Dear Maharaja,

Please accept my humble(?) obeisances. 

All glories to your service. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

Dr Mabbett Education and the Sacred

I have sent an email to Dr. Mabbett inviting him for an interview for Education and the Sacred. More to come soon...

India October

My good wife has given me serious instruction to go on pilgrimage to India later this year. If you have some service for me in October I will gladly take it. Otherwise, if you cannot tolerate me, I will go to Radha Kunda and chant and offer dandavats to you when you walk past

A Vaisnava Siddhanta Question

When I take into consideration these five points points...

1. The fact that the jiva is tatashta shakti, never leaving the spiritual world objectively, projected into the material delusion by kshirodakashayi Vishnu to fulfill material desires, in constant generation from Mahavishnu's body, on the border of the material and spiritual realms.
2. That our material bodies are made from Krishna's inferior energy (BG 7.4), and that our spiritual bodies are "furnished with a form that is a special manifestation of His [Krishna's) own splendor" (from Jiva Goswami's definition of Bhagavan found in one of Radhika Ramana Prabhu's books.
3. That shanta rasa is the basis of all other rasas, which is closley linked to steady-state brahman, the anchor point at the base of the mirrored banyan tree — Exploitation on the bottom and Madhurya Rasa on the top.
4. That Srila Prabhupada’s definition of the the statement “Back to Godhead” as given on the cover of Back to Godhead magazine is “Godhead is light. Nescience is darkness. Where there is Godhead there is no nescience.” Godhead is “light” — cit? Yo quiero ananda!!!
5. That I cannot see Krishna's personal form; I can only see Him indirectly.

...Firstly, I can sympathize with the nivirshesha-sunyavadis (impersonalists and mayavadis) — who are so prominent today, especially in the intelectual and the yoga communities, who think that God is a formless, universal, oneness of consciousness, who needs the physical world to express Himself. They are convinced, therefore, that He, the One, brakes up into many — us living entities — and that's all there is. 

Once one realizes the nature of the living entity minus the material body, it is easy to assume that Parabrahman is of the same quality of formless consciousness — consciousness which can attach itself to things, but itself is not a thing. When I learn that when I get a spiritual body, it is made out of Krishna energy — so it is not actually me, its a gift to do seva with in the spiritual world — it makes me contemplate how Krishna's own body could be the same. These mayavadis would say that formless brahman only is truth and Vrindavan is a temporary lila that brahman expresses Himself through, just like materialists express themselves in material life. Indeed, the mayavadis use this technique to try and establish themselves as equal to God and according to our acharyas, this is the greatest offence and the last snare of illusion. 

But I trust the glorious Gaudiya Vaisnavas when they say that actually Krishna and His associates, and His places of pastimes, are the true reality and that what I am experiencing is just a thin layer of consciousness touching the surface of the inferior energies of Krishna (the physical and psychological world provided to us as a kind of virtual reality through which we can imitate Him). The reason I trust them is because they are oozing with Krishna Prema. But I accept what the vaisnavas say on authority alone. It is not something I have experienced. 

My questions are these:

In short, how can I see the real Krishna? 

HpS - By learning how to steal butter for Him without being caught

Is it through hearing — like, do I fall through a portal of sound at the level of atma (ego) and wake up in the border of the Spiritual realm and then get given a suitable body to go be with Him? 

HpS - We are our spiritual body. Just compressed now. Chanting sincerely. Hara, give me some service, and we wake up.

Is it just my material desires keeping me in ignorance, or do I need some special mantra or something to pass through?

HpS - Just gotta take all the rocks off your head. One manta at a time.

How can I experience that Krishna is not just an idea that brings the best out of people if after all these years (lifetimes) I have only seen mental images of Him and the only spirit that I see is the negation of matter. I feel the paramatma, I feel Krishna, my intelligence accepts Their presence and factuality (BG Ch 10), but I cannot see Him. Please, please, please help me, Maharaja.

I know that for a vaisnava, knowing is an unnecessary requirement — the Gopis for example will get upset with you if you talk philosophy all day, telling them how Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and instead they will ask you “why aren’t you making a nice garland today, for when He returns?” — but even though this is the case, it would be lovely to see Him. 

My experience of my relationship with Krishna is that I am serving a friend who is away currently, but He will be back soon — I am doing some little service for Him but cant see Him — but at the level of some kind of low-class sahajiya, of course. 

HpS - You know I've heard of Their romance, but I've never really seen Them dance.

Some day it will just happen. Then you will be as dead as a skunk run over by a furniture van.

Keep praying to be enlightened in your service. Who to squirt when.

Chant mo' rounds bettah.

Thank you for correcting Dr Mabbett. Will www be in the same places in October? Calendar on Kapi Dhvaja...

Your servant

Dhruvānanda Das