Diary of a spiritual journey 3

Date: 7.9.2002

Dear Vaisnavas,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

August 22nd., New Mayapur

All glories to Sri Sri Krishna Balarama!

I am in New Mayapura, France to celebrate the appearance day of lord Balarama. Here we find the only Deities of Krishna Balarama in Europe, so in that way New Mayapur is truely a place of pilgrimage. There we can approach Lord Balarama . Balarama is the giver of spiritual strength, Balarama is adi-guru, the original spiritual master, He is the first servitor of the Lord. He is non different from Krisna, yet in a different mood, He is the servitor Supreme Lord. He expands Himself as Ananta Sesa and with His many mouths he never ceases to speak of Krishna's glories. Lord Ananta's trancendental mouth is described as the box where the jewel Krishna's glorification is kept, without pleasing Balarama one can not glorify Krishna. How to please Balarama? By serving Krishna enthusiastically. After all Balarama Himself serves Krishna with all His might! He becomes Krishna's paraphanalia, His bed, His seat, His plate, His cup, the musical instruments, He even becomes Krishna's trancendental abode, Vrndavana. Govinda speaks the Bhagavad Gita and Balarama gives us the strength to execute it. My dear Lord Balarama, I am praying to You for shelter from maya, I am praying to You for higher taste,I am praying to You that I may always be engaged in the service of Krishna.

My service is to be a sannyasi, to be always engaged in Krishna consciousness. Regularly chanting,at least the prescribed number of rounds, better more! Sometimes reading or hearing lectures. Writing, answering personal letters, preaching. public programs, 2 or 3 classes a day, traveling, listening to people, encouraging, being an example of purity. Sometimes to be more tolerant than a tree in the face of criticism or suspicion from people with broken or little faith. The only response can be to become more serious about purification.

And in the midst of all that I am also a human being and not superman.

Prabhupada writes;

"Actually, sannyAsa, or renunciation of material household life, necessitates complete absorption in KRSNa consciousness and immersion in the self. One does not take sannyAsa, freedom from family responsibility in the renounced order of life, to make another family or to create an embarrassing transcendental fraud in the name of sannyAsa. The sannyAsI's business is not to become proprietor of so many things and amass money from the innocent public. A sannyAsI is proud that he is always thinking of KRSNa within himself. Of course, there are two kinds of devotees of the Lord. One is called goSThy-AnandI, which means those who are preachers and have many followers for preaching the glories of the Lord and who live among those many, many followers just to organize missionary activities. Other devotees are AtmAnandI, or self-satisfied, and do not take the risk of preaching work. They remain, therefore, alone with God. In this classification was Kardama Muni. He wanted to be free from all anxieties and remain alone within his heart with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. ParivrAja means "an itinerant mendicant." A mendicant sannyAsI should not live anywhere for more than three days. He must be always moving because his duty is to move from door to door and enlighten people about KRSNa consciousness." SB. 3.24.34

The ISKCON Sannyasi lives in the middle of the people, always engaged in traveling and preaching. Sometimes we may desire to be in a peaceful place and just remeber Krishna. Anyway Krishna is everywhere not only in a peaceful forest or in Vrndavana. These days I am specially most interested in how Krishna is all-attractive and I am feel very attracted to see how Krishna has a 'heart' in all His dealings.

I dreamt of Krishna yesterday! Krishna went to the spiritual world with a number of his associates. They went in some sort of lotus which was carried by the sudharsana cakra. I suddenly saw Goloka Vrndavana in the sky, then the lotus took off into the sky carried by the brilliant circling light disc of sudharsana, while Krishna and some of His devotees were standing on it. Then I saw the same thing again in total three times. That sudharsana disk was bright as the sun. The whole thing went quite fast and took me kind of by surprise.

What does it mean? I could look for some hidden meaning, -but am not expert,- for one thing I stayed behind in the material world, that was to be expected. At least it was about Krishna, that's auspicious, something pure for a change in my mind. It's not a very scriptural dream, there is no reference that Krishna travels like that, He could though if He would desire so. Anyway my conclusion is that such dreams are nice, but not so important. Better I take shelter of remembering Krishna as He is described in the scriptures, than my own dreams.

Z�rich, Sept 6th, 2002. Janmastami has gone bye. It was enlivening! There were celebrations all over the world, all over the universe! We had the good fortune to partake. May we again be part of the celebrations next year and many more years after that.

Hare Krsna,
Your servant,
Kadamba Kanana Swami