The BapCast Network

The advanced devotee who is inclined to spontaneous loving service, should follow the activities of a particular associate of Krishna in Vrindavan. He should execute devotional service externally as a regulated devotee, as well as internally from his self-realized position. Thus he should perform both externally and internally. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu indicates the mood and public behavior of the devotee in raga-marga in the following verse: "If a woman is attached to a man other than her husband, she will appear very busy in carrying out her household affairs, but within her heart she is always relishing feelings of association with her paramour."

Real love must include God. When you love God your love will be truthful, because you cannot let anybody down in the spirit of loving God. You have to see God in everyone. You have to understand that the same Guide and Helper and Lover Who is sustaining you is also sustaining all of them. Loving God is the basic for loving others really, and that is sraddha (faith). When you believe that, you will be very enthusiastic for learning how to love Krishna. Because love for God is a process which you learn by the sadhana (spiritual practice), with the help of the guru and the sastras, they teach you how to love God, how to be the servant of the servant of God. They give you all the guidance and all the personal affection to go on and take up spiritual responsibility along the path.

Wether you have all material desires or no material desires, or even if you have the desire to become one with Brahman, in any case it is strongly recommended that you chant the holy name and engage in bhakti-yoga (devotional service). We can recommend this chanting to everybody, even if they still have so many material desires lingering in them. The holy name of Krishna is independent and will take its own action. The holy name of Krishna will do everything possible that the people will become purified from their misunderstandings so that they will be able to understand and embrace the true holy name. Srila Prabhupada invited everybody in this world to participate. He gave this chanting out through harinam, distribution of books and through distribution of prasadam (food offered to God).

Intensity and eagerness, this is something very peculiar. You never pay for air, you never talk much about air, but if some powerful person comes and covers your mouth and nose and you are deprived of air, within seconds air becomes the supreme commodity and you are ready to give up your car, your house, your anything, just for a breath of air. Intense eagerness is really a crucial question, in how much are we eager to live the truth, to practice the truth, how eager are we to help others, how eager are we to help our Guru Maharaja?

The month of kartik allows us to go deeper into spiritual practice. It gives us a certain permission to think about the astakalya-lila which is generally not accessible to devotees. At our Vraja-mandala parikrama we bring new devotees all the time so our practice remains on a very introductory level. Deeper levels of meditation and absorption require increased amount of tapasya (austerities). For example in the month of kartik the devotees renounce many types of foodstuffs, eat only once a day, sing continuously, in other words they really try very hard to come closer to the consciousness of pure devotees. For those who are coming from the general lifestyle, doing their jobs, coming to Vrindavan and getting deeply absorbed is undoubtedly very difficult and for those who come for the first or second time to Vrindavan this is simply impossible. But for our own purification we are reading the Bhajana-rahasya and trying to make some small moves into the right direction.