IF...

Visnu Purana "One gopi looking at Govinda became extremely joyful and began to repeatedly sing His name "Krsna! Krsna! Krsna!"  She could say nothing else."

This poem was inspired by the power of chanting for transforming the heart, but also to  suggest the need to be active in this process where many micro-results, like the stages of a ripening fruit,have to be achieved in order to steadily adding mature insights to our surrender. 

Caitanya Bhagavata M.L. 28.27 "You all go now, utter the name of Krishna, chant the name of Krishna, do krsna-bhajana.   Don't think of anything else but Krishna."

  

If I do not call out to you

Krishna, Krishna, Krishna,

how could I stop listening

the whispers

      of the weaknesses of my heart?   ⁽¹⁾

while my deluded mind

repeats deceitfully

 "you are just fine".

If I do not cry for You

Krishna, Krishna, Krishna,

feeling helpless,

how could  I place in your hands

                  my days ?               (2)

       and increase my faith     

perceiving Your benevolence

in events and people

fostering Your aid.

If I, within myself,

do not continue chanting

Krishna, Krishna, Krishna,

how could I carry my heart

to the tender of Bhakti?

        while the iron boat of conceit     (3)
sinks into the eerie abyss
of treacherous hedonists ,

where I was again tricked.

If my whole being does not resonate

Krishna, Krishna, Krishna,

how could you, in my heart,

awake me to the emotion

so to accept the truths

about my soul, the creation and You?

         I would have no memory of         ⁽⁴⁾

nor could I make of them any use.

But if my tongue calls

Krishna, Krishna, Krishna,

without your name

resounding in my soul,

it would not desist

from useless talks, 

the Ego's soliloquy

the invective words,

how then could it dance free

to the sweetness of the songs

about your names and forms?

1) There are four kinds of Anartha (Vani Vaibhava of BVThakur) : 1) identifying the body with the self 2) thirst for material enjoyment 3) offensiveness 4) weakness of the heart.

Anarthas produced from weakness of heart.

1) laziness 2) subordination to insignificant objects; 3) bewilderment of heart due to lamentation; 4) distraction from pure devotional service due to false argument; 5) miserliness in offering all one's energy to the cultivation of Krishna consciousness; 6) rejection of humility due to the pride of caste, wealth, education, followers, beauty, and strength; 7) willingness to be misguided by irreligious propensities and instructions; 8) disinterest in rectifying prejudice; 9) abandonment of compassion due to anger, illusion, envy; 10) intolerance; 11) false identification of the self as a Vaisnava due to the desire for name, fame, and the cheating propensity; 12) and the torture of other living entities that arises from the desire to enjoy women, wealth and other forms of sense gratification.

2) Skanda Purana "If a person rises in the morning and chants 'Krishna, Krishna', I shall bestow all welfare upon him." 

When faith become deep (first tender then firm) transforms into steadiness (nishta), taste (ruci), attachment (rati or asakti) and bhava.

3)  ".....boarding a stone boat, and so too are those who blindly follow them. A stone boat would be unable to float and would sink in the water with its passengers. Similarly, those who mislead people go to hell, and their followers go with them. " - Srimad Bhagavatam, Purport, 6.7.14

4) Prema Bhakti-chandrika "Dhyana is another word for smarana "                                     

The Song of Pingala

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_
continue=54&v=NMrRzDJ3Wuc

Uddhava Gita 2.28 "Now please hear from me the song sung by [Pingala] the prostitute ..."

Pingala is a prostitute.  This might rise the query from the reader how one can gain by hearing a poetry describing the greed and miserable life of a prostitute, but 

Pingala's story is told by Lord Krishna to Uddhava and sastra so instruct about this type of narration : Itihasa-samucchaya [SD 3.5.12 Comm.]  "What result can be attained by describing the lust of lusty men and the greed of greedy men, except to sent them into the darkness of a well? In the Mahabharata, lust and greed are described to purify people's hearts, and are moreover condemned by stories with pure meaning.  Otherwise, why would the most merciful and learned Vyasa describe lust and greed, the cause of bondage to terrible material existence?"

Pingala's is just one of the sixteen stories that an avadhuta brahmana told to King Yadu. Every story is a lesson about material life and Krishna retells the whole narration to Uddhava ~ in the section of the Bhagavatam (11th Canto) called "Uddhava Gita" ~ during His final instructions before closing up His pastimes on Earth.  Therefore so auspicious and beneficial is hearing and learning from this story.

Roar! Roar! Roar!

SD 7.10.10 "I offer respects to the Lord, full of six qualities, the purusa, the great soul, the killer of all miseries, the wonderful lion and man who is Brahman and Paramatma."

Nrsimha-tapani Upanisad ~ rtam satyam param brahma purusam nr-kesari-vigraham
The form of Nrsimha is the Supreme Brahman, the purusa, knowledge and truth.

Aisvarya Kadambini 1.5 "All glories to the most merciful Sri Govinda, the son of Nanda, who appeared from a pillar in the fierce form of Sri Nrsimha to remove the distress of His devotee Prahlada by killing His enemy Hiranyakasipu."

O Lion Lord,

please roar, roar, roar,

very loud,

show your angry eyes

and your ferocious mouth

and with your nails like chisels

cut through those impediments

of evil activities

residue of many lifetimes

inhabiting my mind

causing to the heart

miserliness and weakness

without the qualities

to become a worthy recipient

of the shower of mercy

poured by the saintly teachers.

O Lion Lord,

please roar, roar, roar,

very loud

show your sharp teeth

and  flaring nostrils

with your breath laden

with anger, please blow away

those seeds of aversion

which cause the unwanted

strong pillars of the ego

to boast, ridicule others

harboring the illusions

of superiority, prestige

and power.

O Lion Lord, please let your

deafening laughing roar

reach everywhere, inside and without,

please come, O Killer of miseries,

walk down the road

to the city of dualities,

to scare away the desires,   ⁽¹⁾

the impressions of the subtle body,

that impede me

to give happiness to others

to remove all that is vicious

and to see as You see

with equal vision.

O Lion Lord, please,

as gently as you only can

place your protecting paw

on my head

against the attacks of pretenders,

protect my spiritual and material

achievements

protect the steps of this errant

of karma,

so can walk steadily out

of the dreadful cycle.

1) SD7.10.8 "By the appearance of desire the functions of one's senses, mind, life, body dharma, determination, intelligence, shyness, wealth, strength, memory and truthfulness are destroyed."

One step away ....

-The dance of Chandrakanti-

SCS p.103 "A young girl who danced with joy all night invoked the mercy of the Lord." Padma Purana 

"The woman who attained bhava mentioned in the Padma Purana is an example of bhava through Raganuga bhakti."

BRS 1.3.14 "A young girl, having great joy in the heart and being very enthusiastic to dance, spent the whole night dancing in order to please the Lord."

Season of surrender

From Hayasirsa pancaratra quoted in Gopala Campu Ch.1.35 "Description of Goloka" :

The pleasurable nature of material objects like flowers with fragrance and taste exist in the spiritual world as the very essence of pleasure.  Because the objects are devoid of any inferior qualities belonging to material objects they are the very form of pleasure.  Know that the faulty portions of a fruit like skin, seed and tough sections exist in material objects.  Nothing in the spiritual world is made of material elements."

Srila Prabhupada : "whether it is unripe or ripe a mango is a mango"

IN the CAVERN OF the HEART - Prayers of Mucukunda

Comment by Visvanath Cakravarti Thakura to SB 10.51.29 : "Mucukunda said, "With Your effulgence You dispel the darkness of this mountain cave, and with Your jewel-like knowledge You destroy the darkness of ignorance in my heart."  In Sanskrit, the heart is sometimes metaphorically referred to as guha "cavern" a deep and secret place."

SB 3.29.5 [Devahuti said] "My dear Lord, You are just like the sun, for You illuminate the darkness of the conditional life of the living entities.  Because their eyes of knowledge are not open, they are sleeping eternally in that darkness without Your shelter, and therefore they are falsely engaged by the actions and reactions of their material activities, and they appear to be very fatigued."

I was inspired to write this poem by an article written by my friend and writer HG Vishoka das Prabhu and with whom I found to have an affinity for the pastime of King Mucukunda.
https://vishoka.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/bad-to-the-bone-bugsy-and-bubbles-in-the-sea/.  

Prayer from the Pillar

My Lion Lord,

I am here,

in this dark dream,

lost and overwhelmed

in a cloudy corner of Your realm;

down ~

beyond the Viraja river

on an expanse of water,

in a cluster of bubbles

exhaled from Your breath,

 further down ~

behind the seven coverings

caused by the false ego,

way down ~ 

within a drop of many drops,

dripped from Your pores

so far down ~

on one of the billion spheres

floating in space,

down here ~

entrapped in fears,

in a form of bleak desires

reduced to a dimmed sparkle

caught between the pliers of the mind,

an infinitesimal dot of existence,

where my soul cries

barely audible,

like words shouted in water.

I am here,

a fossil in a pillar

of million of lifetimes

please break it open with your claws

take me up

to sit on your lap

from where

 I can fearlessly look
  down

at the remains

of this stony heart.

musicforblog

Winged Prayer

A prayer came on wings

for me,

all at once I could not see

the desert of my heart,

the saguaro,

that me

with its thorns

ceased to be;

spiritual awareness

lit up everything,

cupped hands

filled with mercy
from petals and leaves

spread its wings,

took off in the sky

and landed on my soul

in a shower of light.

Like a fulfilling kite,

that whisper

reached far 
and inside brought a whiff of inner delight,

the dimmed flame was fanned

to dance more brightly;

my mind stopped to think,

breathless emotions

in a speechless tide,

because I could perceive,
the wave was me,

stirred up and ruffled

by a love wind.

Some friends went on a pilgrimage to few temples in Madurai, India…

When they came back I was told that for all that day they had said a prayer for me wherever they went, while they offered flowers, leaves and ghee lamps to the Deities of each temple they toured. 

I thought back, reflecting on my feelings on that day, and recalled there was indeed a nuanced difference to how I felt. Those feelings then found their way out of my heart and into this short poem.

I feel it is important to share how powerful the prayers we say for others are, and how it is uplifting and inspiring for both those who utter the prayers and those for whom they pray, as a connection of the heart at once blossoms.