Seconds from disaster

Couple days ago on the way to work we were about 6 cars back from where this one car on our side of the freeway sped across to other side where another car was speeding down, they crashed into each other causing another car to spin across to our side of the road causing several cars to bump into each other in which we were just missed because my brother swerved to the side of the road.

This was the first time I had witness an accident to this extent. It left us with our hearts thumping at the horrific sight. If we had been couple of seconds earlier that morning it could have been our own fate that we had witnessed. This thought brought me very quickly to reality. Am I ready for death? Ready to leave this body? The answer is obviously, sadly no. Although we both said Krishna couple of times during the accident all I was thinking about was “I don’t want to die!”

As a Hare Krishna devotee the whole point of devotional practice is so that at the time of death your only attachment will be Krishna and you are confident that the Lord will care for you.

The time to start working on your final exam is now, because you never know when your finals will come – so look sharp, Sitala, and use every moment to come closer to Krishna.

Devine personalities

HH Bhakti Caitanya Maharaja visited us again before flying of to Russia. Fortunately Maharaja’s visit fell on the auspicious day of Srila Bhakti Vinode Thakur and the Supreme Personality Sri Gadadhara Pandit’s disappearance day.

On the one day Maharaja spoke about Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur. Actually the Thakur use to worship the deity Gaura-Gadhadara so he chose to leave on the same auspicious day as that personality. We are truly indebted to Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur for unlimited reasons. The obvious one is Mayapur Dham. It was Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur who excavated the different important holy places and established them so that future devotees (us) could come and absorb its spiritual potency. Actually there was some controversy over the actual birth place of Lord Caitanya and Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur revolved this for us.

Another important development Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur made was that he was the first to reach the broader globe in terms of spreading literature to many universities in England. Maharaja told us that Srila Prabhupada’s disciples went to these universities and found the books and also (lowered voice) sold them! :o) but we’ve reprinted these books so that is ok :o)

On the next day Maharaja spoke about Sri Gadadar Prandit. Gadadar Pandit is a form of Srimati Radharani. Srimati Radhika has 2 natures to Her personality – the one is very fiery and the other is soft and abiding. Gadadhar Pandit takes on this soft, abiding nature. Actually He is very sweet and extremely merciful. There was one devotee who constantly wanted to be in the close knit association of Lord Caitanya and always felt that those devotees who were and indeed Lord Caitanya Himself didn’t realise his true value. So he thought he would say something truly remarkable that will make all the devotees think he was very wonderful. So he said something really ridiculous (that I can’t remember) and all the devotees they used to find his association a bit “heavy weather” and now well it was little worse. So then he thought “oh no, I haven’t achieved my goal.” And then he thought about it and the different devotees and decided that Gadadhar Prandit is very, very nice, He will not ignore him. So he started sort of following Gadadhar Pandit around. And Gadadhar Pandit thought, oh no , why does he have to be with me all the time. But then He actually took this devotee under His wing and eventually gave him initiation that finally got him accepted in the close knit association of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.

Jai Gaura Gadadhar bol, haribol, haribol!

I hate winter

Winter means wearing a ton of clothes.
Winter means attachment to your bed.
Winter means sneezes and coughs.
Winter means grey mornings, dry days and cold nights.
Winter means heaters.
Winter means dry, itchy skin.
Winter means …

This weekend my spiritual master, His Holiness Partha Sarathi das Goswami Maharaja, stayed at my sister’s place. This meant an opportunity for me and my other siblings to perform some personal service to Gurumaharaja. But as luck would have it I came down with the flu and so I now have a personal grudge against winter.

I still got to serve but my service lacked enthusiasm and I missed out on one of the programs. I am so lucky to have these opportunities, if I don’t take proper advantage of it that would be a great misfortune and offence.

mukam karoti vachalam
pangum langhayate girim
yat-kripa tam aham vande
shri-gurum dina-taranam

"I offer my respectful obeisances unto my spiritual master, the deliverer of the fallen souls. His mercy turns the dumb into eloquent speakers and enables the lame to cross mountains."

I experience a fraction of this verse. How can a mellecha such as I be able to serve in this divine movement even up to the stage of intimate deity service. I can not be called a brahmana, I can even be called a civilised human being yet with the mercy of guru I am here.

I pray to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Krishna, the original cause of all that be that He may spare some divine energy for me to be able to become in tune with Gurudev. To become one with Maharaja’s mood. Asking for this is practically impossible but: “His mercy turns the dumb into eloquent speakers and enables the lame to cross mountains”

All glories to Srila Gurudev!

Man, what a weekend!

Saturday was nirjal ekadasi – that means no water or food for the entire day. Impossible? Not at all – with Krishna’s mercy it turned out to be a very cool day. In Srimad Bhagvatam class Gaura Shakti Prabhu made a good point. First the devotee rises early in the morning each day and tries to remember Krishna at that time and then every second week on ekadasi the devotee tries to remember Krishna for the that whole day, then in the month of Kartik the devotee tries to remember Krishna for that whole month and then during the months of Caturmas the devotee tries to remember Krishna for that whole time – like this we learn to remember Krishna all the time!

Anyway I didn’t have much time to focus on reading and extra chanting - we were to busy serving. With the BTG marathon a week away and the first ever Randburg Ratha Yatra a day away we had lots of blissful service to do.

On Monday evening news I heard the President gave a talk urging the youth of South Africa to once again come forward and lead the nation (as was done in the past). It was youth day (more importantly a public holiday! ;o) ) when I heard that I thought, “Man, you should have been at today's Ratha Yatra festival!" The whole festival was planned and carried out by the Krishna Balarama youth group of Randburg. I offer my dandavats at these youths lotus feet for offering Srila Prabhupada such wonderful service. The festival was incredible! I assisted at the book table and that was enough testaments to the success of attracting new people to Krishna consciousness. The books were flying of the table with no effort from us. Amazing!

Recently I had this realisation. I am most happy serving Krishna and so actually service is enough there is no need to desire anything extra like recognition for what you are doing – just to serve is enough. It really is truly, blissfully blissful! Isn’t that what we want? Bliss? Service at the lotus feet of the spiritual leaders and Gaura Nitai is bliss. What more do you want?

Unity of Spirit!

Bhakti Nrsinga Maharaja at Rosebank Namahatta held at my sister Kandarpa Manjari’s place, check it out:

Ideology

There was a cartoon in the newspaper where our president, Thabo Mbeki is standing next to a monster with the text “Who created this monster?” The implication being that the president has created this difficult monstrous times that we living in.

There are so many ideologies out there some or most of them take us further away from God in subtle way. For example even when Srila Prabhupada was young and he met Srila Bhaktisiddanta Maharaja for the first time, Maharaja asked Srila Prabhupada to preach but Srila Prabhupada said that first we need to become free of British rule. So that was the ideology that was put forth.

And now with the Xenophobia attacks (that our president has been blamed for) there is an ideology that this is South African land and this is all deviating from the real purpose of life. Srila Bhaktisiddanta Maharaja told Srila Prabhupada that politicians may change but politics will remain. Krishna consciousness can not wait.

So KC goes beyond black and white; my land and your land. KC is the “unity of spirit” the more we are not on the bodily platform the more united we can become.

Maharaja also spoke about passion. The word ‘passion’ comes from Latin and from the time of Christ. It means suffering (interesting) that is why there have that movie “Passion of Christ” it is actually the suffering of Christ. People are passionately moving around doing so many things but it is only a source of suffering. The opposite of passion or of suffering is to have compassion. The world is suffering due to the lack of this compassion.

Ain’t nothing like the association of devotees

The temple arranged a hike in the Kloovendale nature reserve, a peaceful private setting just perfect of some good clean fun!

Click here to view the pics.

Blessed - 2x

HH Jayapataka Maharaja, made two of his usual speedy visits to Lenz in these past two weeks. On Maharaja’s first visit Maharaja showed slide shows of his one year of travelling. It was pretty cool seeing the different places (especially since I was in America when he was visiting New Vrindavan and New York Ratha Yatra so I could say, “Hey! I was there” :o) )

Then yesterday Maharaja gave an awesome class form the 11th chapter of Bhagavat Gita where Krishna says “Time I am the destroyer of the world...” Maharaja was saying that when he was in South America he was visiting this one cathedral and there was this huge picture of Gabriel, the arch angel, blowing on a horn and all these bodies from the graves were rising out and as they would rise, muscle and flesh would come back to the skeletons as in the graves they were just bones – I know … eeuu …

So this is describing the end of time, judgement day. These believers promote the theology that you live, die; wait for judgement day and at that time your body will once again rise. I never knew that so found this quite interesting. This is completely contradictory to vedic philosophy. Where the soul is the actual self and the body is temporary. The soul, once removed from material covering, can immediately enter the spiritual kingdom. Maharaja was quite funny when describing what would the best thing be for the body. The options are either being eaten by worms, ripped apart by vultures or burnt. Fire seems to be the best of the 3, This also removes attachment the soul might have for it.

Anyway the point is time destroys all things material.

Maharaja then described the glories to the 11th chapter of BG. When Parvati asked Lord Shiva about this chapter the following was described. (Maharaja is hilarious with the voices)

Once there was a chapter 11, Bhagavat Gita devotee. Every day he would read chapter 11 of BG. So as he was travelling he came to this one village where he wanted to stay in a guest house so he goes in and asks the guest house manager if he can have a room to stay in. so the guest house manager laughs all funny but says yes. As he shows him to his room he bids him goodnight and again laughs as if something is very funny. But the devotee just ignores it. Anyway he read chapter 11 of BG and goes to sleep. The next morning he finds that the entire guest house is empty he goes outside and sees the manager who is very shocked to see him and says “you here!” and the devotee is like “yes, I booked in here last night. Remember?” and then a Brahmin comes running along saying “My son! My son!’ then looking at the devotee, says”Only you can save him!” and the devotee says hold on and tell me what’s going on. The Brahmin explains that there is a man eating rakshas and that he use to come everyday to the village eating people so then the village told him he can’t do that so then he said he is cursed to be like this so he has to eat. So they made the arrangement that anyone who stays at the guest house will become the food for the rakshas, the only reason the devotee got saved was because he chants the 11th chapter of BG everyday. The bramin’s son was somehow in the house when the rakshas came so he was taken also.

So they go to the rakshas and plead for the son. The rakshas says the only way is to throw water that has had the 11th chapter of the BG chanted of it on to him. So the devotee did this and the rakshas gets liberated and the son because he was inside the rakshas. The Brahmin is very happy to see his son and then the visnuduttas came to take the rakshas and the Brahmin’s son back to godhead and the Brahmin is shock that his son is going and tells him to stay. Maharaja was really funny when he was pretending to be the father asking his son to return to his mother, to his daily chores, to all the entanglements that we have.

Anyway Maharaja said that this is a good lesson to remember if we are ever in the vicinity of man eating rakshas ;o)

How the rakshas came to be a rakshas is also a long story basically he was a farmer farming his land with his bullock carts when he heard someone screaming for help. Being so submerged in tama guna he thought let me just finish this little piece of land before I go see what is happening. Because of his lack of compassion he became a rakshas. The person who was screaming for help was a crippled person who was being attacked by vultures. Maharaja said that whoever dies in saving another devotee that person will go back to godhead.

HH Jayapataka Maharaja ki jai!

Truly blessed to get Maharaja’s association twice!

Xenophobia

As if South Africa doesn’t have enough violence…

Since last week or so they have been xenophobia attacks in Johannesburg. Xenophobia is racial intolerance or a dislike of foreigners. These sudden attacks were apparently brought about by the housing allocations where houses were being allocated to foreigners. Some South Africans thought that this was not right as the government should first look after their own people before accommodating foreigners (from other parts of Africa.) The attacks are so violent – on the news they had footage of a mattress being burnt and as the camera closes in you will see that there is a person on the mattress!

Kali Yuga – now is the time to get out.

I remember reading somewhere, at that time, Kirtananda Maharaja was telling Prabhupada how the government didn’t want foreigners (I think in this case it was Indians from India) coming to stay on the New Vrindavan farm. Srila Prabhupada said that was all nonsense, everything belongs to Krishna.

All of these attacks are a political stunt; these foreigners have been here several years, why are these attacks only happening now?

Loyalty to Prabhupada

Last Sunday we had a special sanyasi giving class. It was HH Bhakti Nrsinga Swami. Why is he special? ... Well for one thing I got to see Maharaja receive sanyasa at the Durban Ratha Yatra this year making him the first sanyasi from South Africa - Haribol! Despite maharaja being from South Africa I never really heard Maharaja speak before and, man, was I blown away!!

Because we have Gaura Nitai deities Maharaja gave class from the CC, the beginning where it describes how Lord Caitanya appeared like the sun rising from the ocean.

Maharaja read the purport from Ādi 1.102 where it is described that “and it is predicted that as the sun and moon gradually move west, the movement They began five hundred years ago will come to the Western civilizations by Their mercy.” And the person that was chosen to do this great service was HDG Srila Prabhupada! Actually Srila Bhaktisiddanta Maharaja was giving the same instruction to all his disciples and when Srila Prabhupada came along Bhaktisiddanta Maharaja gave the same instruction, “Preach to English speaking world” it was Srila Prabhupada who had the mercy and the compassion in his heart to fulfil this desire of Bhaktisiddanta Maharaja.

Nowadays there is a feeling among some devotees that Srila Prabhupada didn’t give us everything that perhaps we need to get more information from other places. But actually the special nature of Srila Prabhupada’s books is that each time you read it, if you reading carefully, newer and newer levels are reached each time creating more and more realisations. It’s amazing! Maharaja said that his been on 3 Nectar of Devotion courses and each time he felt like wow!

Maharaja was describing that he went to the Ratha Yatra in Newcastle where one devotee mother, standing with her 10 month old baby, was explaining that children at this age are very sensitive that they can not see clearly but they can smell, so they maybe passed from one lady to another but they are not happy until they come back again to their mother. They recognise there mother by the smell. So Srila Prabhupada is like our mother giving us milk since the time of birth.

Maharaja also spoke on the Caitanya tree, ISKCON being one the main branches that is actually producing the most juiciest fruits.

During the question and answer session, one devotee asked: the main activities that Prabhupada wanted were preaching, book distribution and harinaam. What if a devotee feels that the temple is not doing enough of this and that (like how Prabhupada left the gaudiya math) they would like to branch of and create there own centre and just get on with the mission.

Maharaja’s answer was brilliant: wherever one goes there has to be authority. There are different GBCs and perhaps we may get along with the temple president in Lenasia then we can go to a place where we do get along with the authority. We can not, not get along with all authorities. Just like Maharaja travels to different places in each place Maharaja has to check with the local GBC. Then Maharaja said you can try doing something on own but it won’t last. Maybe for a few years but after a while it will just dry up. Others have tried .. In terms of the Caitanya tree you maybe one branch that is not so firmly attached and gradually after a while that branch will dry up.

Happy birthday, Sitala!

Yesterday was not a good day for me. Since Saturday I lost my bead bag! That is the bead bag with the beads I received at initiation, the same beads that my guru Maharaja had chanted on.

I felt it was a direct result of really bad chanting and that Krishna was telling to catch a wake up or loose more than what I have already. Fortunately, Krishna’s grace, I found it this morning as I was preparing to leave home for work, the one place I didn’t check struck me and there was my bead bag. shoo! close call…

Yesterday was also my birthday, not birthday into this material body but spiritual birth of formally receiving the holy name from my spiritual master. Yep, it’s been 5 years and as I sat at the initiation ceremony yesterday listening as the initiates got their new names I though about the sacrifice the spiritual master takes in accepting a disciple. Even if it takes several births to save a disciple the guru takes that risk.

My spiritual master is especially merciful, taking risks to save a fallen soul like me. Even at the time of initiation Maharaja knew I wasn’t hundred percent. But over the years since then maharaja has given me many opportunities to somehow gradually improve myself. I am forever grateful for that and I offer my deepest, most humble obeisance to Gurumaharaja, and I beg forgiveness for the multitudes of sin I commit daily at his lotus feet.

I beg the Lord to help me to overcome these offences and to help me become a good devotee.

All glories to Jagat Guru, Srila Prabhupada!
All glories to Srila Gurudev!

Hiranyakashipu’s school

I know 'The Apprentice' has been showing on TV for a long while now, but somehow I never ended up watching it until couple of weeks ago. Every time I watch it though I am filled with disbelief that grown people and so called upper class people could behave so churlishly and so childishly.

One of the weeks, while I was watching one episode, I had a flash in my mind of a scene from the Nrsingadev plays that are often shown. You know the part where Sananda and Amarka, the school teachers of Prahlad, are trying to instil some demonic qualities in to Prahlad. And on 'The Apprentice' Donald Trump was showing approval to one of the teams who did some real shifty stuff that had me quite horrified! At that point I suddenly thought this is just like Hiranyakashipu’s school!

This made me understand why we are warned against getting too close with materialistic people. Here, where I work, there are nice people. But I also get plenty of exposure to back-stabbers and the like. Of course you learn how to block those kind of people out so that they don’t get too close. But still their behaviour and the behaviour of the ‘nice' people can influence you on a subtle plain. To counteract that effect, I need to hear (nicely) plenty of holy names of the Lord and I need to associate on a deep level with devotees.

The holy names one I’ve got to work on. For the association I also need to work on but this Monday night I had a really nice time at book club. We discussed Krishna Book and it was just great! If some how we can do more things like this hopefully at the time of death, that is what will shine instead of all the materialistic things I am involved in.

Jai Sacinandan Gaura-Hari!

Salted Bread

Hare Krishna! When Srila Bhakti Caitanya Maharaja arrived in SA, Maharaja brought boxes of a book called Salted Bread. I would urge every devotee to read this amazing book!

I must offer my heartfelt obeisances at the dust of the lotus feet of the devotees from the former USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), to HG Sacisuta Prabhu and the author HG Sarvabhavana Prabhu. Even before meeting devotees these two personalities were so incredible. How they tried to keep places of God clean, how at a very young age they questioned religion and the purpose of life, how they became vegetarian and kept to it despite jeers and pressures.

From this book I think the most important lesson for me is to take advantage of every Krishna conscious moment because you never know when we may not have access to even a simple thing like a book!

The most heroic thing for me was how all these devotees maintained there sadhana of chanting 16 rounds every single day. Their beads were always taken away, they were beaten, they did not have sufficient food (salted bread for 2 years straight!), they were living in unclean places. Yet despite this, whatever they knew about Krishna they told others about it and at the same time kept up there own faith. How many opportunities they got to escape these horrible conditions but they would rather die then sign papers claiming that ISKCON was not a bona fide religion.

THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON, DON’T COMMIT VAISNAV APARADHA AND TRY YOUR UTMOST TO DEVELOP LOVING RELATIONSHIPS WITH DEVOTEES.

What is interesting from the political sense is that the thirst the former Soviet devotees had for spiritual knowledge was practically speaking a direct consequence of the communist culture forced upon them. The government forcefully rejected and discouraged religion which they though were based on sentiment only, thus the harassment of ISKCON devotees. Read Srila Prabhupada’s letter, http://society.krishna.org/Letters/2000/07/L00001.html, where it is described how serving or loving God is the natural proclivity of man. From that we can see how the suppression on the people of the USSR made the pure knowledge given by Srila Prabhupada all the sweeter to them.

Reading this book, particularly the hatred the KGB had for devotees reminded me of conflict between Germans and Jews. I remember hearing one class by Radhanatha Maharaja and Sacianandan Maharaja where one of them were describing how Radhanatha Maharaja is a from a very strict Jewish family and HH Sacinandan Maharaja is from Germany and his father was actually an officer or something like that in the German army. Materially speaking they should actually be great enemies but the fact is they are the greatest of friends.

I was also watching this movie of twin sisters born in Germany, when there parents died the 2 were separated at a very young age one going to Holland and the other remaining in Germany. They did not meet each other for a very long time, until they were much older. At that time the sister in Holland rejected her sister because her husband was an officer in the Nazi Army and the sister from Holland’s husband had been captured by Nazi soldiers. But actually all these young men were forced to act in these ways. The sister from Germany tried to show her sister how they were servants of their situations but the sister didn’t see this until the last days of her life.

Krishna consciousness crosses all boundaries and saves a lot of time and energy that is normally spent on being angry and hurt.

Srila Prabhupada Ki Jai!
Devotees of the former USSR Ki Jai!

Seekers of Truth

5 seekers

Average guy

Business women

Scientist

Gothic

Peace loving Rastafarian


“Seekers of Truth” was the play we did for the Pre Gaura Purnim Festival.

Where else would 5 complete different types of people be able to stand being in each others company? Only ISKCON!

Jai Srila Prabhupada!

Gaura Lila

Jaya Jaya Sri Caitanya Jaya Nityananda Jai Advaita Candra Jaya Gaura Bhakta Vrnda!

Over Monday and Tuesday Srila Bhakti Caitanya Maharaja lead us in the most inspiring and instructive seminar on Lessons from the Pastimes of Lord Caitanya.

Who is Lord Caitanya? He is Krishna who has come in the form of His own devotee. Interestingly all the incarnations of Krishna are in the mood of servant. If you ask Krishna, “What or who is the absolute?” Krishna will very simply say “Me” but if you ask the incarnations starting from Baladev, they will answer, “Krishna!”

What did I learn?

1)
Things happen to you all the time but how if affects you depends on your consciousness. For example, Madavendra Puri chastised Ramachandra Puri. Because Ramachandra Puri was envious he could not accept this chastisement and thought, “how can he speak to ME like that” this kind of attitude is not good and led to Ramachandra Puri continuing his offensive course. The chastisement of the spiritual master is his mercy and if we take it in a submissive, humble way it will be of great benefit to us.

Once Srila Prabhupada also got chastised by Srila Bhaktisiddanta Sarasvati Thakur when Srila Prabhupada was listening to a lecture of Bhaktisiddanta Sarasvati Thakur, he was sitting next to a gentleman who could not hear very well and who would keep asking Srila Prabhupada what Bhaktisiddanta Sarasvati Maharaja was saying. Finally Bhaktisiddanta Sarasvati Maharaja asked Srila Prabhupada if he would like to give the class! Whoa! But Srila Prabhupada never felt resentful for this rather, he told his disciples, he cherished that moment for the rest of his life.

2)
Searching for recognition and fame is like taking bath in the Urine of a donkey! Oh yeah, I think this lesson was especially for me as I heard just read the same thing on the same day that Maharaja spoke about it. Twice in one day – definitely a sign from Krishna. This is like Gopala Chakravati who had great envy for Haridas Thakur just because Haridas Thakur was born a Muslim and he, Gopala Chakravati, was a “great” brahmana. Like this he lost he nose from leprosy.

3)
The devotee is never offended by the blasphemy on ignorant persons and Krishna never forgets the blasphemy done to His devotee.

I hear so much of this but am still prone to so much blasphemy! Don’t be like the fly be like the bee. When you blasphemy you don’t feel good.

What about constructive criticism?

Maharaja said practically there hardly anything like constructive criticism. One can give advice but not to criticise and get on someone’s case. Actually only the spiritual master and the father are justified in getting on someone’s case.

4)
Gopala Chapala left the paraphernalia of Durga worship on the doorstep of Srivas Thakur. When Srivas Thakur saw this he said, “Now you know my actual position” he did not defend himself. Maharaja explained we have 4 propensities: eating sleeping, matiung and defending. Defending is the most subtle. We mustn’t be in this defensive spirit.

Nice hey!!

Jaya Jaya Sri Caitanya Jaya Nityananda Jai Advaita Candra Jaya Gaura Bhakta Vrnda!

What’s happening?

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted not because nothing has been happening but because too much has been happening! :o)

Last Tuesday was the Appearance day of Sri Nityananda Rama. We are fortunate to have Deities of Gaura Nitai at our temple and Lord Nityananda is especially sweet and merciful.

The theme for the festival (like that of my blog) was “more cooling than a million moons”. We had cut out “millions” of silver moons and hung them all over the temple. The effect with just the blue lights was brilliant! In addition Veemal had arranged these 2 HUGE banners of the lotus foot of Nitai on each. We made the symbols glitter by painting on tinsel.

Govardhan Prabhu gave an amazing class of the meeting of Lord Caitanya and Lord Nityananda described in the CC. It is mention at one point that Lord Caitanya felt that day to be the best day. It is so amazing that Lord Caitanya has a “best” day :o) Prabhu than went on to describe the misfortune that falls upon one who has attachment for Lord Caitanya but no attachment or affection for Nitai. Several personalities fell from there position due to this offence and several received unlimited mercy due to being loyal to Nityananda. One those personalities were Srila Krishnadas Kaviraj the writer of the CC who received the mercy to write about Lord Caitanya from Lord Nityananda.

I am a fool whose heart is as solid as rock, I have no affection for any of These amazing Lords yet I am here in ISKCON. I pray Nitai will be merciful to me and will melt my heart so that I may awaken love to His Lotus feet and compassion to myself and all those around me.

Jai Nitai!!

Make 2008 a year of spiritual adjustment

(this is the article i wrote for the temple newsletter)

Make 2008 a year of spiritual adjustment

For the first Sunday Love Feast program of 2008 we were fortunate to be in the midst of HH Bhakti Caitanya Maharaja. Maharaja gave an awe-inspiring class and the theme was “Make 2008 a year of spiritual adjustment.”
Maharaja gave us the key to quick spiritual advancement: devotional service in the association of loving devotees. If we do this consistently through out 2008 we will find our lives transformed!

Even before hearing this transcendental class devotees brought in the New Year doing the best devotional service: Kirtan. Singing to the sweet melodies of HH Maha Vishnu Maharaja’s accordion devotees gathered at the ISKCON Lenasia temple on New Year’s Eve night.

On New Year’s Day Maharaja again graced us with his association at a picnic at Emmerentia Dam. Devotees came bearing prasadam, cricket sets, games, etc. Maharaja in his natural mood of a preacher spoke to people passing by and encouraged devotees to do the same. The evening ended in sweet kirtan which included throwing grapes into each others mouths!

Last month the glories of the Deities were brought more in to focus as HH Bhakti Visrambar Madhava Maharaja gave a seminar on “Appreciating the Deities.” Despite the heavy rain showers many attended and Maharaja gave us tips on how to better appreciate and worship the Lord. Maharaja explained every service we do is so that we can chant better. Deity service is the same and as we worship the Deity it is important we sing Their glories as well. Maharaja gave us a short cut to perfection and that is the worship of Tulasi Devi. Tulasi Devi is amazing, if any offering is offered to Krishna with a Tulasi leaf, due to the great love Krishna has for Tulasi, He can not refuse it. Maharaja then went on to describe how we can include Tulasi in everything we offer.

Many of you may have noticed a beautiful little garden taking shape in the temple parking area. Mother Radha Kunda has been steadily working on it for the past month and half. If you would like to assist in cash or labour please feel free to contact Matajee at 083 283 7660.

Thank you to all who participated in the December Book Marathon.

To prepare for the year ahead a special Planning Meeting will be taking place on the 16th of February. Please come forward and be a part of it all.

Happy New Year!