Newsletter March-April 2024
Dear devotees and friends of Goloka Dhama,
Please accept our best wishes, all glories to Srila Prabhupada!
In this newsletter we would like to inform you about the great activities of our Sunday feast team, an inspirational article about Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu (who´s appearance day is this month) by Jaya Sacinandana Prabhu and an article about new beginning from Gaurahari dasa.
Sunday feast team report
Since the beginning of 2023 until today, our Sunday festival has been very well attended. The Sunday festival has been held every Sunday at Goloka Dhama for more than 25 years. And has the special feature of connecting almost all departments in Goloka Dhama. The special effort of each department makes its own contribution...When the garden is beautiful and well maintained and vegetables from the garden can be used, it enhances the success of the Sunday festival. And when Sri Sri Radha Madana Mohana is worshipped with love and the altar is simply radiant, our guests are always delighted. Also the temple store and the many delicious Maha packets in the Maha-shop are always very attractive to our guests. In this way, many devotees contribute to the Sunday festivities. Of course, our weekly Sunday feast would be nothing without devotees from the temple and the community spending many hours in the kitchen to prepare tasty offerings for Sri Krishna. This often attracts guests from more than 100km.
The gift of Lord Caitanya (by Jaya Sacinandana Prabhu)
A little over five hundred years ago Krishna, son of Nanda Maharaja, descended onto this Earth as Lord Caitanya. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, one of our saints, writes that there is no difference between the two, nor is there a difference between Krishna´s pastimes (lila) and Caitanya´s pastimes (lila). Krishna-lila reveals the object of one’s worship – Krishna. Caitanya-lila contains a method of conducting that worship – Prema Bhakti (pure love of God). It would be incomplete to worship without a method. It would be equally deficient to apply the method without knowing the object of worship. The more one reads about the character of Lord Caitanya, the more love for Krishna will arise. Lord Caitanya brought the desire-tree of ecstatic devotional service and became its gardener. He not only showed the method, but He exemplified it in His own life. He acted as a perfect devotee.
In his poem, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura details the spirit of Lord Caitanya´s devotion. Devotees of Krishna neither pray for physical comfort, learning, wealth, or followers of this world, nor are they aiming to reach the heavens in the next. Indeed, they are not even interested in salvation (moksha). Devotees have one prayer and that is, in whatever birth they take, wherever their karma leads them, they simply want to sing the glories of Krishna´s Holy Name. They pray for causeless and uninterrupted devotion to awaken within their hearts. They wish to completely transfer their affection from the objects of the senses to Krishna's lotus feet. They want to remain equipoised in danger or success, good fortune or disaster. Their only desire is to increase their attachment for Him and cherish Bhakti, life after life. In the Siksastakam, Lord Caitanya demonstrates this mood of worship:
“I know no one but Krishna as my Lord, and He shall remain so even if He handles me roughly by His embrace or makes me broken-hearted by not being present before me. He is completely free to do anything and everything, for He is always my worshipful Lord, unconditionally.”
A new beginning
As Spring is knocking at the door, it is very common for people to do a big and thorough cleaning of their houses. A spiritualist will also use this opportunity to ask his/her self about what to change in his/her life. What are the things that I am regularly doing but would like to stop doing. What other things could I do to move towards my deepest aspirations in life. This is a deep exploration of the heart that is not always easy to do. Often pilgrimage or vacations – time when we are out of daily routine – can provide a better environment to address those questions.
Last year I got the chance to pick up Mataji Narayani in Frankfurt airport for her yearly visit in Goloka Dhama. In the car, I took the opportunity of her saintly association to ask her a question. “Will the process of Krsna consciousness remove all the impurities and do we not need to take care of working on our good or bad qualities?”
After a time of reflection, mother Narayani answered that the process of Krsna consciousness in working on two tracks – the positive way of worshiping the Lord (sadhana Bhakti) but we also need to weed the garden of our heart from the bad qualities. Then she ended her answer by saying – the weeding is done with introspection.
We like to end this article with our best wishes for a new beginning and the ability to let go of some of our unnecessary burdens.
The highest goal of life can be achieved as long as one's body is stout and strong. We should therefore live in such a way that we keep ourselves always healthy and strong in mind and intelligence so that we can distinguish the goal of life from a life full of problems. A thoughtful man must act in this way, learning to distinguish right from wrong, and thus attain the goal of life. SB 7.6.5 purport
With our gratitude for your support and on behalf of the community,
Your servant,
Gaurahari dasa