Giriraj Swami read and spoke from Srimad-Bhagavatam 2.4.18 at the Sunday Festival in Houston.
“Do any of today’s political, economic, or social leaders say, as Dhruva Maharaja said, “I am fully satisfied”? No. They always want more — more votes, more money, more followers. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu prayed, Na dhanam na janam na sundarim: ”I don’t want wealth, I don’t want followers, I don’t want beautiful women.” But they are the opposite — ”Give me wealth, give me followers.” That means that Krishna, or Krishna consciousness, alone can satisfy a person. And when he is satisfied, there is no more anxiety, no more hankering, no more lamenting. No more ‘more’. He is satisfied. And nothing can take that away from him. You can lose your money. You can lose your following. You can lose your spouse. But you can’t lose your Krishna consciousness. No one can take it from you; no force can take it away. You can’t lose it. This is the great treasure that the Krishna consciousness movement offers. And that is why Srila Prabhupada formed ISKCON — to give guidance to the leaders of the world how to conduct the affairs of state so that people can become happy and satisfied.”
Giriraj Swami read and spoke from Bhagavad-gita 2.13 at a house program in the Houston Medical Center.
“In the last two decades a new field of psychology has emerged to deal with the question of what makes people happy. Why? There is a whole generation of people who have done everything they were told would make them happy — they got a good education, got a good job, married a qualified spouse, earned a lot of money, got a nice house, went on exotic vacations — but they didn’t become happy. Now there is this new field, called positive psychology, to study what makes one happy. And the research has turned up some interesting, even startling, discoveries. The findings suggest that there are three factors that determine a person’s happiness….” ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
“Any one of us can forget Krishna at any time. In fact, it doesn’t take much for us to forget Krishna. But Sudama Vipra remained the same when he was in a poor condition and when he was in an opulent condition. Because Krishna new that Sudama would not forget Him when in an opulent position, He was not afraid to give him opulence. And that is something Krishna does. He will give us opulence to use in His service, but if He sees that we are getting carried away by the opulence and forgetting our real priorities, He may take it away. That is also His mercy. He cares for us more than we may care for ourselves, because He knows who we really are and what is in our best interest — and helps us.”
Opulence and Krishna's Service, Sunday Program, Laguna Beach [ 1:10:20 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadGiriraj Swami read and spoke from Srimad-Bhagavatam 2.3.17 at a home program in Huntington Beach.
“Whatever time is gone is gone forever. You cannot buy it back. If you spend two hours or one hour or even fifteen minutes doing something useless, you cannot buy that time back. When the time of death comes you cannot extend the duration of your life for any amount of money. That means that in our life, our time is our most valuable possession. So, we should mange it very carefully.
Srila Prabhupada had a friend who was a very big businessman. He told him that in the ledger of his life, any time spent in Krishna consciousness goes in the profit column and any time spent outside of Krishna consciousness goes in the loss column. So, any businessman will want to maximise his profits and minimize his losses. We should always keep this in mind.”
Giriraj Swami read and spoke from Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Antya-lila, Chapter 8, texts 17 to 37.
“Srila Madhavendra Puri was the first in our line — which means the very first — to manifest ecstatic love in the mood of separation from Krishna, specifically in the mood of Radharani and the gopis in separation from Krishna after He left Vrindavan. These feelings of separation are very central to our line. It is really these feelings of separation that accelerate our Krishna consciousness. Generally such feelings begin with our spiritual master and other devotees, and from there we develop attachment for the Pancha-tattva, Nityananda Prabhu and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and the Six Gosvamis and their associates, and then ultimately for Radha and Krishna. So, at the end of his life Madhavendra Puri was absorbed in that mood of separation, and he was very faithfully served by his disciple Isvara Puri. But he had a another disciple, named Ramachandra Puri, who could not understand his mood. And how Madhavendra Puri dealt with each at the end is very instructive.”
Giriraj Swami read and spoke from Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.8.17 during the evening program on Nrsimha-caturdasi.
“Srila Prabhupada has given us his word that if we daily chant sixteen rounds of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, follow the four regulative principles, and do our best to spread Krishna consciousness, at the end of this life we will go back home, back to Godhead. Now, that is a very strong declaration. One might question whether it could really be that simple. And the answer is that Srila Prabhupada has given his word, and it is Lord Krishna’s characteristic that He upholds the word of His devotee. Just like Lord Brahma gave so many boons, and Krishna, as Nrsimhadeva, upheld them all — and still killed Hiranyakasipu. In the same way, Prahlada Maharaja fearlessly declared, ‘My Lord is everywhere. He is even in the pillar of the assembly hall.’ And Lord Nrsimhadeva appeared from the pillar to uphold his word.”
“Srila Prabhupada gave the analogy of being on a plane and not realizing you are going up until you look out the window and see how high you have gone. Expanding on that analogy: Even when it’s cloudy, you can see that you are rising above ground level and everything down there is becoming smaller and insignificant. But then there is a certain stage where you pass through the clouds and rise above them and the sun is shining. That is just another stage. It takes time to go through the clouds. But in the meantime you are still making progress. If you look at where you were before and where you are now, there is a big difference. And if you just keep at it, you will gradually break through the clouds. It may take time, but if you just persevere, it will happen. You just keep doing the same thing, not only in terms of quantity but also with quality. You chant, but try to chant with attention. You do everything, but try to do it in the proper mood.”
Mother Arca-vigraha serving her deities in her home in Johannesburg, South Africa
Giriraj Swami spoke by Skype from Carpinteria with devotees in Mumbai on the disappearance anniversary of Arca-vigraha dasi.
“One should engage in bhakti-yoga to Krishna with great intensity. In a sense, it doesn’t matter what your service is, but if you give yourself to it fully — put your heart fully into it — you can approach the Supreme Lord and the supreme destination. So, Mother Arca-vigraha did that. And in the end she was helped by her intense physical pain — because she discovered that the only thing that gave her relief was hearing and chanting about Krishna.”
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Photos of the devotees in Bombay.
Saturday, April 28, Jhanu-saptami, is the disappearance anniversary of Arca-vigraha dasi, a renowned artist from South Africa who left her cancer-ridden body in Vrndavana eighteen years ago. Her desire that other devotees also have a proper facility to spend their last days in the beautiful spiritual atmosphere of the holy dhama inspired the creation of the Bhaktivedanta Hospice. In her honor, I share with you Bhurijana dasa’s Vyasa-puja offering to Srila Prabhupada in 1994, in which he glorifies Mother Arca-vigraha and Srila Prabhupada and Lord Krsna’s mercy upon her.
—Giriraj Swami
My dear Srila Prabhupada,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to you. We pray that your powerful preaching potency continues forever.
As I write this, Mother Arca-vigraha is still alive. By the time this offering is read by the devotees, she will be gone. She now lies bedridden within her Ramana-reti house; her thin, almost white hair is cropped close and with sikha. The May Vrndavana heat glares, and her body burns as if filled with poison from one thousand scorpions. Only her left arm near the shoulder is fat, for there the cancer spreads from her lymph gland. The rest of that arm lies thin and useless at her side, like the arm of a doll, but burning with pain.
“ ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ in the material world are the same thing. [They] are our mental creations. All is actually distress, for we must die. Human life is meant for Krsna consciousness. Why should we lose this chance? A Krsna conscious person is not under the laws of material nature.” (All quotes are from a 1969 New Vrindaban lecture by Srila Prabhupada.) Continue reading »