Life and Death

My apologies for taking so long to post another blog. I have a bona fide reason.  You see, I was about to become a grandma but it was a high risk pregnancy. And a very scary one. First informed this horrible thing was going to happen, then it did not and all was well. Shortly after, told some new awful thing was going on, then with testing it revealed everything was ok. On and on for most of the pregnancy like that. So, I'd rather not go into all the details. 

Finally, the baby was born, and healthy. We were relieved. However, within hours - went downhill. Came close to death!

I believe medicine has it's place, be it allopathic, natural, or both. Also, I believe that Energy Healing has a place, plus the power of sound vibration or the "chanting" of Vedic Prayers, andddddddd :) mixing everything together with the God connection - all have their place in healing. That is what we did. 

Although the details on "how" is a different topic and I don't want to get sidetracked, if you want to learn healing with Mantra as well as with Energy, even the power of Candle Work - check out my yahoo egroup specific to learning that, here.  

Long story short, baby fully recuperated, is perfectly fine, and I am a happy grandma! Phew. 

However, it forces one to think about birth and death, how they have so much in common, and how even if we get a shot at an auspicious birth, we really never know. Anything can be taken away from us at any moment.

Now things have settled down and I am able to write this post, However, I must say, please oh please take spiritual life seriously cuz at any moment death can raise it's head.  By serious I do not mean fanatically or etc, because true spiritual life is blissful. 

Yet we do have to commit to some action. I've given many ideas throughout this blog on practical ways to do that, even within the home. Look around at the various links. Open them up, see if they tickle your fancy. If one doesn't, keep looking and find one that does, because life on this planet is temporary - whereas spiritual life never ends and is eternal. Unlike material banks, whatever we deposit in our transcendental bank account is never taken away. So lets keep depositing more.

In the Mahabharata the question is asked: What is the most wonderful thing? [Wonderful meaning surprising or filled with wonder, unexpected.] The reply given was: Family, friends, and so on are dying all around everyone, yet each person thinks they themselves shall not die.

This does not mean logically we do not think it, as we all know with our intellect we must die. Rather, we too often live our life as if death is far away, or sometimes that it is not even a thought we allow in order to remind us that life is temporary - therefore go do something permanent.

Anyway, it is there in ancient scripture as a warning, not as paranoia. It is simply a reality of the material world.

Some may say this is a morbid topic. I disagree. Nothing here is speaking of eternal hell fires or how we are always bad. ha What is being pointed out is to take this golden opportunity Krishna has given us, and put in some time to make spiritual advancement.

After all, we are given free will. No one is forcing. It's up to each individual to either take out time to serve God/Krishna, or we will be forced by the laws of material nature to serve Maya. 

Maya can be anything from our jobs to cleaning the house to etc. And sure, we have to live in the material world. But when we add Krishna to the mix, we may be in the world, yet not of the world.

We were built to serve, but we were also given free will. It is up to us, what we wish to do. By making the endeavor to serve Krishna, we are cutting the binding chains of our individual material existence, while simultaneously reconnecting with God. Yoga means to unite, and that is what Bhakti Yoga is all about. Uniting through love and service. 

P.S.  Love is a verb. :) We show our love to God by the actions of devotional service. And there is so much blissful service available that can be done even within the home. It is not a drag ha, nor boring - rather it is nectar!  Please open links at the side of [or beneath] this blog to find something that does it for you. Life is short, chant and be happy.

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Saradiya has left us, going higher

October 5th the last full moon, known as Saradiya Rasa, the devotee Prabhupada named Saridiya devi dasi left this planet [passed on]. 

I can not claim to have known her, but that will not stop me from posting what a wonderful devotee she was! I wish I had known her. She joined the Hare Krishna Movement at the age of 16. How rare is that?! Prabhupada asked mother Malati to adopt her. :) And she did. 

Saradiya devi dasi dancing before Srila Prabhupada in 1968:

Saradiya was also an artist. Here is the link to her art page.

Now something very interesting happened. A young, new devotee, barely a year older than Saradiya when she herself became a devotee, took pictures of the full moon that night. She knew Saradiya, got her first BhagavadGita from her. She got more than a full moon when taking those pics. 

What would that be? 

In her own words: "This was the full moon on Saradiya RasaYatra. After and before I took this picture, I saw this orb. I was talking to Saradiya and telling her how much I miss her already. I believe this orb could be her energy. If not, it could be the Lords energy. Either one makes me happy."

[Click pics open to get the 'real' effect!]

Notice how it moved a bit too [click open]

Traveling somewhere: 











Next, I wish to thank PrabhupadaConnect / PC for giving me permisison to use anything from the site, which I have. :) Therefore I'd like to add this link to theirs; an article written by Saradiya called: "Bonds Of Love."

And here Saradiya wrote: "It was the summer of 1969.  I was cleaning A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada’s apartment on 26 2nd Ave in New York City.  His apartment was behind the Radha Krishna Temple, across the small courtyard, up the stairs, and on the second floor.  His rooms were small, but functional.

The temple was a small storefront that the previous tenants had made into a gift store with the sign: "Matchless Gifts."  The sign certainly alluded to the real matchless gifts of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings generously given to all who entered the transformed storefront.

The previous summer, I had the good fortune to attend a few of Srila Prabhupada’s darshans (discussion/gatherings) in this apartment.  He had asked the devotees if they were painting. ..... "Full Story here.

How interesting she left her body at this exact point in time. Prabhupada knew what he was doing when he named her. :) Plus, a very auspicious time to go:

Sri Kavi Karnapura describes the autumn of Vraja in his Ananda Vrindavana Campu: 

THE AUTUMN SEASON OF VRAJA

The splendorous season of autumn is characterized by lakes full of deep blue water filled with red lotus flowers that look like the lotus feet of Visnu being caressed by the loving lotus hands of Laksmi. 

Brimming with water, these lakes are as clean and pure as the sinless heart of a devotee aspiring for prema. 

As Narayana is beautified by the presence of the joy-ful Goddess of Fortune, similarly, the autumn lakes are beautified by the presence of cakravaka birds and blossoming lotuses.

Groups of lazy swans sport freely in the lakes. Gliding along the water, they resemble liberated souls (paramahamsas) swimming in the ocean of spiritual bliss. 

The cooing herons appear to be echoing the tales of Rama and Laksmana. 

Blue lotuses please everyone with their splendid fragrance, spreading through the land like the fame of the all-attractive Lord. 

The white lotuses (pundarika) ornamenting the lakes are like the elephant Pundarika who decorates the Southeast direction. 

The bees ravage the honey of the kumuda lotuses growing in the lake, just as they enjoy the liquid oozing from the body of Kumuda, the elephant of the Southwest direction. 

Red lotuses cast their colors across the autumn lakes like the setting sun coloring the evening sky with it pastel pinks.

Like an impassioned lady, the autumn season holds these lakes, the reservoirs of all beauty, to her chest in love. 

The autumn moon shines brilliantly like a glinting sword unsheathed before battle. 

As dharma fully manifests in Satya-yuga, the bulls, as representatives of religion, manifest a type of madness during this season as they turn every field into a play-ground. 

The large lakes of this season are very beautiful with warm water on their surfaces and cool water within. They resemble a peaceful man who keeps cool within, even when harassed by the words of a fool. 

The rows of brilliant wispy clouds adorning the autumn sky look like sandal-wood paste on the limbs of the directions personified as women. 

These cloud wisps appear like the white scarf of a young woman waving in the breeze, or cotton fluff carried by the winds personified as young girls.

When the groups of pure white clouds reflect in the Yamuna, it appears like a brilliant white sandbar in the middle of the river, or that the Ganga (which is greenish-white in color) has taken shelter of the Yamuna to gain the fortune of bathing Krsna. 

Three wonderful features fill the autumn season with bliss, namely the fragrant pollen from blooming lotuses, the directions becoming darkened from swarms of bees maddened by the in-toxicating fragrance of the chatina tree, and the wind driven clouds mov-ing like freely roaming elephants.

The autumn season can be seen as a beautiful woman whose waist-belt is the cooing herons, whose ankle-bells are the sonorous quacking of the ducks, whose breasts are the cakravaka birds, whose moon-like face is the half-blooming lotuses, whose eyes are the blue lotuses, whose eyebrows are the fickle bees, and whose attractive garments are the pollen from various flowers.

When the mud (kardama) dries up this season becomes blissful with the sight of the faces of many brown calves (kapilas). Similarly, when Kardama Muni renounced his home, Devahuti took pleasure in seeing the face of her son Kapiladeva. 

This season is like a king who has a flower bed in the middle of a forest of land lotuses. Its canopy is the sky overhead sparkling with the constellations. Its camara whisks are the swaying of the tall kasa flowers.

In the monsoon season, the elephants of the directions jump on the clouds and push them down so that the sky appears to touch the treetops. 

On the other hand, when the tree branches become free of these clouds, it seems the elephants of the directions have departed. In their absence the space above the trees increases.

~~*~~