Bhakti Vikasa Swami's Blog, page 102

Summary of the Krsna consciousness movement

This is the sum and substance of our Krsna consciousness movement. We are simply requesting human society to follow in the footsteps of the teacher of Bhagavad-gita. Follow the instructions of Bhagavad-gita As It Is, and your life will be successful. That is the summary of the Krsna consciousness movement.

Srila Prabhupada, SB 8.1.16, purport

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Death for a devotee

Death is stopped as soon as you take Krsna consciousness very seriously, immediately, from that moment, as soon as you are initiated. You promise before the spiritual master, “Yes, I am initiated, I shall act like this,” and if you follow, then your death is stopped from that point. No more death. No more death. Simply an official business, just like you sleep and again you awake, similarly, a devotee’s death is like that. It is like sleeping, and next moment in the spiritual kingdom, immediately. Immediately. When he will rise, he will see that “I am with Krsna. I am with Krsna.”

Srila Prabhupada /Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.16.8 — January 5, 1974, Los Angeles

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America will drop the atom bomb, and Russia will be finished

You are maintaining so many slaughterhouses, and when it will be mature, there will be war, the wholesale murder. Finished. One atom bomb — finished.

You’ll have to suffer. Don’t think that “Innocent animals, they cannot protest. Let us kill and eat.” No. You’ll be also punished. Wait for accumulation of your sinful activities, and there will be war, and the America will drop the atom bomb, and Russia will be finished. Both will be finished. Go on now enjoying. It takes time. Just like even if you infect some disease, it takes time. Not that immediately you infect, and immediately the disease is there. No. It takes a week’s time or so. What is called? A quarantine, quarantinei.

From Srila Prabhupada’s lecture on SB 6.1.32, Honolulu, May 31, 1976

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Actually understanding rasa-lila

The Lord Himself appears before the mundaners to bestow upon them the highest form of spiritual realization and also personally relish its essence. The Lord is so merciful that He Himself descends to take the fallen souls back home to the kingdom of Godhead, where the erotic principles of Godhead are eternally relished in their real form, distinct from the perverted sexual love so much adored and indulged in by the fallen souls in their diseased condition. The reason the Lord displays the rasa-lila is essentially to induce all the fallen souls to give up their diseased morality and religiosity, and to attract them to the kingdom of God to enjoy the reality. A person who actually understands what the rasa-lila is will certainly hate to indulge in mundane sex life. For the realized soul, hearing the Lord’s rasa-lila through the proper channel will result in complete abstinence from material sexual pleasure.

From Srila Prabhupada’s purport to Cc Adi 4.30

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Yoga, meditation, and cheating

Because we want something sublime and yet want it cheaply, we put ourselves in a position to be cheated. This means that we actually want to be cheated. If we want something valuable, we must pay for it. We cannot expect to walk into a jewelry store and demand the most valuable jewel for a mere ten cents. No, we must pay a great deal. Similarly, if we want perfection in yoga, we have to pay by abstaining from sex. Perfection in yoga is not something childish, and Bhagavad-gita instructs us that if we try to make yoga into something childish, we will be cheated. There are many cheaters awaiting us, waiting to take our money, giving us nothing, and then leaving. But according to Sri Krsna’s authoritative statement in Bhagavad-gita, one must be “completely free from sex life.” Being free from sex, one should “meditate upon Me within the heart and make Me the ultimate goal of life.” This is real meditation.

From The Path of Perfection, by Srila Prabhupada

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Seeing Vrndavana means giving up sense gratification

Vrndavana-dhama, ordinary man cannot see. Therefore Narottama dasa Thakura says,

rupa-raghunatha-pade haibe akuti
kabe hama bujhabo sri yugala-piriti
visaya chadiya kabe suddha ha’be mana
kabe hama herabo sri-vrndavana

Vrndavana, if you come from anywhere by the train and aeroplane and see Vrndavana, that is not seeing Vrndavana. Vrndavana-seeing means,

visaya chadiya kabe suddha ha’be mana
kabe hama herabo sri-vrndavana

When we shall be free from visaya… Visaya means ahara-nidra-bhaya-maithunam [Hitopadesa 25]. So who can give up visaya unless it is a great devotee? Others cannot. Visaya, it is very difficult. But if one is advanced devotee — param drstva nivartate [Bg. 2.59] — they can give up. So if you come to Vrndavana and arrange for a visaya-bhoga — ahara-nidra-bhaya-maithunam — then Vrndavana is far away. Visaya chadiya. The whole Krsna сonsciousness movement is on the basis of visaya chadiya.

And Sri Locana dasa Thakura also sings, visaya chadiya se rase majiya, mukhe bolo hari hari. Visaya chadiya. If… Of course, in the beginning it is not possible, but the ultimate goal of life is to give up visaya — no more ahara-nidra-bhaya-maithuna. That is called visaya chadiya.

From Srila Prabhupada’s lecture on Srimad-Bhagavatam 6.2.14 — September 17, 1975, Vrndavana

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When Krsna entered the village, the young gopis smiled

When Krsna and Balarama entered the village of Vrndavana along with Their friends, They played Their flutes, and the boys praised Their uncommon activities in the forest. Their faces were decorated with tilaka and smeared with the dust raised by the cows, and Krsna’s head was decorated with a peacock feather. Both He and Balarama played Their flutes, and the young gopis were joyous to see Krsna returning home. All the gopis in Vrndavana remained very morose on account of Krsna’s absence. All day they were thinking of Krsna in the forest or of Him herding cows in the pasture. When they saw Krsna returning, all their anxieties were immediately relieved, and they began to look at His face the way drones hover over the honey of the lotus flower. When Krsna entered the village, the young gopis smiled and laughed. Krsna, while playing the flute, enjoyed the beautiful smiling faces of the gopis.

From Srila Prabhupada’s Krsna Book ch. 15

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Experiencing Vrndavana

Vrndavana is actually experienced as it is by persons who have stopped trying to derive pleasure from material enjoyment. “When will my mind become cleansed of all hankering for material enjoyment so I will be able to see Vrndavana?” one great devotee asks. The more Krsna conscious we become and the more we advance, the more everything is revealed as spiritual. Thus Krsnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami considered the Vrndavana in India to be as good as the Vrndavana in the spiritual sky, and in the sixteenth verse of the Caitanya-caritamrta he describes Radharani and Krsna as seated beneath awish-fulfilling tree in Vrndavana, on a throne decorated with valuable jewels. There Krsna’s dear gopi friends serve Radha and Krsna by singing, dancing, offering betel nuts and refreshments, and decorating Their Lordships with flowers.

From Teachings of Lord Caitanya, by Srila Prabhupada, Introduction

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By chanting, directly contact Krsna & go back to Godhead

The process of chanting is authorized as the direct means of contacting the Supreme Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead. Simply by chanting the holy name Krsna, the soul is attracted by the Supreme Person, Krsna, to go home, back to Godhead.

From: The Science of Srila Prabhupada by Srila Prabhupada

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Four regulative principles and sixteen rounds

Now you must agree to very rigidly follow the rules and regulations, i.e. chanting sixteen rounds of beads daily, rising early and attending Mangala Arati, observing the four principles, attending the classes, eating only bhagavata prasadam as well as working under the instruction of my representatives, such as your GBC representative and Temple President, and if you follow this procedure very strictly then your life will be glorious and you will go back to Home, back to Godhead, this I can guarantee.

From a letter by Srila Prabhupada to Ghanasyama — Sydney 16 February, 1973

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