http://24hourkirtan.fm/web/
Lord Chaitanya's Harinama Samkirtana Movement
Lord Chaitanya's "Harinama Samkirtana" movement is said to be something that has descended to us from Vaikuntha, the spiritual kingdom of God. After all, what are the activities of the residents of Vaiknutha? OK, they are ALL cent percent engaged in -- Harinama Samkirtana -- i.e. the residents of Vaikuntha are all singing (kirtana) the name of God (hari) in a congregation (sam) = samkirtana. That is basically what is going on there, constantly and eternally. The means -- all the activities there, such as talking, thinking, willing, feeling, moving, acting, singing etc. are all based on the principle of serving, praising (and singing to) -- God.
Thus, if we conditioned souls here in the material world ALSO engage in the same activities as the residents of Vaikuntha, we are -- at least theoretically -- also in Vaikuntha. In other words, if we behave like the residents of Vaikuntha, we are on our way there, or even, we are already there. The Christians have a somewhat similar idea, they also sing all kinds of hymns to God, the idea being, -- that is what the angels already living in heaven are all doing. So the Christians want to imitate the activities of the angels in heaven, and thus join in with the angels of heaven singing hymns in the Spiritual World with God. Its another form of the "Harinama Samkirtana" process.
Unfortunately, when the Harinama Samkirtan program of the residents of Krishna's planet is transported to this material world, there are all kinds of big problems. For starters, the material world is not going to receive this process with open arms. The residents of the material world are naturally averse to the glorification of God, and that is why the conditioned souls are here in the first place.
The Harinama process goes against the grain of material existence i.e. -- forgetfulness of God. All kinds of envious people will then come out of the woodwork to try and thwart the whole process of getting people engaged in serving God, and singing to God etc., since that breaks down the illusion of material existence and establishes people's original nature as God's servants. Of course, Jesus is an example of some of the types of problems that evolve when a fully spiritualized soul mixes with the ignorant materialized souls.
The duty of illusion or Maya, and / or her servants and agents, is to keep the conditioned souls captured, and so -- part of that process is to suppress the Harinama Samkirtana program. And since the material world is known as hellish place of forgetting God, how can we expect that the activities of the spiritual world are going to be allowed to be transferred here, and to prosper and grow here? We may find that the Harinama Samkirtana process is seen as a threat to the materialist's culture, and so it will be suppressed and compromised with material things -- to water it down and reduce its effect of saving the conditioned souls.
This is also related to our karma of course, if we have the karma of being citizens of Kali Yuga, that means we were not very God conscious and / or sincere in the first place. The main flow of the current of the conditioned energy (or Maya Shakti) in Kali Yuga is leading the whole society towards darkness, its flowing in the opposite direction of taking us to Vaikuntha. We'd have to swim very harder against this flow to make any progress. Understanding this extreme difficulty is why Lord Chaitanya makes the process easier for us in Kali Yuga. All we have to do is to remember Krishna, i.e. sing Harinama, or even just try to do that, and He will help us out here.
So, on the one hand, we've got bad karma -- its terrible for us to born be inside of this dark age of Kali Yuga, while on the other hand, if we lived in other epochs and eras, we might have to perform austerities for thousands of years to make any progress. Whatever happens in our Kali Yuga lives, at least we can take shelter of the nama of Krishna and we are immediately connected to His mercy. That is a real blessing to have, in any age, era, epoch, or within any place in the universe -- including this hellish place of planet earth during Kali Yuga. We think Aindra prabhu was in the process of trying to revive the Harinama Samkirtana process, and that is why he said "the powers that be" (the materially minded GBC) suppressed him.
Unfortunately, the Prabhupadanugas will probably have to try to re-establish the Harinama movement independent of these mundane ecclesiastical GBC guru folks. At the same time, we have to understand that our being in the middle of all sorts of people who want to suppress the glorification of God is due to our own previous conditioning, where we were ourselves suppressing the Harinama process for ourselves or others. So now its our karma to be with such sinful people, because, we were one of them ourselves. We are in the prison house of bad behaving prisoners, because we were bad behaving ourselves.
So we should now get very serious about connecting to Krishna -- and thus avoid having to deal with this type of "Harinama suppressing" situation again in our future lives. As we sang in church as a child, "when Jesus's train stops at your door, get on the train and do not let it go on without you." Right, because you may not get another train to stop at your door for another million years.
Most of our stalwart big leaders of ISKCON fell prey to material sex-life attraction and that has diverted them from the Harinama process. They jumped off the Vaikuntha train to get a few baubles of ill-gotten material wealth. Most of them ran back to material life. What is ironic is that most of these big GBC leaders like Hari Sauri, Jayatirtha, Hansadutta, Ramesvara, Bhagavan, Harikesha, Kirtanananda, and many similar others, they worked feverishly hard to make the Harinama Samkirtana movement useless and un-inhabitable for all of us. They criminalized those of us who wanted to chant the Harinama process, and basically spent 20 years burning down Lord Chaitanya's house.
Then, most of them just walked off from the burnt wreckage, because even they could not live in the house they had burnt to ashes themselves. They made Lord Chaitanya's movement un-inhabitable, even for themselves, even they could not live there anymore. So Srila Prabhupada warns, the responsibility of being a GBC is very great, and if its mis-used, the punishment is also very great. In other words, suppress Lord Chaitanya's movement -- at your peril. Its easy to see why -- anyone who suppresses the Lord's movement will be in severe trouble with the agents of the Lord.
Anyway, this material attraction problem is also what plagues various Christians, some of the Catholic Church's priests, various Hindu "gurus," big politicians, and so on and so forth, so thus this should serve as a warning sign to all of us. Here are a few quotes that we should also keep in mind when dealing with the material energy: ys pd
=================================
Sbject: Slavery : The cause of the material conditioned life : Attraction for the prison of family life
To:
===============================
Freedom and Slavery
===============================
A wretched person is one who cannot control his senses, whereas one who is not attached to sense gratification is a real controller. One who attaches himself to sense gratification is the opposite, a slave.
-Krishna, Srimad Bhagavatam 11.19.45
===============================
Attraction for the prison of family life
===============================
My dear Lord, we pray that we may never feel attraction for the prison of family life, consisting of home, wife, children, friends, bank balance, relatives and so on. If we do have some attachment, let it be for devotees, whose only dear friend is Krsna. A person who is actually self-realized and who has controlled his mind is perfectly satisfied with the bare necessities of life. He does not try to gratify his senses. Such a person quickly advances in Krsna consciousness, whereas others, who are too attached to material things, find advancement very difficult.
-Srimad Bhagavatam 5.18.10
===============================
The cause of the material conditioned life
===============================
“…attraction for woman’s association is the cause of the material conditional life, and anyone interested in being freed from this conditional life must detach himself from the association of women.”
(purport, Bhag. 3.31.35)
Simad Bhagavatam 5.5.8: The attraction between male and female is the basic principle of material existence. On the basis of this misconception, which ties together the hearts of the male and female, one becomes attracted to his body, home, property, children, relatives and wealth. In this way one increases life's illusions and thinks in terms of "I and mine."
===============================
http://www.brahmacarya.info/2010/07/cure-for-restlessness/
“To become restless in the contact of women and wealth is not an astonishment, because every living being is associated with such things from remote time, practically immemorial, and it takes time to recover from this foreign nature. But if one is engaged in hearing the glories of the Lord, gradually he realizes his real position. By the grace of God such a devotee gets sufficient strength to defend himself from the state of disturbances, and gradually all disturbing elements are eliminated from his mind.”
[SB 1.2.17]
===============================
The Way of Bondage
===============================
“When the mind is allowed to think of sense gratification continuously, it becomes the cause of our material bondage. If our mind is simply filled with sense gratification, even though we want Krsna consciousness, by continuous practice we cannot forget the subject matter of sense gratification. If one takes up the sannyasa order of life but is not able to control the mind, he will think of objects of sense gratification – namely family, society, expensive house, etc. Even though he goes to the Himalayas or the forest, his mind will continue thinking of the objects of sense gratification. In this way, gradually one’s intelligence will be affected. When intelligence is affected, one loses his original taste for Krsna consciousness.”
[SB 4.22.30]
===============================
The Charms of Maya
===============================
Srimad Bhagavatam (3.30.8)
He gives heart and senses to a woman, who falsely charms him with maya. He enjoys solitary embraces and talking with her, and he is enchanted by the sweet words of the small children.
Srila Prabhupada’s commentary:
Family life within the kingdom of illusory energy, maya, is just like a prison for the eternal living entity. In prison a prisoner is shackled by iron chains and iron bars. Similarly, a conditioned soul is shackled by the charming beauty of a woman, by her solitary embraces and talks of so-called love, and by the sweet words of his small children. Thus he forgets his real identity.
In this verse the words strinam asatinam indicate that womanly love is just to agitate the mind of man. Actually, in the material world there is no love. Both the woman and the man are interested in their sense gratification. For sense gratification a woman creates an illusory love, and the man becomes enchanted by such false love and forgets his real duty. When there are children as the result of such a combination, the next attraction is to the sweet words of the children.
The love of the woman at home and the talk of the children make one a secure prisoner, and thus he cannot leave his home. Such a person is termed, in Vedic language, a grhamedhi, which means “one whose center of attraction is home.” Grhastha refers to one who lives with family, wife and children, but whose real purpose of living is to develop Krsna consciousness. One is therefore advised to become a grhastha and not a grhamedhi. The grhastha’s concern is to get out of the family life created by illusion and enter into real family life with Krsna, whereas the grhamedhi s business is to repeatedly chain himself to so-called family life, in one life after another, and perpetually remain in the darkness of maya.
===============================
Why there are so many ghostly people
===============================
Lord Siva, being very kind to the ghosts, sees that although they are condemned, they get physical bodies. He places them into the wombs of women who indulge in sexual intercourse regardless of the restrictions on time and circumstance.
Srila Prabhupada’s commentary to Srimad Bhagavatam 3.14.24
===============================
illusion Personified
===============================
“Sometimes the conditioned soul is attracted by illusion personified (his wife or girl friend) and becomes eager to be embraced by a woman. Thus he loses his intelligence as well as knowledge of life’s goal. At that time, no longer attempting spiritual cultivation, he becomes overly attached to his wife or girl friend and tries to provide her with a suitable apartment. Again, he becomes very busy under the shelter of that home and is captivated by the talks, glances and activities of his wife and children. In this way he loses his Krsna consciousness and throws himself in the dense darkness of material existence.”
==============================
Lord Chaitanya's Harinama Samkirtana Movement
Lord Chaitanya's "Harinama Samkirtana" movement is said to be something that has descended to us from Vaikuntha, the spiritual kingdom of God. After all, what are the activities of the residents of Vaiknutha? OK, they are ALL cent percent engaged in -- Harinama Samkirtana -- i.e. the residents of Vaikuntha are all singing (kirtana) the name of God (hari) in a congregation (sam) = samkirtana. That is basically what is going on there, constantly and eternally. The means -- all the activities there, such as talking, thinking, willing, feeling, moving, acting, singing etc. are all based on the principle of serving, praising (and singing to) -- God.
Thus, if we conditioned souls here in the material world ALSO engage in the same activities as the residents of Vaikuntha, we are -- at least theoretically -- also in Vaikuntha. In other words, if we behave like the residents of Vaikuntha, we are on our way there, or even, we are already there. The Christians have a somewhat similar idea, they also sing all kinds of hymns to God, the idea being, -- that is what the angels already living in heaven are all doing. So the Christians want to imitate the activities of the angels in heaven, and thus join in with the angels of heaven singing hymns in the Spiritual World with God. Its another form of the "Harinama Samkirtana" process.
Unfortunately, when the Harinama Samkirtan program of the residents of Krishna's planet is transported to this material world, there are all kinds of big problems. For starters, the material world is not going to receive this process with open arms. The residents of the material world are naturally averse to the glorification of God, and that is why the conditioned souls are here in the first place.
The Harinama process goes against the grain of material existence i.e. -- forgetfulness of God. All kinds of envious people will then come out of the woodwork to try and thwart the whole process of getting people engaged in serving God, and singing to God etc., since that breaks down the illusion of material existence and establishes people's original nature as God's servants. Of course, Jesus is an example of some of the types of problems that evolve when a fully spiritualized soul mixes with the ignorant materialized souls.
The duty of illusion or Maya, and / or her servants and agents, is to keep the conditioned souls captured, and so -- part of that process is to suppress the Harinama Samkirtana program. And since the material world is known as hellish place of forgetting God, how can we expect that the activities of the spiritual world are going to be allowed to be transferred here, and to prosper and grow here? We may find that the Harinama Samkirtana process is seen as a threat to the materialist's culture, and so it will be suppressed and compromised with material things -- to water it down and reduce its effect of saving the conditioned souls.
This is also related to our karma of course, if we have the karma of being citizens of Kali Yuga, that means we were not very God conscious and / or sincere in the first place. The main flow of the current of the conditioned energy (or Maya Shakti) in Kali Yuga is leading the whole society towards darkness, its flowing in the opposite direction of taking us to Vaikuntha. We'd have to swim very harder against this flow to make any progress. Understanding this extreme difficulty is why Lord Chaitanya makes the process easier for us in Kali Yuga. All we have to do is to remember Krishna, i.e. sing Harinama, or even just try to do that, and He will help us out here.
So, on the one hand, we've got bad karma -- its terrible for us to born be inside of this dark age of Kali Yuga, while on the other hand, if we lived in other epochs and eras, we might have to perform austerities for thousands of years to make any progress. Whatever happens in our Kali Yuga lives, at least we can take shelter of the nama of Krishna and we are immediately connected to His mercy. That is a real blessing to have, in any age, era, epoch, or within any place in the universe -- including this hellish place of planet earth during Kali Yuga. We think Aindra prabhu was in the process of trying to revive the Harinama Samkirtana process, and that is why he said "the powers that be" (the materially minded GBC) suppressed him.
Unfortunately, the Prabhupadanugas will probably have to try to re-establish the Harinama movement independent of these mundane ecclesiastical GBC guru folks. At the same time, we have to understand that our being in the middle of all sorts of people who want to suppress the glorification of God is due to our own previous conditioning, where we were ourselves suppressing the Harinama process for ourselves or others. So now its our karma to be with such sinful people, because, we were one of them ourselves. We are in the prison house of bad behaving prisoners, because we were bad behaving ourselves.
So we should now get very serious about connecting to Krishna -- and thus avoid having to deal with this type of "Harinama suppressing" situation again in our future lives. As we sang in church as a child, "when Jesus's train stops at your door, get on the train and do not let it go on without you." Right, because you may not get another train to stop at your door for another million years.
Most of our stalwart big leaders of ISKCON fell prey to material sex-life attraction and that has diverted them from the Harinama process. They jumped off the Vaikuntha train to get a few baubles of ill-gotten material wealth. Most of them ran back to material life. What is ironic is that most of these big GBC leaders like Hari Sauri, Jayatirtha, Hansadutta, Ramesvara, Bhagavan, Harikesha, Kirtanananda, and many similar others, they worked feverishly hard to make the Harinama Samkirtana movement useless and un-inhabitable for all of us. They criminalized those of us who wanted to chant the Harinama process, and basically spent 20 years burning down Lord Chaitanya's house.
Then, most of them just walked off from the burnt wreckage, because even they could not live in the house they had burnt to ashes themselves. They made Lord Chaitanya's movement un-inhabitable, even for themselves, even they could not live there anymore. So Srila Prabhupada warns, the responsibility of being a GBC is very great, and if its mis-used, the punishment is also very great. In other words, suppress Lord Chaitanya's movement -- at your peril. Its easy to see why -- anyone who suppresses the Lord's movement will be in severe trouble with the agents of the Lord.
Anyway, this material attraction problem is also what plagues various Christians, some of the Catholic Church's priests, various Hindu "gurus," big politicians, and so on and so forth, so thus this should serve as a warning sign to all of us. Here are a few quotes that we should also keep in mind when dealing with the material energy: ys pd
=================================
Sbject: Slavery : The cause of the material conditioned life : Attraction for the prison of family life
To:
===============================
Freedom and Slavery
===============================
A wretched person is one who cannot control his senses, whereas one who is not attached to sense gratification is a real controller. One who attaches himself to sense gratification is the opposite, a slave.
-Krishna, Srimad Bhagavatam 11.19.45
===============================
Attraction for the prison of family life
===============================
My dear Lord, we pray that we may never feel attraction for the prison of family life, consisting of home, wife, children, friends, bank balance, relatives and so on. If we do have some attachment, let it be for devotees, whose only dear friend is Krsna. A person who is actually self-realized and who has controlled his mind is perfectly satisfied with the bare necessities of life. He does not try to gratify his senses. Such a person quickly advances in Krsna consciousness, whereas others, who are too attached to material things, find advancement very difficult.
-Srimad Bhagavatam 5.18.10
===============================
The cause of the material conditioned life
===============================
“…attraction for woman’s association is the cause of the material conditional life, and anyone interested in being freed from this conditional life must detach himself from the association of women.”
(purport, Bhag. 3.31.35)
Simad Bhagavatam 5.5.8: The attraction between male and female is the basic principle of material existence. On the basis of this misconception, which ties together the hearts of the male and female, one becomes attracted to his body, home, property, children, relatives and wealth. In this way one increases life's illusions and thinks in terms of "I and mine."
===============================
http://www.brahmacarya.info/2010/07/cure-for-restlessness/
“To become restless in the contact of women and wealth is not an astonishment, because every living being is associated with such things from remote time, practically immemorial, and it takes time to recover from this foreign nature. But if one is engaged in hearing the glories of the Lord, gradually he realizes his real position. By the grace of God such a devotee gets sufficient strength to defend himself from the state of disturbances, and gradually all disturbing elements are eliminated from his mind.”
[SB 1.2.17]
===============================
The Way of Bondage
===============================
“When the mind is allowed to think of sense gratification continuously, it becomes the cause of our material bondage. If our mind is simply filled with sense gratification, even though we want Krsna consciousness, by continuous practice we cannot forget the subject matter of sense gratification. If one takes up the sannyasa order of life but is not able to control the mind, he will think of objects of sense gratification – namely family, society, expensive house, etc. Even though he goes to the Himalayas or the forest, his mind will continue thinking of the objects of sense gratification. In this way, gradually one’s intelligence will be affected. When intelligence is affected, one loses his original taste for Krsna consciousness.”
[SB 4.22.30]
===============================
The Charms of Maya
===============================
Srimad Bhagavatam (3.30.8)
He gives heart and senses to a woman, who falsely charms him with maya. He enjoys solitary embraces and talking with her, and he is enchanted by the sweet words of the small children.
Srila Prabhupada’s commentary:
Family life within the kingdom of illusory energy, maya, is just like a prison for the eternal living entity. In prison a prisoner is shackled by iron chains and iron bars. Similarly, a conditioned soul is shackled by the charming beauty of a woman, by her solitary embraces and talks of so-called love, and by the sweet words of his small children. Thus he forgets his real identity.
In this verse the words strinam asatinam indicate that womanly love is just to agitate the mind of man. Actually, in the material world there is no love. Both the woman and the man are interested in their sense gratification. For sense gratification a woman creates an illusory love, and the man becomes enchanted by such false love and forgets his real duty. When there are children as the result of such a combination, the next attraction is to the sweet words of the children.
The love of the woman at home and the talk of the children make one a secure prisoner, and thus he cannot leave his home. Such a person is termed, in Vedic language, a grhamedhi, which means “one whose center of attraction is home.” Grhastha refers to one who lives with family, wife and children, but whose real purpose of living is to develop Krsna consciousness. One is therefore advised to become a grhastha and not a grhamedhi. The grhastha’s concern is to get out of the family life created by illusion and enter into real family life with Krsna, whereas the grhamedhi s business is to repeatedly chain himself to so-called family life, in one life after another, and perpetually remain in the darkness of maya.
===============================
Why there are so many ghostly people
===============================
Lord Siva, being very kind to the ghosts, sees that although they are condemned, they get physical bodies. He places them into the wombs of women who indulge in sexual intercourse regardless of the restrictions on time and circumstance.
Srila Prabhupada’s commentary to Srimad Bhagavatam 3.14.24
===============================
illusion Personified
===============================
“Sometimes the conditioned soul is attracted by illusion personified (his wife or girl friend) and becomes eager to be embraced by a woman. Thus he loses his intelligence as well as knowledge of life’s goal. At that time, no longer attempting spiritual cultivation, he becomes overly attached to his wife or girl friend and tries to provide her with a suitable apartment. Again, he becomes very busy under the shelter of that home and is captivated by the talks, glances and activities of his wife and children. In this way he loses his Krsna consciousness and throws himself in the dense darkness of material existence.”
==============================
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