108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord - Part 1

Date: 2011-09-05 Author: Anand Patil

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

HH Mahavishnu Goswami Maharaj mentioned several times in his lectures that we should try to perform devotional service by following the GRAPHW method. GRAPHW is an abbreviation for

G - Glorification, R - Remembrance, A - Audience, P - Prayers, H - Hearing, W - Worship. Maharaj coined this acronym from the beautiful prayer sung by Srila Sukadeva Goswami in Srimad Bhagavatam 2.4.15:

yat-kīrtanaṁ yat-smaraṇaṁ yad-īkṣaṇaṁ yad-vandanaṁ yac-chravaṇaṁ yad-arhaṇam lokasya sadyo vidhunoti kalmaṣaṁ tasmai subhadra-śravase namo namaḥ

Let me offer my respectful obeisances unto the all-auspicious Lord Sri Krishna, about whom glorification, remembrances, audience, prayers, hearing and worship can at once cleanse the effects of all sins of the performer.

Maharaj used to say that even if we take one topic from this and try to explore/expand it with respect to the Lord, our entire lifetime would not be enough for fulfilling this. Drawing some inspiration from Maharaj, Krishna willing, I am making a humble attempt to glorify the Lord in 108 ways. Since this is my first attempt, please excuse my frailties and any mistakes that I may commit in this offering. There are various ways of glorifying the Lord. Great saints and devotees in the past have glorified the Lord in multiple ways, in the Vedic scriptures like Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhagavad Gita, Isopanishad, etc, in various devotional bhajans, poems, books, etc. We shall start the offering with Sri Isopanisad, which is part of the Yajur Veda and it contains information concerning the proprietorship of all things existing within the universe. It is mentioned in Isopanishad invocation:

oṁ pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idaṁ pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate

The Personality of Godhead is perfect and complete, and because He is completely perfect, all emanations from Him, such as this phenomenal world, are perfectly equipped as complete wholes. Whatever is produced of the Complete Whole is also complete in itself. Because He is the Complete Whole, even though so many complete units emanate from Him, He remains the complete balance.

Glorification 1: The Supreme Lord is Perfectly Complete (Purnam) Anyone can be called perfectly complete, only when their qualities or opulences does not reduce in quantity when given to someone. Nor does it increase in quantity when we add on something to it. And this holds good only for Lord Krishna. He is very nicely glorified as Bhagavan in the scriptures. The Supreme Lord is perfectly complete in all his opulences - beauty, fame, knowledge, strength, wealth, renunciation, and causeless mercy. Normally if we possess some riches, when we give it to someone, it will reduce. But that's is not the case with the Supreme Lord. He has unlimited wealth (The Goddess of fortune being His consort) that in spite of distributing it to all the devatas, daityas, human beings, and all different kinds of living entities, still it remains the same. His compassion is so perfect and complete that even for demons who hate Him, He gives salvation. He provides food, water, and shelter and also gives air to breathe even to an atheist who does not believe or accept His existence. Similarly, His beauty, fame, knowledge, strength, renunciation, etc are also perfect and complete in all respects. Srila Prabhupada says in one of the conversations (Perth, 1975) - "purnam idam. Purnah means complete. And because He is complete, the Creator, He has no defect; therefore He can create everything complete. pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idaṁ pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate . And He is so complete that pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya, if you take the whole complete from the complete, still He is complete.

Glorification 2: The Lord's creation is Perfect and Complete When the source is perfectly complete, then the result will also be perfectly complete. Since the Lord is perfect and complete, His creation is also perfect and complete. Srila Prabhupada also gives us an example of how the sun is giving heat, light, and energy for millions of years, still, it is full of heat and in spite of taking so much energy from the sun, it is still full of light and energy. He also says how no matter how much ever buckets of water we take out, the ocean is always complete, and no matter how much ever we fill in, still, it never overflows. That is the beauty of the Lord's creation.

Maharaj says, "In the road, we have several man-made vehicles travelling at the maximum of say 60 to 100 miles per hour. But daily we have so many accidents. But for millions of years, the planets are travelling in their orbits around the sun, that too at greater speeds without any accidents. This is just a simple example of how perfect the Lord's creation is." In this regard, there is a story of a traveller who walks all day long. On his way, he comes across many trees, bushes, etc. He saw how a thin pumpkin creeper was bearing many large size fruits. At noontime, he decided to rest below a banyan tree. When he lied down below its shade, he noticed the fruits in the tree. They were very small in size. He wondered - "How foolish is the creator? He has kept such a small fruit on a big tree and a big fruit on a small creeper!" Filled with these thoughts, he just dozed off. After some time he woke up as, by the force of the wind, fruits started falling on his face. Then he realised his mistake and thanked God - "Had it been a big fruit like the pumpkin, I would have been hurt badly. Indeed, my dear Lord, You are always perfect in Your creation!"

In order to ingrain the importance of this shloka in our minds, Maharaj has insisted that all the students in Sri Prahlad International School in Rajkot, recite this shloka as a part of their daily assembly prayers along with the translation.

Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming emails.

Thank you very much. Yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva, Anand Patil, Wellington, New Zealand

Moderator's Note: Sriman Anand Prabhu is a wonderful devotee living in Wellington with his good wife Vasundhara Mataji and two wonderful young daughters Mrunal and Sharvari. He works as a Project Manager in IT field, still amidst his busy schedule takes time to serve in the Wellington ISKCON temple. He looks after the Tulsi Maharanis in the temple and also leads the book distribution service. He, along with a few other devotees distributed 9 sets of Srimad Bhagavatam on Janmashtami. Mataji is a homemaker, takes care of her children, and also does various services in the temple like making garlands for the deities. 108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord - Part 2

Date: 2011-09-10 Author: Vaijayantimala devi dasi

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offering titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord". In the previous offering on this topic, we meditated on the below glories.

1. Sri Isopanishad mentions that the Supreme Lord is perfectly complete. Since the Lord is complete, He has no defect. 2. Since the Lord is perfect, the Lord's creations (universe, living entities, etc) are perfect and complete too.

We shall continue to meditate on the other glories. It is mentioned in Sri Isopanishad Mantra one:

īśāvāsyam idaḿ sarvaṁ yat kiñca jagatyāṁ jagat tena tyaktena bhuñjīthā mā gṛdhaḥ kasya svid dhanam

Everything animate or inanimate that is within the universe is controlled and owned by the Lord. One should therefore accept only those things necessary for himself, which are set aside as his quota, and one should not accept other things, knowing well to whom they belong.

Glorification 3 - The Lord is the proprietor of everything Nothing belongs to us in this material world is clear from the fact that once the spirit soul leaves the body, it cannot take anything with it. Despite knowing this fact we cling on to whatever we can and even desire for things that don't belong to us. This verse clearly states that everything in this world - living and non-living, belongs to the Lord. In fact, Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita (10.8) "ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo" - "I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me." So it is very clear that the Lord is the source and proprietor of everything that is around us.

In this regard, there is a story about an old businessman. He had a shop and in his whole life, he never thought of anything but the shop. He was on the death bed and while he was about to leave his body, he asked his wife, "Who is present in the room?" The wife thought that he wants to see all the relatives for the last time before leaving his body, so she replied, "Your entire family is here. Your elder son, your middle son, your younger son, your daughter, and all your daughters-in-laws." Hearing this, the old man at once shouted at his wife, "If everyone is in the room, who is looking after the shop? Somebody go at once or else the thieves might rob it." Even on the death bed we try to cling on to material things and cannot really forget them because we are too attached to these things all our life. In order for us to get detached, we need to realize that, "everything belongs to the Lord and everything should be used for His benefit."

In his book "Life comes from Life", Srila Prabhupada very nicely writes that, "In Bhagavad-gita Krishna states that if one does not perform yajna (sacrifice), he is a thief. Yajna means acknowledging that things have been taken from Krishna. We should think, Krishna, You have given us many, many things for our maintenance. This much acknowledgment Krishna wants; that's all. Otherwise, what can He expect from you? What are you in His presence?" So, people who don't realize this truth and keep on accumulating things thinking they are the owners are under the illusion and are really nothing but thieves.

Glorification 4 - The Lord is the controller of everything Nobody in this world can say that he or she is not controlled or is the controller of everything. At most we could say we are controlling few things, but controlling all living and non-living beings is only the monopoly of the Lord. In purport to verse 3.22 of Bhagavad Gita Srila Prabhupada very nicely mentions that, "The Supreme Lord is the controller of all other controllers, and He is the greatest of all the diverse planetary leaders. Everyone is under His control. All entities are delegated with particular power only by the Supreme Lord; they are not supreme themselves. He is also worshipable by all demigods and is the supreme director of all directors. Therefore, He is transcendental to all kinds of material leaders and controllers and is worshipable by all. There is no one greater than Him, and He is the supreme cause of all causes." So sun-shine, rainfall, moon-shine, seasons, winds, storms, hurricanes, floods, famine everything is under the control of Supreme Lord.

In spite of this, there are bogus gurus who cheat people and claim themselves to be God. Once Srila Prabhupada met such a guru in India and the guru was in great pain with a toothache. Prabhupada asked him,"You claim you are God and now you are under the control of toothache. So what kind of God are you?" If we can't control a simple tooth ache what to talk about controlling other things. In fact as mentioned in Srimad Bhagavatam verse 2.10.8, even all our senses are not under our full control. They are all controlled by superior controlling deities. And all these deities are under the control of Lord Krishna. So without the sanction of these deities and Lord Krishna, we cannot even get our senses to function normally. If the Lord wishes He can take away all the senses within fraction of a second. Therefore, we should voluntarily accept His superiority and accept only prasadam, whatever He kindly allows.

Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming emails.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Anand Patil, Wellington, New Zealand 108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord - Part 3

Date: 2011-09-12 Author: Anand Patil

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offering titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord". In the previous offering, we saw the below two glories. a. The Lord is the proprietor of everything b. The Lord is the controller of everything

We shall continue to meditate on the next glorification.

Glorification 5: - The words spoken by the Lord are apaurusheya:

Apaurusheya means transcendental or superior to material modes and not delivered by any mundane being. This means anything that the Lord speaks is apaurusheya or perfect. Since the Vedas were originally spoken by Lord Krishna, the Vedas are apaurusheya and hence it proves that the Vedas are not man-made. It is not manufactured or concocted by some mental speculator. It is coming from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and it was imparted first of all to Lord Brahma, not by personal presentation, but through the heart. In the purport of Srimad Bhagavatam verse 2.4.22, Srila Prabhupada nicely mentions that, "before the creation, the Lord was there (narayano paro 'vyaktat ), and therefore the words spoken by the Lord are vibrations of transcendental sound. There is a gulf of difference between the two qualities of sound, namely prakata (manifested) and aprakata (unmanifested). The physicist can deal only with the prakata sound, or sound vibrated in the material sky, and therefore we must know that the Vedic sounds recorded in symbolic expressions cannot be understood by anyone within the universe unless and until one is inspired by the vibration of supernatural (aprakata) sound, which descends in the chain of disciplic succession from the Lord to Brahma, from Brahma to Narada, from Narada to Vyasa and so on. No mundane scholar can translate or reveal the true import of the Vedic mantras (hymns)."

Vedas are apaurusheya: Consequently, the followers of the Vedas accept Vedic knowledge to be complete and infallible. For example, cow dung is the stool of an animal, and according to Sruti or Vedic injunction, if one touches the stool of an animal he has to take a bath to purify himself. But in the Vedic scriptures cow dung is considered a purifying agent. One might consider this to be contradictory, but it is accepted because it is a Vedic injunction, and indeed by accepting this, one will not commit a mistake; subsequently it has been proved by modern science that cow dung contains antiseptic properties. So, Vedic knowledge is complete because it is above all doubts and mistakes.

All living beings in the material world are subject to 4 types of defects - tendency to cheat, propensity to make mistakes, is subject to illusion, and has imperfect senses. But the Lord is above the laws of material nature and hence is not affected by this. Whatever the Lord says or does is perfect. Whereas, ordinary human beings make all sorts of mistakes. For example, in 1930 the scientists discovered a new planet PLUTO and just after few years in 2006 the scientists changed their minds and said PLUTO is not a planet at all. This way, due to our imperfect senses our inventions and understanding keep changing all the time. But the texts mentioned in the Vedas never change, they have been constant since time immemorial. The siddhantic cosmology (part of Jyotisha-shastra) contains information similar to the information obtained from modern cosmology. For e.g. the Surya Siddhanta, one of the most important siddhanta shastras states:

1. The distance between the earth and the moon as 253,000 miles compared to modern scientific measurement of 252,710 miles. 2. The Earth's diameter is 7,840 miles, compared to the modern scientific measurements of 7,926.7 miles.

The very fact that cosmic distances are mentioned with such precision in Vedic scriptures long before the dawn of modern cosmology shows that the Vedas are really apauruseya.

The Lord keeps His promise: We promise to do a lot of things in our lives but aren't able to fulfill all of them. But, the Lord fulfills all His promises and doesn't fail on any. He goes to the extent of even fulfilling the promises made by His devotees.

When the demigods were harassed by the demons Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu, they prayed to Lord Vishnu to help them and deliver them from the miseries given by the two. The Lord promised to advent on Earth and deliver them from the two demons on two separate occasions. Having given the promise, the Lord did not forget his promise but He did advent as Lord Varaha and Lord Narasimha and killed both the demons and saved the demigods. Similarly, on several occasions the Lord promises His devotees to help them and He does keep His promise every time without fail. We all know the pastime of Narada muni and the two sons of Kubera, Nalakuvara and Manigrava. Narada muni once cursed the two to become trees since they did not have the etiquette of behaving in front of great personalities like him. But once the two asked for forgiveness, Narada muni out of compassion, forgives them and says that once Lord Krishna advents on the Earth in Vrindavan He will liberate you two and not only that, He will also give you darshan. In this instance, Narada muni did not consult the Lord before speaking those words. But out of love for Narada muni and just to fulfill his words, the Lord liberated Nalakuvara and Manigrava and also gave them splendid darshan. This shows that the Lord not only keeps his promise, but also helps the devotees to keep their word.

There is a real-life story about Banke Bihari (a famous Lord Krishna temple in Vrindavan), narrated to one the Goswamis in Vrindavan. There used to be a devotee named Gopal Das in Aligarh who took a loan from Seth Laxmi Chand and within few months repaid it. But since Gopal was a simple person, he didn't get any receipts from the Seth. The Seth being crooked, later sent a notice to Gopal to repay the loan or vacate his house. The matter was taken to court. Since there were no receipts of the repayment nor was there any witness, everybody including the judge was sure that the Seth will win the case. Upset by this incident, Gopal went to the Banke Bihari temple in Vrindavan. Banke Bihari is famous for being merciful and there have been a lot of real-life incidents where the Lord has personally saved devotees. Gopal prayed sincerely and with faith to Banke Bihari to help him out. While he dozed off in the temple premises, Banke Bihari came in his dream and promised him to be his witness in the court. During the day of the judgment, the judge asked Gopal whether there was any witness to which Gopal nodded and confidently told the name of Banke Bihari. After the judge called out the name, the Lord appeared in the court covered in a blanket and provided all the exact details about the repayment to the judge and also took the judge to the house of the Seth to show the exact records of each repayment which the Seth had hidden in his house. Having got the proof, the judge released the house back to Gopal. Impressed by the mercy of the Lord, the judge and Gopal devoted their lives fully to the service of the Lord.

Banke Bihari Lal ki Jai !!!

Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming emails.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Anand Patil, Wellington, New Zealand

108 Ways of Glorifying The Lord - Part 4

Date: 2011-09-20 Author: Anand Patil

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offerings titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord". In the previous offering on this topic we saw that:

1. The words spoken by the Lord are apaurusheya. 2. Since Lord spoke the Vedas, the Vedas are apaurusheya too. 3. The Lord keeps His promise.

We shall continue to meditate on the next glorification.

Glorification 6: The Lord has inconceivable potencies: It is mentioned in Sri Isopanishad Mantra 4-5:

anejad ekaṁ manaso javīyo nainad devā āpnuvan pūrvam arṣat tad dhāvato ’nyān atyeti tiṣṭhat tasminn apo mātariśvā dadhāti

tad ejati tan naijati tad dūre tad v antike tad antar asya sarvasya tad u sarvasyāsya bāhyataḥ

Although fixed in His abode, the Personality of Godhead is swifter than the mind and can overcome all others running. The powerful demigods cannot approach Him. Although in one place, He controls those who supply the air and rain. He surpasses all in excellence. The Supreme Lord walks and does not walk. He is far away, but He is very near as well. He is within everything, and yet He is outside of everything.

1. Swifter than the mind: The mind is considered to be the fastest in terms of processing the thoughts. The modern aeroplanes (fighter planes) run at a max of 10 thousand kms per hour and they are considered fastest-moving material objects. Whereas, the mind can travel at thousands of Kms in a split second. For e.g. if one is in the U.S and he thinks of his house in India, he can immediately reach there and can picture everything in the house without having to physically travel to India. The speed of light in a vacuum is approx. 186, 282 miles/sec, but as explained by Srila Prabhupada in a lecture(SB, 5.5.1-8, Stockholm, Sep 8, 1973) the speed of mind is even greater than light or air. Also, the speed of light reduces drastically when travelling through transparent materials like glass, air, etc. Light speed in air is 90Km/sec. Whereas, the speed of mind is independent of the medium. But as mentioned in the above verse the Lord is even swifter than the mind which means He is the fastest of all.

2. Fixed in His abode but controls everything: As mentioned in Brahma Samhita 5.37, the Lord resides in His transcendental abode known as Goloka. He engages in His pastimes there and yet by His inconceivable potencies He can reach and control every part of His creative energy. This is only possible by the inconceivable potency of the Lord. Otherwise, it is impossible for anybody else to stay in one place and also able to reach and control any other parts of the world, universe and other planets especially the spiritual world. This is compared to the fire. As explained in the Vishnu Purana (1.22.53) the fire is situated in one place but it emits illumination (light) and heat at some distance. Another example can be given of the Sun. The Sun is situated in one place but it emits light and heat to all other planets. Similarly, the Lord although situated in His abode can diffuse His different energies everywhere. 3. Walks, but does not walk: One would say this is contradictory. Ordinarily if one can walk, it would be illogical to say that he cannot walk. But, in the reference of the Lord, such a contradiction simply proves the point that the Lord has inconceivable potencies. In this regard, there is a pastime of Srila Prabhupada which should clarify the contradiction. Once Srila Prabhupada was walking with his 4 years old son at night time. The little boy noticed the moon in the sky and he saw that the moon was following them wherever they went. The little boy asked Prabhupada, "oh father, why is the moon coming with us? Prabhupada said to him, "This is very intelligent, Yes. Although the moon is not leaving its position (apart from revolving around itself) it appears to be moving with us." Similarly if one is travelling in a car or a train, one can feel that the moon or the sun is following. So if a material object can walk and not walk at the same time, it's fully possible for the Lord to stay in His own abode and at the same time be present everywhere.

4. He is far away, but He is very near as well: The Lord is present in the spiritual sky which is located beyond the material sky far far away. We cannot even surpass the material sky then what to speak of reaching the spiritual sky. But, despite being so far away if the Lord desires He can at once come in this material world in front of us. A very simple example can be found in the purport of Bhagavad Gita verse 12.5. "We find many mailboxes on the street and if we post our letters in one of these mailboxes they will naturally reach the destination. But any unauthorized mailbox will not work in the same way. Similarly, the Lord has an authorized representation in the Deity form (archa-vigraha). The Lord accepts service through the deity form. In this way, He is near in the form of archa-vigraha."

5. He is within everything, and yet He is outside of everything: In Brahma Samhita 5.35 it is said that Govinda, the primeval Lord enters everything by His plenary portion. He enters the universes as well as the atoms of the universe. He is outside in His Virat form and within everything as antaryami. In Bhagavad Gita verse 9.4 Lord Krishna says, "By Me, in My unmanifested form, this entire universe is pervaded. All beings are in Me, but I am not in them." The fact that the Lord is present within everything was proved by Himself when He appeared out of a palace pillar which was shattered by Hiranyakashipu. Prahlad Maharaj was asked by his father as to, 'Where is your God?' Prahlad Maharaj answered, "He resides everywhere." Srila Prabhupada gives a very simple example to understand this in the purport of Bhagavad Gita verse 9.4. 'A king heads a government which is but the manifestation of the king's energy; the different governmental departments are nothing but the energies of the king, and each department is resting on the king's power. But still one cannot expect the king to be present in every department personally. That is a crude example. Similarly, all the manifestations that we see and everything that exists, both in this material world and in the spiritual world, are resting on the energy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead'.

Acintya Bhedabheda Tattva: To understand the perceived contradictions in the inconceivable potencies of the Lord, Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu introduced the concept of "acintya bhedabheda tattva" or simultaneous oneness and difference joined by the inconceivable(acintya) power of God. Caitanya Mahaprabhu has explained that mutual contradictions can coexist through the inconceivable power of God. By accepting differences we can believe in our own individual existence, with the right to act and choose. By accepting oneness we can acknowledge the perfection that lies behind all the imperfection we perceive. The philosophy of acintya-bheda-abheda allows acceptance of seemingly contradictory statements in the Upanishads: statements of abheda, or impersonalism, and statements of bheda, or difference. Both types can be accepted, without resorting to the indirect interpretation of either type of statement.

Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming emails.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva, Anand Patil, Wellington, New Zealand 108 Ways of Glorifying The Lord - Part 5

Date: 2011-09-21 Author: Anand Patil

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offerings titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord". In the previous offering, we saw that the Lord has inconceivable potencies; some of them are listed below - a) He is swifter than the mind. b) He is fixed in His abode but controls everything from there. c) He walks but does not walk. d) He is far away but He is very near as well. e) He is within everything and yet He is outside of everything.

We shall continue to meditate on the next glorification.

Glorification 7: The Lord can only be known by devotion and faith

In the Bhagavad-Gita (10.2) the Lord says that not even the great rishis and demigods, suras can know Him. And what to speak of the asuras, for whom there is no question of understanding the ways of the Lord. If even the powerful demigods and great sages cannot understand the Lord by mental speculation, what is our position? The foolish scientists and speculators, who don't have even a tinge of devotion, try to speculate mentally for years and years and fail to understand the Lord. Srila Prabhupada states in the purport of Mantra four "In the Brahma-samhita (5.34) it is stated that even if a non-devotee philosopher travels through space at the speed of the wind or the mind for hundreds of millions of years, he will still find that the Absolute Truth is far, far away from him." So if the Lord cannot be understood by mental speculation, how does one go about understanding the Lord? The Lord has so many inconceivable potencies, but without having devotion and faith for the Lord we cannot understand any of these potencies. As mentioned in Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu 1.2.234:

ataḥ śrī-kṛṣṇa-nāmādi na bhaved grāhyam indriyaiḥ sevonmukhe hi jihvādau svayam eva sphuraty adaḥ

No one can understand the transcendental nature of the name, form, quality and pastimes of Sri Krishna through his materially contaminated senses. Only when one becomes spiritually saturated by transcendental service to the Lord are the transcendental name, form, quality and pastimes of the Lord revealed to him.

In the Brahma-samhita (5.38) it is stated, premanjana-cchurita-bhakti-vilocanena santah sadaiva hrdayesu vilokayanti - one can see the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Govinda, always within himself and outside himself, if one has developed the transcendental loving attitude towards Him. Thus for people in general He is not visible. Here it is said that although He is all-pervading, everywhere present, He is not conceivable by the material senses. But actually, although we cannot see Him, everything is resting in Him.

Once Srila Narada Muni was travelling through a village and he came across a learned brahmin who was reading scriptures. Impressed by this Narada Muni stopped and asked him whether he regularly recited scriptures. To which the Brahmin proudly replied, "I get up early in the morning, take a bath, do my regular arti/archana of the Lord, and then recite scriptures regularly." To show off his knowledge he even recited many verses from the Vedas glorifying the Lord. Having seen this Narada Muni was very impressed and blessed the Brahmin. While he was leaving, the Brahmin asked Narada Muni if he could ask a question to Lord Krishna when he sees him next time. Narada muni said, "Definitely, what is your question?" The Brahmin responded, "When will I get liberated from birth and death?" Narada muni was pretty sure in his mind that the brahmin would get liberated pretty soon. He left the brahmin's house and carried forward. At some distance under a tree, Narada muni saw a cobbler singing various bhajans glorifying the Lord. He learnt from the people around that the cobbler was very poor but he would regularly worship the Lord and would spend part of his income daily for worshiping the Lord. Narada muni was impressed with the cobbler and blessed him as well. The cobbler asked the same question as the learned Brahmin.

After this Narada Muni went to Vaikuntha and met Lord Narayana. The Lord is very happy to meet His devotee. After exchanging obeisances and having glorified the Lord, Narada muni narrated his conversation with the brahmin and the cobbler. He asked the Lord when will the two get liberation. To this, the Lord answered, "The cobbler will be liberated at the end of his present life, whereas the brahmin has to go through a lot of births before liberation." Hearing this, Narada muni was surprised. He asked, How is this possible? The Lord promised that he will understand in due course of time. He asked Narada muni to go back and tell both of them that the Lord was threading an elephant through the eye of a needle.

Narada muni came back to the village and first went to the Brahmin. The Brahmin was very happy to see Narada muni again and after paying his obeisances and worshiping him he asked whether he met the Lord and what was the Lord doing? Narada muni said he did meet the Lord and that the Lord was threading an elephant through the eye of a needle. The Brahmin is astonished and says "That's impossible, I don't believe it. Don't talk rubbish." Narada Muni at once realised why the Brahmin won't be liberated immediately. He then visited the cobbler and the cobbler asked the same question. To which Narada Muni gave the same answer. Hearing this, tears started rolling from the eyes of the cobbler and he said, "My Lord is so wonderful, so great." Narada muni asked, "Did you believe that, and if so how?" The cobbler responded, "Certainly I believe you. I am sitting under a banyan tree and daily see that many many fruits fall from the tree. In each fruit there are many many seeds and each seed has the potential to grow into a big banyan tree. If the Lord can put such a big banyan tree into a small seed, is it difficult for the Lord to thread an elephant through the eye of a needle?" After saying this the cobbler started dancing in ecstasy and chanting the Lord's name. Narada muni at once understood why the cobbler would be liberated at the end of this life.

The moral of the story is that one should have strong faith and devotion in the Lord in order to understand and realize the Lord. If one does not have faith and simply reads the books, follows the rituals like the brahmin in the story, then the Lord will not reveal himself.

Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming emails.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva, Anand Patil, Wellington, New Zealand. 108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord - Part 6

Date: 2011-10-01 Author: Anand Patil

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offerings titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord". In the previous offering, we saw that

1. The Lord can only be known by devotion and faith. 2. The Lord cannot be understood by mental speculation.

We shall continue to meditate on the next glorification.

Glorification 8 - The Lord is the greatest of all: It is mentioned in Sri Isopanisad mantra 8:

sa paryagāc chukram akāyam avraṇam asnāviraḿ śuddham apāpa-viddham kavir manīṣī paribhūḥ svayambhūr yāthātathyato ’rthān vyadadhāc chāśvatībhyaḥ samābhyaḥ

Such a person must factually know the greatest of all, the personality of Godhead, who is unembodied, omniscient, beyond reproach, without veins, pure and uncontaminated, the self-sufficient philosopher, who has been fulfilling everyone's desire since time immemorial.

God is described here as paribhūḥ, "the greatest of all". No one is greater than or equal to Him. Other living beings are described as beggars who ask goods from the Lord. The Lord supplies the things the living entities desire. If the entities were equal to the Lord in potency, if they were omnipotent and omniscient - there would be no question of their begging from the Lord, even for so-called liberation. Only the Lord is self-sufficient. When Lord Krsna appeared on earth five thousand years ago, He displayed His full manifestation as the Personality of Godhead through His various activities. In His childhood, He killed many demons including Aghaasura, Bakaasura, and Sakataasura and there was no question of His acquiring the power from any external endeavor. He lifted Govardhana Hill without ever practicing weight-lifting. He performed the Brahma-vimohana-lila by expanding himself into thousands of gopas and calves. The original gopas and calves were hidden by Lord Brahma in his abode. And by performing this lila Lord Krsna even left Lord Brahma bewildered.

In his nectarean lecture on verse Adi Lila 7.108 of Caitanya Caritamrta, Srila Prabhupada very nicely explains the meaning of greatest. 'It is described in Paraashara-sutra, that the Lord is the greatest in wealth, greatest in fame, greatest in knowledge, greatest in renunciation, greatest in beauty, greatest in strength. One who is greatest in all six opulences is the greatest. The Lord is also smaller than the smallest and bigger than the biggest. The materialistic definition of "greatest" is the sky or a big ocean. We say "greatest" means that sky is the greatest or an ocean is the greatest. But the real idea of "greatest" is that one who can swallow millions of skies or universes within Himself, He is greatest. An ocean in comparison to a universe is a drop of water. And the Lord has millions of universes in his belly, hence He is the greatest. The Vaishnavas see that Krishna has within His mouth, millions of skies. So who is greatest? Krishna is greatest or the sky is greatest? This is the difference between the materialists and Vaishnavas. Just like Krishna, when He was boy, He was eating clay. His mother asked, "Oh, just open Your mouth. I want to see what You are eating." And Krishna showed her that millions of planets and millions of skies are within the mouth. So He is greatest, who can show that "Millions of skies are within Me." He is greatest." We casually say "God is Great", without really understanding the purport of this statement. The Forbes magazine publishes the richest person in the world every year. And invariably the richest person changes each year and maybe only a few times a particular person's name might be repeated for a few years. The same is the case with other opulences. The strongest person also changes with time, nobody can claim that he or she is the strongest person ever. Even if a certain person can claim to be strongest at a certain point in time, this changes with time and even that person has to succumb to death ultimately. The famous boxing champion Mohammed Ali was recently afflicted with paralysis and without help, he could not even move his hand. During his time he was unparalleled and was never defeated in any boxing match. He was invited for an Olympic opening ceremony as the chief guest. He took a great deal of effort and help to ignite the Olympics torch. Seeing this the reporters asked him, "At one time you used to say I am the greatest of all time and now you don't even seem to be capable of moving your hands on your own, how is this?" In answer to this question, even in a condition of helplessness, Mohammed Ali said, "I am still the greatest of all time". This is our condition in the material world, we are under so much illusion that in spite of getting constant beatings from Maya we still think we are the greatest.

As far as riches are concerned in today's world, it is very flickering and changes constantly. Today's market condition is so volatile that the riches of a person varies every day, in fact, every moment. People lose millions of dollars due to a crash in the stock market. There is always a race for being the richest in the world between various companies. In this regard, two IT companies Microsoft and Oracle are always competing for the 1st position. Microsoft maintains the 1st position most of the time and one such time the stocks of Oracle shot up at such a high that the owner Lary Ellison became the richest person, this news spread like wildfire and he immediately called up a press conference. He was so happy to present that he was the richest person in the whole world. By the time the press conference finished the stock market took such a turn that the shares of Oracle dipped and again Microsoft's owner Bill Gates became the world's richest person. Lary Ellison became morose again. Within a couple of hours, he saw the highs and the lows. This is the nature of the material world, it is very very temporary.

But the opulence of the Lord never decreases even by a bit. Innumerable universes spawn out of the breathing of the Lord but His opulences never decrease even by an ounce. He has millions of Laxmi's at His feet who provide all the riches of the world. That's why the Lord is the greatest of all times.

Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming emails.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Anand Patil, Wellington, New Zealand. 108 Ways of Glorifying The Lord - Part 7

Date: 2011-11-28 Author: Anand Patil

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offerings titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord" for the last few months. As we had been out of the station, we could not continue with the offering. So Krishna willing, we shall resume this series again. In the previous offering, we saw that the Lord is the greatest of all. Let us continue to meditate on the next glorification.

Glorification 9 - The Lord is the Supreme Personality of Godhead: It is mentioned in Sri Isopanishad mantra 8,

sa paryagāc chukram akāyam avraṇam asnāviraḿ śuddham apāpa-viddham kavir manīṣī paribhūḥ svayambhūr yāthātathyato ’rthān vyadadhāc chāśvatībhyaḥ samābhyaḥ

Such a person must factually know the greatest of all, the Personality of Godhead, who is unembodied, omniscient, beyond reproach, without veins, pure and uncontaminated, the self sufficient philosopher, who has been fulfilling everyone's desire since time immemorial."

The Lord is described here as the Personality of Godhead. The term Personality of Godhead has various imports.

1.The word "personality" indicates that the Lord has His own personality and form. 2.The word Godhead indicates that Lord Krishna is the Head of all gods, or in other words, the Lord of all lords.

1. Personality: The Lord's form is transcendental and is not at all similar to the forms of the mundane world. His form is full of bliss, truth, substantiality and is thus full of the most dazzling splendor. The philosophy of Mayavadis and impersonalist is that the Lord doesn't have any form and that He takes on a form only when He advents on the material world. They say that in the spiritual world the Lord doesn't have any form and is only a formless Brahmajyoti. All the Vaishnava acharyas including Ramanujacharya, Madhavacharya, Madhavendra puri etc. have smashed this idea and have established the irrevocable fact that the Lord is a person and has form. Srila Prabhupada further explains this, "if the Lord, the origin of everything doesn't have a form how is it possible that we, who have been generated out of Him have form, this is not logical."

2. God Head: In the material world, when we mean a head or chief, it means the head of a certain company or department or country. Nobody can say that he or she is the head of the world or universe. In Indian tradition, there are many many demigods that are worshiped. It is estimated that there are 33 crores (330 million) demigods. People who worship demigods do not have any idea about who is the Supreme God among the demigods. Whereas, the Vedic literature gives a very clear idea that Krishna is the Godhead among all demigods and is the source of everything. In this connection, there is a very nice poem composed by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura "tumi sarvesvareshvaraa" from Saranagati. Let us look at some of the lines from this poem, that glorify Lord Krishna. tumi sarveshvareshvara, brajendra-kumaara! tomaara icchaaya vishve srjana samhaara tava icchaa-mato brahmaa korena srjana tava icchaa-mato vishnu korena paalana tava icchaa-mate shiva korena samhaara tava icchaa-mate maayaa srje kaaraagaara tava icchaa-mate jiver janama-marana samrddhi-nipaate duhkha sukha-samghatana

O youthful son of the King of Vraja, You are Lord of all lords. According to Your will, creation and destruction take place in the universe. According to Your will Lord Brahma creates, and according to Your will Lord Vishnu maintains. According to Your will Lord Siva destroys, and according to Your will Maya constructs the prison house of this world. According to Your will the living beings take birth and die, and according to Your will they meet with prosperity and ruin, happiness and sorrow.

The conclusion is that Lord Krishna is the Supreme and nothing ever happens without the sanction of the Lord. Hence, the term 'Supreme Personality of Godhead' is very appropriate for Krishna and can be only used for Him.

Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming emails.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Anand Patil, Wellington, New Zealand. 108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord - Part 8

Date: 2011-12-23 Author: Anand Patil

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offerings titled, "108 ways of glorifying the Lord". We shall continue to meditate on the next glorifications.

The Lord is omniscient and omnipotent. It is mentioned in Sri Isopanisad mantra 8:

sa paryagāc chukram akāyam avraṇam asnāviraḿ śuddham apāpa-viddham kavir manīṣī paribhūḥ svayambhūr yāthātathyato ’rthān vyadadhāc chāśvatībhyaḥ samābhyaḥ

Such a person must factually know the greatest of all, the Personality of Godhead, who is unembodied, omniscient, beyond reproach, without veins, pure and uncontaminated, the self-sufficient philosopher, who has been fulfilling everyone's desire since time immemorial.

The Lord is described here as omniscient and omnipotent.

Glorification 10 - Omniscient: The word kavih in this verse means omniscient. The dictionary meaning of omniscient is - Having infinite knowledge or understanding or having very great or seemingly unlimited knowledge.

Since the Lord is the source of everything and is present in each and every living being and also in each and every atom in the form of Paramatma, naturally he has knowledge about each and everything. There is nothing that the Lord doesn't know. During the Govardhan Lila, after Indra's ego was smashed and he begs forgiveness from the Lord, he offers wonderful prayers to the Lord (SB 10.27.4).

indra uvāca viśuddha-sattvaṁ tava dhāma śāntaṁ tapo-mayaṁ dhvasta-rajas-tamaskam māyā-mayo ’yaṁ guṇa-sampravāho na vidyate te grahaṇānubandhaḥ

Your transcendental form, a manifestation of pure goodness, is undisturbed by change, shining with knowledge and devoid of passion and ignorance. In You does not exist the mighty flow of the modes of material nature, which is based on illusion and ignorance.

Srila Sridhar Swami has translated tapo-mayam as "full of knowledge". The Lord's self-effulgent body is omniscient. Light is a common symbol of knowledge. The Lord's spiritual effulgence does not merely illuminate physically, as in the case of a candle or light bulb; more importantly, the Lord's body illuminates our consciousness with perfect knowledge because the Lord's effulgence is itself perfect knowledge. Because the conditioned soul has limited knowledge, he's under illusion by the three modes of material nature. But the Lord cannot be under illusion since He is all-knowing. By the mercy of the Lord and His pure devotees, a conditioned soul can be transformed to come out of the illusion.

Glorification 11 - Omnipotent: The word shukram in this verse means omnipotent. The dictionary meaning of omnipotent is - Almighty or infinite in power, as God; Having very great or unlimited authority or power. In the Brahma- samhita (5.32) it is stated that with each and every part of His body the Lord can do the work of the other senses. This means that the Lord can walk with His hands, accept things with His legs, see with His hands and feet, eat with His eyes, etc. In the shruti-mantras it is also said that although the Lord has no hands and legs like ours, He has a different type of hands and legs, by which He can accept all that we offer Him and run faster than anyone. These points are confirmed in this eighth mantra through the use of words like shukram ("omnipotent").

Srila Prabhupada explains in the purport of this verse, "The arca-vigraha form worshiped in temples is an expanded form of the Lord. By worshiping the arca-vigraha, one can at once approach the Lord, who accepts the service of a devotee by His omnipotent energy. The arca-vigraha of the Lord descends at the request of the acaryas, and works exactly in the original way of the Lord by virtue of the Lord's omnipotence."

There are various examples of Lord's omnipotence - lifting of Govardhan hill without any effort by His left hand's little finger for seven days and seven nights, expanding Himself into thousands of calves and gopas during the Brahma- vimohana lila with such precision that even Lord Brahma was deceived, creating innumerable material universes from the pores of His skin and impregnating them by just glancing at them, marrying 16108 wives and living with them simultaneously and the list goes on and on.

The Lord's potencies are so inconceivable that the Vedas personified while praying to the Lord make a very interesting point. They say, "No one, not even the mental speculators and the demigods in higher planetary systems, is actually able to estimate the length and breadth of Your form and characteristics. We think that even Your Lordship does not have complete knowledge of Your transcendental qualities. The reason is that You are unlimited. Although it is not befitting to say that You do not know Yourself, it is practical to understand that because You have unlimited qualities and energies and because Your knowledge is also unlimited, there is unlimited competition between Your knowledge and Your expansion of energies."

The idea is that because God and His knowledge are both unlimited, as soon as God is cognizant of some of His energies, He perceives that He has still more energies. In this way, both His energies and His knowledge increase. Because both of them are unlimited, there is no end to the energies and no end to the knowledge with which to understand the energies.

Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming emails.

Thank you very much. Yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Anand Patil Wellington, New Zealand. 108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord - Part 9

Date: 2012-01-18 Author: Anand Patil

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offerings titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord". In the last few offerings, we were seeing few of the glories of Lord mentioned in verse 8 of Isopanishad,

sa paryagāc chukram akāyam avraṇam asnāviraḿ śuddham apāpa-viddham kavir manīṣī paribhūḥ svayambhūr yāthātathyato ’rthān vyadadhāc chāśvatībhyaḥ samābhyaḥ

Such a person must factually know the greatest of all, the Personality of Godhead, whounembodied is , omniscient, beyond reproach, without veins, pure and uncontaminated, the self-sufficient philosopher who has been fulfilling everyone's desire since time immemorial.

In this offering let us meditate on the following two qualities - unembodied and without veins.

Glorification 12 - The Lord is unembodied: The word akaayam in the above verse means unembodied. This means the Supreme Lord doesn't need a material body like any other spirit soul. His body and soul are of the same spiritual nature. The Supreme Lord is not formless. He has His own transcendental form, which is not like the forms of the mundane world. The forms of the living entities in this world are embodied in material nature, and they work like any material machine. It is clearly stated here that He is unembodied, which means that there is no difference between His body and His soul. Nor is He forced to accept a body according to the laws of nature, as we are. In materially conditioned life, the soul is different from the gross embodiment and subtle mind. For the Supreme Lord, however, there is never any such difference between Him and His body and mind. He is the complete Whole, and His mind, body and He Himself are all one and the same.

Glorification 13 - The Lord is without veins: Asnaaviram means, that there are no veins in the body of God. Veins are present in material bodies. The anatomy of a material body must have a mechanical construction with veins and so forth, but the transcendental body of the Supreme Lord has nothing like veins. The material body is maintained under certain material conditions. The food we eat is transformed into secretion, then through the veins this comes to the heart, and heart it becomes red corpuscle, the blood, the blood is diffused. Therefore there are so many channels, veins. And these things are pushed on with the air, and if there is shortage of air circulation, the man becomes paralyzed. This is scientific. So these things are required for the material body, not for the spiritual body.Therefore one who misunderstands Krishna as having a material body, has been described in the Bhagavad-gitamudha, as avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam, Bg 9.11.

Some people argue that if Krishna is really Supreme Lord and His body is spiritual, how come He took birth and how come He left His body on the earth? This is explained very nicely by the previous acharyas and Srila Prabhupada. Appearance - The appearance of the Lord is not like any ordinary child. He did not take birth like any other child. The Lord appeared from the heart of Devaki and He appeared as a child with four arms. And if that was not extraordinary enough, He also came with a head full of hair, He came fully clothed and with all the ornaments and He did not come out crying, but He was smiling. The Lord appeared in His original form and His body was not at all material, but it was transcendental. Also, upon the request of mother Devaki He transformed Himself into a two handed form like any ordinary child. If the Lord's body was material this wasn't possible at all.

Disappearance - The popular known story regarding the Lord's disappearance is that - when Krishna was hurt in the toe by Jara hunter's arrow in a forest, He sat at once and it looked as though He passed away leaving His body behind. Vaishnava acharyas have explained this question very beautifully. This was a pastime enacted by the Lord's illusory energy in order to bewilder the non-believers or faithless since Krishna wants only His faithful devotees to understand Him truthfully. The power of death only exists in the material world. The material world is always under the control of the Lord. Death is only an expansion of the material potency of the Lord. So how can death affect Krishna? As per 11th Canto 31st Chapter of Srimad Bhagavatam, the disappearance of Lord Krishna from this world was in fact very extraordinary. All the demigods came to pay their obeisances before the impending disappearance of Lord Krishna. Each of them were hoping that Krishna will come to their respective planets on His way back to the spiritual planet. But only few of the demigods like Lord Siva and Lord Brahma could actually see Lord Krishna departing, for all others it was just a flash of lightning. They could not understand how this happened and how He flashed back to His eternal kingdom. Krishna simply departed along with all auspicious things like dharma, knowledge etc. The body that was so called hit by Jara Hunter was illusory body generated by the illusory potency of the Lord. Whereas actually Krishna departed to His own abode in His original spiritual body.

In purport to Srimad Bhagavatam verse 11.31.11, the story narrated by Srila Vishvanatha Cakravarati Thakura is mentioned. Srila Vishvanatha Cakravarati explains in the story about a expert magician who went to a king and was able to show his talent of making a stack of valuable garments, jewels, coins disappear. In a similar manner the magician made seven thousand horses disappear. Then the magician created an the illusion that the king's children, grandchildren, brothers and other family members have attacked each other and that nearly all are dead from the violent quarrel. Then he told the king that just like how he had learnt magic, so also, by the mercy of the lotus feet of his guru, he had learnt the mystic meditation of yoga. He said that he desired to leave his body. Thus speaking, the magician sat down in the proper yoga posture, fixed himself in praanaayaama, pratyaahaara, dharana, dhyaana and samaadhi and became silent. A moment later, a fire generated from his trance blazed forth out of his body and burnt it to ashes. Then all the wives of the magician, distraught with lamentation, entered into that fire. Three or four days later, after the magician had returned to his own province, he sent one of his daughters to the king who told him that she had just come to his palace, bringing along with her, invisibly, all her sons, grandsons and brothers in good health along with all the jewels and other items given by him. She informed the king that it was just a magic trick and the magician, his family and the king's family are still alive. In this way, even by ordinary magic one can simulate birth and death.

Then what to speak of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna who is Yogeshwara - the master of all mystics. He is definitely transcendental to the laws of nature. So He just exhibited His illusory potency so that ordinary fools will think the Lord has left His body like a human being. Actually, Lord Krishna returned to His abode in His own eternal body, as confirmed throughout the Vedic literature. So we should always remember that His appearance, disappearance and His body are all transcendental and glorious.

Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming offerings.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Anand Patil Wellington, Newzealand. 108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord - Part 10

Date: 2012-02-16 Author: Anand Patil

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offerings titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord". In the last few offerings, we were seeing few of the glories of Lord mentioned in verse 8 of Isopanishad,

sa paryagāc chukram akāyam avraṇam asnāviraḿ śuddham apāpa-viddham kavir manīṣī paribhūḥ svayambhūr yāthātathyato ’rthān vyadadhāc chāśvatībhyaḥ samābhyaḥ

Such a person must factually know the greatest of all, the Personality of Godhead, who is unembodied, omniscient, beyond reproach, without veins, pure and uncontaminated, the self-sufficient philosopher who has been fulfilling everyone's desire since time immemorial.

We shall continue to meditate on the following quality - pure and uncontaminated.

Glorification 14 - The Lord is supreme pure: In the above verse śuddham means pure or antiseptic. Krishna is Supreme pure. In Bhagavad Gita verse 10.12, Arjuna glorifies the Lord as 'pavitraṁ paramaṁ', Supreme pure. So simply by hearing about Him and His pastimes, we become pure. Material contamination and anarthas are big obstacles in the path of spiritual progress. In his wonderful purport to verse 1.2.18 of Srimad Bhagavatam, His Divine Grace mentions that how association of Bhagavatas, (both book Bhagavata as well as person Bhagavata), gradually we become free of anarthas and fixed in devotional service. So we should regularly hear Krishna katha and also humbly serve the devotees. The Lord is often compared to the Sun. The sun extracts moisture from many untouchable places on the earth, yet it remains pure. In fact, it purifies obnoxious things by virtue of its sterilizing powers. If the sun which is a material object, is so powerful, then we can hardly begin to imagine the purifying strength of the all powerful Lord. Krishna's Names are also pure. Srila Rupa Goswami mentions in Bhakti Rasamrita Sindhu 2.2.233,

nāma cintāmaṇiḥ kṛṣṇaś caitanya-rasa-vigrahaḥ pūrṇaḥ śuddho nitya-mukto ’bhinnatvān nāma-nāminoḥ

The holy name of Krishna is transcendentally blissful. It bestows all spiritual benedictions, for it is Krishna Himself, the reservoir of all pleasure.Krishna's name is complete, and it is the form of all transcendental mellows. It is not a material name under any condition, and it is no less powerful than Krishna Himself. Since Krishna's name is not contaminated by the material qualities, there is no question of its being involved with maya. Krishna's name is always liberated and spiritual; it is never conditioned by the laws of material nature. This is because the name of Krishna and Krishna Himself are identical.

Glorification 15 - The Lord is uncontaminated: In the mantra 8 of Isopanishad Krishna is also referred here as apāpa-viddham which means He is without any material contamination, or in other words nothing sinful can affect Him. Just like sunshine. Infection cannot touch sunshine. Some viruses/bacteria can infect us because we have less potential. But it cannot infect the sun. Rather, the sunshine will sterilize the infection. So anything infectious, anything sinful cannot infect Krishna. Rather sinful activities in touch with Krishna will become purified. Srila Prabhupada explains in a lecture in this regard, "Just like if we go into the fire, we burn into ashes, but if Krishna enters, nothing happens to Him. Once there was a forest fire in Vrindavana, the cows, the cowherd boys, all the inhabitants, became very much afraid of the forest fire. But they had no means to stop it. They began to pray to Krishna, "Krishna, save us." Krishna easily swallowed up the fire. That is Krishna. That is the difference between Krishna and ourselves ."

Krishna says in Bhagavad gita 18.66, that ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi - So Krishna is so powerful He can immediately takes up all the sins of others and remove them. In the pastime of Putana, we see that she actually came to harm Krishna, but Krishna out of His causeless mercy, actually purified and liberated her and made Putana as His mother in spiritual abode. There is also another instance wherein some of the cows and calves in Vrindavan wandered in the forest away from Krishna His gopa friends. Bahula, one of the cows was caught by a tiger who attempted to eat her. Bahula tried to explain to the tiger that she had begotten a calf few days back and it was really important for her to feed her calf. The tiger initially refused but then gave in with the condition that Bahula would have to return back the next day. Bahula went to her cowshed, fed her calf and went back to the cave next day. Seeing the honesty of Bahula even her cowherd owner and the calf followed her without her knowledge. Now the tiger had 3 choices as preys. Bahula didn't want her calf to die hence she desperately prayed to Krishna. Krishna immediately appeared there and chastised the tiger for not honoring the honesty of the cow. Krishna just touched the tiger and the tiger became sober and granted back the life of all 3 and left the cave. This pastime shows that just by the touch of the Lord, even a ferocious animal like the tiger gets transformed and purified.

In the Jharkand forest, tigers and deers danced together in joy, when Mahaprabhu submerged them in the bliss of Hari kirtan. Because Caitanya Mahaprabhu was pure and uncontaminated, He was able to purify even lower living entities like lions and deers. Similarly, Srila Prabhupada by establishing the Hare Krishna movement, has been continuously saving millions of souls from the quagmire of illusion. The only way to show our gratitude to His Divine Grace and Mahaprabhu is by glorifying them and thereby purify our existence.

Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming offerings.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Anand Patil Wellington, New Zealand. 108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord - Part 11

Date: 2012-03-09 Author: Anand Patil

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev.

We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offerings titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord". In the last few offerings, we were seeing few ofthe glories of Lord mentioned in verse 8 of Isopanishad,

sa paryagāc chukram akāyam avraṇam asnāviraḿ śuddham apāpa-viddham kavir manīṣī paribhūḥ svayambhūr yāthātathyato ’rthān vyadadhāc chāśvatībhyaḥ samābhyaḥ

Such a person must factually know the greatest of all, the Personality of Godhead, who is unembodied, omniscient, beyond reproach, without veins, pure and uncontaminated, the self-sufficient philosopher who has been fulfilling everyone's desire since time immemorial.

We shall continue to meditate on the following qualities - beyond reproach and the greatest philosopher.

Glorification 16 - The Lord is beyond reproach: In the above verse avranam means without reproach. The dictionary meaning of reproach is to find fault with (a person, a group etc) or blame or censure a person. Sometimes less intelligent persons criticise Krishna. "Why did Krishna engage in the raasa dance, enjoying with other men's wives in the middle of the night?" He favored the Pandavas and got them to defeat Kauravas with deceitful means. For e.g. Dronacharya was killed by telling a lie. But these less intelligent people don't understand that Krishna is Supreme God. He can do whatever He likes. Our laws cannot restrict Krishna. For us there are so many restrictive laws, but for Krishna there is no restrictive law. He can surpass all regulations. No sin can pollute Krishna. For example let us consider a car is waiting at the traffic signal for the signal to turn green and if the car driver sees an aeroplane passing through in the air at exactly the same spot. The car driver cannot say to the pilot, why is the pilot not following the traffic rules of the road. The aeroplane is on a higher plane altogether and the car is on the road, on the ground. You cannot expect the aeroplane to follow the rules and regulations of the road. Similarly Krishna is the source of everything, the Supreme Judge and is on the highest platform. All the moral codes and ethics of this material don't apply to Him. He is beyond all the material conceptions. So, we cannot use our tiny brain to judge the dealings of the Lord. Parikshit Maharaja asked this same question of Sukadeva Goswami, "Krishna came to establish the principles of morality and religion. Then why did He enjoy the company of so many young girls who were the wives of others? This seems to be very sinful." Sukadeva Goswami answered that Krishna cannot be contaminated by sin; rather, whoever comes in contact with Krishna, even with a contaminated mind, becomes purified. The sun is a good analogy. the sun cannot be contaminated, rather if something contaminated is placed in the sunshine, it becomes purified. Hence, Krishna is beyond reproach.

Glorification 17 - Krishna is the greatest philosopher: Krishna is termed here as maneeshi, which means a philosopher. The dictionary meaning of philosopher is multi-fold as below. Let's see these one by one in the context of the Lord.

Meaning 1: a person who offers views or theories on profound questions in ethics, metaphysics, logic, and other related fields. Scientists andphilosophers form views or theories based on speculation, imagination or some limited practical experience. But since Krishna is the source of everything(ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā) He doesn't need to theorize or speculate anything. He knows things exactly as they are and hence His views are cent-percent perfect. Meaning 2: a person who is deeply versed in philosophy. A philosopher or scientist may have deep (deep as compared to other human beings) knowledgein one particular field. But it is hard to find anybody who has deep knowledge in all fields. But the Lord is omniscient i.e. He is all knowledgeable. Hence He knows everything that is there in the creation and hence He is deeply versed in all fields of philosophy.

Meaning 3: a person who regulates his or her life, actions, judgments, utterances, etc., by the light of philosophy or reason. Nowadays it is really hard to find anyone who has regulated life, forget about following the instructions in the scriptures. But the Lord even when He was present on earth exhibited truly regulated life. He would wake up early before sunrise, meditate on Himself, then He would donate wealth to Brahmins, respect elders. When He dealt with various people, He followed the norms of the society like bowing down to elders etc. All His dealings and actions were totally regulated as per the scriptures.

Meaning 4: a person who is rationally or sensibly calm, especially under trying circumstances. Under trying circumstances most of us buckle and give up to the modes of nature. As per Upadeshamrta (verse 1) one who can control the sense urges like anger, speech etc is qualified to be a Guru. We all know this is easier said than done. But Krishna displays these characteristics all the time. There have been hardly any instances where we can see that Krishna has lost his cool and has behaved irrationally. And one who has the mercy of Krishna also is able to display these characteristics. For e.g. Srila Prabhupada was always sensible and rational throughout his life, even when he was put in trying circumstances. Prabhupada said once that Krishna tested him big time twice in his life. Once when his business went haywire and he become bankrupt and the second time when Krishna gave lots of wealth, fame and prestige. In both circumstances a common man would buckle and give way to emotions and get diverted from true goal of life. But since Prabhupada had the mercy of the Lord, he was able to handle both the circumstances like a true Mahajan. When Krishna incarnated as Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, he was named as Nimai Pandit, since he defeated so many big big scholars and philosophers easily. He was undefeated in philosophical debates and big philosophers were scared to come in front of him. He propogated the greatest philosophy of all times - Nama sankirtan movement. One should chant and glorify the Holy names of the Lord. All in all Krishna is the greatest of all philosophers and nobody can equal Him.

Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming emails.

Thank you very much, Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Anand Patil Wellington, New Zealand. 108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord - Part 12

Date: 2012-03-20 Author: Anand Patil

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offerings titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord". In the last few offerings, we were seeing few of the glories of Lord mentioned in verse 8 of Isopanishad,

sa paryagāc chukram akāyam avraṇam asnāviraḿ śuddham apāpa-viddham kavir manīṣī paribhūḥ svayambhūr yāthātathyato ’rthān vyadadhāc chāśvatībhyaḥ samābhyaḥ

Such a person must factually know the greatest of all, the Personality of Godhead, who is unembodied, omniscient, beyond reproach, without veins, pure and uncontaminated, the self-sufficient philosopher who has been fulfilling everyone's desire since time immemorial.

We shall continue to meditate on the next glorifications - self sufficiency and fulfilling everyone's desires since time immemorial.

Glorification 18 - The Lord is self sufficient: In the above verse svayambhu means self sufficient. The dictionary meaning of self sufficient is, "able to supply one's own needs without external assistance". Krishna is self-sufficient because He can expand Himself to satisfy His needs and wants. He doesn't require anyone's help. He's completely independent. But still He's so kind that He kindly comes in the form of arca vigraha and accepts services from His dear devotees. He gracefully accepts the bhoga that is offered to Him with love and devotion and returns it back as prasadam for us. That is His causeless mercy. He is never in need of our service. But just for the sake of our own purification, He kindly bestows us with opportunities to serve Him. In Srimad Bhagavatam verse 7.9.11, Prahlad Maharaj addresses the Lord as 'nija-lābha-pūrṇo' and Srila Prabhupada nicely translates this phrase as, "One who is always satisfied in Himself (He does not need to be satisfied by the service of others)."

Glorification 19 - The Lord fulfills everyone's desire: A poet has said that if all the trees in the world were pens, if all the rivers and seas in the world were ink and the entire sky was a canvas, and one was asked to write his/her desires, still this paraphernalia would be insufficient to write down all our desires. That is the amount of desires that one develops during our material life time. And the subtle mind stores desires from time immemorial which makes it uncountable. Now depending on our eligibility and what we deserve (not what we desire) our desires get fulfilled either in this life-time or in some other life-time. It is indeed a herculean task to keep track of each living enities karma and desires and accordingly fulfill their desires. To fulfill all these desires is not possible for anybody else other than our beloved Lord. He is the only one who has got the potency to do such an insurmountable and unperceivable task. Not only does Krishna fulfill the desires of devotees, but also atheists, karmis etc. Atheists do not want to remember Krishna but want to enjoy without Him separately and hence He gives them all kinds of reasons to forget Him. Karmis want material desires and worship Him and according to their eligibility, they get their desires fulfilled. Devotees want pure devotional service and He grants them that based on their level of surrender. In this regard let us meditate on couple of instances from Srimad Bhagavatam. One is the Brahma-vimohana lila. In this pastime, externally it appears as if Lord expanded Himself in the form of gopas and cows just to reveal His potency to Brahma. But Lord also wanted to fulfill the desires of all the elderly gopis and cows of Vrindavan who wanted to have Him as their child. So for one full year Lord became the son of each of them and both the mothers and the cows were extremely pleased and loving towards their children and calves respectively. Also one of the reason for Lord to enact the Govardhan pastime is to smash the pride of Indra. But the internal reason was that Lord wanted to give His continuous association to all the inhabitants of Vrindavan simultaneously. Earlier, when Lord was at His home, only Nanda Maharaja and Mother Yashoda were able to see Him. When He went to the forest to graze the cows, only His friends and cows were able to see Him. Since all the inhabitants of Vrindavan were sincerely desiring for His association, through the Govardhan lila the Lord granted them continuous darshan for 7 days and 7 nights. So let us sincerely desire to serve the Supreme Lord at all times.

Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming emails.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Anand Patil Wellington, New Zealand. 108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord - Part 13

Date: 2012-05-03 Author: Anand Patil

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offerings titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord". In the last few offerings, we were seeing few of the glories of Lord mentioned in verse 8 of Isopanishad. Now we move on to verse 16 of the Isopanishad,

pūṣann ekarṣe yama sūrya prājāpatya vyūha raśmīn samūha tejo yat te rūpaṁ kalyāṇa-tamaṁ tat te paśyāmi yo ’sāv asau puruṣaḥ so ’ham asmi

O my Lord, O primeval philosopher, maintainer of the universe, O regulating principle, destination of the pure devotees, well-wisher of the progenitors of mankind, please remove the effulgence of Your transcendental rays so that I can see Your form of bliss. You are the eternal Supreme Personality of Godhead, like unto the sun, as am I.

Glorification 20 - The Lord is maintainer of the universe: In the above verse pushan means maintainer. The Vedas say, eko bahunaam vidadhaati kaamaan. That supreme Lord who is eternal, is supplying and maintaining all other individual eternals. The word pūṣann ("Maintainer") is especially significant, for although the Lord maintains all beings, He specifically maintains His devotees. In reality, the Supreme Lord is always maintaining and protecting us. In this connection the below example is very relevant - the inmates of a prison are being punished by the government, yet the same government feeds them and looks after them. Similarly, sinful, atheistic people, though punished by the Lord's illusory energy, are still fed and cared for by the Lord Himself. And if the Supreme Lord feeds and maintains even the worst sinners, reprobates, and helpless souls, then what to speak of those who are eternally surrendered to His lotus feet? He is like a king who takes proper care of his subjects, but who especially looks after the needs of his near and dear relatives. The devotees are the Lord's relatives and family members. Just as ordinary people feel joy and satisfaction when they look after the needs and comforts of their family, the Lord also feels pleasure when he tends to the well-being of His devotees. Thus the Supreme Lord is known as Bhakta-vatsala, "The maintainer of the devotees." Often Prabhupada quoted this example. There are 8,400,000's of species of life, and, out of which, human beings, are a very small number, say, about 200,000 species of life. Balance eight million, two hundred thousand species of life, they are animal and aquatics, birds, beasts, uncivilized men, so many species of life. They have no economic problem. There is no question of starvation. An elephant that eats thousands of pounds of food per day gets his food and even an ant which requires one grain of food gets his food. The Lord also creates, maintains and destroys the material universes/planets although this is done by delegated authorities like Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh. There are innumerable living entities and the Lord personally takes care and maintains each of them depending on the level of surrender. Also, the Lord as Supersoul in every living being's heart maintains the body of each living entity. The Supersoul nourishes and energizes the body and soul of the living entities. If the Supersoul leaves the body, the body is dead, it is of no use. The first syllable of the word bhagavaan (bha) has two meanings. The first is 'one who fully maintains,' and the second is 'guardian'. The second syllable (ga) means 'guide', 'leader' or 'creator'. The Lord fully maintains His unalloyed devotees, and He guides them progressively on the path toward devotional perfection. As the leader of His devotees, He ultimately awards the desired results of devotional service by giving Himself to them.

Glorification 21 - The Lord is the destination of pure devotees: In the above verse surya means the destination of pure devotees. The goal of pure devotees is to achieve the love of Lord Krishna and serve Him birth after birth. It doesn't matter to them whether they are in the material world or in hell or in spiritual world. Their only desire is to serve the Lord and His devotees eternally. In this relation it is very nicely mentioned in SB 7.5.31,

na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇuṁ durāśayā ye bahir-artha-māninaḥ andhā yathāndhair upanīyamānās te ’pīśa-tantryām uru-dāmni baddhāḥ

Persons who are strongly entrapped by the consciousness of enjoying material life, and who have therefore accepted as their leader or guru a similar blind man attached to external sense objects, cannot understand that the goal of life is to return home, back to Godhead, and engage in the service of Lord Vishnu. As blind men guided by another blind man miss the right path and fall into a ditch, materially attached men led by another materially attached man are bound by the ropes of fruitive labor, which are made of very strong cords, and they continue again and again in materialistic life, suffering the threefold miseries.

The Lord is gati. Gati means the destination. We do not know what our destination is. Due to our ignorance, due to our becoming overwhelmed by the illusory energy, we do not know the goal of our life. The ultimate destination of life is to reestablish one's lost relationship with the Supreme Lord. Unfortunately, people do not know this. They are simply thinking, destination of life, to have the greatest amounts of sense gratification. This is illusion. Because we are materially absorbed we have no other information. So we are trying to squeeze out all kinds of pleasure from sense. We are earning, working very hard, and the ultimate goal is sense gratification. This is illusion. In this connection Srila BhaktiVinod Thakur says in his peom "mānasa, deho, geho",

janaka, jananī, dayita, tanay prabhu, guru, pati-tuhū sarva-moy bhakativinoda kohe, śuno kāna! rādhā-nātha! tuhū hāmāra parāṇa

Father, mother, lover, son, Lord, preceptor, and husband; You are everything to me. Thakura Bhaktivinoda says, 'O Krishna, please hear me! O Lord of Radha, You are my life and soul!'

Let us try to follow the wonderful path carved by our acharyas and make our destination the lotus feet of Sri Radha and Krishna. That will bring meaning and goal to our life. Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming offerings.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Anand Patil Wellington, New Zealand. 108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord - Part 14

Date: 2012-05-19 Author: Anand Patil

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offerings titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord". In the last few offerings, we were seeing few of the glories of Lord mentioned in verse 16 of Isopanishad,

pūṣann ekarṣe yama sūrya prājāpatya vyūha raśmīn samūha tejo yat te rūpaṁ kalyāṇa-tamaṁ tat te paśyāmi yo ’sāv asau puruṣaḥ so ’ham asmi

O my Lord, O primeval philosopher, maintainer of the universe, O regulating principle, destination of the pure devotees, well-wisher of the progenitors of mankind, please remove the effulgence of Your transcendental rays so that I can see Your form of bliss. You are the eternal Supreme Personality of Godhead, like unto the sun, as am I.

We shall continue to meditate on the next glorification - 'The Regulating Principle'.

Glorification 22 - The Lord is the regulating principle: In the above verse, 'yama' means regulating principle. We need rules and regulations to maintain harmony in the society. Every country or government has its own set of rules and regulations. Similarly, when the material world was created, the Lord created rules and regulations for mankind in the form of the vedic scriptures so that they could become God conscious by following them. Those who follow the vedic scriptures are good samaritans (devotees) and those who do not follow are demons. Just as every government has different departments like police etc to govern the rules and regulations, similarly from a varna-ashrama point of view the Kshatriyas/Kings were supposed to govern the subjects. As the number of demons increase in the society it becomes hard for the kings to maintain religiosity in the society. And what to think about a society where the king or politicians themselves are not God conscious and not following the vedic scriptures. This is exactly what is happening in the current era. As Krishna says in Srimad Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4, verse 7, "Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion, at that time I descend Myself." He further says in verse 8, "To deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I Myself appear, millennium after millennium." So Krishna acts as the regulating principle by getting rid of the demoniac forces, by protecting the devotees and by re-instituting the religious principles. When He advented 5000 years ago, He killed innumerable demons and protected the Pandavas and all other devotees. By re-instituting Yudhishtira as the King, He re-instituted the religious principles for the world. Also, when the Lord advented in the form of Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu 500 years ago, He spread the sankirtan movement which liberated so many people and is still continuing to do so.

The Lord regulates the movements of all the parts of our body. He, as the Supersoul is the generating and the regulating force of the ten kinds of air within our body which sustains our life. By His order and mercy the ten airs - Prana, Apana, Udana, Samana, Vyana, Naga, Krkara, Kurma, Devadatta and Dhananjaya circulate within the body. Whenever the functional movement of these airs get blocked, there is ailment in different parts in our body. When the weather is hot, the body temperature gets automatically adjusted to become cooler and when the weather is cold, then the body temperature is adjusted to become warmer. Hence we can understand that we cannot maintain our own body without the mercy of the Lord who acts as the ultimate regulating principle.

The Lord also regulates the entire universe by keeping all the ingredients together. For eg., the wind speed, amount of rain, amount of sunlight, the rising and setting of sun and moon, are all regulated. If we have too much or too little of any of these then we can't live. For eg., if it is too windy like here in Wellington, it is hard to live comfortably. The sun always rises and sets at particular time of the day depending on the weather, it is never late or early. Also, the distance between the sun and the earth is so accurately adjusted that if the sun was a little further from the earth it would be too cold on the earth and if it was a little closer it would be too hot on earth. The different weathers summer, winter, spring and autumn are all regulated. Though in the Kali yuga the weathers get mixed up and may not be on time, but during the reign of Lord Krishna everything was perfectly arranged and regulated.

The Lord is beyond the rules and regulations of the material world, but He still follows them to show an example. He says in Srimad Bhagavad Gita 3.23-24, "For if I ever failed to engage in carefully performing prescribed duties, O Partha, certainly all men would follow My path and If I did not perform prescribed duties, all these worlds would be put to ruination. I would be the cause of creating unwanted population, and I would thereby destroy the peace of all living beings". When Krishna was present on the earth He regulated all the activities of His day. He would get up early in the morning, perform all His morning chores, meditate on Himself, give charity to Brahmins etc. He followed all the customs and regulations of the society for e.g. taking shiksha from a Guru, respecting elders etc.

So, all in all Krishna is the most regulated person and is also the regulating principle for all of us to live and follow Him. When we follow the regulative principles, we become very close to Krishna. Hence, it is very important that we regulate our lives by daily getting up early, performing mangal arati, doing our japa during Brahma muhurta and following all the rules and regulations set forth by Srila Prabhupada and our acharyas. This will help us to progress in Krishna consciousness. Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming emails.

Thank you very much. Yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Anand Patil Wellington, New Zealand. 108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord - Part 15

Date: 2012-06-02 Author: Anand Patil

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offerings titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord". In the last few offerings, we were seeing few of the glories of the Lord mentioned in verse 16 of Isopanishad. We continue to explore verse 16 and will also move on to verse 17.

pūṣann ekarṣe yama sūrya prājāpatya vyūha raśmīn samūha tejo yat te rūpaṁ kalyāṇa-tamaṁ tat te paśyāmi yo ’sāv asau puruṣaḥ so ’ham asmi

O my Lord, O primeval philosopher, maintainer of the universe, O regulating principle, destination of the pure devotees, well-wisher of the prajapatis (progenitors of mankind), please remove the effulgence of Your transcendental rays so that I can see Your form of bliss. You are the eternal Supreme Personality of Godhead, like unto the sun, as am I.

vāyur anilam amṛtam athedaṁ bhasmāntaṁ śarīram oṁ krato smara kṛtaṁ smara krato smara kṛtaṁ smara

Let this temporary body be burnt to ashes, and let the air of life be merged with the totality of air. Now, O my Lord, please remember all my sacrifices, and because You are the ultimate beneficiary, please remember all that I have done for You.

We shall continue to meditate on the next glorifications - "Well-wisher of prajaapatis" and "Ultimate beneficiary of all sacrifices."

Glorification 23 - The Lord is well-wisher of the prajaapatis: All the great personalities who increased the population in the beginning of the creation are called Prajaapatis. Brahma is also known as Prajaapati, as were some of his later sons. Svayambhuva Manu is also known as Prajaapati, as is Daksha, another son of Brahma. A well-wisher is a person who wishes well for another person and only thinks good for that person. The Lord is referred here as prajaapatya or well-wisher of the prajaapatis. Like any parent, the Lord always thinks good for all the living entities. If the kids do not obey their parents the parents may get frustrated or annoyed with their kids and may even shun them. But the Lord is so merciful that even if some living entities do not obey Him or ignore Him or try to forget Him, He does not forget or shun the living entities. In fact at every stage the Lord wishes well for them and hopes that one day they will turn towards Him and regain their original constitutional position. As mentioned in Bhagavad Gita verse 5.29, Lord Krishna is the supreme well-wisher of the conditioned souls as well as the demons, for He gave salvation to all the demons who came to kill Him in Vrindavana; therefore Krishna's welfare activities are absolute, for whether He annihilates a demon or gives protection to a devotee, the result of His activities is one and the same. It is said that the demon Putana was elevated to the same position as that of Krishna's mother. When Krishna kills a demon, the demon is supremely benefited, as much as a pure devotee is benefited by always being protected by the Lord. Whenever His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada would write a letter to anybody including his disciples he would sign at the bottom of the letter as, "Your Ever Well Wisher". A real well wisher is one who thinks about the ultimate good of a person. In today's world if our friends help us materially or support us, we believe them to be our well-wishers. But one who thinks about our ultimate good and helps us to go back to Krishna is a true well-wisher. In that regard Srila Prabhupada can be said as the true well wisher of the mankind. He has built a society where everybody can come together and endeavor to reach our ultimate destination - back to Krishna.

Glorification 24 - The Lord is ultimate beneficiary of all sacrifices: In verse 17 the Lord is termed as 'krato' or ultimate beneficiary of all sacrifices. The Lord is also termed as Yajneshvara which has the same meaning. This is also further ratified in the verses 5.29 and 9.24 of Bhagavad Gita - "A person in full consciousness of Me, knowing Me to be the ultimate beneficiary of all sacrifices and austerities, the Supreme Lord of all planets and demigods, and the benefactor and well-wisher of all living entities, attains peace from the pangs of material miseries. I am the only enjoyer and master of all sacrifices. Therefore, those who do not recognize My true transcendental nature fall down." Sacrifice means to accept the supremacy of the Lord and thereby perform acts by which the Lord may be satisfied in all respects. There are different countries in different parts of the world, and each and every country may have different types of sacrifice to please the Supreme Lord, but the central point in pleasing Him is ascertained in the Bhagavatam. The atheists do not believe in the existence of God, and they do not perform any sacrifice for the satisfaction of the Lord. The atheists think that I am the doer and I am the proprietor of all that I survey. This is a misconception. As soon as one thinks in this way the trouble begins and hence one cannot be really happy. Srila Prabhupada explains this very nicely, "Just like in any company, there are so many people working. Everyone understands that they are acting for the proprietor of the company and that whatever profit is made belongs to the proprietor. Under this premise everything works perfectly fine. But if the cashier thinks, 'Oh I have got so much money, I am the proprietor', then the company can't function properly. If we understand that, "I am a very rich man. I have got so much bank balance. I can use it for my sense gratification", that is kaama. But if we understand that "Whatever I have got, it belongs to Krishna," then I am liberated person. You'll have the same money under your custody. It doesn't matter. But as soon as you think that, "I am the proprietor of this wealth," then you are under the influence of maya. And as soon as you think that "Krishna is the proprietor of all these things," then you are free". As mentioned in Bhagavad Gita 3.9, "One who tries to enjoy the results of his activities becomes bound by the results. One who offers the results or profits to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, however, does not become entangled in the results." This is the secret of success. The prescribed method of sacrifice for Kali-yuga is sankirtan yagna or the chanting of Holy names of Lord Krishna. By chanting the Lords names and offering the results of our work to the Lord we can cross the cycle of birth and death and also attain pure devotional service at the lotus feet of the Lord.

Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming emails.

Thank you very much. Yours in the service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Anand Patil Wellington, New Zealand. 108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord - Part 16

Date: 2012-06-29 Author: Anand Patil

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offerings titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord". In the last few offerings, we were seeing few of the glories of Lord mentioned in Sri Ishopanishad. We now move on to Srimad Bhagavad Gita. Today we shall meditate on the following glories.

Glorification 25 - The Lord's personal presence confirms victory: It is mentioned in Bhagavad Gita verses 1.14 to 1.19 that various warriors on the side of Pandavas including Lord Krishna blew their respective conch shells. The sound vibration of these different conch shells were so tumultuous that it shattered the hearts of the sons of Dhrtarashtra. When Bhishma and others on the side of Kauravas blew their conch shells nothing of this sort happened to the Pandavas. This was only due to the fact that Lord Krishna was on the side of the Pandava's army. As mentioned in the last verse of Bhagavad Gita 18.78,

yatra yogeśvaraḥ kṛṣṇo yatra pārtho dhanur-dharaḥ tatra śrīr vijayo bhūtir dhruvā nītir matir mama

Wherever there is Krishna, the master of all mystics, and wherever there is Arjuna, the supreme archer, there will also certainly be opulence, victory, extraordinary power, and morality. That is my opinion.

Sanjaya told Dhrtarashtra, "You are thinking of victory, buy my opinion is that where Krishna and Arjuna are present, there will be all good fortune." He directly confirms even before the war begins that there is no hope for Dhrtarashtra and he should not expect victory. Before the battle begun and when various kings were taking sides, Duryodhana and Arjuna visited Lord Krishna. Duryodhana wanted the entire army of Krishna and Arjuna just wanted Krishna to be with him. When both of them visited Lord Krishna, He was sleeping. Duryodhana sat near Krishna's head whereas Arjuna being a humble devotee sat at the lotus feet of the Lord. As soon as Krishna opened His eyes He saw Arjuna and He asked Arjuna what did he want, Himself or His army. Duryodhana was worried that Arjuna might ask for the army, but Arjuna being aware of Krishna's potency and being a humble devotee asked for Krishna to be on His side. Duryodhana was very happy with this proposal and was criticizing Arjuna in his mind for his foolishness. But in the end of the war it turned out that inspite of having a huge army, Duryodhana was defeated and destroyed, whereas the Pandavas were victorious. This was all due to the presence of the Lord on the side of the Pandavas. This clearly shows that victory belongs to one who takes shelter of the Lord and one has nothing to fear, even in the midst of the greatest calamity.

Glorification 26 - The Goddess of fortune follows the Lord everywhere: Lakshmi's other name is Chanchala, or restless since without Narayana she doesn't stay in one place. Inspite of this, foolish people only worship Lakshmi without worshiping Lord Vishnu and due to this their fortune doesn't favour them all the time. The wealth that they obtain is only temporary and doesn't stay with them for long. As mentioned in Brahma-samhita 5.29, the Lord is served by hundreds and thousands of such goddess of fortunes. And each one of them does not have any other goal but to remain at the lotus feet of the Lord and serve Him eternally.

In his wonderful purport to verse 8.8.9 of Srimad Bhagavatam, His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada very nicely explains, " Material enjoyment entails money, beauty and the reputation they bring, which can all be achieved by the mercy of the goddess of fortune. The goddess of fortune, however, never remains alone. She always stays at the lotus feet of Lord Vishnu. If one wants the favor of the goddess of fortune, mother Lakshmi, one must worship Narayana, because she is by nature bhagavat-paraa. The devotees who always engage in the service of Narayana can easily achieve the favor of the goddess of fortune without a doubt, but materialists who try to get the favor of the goddess of fortune only to possess her for personal enjoyment are frustrated. The celebrated demon Ravana, for example, wanted to deprive Lord Ram of Lakshmi(Sita), and thus be victorious, but the result was just the opposite ."

In order to advance in our spiritual life, we should take inspiration from the goddess of fortune and should endeavor to serve the Lord and His devotees with one-pointed attention.

I pray at the lotus feet of all the vaishnavas and Lord Krishna that I am able to follow these instructions and internalize them. Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming offerings.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Anand Patil Pune. 108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord - Part 17

Date: 2012-07-11 Author: Anand Patil

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offerings titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord". In the last few offerings, we were seeing few of the glories of the Lord mentioned in Srimad Bhagavad Gita. We now move on to the next glorifications. Today we shall meditate on the glorifications. The Lord is called Hrshikesha and Govinda.

Glorification 27 - Hrshikesha, the controller of the senses: In Bhagavad Gita verse 1.15 the Lord is referred as Hrshikesha. Hrshika means senses and isha means ruler or master. Lord Krishna is referred to as Hrshikesha in this verse because He is the owner of all senses. The living entities are part and parcel of Him, and therefore the senses of the living entities are also part and parcel of His senses. The living entities think they are independent of God and can do whatever they like but from this verse we can understand that even our senses are not independent of the Lord then what to speak of our whole existence? Srila Prabhupada in his powerful purport of this verse explains, " The impersonalists cannot account for the senses of the living entities, and therefore they are always anxious to describe all living entities as senseless, or impersonal. The Lord, situated in the hearts of all living entities, directs their senses. But He directs in terms of the surrender of the living entity, and in the case of a pure devotee He directly controls the senses. Here on the Battlefield of Kurushetra the Lord directly controls the transcendental senses of Arjuna, and thus His particular name of Hrshikesha." As mentioned in chapter 6 of the book Teachings of Queen Kunti - Everyone is part and parcel of Krishna (mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke jīva-bhūtaḥ [Bg. 15.7]), and therefore everyone's senses are also Krishna's. When we use the senses for Krishna's service, we attain the perfection of life. When we use the senses for our own pleasure we become miserable. As per Caitanya Caritamrita, Madhya lila 19.170 - hṛṣīkeṇa hṛṣīkeśa- sevanaṁ bhaktir ucyate, when by our senses (hṛṣīkeṇa) we serve hṛṣīkeśa, the real master of the senses, that service is called bhakti. This is a very simple definition of bhakti. hṛṣīkeśa-sevanaṁ, not Hrshika-sevanam service to the Supreme master of the senses, not to the senses themselves. When we use our senses for sense gratification, we are in maya, illusion, but when we use our senses for the gratification of the master of the senses, that service is called bhakti. The Lord in the form of Paramatma is always guiding us at each step to do the right thing and go back to Him, but we do not want to listen to Him. We want to gratify our senses, serve our senses and not of the Lord and hence are miserable and unhappy. Arjuna listened to the guidance of the Lord and fought with the Kauravas and became victorious at the end of the war. When we engage all our senses in the service of the Lord there are two positives that come out we get freed from all material designations and second our senses are purified simply by being employed in the service of the Lord. This way we can perfect our life.

Glorification 28 - Govinda, the enlivener of the senses: "Go" means senses or cows or land and "vinda" means one who gives pleasure. So Govinda means one who gives pleasure to senses or one who is very kind and lovable to cows or one who is protector of all the land. a) One who gives pleasure to senses: The senses are always craving for some satisfaction and for getting the satisfaction they are always looking out for some new sense objects. But the material sense gratification does not fulfill the thirst of the senses and its always empty or wanting. If one tries to satisfy ones own senses the Lord only provides as much satisfaction as the living entity deserves not what he desires. But if one serves the Lord Govinda, one can get unlimited satisfaction. This is so because the Lord has unlimited potency and He can fulfill everyone's desire and senses. By chanting the holy names of Krishna one participates in the infinite bliss of the Lord and thus ones senses are automatically satisfied. b) One who gives pleasure to the cows: Cows are very dear to the Lord and He is very kind and loving to the cows. In fact in Krsnaloka (Lord Krishna's abode) the Lord is always busy as a cowherd boy tending and grazing the cows. He is always surrounded by cows. That is His main business. Lord Brahma prays in Brahma samhita 5.29,

cintāmaṇi-prakara-sadmasu kalpa-vṛkṣa- lakṣāvṛteṣu surabhīr abhipālayantam lakṣmī-sahasra-śata-sambhrama-sevyamānaṁ govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi

I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, the first progenitor who is tending the cows, yielding all desire, in abodes built with spiritual gems, surrounded by millions of purpose trees, always served with great reverence and affection by hundreds of thousands of lakshmis or gopis.

As mentioned by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur in the purport of the above verse, "The Surabhi cows in Krsnaloka are so fortunate and loved by the Lord that the cows pour oceans of milk in the shape of the fountain of love showering transcendental bliss that does away with the hunger and thirst of all pure devotees." Hence we should always respect the cows and serve them as much as possible. c) One who protects the entire land: The Lord is the protector of all and this includes mother earth as well. Whenever the number of sinful people on the earth increases, it pains mother earth very much. In fact it is said that mother earth cannot bear the weight of even one person who speaks lie. Imagine the plight of earth in kali yuga where truthfulness is all but vanished. When mother earth is disturbed by miscreants the Lord either sends his representatives or advents Himself to cleanse the earth of all demons and demoniac tendencies. This way the Lord protects mother earth. From another view point whenever the Lord advents on earth, the land becomes very pleasing. The trees, the land, the country, mother nature etc are all pleased due to the presence of the Lord. Hence Govinda also means one who gives pleasure to the Land.

Let's pray at the lotus feet of Lord Govinda that He shower upon us all the blessings so that we are able to serve His senses with utmost sincerity and love.

Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming emails.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Anand Patil Pune. 108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord - Part 18

Date: 2012-09-17 Author: Anand Patil

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offerings titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord". In the last few offerings, we were seeing few of the glories of Lord mentioned in Srimad Bhagavad Gita. We now move on to the next glorification.

Glorification 29 - Lord is glorified as Madhusudana: In Srimad Bhagavad Gita verse 1.35, the Lord is addressed as Madhusudana. He is primarily referred so because He killed the demon Madhu. In fact He is addressed Madhusudana in many places in the Bhagavad Gita (verses 1.35, 2.1, 2.4, 6.33 and 8.2). In the purport to Bhagavad Gita verse 2.1, Srila Prabhupada very nicely describes the significance of Arjuna calling Krishna as Madhusudana. He says, "Lord Krishna killed the demon Madhu, and now Arjuna wanted Krishna to kill the demon of misunderstanding that had overtaken him in the discharge of his duty." Srila Baladeva Vidyabhushana comments that the use of this particular name implies that Krishna can kill grief of Arjuna just as He had killed Madhu in the past.

Srila Prabhupada writes in Srimad-Bhagavatam (7.9.37 purport), "The Supreme Personality of Godhead in His transcendental form is always ready to give protection to His devotees. As mentioned herein, the Lord in the form of Hayagriva killed two demons named Madhu and Kaitabha when they attacked Lord Brahma. Modern demons think that there was no life in the beginning of creation, but from Srimad-Bhagavatam we understand that the first living creature created by the Supreme Personality of Godhead was Lord Brahma, who is full of Vedic understanding. Unfortunately, those entrusted with distributing Vedic knowledge, such as the devotees engaged in spreading Krishna consciousness, may sometimes be attacked by demons, but they must rest assured that demoniac attacks will not be able to harm them, for the Lord is always prepared to give them protection."

Hence one of the important understanding we get from the name Madhusudana is that the Lord always protects us by destroying the enemies in our devotional service. Our enemies are in the form of our doubts, misunderstanding, grief and so many other anarthas. These anarthas bewilder us and are like stumbling blocks in our path of bhakti. But as Srila Prabhupada assures all these demoniac thoughts will be wiped out if we take shelter of Lord. Thus remembering this name of Krishna always gives us a lot of courage in performing our devotional service with full enthusiasm.

Srila Sridhar Swami gives some extra sweetness to this sweet name. He says that the name Madhusudana does not only mean "He who defeated the demon Madhu," but it also means "He who defeats honey [madhu] in sweetness." He defines the name thus: "False ego is as sweet as honey and resides in the heart of everyone, making one forget his own identity. It intoxicates everyone. He who destroys false ego with the torchlight of knowledge is called Madhusudana." By extension, the word madhu refers to both the bumblebee and Krishna. Just as bees tend to enjoy the honey of the lotus, Krishna enjoys the honey of His devotees' love. But for that to happen, we need to become sweet in our behavior in devotional service and also with every living entity who interacts with us.

Let us pray to the Lord that He protect us in all circumstances and destroy our false ego in order for us to selflessly serve Him and His devotees.

Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming offerings.

Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva, Anand Patil, Pune. 108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord - Part 18

Date: 2012-09-17 Author: Anand Patil

Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis, Please accept my humble obeisances! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

We have been meditating on glorifying the Lord in the offerings titled, "108 Ways of Glorifying the Lord". In the last few offerings, we were seeing few of the glories of Lord mentioned in Srimad Bhagavad Gita. We now move on to the next glorification.

Glorification 29 - Lord is glorified as Madhusudana: In Srimad Bhagavad Gita verse 1.35, the Lord is addressed as Madhusudana. He is primarily referred so because He killed the demon Madhu. In fact He is addressed Madhusudana in many places in the Bhagavad Gita verses 1.35, 2.1, 2.4, 6.33 and 8.2. In the purport to Bhagavad Gita verse 2.1, Srila Prabhupada very nicely describes the significance of Arjuna calling Krishna as Madhusudana. He says, " Lord Krishna killed the demon Madhu, and now Arjuna wanted Krishna to kill the demon of misunderstanding that had overtaken him in the discharge of his duty." Srila Baladeva Vidyabhushana comments that the use of this particular name implies that Krishna can kill grief of Arjuna just as He had killed Madhu in the past.

Srila Prabhupada writes in Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.9.37 purport, "The Supreme Personality of Godhead in His transcendental form is always ready to give protection to His devotees. As mentioned herein, the Lord in the form of Hayagriva killed two demons named Madhu and Kaitabha when they attacked Lord Brahma. Modern demons think that there was no life in the beginning of creation, but from Srimad-Bhagavatam we understand that the first living creature created by the Supreme Personality of Godhead was Lord Brahma, who is full of Vedic understanding. Unfortunately, those entrusted with distributing Vedic knowledge, such as the devotees engaged in spreading Krishna consciousness, may sometimes be attacked by demons, but they must rest assured that demoniac attacks will not be able to harm them, for the Lord is always prepared to give them protection."

Hence one of the important understanding we get from the name Madhusudana is that the Lord always protects us by destroying the enemies in our devotional service. Our enemies are in the form of our doubts, misunderstanding, grief and so many other anarthas. These anarthas bewilder us and are like stumbling blocks in our path of bhakti. But as Srila Prabhupada assures all these demoniac thoughts will be wiped out if we take shelter of Lord. Thus remembering this name of Krishna always gives us a lot of courage in performing our devotional service with full enthusiasm.

Srila Sridhar Swami gives some extra sweetness to this sweet name. He says that the name Madhusudana does not only mean "He who defeated the demon Madhu," but it also means "He who defeats honey [madhu] in sweetness." He defines the name thus: "False ego is as sweet as honey and resides in the heart of everyone, making one forget his own identity. It intoxicates everyone. He who destroys false ego with the torchlight of knowledge is called Madhusudana." By extension, the word madhu refers to both the bumblebee and Krishna. Just as bees tend to enjoy the honey of the lotus, Krishna enjoys the honey of His devotees' love. But for that to happen, we need to become sweet in our behavior in devotional service and also with every living entity who interacts with us.

Let us pray to the Lord that He protect us in all circumstances and destroy our false ego in order for us to selflessly serve Him and His devotees.

Krishna willing, we shall continue our journey of glorifying the Lord in the upcoming offerings. Thank you very much. Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Anand Patil Pune.