Mukta

For those unaware, Muktakesh Prabhu, a dear disciple of Srila Prabhupada and resident of New Vrindaban, left his body this past Friday, April 6, 2007, at 9:36pm, in a room filled with over thirty devotees, family, and friends chanting Hare Krsna at the most auspicious moment of his soul's passing.

I did not know Mukta Kesh Prabhu very well, at least on the surface. However, in being able to be one of the many devotees who helped assist him to leave his body in ideal Vaisnava fashion, I've come to understand that perhaps I've been an intimate associate of him for many lifetimes.

I know he's in a better place now, and as soon as he got there, whoever was around to greet him sure got more that what they bargained for.

The first I ever heard of Mukta was that he used to storm into the brahmacari ashram very early in the morning, pounding on doors, yelling out "Jiv Jago!" (wake up sleeping soul!), calling us monkeys, and chanting Hare Krsna in his unique high-volume fashion. I cringed at the thought of having to meet such a person.

Later, I was actually going to ask him to resume this service. I thought it might help me jump out of bed a little bit quicker, but I was told not to ask him because some devotees in our ashram may not appreciate having this extra alarm clock ringing again. Alas...I'm sure I'll get a chance to experience this lila in a more transcendental way in the future.

Mukta was kind enough to gently force me to join his daily 12:30pm Bhagavad-Gita study course. He reminded us nearly everyday that having to use this time for such a consistent study was an austerity any young devotee must undergo. After a few classes, I completely agreed with him.

Mukta's style of giving class was very typical of his personality. Instead of concentrating solely on one verse, as is standard, we would storm through 10-15 verses at a time. This method has so many benefits, for it allows one to see the main themes and lessons of a chapter unfold and connect, and it doesn't take three years of sporadic classes to get through one book.

His class became one of the highlights of the day. I learned that this seemingly intimidating devotee, whose nature of being is very much the polar opposite of my own, actually had a real heart of gold, and I'll appreciate forever his taking time out of his very important duties as head of our Prison Ministry to actually engage the young bhaktas and bhaktins of New Vrindaban in serious, engaging, and very sweet katha.

We had just finished Chapter 2 of the Gita when he fell ill. Some of the last words I spoke to him before he left was a personal vow that I will hold him to finally getting started on Chapter 3 next time I see him.

My other favorite Mukta pastimes was his early-morning habit of pulling a chair to the middle of the temple room, sitting down to chant his japa, and then getting up after about 15 seconds to go chant elsewhere, leaving the chair there for nobody and everybody. He also had a great hop-step dance he would do right before circumambulating Tulasi-devi in the morning.

Being able to be present to help him leave his body, surrounded by so many loving devotees, has given me so many lessons that I will be assimilating for the rest of my life. At least, I can understand that anything and everything we do must revolve around being able to hear the holy name of Krsna at every moment of our life, especially at the time of death.

I'll miss you a lot, Mukta. All of us will try our best to give your son all the support and guidance that you gave him. We'll see you soon.

Srimad-Bhagavatam Meditation: 1:10:3

It is now time for our weekly meditation on a verse from the ripened fruit of all the Vedic literatures, the Srimad-Bhagavatam.

I humble ask you to please first read the Bhaktivedanta translation and purport from the First Canto, Tenth Chapter, Third Verse.

niśamya bhīsmoktam athācyutoktam
pravrtta-vijñāna-vidhūta-vibhramah
śaśāsa gām indra ivājitāśrayah
paridhyupāntām anujānuvartitah

Mahārāja Yudhisthira, after being enlightened by what was spoken by Bhīsmadeva and Lord Śrī Krsna, the infallible, engaged himself in matters of perfect knowledge because all his misgivings were eradicated. Thus he ruled over the earth and seas and was followed by his younger brothers.

It takes only a few passing glances at a newspaper, blog, or television set to see that the practice of democracy in our current age is being exposed as a web of deceit. For those who choose to dig deeper, or have been a victim of the widespread voter fraud of the last two American presidential elections, the reality of what is going on is frightening to think about.

What can we, the so-called powerless people, do against a machine that only presents us with the illusion of freedom and choice, while at the same time bringing us further under a mass-control mechanism of irrational fear, technological addiction, and an epidemic of depression?

Prabhupada says here "It is the person who rules, and not the impersonal government. If the person is perfect, the government is perfect. If the person is a fool, the government is a fool's paradise. That is the law of nature." On the surface, this is obvious to anyone with any intelligence and interest in the common good, in relating to our current political and social climates.

But in a more complete sense, Prabhupada is calling for us to turn away from democracy (or "demon-crazy" as he calls it) as the ideal form of government. In the ideal Vedic conception, the world should be guided by one state, one rule, one leader. This leader must be a perfect, spiritual individual, who by dint of his piety and compassion, will please God so much that all necessities and desires of the citizenry will fall into line.

If this sounds like an impossible utopia, it is, at least on the material platform. To any modern, Western-educated individual, it may also seem like a regression to the days of dictators and despots. However, billions of people around the globe already are attempting to follow one perfect individual. His name is God, or Krsna, or Allah, or Jesus, etc.

Because we are imperfect beings in a materially conditioned state, we cannot take up the responsibility of attempting to lord over the resources and ideologies of any form of society that can be established on this earthly planet. The history books are full of the folly of this startling misconception. In this age of quarrel and hypocrisy, the perfect spiritual leader does not exist in a human body. Therefore, we must fill this void by trusting in the word, law, and love of God.

But this trust is lost, the law is warped, and this love is perverted into so many diluted forms. This isn't because of any defect in God's nature, contrary to so much popular belief. It is because of our own conditioned state, our own choices, and our own helplessness in what is being imposed upon us by the demoniac forces covering up the goodwill of this globe.

The only revolution that will truly create any tangible, positive change is a spiritual revolution, with the word of God at the center. This revolution will only take place when the different faiths of this world learn to see beyond the superficial differences that exist at the expense of the common cure, the common foundation.

However difficult it may be, and whatever comforts we are attached to, we must give it up and work together, because us spiritually-minded people are this planet's only hope.

"But a king like Mahārāja Yudhisthira had no ideology of his own. He had but to follow the instructions of the infallible Lord and the Lord's representative and the authorized agent, Bhīsmadeva. It is instructed in the śāstras that one should follow the great authority and the infallible Lord without any personal motive and manufactured ideology." We must give-up all temporary, materially-based ideologies and become channels for the revolution of the Lord, who supplies all answers and all sense.

Democracy can ideally work on a local scale, but we must realize that man cannot rule man alone. Until then we will suffer and stumble and perhaps wipe ourselves clear away. This is the most serious, pressing matter we face, and I beg of you to heed it with thought and action.

New Vrindaban's Best Kept Secret (Part 2)

By Bhakta-Chris

the perfection of life

the mode of goodness

Srila Prabhupada lays out the bare facts very clearly: “Men do not understand that because they unrestrictedly kill so many animals, they must also be slaughtered like animals in big wars….In the West, slaughterhouses are maintained without restriction, and therefore every fifth or tenth year there is a big war in which countless people are slaughtered even more cruelly than the animals.”

Cow protection has always been and will always be one of the most fundamental tenets of Prabhupada’s mission. By leading the mass of the bovine population to the slaughterhouse, we not only cause incredibly serious environmental effects, but karmic reactions that send our earthly planet into an apocalyptic tailspin.

To be Krsna conscious and to not have any interest or desire to engage in systematic protection of the world’s cow population is to be missing a big part of the point. If you don’t believe me, ask Balabhadra, our ISKCON Minister of Cow Protection and Agriculture, or Madhava Ghosh, or any senior devotee with a little dung permanently stained into their pants. They will give you candid and inspiring information that will help you to see Mother Cow in a way you never have before.

mmm…

New Vrindaban is much more than just the temple itself. In fact, if you listen close enough, you may hear Radha Vrindaban Chandra whisper that their favorite part of New Vrindaban is the cows. If you’re visiting or living here and haven’t had the chance to visit the Goshalla, with the shining faces of our bull calves Kesava and Madhava and their esteemed mothers Tulasi and Ganga, you are in for a real treat. The kind of love and affection a cow can give you is something very special in this material world. The true essence must be experienced. For more information on the important need of cow protection, please check out www.iscowp.org.

New Vrindaban's Best Kept Secret (Part 1)

One of the extra benefits of living in an ISKCON farm community, alongside the whole blissful daily practice of getting one step back closer to Godhead, is the many earthy service opportunities.
Before I came here, I had some semblance of an idea of what I was getting myself into, and a big part of that semblance was some serious association with my favorite animal species, the cow.

As Old Man Winter recedes, and it becomes less of an austerity to just simply step outside, I have found some very important time to do some serious cow seva, whether it's finding just the right "sweet spot" in the art of scratching our adorable bull calves Kesava and Madhava, or in joining our dearest Caitanya Bhagavat Prabhu in his daily seva amongst our herd of bovines in and around the ISCOWP barn.

First, let's meet some of our friends...

Balarama

Bhima

Gita

Caitanya Bhagavat

Caitanya Bhagavat has been taking care of our sublime collection of our ISCOWP family for many months now, and its one of the best services he has personally ever been a part of. Therefore, he makes it quite a joy to be with him, even more so than usual, which is saying a whole lot. As Prabhupada and Lord Caitanya have said, the cows live completely in the mode of goodness, and anyone who takes care of them is promoted to the mode of goodness.

Caitanya Bhagavat is a living example of this fact, and much more. He has such a transcendental lila with our four-legged friends that one who serves with him in this manner does nothing but strive to come to that same platform of soul-affirming association. He's a real inspiration.

Real love

Working the hay

More to come Thursday...

Hit the Asphalt!

Being an aspiring celibate monk in the Gaudiya Vaisnava (Hare Krsna) tradition, I often get the impression that people have no idea what I actually do. What exactly does actual spiritual life look like, sound like, taste like, and feel like. Actually, I'm not sure. I'll think I'll try to figure it our after I get up from my nap....we do arise at 4am in these parts.

To give you, dearest reader, a small example of this devotee life, I present a photo essay of our journey northwards to Pittsburgh and Michigan that occurred last weekend (3-16 to 3-20-07). I traveled with my fellow former Michigan homeboy and good neighbor Caitanya Das, along with His Grace Yugal Kishore Das, one of New Vrindaban's most delightful traveling salesmen, engaged in the helping spread the marketplace of the Holy Name. Also repping the New Vrindaban contingent in Detroit this weekend was Her Grace Mother Malati, who is one of the original Western disciples of our Hare Krsna movement and of the man himself, His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada. Caitanya and I were mainly traveling doing college programs of musical meditation (kirtan) and spiritual discussion, while Yugal and Malati were in Detroit to preside over a Deity installation at the local home of one of our congregation members.

So, with my whole life being experimental, I'm gonna throw up a bunch of pictures here so you may get some kind of jist. I've been told by knowlegable sources not to overload on the photography, because it overloads the load time for people of lesser CPU capacity. To those people, all I can say, like the human beings will say, is "sorry." Please enjoy to the best of your capacity anyway...

Caitanya Das prays for rain

A neon kirtan for the neon age, live from the University of Pittsburgh


Yugal Kishore dresses and bathes the New Arrivals

Our man Bhakta Joe Swift doing what he does best.

Back to the roots...a college program-East Quad-U. of Michigan-Ann Arbor


"Take the pacifier out of your mouth, and just fill your mouth with harinama instead.."





Detroit Rock City!

The kindest enlightenment from Her Grace Mother Malati.


Heating up the asphalt and catching a cold-Kirtan at Michigan State University

The ideal way to end the trip-organic raspberry popsicles.

His Divine Grace A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada-ISKCON Devasadan-Detroit