PENSAMIENTO DEL DÍA: Él puede liberar al mundo entero Enviado desde el Ashram Bhativedanta, Austin, Texas, EE.UU.
El devoto más elevado es conocido como un uttama adhikari. Él tiene una fe firme en Krishna y es experto en lógica, argumentación y las escrituras reveladas. La potencia de Krishna está actuando tan poderosamente en él que puede liberar al mundo entero de la ilusión y llevar a todos a la conciencia de Krishna. Él es descrito en el siguiente verso:
śāstra-yuktye sunipuṇa, dṛḍha-śraddhā yāṅra 'uttama-adhikārī' se tāraye saṁsāra
"Alguien que es experto en la escritura Védica y tiene una fe firme en el Señor Supremo es unuttama-adhikārī, un vaisnava de primera clase, el más elevado Vaisnava que puede liberar al mundo entero y llevar a todos a la conciencia de Krishna". Caitanya-caritamrita Madhya 22.65
Fui bendecido con la misericordia más grande de ser aceptado como un discípulo de tal uttama-adhikari, Su Divina GraciaA.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Y ahora sobre su orden he absorbido totalmente mi vida en llevar adelante este movimiento de conciencia de Krishna por todo el mundo para la liberación de todas las entidades vivientes. Aun cuando él ha partido de este mundo, no es que él esté muerto y ausente. Él vive por siempre en mi corazón y en los corazones de todos aquellos que siguen sus instrucciones.
Soy nuevo en esta ciencia. No he leído otras escrituras Védicas excepto elBhagavad-gita tal como es. Por favor muéstreme que Krishna es la Suprema Personalidad de Dios en Sánscrito y en sus traducciones de los Vedas tanto como sea posible. Vivo en una cultura que solo acepta el Brahman como la forma de Dios. Usaré su respuesta como mi guía para iniciar mi vida espiritual en bhakti al Señor Krishna.
Gracias de antemano y le ruego que me bendiga de tal manera que llegue a estar fijo en este sendero.
Sinceramente,
Wijaya
Respuesta: Evidencia ilimitada
Hay evidencia ilimitada, expresada parcialmente en cientos y miles de versos Védicos, que prueban que Krishna es la Suprema Personalidad de Dios. Aquí hay unos cuantos de esos versos.
"Krishna quien es conocido como Govinda es el Dios Supremo. Él tiene un cuerpo espiritual bienaventurado. Él es el origen de todo. Él no tiene otro origen y Él es la causa principal de todas las causas".
El Atharva Veda dice
brahmanyo devakī-putrah
"Krishna el hijo de Devaki, es la Personalidad Suprema".
"Arjuna dijo: Tú eres la Suprema Personalidad de Dios, la morada suprema, lo más puro que existe, la Verdad Absoluta. Tú eres la persona original, trascendental y eterna, el innaciente, el más grande de todos. Todos los grandes sabios, tales como Narada, Asita, Devala y Vyasa, confirman esta verdad acerca de Ti, y ahora Tú mismo me lo estás expresando".
Entiendo que en tu círculo de asociados el Brahman es considerado la única forma de Dios. Pero dicha concepción ignora la evidencia de la sabiduría Védica. Por ejemplo en elBhagavad-gita el Señor Krishna declara que el Brahman emana de Él.
Eso indica claramente que Krishna es superior al Brahman, que es una de Sus energías subordinadas.
Tienes mis mejores deseos para alcanzar la más elevada perfección espiritual del amor puro por Dios. Por favor acéptame como tu humilde sirviente para ayudarte de cualquier manera para alcanzar el objetivo supremo.
(durante la celebración de Nrisimha Chaturdasi) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ VISITE LA SECCIÓN:Curso de la Máxima Autorrealización -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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It was good. I chanted all 16 rounds in a row and kept my attention on the silent mantras without wandering to other thoughts. It is an easy process when you get the cooperation of your mind. There's nothing to do but adoringly hear the repeated names of Hare, Krishna and Rama. It is mantra meditation and the most recommended form of God realization for this age.
If we do not do our best to bring Krishna Consciousness to other beings, we are acting violently toward them. If we do not act to relieve suffering in others, we are doing them an injustice. Krishna Consciousness means the real end of all suffering, so everyone has the right to Krishna Consciousness.
>>> Ref. VedaBase => Notes transcribed from a lecture given September 8, 1966
some time ago i announced that finally KDE4 appeared too 'fancy' and i wanted to swith to GNOME. soon i noticed that in my opinion KDE apps are really superior to GNOME ones. my next decision was to run GNOME with KDE apps. that works for some of them, not for others.
obviously apps. run best in the environment they are made for.
so after some struggling with little success i'm back to running KDE.
actually, what was i trying to say: don't put so much emphasis on the external. well, that works two ways: don't worry so much about presentation, but if there's a little too much design in the UI, i shouldn't take that too serious, either.
As you can probably see if you're reading this the blog has gone through some big changes over the weekend. I've changed the name, although I couldn't change the URL without starting a whole new blog, which I may do at some point. I started the blog a number of years ago, kind of on a whim, and a lot has changed since then, if I could start over I wouldn't have my name as the website address but at least I wanted to change the tittle.
The tittle The Pilgrim's Progress is the short form of the title of an allegorical Christian work written by Paul Bunyan. It is actually kind of a cool little allegorical story about the spiritual journey as understood from the traditional Christian perspective. If your interested check out the wikipedia entry here.
Srila Prabhupada also uses the term in the third canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam to describe Vidura's pilgrimage to different holy places, that is where I originally came across the phrase and looked it up as I was curious to see what it was a reference to.
Some of the pages are still under construction and I may add a few more as well.
I hope you like the new look and feel. Please let me know if have any suggestions.
"The Swan Boat Festivals are pure elegance," says Bhakta Gerald Yule from Elm Gove, WV. This year, Bhakta Gerald has the unique privilege of navigating the Swan Boat across New Vrindaban's Swan Lake every Saturday night, from Mother's Day weekend to Labor Day weekend. "The Swan Boat is one-of-a-kind. For a few years, the devotees used to enter the Swan Boat in parades and festivals in Wheeling, Charleston, Pittsburgh, and other places. The Swan Boat always won a prize."
The 15-foot, 3,000 pound Swan Boat was created in 1987 by local artist Soma dasa of New Vrindaban. Swans are a common feature in Vedic art, which is based on the ancient Vedic scriptures of India. In the ancient Sanskrit language of the Vedas, a swan is called a "hamsa," and a spiritually enlightened person is called a "paramahamsa." The Vedas explain that swans have the ability to "separate milk from water." Thus, if milk and water are mixed into a bowl, a swan will drink the milk and leave the water. Similarly, a self-realized soul has the ability to distinguish spirit from matter, and he accepts what is spiritual and rejects what is material. The founder of New Vrindaban Community, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, is recognized world-wide as a paramahamsa.
The Swan Boat Festival begins at approximately 9:15 pm with a torchlight procession, during which Lord Krishna is carried from the temple to the nearby boat house on Swan Lake. "There is always singing and dancing during the parade, with a mix of traditional Indian instruments and western instruments," explains Bhakta Gerald enthusiastically. "It is a style of music called 'kirtan,' which originated in ancient India but is currently becoming trendy in the US and Europe."
I woke up 11:30 P.M. with a headache. I tolerated it for half an hour and then took medicine. The medicine kept me awake, but I followed Jayadvaita Maharaja's advice that resting in bed is almost as good as sleeping. I rested with two pillows and lay on my back until 1:20 A.M., and then I got up. I began chanting at 1:30. I chanted rapidly, and quantity was emphasized a little more than quality. About halfway through I started to feel my eyes getting heavy, but then I overcame that and went on to chant rapidly. Quantity merged with quality, and both were going well. I finished sixteen rounds in one hour and fifty-five minutes. That's a pretty speedy trot around the track. I uttered the syllables and heard them all even though they were said so quickly. Sacinandana Maharaja has said we should chant quickly and that that those who criticize quick chanters don't know the art. So at the rate I was chanting I could have gone on and chanted sixty-four rounds. Maybe one of these days I'll try it. Anyway I'm satisfied with my japa this morning and I don't feel pain, and I've completed the vow. I would not feel disappointed if I could chant like this every morning, quickly and alert, not thinking much of other things but just concentrating on getting them done and getting them done with attention.
Sixteen rounds in less than two hours. You are a speeder but are you going over the limit? No. Prabhupada said sixteen rounds should take two hours but the quality is most important, not galloping like a race horse. I think it was all right but there is always room for improvement. You can sink more into the feeling for Nama Prabhu beyond the numbers. 1,728 is just a number, the real point is devotion.
Here is Srila Prabhupada walking on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu in Hawaii wearing a light-pink cadar against the light breezes of a January morning of 1974. He liked walking right at the edge of the seashore, such as at Venice Beach, Los Angeles, and Juhu Beach, Bombay. He used to remark that the vast, powerful ocean was restricted from its encroachment on the land by a higher power, the order of God. He also noted that the little sea-crabs, when frightened by approaching men, would run into the sea, not into the land side or forest. He said it was the human's nature to take shelter away from the encroaching water by retreating to the land, but the tiny crabs knew they were safe in the giant ocean. In this way he would constantly make God conscious observations from the study of Nature. Prabhupada alternately chanted his japa and spoke philosophy on his walks, and his disciples followed suit. But he never seemed disturbed when they interrupted his japa with a question and was always ready to engage in conversation. He had a particular liking for polemics, "the art or practice of dispute or argument, as in attacking or defending a doctrine or belief." His favorite targets were the atheistic scientists and the mayavadis or voidists. Sometime he would provoke doubt in a disciple, saying "What do they say?" or "You sometimes take their side, what do they say?"
But when you took up the side of the atheists, and stated some of their arguments in answer to Prabhupada's arguments, you sometimes took the risk of his becoming angry with you and treating you not as a theoretical arguer but as an actual atheist. "That is rascaldom. That is a most foolish proposal. You are a demon." You would feel crestfallen and apologize, sorry you had taken on the opposing view. But actually many times you did it because you weren't playing a game with your spiritual master, but exposing your agnostic heart. Regardless of your intentions or role-playing, Prabhupada smashed all the atheistic propositions. He made his walk a school-ground for training his preachers and sharpening his own wits, and had it all recorded on tape.
I like the poems of Mary Oliver where she writes of ducks, swans, ponds, flowers, snakes and inserts the words "O Lord" or at the end of a nature poem makes an allusion to the suffering of Christ and his ascension.
But Narottama is more chock full of bhakti than that. He comes right out and says don't hang out with the karmis, jnanis and yogis. He says live in Vraja or if you can't live there physically, live there in your mind.
And he repeatedly describes the beauty of the Divine Couple.
"The eyes of the Divine Couple are like the cakora birds that drink sweet nectar."
"The golden-complexioned Sri Radha, is the topmost and the dearmost…"
Can I write poems like that? No, I cannot fly so high, but I can read and appreciate Sri Prema-bhakti-candrika.
When I write my own I confess to the troubles of a struggling sadhaka. I register some victories of a good japa morning, sixteen rounds in a row without much pain, attending to the names.
Appreciating a glance at little Radha-Govinda in Their new outfits and hopes of writing from a picture of Prabhupada. But I can't write directly of service to the Divine Couple or that would be untrue.
There is a wedding today, across the street. Yadunandana Swami and I won't be attending because it's not a place for sannyasis. I'll be staying alone trying to work with books and words, reviewing a manuscript of a new book of prayers. I'll be into that, seeing how my latest book came out and if it's pleasing to the Vaisnavas.
I play my own tunes in Healing House and mix with the men who live here. This morning I'll make a live video of reading poems about my master from Remembering Srila Prabhupada. That sort of thing.
And in the afternoon I hope the wedding won't interfere and I'll be able to go for my afternoon walk. If we're lucky we may see as we did yesterday a big buck deer with horns and a smaller one, both standing nearby but unaware we saw them. We stopped awhile to watch them and then walked on. It's times like that you're living in a Mary Oliver poem and then you turn to read Narottama Das Thakura and get carried to the country of Vraja which you're unable to enter in this body…yet in mind…by Narottama's grace.
Swami Rupa had a dream just before breakfast that he was back in the Navy. He was on the big ship Saratoga. He kept moving through scenes and places. He personally determined that the most important thing was to go on chanting japa to himself. There were crowds of sailors and authorities over them. The authorities wanted you to stop and do things. Some wanted you to strip naked and be treated for protection from cancer. He just stepped out of line and avoided that. He decided if they caught him avoiding it, he wouldn't care how they reprimanded him. The only important thing was to go on chanting. They kept the men separated from the women, although he could hear their voices. That was all right too. In some places there were landslides and their feet sunk in coal-like substance. In some places there were mountainous regions. But all that mattered to him was that he went on chanting Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare and he chanted in his dream. When he woke up he thought "That was a very important dream. I should always chant Hare Krishna."
Joey, the man with Alzheimer's, was coming to the Healing House almost every other day. As soon as he arrived the inmates would phone his daughter or son and tell them he was there. He usually stayed for most of the day. He liked to talk to the devotees, and he liked to do service. One service he liked to do was keep the next-door neighbors' dog from barking. They had the dog tied to a tree just on the other side of a fence separating the next-door house from the Healing House. They tied him up outside whenever they left the house. The dog used to bark loudly in his loneliness. Joey liked to sit by the fence and calm the dog down by his presence so he would stop his annoying barking. The devotees appreciated this. Then Joey stopped coming for a few days. His daughter Elaine phoned and asked if he were there. They said they had not seen him. She became worried and said she didn't know where he was. He had never stayed away from home so long. Ollie told her he would go out and look for him. Joey wasn't allowed to drive the car, so wherever he was he must have walked there. Ollie got in the car and drove around looking for him. The first place he went was to Stuyvesant Falls. It was a very tall waterfall, which fell in one place, ran in a river under a bridge and then fell again in a second, smaller falls. The river was rapid and full of jutting rocks. There was a sign posted, "NO SWIMMING OR WADING." People used to swim there anyway but it was a dangerous place, especially the main waterfalls. Ollie asked the few people there whether they had seen an old man like Joey, but no one had seen anyone like that. He drove to the Martin Van Buren national historical site five minutes away and searched on the grounds of the Van Buren house and estate, but no one reported seeing a man like Joey. Ollie tried the nature trails connected to the Van Buren estate where there were different trails marked in colors like yellow, blue and red for hikers to take. Ollie walked through the different trails but couldn't find him. He tried knocking on doors on Albany Street, the main street of houses. Joey had stopped at some of them previously. He had even told the people about his recent visits to the Healing House, but he was nowhere to be seen there. A road sign marked Stuyvesant Falls as "An agricultural community," and there were large corn fields. But none of the people in the farmhouses—although they knew Joey—knew his whereabouts.
Swami Rupa suggested they report Joey as a missing person to officer Dan Edwards. He became alarmed when he heard that Joey had been missing for two days. Dan said he would ask his police officer friend to use the police department's K-9 dog to try to find Joey. There was a vast forest connected to the cornfields, and Dan thought to conduct a search there. Elaine said Joey sometimes returned with twigs and grass on his clothes from walking in the trails. Elaine gave them Joey's shirt and pants. They gave it to the K-9 dog, a German Shepherd, and he sniffed it thoroughly and then set out through the cornfields into the woods. About four people trailed behind him including Dan and another police officer. The dog whined and kept his nose to the ground and walked through the thickets that had no trails. After three hours, the dog found Joey. He was curled up in a fetal position on a stack of leaves under a big tree.
"What are you doing here?" asked Dan.
"I'm lost," said Joey. "I don't know how to get out of these woods. I keep walking around." The search party brought Joey home, but it didn't end there. The police chief was disturbed that his men had to spend time and money searching for Joey. "He should be put in an institution, a nursing home. I don't want to have to do this again." Joey's family and friends didn't like the suggestion of a nursing home, since they didn't think Joey would get proper loving care there. Dan said he would think of something to avert it. He came up with the idea of an electronic device that Joey could wear as an anklet. With this electronic tracing anklet, Dan agreed to monitor Joey's movements. This satisfied the police chief, and Joey was allowed to live at home—and visit the Healing House.
To contemplate death is actually a requirement to being considered sane. There are a few REAL problems in this world; situations that NOBODY wants, but situations that EVERYONE will experience. The Bhagavad-gita outlines those real problems as disease, old age, and ultimately death. People in Latin America would hang skulls in their houses to remind themselves. Yogis in India would meditate on the banks of the Ganges where open-pyre funerals were being conducted. We often forget the inevitability of death, and thus, in Chapter Eight entitled "Attaining the Supreme", Krishna deals with this very subject.
D – Doubts (Verses 1-4) - Doubting is a function of intelligence and at no point in the Bhagavad-gita does Krishna discourage questions. On the contrary, He encourages Arjuna to intelligently contemplate all His answers and subsequently make his own decisions. The chapter begins with Arjuna's doubts and questions on the meaning of certain spiritual concepts. Krishna concisely answers seven of his eight questions immediately, and then prepares to answer the final question in greater depth - "How can one attain a spiritual destination at the time of death?"
E – End of life (Verses 5-8) - Imagine you are going to watch a movie and you meet someone who just saw it. "You'll never guess what happens" they say... before they even finish that statement you'll interject and stop them. Knowing the end spoils the whole show. Similarly, for those engaged in worldly pursuits, hearing about, contemplating and accepting "the end" (death) is not the most inspiring reflection. It simply spoils their "movie of life" in the here and now. For a spiritualist, however, "the end" is not a depressing thought since their concept of life and its purpose is much broader. Krishna explains how one's thoughts at death sum up ones consciousness, desires and worldviews they cultivated throughout their life. Thus, one's state of mind at the time of death determines their next situation of life. For those who remember God at death, they will go to God.
A – Attaining the Supreme (Verses 9-22) - Thus, the entire world is a temporary university specifically created to dispense practical life lessons. When one becomes frustrated by the pursuits of this world, they realise that happiness lies in another realm. As spiritual beings, life in a complex world of matter is an incompatible situation. While the material world is rubber-stamped as a constantly changing place of misery, the spiritual world is distinguished as being eternal and all-blissful. There are many painstaking ways in which different spiritualists conduct their lives in order to attain that supreme destination, but having attained it one never returns to this temporary realm again. As they say, once bitten, twice shy.
D – Devotion (verses 23-28) - Various spiritual practices have been discussed in this chapter, but Krishna finally concludes by outlining the most effective process to attain the Supreme. Bhakti-yoga, the process of practical service to God in a mood of devotion, is described as the topmost spiritual path. In an age of rampant materialism and temptation coupled with individual weakness and lack of spiritual aspiration, a highly practical and powerful spiritual process is required. Through bhakti-yoga anyone can experience an incredibly fulfilling spiritual connection in a very short time. If one is able to thus saturate ones consciousness with constant meditation on God, they will be sure to attain the supreme destination regardless of all the technicalities and intricacies that other spiritual processes may stress.
You are good for everything but your attitude to remain good for nothing is very nice. A Vaisnava is always humble and meek and he is never puffed even he has got the highest qualities of demigods.
"The Swan Boat Festivals are pure elegance," says Bhakta Gerald Yule from Elm Gove, WV. This year, Bhakta Gerald has the unique privilege of navigating the Swan Boat across New Vrindaban's Swan Lake every Saturday night, from Mother's Day weekend to Labor Day weekend. "The Swan Boat is one-of-a-kind. For a few years, the devotees used to enter the Swan Boat in parades and festivals in Wheeling, Charleston, Pittsburgh, and other places. The Swan Boat always won a prize." 
