An extraordinary performance of Luiza by Tom Jobim in Brasil. The original was a furry old live tape recording. Remastered using the best in digital plugins to recapture the excitement and freshness of the original performance. His heart is so open, the feelings are so deep and the music is so beautiful, maybe this is the most beautiful song in the world. Enjoy!

Tom Jobim, Luiza - Remastered

Śrī-Śrī Gītā-mālā
by Śrīla Bhaktivinod Ṭhākur

Chapter 4: Rūpānuga-bhajana-darpana
 (A Mirror Reflecting the Worship of the Followers of Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī)

Song 1: The Purpose of this Mirror 

Invocation:
sri-guru-sri-gaura-candra, brndabane juva-dvandva,  braja-basi-jana-sri-carana  bandiya praphulla mane, e bhaktibinoda bhane,  rupanuga-bhajana-darpana

Glorifying the lotus feet of Sri Guru, Sri Gauracandra, the Youthful Couple of Vrndavan as well as of all the residents of Vraja, with a cheerful mind this Bhaktivinoda will now narrate a description of the mirror which reflects the worship of those who strictly follow in the footsteps of Srila Rupa Gosvami.

(1)
bahu-janma-bhagya-base, cinmoy madhura rase,  sprha janme jiver hrday  sei sprha lobha haya, braja-dhame jiva laya,  rupanuga-bhajane matay

By the influence of extremely good fortune accrued for many, many births, the desire awakens within the heart of a fortunate soul to taste the sweetness of eternal transcendental mellows (rasa). Then, the greed for attaining this desire attracts the soul to Sri Vrndavana-dhama, where one becomes madly absorbed in worshiping Lord Krsna, following the process outlined by Srila Rupa Gosvami.

(2)
bhajana-prakara jata, sakaler sar mata,  sikhailo sri-rupa gosani  se bhajana na janiya, krsna bhajibare giya,  tuccha kaje jivana katai

Srila Rupa Gosvami has so kindly given us his valuable teachings on the essential techniques for properly worshiping the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Whoever tries to worship Krsna without being aware of these methods will simply waste his entire life in useless labor.

(3)
bujhibare se bhajana, bahu jatne akincana,  biracilo bhajana-darpana  braje radha-krsna-seba, korite utsuka jeba,  sukhe tenha koruna sravana

Just for the sake of those who really want to understand this worship, I have taken great care to present this mirror of bhajana, although I am truly insignificant. If any of you are actually serious and enthusiastic to render eternal service to Sri Sri Radha-Krsna in the transcendental realm of Vraja, then I request you now to please hear this narration with great happiness.

(4)
lobhete janama pai, ati sighra badi' jai,  sraddha rati, tabe hoy priti  sahaja bhajana rati, nahi caya siksa-mati,  tabu siksa prathamika-riti

If one has intense greed (lobha) for executing the process presented herein, then gradually his faith (sraddha), then loving affection (rati), and then full attachment in love (priti) will all increase very, very quickly. One who has attained this platform of worship in their own natural love has no need to be concerned with scriptural rules and regulations, although in the beginning stages of devotion such rules are mandatory.

(5)
putra-sneha jananir, sahaja hrdoye sthira,  dusita hrdoye siksa cai  krsna-prema sei-rupa, nitya-siddha aparupa,  baddha-jive aprakata bhai

O brothers, it is just like the affection of a mother for her son, which is naturally fixed in her heart. If someone else cares for the same child, they may not be as attentive as the mother, and sometimes need to be re-minded of their duty. So love for Krsna is just like that. It is natural and wonderful for the eternally liberated souls (nitya-siddha), whereas it is completely unmanifest for the eternally conditioned souls (nitya-baddha).

(6)
sei to' sahaja rati, paiyache apagati,  siksanusilana jadi pay  se rati jagiya uthe, jiver bandhana chute,  vrajananda tahare nacay

However, if one cultivates these spiritual instructions, then the flow of natural attachment and affection for the Lord is stirred. And when this rati reawakens and grows, then all the material bondage which entraps the soul is severed, and this natural spiritual affection will make one dance in the transcendental ecstatic bliss of Vraja consciousness.


Gita-mala 4.1 by Śrīla Bhaktivinod Ṭhākur

Song 4: Trained up by the sakhis

(1)
palya-dasi kori', lalita sundari, amare loiya kabe sri-radhika-pade, kale milaibe, ajna-seva samarpibe

When will Lalita Sundari foster me as her own aspirant maidservant? Hopefully she will train me up and eventually offer me unto the lotus feet of Srimati Radharani, placing me entirely at Her disposal for rendering various services according to Her own merciful orders.

(2)
sri rupa manjari, sange jabo kabe, rasa-seva-siksa-tare tad-anuga ho'ye, radha-kunda tate, rohibo harsitantare

When will Sri Rupa Manjari take me along with her to the banks of Sri Radha-kunda to give me lessons in the performance of service to the transcendental mellows? She will take me there and make me practice by following her instructions and movements. Thus I will pass my time feeling the greatest delight within my heart.

(3)
sri visakha-pade, sangita sikhibo, krsna-lila rasa-moy sri rati manjari, sri rasa manjari, hoibe sabe sa-doy

At the lotus feet of Sri Visakha I will learn to play music and sing songs which are full of the transcendental mellows of Krsna's pastimes. All of the other sakhis in our group, including Sri Rati Manjari and Sri Rasa Manjari, will also welcome me into their fold with most kind and affectionate dealings.

(4)
parama anande, sakale miliya, radhika carane rabo ei parakasta, siddhi kabe habe, pabo radha-padasaba

All of us will thus stay together, feeling the greatest supreme bliss, and we will perpetually remain at the lotus feet of Sri Radhika. When, oh when will I achieve this highest excellence of spiritual perfection, whereby I will attain the intoxicating honey flowing from the lotus feet of Srimati Radharani?

Gita-mala 5.4 by Bhaktivinod Ṭhākur

Opening track from Flowers from the Silence (1980), my first recorded work after returning from India. Remastered from the original cassette, kindly provided by a collector.

Floating World

Track 2 from "Flowers from the Silence" (1980)

Summer Rain Nocturne

Autumn Breezes

Track 4 from "Flowers from the Silence" (1980)

Dreams

Language of Love Lyrics

Chorus:
You'll take love, & then
You'll break love, but
I just want to make love.
Don't you know, 
Surrender is The Language of Love.

Bridge 1:
Love is always what we need,
But never what we want; you see,
It's always more or less, we find;
And it comes in its own time.
We try to keep control, then
When love goes away, we wonder why.

Bridge 2:
Lovers searching for a way
To make their love new every day;
Poets searching for a rhyme
To tell love's story one more time.
If they could only see
The love they're searching for 
Is in their hearts.

Bridge 3:
I know the secrets of the heart;
It's pride that keeps us far apart.
I've had these feelings for so long
I'm crying as I sing this song.
If love is what you want
Then you are going to: SURRENDER!

Language of Love G Vocal

Vedic Sages Final Mix — Want to Add Solo?

Kṛṣṇa Love Lyrics

Verse 1:

I want a love that lasts forever
And I never have to say goodbye;
A love that’s so intense
That it makes you cry.
‘Cause love can be so sad
When it grows cold
And goes far away.

Chorus:

Kṛṣṇa Love!
I want a love with a happy ending—
A love that never has to end!
I want a perfect love unending—
With my eternal dearmost Friend,
That goes higher, higher and higher
That fulfills every desire.
Eternal Love! Kṛṣṇa Love!

Verse 2:

I want a love that’s transcendental
And it’s not just on the mental plane.
A love that never breaks
‘Cause of time or pain.
A love that is so tender and warm
Outlasts every storm.

Chorus

Kṛṣṇa Love FInal Mix Vocal — Want to Add a Solo?

Bhakti-sarvabhauma Śrī Gaurahari Dāsānudās Bābājī (aka David Bruce Hughes) is one of the greatest exponents of the Esoteric Teaching, the science of higher consciousness, in the world today. David is a prolific, deeply thoughtful and provocative author, a Vedic astrologer, and an evocative spiritual musician, composer and recording artist, with many books and CDs on themes of devotion and spiritual life. He spent over 30 years at the feet of his exalted guru, studying the esoteric Vedic wisdom in the most sacred places of pilgrimage in India.

He is also a profound spiritual Master Teacher and an engaging presenter who has held audiences all over the world spellbound with his fascinating talks. He combines an inclusive, broad-minded analytical approach to spirituality with the transcendent faith and passionate devotion of the Vedic line. He says, “The direction of my life was set at age three, when I sincerely prayed to the Lord to send me a teacher on the level of Jesus Christ so I could learn how to have a direct personal relationship with Him.”

David is very sensitive to the quality of consciousness in the people he works with. He says, “Faith is prerequisite to spiritual advancement. But to develop faith, people need certainty. Many people have lost faith because sectarian religion cannot answer their natural questions about life, love and how to attain real happiness. Before faith can take root, we need deep clarity on spiritual life. This can only come from understanding of the Esoteric Teaching. This transcendental knowledge gives us the certainty we need to recover our faith and make tangible progress toward spiritual enlightenment.”

David was born in Florida and grew up near New York City. His family members were dedicated Episcopalians, very active in the local church ministry. He showed a strong attraction to both spiritual life and music at an early age. He began working with electronics and computers in high school, where he taught himself digital logic and won several science fairs with his innovative projects. After he received perfect 800 scores in 3 of his SAT examinations, MIT offered him a scholarship in Nuclear Physics, but David turned it down to pursue his first love: music.

A talented and largely self-taught musician, David won First-Chair Flute in the All-American High School Band competition in his senior year, and toured the US and Canada with the group. David went on to earn a BA in Musical Composition from Montclair Conservatory, working his way through school by playing jazz gigs and repairing early computers. While at Montclair, David won the gold medal of the prestigious NYU Young Composers’ Contest for three years running. This exposure led to a job with New York’s Ames Agency as a television commercial and film composer. At Ames, David wrote and produced the award-winning score for Armstrong Tire’s ‘Tiger Paws’ spots, one of the longest-running advertising campaigns in television history.

Not satisfied with commercial success, David moved to New Mexico, where he worked with early digital computers and test systems in research programs at Sandia, Los Alamos National Laboratories and White Sands/Alamogordo Proving Grounds. With the help and advice of senior Los Alamos scientists, he performed a series of groundbreaking laboratory experiments in the silence of the desert, exploring the effects of music and sound on living beings. The results of this work inspired him to study Vedic music and rasa-tattva (the art of transcendental emotions) with Indian maestro Ali Akbar Khan in San Rafael, California. He quickly became expert in Indian rāga composition and improvisation, using voice, flute, esrāj, sarangi, mṛdangaand other exotic instruments.

At this time David made a broad survey of Eastern philosophical and spiritual teachings. Besides reading very widely in the Indian spiritual traditions, he met and studied Vedic teachings with many svāmīs and yogīs teaching on the West Coast. By great good fortune he met his spiritual master, His Divine Grace Abhaya Caraṇāravindam De, a fully self-realized pure devotee and renunciant, prolific author, profound devotional musician and philosopher in the Brahma-Madhva-Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava lineage of Bengal, and was inspired to study bhakti-yoga, the profound wisdom path of the Esoteric Teaching of the Vedas, with him.

India

David became a Vedic monk, accepting formal hari-nāma initiation as Dāsānudās Brahmacārī from Bhaktivedanta Swami in New Orleans in 1974, and ordination as a Vedic brāhmaṇa (priest) in Vrndavana, India in 1977. He lived and studied in traditional Vaiṣṇava and Tantric communities in India and various other parts of the world for over 20 years. He learned Sanskrit, deeply studied Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, performed traditional temple music and dance, and led fire sacrifices and other Vedic ceremonies all over India.

As a philosopher, he specialized in Vedic ontology and the epistemology of Vedānta-sūtra, and became a major interpreter of the esoteric devotional scripture Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, assisting his guru by editing the first English translation of the work. He also studied different forms of yoga including haṭha-yoga, rāja-yoga, tantra-yoga, mantra-yoga and many more. Traveling four times around the world on teaching tours, he received many advanced initiations in esoteric philosophy and practices from important Vedic spiritual teachers.

After David completed preliminary studies in yoga, Sanskrit, Sāṅkhya philosophy, temple worship, devotional music and dance, and Vedic mantras, his guru formally ordained David as a brāhmaṇa or Vedic priest. David is one of few Westerners ever to be awarded this eminent Vedic distinction. Because of this uncommon initiation, acknowledging his penetrating knowledge of Vedic spiritual wisdom—unparalleled qualifications for a Westerner—and the personal recommendation of his guru, David was invited to study at a Tantric esoteric school in Nainital, India, in 1979. This school, situated near the source of the Ganges , is not only a fully-functional traditional Tantric community; it also safeguards a comprehensive repository of the Vedic and Tantric literatures. David was thus privileged to study both the complete theory and the esoteric practices of Yoga and Tantra at their source. His attainment in Tantra was recognized by formal initiation into Mādhyamaka, the most esoteric of all Tibetan Tantric mysteries, under the direction of the Dalai Lama in 1983.

A powerful presenter, during the 70s and 80s David led classes and workshops on Tantra and the Vaiṣṇava way of wisdom in Santa Cruz and Harbin Hot Springs, California; led a week-long Tantra retreat in Waimea, Maui; presented a 3-day workshop on sacred chants in Soho, London; taught Puranic wisdom and Sanskrit in Paris, France; toured and lectured in places as diverse as Athens, Greece; Constantinople, Turkey; Hamburg, Germany; Bern, Austria; Belgrade, Yugoslavia; Tehran, Iran and Kabul, Afghanistan; and spoke on bhakti-yoga to substantial audiences all over India, from Mumbai to Kolkata and from Badrinath to Trivandrum.

In 1984-5 David hosted a radio show on transcendental music, Sacred Sounds, on the American Radio Network in Los Angeles. From 1985-1988 He was Co-Chairman of the Music Department at the Māyāpur Candrodaya Gurukula, a traditional Vedic academy in West Bengal, India. He also presented a 10-day international seminar in sacred Vedic music there in 1988. Over the years he appeared on numerous radio and television programs explaining bhakti-yoga, devotional meditation practices and Vedic spiritual philosophy.

In 1985 he wrote Sapta Svaraḥ, his thesis for his Bhakti-vaibhava degree (the Vaiṣṇava equivalent of a Doctor of Divinity) on the correspondence between the esoteric Vedic musical system and the mathematical laws of Quantum Mechanics. He was also instrumental in creating the Usenet forum alt.religion.vaisnava, the first international Internet conference for Vedic bhakti-yogīs.

From 1989-1991 David was based on Guam, exploring the roots of traditional South Pacific island cultures such as the Chamorros and Micronesians. He visited traditional native communities in Yap, Palau, Ponape, Majuro and the Solomon Islands, studying these ancient cultures and artifacts to research their forgotten links to the Vedic civilization.

Kaua'i

In 1988, during prolonged deep meditation in a Himalayan cave, David received a mystical transmission of the Esoteric Teaching, the confidential meta-knowledge behind all genuine spiritual paths. This revelation, recounted in his book Search for the Absolute Truth, completed his education in the transcendental mysteries of spiritual life, opening to him the secret pathway to complete self-realization.

Returning to the US Mainland in 1992, David used his technological expertise to establish a career as a senior technical writer and illustrator, writing and publishing books on advanced computer and software technologies for companies like Apple Computer, Digital Research, Westinghouse, and Hughes Technologies. An early adopter of the Internet, he built Web sites for clients such as Weyerhauser, Georgia-Pacific, Solutia, Equifax, First Data Corporation and many more. At this time he also became aware of the exciting spiritual potential of computers and nanotechnology, and helped found the first Internet forum for discussions on advanced Vedic spiritual topics.

Over the next decade, David implemented the secret practices of the Esoteric Teaching, completing the process of self-realization begun by his first initiation in 1971. This resulted in a confidential spiritual experience of the highest attainment on Kaua’i in January 2002 during a six-month solitary meditation retreat, successfully completing the quest for the highest degree of self-realization that he had begun more than fifty years before.

David maintained a keen interest in aviation, science, computers and technology throughout his monastic life, keeping up with new developments and finding unique ways to apply technology in spiritual life. He uses computer technology extensively in his spiritual teaching work, maintaining contact and relationships with a worldwide network of students.

In 2003 David started this Esoteric Teaching website, determined to share the incomparable benefits of the supreme path of pure devotional service to God. Over the years, the Esoteric Teaching has grown into a premier resource on authentic spiritual life for serious spiritual seekers all over the world, and has gradually built up a worldwide community of students.

David is working on several upcoming projects, and characteristically continues to break new ground in transcendental education for the 21st century. He currently lives in India with his close disciples.

Gaurahari Bābājī

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