Ecstatic Yamuna Kirtan Boat Ride
What can be more sublime than a Hare Krishna kirtan in Vrindavan while cruising in a boat on the Yamuna river? It's hard to imagine anything which could surpass this. Therefore having this wonderful opportunity fully available to us I thought that why not take advantage of it. So that's what we did after lunch on 7 December here in this most sacred abode, and it was indeed unlimitedly sublime!
Here's how Srila Prabhodananda Sarasvati glorifies Sri Vrindaban dhama and the Yamuna River:
"How can a person who has never seen Vrindavana's Yamuna river, which is filled with eternally blooming indivara, kamala, kahlara, kumuda, and other lotus flowers, all filled with the sweet humming sounds of bumblebees, and which displays the places where Sri Sri Radha-Muralidhara and Their friends enjoyed transcendental pastimes, remain alive?"
"I bow before Vrindavana's Yamuna river, which is eternally splendid with a lotus of many jewels, which flows from an ocean of bliss, which is delightful with many other colorful splendid flowers, which cannot be approached by the crowns of the three Vedas and which is filled with the sounds of maddened bees and birds."
"Meditate on Vrindavana's Yamuna river, which is dear to Lord Hari, which flows with a great flood of transcendental bliss, which has shores studded with jewels, waves chanting the Sama Veda, and swans, cranes, karandavas, datyuhas and other birds chanting the Rig veda."
"May the Yamuna, where waters sweet as grape-sugar milk nectar are filled with golden lotus buds and other flowers, where the shores are made of many jewels, where the water is wonderful with the splashing of playful, splendid jewel fish, where there is a wonder of glistening jewel staircases, where the shores are very beautiful with groves of many kinds of wonderful flower filled trees and vines and fragrant with camphor and splendid bakula trees, where along the shores are frightened does with wide open eyes, where there sweet fragrance of many splendid forests of kadamba and campaka trees are everywhere, where there is an abundance of pollen, flying birds, pleasant breezes, and a sweet splendor everywhere, where forests groves are reflected in the deep waters, and where Sri Sri Radha-Krishna's bliss increases, also increase the happiness of you all."
(end of quote)
What can I say? When are you coming to the Vrindavana to behold the sacred Yamuna river?
Sankarshan Das Adhikari
Please except my humble obeisances.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
All glories to Sri Guru and Gauranga.
Please help me understand why there are some persons who claim to be followers of Srila Prabhupada but yet don't want to follow the authorized guru/disciple system of practicing Krishna consciousness given to us by Srila Prabhupada and the previous acharyas. They don't believe that it is necessary to accept a guru to guide them in their spiritual advancement since everything has already been given by Srila Prabhupada in his books. When I discussed with one such person he said, "Why should we follow a guru who may not know all that is right after we have seen that some gurus fell down? I can clearly understand and follow Srila Prabhupada's teachings on my own through his books."
I am confused because I have always understood from Srila Prabhupada's books that it is only through being initiated by a physically present guru, serving him, and getting the mercy of his guidance that we can get the mercy of the Lord. Please clear up my confusion.
Thanking Your Grace in advance,
The servant of the servant of your servant,
Madhavi devi dasi
Some persons question, "If everything I need is in Srila Prabhupada's teachings why can't I just accept Srila Prabhupada as my guru and bypass taking initiation from one of his disciples?" Of course, we agree with them 100% that everything we need to go back to Godhead is in Srila Prabhupada's teachings. However, it should be carefully noted in this regard that if I am accepting Srila Prabhupada's teachings as my guiding principle, I have to accept them in full. It is not that I can pick and choose the teachings I like and ignore those which I don't like. Such picking and choosing is not following Srila Prabhupada. Rather it is following one's own whimsical mind. What will indeed only be fully satisfying to the self is to embrace Srila Prabhupada's teachings in full. This requires taking initiation from a spiritual master who is physically present on this planet.
In this connection with this tendency to pick and choose there is a nice illustrative story of a farmer who had a hen that laid very nice eggs. He was especially pleased with his hen because her eggs commanded a very good price in the marketplace. But one thing he did not like about the hen was that it ate a lot of chicken feed. So to solve this problem one day the foolish farmer cut off the chicken's head thinking he only wanted the half that laid the eggs, not the half that ate. Of course the result was that the hen was now dead and would no longer lay any eggs. So these half-hen logicians who want to take the part of Srila Prabhupada's teachings they like and reject the part they do not like are doing nothing more than killing their chance to go back to Godhead.
Srila Prabhupada instructed us that after his physical departure from this mortal world the new devotees coming to ISKCON should take initiation from one of his disciples. So how can someone say that they accept Srila Prabhupada's teachings as their guiding principle and neglect his order to take initiation from one of this disciples? This is a not proper understanding of Srila Prabhupada's teachings.
They may argue, "Some of Srila Prabhupada's disciples fell down. So how I can trust a disciple of Srila Prabhupada to be my guru?" This is like saying, "One time I was given some counterfeit money, so from now on I refuse to have anything to do with money." This is utter foolishness. One simply has to know what is the difference between a genuine note and counterfeit note and be careful not to accept a counterfeit note. Similarly, in regards to accepting a guru, one simply has to carefully study Srila Prabhupada's books to gain a clear understanding of who is a bona fide spiritual master and accept as his guru someone who is the full embodiment of the Bhagavad-gita's teachings. When one becomes serious like this, Lord Krishna will send him his guru so that he can be initiated and become solidly situated on the pathway back to home, back to Godhead.
Sankarshan Das Adhikari
Here's how Srila Prabhodananda Sarasvati glorifies Sri Vrindaban dhama and the Yamuna River:
"How can a person who has never seen Vrindavana's Yamuna river, which is filled with eternally blooming indivara, kamala, kahlara, kumuda, and other lotus flowers, all filled with the sweet humming sounds of bumblebees, and which displays the places where Sri Sri Radha-Muralidhara and Their friends enjoyed transcendental pastimes, remain alive?"
"I bow before Vrindavana's Yamuna river, which is eternally splendid with a lotus of many jewels, which flows from an ocean of bliss, which is delightful with many other colorful splendid flowers, which cannot be approached by the crowns of the three Vedas and which is filled with the sounds of maddened bees and birds."
"Meditate on Vrindavana's Yamuna river, which is dear to Lord Hari, which flows with a great flood of transcendental bliss, which has shores studded with jewels, waves chanting the Sama Veda, and swans, cranes, karandavas, datyuhas and other birds chanting the Rig veda."
"May the Yamuna, where waters sweet as grape-sugar milk nectar are filled with golden lotus buds and other flowers, where the shores are made of many jewels, where the water is wonderful with the splashing of playful, splendid jewel fish, where there is a wonder of glistening jewel staircases, where the shores are very beautiful with groves of many kinds of wonderful flower filled trees and vines and fragrant with camphor and splendid bakula trees, where along the shores are frightened does with wide open eyes, where there sweet fragrance of many splendid forests of kadamba and campaka trees are everywhere, where there is an abundance of pollen, flying birds, pleasant breezes, and a sweet splendor everywhere, where forests groves are reflected in the deep waters, and where Sri Sri Radha-Krishna's bliss increases, also increase the happiness of you all."
(end of quote)
What can I say? When are you coming to the Vrindavana to behold the sacred Yamuna river?
Sankarshan Das Adhikari
Answers According to the Vedic Version:
Question: Why Not Accept Only Srila Prabhupada as My Guru?
Dear Srila Gurudeva,Please except my humble obeisances.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
All glories to Sri Guru and Gauranga.
Please help me understand why there are some persons who claim to be followers of Srila Prabhupada but yet don't want to follow the authorized guru/disciple system of practicing Krishna consciousness given to us by Srila Prabhupada and the previous acharyas. They don't believe that it is necessary to accept a guru to guide them in their spiritual advancement since everything has already been given by Srila Prabhupada in his books. When I discussed with one such person he said, "Why should we follow a guru who may not know all that is right after we have seen that some gurus fell down? I can clearly understand and follow Srila Prabhupada's teachings on my own through his books."
I am confused because I have always understood from Srila Prabhupada's books that it is only through being initiated by a physically present guru, serving him, and getting the mercy of his guidance that we can get the mercy of the Lord. Please clear up my confusion.
Thanking Your Grace in advance,
The servant of the servant of your servant,
Madhavi devi dasi
Answer: He Ordered You to Become the Disciple of His Disciple
Anybody who would like to follow the teachings of Srila Prabhupada is most welcome and most appreciated by us because by following these teachings one will become spiritually perfect and return back to home, back to Godhead after leaving his present material body. Our desire is that everyone throughout the entire world will follow Srila Prabhupada's teachings and thus become liberated.Some persons question, "If everything I need is in Srila Prabhupada's teachings why can't I just accept Srila Prabhupada as my guru and bypass taking initiation from one of his disciples?" Of course, we agree with them 100% that everything we need to go back to Godhead is in Srila Prabhupada's teachings. However, it should be carefully noted in this regard that if I am accepting Srila Prabhupada's teachings as my guiding principle, I have to accept them in full. It is not that I can pick and choose the teachings I like and ignore those which I don't like. Such picking and choosing is not following Srila Prabhupada. Rather it is following one's own whimsical mind. What will indeed only be fully satisfying to the self is to embrace Srila Prabhupada's teachings in full. This requires taking initiation from a spiritual master who is physically present on this planet.
In this connection with this tendency to pick and choose there is a nice illustrative story of a farmer who had a hen that laid very nice eggs. He was especially pleased with his hen because her eggs commanded a very good price in the marketplace. But one thing he did not like about the hen was that it ate a lot of chicken feed. So to solve this problem one day the foolish farmer cut off the chicken's head thinking he only wanted the half that laid the eggs, not the half that ate. Of course the result was that the hen was now dead and would no longer lay any eggs. So these half-hen logicians who want to take the part of Srila Prabhupada's teachings they like and reject the part they do not like are doing nothing more than killing their chance to go back to Godhead.
Srila Prabhupada instructed us that after his physical departure from this mortal world the new devotees coming to ISKCON should take initiation from one of his disciples. So how can someone say that they accept Srila Prabhupada's teachings as their guiding principle and neglect his order to take initiation from one of this disciples? This is a not proper understanding of Srila Prabhupada's teachings.
They may argue, "Some of Srila Prabhupada's disciples fell down. So how I can trust a disciple of Srila Prabhupada to be my guru?" This is like saying, "One time I was given some counterfeit money, so from now on I refuse to have anything to do with money." This is utter foolishness. One simply has to know what is the difference between a genuine note and counterfeit note and be careful not to accept a counterfeit note. Similarly, in regards to accepting a guru, one simply has to carefully study Srila Prabhupada's books to gain a clear understanding of who is a bona fide spiritual master and accept as his guru someone who is the full embodiment of the Bhagavad-gita's teachings. When one becomes serious like this, Lord Krishna will send him his guru so that he can be initiated and become solidly situated on the pathway back to home, back to Godhead.
Sankarshan Das Adhikari
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