Cintamani Nam

Cintamani Nam 2

Presentation by Devamrita Swami at the Bhakti Lounge Soul Feast 7th July 2019. We can be very calculating about who is our friend and who is our enemy. Here you'll learn more about your mind, how when tamed it can be your best friend, but when untamed is like an enemy within.

Bhakti lounge, Soulfeast

Wild Horses - Dragged By My Untamed Mind

Sometimes, when you can't see where life is taking you, all you can do is Leave it in the hands of God.

Hands of God

Krsna Das 23.7.20 NS On Hariyali Teej

Prayers of the Vaisnava Acaryas II - Sri Gurvastakam | 29 Nov 2020

Now what does it mean to control the mind? Krishna describes that one must control the lower self with the higher self. Lower than the mind is the senses and higher than the mind is the intelligence. If the mind becomes a victim to following the dictation of the senses, then your mind is your worst enemy. But if your mind is willing to accept the dictation of higher intelligence, your mind is the best friend. 
Now the next natural question is ‘what is our higher intelligence?” The higher intelligence is very simple to understand. The higher intelligence is the word of Guru and Krishna people think their higher intelligence means their own discriminant discriminatory faculties to decide what is right and what is wrong. The real higher intelligence is the word of God as it is coming to the Shastra and as it is coming to the Guru. That

Key To The Success Of Yoga

Vyomasura, he became very afraid as he knew that he was facing God, the Almighty. And therefore, he was very anxious to escape by any means. So, you know what he did? First he tried to run but Krishna grabbed him very hard and then he began to expand himself into a huge form like a mountain thinking that he would break away. Krishna would not let him break away. You see he was exposed. Similarly, when the enemy of the mind is exposed before God, it's not that he just humbly surrenders and says “Oh Krishna! Now you know who I am, I surrender.” No. The first thing the mind will do in the same spirit as Vyomasura, it will try by hook, by crook, by any means to avoid surrendering. When the enemy of the mind is undetected, it simply causes havoc in your life and keeps you stored in the dark cave of the ignorance of material existence. But when it actually is detected, when somebody points out “You are in Maya.” “No. Not me, impossible. You're wrong. You're misunderstanding, lack of communication here. I'm afraid.” Sometimes we all think like that. Admit it. Everyone thinks like that. There is a verse that says ‘the greatest person is a person who's willing to admit his mistakes and admit his weaknesses.’

Krishna Is the Only One Who Can Kill the Demon of The Mind

If we hear and if serve such great souls then the Lord becomes please with us and ultimately such a state of pure love cannot be attained by any endeavour but it is received by the causeless mercy of Sri Sri Radha and Krishna, through Gurudev. That is our only hope. Bhakti means how to attract the Lord through our sincere, eager desire to serve. It is this type of humility to simply want to serve that attracts the Lord. Krishna is Laxminath, He is the husband of the goddess of fortune. He does not need any of our learned abilities to quote scriptures, He does not need our money, He does not need our influential position in society. But Krishna is longing to taste the sweetness of our humble devotion. Therefore, we must put as the supreme principle of our life, humility and an ambitious desire to serve the servants of the Lord; this is what Krishna consciousness means.

Only Humility With Service Attitude Can Attract Krishna

Chaitanya mahaprabhu said, “Krishna is non different than his name, nämnäm akäri bahudhä nija-sarva-çaktis, all of his powers are within his name. But then my lord said, if a devotee is chanting the holy names but offends Vaishnavas, Krishna is so displeased, that Krishna through his name may destroy you out of mercy. Krishna’s name is Krishna, he is a person. It is not something mechanical, we ,must chant in a way that pleases the holy name. The seventh offence to the holy name is to commit sinful activities on th trength of chanting. If we think let me chant and then I can do any thing sinful and then I will rectify it by chanting again, if that is our mentality you are offending god in his name and the first of all offences is to blaspheme devotees of the lord. Why are these offences? It is not just something mechanical. It must be understood in a very personalized way. These are offences because they displease Krishna substantially.

The Crucial Principles of Bhakti

This is the mission of the lord in this age of Kali yuga. So, the first thing that is required is, we must be personally very enthusiastic to come together to chant this Hari naam and must live a very pure exemplary life for others to see, we must be willing to be instruments to assist according to our capacity in whatever way to give the mercy of the lord to the suffering people of this world; by somehow inducing them, convincing them, attracting them to chant Hari naam. Srila Prabhupada said, the whole purpose of all of his books, the whole purpose of all of our preaching, the whole purpose of all our activities is simply to induce people to take shelter of the chanting of the holy name of Krishna, Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

The Great Mission of Sri Chaitnaya Mahaprabhu

Ananta Gauranga- Nitai Pada Kamala 08.26.19 @NRR

Radhanath Swami is a Vaishnava sanyassi (a monk in a Krishna-bhakti lineage) and teacher of the devotional path of Bhakti-yoga. He is author of The Journey Home, a memoir of his search for spiritual truth. His teachings draw from the sacred texts of India such as The Bhagavad-gita, Srimad Bhagavatam, and Ramayana, and aim to reveal the practical application of the sacred traditions, while focusing on the shared essence which unites apparently disparate religious or spiritual paths.
Born Richard Slavin, on December 7, 1950, in his teens he came to confront a deep sense of alienation from suburban Chicago life and the civil injustices of mid-century America. At the age of nineteen, while on a summer trip to Europe, his internal struggles culminated in a commitment to search for God wherever it might lead him. Meditating on the Isle of Crete, he felt a supernatural calling and the next morning set off alone to find spiritual India. The Journey Home documents his odyssey as a penniless hitch-hiker though Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and finally India. There he lived as a wandering ascetic, first amongst the forest dwelling Himalayan yogis and later amongst a wide variety of gurus and spiritual practitioners throughout India and Nepal. Ultimately, he was led to the holy town of Vrindavan, where he found his path amongst the Bhakti-yogis.
In Vrindavan he found the teacher he was searching for in A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977) the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), and representative of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, (the Krishna-bhakti tradition stemming from the 16th century mystic avatar Sri Chaitanya). In choosing Bhaktivedanta Swami, as his guru, Radhanath Swami felt compelled to shear his matted locks and reenter Western society with a mission to share the sacred wisdom he had received. This return exemplifies the form of devotional yoga which is at the heart of Radhanath Swami’s teachings, a spiritual practice expressed as tangible action meant to bring about personal fulfillment and benefit the world.
At the the age of 31 he took the monastic vows of a Vaishnava sanyassin and became known as Radhanath Swami.
Today Radhanath Swami travels regularly throughout India, Europe and North America, sharing the teachings of Bhakti-yoga. He resides much of the year at the Radha Gopinath Ashram in Chowpatty, Mumbai. For the past twenty-five years he has guided the community’s development and has directed a number of acclaimed social action projects including Midday Meals, which daily serves more than 260,000 plates of sanctified vegetarian food to the children of the slums of Mumbai. He has also worked to establish missionary hospitals and eye camps, eco-friendly farms, schools and ashrams, an orphanage, and a number of emergency relief programs throughout India.
