07 April 2012

KKSblog.com - Moments of inspiration part 3

KKSblog.com - Moments of inspiration part 3

Moments of inspiration part 3

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 07:09 AM PDT

(H H Kadamba Kanana Swami, 27th March 2012, Cape Town, South Africa) Lecture: B.G. 2.17

Of course, there are some days where you wished that you had never gotten up, and it leads from one thing to the next. Yesterday I was breaking everything. I broke everything that I had touched. I put my towel on the rack in the bathroom and the whole thing came down! It was just my towel that went on there and it all came down.

The baby door that was on the staircase had just disintegrated, when I picked it up. I guess I'm not a baby anymore! So yes, things break in the material world. What can we do? There's no end to it. So my point being is that when we come to hearing about Krishna then we can just deal with Krishna directly. This is spiritual and there is no anxiety since Krishna is present! But we still have some anxiety because we are bringing in the mind, and the mind is restless.

The mind is divided, where part of us is completely in the spiritual world, and the other part of us is somewhere out there on a journey. For instance my dentist has a video screen on the ceiling, and he is showing videos of Prabhupada. So he is seeing videos of Prabhupada and at the same time drilling into the nerves:

'Where are you?'

'Yes, a little bit in Vaikuntha and a lot in hell.'

But ultimately I'm in hell, and even the video of Vaikuntha is not going to work. That was an interesting experience. So the mind (even while hearing and chanting) may interfere, but still dealing with Krishna directly is actually a relief, and that's the one thing. So just chant without complications and listen or sing to some kirtans!

So somehow or other we have to be absorbed in devotional service and give enough time for direct hearing and chanting! If we only deal with the material energy for Krishna, then in the beginning we would say:

'This is so nice is this devotional service.'

But afterwards, we may feel that it's like a burden:

'Oh, I have to do all these things every time. It's just too much!'

But when we are hearing and chanting then we get fresh inspiration to do it again! So this is really the essence, because everyone experiences this, since sometimes the service is not exactly full of nectar, but there are times when it is. Not that hearing and chanting may not be austere also, but that is what fills us directly – hearing and reiterating it again will give us new motivations in devotional service!


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Moments of inspiration part 2

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 07:00 AM PDT


(H H Kadamba Kanana Swami, 27th March 2012, Cape Town, South Africa) Lecture: B.G. 2.17

Sometimes I make the point that before losing material desires one must lose faith in them. It maybe there but just lose faith in them. Faith in the sense of:

'These things will make me happy. Now if I buy the biggest of the biggest and the best of the best then I will not be happy! I know that I'll just be poor! I will still not be happy because this is the situation.'

So a vaisnava doesn't have faith that the material things will bring real happiness. That doesn't mean that we want to live in horrible conditions. We can see that some people live below the poverty line and whatever it maybe that is not fun. At night when the rats eat your toes, then you may think it's a joke that but I have actually been to the places where the rats were nibbling on toes in the Calcutta temple.

You could either sleep in the temple room, where there were cockroaches. Not one or two of them but thousands of them, or maybe hundred of thousands. If you slept there then throughout the whole night you felt something, and so it is not peaceful trying to sleep there. But then I would try the veranda but that is the main highway for the rats who would go all the way to the kitchen. At times they would have little snack on the way, and nibble some toes, and somehow or other rats liked to nibbled your calves and your toes! One night a devotee woke up screaming when he found that a rat was sitting on his chest…

But we are not talking about the suffering in the material world. We are not looking for suffering either, but the idea that we are going to make the material world a perfect place is an illusion! All the materialists have that fault:

'So far I have only had bad luck, but actually I think I’ve got it figure out. It took me forty years, but I've just seen the light and I know how to do it now.'

Of course when it works for a little while. Just see because maya helps:

'Yes, yes!'

Now you know how it works. Just see how it works:

'Yes oh, it works. It was confirmed. I have it figured out, yes!'

It is said:

'Krishna-bahirmukha hana bhoga vancha kare
nikata-stha maya tare japatiya dhare,' (Jagadananda Pandita, Prema-vivarta).

Jagadananda Pandita’s verse which says that if one has some flirtations with the material energy (not serious but just a little bit) such as:

'I'll be careful. I will not go too far. I'll stretch the limits a little. We can be fanatics sometimes, but we can be human also. But I will be very careful and I won't fall down.'

Maya is nearby and she will slap us down! Just as you get to the edge she will push you over! And that is what Jagadananda Pandita is saying which is an interesting point. . But if one is full of service to Krishna, then nothing can interfere!

That is why Srila Prabhupada was emphasising about devotional service. Somehow or other we must always be engaged in devotional service, all of the time. Hearing and chanting is the basis. In hearing and chanting we are directly meeting with Krishna! We can do so much devotional service by pushing around the material energy for Krishna. That we can do:

'Battling it out and trying to get this done for Krishna. So much anxiety for doing all these things for Krishna.'

But then, it is just Krishna directly, which is just a relief. Stopping with the material energy for Krishna can be very stressful. Organising the Ratha Yatra, and collecting all the money. Arranging all the things and getting the permits and so on. Everything is great, there is no rain, but you didn't calculate the wind, and the canopy almost blows off, which is an endless anxiety. So therefore dealing indirectly with the material energy in the service for Krishna is not always easy, that we all know!


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Moments of inspiration part 1

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 06:40 AM PDT

(H H Kadamba Kanana Swami, 27th March 2012, Cape Town, South Africa) Lecture: B.G. 2.17

Sanatana Goswami was simply always glorifying Krishna, hearing about Krishna and remembering Krishna. His last book just overflowed with Krishna Katha! For him it wasn't that he was thinking:

'What am I going to say now? I have to go and preach here today. What topic shall I speak about?'

Maybe sometimes, he felt like that but there is no need to prepare and write out a lecture before and read it out aloud. It was just overflowing automatically, because his was filled with thoughts of Krishna. Filled with attachments to Krishna, and he was automatically aspiring about Krishna.

In contrast to this ocean of fullness we have puddles that form over the road in the rain, and then the next day there is a little bit of a puddle left over, then they are gone. So the puddles of Krishna Consciousness due to some rain are again evaporating in the sun and disappearing. How to deal with these puddles of Krishna Consciousness? This is mostly what we have – moments of inspiration is when they come and then they are gone again. Like that, it is a matter of more chanting and more hearing, but the problem is that we chant too short. The kirtans are too short and so is the katha, since it is not often enough! If we were more absorbed in hearing and chanting then we would fill up more.

Basically you never fill the tank. In South Africa, there are a lot of people who say:

'Put ten rand worth of fuel in the tank.'

Why don't these guys just fill it up, instead of putting ten rand worth of fuel in the tank? They just need to fill it up. In Germany they use one euro worth of fuel for the tank. Can you fill a tank with fuel with just one euro? It's unthinkable but in South Africa to fill a tank with ten rand worth of fuel is also very low, and of course every time it is on the verge of being empty, because they are just not filling the tank!

So we must fill it completely, fill it to the brim, and then shake the car. Krishna, Krishna, Krishna – mercy, mercy everywhere, and it will never run out of fuel, never! That is important because the material energy is there and it will not go away. The material energy will again and again produce some illusory attraction, but we know that it's false. Vaisnavas have transcendental knowledge and with this knowledge we can cut through this illusion and see that it is actually not real!


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