Question: Through a book can you contact the spiritual master???

[Kulapavana]

 

When you bow to Srila Prabhupada are you bowing to an impersonal ideal in your mind personified by Srila Prabhupada or are you bowing to the person of Srila Prabhupada who is also an ideal example of a devotee? I have no doubt you take the personalist approach and accept that he is a living person who is your siksa guru. IOW's you bow to him as your living spiritual master.

 

 

It is actually both. Bowing down to Prabhupada I bow down equally to Sri Guru, who speaks to me through Srila Prabhupada, and I bow down to Prabhupada as a person who took the trouble of becoming Sri Guru's mouth piece. I have the same sentiment when I bow down to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta, or Sridhara Maharaja. To me they are all both alive and departed - still there in sound, but gone in the sense of possibility for an active exchange. I bow down to all of them out of gratitude and appreciation.

[Beggar]

 

I have never suggested anything along the lines of throwing the vapuh out. Who do you say such things Beggar?

 

Time takes the vapuh out of our experience quickly. Srila Prabhupada worked so hard to leave us with tons of vani and he emphasized the vani through his vapuh as more important.

Good point, I agree with your clarification.

[Kulapavana]

 

The only way that we can experience the real vapu is through the vani. But why throw the vapu out with the bath water of the vani? The Truth is always harmonized in the middle, not in the extremes.

 

yes, very much so. we all want both, despite of what some people say.

 

IMO the real guru-disciple relationship is only possible when both vani and vapu are there. That active exchange simply must be there, or this is just a preliminary entry into spiritual life, just like reading a book that brings us closer to Krsna. It is useful and good, but it does not take us all the way.

 

At least this is how it is with me.

[sanatan]

 

The most "personal connection" I have ever made with Prabhupada was through SDG's "Lilamrita" and not through Prabhupada's books. For me Lilamrita was an excellent book. At one time (in late 80's) I went on pilgrimage to New York and re-traced all the places connected to Prabhupada, using the "Planting the Seed" volume of Lilamrita. It was very magical and very real. I felt Prabhupada's presence in those places, even as some experiences were not at all what I expected, like the Tompkins Square Park, which was very small and full of dog poop. Only a New Yorker would call such a place a "park"... Anywan, the overwhelming impression from that trip was: "Prabhupada left Vrajabhumi to come to this hell-hole to deliver people like me...wow! I am so grateful to him for this sacrifice".

 

 

 

Last time I was in NYC was Nov. 1984, on a fun trip with my wife. I had bought the first volume of Lilamrta and read it at that point, but hadn't reconnected sufficiently to desire visiting Srila Prabhupada's pastime locations, and my wife was very "green" about Krishna Consciousness back then.

 

We're going to make a trip up east sometime in the near future, and this time intend to do the SP pilgrimage while in NYC, as you did.

[suchandra]

By Rod Davis

 

Srila Prabhupada: "If you are completely sincere and genuine, then you do not have to find Guru, he will find you".

 

An interesting ISKCON pastime I heard recently in Vrndavana about a hippie in 1966 that used to travel around in Ken Kesey's psychodelic bus dance group, travelling around America handing out Kool-Aid drink laced with LSD and putting on plays in colourful hippie gear that set a trend among the 60's youth. Somehow one of Srila Prabhupada's original Srimad Bhagavatam's was in a small library section on the Kesey bus and read by such future devotee's like Mohanananda dasa. One young hippie on that bus however, was not satisfied in just reading the amazing book Srimad Bhagavatam; he was determined to find the author of this wonderful Vedic text and was prepared to travel all around India until he found this amazing Sadhu if he has too.

When the Bus reached New York, Kesey and the Pranksters visited Leary in Millbrook, NY, at his psychedelic retreat called "The International Federation for Internal Freedom.", it was founded when Leary was fired from Harvard University for doing research with his students on the hallucinogenic drugs LSD-25 and Psilocybin. This young hippie however, stayed on the bus, kept reading the Srimad Bhagavatam, and never did met Leary at that time. Frankly he did not really care, he had had enough of LSD and realized God can NEVER be found in a pill and decided to go on a spiritual quest to India in search of the 'swami' who wrote the Srimad Bhagavatam.

He then decided to leave the merry pranksters and leave for India; he bought a ticket and was on his way to the Kennedy Airport. On the way however, he had sometime to spare and went by Tompkins Square Park to see what the 'acid head hippies' were up to. As he went by in the taxi he saw this big crowd of hippies dancing, he was curious and told the taxi driver to stop, then went over, investigated, and found an elderly sadu leading the chanting of Hare Krishna. He watched with some curiosity as he danced with the other hippies and wondered if the Sadhu he would eventually find in India, who wrote the Srimad Bhagavatam, would be like this Sadhu. Anyway the kirtan stopped and this Sadu began reading from the same book he was reading on ken Kesey's Bus.

Now this young hippie just was even more determined to seek out the writer of the Srimad Bhagavatam seeing this Sadu also reading it. Eventually the reading stopped and this young hippie went over to the Sadhu and said

'Sir, I am also reading this book also and I am now just on my way to the airport to fly out to India, I am determined to search all over India for this Sadhu'.

The elderly gentlemen Sadhu chuckled to himself and said to the young hippie 'You do not have to go to India, I am here in New York, I am the translator of this book the beautiful Srimad Bhagavatam"

The young hippie was without words, he was ecstatic and had tears in his eyes and fell at his feet. Then Srila Prabhupada, the elderly sadu said to the young hippie

"Just see, if you are completely sincere and genuine then you do not have to find Guru, he will find you"

[krsna]

 

Originally Posted by Beggar

The only way that we can experience the real vapu is through the vani. But why throw the vapu out with the bath water of the vani? The Truth is always harmonized in the middle, not in the extremes.