KITCHEN PRAYER - to Lord Nityananda

"The jiva-shakti or living entities, certainly emanate from Sri Nityananda Prabhu.  Therefore the characteristic of service is the eternal characteristic of every living entity." CB MK III 23.525 Purport by HDG Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur.


Lord Nityananda Balaram, 
presiding Deity of objects of seva,
Lord of remembrance and wakefulness,
let cintamani touch this place,
this fire, these utensils,
and let the gunas remain at the doorway.

ONENESS IN UNION

CC Adi Lila 4.52"Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa are one and the same, but They

KS Anu 155 "Eternal union is the greatest secret"

have assumed two bodies. Thus They enjoy each other, tasting the mellows of love." 

There is likeness or "matchness" in difference, variety in oneness and oneness in union. 

So union occurs when different qualities of essence manifest oneness in their inseparable functions.   

Because God, in this act of love, which is the creation, for expressing His own love, He imbued the universe and the activities of the living entities with union, love and service.

So, this intrinsic, joy-seeking nature of the soul ultimately  causes everyone to search for love to satisfy that primordial need for oneness and union.

 Sri Krishna Samhita pg 82 “This material existence is able to bind the living entities as part of the Lord’s pastimes”.

CC Adi Lila 4.246  " ...the entire creation is full of different tastes because of Me,.." 

Since all reflects from the union of the Divine Couple what gives joy and pleasure comes from the unity that causes oneness between different, but matching natures, as Krishna is the enjoyer and Radha is the enjoyed.  For instance as She is the white moonlight and He is the dark of the night, this is the cause for a moonlit night to give rasa.  So the Divine Couple is the absolute cause of Rasa. 

The tongue -which by nature tastes- meets the flavour of sweet.   After which, sweetness is experienced by the one doing the tasting. Thus rasa manifests from the union of the two (tongue and flavour). And from this union an experience of oneness occurs. When each and everything of matching nature and likeness in quality unites, it froths in rasa, which is ultimately a spiritual alchemy, so spiritual reality is where to everything belongs.

CC Adi Lila 4.121  "Kṛṣṇa says : I am the primary cause of all rasas". 

Therefore also in this ephemeral world  pleasure, joy, love, emotions, beauty, are caused when "two" meet.  This continuous recurring of union throughout the universes reflects from  Krishna because of His love for Radha revealing thus how She and Her Love are always in His mind.  

"All the world derives pleasure from Me" - Sri Krishna

Because the Gold of the  Moon 

            married  the Dark of the night                ⁽¹⁾

the ‘matchness’ of all that exists

under the skies

came into being;

fragrances mix with air,

the bumblebee searches for the flower,

colors match other colors

blending the light,

because the whiteness 

of the Resplendent Moon

blended with the blackness 

of the Dark Dense Night.

Because of the marriage

of the Fair Princess

with the Blue Boy,

union has become a joy,

music expresses words of love,

words don poetry,

and bards sing stories

to the night sky.

Thus reflecting throughout all creation

every groom has a bride,

and attraction flavors love desires

because the White Lily in the kund unites 

with the Blue Lotus at night.

Because the Golden moonbeam weaves

 with the deep Blue of the Ocean,

what love touches glows and intensifies,

and all that unites, beautifies;

                      honey condenses on fire,                    ⁽²⁾

swelled by rain the blackish cloud deepens,

in love the heart dances and sweetens,

and so Oneness in Union is manifest

ever since the eyes of Rasa Raja

met the rising moon-like beauty

of the Queen of Vraja.

Because the dancing King of Peacocks

unites with the Queen of Parrots

the poet weds the Muse,

to the tears his soul,

and to the magic his words,

and all that is qualitatively alike

 meets and spumes in rasa 

because the Dark Cloud Krishna

 thinks always of Aurous Ray Radha. 

1) SGS 1.16.22 "I take shelter of You Who are the Supreme Personality of Godhead, greater than the greatest, the master of Goloka Dhama and Who now appear as a fair and a dark splendor."

    2)  MmV pg 74 "Sneha -love- is of two types grta-sneha and madhu-sneaha ~ ghee type and                honey type [...] Ghee melts, whereas madhu, honey, becomes more condensed...Radharani's            sneha is madhu, honey-type." Gaur Govinda Maharaja

MUSES of TIME

Gopala Campu 3.18 : "She [Durga] had a dark complexion and eight arms, holding the cakra and other weapons.  She rode on a lion in the sky and was praised profusely by the devatas. [..]"

SB 10.51.19  "Inexhaustible Time, stronger than the strong, is the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself. Like a herdsman moving his animals along, He moves mortal creatures as His pastime."

TIME AND CONSCIOUSNESS 

When the soul falls into vitiated consciousness and desires to exploit material nature refusing the Lord, Durga takes control by the bewildering Time. When by the mercy of the saintly devotees the soul finds the way to return to consciousness, to awake from the slumber of the bodily conception of life, by rendering service to the Lord, the same Durga releases her grip, freeing the soul from the influence of Time, and as Radha accepts the service in the palm of her hand to present to the Lord. Because eternal Time is the eternality of Krishna's loving pastimes, Radha is the mistress of His time, eternal time.

So, Durga devi and Radharani are the same person in a different mood, the former is the most distant from the Lord and the latter is the closest.

TELL ME ABOUT KRISHNA

Venu Gita pg.119 "Yes, yes, Sakhi, tell us what dwells in the inaccessible cavern of your heart."

From the Song of the Bee -  SB 10.47.17 [...] "So let us give up all freindship with this dark-complexioned boy, even if we can't give up talking about Him." 

SB 10.47.21"Does He remember His father's household affairs and His friends, the cowherd boys?  O great soul! Does He ever talk about us, His maidservants? [...]" 

DOOMED by FREEDOM

 “Just as a person who is whirling around perceives the ground to be turning, one who is affected by false ego thinks himself the doer, when actually only his mind is acting " -         SB 10.46. 41

"The bewildered spirit soul, under the influence of the three modes of material nature, thinks himself to be the doer of activities, which are in actuality carried out by nature." BG 3.27

"When the jiva in waking and dream state, becomes absorbed in the gunas of prakrti, bewildered by ego, he thinks that he is the doer."  SB 3.27.2

"Our freedom consists in orienting our desire either toward the ignorant, material misconception or the true spiritual conception." SB 2.2.35 Purport 

Whatever religion, whatever belief or even without believing at all, in moment of solitude, after a storm in one's life and pains are deep and still burning, it is easier to speak truly to oneself and inevitably addressing also the Paramatma, that  form of God in our heart and always with us, Who makes sure that we get our fate and desires, but also Who awakens that dim light of small realization, a tiny remembrance, that makes us turn, even just once, to Him.

Listen to this poem set into melody https://soundcloud.com/mauro-auaro/doomed-by-freedom

or watch on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxJe7eshKkc

The Flat Earth and Paradise

This has been just an exercise on the basis of very simple and few notions, since the author usually writes poems and does not have a scientific background whatsoever.  The conclusion could easily be refuted by senior and advanced scholars in myriads of ways, but the intent was only a “healthy speculation” for talking about the marvels of the Srimad Bhagavatam.

Isaac Asimov, the father of science fiction, once wrote an article where he stated that the opinion of past civilizations about the Earth being flat was not completely wrong, it was just not completely correct.  In his article – “The relativity of wrong” {1} - he firstly asserts that there is never an absolute wrong or an absolute right opinion or theory – upon which we can only completely agree, since due to our infinitesimal position not even "absolute wrong" does apply.

As an example of this Asimov takes on the theory of the flat Earth. What is the actual curvature of the Earth?

POESY AT VESPER

Sri Brhad Bhagavatmrita III 6.294  “When you go off to the Vrndavana forest with Your friends, eager to enjoy Your cowherd pastimes, we manage to pass our days – only with difficulty – by holding  on to the hope that in the evening You will certainly return.”

SB 10.19.16 “The young gopis took the greatest pleasure in seeing Govinda come home, since for them even a moment without his association seemed like a hundred ages.”

Venu-gita pg 47  “…the emotions that fuel the urge to speak of Him…Sri Krsna is very much attracted to such clever language….” 

SB 10.35.26 "Sri Sukadeva Goswami said : O King thus during the daytime the women of Vrindavana took pleasure in continuously singing about the pastimes of Krishna, and those ladies' minds and hearts, absorbed in Him, were filled with great festivity." 

Dusk is approaching and another day is ending in Vraja, but now Krishna is still in Mathura. The Gopis, watching the twilight, remember the time when Krishna was in Vrindavana, when in the morning He would leave to the forest  and, after seeing Him off, they would start to wait for His return and pass the afternoon talking about His flute, the birds, the clouds in an encrypted wordage, so others could not read their hearts. Until dusk would come and then He would return covered with the dust raised by the cows' hooves. But now these are only memories because today He will not be back by this dusk, He is in Mathura.

If today You had gone

to the forest,

we'd  all have run

down the enchanted lanes

of Vrindavan,

to nurture moments

of furtive sidelong glances,

to torture our minds

in the long hours to come

by only speaking of you,

over and over about your flute

in a way that seems abstruse;

then falling silent,

caught by desire,

by this agitation of the heart

so hard to hide,

because our innermost thoughts

always followed You there,

out in the groves,

and even then it seemed so long,

waiting,

to see You in the distance,

in the light of dusk,

in the dust stirred up

by the hooves of the calves.

But then Your return was certain,

now nothing is the same as before,

it's so long since You have been gone.

Do You ever look with longing

towards this horizon

where there's Vraja?

Is there a Spring there
to remind You of Radha?