The month of January was a very intense but blissful time for me in Mayapur. Over five weeks I was offering five courses - each course for five days, 3 hours in the afternoon. We started with "Sheltering Relationships - the Foundation to Devotee Care", followed by "The Vanaprastha Ashram - Meeting Death With Joy". Then we moved on to "Being in Harmony with the Other Gender", which formed the foundation to "Family Life as an Ashram", concluding with "Our Children are our Future".
All courses were rather systematically building onto the previous one, offering education and training in how to apply our philosophy in practical life.
We like to study our philosophy, learn verses by heart and recite them, and preach the knowledge to others, but we are not quite there yet in practically living it! This is where we are standing in our today's ISKCON society: the next step is to actually mold our life accordingly. This requires a deeper transformation of our world views, likes and dislikes. Systematic training and education will empower our devotees to make a conscious choice, according to what kind of world views we want to conduct our life. Then Krishna consciousness is not merely a nice philosophy, but we can practically demonstrate to the world how civilized human life is meant to be lived. It will give stability and harmony to our life, so we can whole-heartedly develop our lost and forgotten relationship with Krishna.
On the Friday of each course we distributed maha prasadam to all the participants, which created a very nice mood and personal atmosphere. As every year we had some participants who took all courses, and I could sense
that they valued the regular association. Many shared wonderful realizations and expressed, how important this knowledge is to them. And of course, it gave me a good opportunity to also present my book, which was eagerly
accepted. I can't wait for the day to have all courses in book format......
We like to study our philosophy, learn verses by heart and recite them, and preach the knowledge to others, but we are not quite there yet in practically living it! This is where we are standing in our today's ISKCON society: the next step is to actually mold our life accordingly. This requires a deeper transformation of our world views, likes and dislikes. Systematic training and education will empower our devotees to make a conscious choice, according to what kind of world views we want to conduct our life. Then Krishna consciousness is not merely a nice philosophy, but we can practically demonstrate to the world how civilized human life is meant to be lived. It will give stability and harmony to our life, so we can whole-heartedly develop our lost and forgotten relationship with Krishna.
On the Friday of each course we distributed maha prasadam to all the participants, which created a very nice mood and personal atmosphere. As every year we had some participants who took all courses, and I could sense
that they valued the regular association. Many shared wonderful realizations and expressed, how important this knowledge is to them. And of course, it gave me a good opportunity to also present my book, which was eagerly
accepted. I can't wait for the day to have all courses in book format......
While the courses were going on, I worked feverishly on getting my second book entitled "Sheltering Relationships - The Foundation of Devotee Care" ready for printing. I had to check the editing and discuss specific points back and forwards, then get the proof-reading done, and again check it and assemble it as a final version. Before giving it for layout I had to go through the entire text again and again. One can always find more details which need to be corrected - it is hard to get it to the perfect stage. It is almost like a work of art, which is never considered 'finished'.
I faced the final anxiety and struggle with the layout. The person who had agreed to do it turned out to not be so experienced and made so many blunders, which took me to the very limits of my patience. So I changed the layout designer in the last minute, and had an intense marathon to check his work again and again and again, until I finally declared it to be ready for printing. On the 4th of February I sent the file to the printing house in Ukraine, which gave me a great sense of victory and relief...!
All along I remembered the comment Krishnarupa Mataji made to me last year when editing my first book: "Writing is like giving birth - a very painful experience, with a lot of anxieties. But once you've done it, you experience a lot of joy." I also couldn't help but remembering mother Yasoda, how she was endeavoring with such great determination when trying to bind Krishna with ropes. Even though the rope was always too short, she did not give up. And the famous story came to my mind, how Srila Prabhupada pushed his disciples to publish one volume of Chaitanya-Charitamrita every day. And when devotees stated "This is impossible, Srila Prabhupada!", he responded: "Impossible is a word in a fool's dictionary!" Those meditations encouraged me in my seemingly impossible mission and endeavor to get this book to the printer by beginning of February. I had fixed my mind on this date, so it would hopefully be printed by the beginning of March, which would give me enough time to send it out to the temples I would visit during March, April and May.
And by Krishna's mercy I got it done in time.....
Your servant, Devaki dd
I faced the final anxiety and struggle with the layout. The person who had agreed to do it turned out to not be so experienced and made so many blunders, which took me to the very limits of my patience. So I changed the layout designer in the last minute, and had an intense marathon to check his work again and again and again, until I finally declared it to be ready for printing. On the 4th of February I sent the file to the printing house in Ukraine, which gave me a great sense of victory and relief...!
All along I remembered the comment Krishnarupa Mataji made to me last year when editing my first book: "Writing is like giving birth - a very painful experience, with a lot of anxieties. But once you've done it, you experience a lot of joy." I also couldn't help but remembering mother Yasoda, how she was endeavoring with such great determination when trying to bind Krishna with ropes. Even though the rope was always too short, she did not give up. And the famous story came to my mind, how Srila Prabhupada pushed his disciples to publish one volume of Chaitanya-Charitamrita every day. And when devotees stated "This is impossible, Srila Prabhupada!", he responded: "Impossible is a word in a fool's dictionary!" Those meditations encouraged me in my seemingly impossible mission and endeavor to get this book to the printer by beginning of February. I had fixed my mind on this date, so it would hopefully be printed by the beginning of March, which would give me enough time to send it out to the temples I would visit during March, April and May.
And by Krishna's mercy I got it done in time.....
Your servant, Devaki dd
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