Nitai Priya Prabhu and myself arrived in Sylhet on the 19th of November. The devotees happily met us at the airport and immediately took us to Kulaura Farm, around 2 hour's drive from the city.

The year 2013 had been a very troubled year for the population of Bangladesh. Almost every single week there have been several days of strike which doesn't allow any mode of transportation to operate. Petrol bombs are thrown onto busses and on people at random in the streets, and everyone is in fear of aggression and crime.
The atmosphere carries an ordor of violence, insecurity and fear, and people in general are becoming tired of the instability and are wearing thin. The economy of the entire country is going down with the prices of everything shooting high into the sky.
And the reason for all this are the upcoming elections in the beginning of 2014.

Nevertheless, we devotees are not allowing ourselves to get overly affected by this nonsensical stage performance of material existence.

On my arrival in Dhaka on the 8th of November the devotees happily welcomed me and were eager to immediately engage me: I was invited to give the SB class the next morning, and to give a three-day seminar to the student boys.
Around seventy enthusiastic students practising Krsna consciousness assembled for four hours every day to discuss the topic of "The False Ego - our Constant Companion and Trouble Maker." We had eye opening discussions, and I engaged them in performing role plays illustrating various aspects of the workings of the false ego which was very humerous indeed.
The false ego is the most subtle element of the subtle body - it is so subtle that we often aren't aware of it at all, and rather identify with it thinking it to be us. And it is constantly whispering some nonsense into our ears: you are great, your opinion is the best, you are right, you are the center of attention, your view is most important, etc. And thus it is acting as our worst trouble maker, inducing us to believe we are something which we are not, and making as act in ways we should not act....

On the 22nd of October I returned to Vrindavan - it was nice to be back....

Meanwhile a lot of devotees from all around the world had arrived to spend the Kartik month here.
It was not easy to find a little spot in the temple room during Mangal artik and other temple programs. I quickly developed a certain routine how I would move around the temple room, and I discovered that the best spot for darshan was indeed near the pillar in the back of the temple room facing Sri Sri Krsna Balaram - from there one could also see Radha Syamasundara as well. Often I had to squeeze into the crowds to get there and could only see Their Lordships when standing on the very tips of my toes.
The pastime with Mahaprabhu came to my mind, where one old lady is climbing His shoulders in order to take darshan of Lord Jagannath....