Mantra cookies

I was walking up Yonge Street when I met an Iranian man who was new to Canada. I showed him the Perfection of yoga and he was very interested and then asked me if this was Transcendental meditation from Maharishi. Remembering Vaisesika Prabhu technique I said – Transcendental meditation, ah you should read the Bhagavad Gita as Maharishi read it a lot. He took it right away and was very interested but told me he had no money. So my material consciousness told me perhaps I should move on, but then I remembered Dharmaprana prabhu had told me a few days ago to just preach, don’t worry about ‘sales’. So I thought I would talk to him regardless as he was very interested in meditation. I told him about our meditation programs and he started to express how he has tried to meditate but his mind wanders. I repeated Srila Prabhupada’s quote I had recently read “What does mind have to do with it. Simply chant from your tongue and hear from your ears”. Then I remembered I was carrying cookies with maha-mantra on them and gave him one and showed him the maha-mantra. He repeated it after me and I told him to go home and chant it 108 times every day. I asked him if he had even a penny, because I really wanted to give him a book. He said he had nothing but gave me his email and promised to come on Monday. So then we parted ways and I was thinking in my heart that I wish there was a way he would have taken a tiny book or else how will he come in touch with Krishna. I had walked a distance when I heard someone trying to call out to me and as I turned around I saw him running after me. He had found some money somehow and had run back all the way to get a book. He came up to me and gave me the money and asked me what was best for him. I handed him the Bhagavad-Gita and asked him to read it. He was very happy and said he will definitely come. As he got to taste some Krshna prashad, here is an email he sent me a few hours after our meeting:

To day is a great day for me, I hope that be a good student for yoga.
I share my cookie with my family and I told my wife what happen today for me.
After I gave you money, you told me “I have never seen a person like you before".
I heard this sentence a lot's of time, because I believe the sign and I believe some thing good happen for me. Thank you my teacher, you help me more than you think.

Purity of children

Srila Prabhupada, our founder, often spoke about the purity of children and how it is so natural for them to get attracted to Krishna. On Thursday, I was out on Sankirtan with the sankirtan generals like Mangala Arati and Rasmin. A spanish lady walked passed Rasmin and I with 2 kids. I took a book to her mother - "Bhakti Yoga" - and before I could say anything, her daughter said "I want to see this book!". The mother stopped and Rasmin started to explain to her about the books. Meanwhile, the girl was still curious so the mother asked me to explain to her what is Yoga. I wasn't really sure what to do or what to say because here was a 5-6 year old girl asking me the meaning of yoga! So I asked her, does she believe in God? She said, yes and that she prays to him every night. I told her that this is yoga - to love and pray to God. She got so excited when I told her that she was a yogi! I told her to keep loving God and make him her best friend and she said, yes, I will keep loving God and forced her mother to get the book! Her mother ended up taking 4-5 books!!

I am not really sure if I said the right thing to the child but what really touched me was her natural love for God! I pray that one day, I can experience such love!

A coordinated effort

A few days ago I got a call from Justin and he wanted to know about Bhagavad Gita classes. While explaining the details to him, I inquired how he heard about us and he said he had met someone a few months ago near finch and got a book. I told him it was me and after a brief chat he said he would come this week. As promised he came for Krishna fest and joined us for kirtan. After the kirtan I asked him how he felt. To my great surprise he said he had heard some men in robes do this before. Now he had my full attention and I started to inquire re details. Turns out when visiting Vancouver he had seen a bunch of devotees on harinam and been attracted to their chanting. We had a good discussion through the class and then after lunch I went up to him and requested him to share with me why he took the book. He explained to me that I met him at a time when he was very seriously thinking about the questions of life and then one day I just 'materialized out of ether'. He went on the explain that I was saying some stuff but he didn’t understand or register anything except two words 'Bhagavad Gita' and 'Veda'. The word 'Bhagavad Gita' got his attention as he had in past explored an online version of it. So he ended up taking the Perfection of yoga and the Chant and be happy. He works as a software engineer and is very intrigued by Srila Prabhupada's Bhagavad gita and plans to get it this Friday.
This experience made me realize that Sankirtan is not a one man show. Many devotees and many many gallons of blood go into getting one person curious about Krishna. This journey traverses planets, universes, lifetimes, cities and what not. We are never alone on Sankirtan as Srila Prabhupada is internationally coordinating this effort in some inconceivable vision. Only reason we think we are alone is due to our limited vision and material consciousness. We can’t see beyond 100 meters so we think we are alone. Just like someone thinks as I can’t see God - he doesn't exist. Sankirtan yagya is meant to transform our senses beyond the limited horizons of material eyes.

Rain or Sun - Sankirtan is Fun

It was meant to be a UEY sankirtan outing but the weather reports said it was going to rain today and for the coming few days. I left home thinking it’s cloudy and rainy and sankirtan would be really hard but as soon as I called Shyama, she told me everyone is ready to go to Kensington. So I reached Kensington only to find Vrndavan, Radhamohan and Shyamamohini Prabhus standing right behind me. We split the cookies Gayatri had made and started to give out cards, books and cookies. It was cold and damp but Radha-mohan and Vrndavan struck the drums and kartals, and the kirtan roared louder than the clouds. As the kirtan influence expanded we saw Lake come around from the corner telling us he had just distributed his first ever Perfection of yoga. Indeed a moment of great jubilation in one's life is the first step in Sankirtan. Around the same time Rasmin came in followed quickly by William. It was his first time on Sankirtan so he had the service of taking pictures. People were also coming up wanting to get pictures with us and that’s around the same time we met a young musician from BC and she said she really appreciated the Bhagavad-Gita and enthusiastically took a copy. I asked her if she would like to join our Kirtan. A little hesitant in the beginning she quickly joined us and played guitar chanting the Maha mantra for about an hour. Half way through the kirtan Kathleen turned up with her tambourine and started swaying to the Kirtan for as long as we were there. Each one of the shining sankirtan stars surrounded the moon of Krishna’s name and had quickly wiped any dampening effects of the incessant rain.

Glory to the Sri Krishna Samkirtanam which cleanses the heart of all the dust accumulated for years together and thus the fire of conditional life of repeated birth and death is extinguished. Such Samkirtan movement is the prime benediction for the humanity at large because it spreads rays of the benediction—Moon. It is the life of transcendental knowledge, it increases the ocean of transcendental bliss and it helps to have a taste of the full nectarine for which always anxious we are.

Care for all life

I met nice lady a few days ago and she was walking into Starbucks with her daughter when we met. She was telling me about how she likes to be careful of ants that get crushed as we traverse through the world. Remembering Jada Bharata and his interaction with King Rahugana I pointed out that this was the sign of a transcendentalist. She got all inspired and started to speak about her passion for animal rights. . She was big on animal rights and could appreciate the picture on Karma from animal killing that we have in the Gita. She instantly appreciated the philosophy of reincarnation and took a Bhagavad gita and Bhakti yoga.

SB 5.10.2: The palanquin, however, was very erratically carried by Jaḍa Bharata due to his sense of nonviolence. As he stepped forward, he checked before him every three feet to see whether he was about to step on ants. Consequently he could not keep pace with the other carriers. Due to this, the palanquin was shaking, and King Rahūgaṇa immediately asked the carriers, "Why are you carrying this palanquin unevenly? Better carry it properly."

Infinite return on investment

A few days ago I met a young woman near Yonge and Finch and she gave me 14c to get a perfection of Yoga. She was very apologetic about not having more money but promised to read it. I didn’t think much about the exchange, until she turned up at Urbanedgeyoga a few days later. When asked about if she read the book or not - she said she read the entire book and that is the reason she came. This time she bought a Bhagavad gita from Urbanedgeyoga and 5 days later she turned up for the Bhagavad gita. Much to my surprise she had read 313 pages in 5 days and said 'every word spoke to me as the truth'. With tears in her eyes she explained how the book explained her entire life, like this is what she was looking for. She has done bachelors and masters in social work, degrees in de-addictions and wanting to help everyone. Knowing her passion we had her reading the preface to Nectar of devotion and with a choking voice she read "In the primary stage a child loves his parents, then his brothers and sisters, and as he daily grows up he begins to love his family, society, community, country, nation, or even the whole human society. But the loving propensity is not satisfied even by loving all human society; that loving propensity remains imperfectly fulfilled until we know who the supreme beloved is. Our love can be fully satisfied only when it is reposed in Kṛṣṇa. This theme is the sum and substance of The Nectar of Devotion, which teaches us how to love Kṛṣṇa in five different transcendental mellows."

Do we really understand ?

I had the chance today to go out on Sankirtan with Shyama-mohini and it was a very heart warming experience, nothing like association of devotees. She prompted me to go up to this 3 people group so I walked in their direction. All three had their back to me so I didn't know what to expect. To my great surprise as they turned around I could see three faces worn out completely through the use of drugs. The skin was dry and like a towel and the eyes were dark. One of them had something coming from her nose and cuts over their face. Still what can be said about the mercy of Lord Chaitanya? Even in their apparent hallucinogenic state this lady was speaking sweetly. She immediately took Srila Prabhupada's book and agreed that meditation and yoga are really good for them. She said she and her friend were going through too much, even if I tried to explain something they won’t understand as they just did not have memory. I said I understand but she was quick to say - no you don't understand. You can't understand. So I quietly listened to what they had to say and they started to explain the tough things in their lives including the fact that they were dealing with some upcoming deaths in family. It was quiet a scene but two of them wanted a book each on yoga and meditation. Now was the hard part, asking them for laxmi as they were in no state of mind. But I encouraged them to find pennies and they scavenged through their purses to collect every penny they had. I taught them both to chant Gauraga and when i had a few moments with one, she was revealing her difficulties and I asked her to chant Hare Krishna with me and she simply repeated it and said she already feel better. I requested her to chant daily but I do not know if she will.
It made me realise how it is explained that 'para dukha dukhi' - compassion is a real quality of a Vaishnav. One can't just go up and tell people 'I understand'. Real compassion is something completely different and who knows how far we are from developing these qualities. How much is the living entity suffering in the material world and how can one understand?