Radhanath Swami's Blog
June 25, 2025
The heart is like a mirror
This week is Gundicha Marjanam – a festival celebrated worldwide, commemorating the beautiful pastime where Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, in the role of a devotee, taught us how to truly welcome the Lord into our hearts.
In the Bhagavad-gita (18.61), Krishna assures us:
“I reside in the heart of every living being.”
Even when we turn away, He remains – our ever-present, ever-loving friend. And as Krishna teaches us in the Gita (18.54), those who truly recognize Him, naturally extend that same friendship to everyone they meet.
Lord Caitanya’s pastime of Gundicha-Marjanam reminds us that to welcome Krishna into our hearts means to acknowledge Him, please Him, and make our heart a place He is happy to reside. That is the place bhakti-yoga is meant to bring us to: where God – who is within our hearts forever – is pleased to be there!
Through the practice of bhakti-yoga, we gradually cleanse our heart of ego, selfishness and worldly desires.
As Lord Caitanya beautifully expresses in the Śikṣāṣṭakam:
“When the heart is clean, then the nature of the soul shines through”
A spotless heart becomes a perfect mirror that reflects the light, love and beauty of Krishna Himself.
This reflection awakens our innate natural love for Him – and opens us to the boundless joy of knowing we are infinitely loved by Him in return.
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May 29, 2025
The true purpose of detachment
On the path of
bhakti
, detachment isn’t about rejection – it’s about redirection.We don’t simply want to be detached from things.
The only reason we want to be detached from the temporary things of this world is so that we can focus more and more of our consciousness in attachment to Kṛṣṇa. Here, detachment becomes a tool: not an end in itself.
The Srimad Bhagavatam is filled with stories of great devotees deeply attached to the Lord. The Bhagavad Gita teaches how to cultivate that attachment.
There is the example of Prahlada Maharaja, detached from egoistic, selfish enjoyment, yet he had the softest, most tender heart of compassion for all living beings. Or Haridasa Ṭhakur, who really didn’t have any clothes, lived in caves, yet he was willing to risk his life constantly, because he felt the pains of others and wanted to give them the happiness of Kṛṣṇa. The more we are actually attached to Krishna, the more we feel compassion for other living beings.
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Humility is a powerful practice
Humility is a powerful doorway to connecting with Kṛṣṇa. We can keep connected to Him by chanting His names and practicing bhakti – loving devotion – through various practices:
śravaṇa, kīrtana, smaraṇa, vandana, pāda-sevana, dāsya re, pūjana, sakhī-jana, ātma-nivedana
These are all ways of pleasing Kṛṣṇa. Yet my guru Srila Prabhupada often warned: The problem with religion is we become very attached to the rituals, but we don’t understand the purpose of the ritual. If our intention is not to please Kṛṣṇa, then even our hearing kirtan (chanting) is more or less ritualistic.
Sri Chaitanya describes how we chant the holy names of the lord.
tṛṇād api su-nīcena
taror iva sahiṣṇunā
amāninā māna-dena
kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ”
[CC Antya 6.239]
“One who thinks himself lower than grass, who is more tolerant than a tree, and who does not expect personal honor but is always prepared to give respect to others can very easily always chant the holy name of the Lord.”
When we chant with this attitude – willing to be humble like grass, patient like a big tree, and eager to honor others – then Krishna is happy and reciprocates, we feel his love, we become instruments of his love through the holy names.
We shouldn’t think we’re great just because we’re chanting; we should be grateful we have these holy names and express our gratitude by living in such a way that Krishna will be pleased by our chanting. This principle is at the heart of all dharmas, all spiritual paths.
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April 25, 2025
Finding joy beyond anxiety
Govinda Dāsa prayed, kamala-dala-jala, jīvana talamala – that everything we have is compared to a drop of water on a lotus leaf.
The nature of a lotus leaf is if there is the slightest movement, the drop of water slips away. Our health, our life in this body, the life of all our loved ones and everything that we hold dear to us – at any moment just some movement of nature and it slips away. Actually there are so many dangers at every moment that could happen to us that if we were really conscious of that, we would be living in total fear. There are wars and climate changes and so many things happening!
Everything is God’s property, and everyone is a child of God. We must do everything we can to protect and nourish them. But the reality is that the satisfaction everyone is looking for is not just in a healthy body, good relationships in this world or a nice, peaceful economic situation, because all of that is a drop of water on the lotus leaf of life.
athāto brahma-jijñāsā:
human life gives us the rare opportunity for self-realization. When we learn to love Kṛṣṇa, we actually love all that exists, We may not love the way people behave, we may not love situations that come upon us, but we love that inherently within every situation Krishna is waiting for us.
Naturally, we do not love things that hurt people. But we are grateful even in those situations that Krishna is there to give us shelter beyond birth and beyond death, beyond dualities.
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March 25, 2025
What is holding you back?
The boatman and the marriage party
One of my Guru’s favorite stories comes from his Guru Mahārāj, Śrīla Bhakti Siddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākur Prabhupāda. In Bengal, India, two villagers planned a lavish wedding in the bride’s village – every detail timed to an auspicious moment: the constellations, the sun’s position, even the exact hour.
As evening fell, the groom’s party boarded a simple rowboat to cross a wide river and drift downstream. Confident, the boatman said, “Sleep well – I know this river. I’ve been on it all my life, you can all go to sleep and relax and first thing in the morning when the sun rises we will be at the destination, and we’ll arrive right on time.” Under a glowing moon, they slept peacefully.
At dawn, roosters crowed and birds sang. But to their shock, the boat lay exactly where it had been the night before. Bewildered, then furious, they yelled at the boatman – who, after looking around was even more bewildered than them, because through the entire night with all of his might he was rowing and rowing. Finally, a passenger spotted the problem: he’d forgotten to pull up the anchor!
How to make real spiritual progress
Little Prahlāda’s words in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam go to the heart of the matter:
“However much effort we make – whether through wealth, our spiritual practices, morality, or piety – we can’t really make progress as long as the anchor of material ego and attachment holds us down.”
(ŚB 7.6.9)
Like the boat, we cannot move forward while our ego and fleeting desires weigh us down. True spiritual advancement begins when we let go of that anchor and take shelter in the Supreme. That begins with knowledge and its application. The knowledge of who I am and what I really want, not what the flickering mind and senses are wanting from moment to moment. But who am I and what do I really want?
Our true nature – ānandamayī – is pure, inconceivable bliss beyond the mind and senses. That’s our nature. Our nature is joy. Therefore, we are always looking for joy.
As Śrī Chaitanya Mahāprabhu told Sanātana Gosvāmī: Wherever there is life, there is a living entity, there’s the presence of soul, the jiva. And the nature of every soul is to experience the joy of serving Kṛṣṇa.
To serve is to please. Krishna tells in Gita [11.54] that ‘you can only understand Me when I reveal myself to you. That ‘I only reveal Myself according to your love’. To serve God really means to love God. what other service could God want from us?
Everything within the universe is composed of the energy of the Supreme God Krishna, parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate, [Sb 10.3.19] nothing is separate ever. The only real separation of anything from Krishna, from God, is our awareness of His connection.
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The True Measure of Wealth
/*! elementor - v3.22.0 - 26-06-2024 */.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block} There’s a saying that if you lose your wealth then you lose nothing,
because you can get it back somehow or other.
If you lose your health,
then you have actually lost something.
But if you lose your values and your character,
then you’ve truly lost everything.
The world is in such a difficult situation today, environmentally, economically, politically and in so many other ways. With all these difficulties and problems with which we are faced, the root cause is a lack of values and character.
When people are arrogant, when people have greed, or when people have envy there’s no way to pacify those things, because the more you feed it the more it needs.
From a spiritual perspective, the most meaningful and fulfilling life is when we find our happiness within ourselves and practice genuine love and compassion. Whatever we do and whatever we have we then become things we can use as a way of expressing our compassion and our love. In the Bible there’s a beautiful verse that asks “what profiteth a man who gains the whole world but who loses their own soul?” When I grew up in America I heard this verse and I was thinking that this is the essence of religion or spirituality.
It’s not about what you call yourself or how many pages you memorize from scriptures. It’s about how much we really understand this principle to actually reconnect with our true self. The bhagavad-gita tells na jayate mriyate va kadachin: that the nature of the true self, the living force that’s within us is eternal, which means that we are eternal, we are full of knowledge and we are full of inherent joy and happiness. And just like a driver in a car, the atma or the spirit soul is within this body. We can’t keep the same car for very long in this world and have to trade it in eventually, so similarly the Atma or the soul doesn’t die at the time of death. We simply trade in our old bodies for new ones.
The nature of the soul is that we’re part of the supreme soul or God who has many names and is found in many religions. Just like there’s one sun in the sky but that same sun has different names and rises in different continents at different times, we can feel the warmth of God’s love in many different ways.
To awaken our own love, we simply have to adjust our vision. The Gita also explains vidya vinaya sampanne brahmane gavi hastini, that one who is actually in connection with their own self will then see that same divinity within everyone.
We’ll see every living being as our brothers and sisters.
We’ll see the environment as sacred property
and we’ll respect people in that way.
Thus with this foundational conception of the mind of equal vision and the experience of the heart of God’s love spread everywhere across all beings, we can increase our motivation to excel in life and do good for others, because love is a far greater incentive than material greed or lust. This is what the world needs: people who have this higher purpose of making a positive difference to their families, their society and to the world. If you water the root of the tree naturally that water goes to every part of the tree, including the leaves, the branches and all the flowers. Similarly, when we understand the love of our own hearts and we actually connect with God’s love, then naturally that love flows toward everyone.
It’s the discovery of our own inner fulfilment which is truly our greatest treasure.
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June 30, 2024
The Value of Time
/*! elementor - v3.22.0 - 17-06-2024 */.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block} I was once gathered with a group of people where a 14 year old spoke up to share something in front of everyone. Before she could speak she took a deep breath and started to cry.
She was so emotional while everyone stood in silence, waiting to hear what she had to say. She tried to formulate her words but was so choked up by tears of emotion that it took her a while to finally point to a nearby tree and ask everyone a simple but powerful question:
“Can’t you hear what this tree is trying to tell us? This tree has witnessed generations of human beings pass by and is wondering why do you human beings waste your time obsessing and fighting over such superficial things? Time is so precious and you live such short lives. Why don’t you take seriously what is actually important: your spiritual relationships with each other, with nature and with God?”
As she cried we all felt as if the tree was actually speaking through her, because the words coming from this innocent child really struck our hearts in a deep and profound way. Time truly is precious and we live very short lives, especially when compared to that tree.
One time I was with my father, who was 91 years old at the time, and he was telling stories of when he and his brother were about seven or eight years old. He was telling me that on Sunday nights the whole family would gather in a circle around a radio and listen to shows in the 1920s. He said it was so long ago, but felt like yesterday, and that he could remember those days much better than all the things in between.
Life flies so fast and the most precious thing we have is each and every moment of time. Time itself is so mystical, because
you cannot see it, touch it, hear it, feel it, taste it or smell it
but that very time is in the process of extinguishing the sun,
evaporating every ocean,
and pulverizing every planet into dust,
what to speak of our little bodies.
Bribes cannot corrupt time
and beauty cannot seduce it.
The greatest militaries with all of their arsenals
cannot stop its progress for even a moment.
There’s specifically a verse found in the Bhagavat Purana which mentions that with every rising and setting of the sun, regardless of who we are or whatever we have accumulated, we’re simply one day closer to death. But for those who utilize their time for a spiritual higher purpose, then with every rising and setting of the sun we are one day closer to eternal life.
This is why the basic question that is there in so many of the great philosophies and religions of the world is “who am I?” Because unless we know who we are we cannot really understand our relationships with each other or with the environment around us, what to speak of the higher spiritual powers beyond us. And who we are is the eternal force within, who is seeing through the eyes and hearing through the ears and tasting through the tongue and thinking through the brain and loving through the heart. The nature of that living force in Sanskrit is called atma. It is eternal and undying. By nature it is full of knowledge and full of happiness.
And what is that happiness? We know that there are things which can give some pleasure to the body and mind and our physical senses, but things can never give fulfillment to the heart. Only love can give fulfillment to the heart, and to give love and to receive love is the most fundamental need of every living being. This is how we are meant to use our time, to cultivate this awareness of our true essence, to uncover the true self within and to help and serve others as they strive to do the same.That is the nature of genuine love and compassion.
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June 24, 2024
Healing the Heart, Healing the Earth
/*! elementor - v3.22.0 - 17-06-2024 */.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block} What is actually the reason why the world is filled with so much pollution?
The root cause is the pollution within the human heart. When our heart is polluted, then our words, our actions and the decisions we make manifest as the pollution we see in our environment.
What’s in us always ends up getting expressed through what we do and say. Therefore we have to address our inner ecology. We have to educate people:
how to live in harmony with ourselves,
how to live in harmony with each other,
how to live in harmony with God,
and how to live in harmony with nature.
Today’s world has reached a point of incredible scientific development, but with all our incredible technology and the unbelievable development of Industry and advanced methods of communication, if we don’t use these things with the right attitude or the right motives, we have the power to cause serious destruction.
The true purpose of religion, of spirituality or real yoga is very simple. It’s not a sectarian idea. It’s meant to clean the pollution in our hearts and transform our arrogance into humility and our greed into love and compassion.
Toxic greed is something that can never be satisfied. Being a millionaire or a billionaire cannot satisfy the heart. That’s the way greed is. It’s like a fire, where the more you feed it, the harder it burns. Therefore we need to learn how to transform selfishness into a desire to selflessly, how to transform hate into love, envy into rejoicing over somebody’s else’s good fortune.
In this way we can actually connect to a grace and energy that is within all of us as well as everything around us and that brings out the inherent love that is within us. So as spiritualists, our responsibility is to do our part to help clean up the internal state of human consciousness. Because even if you clean every river, every ocean, every air particle and every piece of land on the Earth, as long as that selfish egoistic greed is there then we’re just going to pollute it all over again.
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June 17, 2024
The Pursuit of Inner Happiness
/*! elementor - v3.21.0 - 26-05-2024 */.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block} The origin of all happiness lies within us and is experienced and expressed through love. There is a difference, however, between material love and spiritual love.
Material love is when the soul is covered by Maya or illusion and thus seeks to find fulfillment by satisfying the urges of the body and the mind. But the happiness of the soul, known as Brahma sukhyam, extends far beyond the material body and mind and connects to our deepest yearnings.
This happiness of the soul is so deep that just to taste even an infinitesimal particle of it, yogis and spiritual aspirants throughout history and even today are willing to give up their wealth, their fame, and all other sense pleasures to seek out that Brahma sukhyam, that spiritual enjoyment. Some brahmacari monks give up everything to sleep on the floor or a simple bed in order to live a simple life materially because they want to taste that inner sense of enjoyment spiritually.
There are countless examples of people who have renounced things that are often considered most difficult to give up, simply because they’re seeking this Brahman enjoyment. Bharat Maharaj is one such example in Vedic history who was the Emperor of his time. He was such a powerful and respected Emperor that the entire land of India has been named after him as Bharat varsha. He was loved by all the citizens, had a wonderful family, and held unsurpassable wealth, fame, and strength. Yet when he was at the prime of his youth he gave it all up to live alone in the wilderness, seeking this Brahma sukhyam, his inner spiritual enjoyment.
The exalted Buddha is known as a prince who had the most luxurious palace, was surrounded by beautiful people, and was in the prime of his youth as a healthy and strong young man. He had everything beyond what a person could even aspire for. Yet he left it all to perform server tapasya, austerity, for years just to seek this Brahman enjoyment.
So considering that such people will give up so much material pleasure to taste a drop of spiritual happiness, we gain insight into what’s truly valuable and where to direct our ambitions and aspirations in order to find the love and happiness we’re seeking.
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June 10, 2024
The Power of Humility in Spiritual Practice
/*! elementor - v3.21.0 - 26-05-2024 */.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block} Character is an essential principle for sustained spiritual practice.
The analogies given to us are that unless we become more humble like the grass, tolerant and forgiving like the tree, and unless we can joyfully offer respect to others without demanding it for ourselves, it is very difficult to chant the holy names of God continuously and with great feeling.
Even if we follow all the regulative principles and cut the weeds in our heart or perform our spiritual practices and cultivate deep knowledge, we won’t make genuine spiritual progress if there is still a basis of false pride underneath it all.
We can very intellectually, philosophically, scientifically and technologically understand what is the difference between matter and spirit, what is truth and what is illusion, but if the root of our ego remains then it’s just a matter of time until the weeds keep coming back. This is why the principle of humility is at the very core of the science of self-realization.
Similar to if you have a disease in the blood, that disease may manifest as rashes and boils and so many other discomforts externally. There are medical processes to cure the individual symptoms and gain a temporary relief from the pain and agitation, but as long as the underlying disease is still there in the blood, then the symptoms will continue to resurface over and over again. And sometimes the more you deal with the symptoms without dealing with the cause, when the symptoms come back they get worse and worse each time.
We have examples in our Vedic histories like Hiranyakashyapu and Ravana, both of whom knew so much Vedic philosophy and performed severe austerities and sacrifices. They could speak about the difference between body and spirit better than all the learned pandits today, but they had false pride and didn’t carry the mood of humble service. Therefore all their austerities and all their cultivation of knowledge and all their sacrifices and everything else they did caused them to seem very powerful and liberated, but they weren’t. They were entrapped by the weeds which kept them from experiencing genuine love and devotion to God and others.
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