How to enter Vrindavana. Opening
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · Govardhan · 2024
Chapters
Invocational prayers and opening chants
O Mahyanati Mirandasyam, Jyanam Jana Salakaya, Chaksurun Militamy, Tasma Shri Gura Venaha, Sri Chaita Bishtam, Stopi tam je na Bhutale, Swayam, Da dati Swa Padantikam Vandeham Sri Guru, Sriutapadakamalam, Sri Guru
Vaishnavanscha, Sreupam Sagrajatam Saganaragunatamitam Sajevam Sadvaitam Sadutam Parijana Sahitam Krishna Chaitanya Devam, Sri Krishna Pada Sahanalita Shrivamsha Krishna Karana Sindho, Dinabandho Jagatpate,
Gopisha Gopikakanta Radakantamos tod Taptakanchanagurangi Rade Vrindavaneswari Vrisabanu Sudade Devi Pranami Haripri, Vanchakalpatarubishha, Kripasindubevach, Patitanny, Vaisnavy Namonama, Shri Krishna Chaitana Prabhuitananda,
Sriadvaitatara, Srivassadigora Bhtagtavrinda Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Ramahare Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Ramahare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Rama Rama Ramahare, Namam Vishnu Padaya Krishna pristaya Bhutale, Srimate Bhaktividanta swami nitinami, namaste Saraswati Deve, guravani pracharine, nirviha Schunyavadi
Paschatade Yandah Pradisha Mamavachima Mamprasupta Sanji Vaya taki la shakti darh swadamna, hanyam schahasticharanachadim, Pranan Mobate, Purchay Dubim, Svastu Vishwasia Calah, Prasse Dadam, dyanatu butani shivamitodiya,
Welcome to the new retreat center
manaschapadram bajatatta doksache, ha vesjatam no madiraituki. Hare Krishna. I'm very happy to see all those whom I can see and others whom I cannot see but kind of assume that they're there.
So let me speak a few words about this place where we gathered together and uh about the retreat which is ahead of us. First of all I would like to thank everyone for coming for this event.
And I also have to mention that this is the very first retreat which we are conducting in this place.
All the team who is trying to bring this retreat center to shape was working very hard to make this retreat happen and inevitably there will be some shortcomings and problems.
Just yesterday was a big fire here and uh uh you can expect floods and other uh calamities. Please kindly forgive uh us for any shortcomings. We'll try to improve in the future.
And just consider that this is the very first retreat in this place. So first of all, I wanted to speak a little bit about the idea of this place.
So what is it and what we're trying to achieve by building yet another retreat center? Just one year ago, a big retreat center in Govardhana was opened by Sacinandana Swami and Burijan Prabhu. Why do we need another one?
There is a different idea behind this place and uh uh I'm happy to reveal uh this idea to all of you. This place is called Sri Rupa Seva Kunj.
And the Sanskrit word rupa, which we usually translate as form, also means beauty. And Sri Rupa indicates the divine beauty,
the beauty of divine couple, or specifically the beauty of Sri who is none other than Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī. So the main meaning of this name,
Sri Rupa Seva Kunj, is that this is the place where we are trying to serve the divine beauty, the beauty of divine couple, the beauty of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, the beauty of Krishna, Sri Rupa Seva.
This is the kunja, the intimate place of service to the beauty. And of course, there are other meanings of this name of this place.
Sri Rupa Seva Kunj means this is the kunj where Śrī Rupa Manjari is serving the divine couple because she's the only one who can really serve who we are, who we think we are, to serve the divine being. So
this name also reminds us about our eternal position of servants of Sri Rupa Manjari, who is the leader of all the Gaudiya Vaishnavas in their original spiritual forms in the siddha-dehas?
And of course Sri Rupa means Sri Rupa Goswami who has come to this earth and he's uh no no uh nobody else but Sri Rupa Manjari.
So we are followers of Sri Rupa Goswami, and here we are trying to help him to serve the divine couple.
And he is the leader, he is the founder Acharya of the whole Gaudiya Sampradaya. And we are his servants by definition.
And to serve Sri Rupa Goswami, this is very clearly stated in Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita, to serve Rupa and Raghunath basically means to imbibe their mood.
To understand the mood which they described in their literature and try to reflect this mood within our heart and try to uh execute or uh fulfill uh their desires.
And ultimately this is the desire of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Sri Chaitanya mano-'bhīṣṭam स्थापितं yenābhū-tale svayaṁ rūpaḥ kadā mahyaṁ dadāti sva-padāntikam.
So Sri Rupa Goswami he knew the heart of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. He revealed the heart and the innermost desires of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in his books.
And this is the place where we are trying to serve Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu by understanding the exalted literature written by the Goswamis of Vrindavan and their followers
and Srila Prabhupada of course is the first and foremost in our minds, and he is the one who revealed to us this amazing concept of Krishna who is dancing God and singing God, God of love and God of beauty.
Six opulences and supreme divine beauty
And therefore, we are trying to emphasize here the beauty. It is explained by Bhaktivinoda Thakura.
He was explaining the verse from Vishnu Purana, aiśvaryasya samagrasya vīryasya yaśasaḥ śriyaḥ. the description of the qualities of Bhagavan, the personality of Godhead, and he explains that there are five six main opulences of Bhagavan.
And Bhaktivinoda Thakura says that out of the six, Śrī or beauty is the main one.
It's the Angi and the other five aspects of the personality of uh Godhead like Aishwarya, Virya, Jnana Vairagya and Yasha, his glory, his uh opulence, his uh physical strength and his knowledge and his renunciation. They're just aspects of beauty.
In fact, you can consider this verse as a definition of beauty. What is beauty? Beauty has so many different dimensions. And these dimensions are mentioned in this verse.
Knowledge is the aspect of beauty. Knowledge is beautiful. Somebody who is knowledgeable, he becomes beautiful and beautified by the knowledge and the education which he has. Renunciation makes somebody very beautiful.
Renunciation is the aspect of beauty. In a similar way, the opulence or diversity, because in this world, when we talk about opulence, we are talking about diversity, is also an aspect of beauty.
Beauty can never be monotonous. It's always very diverse, it has uh so many different uh varieties within uh it. And uh even virya the heroism uh is uh an aspect of beauty.
And of course, Yasha and the glory, the fame is also an aspect of beauty. Somebody who is beautiful is famous.
And Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explains that the beauty, the yaśas, which is included in this definition of Godhead, the Bhagavān, definition of Bhagavān.
Beauty, sorry, yaśas, glory, or fame here means something which brings good fortune within our life, something which purifies the heart.
Usually when people speak about glory, they speak about when they speak about some famous persons, when we're talking about famous persons.
Basically it means that we're talking about their success, uh which is very contaminating.
The glorious whatever description of quote unquote glorious people in this world you have uh inevitably involves their romantic uh whatever adventures.
but uh the glory of uh the Lord, the fame of the Lord is all purifying and by purifying the heart, the purifying by purifying the consciousness it brings about the good fortune in our life.
It brings about our ability to go deeper inside. So first of all, to understand what it means to serve the beauty of the Supreme Lord, we have to understand how his beauty manifests in this world.
And it manifests in this uh in this aspects which I mentioned, and of course, the beauty itself is all inclusive. It includes so many other dimensions, like kindness or mercy is also beauty.
The relationship which are there, which are based on love. Love is also beauty. Love and beauty basically synonymous.
So while doing this uh place or meditating of what this place is all about we were thinking about uh how we should uh try to manifest not manifest really how we should I don't know what is the proper world in English for this but try to reveal the beauty of the Lord.
The beauty is already there. It manifests in this world in so many different aspects. The world is essentially beautiful. We can see those who have eyes, they can see the beauty of the Lord everywhere.
But unfortunately, there are so many other things in this world which sometimes uh overshadow the beauty, the original beauty which has created this world.
So the humble attempt to construct this retreat center is not just re about the retreat centered. It's not about the running uh guest house and getting some money. Uh that's not the idea.
The idea is to reveal the beauty of the Lord in its uh uh multifarious aspects. All different uh aspects of uh the divine beauty and this is the place where we're supposed to serve this divine beauty.
Restoring original beauty of Vraja
Therefore it's called Sri Rupa Sevakunj. So So basically why I'm talking about this and why with thought uh that there is a uh dire need for such a place is that originally Vraj is the place of all encompassing beauty.
The Lord Himself is beauty personified, and all the relationship in original Vraja beautiful, all the trees and all the flowers, they all serve and this service make them even more beautiful than uh they are.
And of course cows are the most beautiful creatures.
Uh perhaps you have seen this especially this Gir cows. If I was a bull I would fall in love and then so beautiful really beautiful with the hump and beautiful horns and beautiful big eyes.
So cows are very beautiful if you look at them, how they walk and how they react in this world. So originally Vraj is the place of beauty.
But due to the and of course when Caitanya Mahāprabhu came here five hundred years back in the year 1515, that's the year when he visited Vraj. He also saw the original beauty of this place.
But since that time, five hundred years passed and you only see plastic everywhere. And all kinds of garbage. Unfortunately. Not only of course there are breathtaking beauty still here. And special sweetness is here.
Those people who are used to this place or who are kind of in sync with the vibrations of this place, they can feel the special sweetness no matter what is going on on the surface.
The beauty is definitely here in Vraj, but unfortunately, it's covered up by so many unpleasant things. And for newcomers, it's sometimes a little difficult to relate to the original beauty of this place.
So the idea behind this place was to try to recreate the And therefore in this kuñja where we're sitting now there over
And therefore in this kunch where we're sitting now there over 100, 120 or something different species of trees and plants and flowers, and out of them 75 are mentioned in scriptures in connection with Krishna līlā.
And we try to bring all these plants here, and eventually we will explain the role of every tree and plant and flower in Krishna's līlā.
There will be QR codes and we will uh use uh the uh Kali Yuga uh means of uh explaining or giving this information.
But uh in in any case uh this is just subsidiary thing, but uh the original idea is to create a place where the beauty is very visible, where you don't have to dig it out from the garbage pile.
Calming the mind through meditation
And in this way to help people to meditate on the beauty of the Lord. Because again, what is service? What is seva? Seva means meditation. Service means meditation. That's the original meaning of the word meditation, dhyana.
When something is very beautiful, you naturally meditate on this beauty. You're fixed on this beauty, you want to see this beauty.
And uh we of course, know the descriptions from the scriptures how people who would see Krishna they would go deep into the meditation on his beauty and couldn't take away their eyes, their looks from the beauty of Krishna.
So again, the idea here is to facilitate meditation.
Different modes of material nature they can either distract us from meditation and what we see in Kali Yuga it's mostly different manifestations of the modes of ignorance and passion. Especially in the big cities, if you go to the big city, you only see passion and of course nowadays a lot of ignorance in these big cities. But when you go to the nature, then your mind is naturally calm.
Sattva-guna enters into your mind, and sattva-guna is the only mode of material nature, is the only guna which helps meditation, which helps us to go deeper.
And you cannot enter Vṛndāvana without meditation. You cannot really understand what is Vṛndāvana or feel what is Vṛndāvana without going deeper and without calming out your mind.
So the idea of this place is to facilitate this calming down of the mind. To make the mind completely peaceful, and by making mind completely peaceful, to help all the people who are coming here to meditate deeply
on the divine beauty and hopefully come in direct contact with divine beauty because this material world is nothing but reflection, a perverted reflection of the divine beauty of the Lord.
So that's the idea of this place and therefore the very first retreat which you have uh whatever you look at it uh honour to be a part of or misfortune to be a part of depending on the amount of uh inconveniences which you will encounter.
But uh it's not without reason that this first retreat uh in this place will be about meditation and how to enter Vrindavan.
Learning from Akrura's journey to Vrindavan
We will speak about the process of meditation and our guide uh in this meditation on Krishna will be Akrura. Of course the name of Akrura is uh quite uh terrifying
for the inhabitants of Vṛndāvana. They don't like to hear this name. But at the same time, Akrura is a very special personality and all
the ācāryas who write commentaries on the 10th skandha of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam they stress that he is a great devotee. And we have to learn a lot from him.
But the most important lesson which we should learn from him is how to meditate upon Krishna, to meet him at the end of journey.
So this beautiful journey of Akrura to Vṛndāvana from Mathurā is also a description of our own journey. We are coming from the foreign land and
the idea of this journey is ultimately to enter Vṛndāvana. And enter Vṛndāvana doesn't mean that you got your room in the guest house.
Entering Vṛndāvana means meeting Krishna. Only then if you meet Krishna face to face you will be able
to proudly say that I entered Vṛndāvana. Before you met Krishna, you didn't enter Vṛndāvana. You're just crawling on the surface of Vṛndāvana. There are so many bugs here, so uh no problem.
They're also part of this Vṛndāvana, but, uh, ultimately, and that's the idea. And you can only meet with Krishna if you're focused, if you're concentrated, if your mind is uh very uh cool and peaceful.
Like in the very beginning of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the very fourth verse of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, after three introductory verses, is speaking about, uh, Bhagavatam, after three introductory verses, is speaking about uh Naimiṣāraṇya-kṣetra, and the commentators explain why Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam was pulled for the first time, not for the first time, but why it was retold by Sūta Gosvāmī in Naimiṣāraṇya.
And they explained that the very word Naimiṣāraṇya means this is the place where the chakra of our mind stops.
To understand Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, to understand anything which is related to the divine realm, you need to stop the rotation of your mind.
When the mind is rotating passionately non-stop, we don't have access to the divine realm. The only way to access the divine realm is to stop the mind.
And, of course, uh Govardhana is the best place. I remember I sometimes tell this story, one very passionate rich person came here, and we took him for Govardhana Parikrama.
And in the middle of Govardhana Parikrama, he just stopped. And he said, I can't believe it. And we're looking at him, what he cannot believe.
He said, I can't believe it. And he repeated it third time, I can't believe it. My mind stopped. I-I-I couldn't believe it. My mind is always uh rotating.
But here, he, uh, uh, in a very natural way. And and uh it was so surprising to him, it was practically miraculous to him that he came for the second time here.
As busy as he is with all his you know millions of uh things to do, he came again here and he said again, it happened again here. So this place in itself is very conducive for this.
This place in itself where Govardhan is in his deep meditation on Krishna and Krishna līlā.
If you come close to Govardhana, a little closer, and, uh, there is a facility to come close, you practically could feel that he's there, he is alive and he's meditating very deeply. He is in Samadhi. So this place itself is very conducive for meditation.
But of course, there are so many distractions also. And uh uh what I want to say uh is that uh everything which we are trying to do and uh we're actually begging you to help us to help in a sense to contribute a little
bit into this beauty by your smiles, by relationship which you enter. By everything which is beautiful. As I said, beauty is a very big word. And there are so many dimensions and uh aspects of beauty.
So by being here, please try to contribute to the beauty of this place. And the most em the most beautiful thing which you could do is just to smile. It's very simple. Just smile and immediately you become very beautiful.
Uplifting consciousness and internal peace
Your face uh shines by the smile. So but everything in the human culture actually is there to elevate the consciousness. The real human culture is to help us to uplift the consciousness.
The architecture, the purpose of architecture, the real architecture is to uplift consciousness. Of course, when you come to some apartment in some building in San Francisco, it's not necessarily uplift your consciousness.
But originally the purpose of everything of the human culture is to uplift the consciousness of human beings. So that's what we are trying to do. We're trying to have a beautiful architecture here.
We're trying to ultimately build a beautiful temple. Now we they're in process of inviting Rādhā and Krishna in this beautiful temple, they are manifesting themselves in Jaipur.
And the real beauty again uh calms your mind, uh brings uh down the anxieties of the mind and the uh all different disturbances which are there in the mind and desires.
So I will consider our retreat a big success. If by the end of this retreat, you will become much more peaceful and calm and happy as a result of it. So I will inspect every one of you.
I will look at your faces and try to see what was the effect of uh this uh event. Let's hope that it will work.
So that's basically little introduction to this place and to the topic which uh I will uh speak on and uh I'm sure Madhavananda Prabhu will help me in this regard by taking you to different beautiful spots in Braj and nearby places.
And uh tomorrow the first lecture, the introductory lecture uh to this retreat will be given by uh his holiness Sachi-nandana Swami is writing his book for many years about meditation, two books about meditation.
And he said to me uh a couple of days back when we spoke, that I consider this book my final contribution.
So he attributes a lot of importance to this book and we were talking about this how in our desire to please and to serve uh we passionate people of Kali Yuga sometimes uh misunderstand that ultimately we have to calm down and go deeper and deeper and deeper to get the real spiritual experience.
Without calming the mind, without bringing the mind into a sacred space, we will not be able to achieve the spiritual experience.
Sometimes people are trying to do it by some imagination. And of course the mind is very fertile.
And they think if I read the book and then I start imagining something and then I become some uh kiṅkarī-mañjarī or something like this. with my ekādaśī-bhāva.
So uh uh that's not the way the way is to calm down the mind, uh to chant the holy name in a very humble and peaceful state of mind.
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare. And remember the pastimes of Krishna. And uh and yeah, Akrura will explain what we should do.
This 38th chapter of the 10th Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is very glorious and very deep and has many, many lessons for all of us.
So Sachi-nandana Swami will uh uh give the introductory lecture tomorrow and from uh the day after tomorrow I will give a few lectures on this topic and uh let's hope that the magic will happen.
Thank you very much, Hare Krishna.