Searching a guru

[Guest guest]

Well you see, my problem is simple, I need a guru who is realized in the matters of raganuga bhakthi, however, I am only 16 years old and I live in a place where no one even knows what hinduism is in the first place.

 

What do I do?

 

I am a registered user here but I don't want to reveal my identity.

 

Some one help me.

 

 

[Guest guest]

Hi

 

It is very inspiring how at such an young age you are curious about finding a Guru. Please visit the following links that may help you in this matter.

http://sanatan.org/weekly/2001/059/issue.htm

http://sanatan.org/weekly/2002/150/cod.htm

http://sanatan.org/weekly/2002/149/dyk.htm

 

I am following spiritual practice under the 'Path of Guru's Grace', in which we do regular spiritual practice to obtain Guru's grace.

 

Hope it helps. You are most welcome to e-mail me at any time to discuss about any queries you may have.

 

 

Love,

atul

[Guest guest]

How is that the Sri Guru in your Heart is not guiding you to the appropriate person to take spiritual shelter?

[raga]

You could begin with a thorough examination of the theology of guru-tattva. For example, check out the following title:

 

http://www.krishnacaitanya.com/pdf/guru-bhakta-tattva-vijnana.pdf

 

You'll find my e-mail in my member profile in case you wish to drop a note.

[raga]

 

How is that the Sri Guru in your Heart is not guiding you to the appropriate person to take spiritual shelter?

 

 

Caitya-guru will not necessarily take one directly to the vyasti-guru. A period of inquiry, study and introspection is very helpful to make the heart a befitting vessel for eventually receiving the mercy of a sad-guru with appropriate honor. Such an encounter will prove to be more fruitful.

[Guest guest]

Dear Devotee,

 

The highest devotion is attained by slow degrees by the method of constant endeavor for self-realization with the help of scriptural evidence, theistic conduct and

perseverance in practice.

 

I also was 16 when I began my search for a Guru and when I first saw him at the age of 20 I knew instantly that my search had ended. I was reading and practicing but it seemed not real. When I heard the holy name from his lips everything i.e scripture, kirtan, bhajan, smaranam became a true living "spiritual" experiance. Search for Sri Krsna and you will not be cheated. If you do get cheated it is only because your motives we not correct and in line with pure devotion.

 

I hope this helps- keep searching and don't loose faith

guru dev will appear in front of you someday.

 

AlaNath

 

[Guest guest]

Brahma-samhita

Verse translations by His Divine Grace Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Goswami Prabhupada. Gaudiya Math.

 

Text 5.1: "Krishna who is known as Govinda is the Supreme Godhead. He has an eternal blissful spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no other origin and He is the prime cause of all causes."

 

Text 5.28: "Enlightened by the recollection of that Gayatri, embodying the three Vedas, Brahma became acquainted with the expanse of the ocean of truth. Then he worshiped Sri Krishna, the essence of all Vedas, with this hymn."

 

Text 5.29: "I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, the first progenitor who is tending the cows, yielding all desire, in abodes built with spiritual gems, surrounded by millions of purpose trees, always served with great reverence and affection by hundreds of thousands of laksmis or gopis."

 

Text 5.30: "I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is adept in playing on His flute, with blooming eyes like lotus petals with head decked with peacock's feather, with the figure of beauty tinged with the hue of blue clouds, and His unique loveliness charming millions of Cupids."

 

Text 5.31: "I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, round whose neck is swinging a garland of flowers beautified with the moon-locket, whose two hands are adorned with the flute and jeweled ornaments, who always revels in pastimes of love, whose graceful threefold-bending form of Syamasundara is eternally manifest."

 

Text 5.32: "I worship Govinda, the primeval Lords whose transcendental form is full of bliss, truth, substantiality and is thus full of the most dazzling splendor. Each of the limbs of that transcendental figure possesses in Himself, the full-fledged functions of all the organs, and eternally sees, maintains and manifests the infinite universes, both spiritual and mundane."

 

Text 5.33: "I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is inaccessible to the Vedas, but obtainable by pure unalloyed devotion of the soul, who is without a second, who is not subject to decay, is without a beginning, whose form is endless, who is the beginning, and the eternal purusa; yet He is a person possessing the beauty of blooming youth."

 

Text 5.34: "I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, only the lip of the toe of whose lotus feet is approached by the yogis who aspire after the transcendental and be take themselves to pranayama by drilling the respiration; or by the jnanis who try to find out the non differentiated Brahman by the process of elimination of the mundane, extending over thousands of millions of years."

 

Text 5.35: "He is an undifferentiated entity as there is no distinction between potency and the possessor thereof. In His work of creation of millions of worlds, His potency remains inseparable. All the universes exist in Him and He is present in His fullness in every one of the atoms that are scattered throughout the universe, at one and the tame time. Such is the primeval Lord whom I adore."

 

Text 5.36: "I adore the same Govinda, the primeval Lord, in whose poise men, who are imbued with devotion, sing the mantra-suktas told by the Vedas, by gaining their appropriate beauty, greatness, thrones, conveyances and ornaments."

 

Text 5.37: "I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, residing in His own realm, Goloka, with Radha, resembling His own spiritual figure, the embodiment of the ecstatic potency possessed of the sixty-four artistic activities, in the company of Her confidantes [sakhis], embodiments of the extensions of Her bodily form, permeated and vitalized by His ever-blissful spiritual rasa."

 

Text 5.38: "I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is Syamasundara, Krishna Himself with inconceivable innumerable attributes, whom the pure devotees see in their heart of hearts with the eye of devotion tinged with the salve of love."

 

Text 5.39: "I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who manifested Himself personally as Krishna and the different avataras in the world in the forms of Rama, Nrsimha, Vamana, etc., as His subjective portions."

 

Text 5.40: "I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, whose effulgence is the source of the nondifferentiated Brahman mentioned in the Upanisads, being differentiated from the infinity of glories of the mundane universe appears as the indivisible, infinite, limitless, truth."

 

Text 5.41: "I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is the absolute substantive principle being the ultimate entity in the form of the support of all existence whose external potency embodies the threefold mundane qualities, viz., sattva, rajas and tamas and diffuses the Vedic knowledge regarding the mundane world."

 

Text 5.42: "I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, whose glory ever triumphantly dominates the mundane world by the activity of His own pastimes, being resected in the mind of recollecting souls as the transcendental entity of ever-blissful cognitive rasa."

 

Text 5.43: "Lowest of all is located Devi-dhama [mundane world], next above it is Mahesa-dhama [abode of Mahesa]; above Mahesa-dhama is placed Hari-dhama [abode of Hari] and above them all is located Krishna's own realm named Goloka. I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, who has allotted their respective authorities to the rulers of those graded realms."

 

Text 5.44: "The external potency Maya who is of the nature of the shadow of the cit potency, is worshiped by all people as Durga, the creating, preserving and destroying agency of this mundane world. I adore the primeval Lord Govinda in accordance with whose will Durga conducts herself."

 

Text 5.45: "Just as milk is transformed into curd by the action of acids, but yet the effect curd is neither same as, nor different from, its cause, viz., milk, so I adore the primeval Lord Govinda of whom the state of Sambhu is a transformation for the performance of the work of destruction."

 

Text 5.46: "The light of one candle being communicated to other candles, although it burns separately in them, is the same in its quality. I adore the primeval Lord Govinda who exhibits Himself equally in the same mobile manner in His various manifestations."

 

Text 5.47: "I adore the primeval Lord Govinda who assuming His own great subjective form, who bears the name of Sesa, replete with the all-accommodating potency, and reposing in the Causal Ocean with the infinity of the world in the pores of His hair, enjoys creative sleep [yoganidra]."

 

Text 5.48: "Brahma and other lords of the mundane worlds, appearing from the pores of hair of Maha-Visnu, remain alive as long as the duration of one exhalation of the latter [Maha-Visnu]. I adore the primeval Lord Govinda of whose subjective personality Maha-Visnu is the portion of portion."

 

Text 5.49: "I adore the primeval Lord Govinda from whom the separated subjective portion Brahma receives his power for the regulation of the mundane world, just as the sun manifests some portion of his own light in all the effulgent gems that bear the names of suryakanta, etc."

 

Text 5.50: "I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, whose lotus feet are always held by Ganesa upon the pair of tumult protruding from his elephant head in order to obtain power for his function of destroying all the obstacles on the path of progress of the three worlds."

 

Text 5.51: "The three worlds are composed of the nine elements, viz., fire, earth, ether, water, air, direction, time, soul and mind. I adore the primeval Lord Govinda from whom they originate, in whom they exist and into whom they enter at the time of the universal cataclysm."

 

Text 5.52: "The sun who is the king of all the planets, full of infinite effulgence, the image of the good soul, is as the eye of this world. I adore the primeval Lord Govinda in pursuance of whose order the sun performs his journey mounting the wheel of time."

 

Text 5.53: "I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, by whose conferred power are maintained the manifested potencies, that are found to exist, of all virtues, all vices, the Vedas, the penances and all jivas, from Brahma to the meanest insect."

 

Text 5.54: "I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, who burns up to their roots all fruitive activities of those who are imbued with devotion and impartially ordains for each the due enjoyment of the fruits of one's activities, of all those who walk in the path of work, in accordance with the chain of their previously performed works, no less in the case of the tiny insect that bears the name of indragopa than in that of Indra, king of the devas."

 

Text 5.55: "I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, the meditators of whom, by meditating upon Him under the sway of wrath, amorous passion, natural friendly love, fear, parental affection, delusion, reverence and willing service, attain to bodily forms befitting the nature of their contemplation."

 

Text 5.56: "I worship that transcendental seat, known as Svetadvipa where as loving consorts the Laksmis in their unalloyed spiritual essence practice the amorous service of the Supreme Lord Krishna as their only lover; where every tree is a transcendental purpose tree; where the soil is the purpose gem, all water is nectar, every word is a song, every gait is a dance, the flute is the favorite attendant, effulgence is full of transcendental bliss and the supreme spiritual entities are all enjoyable and tasty, where numberless milk cows always emit transcendental oceans of milk, where there is eternal existence of transcendental time, who is ever present and without past or future and hence is not subject to the quality of passing away even for the space of half a moment. That realm is known as Goloka only to a very few self-realized souls in this world."

 

Text 5.57: "On hearing these hymns containing the essence of the truth, the Supreme Lord Krishna said to Brahma, 'Brahma, if you experience the inclination to create offspring by being endowed with the real knowledge of the glory of Godhead, listen, My beloved, from Me to this science set forth in the following five slokas.'"

 

Text 5.58: "When the pure spiritual experience is excited by means of cognition and service [bhakti], superexcellent unalloyed devotion characterized by love for Godhead is awakened towards Krishna, the beloved of all souls."

 

Text 5.59: "The highest devotion is attained by slow degrees by the method of constant endeavor for self-realization with the help of scriptural evidence, theistic conduct and perseverance in practice."

 

Text 5.60: "These preliminary practices of devotion [sadhana-bhakti] are conducive to the realization of loving devotion. [Loving devotion]--than whom there is no superior well-being, who goes hand in hand with the attainment of the exclusive state of supreme bliss and who can lead to Myself."

 

Text 5.61: "Abandoning all meritorious performances serve Me with faith. The realization will correspond to the nature of one's faith. The people of the world act ceaselessly in pursuance of some ideal. By meditating on Me by means of those deeds one will obtin devotion characterized by love in the shape of the supreme senile."

 

Text 5.62: "Listen, O Vidhi, I am the seed, i.e., the fundamental principle, of this world of animate and inanimate objects. I am pradhana [the substance of matter], I am prakrti [material cause] and I am purusa [efficient cause]. This fiery energy that he longs specially to the Brahman, that inheres in you, has also been conferred by Me. It is by bearing this fiery energy that you regulate this phenomenal world of animate and inanimate objects."

[Guest guest]

 

TEXT 59

pramanais tat-sad-acarais

tad-abhyasair nirantaram

bodhayan atmanatmanam

bhaktim apy uttamam labet

 

WORD FOR WORD

pramanaih--by scriptural evidence; tat--of them; sat-acaraih--by theistic conduct; tat--of them; abhyasaih--by practice; nirantaram--constantly; bodhayan--awakening; atmana--by one's own intelligence; atmanam--the self; bhaktim--devotion; api--certainly; uttamam--the highest; labhet--one can attain.

 

 

TRANSLATION

The highest devotion is attained by slow degrees by the method of constant endeavor for self-realization with the help of scriptural evidence, theistic conduct and perseverance in practice.

 

PURPORT

Evidence--the devotional scriptures, e.g., Srimad-Bhagavatam, the Vedas, the Puranas, the Gita, etc. Theistic conduct--the conduct of pious persons (sadhus) who are pure devotees and the conduct of those pious persons who practice devotion to Godhead actuated by spontaneous love. Practice-- to learn about the ten basic principles (dasa-mula) from the sastras and on receiving the name of Hari as laid down in the same, embodying the name, form, quality and activity of the Divinity, to practice the chanting of the name by serving Him night and day. By this are meant study of the sastras and association with the sadhus. The tenfold offense to holy name ceases by serving the name of Hari and simultaneously practicing pious conduct. "Practice" is no other than following the mode of service of the name practiced by the sadhus without offense. By perseverance in such practice and devotion characterized by love which is the fruit of spiritual endeavor makes her appearance in the pure essence of the soul.