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Turkish Books to Abroad
Nrsimha Krsna das: This is Nrsimha Krsna das from Istanbul, Turkey. I am a disciple of Srila Sivarama Maharaja. We have a small but happy :) yatra here connected to New Vraja Dhama in Hungary. We are having regular namahatta programmes weekly, that we generally organize in the houses of the devotees.
Besides my engagements in my professional life I am also serving as the leader of the Turkish translation team and we have been translating Srila Prabhupada’s books for a while.We have just printed 2 new books in Turkish language: Coming Back and The Laws of Nature.
In Turkey, unfortunately, we can not do sankirtan freely so we cannot distribute these most important books on the streets so we try to do other arrangements also. Now we are finalizing the agreement with a well known Turkish publisher to publish our books in a cooperation with them and thus Srila Prabhupada’s books will be seen on the shelves of many bookstores around the country. By that way, we plan to reach a vast amount of people in Turkey. We strongly beleive that it
will be the foundation of the developement of our preaching here, as Srila Prabhupada said: “books are the basis”.
Also, we would like that these Turkish books could get to the Turks living abroad. You may know that there are many Turkish people living especially in European countries such as Germany, Holland, Belgium, England, Denmark etc. There is a big Turkish community living in USA and Australia, too. I know that there are many Turkish speaking devotees living abroad as well, I also met 4 of them in Germany.
Dear devotees, I would like to ask your kind help. If you know any Turkish speaking devotees please send me their name and e-mail adress, you can also forward this letter to them. We would like to let them now about our new Turkish publications and try to cooperate them in this preaching Project which is bringing Turkish people to Krishna Conciousness by distributing Turkish books to their circle of friends and acquaintances.
Thank you very much for your kind attention!
Please give your mercy that Srila Prabhupada’s family will continue developing nicely in the future also in our homeland!
You may also listen to the following podcast which is a discussion connected to the above subject:
http://www.sivaramaswami.com/en/2010/09/07/success-in-preaching-can-be-measured-by-how-many-books-we-print-and-distribute/?tagcloud=1
Your humble servant,
Nrsimha Krsna das
http://vedaplatform.blogspot.com/
Nrsimha Krsna das: This is Nrsimha Krsna das from Istanbul, Turkey. I am a disciple of Srila Sivarama Maharaja. We have a small but happy :) yatra here connected to New Vraja Dhama in Hungary. We are having regular namahatta programmes weekly, that we generally organize in the houses of the devotees
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Perfection of Life Through Tongue
Vrndavanlila dd: Food…yum yum. The very thought of delicious food activates our salivary glands.
The demands of the body can be categorized as that of the tongue, of mind, of belly and of the genitals. The entire theatrical of getting trapped in the cycles of lifetimes and suffering evolves from these four demands. When observed, all four of them are situated in one straight line. Srila Prabhupada therefore founded the whole movement on four regulative principles, which take care of all the four demands and four pillars of religion:
No meat eating, fish or eggs
No gambling or speculation
No illicit sex
No intoxication
Everything begins with the demands of the tongue, if one restrains the tongue, other urges can be easily controlled.
jihvara lalase yei iti-uti dhaya
sisnodara-parayana krsna nahi paya (cf. CC, Antya, 6.227)
[That person who runs here and there seeking to gratify his palate and who is always attached to the desires of his stomach and genitals is unable to attain Krsna.] Lord Caitanya further emphasized it when he said, “Bhale na khaibe ara bhala na paribe” [Do not dress luxuriously and do not eat delicious foodstuffs]. So much to sacrifice, and yet it is not sufficient, one has to purify the tongue further by chanting the holy names of Krsna constantly! But what we are doing, Srila Prabhupada’s Krishna consciousness movement is almost always identified as a “kitchen religion”? Thankfully, we need not feel guilt-ridden. Other forms of yoga build on artificial repression of senses, but in bhakti yoga there is lot of scope for indulgent activities on the condition that they are all directed towards Him. The Lord is so merciful that he gave us a way out, whereby we can satisfy our tongue and at the same time make spiritual progress- yukta vairagya! Whatever we eat, we first offer to the Lord. A devotee pledges to take only prasadam- Lord’s mercy. We prepare opulently for the Lord, offer Him and then enjoy His prasadam later. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura says:
sarira avidya jala, jadendriya tahe kala,
jive phele visaya-sagare
ta’ra madhye jihva ati, lobhamaya sudurmati,
ta’ke jeta kathina samsare
krsna bada dayamaya, karibare jihva jaya,
sva-prasada-anna dila bhai
sei annamrta khao, radha-krsna-guna gao,preme daka caitanya-nitai
“O Lord! This material body is a lump of ignorance, and the senses are a network of paths leading to death. Somehow or other we have fallen into the ocean of material sense enjoyment, and of all the senses the tongue is the most voracious and uncontrollable. It is very difficult to conquer the tongue in this world, but You, dear Krsna, are very kind to us. You have sent this nice prasada to help us conquer the tongue; therefore let us take this prasada to our full satisfaction and glorify Your Lordships Sri Sri Radha and Krsna and in love call for the help of Lord Caitanya and Prabhu Nityananda.”
The Lord can convert matter into spirit with His immense transcendental energy. The iron rod is a simple matter, but when placed in the fire becomes red hot and acts just like fire. Similarly, food prepared for the Lord and offered to the Lord with devotion becomes spiritualized in His transcendental contact. This spiritualized food is Krsna prasadam – “mercy of the Lord”. Lord Caitanya says, “Everyone has tasted these foods before. However, now that they have been prepared for Krishna and offered to Him with devotion, these foods have acquired extraordinary tastes and uncommon fragrances…Therefore one should know that the spiritual nectar of Krsna’s lips must have touched these ordinary foods and imparted to them all Their transcendental qualities.”
So, when we observe the first regulative itself- “no meat eating…”- we are not advocating of vegetarianism but even further. There are many animals like monkeys, pigeons or deers which are vegetarian, but perfection lies in sticking to the vow of taking ONLY prasadam – food that is offered to the Lord. If one does not offer food to Him, he is veritably taking only sin and will suffer the reactions of his karma. We therefore need to be very careful with ‘tongue’. While we ‘indulge’ tongue a little in the strict scope of accepting only prasadam, at the same time we also need to exercise restraint by observing fastings on ekadasis and other special occasions to remind ourselves:
sarira avidya jala, jadendriya tahe kala/ jive phele visaya-sagare/
ta’ra madhye jihva ati, lobhamayaa sudurmati,/ ta’ke jeta kathina samsare.
Everything is for the pleasure of the Lord, the primeval original person, the cause of all causes, the supreme personality of Godhead. Can we offer Him, who is worshipped by everybody in the universe anything substandard? It has to be first class, prepared using pure first class stuff with a pure mind. But are we able to do this?
We have taken a vow of accepting prasadam and following the four regulative principles at the time of initiation, are we doing this? May be unwittingly, but we are still eating only sin especially if we are in the city where everything from toothpaste, cooking oil, medicines, soaps to cosmetics (lipsticks too) is adulterated with abominable cow-fat and derived products! Can the Lord, who is also known as Gopala or Govinda and who resides in Goloka-Vrndavan accept this offering? Can the Lord who is Himself served by thousands of laxmis (goddesses of fortune) and is still always engaged in serving the cows “laksavrtesu surabhir abhipalayantam/laksmi-sahasra-sata-sambhrama-sevyamanam” accept the food that is contaminated?
If we cannot offer Him what He wants or accepts, what about our spiritual progress? Are we ready to renege from our four vows and commit a spiritual suicide? Many may justify by indifferently putting the blame on the age - the blackest of all the four ages- ‘kaliyuga’. But what exactly has changed in this kaliyuga? Has the sun begun rising from the west? Does the wind no longer blow? Does the sea have no waves? Has the sun lost its heat? Do the women no longer give birth to children? Has the day become black? If all these natural phenomenon are unchanged, then what has changed? Basically it is only we who have changed. We have slackened spiritually. The age that began with the wounding of cow or bull’s three legs has made us accept violence towards our mother cow to an extent that we are also offering it to the Lord- Gopala!
However, there is no reason to be despondent when we have a solution. We can grow our own grains, even in the city we can start growing a few vegetables and related stuff. Even if there is insufficient place, we can try doing it in pots. There are many sources from where we can derive good information on home gardening, rooftop gardening, getting good yield even from one square yard place. Even if we have none of these, we can support those who are doing it already and start making plans for starting a daiva varnasrama farm community later. We need to have the sincerity and commitment. Small portion of land, cow, and Krishna- and we have successfully moved out of the dark age towards serving Him!
We will no longer take out old contaminated vegetables from the fridge to offer, but it will be rich with its natural taste and fresh from the farm. When you offer Him that, it will also contain the story of your love-effort while tilling the land, cows’ contribution in supplying manure, protection from the pests, in ploughing…everything. Isn’t the thought itself so beautiful?
Westerners calling Indian agricultural system primitive labeled it as a gamble of monsoons. When we realize our dependency on elements like monsoon, it brings us closer to the Lord. As we till and sow the land, waiting for the rain, the very situation makes us dependent upon and surrendered to the Supreme Lord. It is this dependency which is the perfection of life. This is not gamble of monsoons, but proximity to the Supreme soul. Our artificial hollow material comforts in city have only taken us away from Him, the axis is missing- “Things fall apart, The center cannot hold” (famous lines from WB Yeats’ poem). It is not too late to return to our roots. Let us vow to nourish ourselves spiritually by offering Him what He likes. Let us take the first step by making this promise, His mercy will follow. We always have His representative around us to guide us - evam parampara praptum – earlier it was Srila Prabhupada and now his disciples like HH Bhakti Raghava Swami who are showing us the way of implementing daiva varnasrama and perfect our lives. Hare Krishna!
Contact the author: vrindavanlila.brs@gmail.com
Editor: THE EIGHT PETALS (A monthly e-newsletter in support of Daiva Varnasrama dharma)
Vrndavanlila dd: Food…yum yum. The very thought of delicious food activates our salivary glands. The demands of the body can be categorized as that of the tongue, of mind, of belly and of the genitals. The entire theatrical of getting trapped in the cycles of lifetimes and suffering evolves from these four demands
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