Induced Selflessness
“Should I get married or become a monk? Which one is best?”
Unless you turn prudent and wise / You are in for a nasty surprise / In a world of birth, old age,disease and death / No one could ever escape their wrath.
Pride is a formidable block on the road of spirituality. When it rears its ugly head it’s painstakingly obvious – to ourselves and others
Money can buy many things and some believe anything in this world. And so people work hard, extremely hard, to earn a lot. But can money buy everything?
A poem based on chapter "Transforming Lust into Love” from the book The Spiritual Warrior by Bhakti Tirtha Swami.
When we are good at something, we can easily spot others’ weaknesses in that area. For example, if we are good at language, our attention automatically zooms to others’ grammatical shortcomings.
We like to think of ourselves as innocent people who are misunderstood but Krishna, in the Bhagavad-gita, has another judgment.
Tens and thousands of people were out on the streets in the night carrying torches in their hands ready to be part of an extraordinary movement. If they remain silent, lock themselves in their houses and give in to the draconian dictum, they would become like slaves without shackles.
When something happens to a devotee, is it karma or is it Krishna acting? This is a big question. Sometimes, we hear, “it’s your karma, Prabhu?” Then at other times, you are told, “isn’t it Krishna who is behind this?”
During our life-journey, we sometimes take wrong turns. We make mistakes, indulge in immoral pleasures or get caught in harmful habits. These take us away from our life’s purposes and principles.
Contemporary ethos exhorts us to be open-minded and excoriates the follies and perils of close-mindedness. Given that many people with narrow-minded, black-and-white view of things are intolerant and even violent, we do need reminders to be open-minded.
When recovering alcoholics have stayed sober for some time, they may feel tempted: “Let me take just one drink – what harm can it do?”
When we want to know how we look, we need a mirror. Similarly, when we want to understand ourselves better, we need an appropriate mirror. One such mirror is others who know us well.
Once, Srila Pundarika Vidyanidhi and Srila Svarupa Damodara came to Jagannatha Puri and saw the festival of odana-sasthi. On this day, the Lord is offered new cloth, and from that day forth, the Lord should be offered winter clothing.
We feel blessed to be engaged in serving the TOVP along with all of our ISKCON family. I’m especially grateful that our daughters have imbibed this mood of service to Srila Prabhupada as well and have understood the true value of the blessings Krishna has bestowed upon them.
Miracles are frequently associated with God, whereas science is usually not associated with him. Science, especially when it adopts methodological naturalism, seeks natural explanations for natural phenomena, leaving God out of the explanatory framework.
Tolerating distress doesn’t mean that we become totally passive; it means that we act first for spiritual elevation, not material rectification.
Mother Yashoda’s love is unmatched in purity and is unlike any other that even the infinite Lord who pervades the entire creation is bound by her love.
The study on self-esteem is part of a larger body of research that goes beyond measurements such as worship attendance to delve deeper into how people’s personal relationship with the divine relates to their health and well-being.
Was I drinking milk meant for a calf? Would Krishna accept my offering of milk when the cows were raped, killed and slaughtered? Did he, being God need such dairy? If a calf had to be killed so that I may have milk, would I kill it myself? I felt like I was in the ring with Mohammad Ali, knocked out in the first round.
The spiritual world exists not just at a different location but at a different level of reality.
People often want to rise to the top in their fields and delight in being high above everyone else. Even if they attain a lofty position like that of a king on a throne, that majesty often makes them lonely.
Life can be disheartening. Things go wrong, people do wrong, we ourselves do wrong. Our best laid-plans can be wrecked by one massive upheaval or thwarted by a million tiny bumps. Either way, we end up feeling like giving up.
What if we could have an alternative vision of reality, a vision that made greater sense of things and brought deeper meaning into our life?
