etc. Even when you are sick, as long as you can talk you can preach. Srila Prabhupada gave so many classes when he was actually sick, but he was so kind, he did not want to deprive us from hearing his message of love as he had received from Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupada. That is the true Vaishnava’s compassion.
Now sometimes you may not have opportunities to speak yourself, but than at least you are listening to somebody speaking, so that you will charge your capacity for preaching for the next day when it is your turn. I humbly request you to take these guidelines very much to heart, because if you do so I do not have to worry very much about you, because I know the holy sound will accompany you and enlighten you and enliven you. And further souls will come forward to help you to serve your spiritual masters, and you will love them and they will love you.
Love means headache
Love means more loving headache. If you love somebody and that somebody needs some help, you become involved in this place; he becomes your concern. But I tell you, if you don’t love anybody then you surely have the biggest of all headaches. Then you do not even know what you are living for. So the preacher surely feels concerned about the welfare of all those people to whom he speaks to. He does not deliver an ego message – he delivers the message of inviting everybody into the committed life of dedication; the life of devotional service. So if anybody listens to him and starts to realize that his words are true, then he wants to participate, he wants to be part of it, and he wants the preacher to supply him some tangible and practical connection to the world of dedication.
Therefore the preacher has to be also connected himself to connect others. Those who serve their ego, their pride, their name and fame, they are not really connected to the world of love and trust and service to the divine. So if you are preaching, it also obliges you to be very closely connected to the guru seva. Of course, preaching is already guru seva, but it also requires that you give a practical example. Your moral life has to be solid, your example in financial dealings has to be exemplary. Never try to take advantage of the faith somebody may have in you because you have spoken to them about Krishna.
I wish you all the best, because I feel very fortunate that I were able to meet you today, both here as well as on the chat, so that I can purify myself by remembering the sacred commitment to Sri Vrindavan dham and the preaching of the holy name.
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Questions and answers
Question: Sometimes in my preaching there is so much ego, that instead of being enthusiastic they turn away
Answer: you have the right to do the duty, but you do not have the right to attach to the result. If you think that your problem is your ego, that is good, then you can correct your problem, because the worst is that you do not know your problem. I have seen proud preachers change. One time I was giving a class in London, and after the class I was asking questions, and after answering 2 or 3 questions one girl asked me: “Why do you make fun of the people with your answers? That is not very nice.” So I was thinking about it, and from that time on when I give an answer, I always think of that girl, that you must be careful when you answer a question. Do not make the person who asks the question feel bad. So we should always learn. But Krishna katha, that is not yours, it is Lord Krishna’s. And if you speak, it is good for you and it is also good for others. Even if you do not get the result immediately, after some time it will come and you will also learn more and more. Never give up.
Sometimes people are little bit fanatic also. They do not speak so much from their realized platform, and sometimes they speak in a sectarian way, like: “I am better than you because I believe in this, because I belong to this. Then instead of kindness and compassion, they transmit some arrogance. Of course that is not very practical, so we learn from the great preachers how to preach. Krishna has given us a little brain so we can use it.
When I preach, I actually feel grateful to the persons who listen to me, and I also tell this, ‘thank you for letting me talk’, and if I say anything which makes you unhappy, please forgive me, it is not meant to be that way. Sometimes I say: ‘You are not your body’, and there is a woman who just spent 10000 USD on plastic surgery, and two hours to decorate her body… and when I say ‘you are not this body’, she gets offended. “How can you say that, look how my body is beautiful.”
Some devotees say that the body is just a bag full of blood bones, skin... people are shocked by that. Some other devotees say: ‘this body is so wonderful, it is a tool to serve Krishna, but if we do not serve Him, then we waste our human life’. There are different ways to say one thing, so we should try to speak in such a way that people can understand us. Even the Bhagavatam is very heavy, and sometimes very soft, so the guru is also sometimes soft like a rose, and sometimes like a thunder, so we have to depend on our inner guide.
Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur said: “The success can be measured by how many people chant Hare Krishna or how many people do some substantial service after hearing our talk”, so if anybody runs away after I talk, then I should learn something.
In kali yuga it has always been difficult to combine spiritual and material activities. Lord Krishna is teaching us many lessons. Like the hurricane Katrina, he smashed into New Orleans. Now for some reason that has been called the city of sin, where all rules and regulations of morality are broken continuously. But of course you can say that in many other cities the same thing goes on and maybe many innocent people have been killed, but in this world nobody is innocent. The people in this world are so blind and they do not want to accept it, that mother nature becomes upset by the way we deal with animals. And their reactions from the whole humanity to come, the Tsunami, hurricane, these are tiny little reminders. If Krishna for some reason doesn’t give food for somebody, it is not because Krishna has no food, but he wants the person to feel some scarcity.
So the catastrophic things in kali yuga, they should wake us up, bbut if you look at the press, and welfare organisations, they never speak about God, about moral upliftment; they just speak about blankets, tents... ok, lets get them some cookies out there, and things like that. And Srila Prabhupada said that this is also illusion, otherwise we would all have to go to Pakistan right now to help. But there is another emergency, which is that people have to be reminded about God and their duties to God, they have to be reminded. I am not against anybody in particular, I want to make everybody happy, they should become vegetarians, or even better, chant the holy names, or even better become preachers.
Question: Dandavats pranams, what is the more important to do in kartik, Gurudeva?
Answer: The most important thing to do in Kartik is to chant the holy names and not neglect your devotional service, but rather to intensify it.
Always your well-wisher,
B.A. Paramadvaiti Swami
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