LEGENDARY STEP

"Prabhupada's great journey, legendary voyage was to come to the West [...]"

"Why did Prabhupada get on the boat?  We have to stop and think "Why did Prabhupada get on the boat? [...]

So what about keeping Prabhupada in the center and what about remembering why Prabhupada got on the boat...  What about Prabhupada determination to keep trying .... that's what is about [...] why did Prabhupada get on the boat?  What did he really want, which were his expectations [...] what would Prabhupada said to us today [...]  Prabhupada got on that boat, no body else would get on that boat, Prabhupada did something that nobody else would have done. " Hridayananda Maharaja's lecture "I like this competition" 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp-vPj3FXT0

"On this day we all think very hard and pray really pray hard to the Deities and Srila Prabhupada and really try to get the intelligence and the empowerment." Hridayananda Maharaja

The legendary step  

When you got on that boat

the ocean of miseries

started to dry

and you caused the sun to rise

on the horizon dark side,

as the mission of your life.

The step that you moved into that boat

had the gait of the empowered saint

descending from mystical stairs

loving and resolute with faith,

captain of the Lord's grace,

of a legendary travel

beyond boundaries

of time and place.

When you got on that boat,

myriads of souls,

slapped against shores

deserted of hopes,

started to dance

for the ghee of the Holy Names

fell in the dormant flames

of hearts living in vain,

ending faithless restrictions

of birth, caste - any mundane chain.

Your feet on that boat

challenged the arid infertile void

filling its vows of silence

with sound reverberating joy,

a renaissance started

around the world

on every continent roads,

a land of prophecies

was finally disclosed.

The magic of your step

on that boat,

was the desire

of the Golden Lord

to carry loving devotion

to the entire world,

and you want us still

to keep bestowing

upon people your gift,

as it was received

and by bringing your feet

to step - again and again

on that ship,

as intelligently as you did;

only in this way 

love and compassion

will reach many hearts

by your ever-flowing love.

On your glorification by your spiritual grand-daughter,

MadhavaLata dd

TEARS of SMARANA

CC Antya lila 17.49  “Only the most fortunate ears can hear these four nectarean sounds – Krishna’s words, the tinkling of His ankle bells and bangles, His voice and the vibration of His flute. If one does not hear these sounds, his ears are as useless as small conchshells with holes.”

kṛṣṇaṁ smaran janaṁ cāsya preṣṭhaṁ nija-samīhitam
tat-tat-kathā-rataś cāsau kuryād vāsaṁ vraje sadā

Bhakti Rasāmṛta Sindhu 1.2.294  - Kṛṣṇaṁ smaran is the first injunction: “think of Krishna.” Next, janam cāsya: “In  thinking of Krishna, also think of his people.” 

My Lord, please give this unworthy person Your darshan through the nectarean sounds of Your words, the tinkling of Your ankle bells and bangles, Your voice and the sweet sound of Your flute, and make me worthy of remembering You and Your eternal associates.

I am unworthy and not qualified

to see You with these eyes,

my heart tormented not

by thirst, cannot even cry

in separation from You,

nor swoons

into waters mirroring

the rain clouds, ⁽¹⁾

nor is anxious

like an animal of Vraja at night ⁽²⁾

when you leave the forest

along with the sunlight.

Yet this pretender

might use the other senses,

if You allow, to remember ….

let me hear, perhaps,Your bells

where the butter jars hang,

and of the love Yasoda sings

while churning or boiling the milk;

 let me smell the camphor from your breath 

meandering out of your flute, 

while I wander about

on these day dream plains,

where at dawn resounds

the tinkling of bangles

from all corners of the valley;

let me hear the sound

of your bugle,

waking everyone around

to join You into the forest, ⁽³⁾

and traversing the secret pathways,

I wish to come to that place

patterned by the Gopis' toes

and to overhear from the dust

Your loving words; ⁽⁴⁾

then enwrapped by dusk

I will take off at a run,

 letting my heart in a state of agitation

transport me to that forest 

amidst whose trees,

 I can hear perhaps

your voice calling

the cows one by one,

or that single melodious fluted note

that attracts and stuns

movable and immovable beings;

let me walk into this dream

as the cows and calves

stir up the dust that covers your skin,

and fantasizing - I'll roll - so rapt,

as if I was just behind

the cruel wheels of Your chariot

where stones and wood

melted into rills of tears. ⁽⁵⁾

This longing to see You

swells up

tears of smarana,

dripping

in a hoof-print on the soil of Vraja

from my soaked heart

as if it is hanging

from a sentient tree

like an ecstatic parrot.

NOTES

1. NVM p.44 "Once in Pramodana the Gopis went to fetch water in a lake -Krishna Kunda-.

The reflection of dark clouds in the water sparked in the Gopis such intense feelings for Krishna that they fainted." 

2. SBB III 6.77  “The forest animals were miserable because now they had to part from Him,  Unable to go anywhere without Him, they simply stood at the entrance of the village, ready to spend the entire night there in the hope of seeing their Lord again the next morning.” 

3. SB 10.21.1 "O King one day Krishna decided to take His breakfast as a picnic in the forest.  Having risen early in the morning, He blew His bugle made of horn and woke all the cowherd boys and calves with its beautiful sound. Then Krishna and the boys, keeping their respective groups of calves before them, proceeded from Vrajabhumi to the forest.”   

4. NVM pg.312 "In Umrao in Vraja there is a holy spot where this pastime is remembered, when the Gopis ran to see Krishna and taken by shyness started to draw in the dust with their toes. "

"And with those same blessings one can aspire to overhear Krishna's affectionate words to the gopis [even today]."  

5. Bhakti Ratnakara Ch.5  p.144 "What can I say?  Only those who saw the scene can understand.  All the damsels of Vraja came running to see Krishna with tears flowing like rivers from their eyes.  Seeing that scene even wood and stone melted.  No one could describe this even with millions of mouths."