Riding the 'super-highway' back to Godhead

Last Saturday, we witnessed Meghan's initiation by H.H. Hridayananda das Goswami.  Her spiritual name is Maha Lakshmi devi dasi!  A most auspicious event attended by several Senior Prabhupada disciples including: Malati devi dasi, Amoghalila dasa, Garuda dasa, Brahma Tirtha dasa, and many distinguished devotee scholars from higher education universities such as Harvard, Oxford and UPenn. This past weekend they were meeting in New Vrindaban for the annual ISKCON Arts and Science conference.

In his lecture Hridayananda Maharaja spoke about the great gift Prabhupada gave us. In specifically he was talking about how Prabhupada led the way for clearing a super-highway to the spiritual world. The process of attaining spiritual advancement and self realization has been made easy by the mercy of Lord Caitanya 500 hundred years ago, but now with Srila Prabhupada, us conditioned souls, have been granted special mercy to achieve enlightment in this age of Kali. Let us take advantage of it! Let your soul be inmerse in the chanting of the Holy names Hare Krishna and Rama!

Meditation

Bhakti Yoga is the yoga of devotion, the science of the soul thus explained in the Vedic Scriptures. Upon seeing the lotus feet of the Lord in the deity one should meditate on His lotus feet and proceed upwards until finally contemplating His beautiful all atractive form of a cowherd boy, flute in hand. Hare means the energy of the Lord, his topmost devotee, his female consort, Radharani. Let your soul be in prayer to the great almighty creator of all: HARE KRISHNA, HARE KRISHNA, KRISHNA KRISHNA, HARE HARE/ HARE RAMA HARE RAMA, RAMA RAMA, HARE HARE. This mantra prayer has the power to free us from material bondage allowing us to focus our mind on a higher taste, a higher spiritual power. - The Supreme. Let your soul be in meditation of Him ~

Merciful

Yesterday we went to Columbus Ohio for the Viasa Puja celebration of His Holiness Radhanath Swami. The amount and quality of the preparations offered to Radhanath Swami by his disciples on the observance of his birthday was beyond anything I imagined. Such mercy! I sank in the ocean of the tastiest prasadam I've ever had. The picture only shows a very small percentage of what was preapared in this sumptuous feast. Enjoy!

Timeless

Today was a pretty smooth one... all I did was sit down on the snow and meditated all day.... right. Actually, my day was better than that. First of all, the Srimad Bhagavatam lecture today was very inspiring talking about things such as the importance of understanding the purpose of life, how all of us are always looking for the perfect harmony in things, the need for surrender to a higher power, being determined, the power and beauty of kirtan-rasa, and the unfortunate state of a contitioned soul entrapped by the modes of passion and ignorance. Lots to digest there! Later on I did lots of little things in the office, some phone calls, typing, emails...

Then my experience with the HOT pepper happened... i probably ate a whole piece of the spiciest hot pepper I've ever tasted. I ran outside of the house, like in the cartoons, with my mouth on fire, and stuck a ball of snow in my mouth! I didn't know what else to do?! That was quite an experience, to say the least. But it all went away in like 10 min, ha! Finally, I came back and proceded with the rest of my service, including ironing Srila Prabhupada's clothes : ) Still, I have to practice and finish my chanting. It feels like so much to do, so little time....yet being here gives me the feeling of a timeless adventure altogether!

Service

This is the 3rd day I've been serving H.G. Malati Prabhu in New Vrindaban. Today I only did a couple of things in the morning (moved a bed, found out about a space heater) and then interesting enough I got the rest of the day free : ) It has been snowing here for the past 3 days! Is quite beautiful though with all the snow. Malati's word were: "Today is a good day to play your cello". So, without any hesitation, I left the office and went to my room to practice. Now, however, I have all my rounds to chant because I took rest during japa period!... I was feeling very weak after fasting yesterday for Ekadasi. But is all good. Let the soul be.