Surrender - Vishnu Swami

Srila Prabhupada Hindi Lecture 21

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

Govinda Prabhu 7.2.20 Kirtan In Aindra Prabhus Room On Nityananda Trayodasi

Caring - Krishna Nandini Mataji

Avani Prabhu 23.7.20 On Hariyali Teej

It was just a couple weeks after that the closing pastimes of Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur’s lila took place. He was in the Bagh Bazaar Temple in Calcutta and there his devotees from all around were having beautiful kirtan around him. On the morning of December 31st 1936, Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati asked one of his disciples Srila Bhakti Rakshak Sridhar Maharaj to sing for him the beautiful song of Narottam Das Thakur – ‘Sri Rupa Manjiri Pada’, which is the eternal aspiration, the mood of the song is eternal aspiration of all true gaudiya vaisnavas. And then he asked another of his devotees to sing the beautiful ‘Siksastakam’ prayers and then he told his devotees that they must serve one another, love one another, preach together, co-operate and he told them to divide the management under a authority called GBC, Governing Body Commission of about 10-12 men who will help to develop preaching strategies for his worldwide movement.

Final Instruction of Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur

Krishna told Arjuna “by constant practice and detachment it is possible.” Arjuna said ‘the mind is more difficult to control them the raging wind.’ Can you control the wind? Tell me can you control the wind? The mind is more difficult to controlling the wind. So, can you control your mind? But it is said ‘out of fear of Krishna the wind blows and out of fear of Krishna the wind stops blowing.’ For Krishna, to control the wind is that any difficulty? Similarly, for Krishna to control your mind is it any difficulty? So, we have to by constant practice and detachment, keep our mind fixed on Krishna. Constant practice and detachment means that Krishna sees that we are genuinely, honestly and sincerely trying. This is the essence. You cannot control your mind ever. you are a Jeevatma and your mind is being empowered by the all-devouring force of Maya. You cannot control your mind. But you know the story of the sparrow?

How To Control 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

So, now Nimai is standing before him, soaking wet from the bath in the Ganga with the shaved head and Kesava Bharati says, “You are the Supreme Lord and if this is how you want to teach the world to make me your guru, I am your servant.” And then he gave the two pieces of saffron cloth to our beloved Lord Gauranga. The Lord put on the saffron dress of a sanyasi. When the people saw him without his beautiful golden robes, without his jewellery and his garlands, without his luxurious cascading hair, their hearts were broken. But still, in the saffron robes of a sanyasi, he was so unlimitedly beautiful. He charmed their hearts. They fell unconditionally in love with this form of Mahaprabhu as a sanyasi. Then, the Lord did something that was wonderful.

Lord Gauranga Mahaprabhu Accepting Sannyas

So, if we are bored, if we are not finding ecstasy and excitement and adventure at every moment, that means we are not Krishna Conscious. That means we are still material conscious, it means we are forgetful of Krishna, it means we still have to go through all these artificial devices just to forget the boredom, the frustration of the bodily concept of life.  It is a fact. So, while we are in this state, a devotee wants to purify his senses by always engaging them in the loving service of the Lord, by worshiping the deity, by having wonderful wonderful sankirtan with so many loving devotees, by hearing the glories of the Lord in the Srimad Bhagvatam, by engaging in the service of the Lord, whether it be cooking for the deities or cleaning the children’s toilets, a devotee simply feels such bliss and such love just by keeping his senses always with Krishna in His service. Nothing is ordinary.

Nothing Is Routine For A Devotee

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.


Lord Gauranga Mahaprabhu Accepting Sannyas

Radhanath Swami

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