mercy day

yesterday we went to the sunday feast to the cologne temple nearby, where we are living. there, one of the most senior devotees of our movement, and actually the first german devotee, bhakti busana swami, was giving the class.

after the class was finished, i sneaked into his room, where i happened to take prasadam with him.

i told him about my little chanting experiment, and he said , that he also has to chant his rounds even before mangala aratic, because after mangala aratic, his busy day starts, and there is not much time left for chanting.

amazing! i thought, only householders have a hard time getting there rounds together!

maharaja mainly preaches in south america, where he is gbc along with guru prasada swami.

maharaja briefly told me about the problems in the south america yatra, mainly arousing, because the devotees do not chant their rounds and follow the morning program.

when we chant our rounds, that is like watering the bhakti lata bija, our devotional creeper. our spiritual life is starting from there, maharja added.

i felt encourged very much by his association.

that was definitely the spiritual highlight of the week.

Gebloggt mit Flock Browser

steady

this body ist considered in the mode of ignorance.

that is definetely true.. each morning, i get up, it takes quite a time, my the subtle body wakes up and becomes fit for chanting hare krishna. after four rounds oft warming up, im getting more into it.

srimati mataji useses a "kirtan box" that is a little unit, where srila prabhupada constantly is chanting the maha mantra. i have a small one too.
if you turn down the volume as much as possible. it is still so loud, i could never sleep.

ok, no kirtan box.

and no surya namaskara. my back was hurting after doing it one time.
actually i did it quite a long time.

don t know what happened to my body in the meanwhile.


after three weeks getting up early and chanting my rounds before six, i can say, that simply doing this helps me to stay somhow connected to krishna. that s all so far, as i can perceive it. probably, there is much mor benefit....

lets see, how the next week will be.

there will be this mad shift from 3:30-11:30 p.m.

how much will i be inspired to start chanting my rounds after midnight, after coming from work?

or getting up, after having slept three hours?

that will be a challenge. one of the thousands and thousands to come.

Gebloggt mit Flock Browser

srimad bhagavatam, 24,4,36

i read this vers after chanting this morning:

My Lord, as the supreme directing Deity known as Aniruddha, You are the master of the senses and the mind. I therefore offer my obeisances unto You again and again. You are known as Ananta as well as Sańkarsana because of Your ability to destroy the whole creation by the blazing fire from Your mouth.

PURPORT

Hrisikesendriyātmane. The mind is the director of the senses, and Lord Aniruddha is the director of the mind. In order to execute devotional service, one has to fix his mind on the lotus feet of Krishna; therefore Lord Śiva prays to the controller of the mind, Lord Aniruddha, to be pleased to help him engage his mind on the lotus feet of the Lord. It is stated in Bhagavad-gītā (9.34): man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī mām. namaskuru. The mind has to be engaged in meditation on the lotus feet of the Lord in order to execute devotional service. It is also stated in Bhagavad-gītā (15.15), mattah smritir jñānam apohanam ca: from the Lord come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness. Thus if Lord Aniruddha is pleased, He can help the mind engage in the service of the Lord. It is also indicated in this verse that Lord Aniruddha is the sun-god by virtue of His expansions. Since the predominating deity of the sun is an expansion of Lord Aniruddha, Lord Śiva also prays to the sun-god in this verse.

Lord Krishna, by His quadruple expansion (Vāsudeva, Sańkarshana, Pradyumna and Aniruddha), is the Lord of psychic action — namely thinking, feeling, willing and acting. Lord Śiva prays to Lord Aniruddha as the sun-god, who is the controlling deity of the external material elements which constitute the construction of the material body. According to Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Thākura, the word paramahamsa is also another name for the sun-god. The sun-god is addressed herein as nibhrtātmane, which indicates that he always maintains the various planets by manipulating the rainfall. The sun-god evaporates water from the seas and oceans and then forms the water into clouds and distributes it over land. When there is sufficient rainfall grains are produced, and these grains maintain living entities in each and every planet. The sun-god is also addressed herein as pūrna, or complete, because the rays emanating from the sun have no end. For millions and millions of years since the creation of this universe, the sun-god has been supplying heat and light without diminution. The word paramahamsa is applied to persons who are completely cleansed. When there is sufficient sunshine, the mind remains clear and transparent — in other words, the sun-god helps the mind of the living entity to become situated on the platform of paramahamsa. Thus Lord Śiva prays to Aniruddha to be kind upon him so that his mind will always be in the perfect state of cleanliness and will be engaged in the devotional service of the Lord. Just as fire sterilizes all unclean things, the sun-god also keeps everything sterilized, especially dirty things within the mind, thus enabling one to attain elevation to the platform of spiritual understanding.

after getting up, my gross and subtle body are actually always quite jammed up.
i think, i will do surya namaskara excercise from now on before chanting, and thus pay obeisances to the sungod and hoping to get the benefit of controlling the mind a little more. if you are not so familiar with the excericse, here you can nicely see, how it goes.

Gebloggt mit Flock Browser

steadiness

before i make any further jumps into the ocean of devotional service, i want to become steady in my chanting. so far, i got up every day at three or four and finished my rounds before six. well done.

step by step.

that was one of the necterean advantages of travelling book distribution. we always used to find out the best places in town, a park or a nice forest for example, would crush down at night and get up early to chant our rounds. that was freedom. after all book distribution was ok, but i think we should have had more focus on internal development, more focus on chanting. you were a hero, when you made big, even if you were a puffed up fool, like i was every now and then.

anyway.

it s all about inner development. right now, i feel quite comfortable with my vow.  like to go on. and who knows, maybe i will even chant one round more later on?

Gebloggt mit Flock Browser

pra MAD a

in this mornings chanting, i was thinking about a talk i had yesterday, with on of my associates at work. via e-bay he had been ordering crushed pepper from tennesse. in google maps he could even see the house, from where the lady, who sold the pepper, was living. he was very amazed about that.
i was too.
then we went further into it. we saw, that this town was called erwin. he looked up erwin in wykipedia, where was mentioned, that this town was especially famous for having hanged an circus elefant named mary in 1916 for having crushed the head ot her trainer.

this morning, while i was chanting,i was really wondering, how people come up with the idea of hanging an elefant? i thought, this is really crazy.

like thinking about it during chanting.

furthermore i was very blissful about my new birkenstock slippers with wool cover. they have leather soles though, so i was praying for forgiveness to the cow, that i use her skin to walk on. then i thought: "hm...maybe she is even making some spiritual progress, since i use parts of her body while i am chanting?"

like that.

srimati explains, that one aparada, which one should avoid is jiva aparada, offences to the living entitiies. she explains, that there are always different options, how we can deal with things.

like, when you are disturbed by a moskito, you can end the moskitos life by killing it, which would be in ignorance. you can us some chemical stuff in order to make it leave, which would be in the mode of passion. or you can eat one month before the rainy season neem tablets, so the moskitos won t touch you. that would be in goodness.

i mean, why did they have to hang an elefant?

mary, the elefant.

                                                    "the bird of the mind flies on two wings: the past and the future
                                                    o mind, cut those wings. we hear now. just hear, chant and remember!
                                                    and let me learn to love, serve and surrender."

Gebloggt mit Flock Browser

hello anarthas

this morning i was confronted with my anarthas (unwanted things in the heart)

they were there and i was in.

in the clouds, that vorbid me to perceive krishna while chanting.

i knew it before. i was restless yesterday, i was quite finished from work i thought. "how long will i be able to do it?"

working, sleeping, little chanting inbetween, working, working, working,

the machine has got me.

maya.

anyway, at least i am trying to confront my anarthas. how horrible, these are things i want to wipe under the table.

there are different kinds of anarthas.

srimati talks about them in that japa seminar.

have to deal with them, as i am in my experiment. like to use the opportunity to see what is going on with me.

Gebloggt mit Flock Browser

transformation of the mind

that is what the dalai lama says about transformation of the mind,

thanks to thomas!


One thing you should remember is that mental transformations take time and are not easy. I think some people from the West, where technology is so good, think that everything is automatic. You should not expect this spiritual transformation to take place within a short period, that is impossible. Keep it in your mind and make a constant effort, then after 1 year, 5 years, ten years, fifteen years you will eventually find some change. I still sometimes find it very difficult to practice these things. However, I really do believe that these practices are extremely useful.
•
As we discussed earlier, the transformation of mind and heart does not happen overnight but through a gradual process. Although it is true that in some cases instantaneous spiritual experiences may be possible, they are rather unreliable and somewhat short lived. The problem is that when sudden experiences occur, like bolts of lightning, the individual may feel profoundly moved and inspired, but if the experiences are not grounded in discipline and sustained effort they are very unpredictable, and their transformative impact will be rather limited. By contrast, a genuine transformation that results from sustained concerted effort is long lasting because it has a firm foundation. That is why long term spiritual transformation can really only come about through a gradual process of training and discipline.

Gebloggt mit Flock Browser