So, if you are reading this blog — and I mean you there behind the screen, you who just read this, and also all of you and the little fellow who ran hiding behind the corner to avoid this — I'd appreciate one or two minutes of your kind attention.

I am trying to decipher how many people read the blog on a more or less regular basis (at least twice a month), and would also like to hear your thoughts on what you'd like to read and see in the Journal in the future. Any and all suggestions, compliments and critique, whether on content or on functionality, is welcome.

Please click on the "send a comment" link at the bottom of the post to open a feedback form with which you can send me a note. You can also do this anonymously if you wish — but please be aware that a message sent is important in sustaining the writing inspiration. If you're feeling all too speechless and shy, send a blank message with your favorite name of Krishna there just to announce you're around. Nobody likes to be talking to the walls after all!

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The following is a touching excerpt from a text I am working on, Paratattva-sammukhya by Sri Kunjabihari dasa Babaji Maharaja. In the following dedication of the text, the author remembers his beloved siksa-guru, Sri Krishna Caitanya dasa Babaji Maharaja, of whom we have heard little. Despite the lack of biographical information, the depth of the author's feeling speaks volumes on the exalted nature of this mahatma.

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Dedication

As he had attachment for the hearing and chanting of the sweetness of Śrī-Śrī Gaura-Govinda’s pastimes, so he was also immersed in remembrance. Such was his firmness in sadācāra, his lack of fault-finding, his humility and respect for others and his naturally accessible affectionate nature... And therefore, he was always moved by narrations of Śrī Hari’s name, qualities and pastimes, and even at their semblance tears, tremors and erect bodily hairs would be manifest. Who was the quintessential form of an ornament of the indigent and renounced Vaiṣṇava community...

In this way, after staying in the bliss of bhajana at the bank of Śrī-Śrī Rādhā-kuṇḍa for a long time, giving joy to the Vaiṣṇavas, he entered into the nitya-līlā. By his causeless shower of affection, even such a fallen and unfit person as myself had the good fortune of residing at the house of his attainment of perfection. In his pious remembrance, the Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya Śāstra Mandira was established to publish diverse literature with devotional illustrations for the sake of making the truths of Vraja’s sādhya and sādhana known.

This book was offered with greatest faith and devotion to the lotus hands of this most worshipable śikṣā-guru of mine whom I remember upon awakening, mahātma Śrī Śrīmat Kṛṣṇa Caitanya dāsa Bābājī Mahārāja.

Servant of the servants,
Śrī Kuñjabihārī dāsa

Traveling to rural India is an experience in a great number of ways. To ensure sweet memories, it is a good idea to eliminate some aspects of the overwhelming experience by remembering a number of small but important details. My experiences come mainly from travels in North India and Bengal, but ought to apply all across the great land of India. The following travel tips are by no means a comprehensive outline of all things you need to consider, but are nonetheless a good deal more than you’d find in your average travel guide.

(Yea, and I know there's a typo in the headline on the site! Although they can be "travel trips" too! It's being fixed as I write this.)

Bhagavad Gita, literally ”The Song of God”, is a Sanskrit text revered across the plural world of Hinduism as one of the tradition’s essential sacred texts. Over its 700 verses, spread over 18 chapters, Bhagavad Gita — or "the Gita" as it is often called — covers the gist of the three main paths to salvation, namely karma-yoga or the yoga of works, jnana-yoga or the yoga of knowledge, and bhakti-yoga or the yoga of devotion.

The scene of the Bhagavad Gita is set on the battlefield of Kuruksetra amidst the onset of a war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Arjuna, one of the five Pandava brothers, finds himself distraught at the thought of having to face his friends, relatives and teachers on the battlefield and turns to his charioteer, none other than Krishna himself, for council. In the ensuing discussion, Krishna dispels Arjuna’s illusion by thorough answers to his doubts and questions.

Over its eighteen chapters, traditionally divided into eighteen yogas or episodes in connecting with the Supreme, Bhagavad Gita covers the following themes:

Vrindavan, located in northern India a three-hour drive south of New Delhi, is one of the most popular places of pilgrimage in India, the land where Krishna spent his youth, hosting thousands of temples and sights of nature.

A slide-show featuring 20 photos of choice is now available at Associated Content — click here to browse. Please take a moment to rate it and "Digg it" if you enjoyed the contents.

This overview on sending a parcel to the West from an Indian post-office is based on today's experiences on an exhausting trip to Vrindavana, a part in a series of how-to articles meant to make life easier for people new to all those wonderful Indian complications a Western visitor would never anticipate. First of all, remember that things take their time. If you intend to get something mailed, reserve two hours for the process. If it takes less, then good for you — but wasting two hours for the task is not at all unheard of. I'll first cover the principles and then conclude with a juicy story.

Packing. Basically, you have two kinds of content. One is books only that may qualify for a separate, lower price, and the other is everything else. If books are shrink-wrapped or wrapped in bubble coated plastic and cartoon, or packed in an equivalent tight and sturdy way, they may be sent as they are. Everything else will have to be sewn tight inside a cotton cloth. Yes, you got it right — go and buy a piece of cotton and bring it to the tailor. Once it's neatly packed, you will need to get some sealing wax and paste some around the joints. They may or may not require this, and may or may not be able to do this in the post office, but your best bet is to get it done yourself in advance. That's the packing part...

Those of you who've been following up news or discussions at Vilasa Kunja (Pretty Damn Hot!) know it's been a bit intense at this end of the world with the extreme heat we've been baked in. The mercury has been hanging at an average of 45 C (113 F), with AccuWeather's Real Feel estimates routinely past 50 and even 60 on some days!

The official death toll figures in Uttar Pradesh, the worst affected of all places, are somewhere past 60 — which is most likely a gross underestimate, given that just recently — on one single day — we had six people die of heat here at Radhakund. Nobody bothers to keep track of people in rural areas... When electricity goes and fans stop, sweat begins to pour down in literally dozens of streams. It's hot all right, and people are getting dehydrated!

Since two days now — god thank! — it's been cooling down. The indoors temperature has gone down by 6 C — we used to have it at 40 here in our old Gauradham house day and night, now we're at 35 or thereabouts, and a bit less at night. The word's out the monsoon is coming over soon. Last year they missed out on the rains, let's hope this summer isn't an encore of the previous one. I hope we're over the worst now! In fact, I can hear the sounds of thunder as I'm writing... Let's see if it'll rain! It's in the air, there's no doubt about that.

I can't say it would have been an easy summer. Coping with heat this extreme is very taxing to both the mind and the body. I won't go into detail on all things heat can cause, but regardless of particular ailments it will exhaust you altogether, and it's tough for the heart as well. "Let the troubles come again and again to let us meet with you again and again" were Kunti's famous words, but I cannot say this particular experience would have worked as an impetus for remembering — rather to the contrary...

Our house project and the underground was supposed to be done in good time before the summer, but alas we're still not living underground! A part of the delay has been with the weather and with the "India factor", and a good deal more with the shortage of funds and delays with income. For future reference, people should start working when they have the necessary funds together! Regardless it's all for the good, one more experience that makes one grow and reflect.

A recent detour to different corners of the cyberspace has yet again brought before my eyes things long absent from my horizon. The intense online debates between devotees. You know, those with friends and enemies, pharisees and heresies, yes, and the apostate and the witch too for a full cavalcade. My eyes and heart have grown since the days of my last encounters with the such, and a reflection or two are in place.

To give way to hatred and ill feeling is to pave way to one's own perishness. Negative thoughts born of a material psyche consume the soul and haunt the mind at the time of bhajana. Most of us share a basic sense of their unworthiness, yet for our attachment to our lower nature we seek justified avenues for their expression in the guise of religion and idealism. sAdhu sAvadhAna! — "Saints! Be wary!" Assess your motives, assess the advantages and the disadvantages of such engagements.

In the Bhagavata, we read of the character and acts of a madhyama-bhakta as fourfold:



There is enough content in this world to be filed under dveSa that one can spend the rest of his days running with the krodha bhakta-dveSI-jane license, if one so wishes. To each his own. While there is a time and a place for apt words in defense of Gaudiya Vaisnavism proper, there are a great many times when such diatribes would be better shunned. The expression of anger or indignation is there with an aim to rectify the perceived offender, not to alienate or to destroy him. If a person has no capacity to uplift or to at least influence another, offering harsh critique, especially in public, is unbecoming and leads to aparadha. Of course, some may do it as a matter of educating others on right and wrong — but those who just vent out without a clear aim are doing nothing but swinging an axe at their own lotus foot.

In this vein, from Sri Ananta Das Babaji Maharaja’s vyakhya on the 22th tripadi of Thakura Mahasaya’s Prema-bhakti-candrika, of which the gloves off permission for verbal abuse is drawn.


And truly so, for how could one tolerate the blasphemy or viciousness towards one’s loved. Then, how is the anger duly manifest? Does the above stanza now give us a license to beat the blasphemers into a bloody pulp, or at least a license to hurl a volley of verbal abuse their way? The vyakhya continues:


Observing this to the letter would indeed create some bloody pulp. The statement is conditional however, “if one is able to”. This does not only refer to a physical possibility of an assault, but also to having a justified position for acts of corporal punishment — a privilege reserved to the ksatriyas of the yore. The Vaisnavas should, therefore, act differently:


The commentator has twice spoken of the great destroying power of anger, and speaks at great length on the dangers of anger in his vyakhya on text 24. How careful should one be, then, in engaging this fire of anger so as to not burn oneself in the process? The passage above does not recommend the staging of an all-out confrontation with the bhakta-dvesi. Rather, it recommends indignated withdrawal from the scenario, for confronting another in an angry battle of words is a risky business indeed.

There is a Vaisnava-culture we are taught to follow, and good manners and etiquette that go along with the same. There are Vaisnavas of different grades of age, both material and spiritual, of different levels of maturity, and with different relationships and positions in the society of devotees, and accordingly a great variety of eligibilities for dealing with such situations. Some related thoughts have been featured in an older text at Vilasa Kunja.

Some two Vaisnavas may be of the same generation both by birth and by initiation, and as such share a relationship permitting different levels in frankness of expression than would be suitable for relative newcomers like myself. If I were to speak out with a forté a senior and elderly Vaisnava is acquitted, I would only incur aparadha. For our own spiritual good, we should be very careful in dealing with everyone, and especially with those who have found meaning in devotion to Radha and Krishna.

Observe the power of merely observing conflicts between Vaisnavas! A friend noted, “Yesterday morning after reading all this I could barely sit in front of my altar and chant.” If exchanges of anger and indignation are invested with such a destructive power that even observers are effected, how much greater will the impact be on those amidst the conflict itself? For most purposes and for most people, the indignated exit is the safe and certain path that incurs neither the fault of inaction nor the adverse effects of aparadha.

sAdhu sAvadhAna! sAdhu sAvadhAna! sAdhu sAvadhAna!