Love For God and Others

First and foremost, I humbly offer all my respects to my spiritual teacher, Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa Prabhupad, who thought me what real love is. Without Him, I know nothing. I also offer my respects to all the saintly teachers, especially Lord Jesus Christ who declared that one must love God, the Supreme Father with all our heart, mind and entire being. And like unto it love His other children.

Love for others must come from love for God. It is the natural way. Some people claim that they can love others without even believing in the existence of God, but eventually they should be able to come to the point of asking what or who gives them the joy of loving. Did it come from love, which is a vague and abstract idea or entity? Did we make ourselves happy? Did those whom we had helped made us happy? Can we even make ourselves happy only by sheer will power? If so then why do we have to get out of our way to find happiness in loving others?

The conclusion of saintly teachers is this: when God is pleased with us we experience sublime joy. When we are loving His children, God, the Father of all living entities, is pleased with us and we experience joy.

Love for God must come first, as declared by Lord Jesus Christ, because it is the proper way. As rain can be produced by seeding clouds, the natural process of evaporation and precipitation, as conducted by nature, is far more superior. Thus, we can make believe that we are loving others even without loving God, but such “love” and the concept of “others” is dubious. Without love for God, so-called love for others is driven by different things. It could be out of anything: pity, patriotism, loneliness, hunger for glory and fame, self-righteousness, etc. And this so-called love is directed to many different concepts of “others.” “Others” may refer to a certain type of race, species, name, form, color, denomination, etc. That’s why we have patriots who love others i.e. their countrymen, collected as a nation. We have environmentalists who love others i.e. whales, pandas, gorillas, etc. We have so-called public servants who love others i.e. their constituents or possible voters. We have philanthropists who love others i.e. living entities in human form.

When it is said that God is the Father of all living entities, it means all living entities regardless of physical differences of form, color, species, political boundaries, etc. God, being the Father of all living entities, naturally loves each and every single one of His children in whatever form they are in (whether they are inside a body of a maggot or the president of a country). Love for others therefore is to love every single one of God’s children. To appreciate this, we must be able to see God as our Father, and we must be able to see others as our brothers. But to actually achieve this love for others, we must be able, not only to see, but to actually love God as our Father in order for us to actually love His children as our brothers. This is simple science. This is real love for others without boundaries. This is love beyond the material garb of the living entity which is inside a certain body. At the same time this is also knowing the real identity of the other person, that he is not his body but the person inside the body.

One must be able to taste love for God to know the difference. Love for others in itself can offer a slight, albeit fleeting, taste of happiness or fulfillment to a person, but it can never compare to the happiness and satisfaction in loving others a lover of God feels. In fact, one just needs to love God, and love for others automatically follows. One cannot love God and hate others, one cannot factually love others while hating God. It is like separating wetness from water, it is not possible. When one is tasting love for God, his entire being is flooded with ecstasy. He becomes, just like a prism hit by a single ray of sunlight, an explosion of light. He sees everything in relation to his beloved; he sees His beloved in everything. An ant crawls up his foot, he does not see the little creature as a threat, instead he understands that this little fellow is a brother, a person like him caught in the web of birth and death. He sees everything animate and inanimate as his Lord’s property, thus he does not use them for his own selfish motives, instead he tries to engage them in the loving service of his Lord. This is love for God, this is love for others founded upon love for God.

My teacher said: A person can only be truly happy, truly satisfied when he is tasting love for God (and from that, love for others). The easiest way to come to the transcendental platform of love for the Lord is by regularly hearing and chanting His Holy Names, Gopala, Govinda, Rama, Madana-Mohana, Krishna, Allah, Jehova, etc. Haribol!

There are no roaches in America

I was a kid when I heard from someone that in America there are no rats or roaches. That it was a very clean place, you can almost lick the sidewalks. Being a little older than me, and a boy who is cool enough to already wear trousers, I took the person who said this as an authority and his statement as truth. And for a long time I believed it as all in all. Eventually when the dazzling effulgence of coolness diminished and I being a trouser-wearing kid myself, I found out the “real” truth. But to give that person the benefit of a doubt of being just a complete liar, I think he was only able to come up with that statement because his actual experience of America was of a theme park where his parents took him for a trip. The place was in America alright, and true enough the park had no rats or roaches and the mock sidewalks seem to have just been painted the other day. So given these givens, my man concluded that yes, America is so clean. Having limited vision, not to mention limited brain power, there’s no way for him of knowing what is outside the theme park. That in fact just a few meters from the park entrance there is a water drain and underneath it is an ecosystem of six legged and four legged species of vermin. And being distracted by the goodies he got from the gift shops the real grimy sidewalks outside escaped his attention. As far as the limits of his human facility, what he reported was all the truth he can muster. But it is not the actual truth, just because he said it. His imperfect senses are not the proper vessels of the truth, so what he professed cannot be accepted, in other words it is false. Absolutely, America is not a clean place, and America has rats and roaches, and if you want to lick its sidewalks be my guest. 

In the big league there still are those who play as cool, trouser-wearing men among trouser-wearing men.  These guys love to tell you truths they gathered from big kids’ theme parks, accessible only by rocket ships and telescopes on mountain tops. Like my childhood friend, they never seem to lay off the habit of saying “there’s nothing there.” “No roaches and rodents here. Yes, sir. If there were, I should’ve seen them by now.” So they tell us, wide-eyed kids on old men’s trousers: “There is no God. Only human determination.”  And we nod, because they are so cool with their messy hair and spectacles with lenses thick as an electron microscope. Nobody is smart enough to ask: have you guys been to every part of the universe, and actually saw everything? Have you guys even ever been to every single place in the planet earth? But we give our faith to Mr. Science Man. I mean, how can you doubt? Is it even possible that a shred of lie can come out of a leather-bound science book written by PHD such and such?  And when someone expresses it in formulas isn’t that synonymous with The Truth? And the truth can’t be wrong right? Because they are scientists, they are disciples of Science, and science means truth. They invented the gadam computer right, and the computer is never wrong. And I heard science can explain everything, including why the moon is not made of green cheese. Scientists, I heard never tell a lie, it’s like their secret code, a creed of honesty. What they see is what they profess. They have such perfect vision thanks to their very scientific spectacles. But what about this book that says about everything being created by someone? What about that? I have a whole stack of creation stories in my private libe, under the mythic nonsense category.  Jesus, the truth, the way and the life, who is that? It’s like these silly books saying Odin will slay frost giants, and I’ve not seen frost giants. I mean is there even evidence that Jesus is a real person, come on. Show me. Epics. Myths. Mine is a science book, yours is a story book. Are you willing to build your life upon some Homer of the Far east? There’s no God, if there is, show me. Show me if there are roaches in America, show me a filthy American sidewalk. I dare you. And we do a standing ovation in some big hall in Sweden. Well said Mr. Science Man, I give you my heart and soul (oh, wait, there is no such thing as soul). We sleep soundly at night, dreaming “There’s nothing out there.” And we live peacefully in life shutting our eyes seeing nothing. Just simply living, and then dying and become nothing. The end.

Happy Father's Day Bastard

There's a bully at school and his name is Science. Actually that's just what's written on his name plate--a nickname--for his real name is Nescience. He thinks he knows and understands me and thus judges and criticizes me by calling me names. Big Bang Baby. The Great Accident. Primodial soup boy. Etc. He especially looks forward to this day just to say to my face "Happy father's day, bastard." He theorized that because he never saw my Father during Family days, PTA meetings, school affairs (only my mother attends) I must be fatherless. I must have just popped up inside my mother's womb from an accidental collision of dead matter which somehow became life. And that's why he thinks it's funny. I am an accident of chance. That's what he believes. And that's what he tells other kids. So they all call me bastard. But no one except my mother will ever know who my father is. Only my mother can factually tell if he exists or not. She knows who he is, where he lives, what he looks like, what his name is. No matter how hard Science tries to look in this school, in every family occasion he will never know or even see my father. For even if he appears in front of him, Science cannot know my father. He is so convinced he absolutely understands my father's non-existence. 

As much as you love yourself

Jesus Christ said that the first and foremost commandment is that we love God, our Father, with all our heart, mind, and entire being. And second is that from that love, we should also love His other children. 

This is the essence of all spiritual teachings: Love God and love others. It should be in this exact order. Love God is  first and foremost, and love others is the second commandment. Jesus did not arrange these two commandments according to this sequence without reason. The ordering is most important. One has to love God first, before he can factually love others. When one is loving God, he automatically loves others. But loving others alone cannot bring one to the point of love for God. And without tasting actual happiness of love for God one cannot love others in the truest sense. There are those who consider themselves humanists, another term for atheist, who do a lot of humanitarian work but does not love, or even believe, in God. They claim they can love others even without the need for a god. Whether their love for others is genuine or not is not for me to judge. I leave this issue for our brother atheist-humanist and death to discuss, when the truth will be resolved and revealed. 

To factually love others, one has to realize what they need; to give them what they really need we must know what will make them happy; to know what can make them really happy, we must know what they really are. The truth is revealed by saintly teachers and supported by scriptures: our true identity is spirit; we are not our body, we are not our mind; we are parts and parcels of the Supreme Spirit, God; our position is the dominated; and our function is to render loving service. When we know this then we can appreciate our connection to God and His children. It is said that God is the Supreme Father of every single living entity, from the highest being down to the lowly ant. Therefore every living entity, all life for that matter, is our kin. They are all children of God. Undoubtedly, acting upon concern for others is a laudable act. It is in a way pleasing to God. That explains the happiness we get out of loving. When God is pleased with us we experience joy, when God is displeased with us we experience misery. 

For most of us, "others" refer to different things. Usually, it signifies blood relations, the parents, siblings of our bodies, extending at most to further degrees of body kinship, cousins, etc. These are the easiest "others" to love. Naturally, for in fact they are not really "others" per se but merely the extensions of this form which we call our "self." My father, my brother, my dog, my lawn. Have you ever experienced that instance when you felt hurt when someone scratched your car? As if the car is a part of your body. You scratched me! You bumped me! So on. That's basically what I'm talking about. This chain of "my" can even progress beyond blood relations, into my friends, my classmates, my teammates, my workmates, my neighbor, my doctor, my townmate, so on. "If you mess with my BFF, you're messing with me." It seems so easy to love others as long as these "others" are in some way part of our little chain: my others. If Ms. Houston would allow me to correct her song, I'd sing "learning to love yourself is the easiest love of all." My fellow countrymen, my fellow females, my fellow brown skin. Yes, our idea of love for others may rise so high, farthest in bodily relation from our so-called self that we may think "look how unrelated I am to this famished boy, yet I am feeding him from my own hands." But at the back of our head our mind is saying, he is my same species, he is still within the chain of my  "others". 

And what is our reward for this gesture, aside from feeling good and proud about oneself? If we only got ourselves to please, then we have the commendation, the gratitude, the admiration and worship of people for us to relish. For most who help, that becomes the source of happiness. That is why in this world, it seems necessary to give away thousands of awards, titles and medals for kindness, charity, and so-called selfless activities even when in truth if we really are loving, simply the love should've been itself the prize. Will charitable institutions help anonymously? That's  perhaps the reason why they have names, right? (And there are those issues about scams regarding philanthropy, but that's a different subject.) Except for exploiting humanitarian work for profit, to be concerned like this is, of course, way better than not feeling concern at all. In times of desperation, we are not really so much into the means but with the result. And all kinds of humanitarian acts, irregardless of for whom it was performed, are most welcome, and necessary. 

One may ask: if naturally we can feel concern only for those within the chain of our body extensions, why not just expand our circle until everyone is in it? Then we'll be concerned for everyone. Even if that is possible, this kind of love, irregardless whether for a few relatives or thousands of displaced storm survivors, if it still remains in the chain of my others, is still dependent on certain things: Conditions. Even between intimate relations, there are certain conditions that determine so-called love: If she continues to act according to what is acceptable behavior to you then you love your wife, if he continues to provide you with your needs then you love your husband, if they continue to understand your need for independence then you love your parents, etc. This is what we call conditional love. A love based on "if"s. A love whose only concern is one person, himself. This is Whitney Houston philosophy after all: "the greatest love of all is to love oneself." As opposed to what saintly teachers preach: Love God, love others.  Now, some people deserve the benefit of a doubt. And for those who give away selflessly, no awards, no TV cameras, just giving for the sake of goodness, then we take our hats off. But if one actually loves God, he will have this vision that all living entities, not just humans, are spirit souls, parts and parcels of God. He will then realize that we have a common Father, therefore every being, other than ourselves, or the extensions of ourselves, is a relative, brother, kin. If he gets this vision of who he really is, and who others really are, and what relationship we have with our common Father, then there's no need to artificially take everyone in our circle of concern. If we are seeing every living entity as spirit soul, children of God, then the love and concern comes naturally. The difference is plain simple: in the first one, the center is God; in the other the center is you. 

And how exactly is it to love others? To simply give away food and clothing after a storm? To help someone change a tire? To be concerned out of pity. Yes, these are all good. Like I've said a little kindness is way better than a lot of meanness. But by our kindness are we really giving the ultimate goodwill to a person in need? Are we addressing the real need of a person? It seems that the answer will always revert to the truth of our identity: we must know who we are. We are spirit souls, parts and parcels of God. What we need is spiritual food, to taste an exchange of love with the Supreme Soul. No matter how much help we give to a person, if that help is simply directed to the body, the relief one gets from that is just a band aid solution. It is a relief, a gasp of air while drowning, but it will not last. Give him relief food, he'll eat for a day. We need food, shelter and all the basics, and by all means these must be provided. But we have to remember that simply providing these things will make someone happy for a awhile, but a profound hunger still gnaws in his heart: he is unsatisfied, lonely, empty. He needs a shelter which no storm can bring down. No amount of material thing can satisfy the soul. So if one plans to take the path of happiness by material means, then the road ahead of him is not only long, it is not only endless, but its fruitless. 

Love God, love others, all the saintly teachers agree is the real path to real happiness. And loving others here should not only be referred to as humanitarian work. Like what was previously said, it is not even supposed to be exclusive to living entities inside a human body only. But love as what it really means. A love that is beyond conditions, a love that is beyond material bodily considerations. Love for others here is a love that surfaces not only after storms or calamities, but it endeavors everyday to get everyone out of the greatest calamity of all time: suffering birth, old age, disease, and death. It is a love that has been always there in our hearts, sleeping, covered by a false love that is merely love for one's self. This love is our very essence. 

Simply put, my teacher taught, real love for others is loving them at least as much as how you love yourself. This may not be so easy as it sounds. It is actually setting aside your own wellbeing for the wellbeing of others. It is demoting yourself from first to last place. Now how easy it is to sacrifice one's place in the rat race? As easy as how anger or envy shoots up when someone takes your seat, or your job or your lover. Loving others is a vast ocean to cross, but when we are already loving God, then love for others is achieved as easy as crossing over a puddle made from a calf's hoof-print. 

Goal of life

As laid down by past saintly teachers, such as Jesus Christ, the goal of life is so simple: Love God; Love others. 

When one has achieved this, there's nothing more to be gained. When the Supreme Lord is pleased with us, life is smooth. Problems will come, but one can overcome them like crossing over a puddle of water on a calf's hoof-print instead of a vast, turbulent ocean. 

This love can only be achieved by the mercy and guidance of a lover of God, the spiritual teacher, like Jesus, who is a well-wisher of all living entities, and who is therefore free of envy towards anyone. If we can realize our helplessness to disentangle ourselves from the miseries of material existence, and approach such teacher with humility and sincerity, then he'll be able to teach us the path of devotion, love for God, or bhakti. 

My teacher taught me that the easiest way to come to the platform of love for the Lord is by regularly hearing and chanting His Holy Names. 

There is only one God, but He has countless number of names like Krishna, Govinda, Jehovah, Allah, etc. All These Names are invested with all His transcendental potencies. In this present age of quarrel and confusion, the scriptures recommend the hearing and chanting of God's Holy Names as the only way to achieve the perfection of life which is love for God and love for others. 

Haribol! Chant the Holy Names of God!

God is beautiful

Whenever people see this picture of Govinda, God, they are most usually astonished, aside from His being blue, or His wearing jewelry, by the fact that He is beautiful. They would say, why? And I would kid them, why not? Then they would say that it's very hard to believe for God to actually look like this amazing person. And I'd say, He is God and He wants all of us to love Him, He's supposed to be amazing. After this volley of innocent inquiries, a few actually hit a sensible question which is a great opportunity to discuss the further glories of God. Questions like "How did you know God looks like that?" "Who told you He actually looks like that?" etc. 

Aside from the Holy Bible there are other scriptures which similarly contain truths directly revealed by God or as told by His devotees. From the Bible however we are not given a very detailed description of God, Who is simply described as an ocean of light, or a burning bush; in the Qu'ran, it is even considered bad to describe the Lord. These conditions do not make these scriptures false or less important, but to get a better picture, we have to resort to other scriptures that actually describe God in a more detailed manner. Scriptures like Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhagavad Gita and Brahma Samhita, provide us with authoritative facts regarding the name, form, abode and activities of the Supreme Lord. In these scriptures we get to know not only what God looks like, how He smells, what color are His palms, etc., but also His exact address, who lives with Him there, and what His favorite activities are. 

Therefore scriptures like Srimad Bhagavatam and Bhagavad Gita are like a mother, and God is our Father Who we have not yet seen. Naturally, the only person who can tell us truthfully about a father we have never seen is our mother. So we regard scripture as an authority about God. If we don't believe in God then we got nothing to talk about. But if one believes in the existence of God, and believes that the scriptures are His words, then he cannot deny scripture as a proper foundation for this belief. 

What God looks like as described in the scriptures is the absolute truth. Fortunately, there are three ways to check whether something is the absolute truth or not. Aside from scripture; there is guru, or the pure devotee of God and knower of the actual conclusion of scripture; then God Himself as the Lord in the heart. One can know if something is the truth or not by sifting it through These three. It is an absolute necessity that all three must be in agreement. Scripture alone is dangerous without the other two, for we are left to rely on our own imperfect understanding. Hearing from guru only without checking scriptures is similarly unwise, for we are presenting ourselves open for exploitation by false gurus who are merely cheaters and charlatans.  And the danger of simply relying on listening to the Lord in the heart is that it may not be the Lord we are actually hearing, it may just be our mind or something else. 

With scripture, guru, and the Lord Himself within our hearts, being there ready to give us guidance, we must be able to appreciate the fact that God provides all necessary facilities required for us to actually know Him. But sometimes our hearts are so hardened that even God, in His form, or as His holy name, is right there in front of us we doubt Him, His beauty, His opulence, etc. We think, I know what God is supposed to look like. "He's an old guy, right Michelangelo? They said He's the oldest, so I suppose He must have long hair, all white. And I've heard He's the strongest too, so perhaps His body is buff, with six pack abs." That is our mind's idea of God. 

Yes, based on our material body, the oldest has white hair. Based on our material body the strongest is muscular. But that's where the fault of this theory lies. We are judging God according to the material conditions of our bodies. This is all speculation. Based upon ignorance of the absolute truth revealed in scripture clearly saying that God has no material body. That His form is eternal and spiritual. 

I find it ironic that people tend to question the reality of a form that is in fact the only real manifestation in this dimension in a sense  that it will exist beyond the dissolution of this realm. And on the other hand believe firmly the forms of themselves, their loved ones which will eventually disappear in time. God's form is not only beautiful, it is real, it is eternal.  And I tell myself everyday that instead of struggling with the why, to try to realize the plain truth that I know nothing, and that in order for me to know I must approach those who know. I have to place my faith in the fool proof process of the three checkpoints, scriptures, guru, and the Lord in the heart. And They all confirm that God is the most beautiful. He is in fact the source of all beauty. 

But what is more important, my teacher said, is not to see God. For to see God is actually easy. What is better than seeing God is loving God. He concluded that in fact to see God is to love God. Jesus Christ, another authority in God, said that the greatest commandment is that we love God the Father, with all our heart, mind, and entire being. In other words, all saintly personalities agree on this conclusion. God made it so easy for us to love Him. He is the most beautiful. He is supremely lovable. Now it is only up to us to open our hearts and love Him. 

The greatest gift God gave us this day and age is His Holy Names. God and His Holy Names are non-different. His Holy Names are as beautiful as God. And when one chants His Holy Names, he easily comes to the platform of love for the Lord. Therefore it is stressed in scripture that there is no other way in this age of quarrel and confusion but to chant the Holy Names. Haribol!

Most fallen

Every morning, I make it a habit to meditate upon all the wrong I had done to others. I go over them one by one, starting with the people closest to me, my family, my relatives, my friends. Doing this, I realize, and am reminded in the process, that I had inflected pain on almost all of them in one way or another. Then I go over the people outside my intimate circle, people I had encountered in school, in work, or just someone walking by the street. I try to recall what I may have done. There are so many people I have hurt, so much pain inflicted, and that's just for my classmates in elementary school. And what about all the people who didn't even know that I've offended them? Like mentally criticizing a person walking by, or talking stink behind someone's back, or taking advantage of someone while they are unaware. And that's just for human beings. As a kid, how many dogs, cats, have I kicked with or without reason? How many times have I burned down or flood up an anthill? How many times have I roasted dragon flies on a stake or ripped them apart just to see how they'd react? How many murdered animals have I consumed in my lifetime? And that's just when I was a kid. A lot of living entities have suffered, a lot of hearts were broken because I got none. 

But the worse thing is that in spite of all I had done, I can still make myself believe that I am holy, I am better than others, I have the right to judge, I am sinless. And that is my disease. This is the reason why I am not tasting love for God and others. This arrogance hardened my heart. A hard heart that is so quick to anger, so masterful in defending one's pride. A heart so sensitive to faults by others but so tolerant of his own faults. 

My teacher said that this anger towards those who have done us wrong comes from the feeling that we are worthy. That we deserve better. We deserve to be treated with more respect. We deserve a better situation. Etc. And this is also possible only because of our forgetfulness of our own faults. I am faultless therefore it is only right that I be treated with the manner according to my greatness. 

Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in His 3rd prayer, clearly stated the qualifications of a great personality: he is humble, he is tolerant, he is always ready to offer all respect to others without expecting respect in return, and he is feeling lower than the straw in the street. In other words, this person described feels he is the most unqualified, the most sinful, the most fallen. When one is in this state of mind, my teacher continued, no matter what wrong or evil may come to him he will feel no anger.  Because he is always aware of his faults, he feels in his heart that the wrongs he had done to others far surpasses the wrongs he is suffering. Therefore he feels he deserve, not to have a better situation, but the suffering he is receiving. Being in this state of mind of feeling the most fallen, feeling the most unqualified, he is actually qualified. 

When we become angry at our situation, or hold anger towards somebody, my teacher further stated, we are eventually angry at God, because He is the Supreme controller. Why did He allow this to happen to me of all people? Why did He allow jerks to walk the earth? Etc. In this way, feeling that God is our enemy we are denied of the opportunity to experience being under His shelter by loving surrender: I am the most fallen, I have no where else to go, with my sins no one can love me unconditionally like You do, You are my only rest and refuge, please protect me. 

A blessed day

Most people believe that in this day and age, it is easier to find a needle in a haystack than to find a person who is without envy. Because of the fruitlessness of the search they simply give up and say that perhaps no such a person exists. In fact because enviousness is so common in everyone, some even think that to be envious is actually good to some extent. It serves, as some would put it, as spice to our endeavors. It helps to drive a person to achieve, to struggle, to succeed. 

Today is a most glorious day. Because today I have known a person who I can say is free of envy. While it is easy for most people to declare "I'm not envious," for the sake of simply showing people how holy one is, the actual state of freedom from enviousness naturally surfaces as symptoms of related behaviors like humility, tolerance and respectfulness. When these are present then most likely envy is not. I have already heard from people the glories of this person's character, and it has been my constant prayer that I'd also be able to see, even just a glimpse, what they had seen in him that was so great. Today I felt that God finally answered my prayer. I have come to a sort of an affirmation of belief. 

I am an envious person, and although I am suffering from it, I'm completely clueless of how to get the feeling out of my heart. It comes automatically. I feel it is beyond my power to rid myself of this disease of envy. But listening to him today, something in my heart tells me that "this is the person who can teach me how not to be envious ever again." I've heard him talk many times as a teacher, and I politely listened like a regular student, but I believe it is only today that I have trully appreciated, and in the depths of my being accepted a Teacher. 

The amazing thing was that what he had said was not really something new even, he had been telling me those things long before. In a different manner, he reiterated the principle of humility, of feeling oneself to be lower than the straw in the street as an absolute requirement in attaining success in spiritual life. A person who actually feels he is lower than the dirt in the ground cannot be envious. He is not envious because he cannot find in himself the feeling that he is a worthy person. He feels instead that he is the most fallen, the most undeserving of respect, and the lowest. Ordinary people may say that they also feel that same way, that they feel that people are above them. Yes, people may also feel that way, especially if in truth they are actually that way: most fallen. But instead of humility what they will feel is envy towards those above them, because they feel they deserve to be above, they feel they deserve respect, etc.  After all, isn't it a basic human right to be protected from being belittled or insulted based on his low status? But the feeling of being the lowest, felt by a truly humble person doesn't necessarily come from being the most sinful or the most wretched, but is out of the grace of God and the mercy of His devotee. Only by the grace of God and the mercy of His pure loving servant can we overcome enviousness and the arrogance borne out of pride. We cannot simply immitate or cheat other people, for the sake of collecting followers or admirers, into believing that we are humble or that we are without envy. Eventually, because we are not getting any happiness from pretending, the hiding behind the mask will exhaust us. 

If one wants to be free of the envy that poisons the heart with anger, jelousy, arrogance and other inauspicious elements, then one must simply look for a person who has already freed himself from all these things, accept him as a teacher, render some service unto him, and surrender at his feet all one's self-centered notions about life, and instead approach as someone who doesn't know. That is the proper way of learning how to be free not only of envy but of all other undesirable things in one's life that hinder us from tasting real happiness. 

Beg forgiveness

Today is Ekadasi, an auspicious day for advancement in spiritual endeavors. Today is a good day to meditate upon our faults and offenses against others. In His 3rd prayer, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu instructed us how to really chant the Holy Names: be respectful, be tolerant, and be humble. I am the most fallen, I am the most sinful, I am the most unworthy, this should be our state of mind. 

So today, I beg forgiveness for all I have offended in my mind and in my actions. I ask forgiveness from my pet fish who I sometimes neglect. I ask forgiveness from the plants, especially Tulsi, who I forget to water. I ask forgiveness from the little insects I have squished, intentionally or otherwise. I ask forgiveness from the dogs waiting for their food. I ask forgiveness from the cows, the pigs, the chickens, consumed in my house, and I just tolerated it. I ask forgiveness from Mother Earth for my greed and carelessness. 

I ask forgiveness for the people around me whom I disrespected: for judging and criticizing them; for not receiving them politely and making them comfortable; for neglecting their wellbeing, their health and their happiness; for thinking bad about them, for talking stink behind their back, for using them as amusement in gossip, for making fun of them. I ask forgiveness for destroying their trust, for taking lightly their love, for not being thankful for their efforts. I ask forgiveness from them for not working harder to give them the real happiness of love for God. I ask forgiveness for seeing them as bodies, as objects of my pleasure, instead of what they really are: spirit souls, part and parcel of the Supreme Soul, God, whose real function is to please Him, not me. 

I ask forgiveness for all the people who have given their lives to the Lord, including those who are trying to come to that state, for not desiring their association, for feeling anger at their advice, for envying their advancement, for finding, judging and criticizing their faults, for neglecting their wellbeing. 

I ask forgiveness, most of all, from Govinda, God, Who is the Father of all living creatures, Who loves all His children more than they can ever love their very selves, and to His confidential loving servant Who is the well-wisher of all living entities. When we hurt someone, like a mother to her dear child, Govinda's delicate heart is pierced. When this happens, we lose all attraction to God and we stray further into the darkness of material existence. 

Thus, our relationship with others must not be taken lightly. From the greatest living entity down to a simple ant, we must give all respect, all tolerance, all our love. Because God loves them. We must especially give respect and love to those who are dedicating their lives to God. As pleasing them will make God happy, displeasing them similarly makes God displeased. 

In the end, let Jesus' commandment guide us in this matter: Love the Supreme Lord with all your heart, mind, and entire being. And like unto it, love others. If we can make this instruction our life and soul, this will make Govinda very happy, and in turn will give us perfection in life. 

Haribol!

Smile

I was chanting on my beads and Radha was on the other side of the room playing  with her dolls. I opened my eyes just in time when Radha was about to put something on the floor. Our eyes met for sometime. And just to annoy her I smiled at her, an exaggerated smirk in fact to hit the point. Then she did the most unexpected thing. She responded with a smile. It was that small disarming smile she uses whenever she breaks something important or she left her umbrella in school, again. I was surprised. She was normally indifferent, sometimes indignant even, to my teasings. But now she responded. I was happy already just being with her, but to be able to force out a smile from her is like a blessing. So although the moment was brief, one breath-length at most, I was awed. What had just happened? I asked the universe.

Then I remembered the smile of Govinda, God, Who loves us so dearly and Whom we should also dearly love with all our heart, mind, and entire being. This according to all saintly teachers is the only way to real happiness, peace and satisfaction in this world.  In my heart sprang a prayer for us all, that before we come to the end of our lives, I pray that we constantly see Govinda's beautiful face smiling at us, and in the depth of our hearts we be able to smile back in love. 

Haribol

Jesus' Greatest Commandment

A Christian Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ's clear and unambiguous instruction was that we love God, the Father with all our heart, mind, body and entire being. And like unto it, love His other children as much as we love ourselves. (Mathew 22:37)

My Teacher, who is a loving servant and follower of this instruction of Lord Jesus Christ, thus His bona fide representative, instructed me: 

A person can only be truly happy, truly satisfied when he is tasting love for God.

The easiest way to come into that transcendental platform of love for the Lord

is by regularly hearing and chanting His Holy Names.

The bible said: Our help is in the Name of the  Lord. 

Save me of God by thy Name. (Psalm)

"Haribol" means chant, sing, glorify the Holy Names of God. 

Haribol and be happy!

A scene from "Magnolia"

Here's a scene from the film Magnolia where Quiz Kid Donnie Smith robs the electronics shop where he works, to get himself braces (although he has perfect teeth). He desperately wanted braces to connect with the person to whom he is infatuated with, and who happened to have braces. After robbing the store he realized his stupidity and decided to return the money. Climbing up the roof, he fell to the pavement after a rain of frogs hit him in the face. He ended up breaking his teeth--making him actually need the braces. Bleeding and in physical and emotional pain he cried out those words which pretty much verbalized the subtlest of human agonies. But there is someone we can love with all our heart, mind and entire being. If we take a single step to be near to Him, God takes a thousand steps closer.

On watering plants

The day was hot, and the plants were drying up. The kids were just lounging so I asked them to water the Tulsi plants with me. Being first timers they thought watering is just pouring water anywhere in the plant. Most were simply wetting the leaves. So, I showed them where the best place to pour water can be found: at the base of the plant nearest the roots.

While at it, I shared to them an ancient wisdom my teacher told me about watering plants. Living life only for one’s own satisfaction, he said, is like watering the leaves of a plant. No matter how much water we pour into the leaves, the plant will not be benefited. Similarly, when we endeavor to please ourselves, happiness seems to elude us even more, all we get is frustration, pain and anything but pleasure. If we want to be satisfied, saintly teachers, like Jesus, recommend that we live to please the Supreme Lord, the root. He said: You shall love the Supreme Lord, with all your heart, mind, body and entire being. And like unto it, love His other children.  

This is the path to a life of satisfaction. Where is this based upon? It is based upon the absolute truth about our real essence. That we are not our bodies or our minds. We are spirit souls inside these bodies. The body and the mind are just vessels, we are the substance. Being spiritual in essence, we can never be satisfied by things from this world which are mostly matter. What we need, being spirit souls is spiritual food. Food for us is love, not for ourselves but for the Supreme Spirit, God. Only when we love the Supreme Soul, can we be satisfied in our existence as spiritual beings. Only when we love the Supreme Father will we be able to love our brothers. No amount of material wealth, fame, beauty, and power can satiate the longing of the soul for happiness. Only love for the Lord, like what Jesus said, can complete us.

The Stone

Children, remember this stone? This was the thing you were all fighting over in the pool last Sunday. There was a lot of shouting, grabbing each other's hair, bad words, crying. Friendships were jeopardized all for the sake of this little stone. It seemed like your hearts, being too attached to this thing, became like it--hard stone.  The amazing thing was that after swimming none remembered to take it home. Naturally, outside the water, when the play is over, the stone was just any other stone. When you're not too attached to the stone, you can see it as it truly is.


In life too there are stones we fight over. Some are really heavy some are really shiny. Some we really need some we need because of our wants. There are wars because of these stones. When stones are really pretty and shiny it's hard to remember they are just stones. We are tricked like little kids in a pool. We don't notice how it hardens our hearts. We forget they are just stones until we are out of the pool, out of this world of stones. 

In life we need to acquire stuff, for us to maintain our bodies, but we must be able to see that these are just stuff. These are not what life is meant to be. In this world full of miseries in the form of diseases, old age, and death, we are not meant to simply labor for stuff, but to enable us to get out of this miserable existence.

 Only when we realize our true essence will we be able to know what we really need. The truth is that we are spirit not matter, we are eternal spirit-souls in this temporary material body. While we keep the material body alive with material food, we feed the spirit, ourselves in fact, with spiritual food. What does the spirit need? The spirit soul is happy when it is fulfilling its natural function. What is our natural function? Being spiritual beings our happiness is in rendering loving service to the Supreme Spirit, God. That too answers our eternal position which is loving servants. This is not just spiritual life, but this is our real life.

My dear atheist

We must be kind to everyone. And my Spiritual Teacher told me that kindness comes in different forms. We must show kindness even to the atheists by defeating their arguments. Here's something I ripped off from a thread where I had a head to head with an atheist. I usually can tolerate a lot of nonsense in the web but this is a different thing. May God forgive me if I was a little angry. Eventhough He doesn't need me to defend Him in this way, as I am very incapable of parroting my Teacher's wisdom about God, but I pray that he accepts my anger as a circumstance of my love no matter how little it is.

***

To me atheism is not just the belief that there is no God, it is a belief that the atheist is God. The universe cannot exist without a controller. Even science has to admit that a cause is needed to achieve an effect. A bang must have a trigger. Who pulled the trigger? Unless everything is random, everything just happened to appear out of nowhere. So that explains the many patterns all around us. It just so happens that the sun keeps rising in the east and sets in the west. It just so happen that the sun is there and the earth revolves around it with just the right amount of distance. Even a simple leaf that has a system of functional veins has a design. The existence of the designer is there in the design. There is a controller.

Science, the god of the atheist/humanist, may not call it God, but they cannot deny the need for a source. The atheist keeps on asking "But where is God? There is no God, show me where God is". Well, God is a person basically and like any other person, He doesn't force himself to people who doesn't want to see Him. I mean He is the Lord of the Universe and who are we for Him to show Himself just by our sheer whim? It is said that the atheist's vision that there is no God even comes from God Himself. God doesn't need the belief of atheists like some politician campaigning around town: “love me, believe in me.” God does not cease existing just because some atheist thinks so. God is not affected by disbelief, but the non-believer is.

If an atheist is happy in his life even while denying God's existence then it is only due to God's grace. Each one of us, including the atheists can't even digest our own food. We don’t consciously make our hearts beat do we? How can the atheist deny this? What evidence does he have that God is not helping or loving Him? He is breathing air which he did not create right? The only thing they can point out is "God is not here in front of me." But how can they disprove absolutely that there is no God aside from his not being visually present?

Not many of us have ever been to the moon and seen its surface with our own eyes, yet we believe. Who among us here have actually seen a virus with our naked eyes, yet when he gets a flu he believes the invisible cause? The answer is because we believe in certain authorities. I've never been to the US but I’m a fool to say that there is no USA just because I’ve not seen it with my own two eyes. I have to believe people who'd actually been there. I have to believe in their authority.

So it all boils down to belief in authorities. An atheist trusts his own perfection. He believes he is perfectly intelligent, his eyes are perfect that it can see anything, his senses are the valid source for absolute truth. He believes ironically that he is an authority in God, that he can judge His existence or non-existence. Like there are people who had been to the moon, there are people who had seen God. Now can an atheist deny this? How can he say "you have not seen God, because I've not seen him. I know everything, there's simply no possibility anyone can see God because I myself cannot see Him!" That's basically the mindset of an atheist. I know because I was an atheist. He is so full of belief in himself. Jesus said blessed are those who are pure at heart for they will see God. Who can deny this? Only those who are after being pure at heart, have not seen God are actually qualified to question this. Unless you are pure at heart and still God has not appeared in front you will your conclusion be of any value. Jesus is an authority in God just like Neil Armstrong is an authority on the moon. Unless you have been in the moon yourself will you be able to question Armstrong's revelations. Jesus said be pure at heart first.

If you want to see God, if you’re not just so envious of God that you'd actually want to see Him, then strive to purify your heart. And when it is pure enough and still you don't see Him, then be an atheist, but until then, you are just some frog on a well, denying the existence of the ocean.

Haribol, dear friend.