Posted on by — 3 Comments

Your invitation to the World of Krishna

Krishna embracing gopa kumar in spiritual world

Last week, on Thursday, my very dear father suddenly and unexpectedly left his body.

I was minutes away, and close enough to witness the attempt to revive his body, restart his heart; and to bear witness to the fact that he was well and truly blessed to escape that body. It was so well-used and had begun to fail him in every way. He could no longer walk without wheels, he could no longer play the guitar which he loved to do, he’d not been able to surf for years and years, and had gotten to the point where he could barely eat. Even so his spirit was so bright that we just felt he would go on with us here forever.

My sister and I had been talking just half an hour before he left, about how much we would miss him, and how extreme the deterioration of his physical condition was. . . but the shock of the sudden departure, and the difficulty of how much we MISS his physical presence!

The thing is, we feel sad because we miss him so much, but we also feel so absurdly blessed and happy, to know that he has left us, but not for some unforseen location, but directly stepped into the waiting arms of Sri Krishna, the presence of his beloved friends and spiritual guides.

Having such solid reassurance refreshes and reaffirms my gratitude that we have been blessed to be invited to the world of Krishna.

I can’t even imagine experiencing this loss without the benefit of spiritual vision.

Dear dad was so favored by Krishna, that he met his spiritual master, Abhay Charan das Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad, while dad was still a youth. He was introduced by friends (nice friends to have!), and was immediately attracted to the chanting of Krishna’s holy names.  Eventually, he married a very wonderful devotee (my mum!) and had 6 children. Yes, six!!! By the arrangement of Krsna, we have all been blessed to be raised by Vaishnava parents who nurtured our attraction to Krishna, and attachment to Guru, Krsna’s pure loving servant and representative.

Dads two spiritual masters

It’s so nice to have a lot of brothers and sisters, especially ones who we can chant and dance and cry and laugh with, as we feel happy/sad with a lifetime of memories.

All through the years of his life, but especially once his body started deteriorating rapidly, my dad clung on to the shelter of the lotus feet of his spiritual master. The main impetus sustaining his ongoing struggle with his body, was the chance to hear, chant, learn, surrender. He wasn’t perfect – he wasn’t all “holy” and that is so encouraging. I have full faith, that as he chanted and surrendered to sweet Krsna, embracing Krsna heart to heart, he will be re-situated in his eternal position as a beloved friend of Sri Krishna.

Krishna embracing gopa kumar in spiritual world

I feel encouraged to continue, and do my best to make my choices the ones which will bring me closer to my friend Krsna, and not bring me away. .

When I was young, we heard a lot of times the phrase tossed around “be pleasing to your Spiritual master”… I feel like, it was not until I was older and increased in understanding that I was able to comprehend the essential message of this somewhat casual phrase. What is pleasing to the devotee of Krishna is ANYTHING which brings you closer to Krsna. The only things displeasing, are those which take you further AWAY from Sri Krishna. Doesn’t that make life easy? Life choices can be distilled into; is this going to enhance my attachment and attraction to Krsna, or will it put barriers in place and make me more attached and attracted to this world and sense-enjoyment?

Dear dad, thank you for this gift of life, this gift of love. The knowledge that if you live your life in attachment to Krishna, then leaving this world means reunion with Sri Krishna.

My dear friends, I wanted to share with you the most beautiful prayer, message, and invitation, a message of love that is so sweet and kind. Please read on for notes I took during a lecture from my dear Gurudev, and take up the message and embrace Krsna to your heart. . .

The loving servant of Krishna appears for the singular purpose of inviting us back home to the world of Krishna. He tells us, “the world of Krishna is so wonderful – there is no birth, there is no death, there is no old age, no disease, no hankering, there are no unfulfilled desires or cravings so there is no anxiety, no fear. The world of Krishna is sat-cit-ananda – full of transcendental knowledge and ananada or blissfulness. In this transcendental abode, there is nothing to be desired. One finds there is nothing more to be gained. Krishna is complete satisfaction for the individual spirit soul. When we have a loving relationship with Krishna, we have no need for anything else. All sense of need is gone. There is nothing lacking. The world of Krishna is beyond imagination. The world of Krishna is beyond our ability to speculate about.By the mercy of the devotee of Krishna we can get a glimpse of blissfulness and the happiness which can be ours.

A lover of Krishna comes and invites me to a the world of Krishna, invites me to have a loving relationship with Krishna.

The lover of Krishna says, ‘My dear friend, just see Krishna. He is your best friend. By cultivating love for Him all of your desires will be disappear, you will be free from them and you will be satisfied’.

 

Youthful krishna deity dressed sweetly in flowers from the forest playing his flute on a ornate pink backgroundWe hear about Krishna and see his loving relationships in the spiritual world. We hear how wonderful it is, how wonderful Krishna is, and then we may desire to have a loving relationship with Krishna. We begin to want to live in the abode of Krishna. Hearing about it we understand it sounds very wonderful. We become very attracted to the idea that when we leave this world we can enter a world of pure spirit, no more matter, but eternality and true spiritual love. We hear about that and want that. We hear that we can have a loving relationship with Krishna here and now. Not in the future but now. So we chant, offer water, fruit flowers to Krishna.

But may doubt this, thinking “Maybe I am not engaging in Krishna’s service very nicely. This isn’t the best flower, we could do better with offerings, I am certainly not being perfect in my service, and I am making mistakes’. If we are trying to do practical service or spread the names of Krishna or help carry out the mission of Spiritual master. We may be doing music, videos, movies, business or other things, while doing them I know that what I’m doing is not perfect, I make mistakes, I screw up, and then I may begin to doubt and think that “I’m not perfect and my service can’t be perfect” and start to think that, ‘I’m not qualified, my service is full of faults and imperfections’.  So we begin to doubt that I could hve a relationship of love with Krishna, that I could actually be welcome into the arms of Krishna, be welcome into Krishna’s abode.

At this time, we need to remember that what Krishna is looking at is not exactly the things that we are doing, the service we are offering, but the spirit which motivates us – our intention to be pleasing, and it is inseparable from our love.

Gopal Bhata Goswami worships Damodar Shila

In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says,

“If one offers me with love and devotion a leaf, flower, fruit or water, I shall accept it”.

Maybe you are offering a little flower or fruit. The key is to offer it with love – devotion. When we are offering our service, whatever we are doing, if our intention is to be pleasing because of our love for our Spirtiual master and Krishna, even if it is not perfect, or there are some mistakes in our efforts to use our bodies, minds and intelligence in Krishna’s service, if we are motivated by our desire to be pleasing out of our love, then we are connected to Krishna.

Everybody makes mistakes. It is impossible to be perfect in our service. If we are preaching and trying to give people Krishna, perfect would mean that everything will be successful. If we are trying to use our time and efforts to raise our children, hoping that they will be attracted to Krishna, and one of our children, or some of our children or all of our children end up not being interested in this life/ or at this time in cultivating love for Krishna we may think that ‘I am a failure – what have I achieved?’ If you have been doing it out of a desire to be pleasing then you have been successful.  You are connected to Krsna out of love. The foundations of your life’s activities is pleasing Krishna. Krishna is not so interested in exactly what you are doing as he is in your offering, your love. Your desire to be pleasing to him out of love.

Krishna enjoys your love. He is completely self-sufficient. What is important is your desire to be pleasing.

He doesn’t need your fruit or flowers – everything is completely created from Krishna’s energy anyway. But there are opportunities for us to offer to Krishna as a connector. It connects us. We get to offer Krishna my time, my talents, my intelligence. Whatever little things I have that I know he doesn’t need, I get to offer these out of love. Whatever opportunity I have, all opportunities to connect through offering service.

Service itself is not the most important thing. It is a means by which I can re-establish a loving connection with Krishna. While doing so I will be fumblin and bumbling around. It is not going to ever be perfect.

We need to appreciate that Krishna’s love for me is unconditional. He doesn’t need my “service”.

Lord Chaitanya gives us the opportunity to be part of his mission. It is up to me to choose to be a part of it. He doesn’t need me, and is not dependent on it.

When the spritual master is chanting the names of Krishna it is an invitation to the spiritual world. ‘Welcome, please enter the spiritual world’. Out of compassion and love he pleads,

“Don’t remain in this world of self-centredness, enter Krishna’s world. You will be happy in this world and will continue after leaving this world. My dear friends, please consider this invitation seriously”.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Glorious description of Lord Nityananda, and prayer.

GaurNitai DIY jewellery

Lord Nityananda –
Nityananda’s body has a slightly reddish hue, a golden cloth decorates Nityananda’s hips, ankle bells adorn his feet. His eyes are wide and long like a deer – He has a shining smile. Peaceful lotus face with long earrings and bangles.
(my notes from a description heard from a reading of the Chaitanya Mangal, my notes were very imperfect but the description is still wonderful)

Sri Nitai went on pilgramage around the whole world looking for you, Gauranga. 
Lord Nityananda is the perfection of pure prema. You are always happy. Lord Nityananda please let me be happy with you in an ocean of nectar of Krishna prema. Let me taste that nectar.
If we chant Nityananda, begging for his blessings, surely he will be merciful upon us. 


(My notes from my dear gurudev speaking on Lord Nityananda’s Appearance day)

Posted on by — 1 Comment

I just LOVE kirtan!

Well I think we all know I’m not a kirtan hoarder, I LOVE to spread the love!

I’ve put together an ongoing list of my favorite kirtan sources that you can all listen to on my YOUTUBE channel, here’s the link:

I also have my absolute favorites on Soundcloud (I love soundcloud while I work!) The cool band Atmosphera is great for ambient music that makes me happy and I can still work really well to. Some amazing kirtans are just perfect crafting soundtrack but I get distracted and sing along, so they don’t go great with my day job.

Ashraya!

Science of Identity

(You can download a beautiful kirtan album from www.wisdom.yoga !) And MORE

So those are a few of the sound tracks I love to play while crafting, working, living and sleeping!

Posted on by — 2 Comments

Deity Worship – caring for Krishna

Nitai Gaur deities sita's lords raised arms chanting and dancing deities beautifully dressed and decorated with flowers and wigs

Looking after the Lord is pretty sublime. What nicer activity is there than caring for Krishna?

In this day and age there are no hard and fast rules that you need to follow to look after deities of Nitai Gaura or Krishna.

While the nectar of devotion does outline offenses against deities because we have become so far from able to observe all the specific ins and outs it is better for home deity worship to instead understand very practical considerations.

The rules and regulations if you look at them objectively are all there to guide us into nicely caring for the deities, as we would a guest whom was most valued.

If you keep that in mind, then it is very simple to provide the same intention of worship for Krishna and Gaura Nitai. Then even if we are not perfectly correct we are still sincerely trying to be pleasing by establishing a relationship of love.

A lot of times my friends ask in desperation how to look after deities! Especially now, when I do a lot of instagram posts about deity clothes, deity painting, and so on. By no means am I an authority, so all I can share is what I learnt from my dear mother in growing up in how she cared for her deities and so I am happy to offer at least that example, as well as my own understanding on the WHY, that might help inform your decisions when you are not exactly sure what is the pleasing choice.

The most important I would suggest is keeping your practice regular, so that the Lord knows when he is going to eat, bathe, dress, sleep.

You do not have to institute a temple like regime at home, but you should daily visit Krsna and offer Him something, or what is the point of inviting Him to inhabit this archa vigraha form and accept your worship?

The wonderful reason that we are trained in deity worship and adopt it is because it gives us the opportunity to develop a very real loving and caring relationship with the Lord. Whether it is Nitai Gaura or Gopal Krishna the intention is the same. Learn to serve with love*.

There are no hard and fast rules – but you may, depending on the type of deity you have, wish to offer the Lord baths, fresh clothes, & a bed to rest in, along with food, flowers, water or arotik.

To give a practical example, this is my regime of caring for my Nitai Gaura, and my role model is my mother, who has very wonderfully cared for her beloved Gaura Nitai for the past decades. I remember their installation when I was a child as the most incredible event! It was amazing to me and I still vividly remember the sounds, textures, sights – Beautiful deities standing in glowing red translucent bowls being poured over with ghee, rosewater, and the one which really astonished me was yoghurt… more later on what you can do to install your deities.

My deity worship practices:

I bathe before I visit my lords, and ring a bell to alert them that I am coming to see them. I open the altar doors pay my respects and request that they please arise and take their bath.

With prepared warm water in a jug scented with drop of rosewater, I ask them to step into their big bath, “Please step into your bath now my dear Lord Chaitanya”,  and undress them. Pouring the water nicely over the body of the Lord I then take a nice cloth and dry them, “Please step out of your bath now my dear Lord”, before dressing them again for the day.

Once dressed I used to show them their own beautiful reflection in a mirror but it broke and I haven’t replaced it yet…

Then we offer food and have a kirtan with arotik & gurupuja.

I leave lights on for them in the evening and offer them dinner with more kirtan, and then before I go to sleep I invite them to take their rest (usually I say, “please take your rest now my dear Lord Chaitanya/ Nityananda) lay them down (physically placing them in beds) after removing their ornaments and dressed only in the dhoti from the day, cover them with their blankets and lights off.

My mother also reads them a passage from scripture for their pleasure once her Lords are resting and before the lights go out. Such a nice practice!

It’s nicer to have specific pajamas! And dress them in that… I used to completely undress them to put them to bed (it’s very hot here in Australia, and they use only a sheet in summer and a sheet and light blanket in winter) but then I was concerned that they would become cold while waiting for their bath (They stand up out of bed first and I put the beds away to allow room for the bath).

I do not have a specific time which I wake them up or put them to rest or offer dinner, it flows with our family life, but usually I wake them up at 6am and then in bed between 9-11pm. The breakfast offering is before 8am because after that we are getting ready for school. Sometimes I will simply offer fruit, sometimes make it special.

Now it doesn’t have to be this full on, or it could be more so! Some people change their deities garments monthly, or only on appearance days, or every weekend. Some people are far more elaborate than I am! They might be very practiced at having exact times to attend the deities, but in our family we do what we can, and what we can do is care for Krsna like another of the family members, so we do our best and pray that it will be enough.

Marble deities are very fragile, and usually one will not move them about on the altar. Instead of actually laying them down to rest, one can prepare a bed for them, and invite them to take their rest upon the bed. (not physically placing them into the bed).

The most important aspect of worshiping deities of Krishna and Nitai Gaur is to remember that what they appreciate the most, what we can offer them, is the Holy Name. Having an altar there and plonking food down and paying obeisances and moving away… it’s good that you are offering your food but what Krsna enjoys is hearing His names! So better to streamline your deity care, and offer more kirtan with love.

This is my humble attempt to share my practice with you, and offer some practical advice on daily application of deity worship. Please remember it is a relationship between you and Krishna – offer with love and don’t stress out.

Things that we can do to be considerate:

Wash our body before visiting the lord.

Wash our hands before touching the lord or His paraphernalia (his arotik tray, clothes, food, etc)

Be attentive to the Lord while the altar is open or uncovered (don’t conduct other conversations, ignore him, subject the deity to anything unpleasant like nasty noise(Screaming kids!) or fighting.. etc Sometimes it is necessary to pause and gently guide your children before the Lord, don’t freak out it happens when you are raising kids, all the more reason to give your guidance in the most appropriate way with the well-being of your kids in mind).

Offer the lord only vegetarian food (duh, sorry, I just put it in because you know… just in case).

When offering the Lord water to bathe in – give Him fresh clean water that you haven’t put your hands in – the water should be nice and fresh. I get the tap water to the right temperature on my wrist before filling a jug.

Give the Lord a nice sitting place (put some effort into decorating the room of the Lord – this one is fun! You will do this naturally anyway)

Give the Lord a nice resting place (that bed for night time?)

Offer the Lord various refreshments thoughtfully

Offer kirtan for His pleasure..offer Him His own Holy Names with love!

*Don’t worry-  Krishna will help guide you from within your heart, and externally so you may refine your deity worship and offerings… sometimes (ok often) when I am preparing a little offering to my Lord I get the inspiration.. oh it would be nicer if you also offered…

We can get inspired by visiting other nice devotees and see what they do to worship their Lordships too! I know there is just SO MUCH MORE that can be done, but if like me you are in family raising stage of life you probably need to keep things simple, or just need some inspiration to get started.

I hope that my humble thoughts on this will not offend the more learned, and if I am mistaken then please feel free to correct me.

Love,

Sita

 

 

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Alternatives to tv evenings

This is kind of an evolution post. I started it when I was gripped by tv as entertainemnt, and while I stopped that, after a while I started reading fiction. So whatever your drug of choice is, your mental candy or comfort food, lets explore some alternate ideas and also take a good solid look at why we are doing that!

By the end of the day most people are totally exhausted, and sometimes it’s easy to slide into the habit of watching television programs… When I have just moved or my life is in upheaval or I’m feeling lazy, lonely, sad or unhappy, I do have a tendency to turn to some mental junkfood!

Recently I listened to a wonderful lecture from my spiritual master, Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda on our tendency to turn to anything BUT Krsna.. It really helped clarify in my mind what was going on with me and my mentality. You see, I’ve kind of fallen back into a really absorbing habit, which is reading.  My life has taken a couple of swirly turns, and been for me and my family, a personal crisis. Our battle to survive in this sink or swim world.

The main point I took away from the eye opening lecture was that; when we fill our emptiness with substitutes for Krsna, we are papering over the very loneliness and heart ache which is what we should be turning and filling up with Krsna!

We have to remember that it’s not a good practice to fall into, as you are opening yourself up to whatever subject matter you decide to watch, and in the evenings just before bed it’s particularly influential. (my problem!)

Instead you can read a book, (scripture), color in, or tell your kids a Krishna story.

You can also listen to a lecture, do japa, or do a puzzle.

Maybe you enjoy colouring in, or you could do that with your kids.

Prepare an arotik tray for the morning! All ideas…

I hope that just writing this will help ME to remember Krishna – because in remembering Krishna comes loving Krsna, and nothing is sweeter for the heart than loving Krishna.

Love,

Sita