"The spiritual master is receiving benediction from ocean of mercy. Just as a cloud pours water on a forest fire to extinguish it, so spiritual master delivers the materially afflicted world by extinguishing the blazing fire of material existence. I offer my respectful obeisances unto lotus feet of such a spiritual master, who is an ocean of auspicious qualities".
When Parikshit Maharaj was in the womb, he was about to be killed by brahmana, but was saved by the Lord. Again at the end of his life he was again cursed by a brahmana to death. This time he was saved by the Lord in form of "mantra-murti", Srimad Bhagavatam which made him completely Krishna conscious that death in form of Takshaka snake could not do any harm to him.
"Always depend on Krishna" is really a super excellent mail as he has given the factual position of most of us (especially me). Prabhuji's repentance is really wonderful for all of us to learn and we should cultivate this genuine feeling in our devotional life. The fact that, the Lord comes, beseeches and fully occupies the repentant heart, can be very much seen from his nectarean realization
Whether we forgive others whole-heartedly or not, there is one person whom we always forgive and that too with all sorts of justifications and that is our own self. If there is one word which is very very difficult to extract from the mouths of the people, that word is ‘sorry’. Always justifying our acts, never do we feel sorry for all our wrong acts.
Despite understanding the inevitable fact that everything that happens in our life is carefully and meticulously crafted by the Lord for our own benefit, in times of distress, often times we tend to justify the stand that it is not practical to put full faith in Krishna and depend on Him completely and be indifferent to the mental stress and tensions that we may have to go through during such difficult times.
On one such visit, he happened to be chanting in a local temple and some inquisitive kids, playing nearby, asked him what he was doing. He explained to them that he was chanting Hare Krishna Mahamantra and that Krishna is God. In response the kids asked him if they could also chant.
When Maharaj Prthu began to perform 100 horse scarifices, King Indra out of envy thought that Maharaj Prthu was doing these sacrifices to become more powerful than him and so he provided all sorts of impediments to prevent Prthu Maharaj from completing the 100th horse sacrifice.
As we are fortunate enough to see Maharaj, we thank Lord Krishna for bestowing upon us this benediction. Mercy of Lord Krishna can be understood only with the help of Guru Maharaj, and so we have to surrender unto him. Our obeisances unto the lotus feet of our spiritual master H.H.Mahavishnu Gosvami Maharaj.
While going through, Caitanya Caritamrta Adi Lila, Chapter 17, wherein the youth pastimes of Lord Gaura Hari are being described, I came across an incident wherein a young student approached Lord Caitanya and hearing Him chant "Gopi", he offended the Lord. When the Lord rebuked Him, the student fled away from that place.
"River water does not get reduced in quantity when a bird drinks the water from it. Similarly when we give money in charity, especially in service of Krishna, the Lord takes care that the wealth is not reduced."
Krishna's beauty is described wonderfully in every word of this verse. Maharaj gave an absorbing lecture expounding on each and every word of this verse. Maharaj's point was that the idea behind these deep realizations is that Krishna's descriptions are not simply metaphorical glorifications through some superficial comparisons (which are just 'nice' to hear) but rather they are applicable to everyone of us in our day to day lives.
We should never take any loan. Maharaj is very considerate and said at most we can have 1 house loan and this house loan we shouldnot be having for whole of our life. We need to repay as quickly as possible with in 2 or 3yrs, not more than that. Maharaj said "HAVING NO LOAN IS THE BESTLOAN".
Chastity in bhakti is really a very challenging proposition for any devotee who is in the path of Krishnaconsciousness. For a woman, chastity means to be loyal to her husband by mind, words and body without anydeviation at any point of time.
To overcome this Srila Prabhupada warns us that instead of jumping at once to the platform of transcendental pastimes one must know how great the Supreme Lord is by inquiring about the process of His creative energy. Only when one knows Lord Krishna's greatness can one firmly put one's unflinching faith in Him;
"One who has forsaken his material occupations to engage in the devotional service of the Lord may sometimes fall down while in an immature stage, yet there is no danger of his being unsuccessful. On the other hand, a nondevotee, though fully engaged in occupational duties, does not gain anything."
"The Supreme Personality of Godhead has the form of sac-cid-ananda vigraha- transcendental bliss, knowledge and eternity. I offer my respectful obeisances unto Him, who turns the dumb into eloquent speakers and enable the lame to cross mountains. Such is the mercy of the Lord."
"I am Lord Hari's. Lord Hari is my protector. Let this faith never leave me. Whatever He does is for my well-being only. Let this trust never leave me."
"The great sage Maitreya continued: My dear Vidura, because of their pious nature, all the sons of Praacinabarhi very seriously accepted the words of their father with heart and soul, and with these words on their heads, they went toward the west to execute their father's order."
The property of envy is that when someone is given more respect in front of us, it burns us, so much so that Daksha was blind and unapologetic about his own daughter's death.
Overnight I observed that people from all walks of life were queuing outside temples with Ganesha's deities to feed milk. Those who visited temples regularly started increasing their stay there and those who did not got curious enough to start visiting temples. This went on for a few days and just as it started the incident faded away in to oblivion and people got back to the same old habits again.
A few weeks back we had the fortune of participating in the Bhagavatam reading at H.G. Gopal Krishna prabhu's house. While discussing the purports, prabhuji mentioned a wonderful point. He said, "When somebody asks us some question, which we are unable to answer or we're cornered by difficult questions, we should have the honesty to say I DON"T KNOW".
We sometimes become overconfident of ourselves and rely too much on our own strength without realising that being dependent and being obliged to accept material bodies, belligerent subordinates are sometimes victorious and sometimes defeated in our endeavours and victory or defeat ultimately depends on the Supreme Lord.
"Those persons who are materially engrossed, being blind to the knowledge of ultimate truth, have many subject matters for hearing in human society, O Emperor."
We are very enthusiastic as long as everything is going according to our own desire, but the moment it does not happen we do not want to accept the superior power which is working based on our past karmas and other things which we cannot see clearly.
A devotee should always remain satisfied with the standard of comforts offered by the Lord, as stated in the Ishopanishad (tena tyaktena bhunjithaah [Isho mantra 1]). This saves time for executing Krishna consciousness'
To err is human. This is indeed a practical truth. We find that our scriptures also describes about the four kind of defects, which are bound to be committed by us, when we are engaging ourselves in any kind of service.