Becoming Strong by Acknowledging Your Weaknesses

Pride is our weakness, and humility is our strength. So instead of proudly being blind to your weaknesses, imagining that you are strong in every way, it is better to honestly recognize and acknowledge your weaknesses. You should find a devotee who can honestly and accurately pinpoint your weaknesses and learn from that devotee. In this way you will become truly strong.

To always keep this humble mood the devotees regularly bow down and offer their obeisances both to the deities in the temple as well as to other devotees, especially to their spiritual master. In this way they become strongly fixed in devotional service to Krishna.

Srila Prabhupada Offers Obeisances to Krishna in the Temple

Testimonial From Shyamapriya devi dasi

As a kid, I grew up watching my parents worshiping Goddess Durga. In my fifth grade one of my school teachers showed me a picture of Shirdi Sai Baba and said, “Here- this is God.” And I instantly believed without a doubt that this is God. Throughout my school years for the next 8 years I would dedicatedly, every single day pray to ‘God’ and chant respective mantras, until the clouds of dissatisfaction start to appear in my heart. I started to ask questions like why God has to be an old man? Then I tried reading a Bible given by my Christian friend. Even gave a read to the philosophy of Buddhism. Nothing was relieving me from my unknown dissatisfaction.

It was in 10th standard, I saw Hare Krishna mahamantra sticker on my tuition teacher’s cupboard, but I didn’t know its significance then. A year and half later I saw a dream. In that dream, I lost my way to home in a thick dense forest. And out of nowhere a saintly person with a shaven head appeared and pointed his hand to show me the way to my home. And all I could remember from that dream was the dense green forest, the saintly man’s stark blue eyes and his hand pointing towards my home. And for years I kept wondering about that dream only to find the answer a decade later.

In the Autumn of year 2009, sitting in the temple hall of ISKCON Noida, I was this person whom the best of material education failed to give any meaning or purpose to life. All my attempts to find truth ended in vain. Whiplashed by the atrocities of Maya, I was only begging Sri Krishna and Srila Prabhupada (by whose causeless mercy I got acquainted with the movement nearly 7 years back) to send me somebody who truly represents him and teaches me exactly what Srila Prabhupada had taught about the absolute truth. And to my benediction, the speaker of that day was, His Grace Sriman Sankarshan Das Adhikari Prabhu and it was the same day my dear Godsister Her Grace Guruvandana Mataji got initiated. The moment His Grace spoke the following words from his lotus mouth, “ So…Srila Prabhupada said….”. A voice spoke from within my heart so loud that I could not ignore it even if I wanted to. It said, “This is my Guru”. “I found my Guru.” At that time, I didn’t know anything about who Srila Gurudeva was and little did I know His Grace is an initiating spiritual master.

Next year, Srila Gurudeva would come back again to ISKCON Noida to deliver a series of lectures on Pure Devotional service, in which I too got myself enrolled. And on 3rd Oct, 2010 by the mercy of our Gurumataji, Her Grace Vishnupriya Mataji, we got a chance to personally meet Srila Gurudeva. His Grace asked me if I were on his e-course and when I said no, His Grace very mercifully took out his visiting card and gave it to me. And what I saw and read on that card deeply struck me. On that card I saw Srila Gurudeva’s passport size picture, sitting in a dense forest and on it I read www.backtohome.com. My heart melted to my eyes as the forgotten dream came back to my memory and everything made sense. Couple of years later, His Divine Grace, out of his sheer causeless mercy gave me shelter at his cooling lotus feet and despite of full of faults and disqualifications, accepted this low class degenerate as his disciple to take her back home, back to Godhead.

Today and every single day, the first thing I look forward to in my email box is "Thought for the day" by Srila Gurudeva. It has become an absolute essential part of my day, without reading which I don’t feel like my day has started yet. It is tremendously helping me on a daily basis to remain fixed in my spiritual practice and to remain connected to the vani, the instructions of my Sri Guru. I exhilaratingly wait every day for Thought for the Day to see which part of the world is being blessed today by the visit of Srila Gurudeva and Srimati Gurumataji during their tireless preaching tours around the globe. I wait every single day to see what new I could learn from the BRILLIANT question and answer section. So many of my lingering doubts have been cleared over the years through this PERFECT question and answer feature of the e-course.

Whether I am happy, sad or in any state, by simply reading the message in the Thought for the Day uplifts my spirit and keeps me going through thick and thin. Apart from this, I have had some truly amazing experiences, where I received the answers to my day-to-day life dilemmas/problems directly from Sri Guru through the Thought for the Day message.

I humbly request every single soul on this planet Earth to enroll themselves to this unique, one of its kind Ultimate Self Realization E-course. It is absolutely free of cost, and one will be blessed with unlimited good fortune of transcendental knowledge in return. I beg you to seize this once in a lifetime golden opportunity of coming in personal contact with a bona fide and authentic source of transcendental knowledge and systematically and scientifically learn the purpose of our existence and the Absolute Truth.

With best wishes
Sincerely,
Shyamapriya devi dasi

Answers by Citing the Vedic Version:

Question: Qualification for Spreading Krishna Consciousness?

Could you please let me know what is the eligibility criteria to join the group for spreading Krishna consciousness? Also can both males and females join?

I am from Pune, India. I am married.

Thank You

Your servant,
Himanshu K.

Answer: Be Prepared to Do Whatever Krishna Wants

The only qualification for being a part of the elite group who wants to bring about a spiritual revolution for the deliverance of the fallen souls on this planet is that you must be always prepared to do whatever Krishna wants. This means that you must be prepared to give up something which you may not like to give up or to accept something which you may not like to accept. If you are prepared in this way to do whatever Krishna wants, you are qualified to help bring about the respiritualization of the human society.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari