Ultimate Self Realization

Once you make a commitment to give your life to Krishna you must be completely unwavering in your determination. Don't let anything break your enthusiasm and your momentum. You must stay the course all the way up until the last moment at the time of death. Then you will be rewarded with entrance into the eternal kingdom of the Lord as a participant in His divine pastimes. There will be so many attempts coming through the agency of the material energy to divert you from the path. You must fight off all of them with great determination. In this way, if you always remain focused, your complete, total victory over the material energy will be assured. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Spread the Bliss/ Taste the Bliss! Answers According to the Vedic Version: Question: Doing Something Wrong and the Six Opulences I hope all is well with you and that God is lifting you above any troubles that you maybe encountering in your tremendous preaching work. If you could take a moment to help

The key to happiness is to seriously adopt the path of Krishna of bhakti without allowing yourself to waver under any circumstances. There are many tests for one who is seriously trying to escape the cycle of birth and death. One must patiently and conscientiously face them in a mood of complete dependency upon the Supreme Lord Krishna. The more we feel ourselves helpless and dependent upon that unlimitedly sweet all-attractive person, the more we become strong. Be enthusiastic. You've got every reason to be. You've discovered the Absolute Truth. Now you just have to fully realize it. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Answers According to the Vedic Version: Question: Karma and Destiny What is the difference between destiny and karma? Can Lord Krishna change the destiny of human beings? Humans can change their karma, but what about destiny? Your humble servant in the service of Lord Krishna. Answer: Surrender to Krishna Our destiny is determined by our karma. But we

Facing an impending energy crisis because of a diminishing world supply of fossil fuel and an increasing dependence on foreign oil supplies, biofuels produced from crops such as corn and sugar cane have been touted by many as the solution. But as the conversion to biofuels is gradually being implemented a serious problem is manifesting. We are using more and more of our agricultural resources to feed cars and less to feed people. Regan Suzuki of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization has warned that the production of biofuels could lead to food shortages in developing countries. She also has warned that China and India could face worsening water shortages because biofuels require large amounts of water. The point is that as long as we try to solve the world's problems with material solutions we will continue to create more and more problems. It is something like a bubble in a carpet. If you push it down in one place, it comes up again somewhere else. The leaders ha

In the Bhagavad-gita Lord Sri Krishna declares that there is nothing so sublime and pure as transcendental knowledge, the mature fruit of all mysticism. He states that one who is accomplished in the practice of Krishna consciousness will enjoy this knowledge within himself in due course of time. What a wonderful thing is this! By advancing in Krishna consciousness one can be happy anywhere anytime without depending at all on the external circumstances. One who is highly advanced on this pathway of Krishna bhakti can be in a beautiful serene springtime forest or he can be in a nightmarish situation like Arjuna on a battlefield and be equally blissful in both circumstances. How is this possible? The advanced transcendentalist derives his happiness from within by seeing everything in relationship with Krishna no matter what the circumstance may be. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Answers According to the Vedic Version: Question: Why is Krishna the Supreme? Why is Krishna out of all of

Even though our everyday activities of bodily maintenance are certainly important, they pale into insignificance when compared to the needs of our eternal soul. As long as we have this body we engage in so many activities for the purpose of keeping body and soul together. But eventually no matter we do, the soul and the body will go their separate ways. The body will vanish into oblivion and the soul will take another body in the cycle of birth and death. Or if we engage ourselves properly on the progressive path of spiritual enlightenment, this will be our last birth in this material world. We will go back to home, back to Godhead. The choice is yours. You can prepare yourself for the time of death by qualifying yourself for an eternal life full of knowledge and full of bliss. Or you can neglect to prepare for death and continue suffering term after term of imprisonment within the penitentiary of this material world, lifetime after lifetime. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Answers Ac

Everybody is dedicated to something. What are you dedicated to you? In this human form of life choosing the right object of dedication will either make you or break you. Those who are fortunate choose the Supreme Person as their object of dedication. Just as by watering the root of a tree all the leaves and branches are nourished, by dedicating ourselves to Lord Sri Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, we are able to offer the best loving service to everything and everyone throughout all of existence. In this way we do the highest good to everyone, including ourselves. If, however, we choose other objects of dedication we will always feel unfulfilled, imperfect, and dissatisfied. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Answers According to the Vedic Version: Question: No Bliss in Bhakti? Based on your study materials, I should be in bliss right from the beginning if I follow Krishna. Being with literally hundreds of devotees, including some gurus, I am seeing that no one is in bliss

My disciple, Bhavani devi dasi, from Vancouver, Canada has written a very wonderful prayer that captures the essence of Krishna bhakti. It is the mood of complete absorption in serving and pleasing Sri Guru and Sri Krishna which fixes one solidly and completely in ecstatic Krishna bhakti twenty-four hours a day. Here is her prayer: A Disciple's Prayer Lord Krishna, I surrender my self completely at your lotus feet, begging that by Your mercy I may be able to do everything in such a way that You are unlimitedly pleased with me and that, as far as it is possible, I can assist my beloved spiritual master in spreading Krishna consciousness all over the world. If we can adopt this mood very seriously within our hearts the illusory, miserable material nature will never be able to penetrate our hearts. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Answers According to the Vedic Version: Question: Dimensions and Time Travel I was wondering if you could answer this question for me: How many dimensions a

We are currently caught up in a suffering situation in the cycle of birth and death because we have been conditioned to always analyze things in a very rigid set pattern which is based on the false understanding of considering the body to be the self. If we want actual relief from our suffering condition, we must learn how to think outside of the box, i.e. to think outside our normal patterns of thought. We have to see everything as the property of Krishna and always try to utilize everything a way that is most pleasing to Him. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Answers According to the Vedic Version: Question: Has Kalki Avatar Already Come? The Vedas describe that the 10th Avatar of the Supreme Lord will be in the Kali-yuga and will be known as Kalki Avatar. Some people say that that Tirupati Balaji is the Kalki Avatar and some people say that the Kalki Avatar has yet to come. So my question is: Has the Kalki Avatar already come in the form of Tirupati Balaji or is He yet to appear? Ami

The whole world is waiting for spiritually realized leadership to emerge on this planet for bringing about the desperately needed global awakening of enlightened consciousness. Since the underlying problem of the entire planet is ignorance of the self, wide scale dissemination of the science of self realization will bring about the most amazing paradigm shift ever seen in world history. Everyone must be enlightened with the knowledge of who they are. The material formulas proposed by the politicians, economists, sociologists, environmentalists, etc. can do nothing more than give us a false sense of hope for solving the myriad of dilemmas we are currently facing. Therefore we should seek the guidance of those who are factually enlightened with transcendental knowledge, because it is only such enlightened beings who can lead us out of the present ever-increasingly chaotic quagmire. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Answers According to the Vedic Version: Question: Connected Without Initiat

Scientists are hard at work trying to figure out how to make us deathless, but they will never be successful because birth, death, old age, and disease are built-in non-optional features of this material existence. However, in spite of deathlessness being completely beyond the reach of their empirical experiment and research, it is completely within the grip of those who fully surrender themselves unto Lord Sri Krishna. For those who seriously commit themselves to an eternal life of service to Krishna, the initiation ceremony marks the beginning of their deathlessness, their immortality. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Initiation Ceremony --20 January 2008 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (This a mother and son. Beryl Trimble has become Bhavani devi dasi and her son, Richard, has become Raghunath Das.) Answers According to the Vedic Version: Question: What is Initiation? Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. Our sincere thanks to you for spreading Kr

We are witnessing over the course of time a proliferation of evil throughout the world. This a very disturbing trend. However, for students of the Vedic literature this is not at all surprising because the Vedas describe that we are 5,000 years into the Age of Kali, the most evil and contaminated of all the ages. That's the bad news. But now for the good news. The Vedas also describe an antidote for the evil, poisonous effects of the Age of Kali. That antidote is known as the Hare Krishna mahamantra. In this regard it is stated in the Kalisantaraṇa Upaniṣad as follows: hare kṛṣṇa hare kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa hare hare hare rāma hare rāma rāma rāma hare hare iti ṣoḍaśakaḿ nāmnāḿ kali - kalmaṣa - nāśanam nātaḥ parataropāyaḥ sarva - vedeṣu dṛśyate "The sixteen words composed of thirty-two syllables-- Hare Kṛishna , Hare Krishna , Krishna Krishna , Hare Hare / Hare Rāma , Hare Rāma , Rāma Rāma , Hare Hare -- are the only means of c

Even the most tantalizing, attractive tastes of this world pale into insignificance when they are compared to to flavor of Krishna consciousness. Even though Krishna consciousness is so scrumptiously sweet, the neophyte struggles to always keep his enthusiasm and determination strong because he is not fully tasting it sweetness. So how does one transition from being a struggling neophyte to being a fixed-up advanced devotee who can taste the beauty of Krishna at every second? The key is to be very surrendered to follow the instructions of the Lord. Taste or no taste, we must be very, very surrendered to doing whatever Krishna wants us to do. If we take this humble position of always serving Krishna in all conditions of happiness and distress, we will gradually become solidly situated on the transcendental platform beyond all the disturbances of this material existence tasting the beauty of Krishna at every minute with all of our senses. Sankarshan Das Adhikari ISKCON Temple in Va

On Friday 18 January 2007 we brought factual higher education to Vancouver's Simon Fraser University. I began my presentation to the university students by recalling how in my college days I was asked to choose a major but was not told who I was. Even after two years of studying the greatest thinkers of the western society, I still did not have a clue as to what was my actual identity. This the defect of the modern day educational system. There are so many departments of knowledge, this ology and that ology. But there is no department of knowledge to give factual knowledge of what is the self and its relationship with the supreme self. To give knowledge of the self is the real meaning of higher education. Without giving this the modern day educational system will always remain imperfect and incomplete. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Simon Fraser University Poster Advertising the Lecture Answers According to the Vedic Version: Question: How to Get Guru? How do we get a spi

After five months on the road, we are now en route to Vancouver for the last leg of our 2007-2008 around-the-world preaching tour. As our past tours, it has been absolutely ecstatic. Each tour seems to be more ecstatic than the previous ones. And as usual even before we finish this one we are already planning more. Three are in the works for 2008. We must do everything possible to encourage people all over the world to take up Krishna consciousness seriously as the prime duty of their existence. There is no greater priority because this Krishna consciousness can solve all the problems of the world. The more the Krishna consciousness movement spreads, the more the world will become peaceful and happy. So wherever you are in the world, dive deeply daily into the sublime ocean of Krishna consciousness and share this ultimate nectar with friends, strangers, relatives, and neighbors. And don't forget your prime minister or president. He or she needs it too. Sankarshan Das Adhi

As I am staying today at ISKCON's center in Culver City, Los Angeles, California, the home of some of the world's leading movie studios, and as a movie actor (one of my e-students) is coming to meet me this afternoon, I am reminded of the great attraction that cinema has for millions and millions of people all over the world. In spite of their great popularity cinemas hold little interest for those who are Krishna conscious. Why is it that cinema does not appeal to those who are Krishna conscious? Krishna conscious persons are most enlivened and inspired to experience Krishna within everything and everything within Krishna. So if cinema can be utilized to increase one's Krishna consciousness, it is welcome. Therefore the Krishna consciousness movement has a branch called ISKCON Cinema, which is simply for the purpose of utilizing cinema for the purpose of elevating the consciousness. But why is it that those who are fixed in Krishna consciousness do not attend the p

Krishna consciousness is so wonderful that no matter whether one is in an heavenly place like Fiji or in a hellish place like Los Angeles one derives unlimited pleasure by tasting the happiness within. One who is fixed in Krishna consciousness is neither attached to heavenly places nor averse to hellish places. He simply wants to go wherever he can most effective for awakening the sleeping souls to their eternal blissful natures as devotees of Lord Sri Krishna. Because of his fixity in this mission He is always living in the spiritual world with Lord Sri Krishna at every minute, and he experiences the heavens and hells of this world as just so many passing images on the movie screen of the material energy. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Heavenly Fiji Hellish Los Angeles Answers According to the Vedic Version: Question: How to Recognize Bona Fide Guru? I hope that by sharing with you where I stand and what I see, that you can help me overcome the impasse at self-realization. The B

Tonight we are departing from Fiji on a non-stop flight that will take us to Los Angeles. One amazing thing about this flight is that departs Fiji at 10:50PM and arrives in Los Angeles on the same day at 1:05PM which is 9 hours and 45 minute BEFORE it leaves from Fiji. If I were noting down my activities in a diary, I would be describing what I was doing at 2:00PM on Tuesday January 15th having lunch at the home of a devotee named Vrajanath Das in Tavua, Fiji, and I would also be describing meeting Balarama Das 5,500 miles away in the Los Angeles airport at exactly the same time! If we consider that in this material world such inconceivable things can be true, then the inconceivable aspects of the spiritual world become more readily acceptable. For example, time as we know it does not exist in the spiritual world. This means that if someone falls from the spiritual world, there is no time when he did so. And when he returns to the spiritual world there will be no time when he re-entere

Just as everyone has a natural affection for their homeland, the place of their birth, everyone has a natural affection for God. This is so because He is our origin. Indeed it is from Him that we derive our very existence. Our identity depends on Him because we emanate from Him. It is only due to the deluding influence of maya or illusion that our affection is directed towards His inferior material nature. Of course, this is still Him. The Lord and His energy are non-different. So we are still loving Him. But it is just that we are going about loving Him in the wrong way, in the indirect way, and thus deriving unsatisfying results. If we can simply rechannel our love through His spiritual energy by adopting the process of devotional service, we will regain our original natural position of pure direct love of God and thus experience an eternal life, full of bliss, and full of knowledge. Sankarshan Das Adhikari ISKCON Temple--Suva, Fiji Answers According to the Vedic Version:

There is no doubt that the life of devotion to Krishna is a never ending exciting adventure. But that does not mean that it does not come without its challenges, just like, for example, my situation. Forty-four years ago when I was a young 16-year-old my ears were badly damaged by repeated exposure to the sound of loud rifle fire from a military training program offered by my high school. Ever since that time I have suffered greatly with constant ringing in both of my ears along with ear aches and deafness whenever I am exposed to loud noise. What makes the situation even more difficult is that now with a 60 year old body I am also suffering from a drastic hearing loss. When I give lectures it is very difficult for me to hear the questions that are being asked of me. The condition of my ears is such than even hearing aids do not bring proper relief. I understand from the Vedic teachings that I am simply burning off the reactions to bad sinful activities and that if I strictly avo

Our material existence is actually a nightmare of birth, death, old age, and disease but because we have been dreaming it for so long and because our awakened state is unlimitedly blissful, we are now imagining this nightmare to be a something wonderful. If we want real happiness, all we have to do is wake up. The waking up process is known as the science of self-realization. And the topmost level of being awakened is known as Krishna consciousness. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Waking Up to Unlimited Bliss by Hare Krishna Japa Chanting Answers According to the Vedic Version: Question: Krishna Consciousness and Other Faiths My Dear Guruji, many thanks for your inspiration, I am returning to Krishna Consciousness after many years of being in the wilderness; indeed, I was one of only fourteen devotees at Bhaktivedanta Manor (UK) in the early seventies and later entered a Benedictine monastery. My question is: how can one be a follower of another religious faith ie. Judaism, Christ

We are presently in the desert of material existence. But there is a vast reservoir of transcendental bliss waiting there within us for being tapped into. All we have to do to enter into that paradise is to awaken our dormant Krishna consciousness, which is now sleeping within us. For those who are seriously trying awaken their Krishna consciousness, there is nothing more essential and basic to their regular daily devotional activities than the chanting of japa. Japa is the softly uttered repetition of a mantra while fingering japa beads to count the number of chants that one has completed according to his daily vow. According to the Kali Santarana Upanishad the most effective mantra for self-realization in this materialistic age of Kali is the Hare Krishna mahamantra: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare Chanting is best done in the early morning hours before sunrise when the external atmosphere is the most calm and peac

Enough is enough. Things have gotten way too far out of hand. It is time now to focus all of our energies for bringing about as soon as possible the complete, total re-spiritualization of the entire human society. Even though God has given us a paradise in which to happily live eternally, we have turned our existence into a hell by desiring to eat the forbidden apple of trying to be God. Instead of trying to God, we should try to serve God. This and only this will bring about the peace and happiness, which is so much desired by the modern day human society. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Srimad Bhagavatam Class in Taveuni "Come to the Highest Enlightened Platform: Krishna Consciousness" Answers According to the Vedic Version: Question: Did We Fall from the Spiritual Planets? You mentioned in one of the lessons that we were with God and that we came here after rebelling against Him. How can countless souls rebel against an all-loving God? Let me know if Hindu scriptures s

If you are reading this on 9 January 2008, it is by Krishna's mercy. I am on a remote island where even through the telephone I am not able to get a dial-up connection to the internet. The only alternative we could find is a resort that has a satellite connection for which they charge $30 an hour. But even that is not very reliable. If there are heavy rain-filled clouds in the sky the satellite transmission is cut off. And it rains here a lot. So today I am writing "Thought for the Day" without knowing whether or not I will be able to send it to you. This situation immediately reminds me of Krishna's words in the Bhagavad-gita: matra-sparsas tu kaunteya sitosna-sukha-duhkha-dah agamapayino 'nityas tams titiksasva bharata "O son of Kunti, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bhara

Even though we spend so much time flying all over the world, and even though the airlines offer us vegetarian meals, still we do not take their food. We bring our own food, Krishna prasadam, vegetarian eatables that have been prepared and cooked with love by Krishna's devotees and then first offered to the Lord before being eaten. Such sanctified foodstuffs are called prasadam, the mercy of the Lord. They are delicious, nutritious, and above all they free us from the reactions to our past sinful activities. By eating such sanctified foodstuffs one awakens the pure love of Godhead that is currently lying dormant within the heart. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Answers According to the Vedic Version: Question: Detachment from People Dear Gurudeva, I hope this email meets you well! I am very new to Krishna Consciousness. I stumbled upon Krishna Consciousness only a mere few months ago in June when a very dear friend of mine introduced me to it. I have been fortunate enough to

We are living in a world of dualities. Therefore we face cold and heat, happiness and distress, honor and dishonor, etc. This morning when we checked in at Canberra for our flight to Sydney connecting with a flight a Suva, Fiji we got a stark reminder of the dualities. We were informed that that the flight from Sydney to Suva was cancelled. As I write this we are flying from Canberra to Sydney not knowing what will happen when we get to Sydney. Will we be able to get another flight to Fiji? Or will we be stuck in Sydney? When the situation was explained to us at the Canberra airport I knew that today was going to be another one of those adventurous days when you don't know what is going to unfold and you just have to completely depend on Krishna to take care of you. Sankarshan Das Adhikari P.S. Krishna covered for us. We got on another flight to Fiji. Krishna blessed with us with another to take shelter of Him. Composing Thought for the Day Flying from Canberra to Syd

It has a been almost a month since we arrived here "down under." These weeks in Australia and New Zealand have been most spiritually uplifting because we have been in the constant association of so many sincere souls who are eager to do whatever it takes to make spiritual advancement. Krishna explains in the Bhagavad-gita how the devotees become enlivened and enlightened by gathering together to hear and discuss His transcendental name, fame, form, entourage, qualities, paraphernalia, and pastimes. From my personal experience I can certify that it is most certainly a fact. I have been every day engaged in transcendental enlivenment and enlightenment with the wonderful devotees here. And the more I do it, the more the transcendental ocean of knowledge and bliss expands and expands. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Hare Krishna Ashram, Canberra, Australia Answers According to the Vedic Version: Question: Qualities of a Real Disciple? Every day I read your messages. Wit

My spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta, has bestowed upon his followers the most awesome and inconceivable mission. He has ordered us to lead the entire world out of chaos by inundating it in a tidal of love of Godhead. It seems like such an impossible task in this totally materialistic age. But yet within the order of the spiritual master is contained the potency to successfully carry out that order. So all the disciple has to do is always meditate upon and worship the orders he has received from his spiritual master and try his level best to execute them. If he does so, he will experience astounding results. And even if he is not fully successful in executing the spiritual master's orders, if he tries his level best, his spiritual perfection is guaranteed and anyone who follows him will also achieve spiritual perfection. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Hare Krishna Ashram, Canberra, Australia Answers According to the Vedic Version: Special Nectar: Dream of

I rose this morning at 3:00 am, took my morning shower, and then entered into the most sacred precincts of Srila Prabhupada's personal quarters to chant the Hare Krishna mantra on my japa beads in his divine presence. (Even though my spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada, departed this mortal plane in 1977, he is still fully available to those who take complete shelter of him. And he is especially accessible in those places where he personally resided such as his quarters in the Prabhupada House in Melbourne.) I also took the opportunity to fully reveal my heart to him in prayer to beg his blessings that I can be fully absorbed in pure devotional service and that through my preaching I can have a powerful impact on a world which is so much entangled in illusion. It was a most wonderful experience because I could feel how Srila Prabhupada is present. The presence of the spiritual master can be felt by those who are fully surrendered to him. There is no more wonderful feeling in th

If you want to taste every minute as sublime, all you have to do is connect with the divine. In the authoritative Vedic literatures it is emphatically enjoined that in this materialistic age of Kali there is no more suitable method for connecting with the divine than chanting the holy names of God. Uttering any name of God with love and devotion catapults the sincere chanter into the transcendental dimension far beyond the confines of time and space. And it is especially recommended in the Kali Santarana Upanishad that there is no more suitable means for attaining spiritual realization than chanting the Hare Krishna mahamantra: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare So if you want the easiest, quickest way to connect with and stay connected with the sublime divine, simply center your entire life around the regular chanting of the Hare Krishna mahamantra. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Connecting with the Sublime Divine The Prabh