THE ROOTS OF SPIRITUAL CULTURE
  • Institute
  • Mayapur Courses
  • Registration
  • Course Descriptions
  • Devaki dd
  • Diary
  • Books
  • Recordings
  • Photos
  • Testimonials

Bangalore/India

11/14/2016

0 Comments

 
I arrived in Bangalore on the 3rd of November - just in time to join Srila Prabhupada's disappearance celebration on the next day.....
As every year I was invited to stay with Madhusudan Hari Prabhu who is the Vice TP of the Jagannath Temple in Seshadripuram, his good wife Radha Shakti Mataji and their two children. I always feel very comfortable in their home - like a member of their family.....! And we often have deep and meaningful discussions and exchanges of realizations.
Picture
Picture
Since Srila Prabhupada's disappearance fell on a Friday, the celebration started in the late afternoon with kirtan and abhishek, and I was invited to give the lecture, followed by the feast. I gave an introduction to a seminar on Srila Prabhupada, which I continued on Saturday evening and Sunday morning as part of the SB class.
Srila Prabhupada's position as the Founder Acarya of ISKCON is a highly relevant topic which deserves most attention. I have to admit, for many years I was not deeply thinking about this - what it actually means. Often we mechanically repeat the words, but within our heart we don't have deeper realizations. After reading HG Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu's book on this topic did I start to more deeply understand its great importance.
Our present Gurus tend to make a much stronger impact on devotees than those who are no longer present in person. So Srila Prabhupada's absence of vapu needs to be compensated for by an ever deepening realization of vani. And this requires deep internal work for each and every member of our ISKCON society. Srila Prabhupada's presence has to be so strong, that it will not diminish even after all his direct disciples will have left this world. Prabhupada created the foundation, the functioning and vision of ISKCON as a global community aiming for the respiritualization of the entire human society - a very unique cultural revolution. Prabhupada was thinking big! His role is ongoing - his presence has to be felt in the life of every ISKCON devotee today, and for many centuries to come.
Being the Founder Acarya is not just a title - it is actually a transcendental system in order to protect, preserve and give longevity to ISKCON dedicated to the mass liberation of conditioned souls all over the world. Prabhupada's personal standards, principles of action and spirit have taken shape in an organization which he created. And each and every member has to internalize this spirit and take it to the very core of his/her own identity, and pass it on to the next generation. Then Srila Prabhupada's spirit will pervade ISKCON as the essence of its own culture, and its members become its visible embodiment in this world. We honor and learn from so many acaryas in our line, but Srila Prabhupada as the Founder Acarya will always be very unique. He will remain present, generation after generation, as the single prominent Siksa Guru. We can understand ISKCON to be like Srila Prabhupada's body, and the soul of this body is Srila Prabhupada himself. As long as Srila Prabhupada will remain in the center of our lives, ISKCON will remain alive. If we loose this Prabhupada consciousness, then ISKCON will become like a dead and useless body.

On the following weekend I offered the course entitled "The Vanaprastha Ashram". It was well attended by around seventy devotees, who participated over several days in the 15-hour course. Each participant received well composed course materials with powerful quotes from Srila Prabhupada's purports to selected verses of the Srimad Bhagavatam. We extracted the universal principles of the Vanaprastha Ashram and presented them with clarity and conviction, clearly illustrating how we can apply these principles in our modern days. The course was thought provoking to my audience, shaking us up to the facts of reality that this last phase of life is not meant to be lived in comfort, leisure and opulence, surrounded by sweet grand-children charming our hearts with broken language. Rather are we meant to increase austerities, and by simplifying our surroundings, our eating and our externals we can gradually give up more and more the bodily concept of life and deepen our focus on sravanam kirtanam to ultimately prepare for death - our final challenge. In SB 1.15.44. Prabhupada declares that no respectable gentleman would remain in family life until death, because that was considered suicidal and against the interest of the perfection of human life. Such quotes were indeed a wake-up call for many. It reset the trajectory of life to the most important goal of remembering Krishna at the time of death and going back to Godhead. Our entire lifestyle should be molded around chanting Hare Krishna - something we easily tend to forget when having been lulled into a sense of complacency, with life's priorities revolving around wife and kids, and earning one's livelihood. Then Krishna easily moves into the background rather than being in the very center of our lives. Krishna and Srila Prabhupada's mission are pushed to the back burner while more 'urgent' business grabs our mind's attention. This course urged us all to introspect and re-set our priorities with new  intensity. It could just make the difference between making it back to Goloka Vrindavan or having to do another round in this material world. 
Picture
One day we also conducted an evening program on the topic of the false ego which attracted a nice audience to participate. It was interesting to see that all programs were attended by a lot more men than ladies - almost a little unusual for this part of the world!
The Bangalore devotees kept me busy - I was also invited to visit the temple in South Bangalore and gave an evening program on the topic of Prabhupada being the Founder Acarya. And a new preaching center requested me to speak about Govardhana Puja, since they were celebrating it on the Sunday evening thereafter.
During my visit to Bangalore the sudden policy in regards to exchanging the 500 and 1000 Rs notes was introduced, which was an interesting experience. It was a shock to everyone, and for days people's minds were evolving around this topic - how to change and bank the old notes. And at the same time I could sense that people were proud of the courage Narendra Modi exhibited by launching this surprise. People expressed that it will be for the better of the country, and therefore they were willing to accept the inconvenience and even financial losses they might be facing. I once queued up at a bank for two hours to exchange some of my old notes - a newspaper reporter was there and eagerly took pictures of me. It was interesting to witness all the social exchanges going on in the queue - one fellow managed the entire group of people and helped everybody to fill in the forms and get the right info. And he took care of the elderly, who found it a challenge to stand for such a long time.....

On the 15th of November I flew on to Dhaka/Bangladesh....

Your servant, Devaki dd

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Devaki Devi Dasi's Traveling Diary

    Devaki Devi Dasi is sharing her realizations and adventures in her Traveling Diary. Welcome to relish this nectar!

    Archives

    November 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    June 2011

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.