Sound Bhakti

(1) madhuraḿ madhurebhyo ‘pi mańgalebhyo ‘pi mańgalam pāvanaḿ pāvanebhyo ‘pi harer nāmaiva kevalam (2) ābrahmā-stamba-paryantaḿ sarvaḿ māyā-mayaḿ jagat satyaḿ satyaḿ punaḥ satyaḿ harer nāmaiva kevalam (3) sa guruḥ sa pitā cāpi sā mātā bandhavo ‘pi saḥ śikṣayec cet sadā smartuḿ harer nāmaiva kevalam (4) niḥśvāse nāhi viśvāsaḥ kadā ruddho bhaviṣyati kīrtanīya mato bālyād harer nāmaiv...

Recently, Nirākulā, my wife, and I have been getting our affairs in order—trying to make sure that we don’t have any extra stuff (because things pile up) and making sure that every paper we have is accounted for: all the accounts and everything like that. And there are a lot of papers. Looking through the papers, I came across a file full of warranties for various appliances, from small to large....

Śukadeva Gosvāmī continued: My dear King, the chanting of the holy name of the Lord is able to uproot even the reactions of the greatest sins. Therefore the chanting of the saṅkīrtana movement is the most auspicious activity in the entire universe. Please try to understand this so that others will take it seriously. (SB 6.3.31) https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/6/3/31/ ---------------------------...

The Bhāgavatam further says, sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo yato bhaktir adhokṣaje: the supreme religion is that which teaches its followers how to love the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is beyond the reach of experimental knowledge. Such a religious system begins with tan-nāma-grahaṇa, chanting of the holy name of the Lord (śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ pāda-sevanam). After chanting the holy...

Devotional service, beginning with the chanting of the holy name of the Lord, is the ultimate religious principle for the living entity in human society. SB 6.3.42 https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/6/3/22/ To connect with His Grace Vaiśeṣika Dāsa, please visit https://www.fanthespark.com/next-steps/ask-vaisesika-dasa/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=launch2025 https://vaisesikadas...

The idea here in our Yātrā is to be one-minded, purposeful, and to put aside anything else. Vyavasāyātmikā buddhi—to be very focused just on the task at hand. After all, we only get a certain number of days, hours, and minutes in a week; and generally, if we calculate how many we actually have that are usable in Kṛṣṇa service, it comes down to just a few. So, we can have a Khaṭvāṅga moment here to...

(1) ujjvala-varaṇa-gaura-vara-dehaḿ vilasita-niravadhi-bhāva-videham tri-bhuvana-pāvana-kṛpāyāḥ leśaḿ taḿ praṇamāmi ca śrī-śacī-tanayam (2) gadgadāntara-bhāva-vikāraḿ durjana-tarjana-nāda-viśālam bhava-bhaya-bhañjana-kāraṇa-karuṇaḿ taḿ praṇamāmi ca śrī-śacī-tanayam (3) aruṇāmbara-dhara cāru-kapolaḿ indu-vinindita-nakha-caya-ruciram jalpita-nija-guṇa-nāma-vinodaḿ taḿ praṇamāmi ca...

To put on a yajña takes a lot of work—any kind of yajña—and to take it down takes a lot of work. The middle portion is often very short. Again, in a fire yajña, there’s only a few spoon fulls that go in, but getting all the ingredients (especially if you have to grow them yourself) and then cleaning up afterwards is the heavy lifting. But the combustion—spiritual combustion—happens in the middle,...

May the Supreme Lord who is known as the son of Śrīmatī Śacī-devī be transcendentally situated in the innermost chambers of your heart. Resplendent with the radiance of molten gold, He has appeared in the Age of Kali by His causeless mercy to bestow what no incarnation has ever offered before: the most sublime and radiant mellow of devotional service, the mellow of conjugal love. (Cc Adi 1.4) ----...

I really want to thank Divyanāma Prabhu and Śraddhā Devī Dāsī for threading the needle, because it’s not so easy to land in all these places and have a stretch of time that we’ve had to sit here and do bhajan. I keep resonating with the cleaning ladies who asked Ānanda Vrindāvana if we all live in one āśrama back in California, and she said, "No, we’re from all over the world," but these yātrās ar...

I’ve collated quotes from Prabhupāda and found that specifically when it comes to quotes relevant to japa, they are not unlimited quotes, so I’ve chosen four. I read one to you yesterday, and today’s quote is as follows. Prabhupāda wrote this in 1969, so you can appreciate the fact that during this time, devotees had been active for a couple of years—two or three years. Prabhupāda started in 1965,...

We have instances of others who, by the definition of nigranta, are bereft of any wealth or good qualities or education, and Mṛgāri is given by Lord Caitanya as an example of somebody who had no qualification whatsoever, but because of the qualities of The Lord, He became attracted. We need some time and practice; there's a way in which Nārada Muni is an example of this when he got association wit...

Glories to the husband of the goddess of fortune, who is the transcendental Cupid and the enemy of the demon Mura. Glories to the divine couple Radhe Syama, also known as Syama Syama! Glories to Lord Kesava, who has fine hair, who removes the miseries of the age of Kali—Radhe Syama Syama Syama! ------------------------------------------------------------ To connect with His Grace Vaiśeṣika Dāsa, p...

I remember the actor Sean Penn. He was married to Madonna a long time ago. His house burned down in Malibu during a big fire there. He was on public radio in an interview with Terry Gross, and she was asking him: 'So, your house burned down. What was it like?' And he goes, 'Well, you know, all those nagging duties you’re supposed to do? All the papers, the notebooks full of stuff, the to-do lists...

If you want to build a skyscraper, you first think about it. Then, it will come to the mind level—you start considering how you might do it. And then, you speak it. Then all the ingredients, as he (Srila Prabhupada in the 3rd Canto) said, are already there in the world, but by your speech, they come together. That’s why people were able to do so much even during the pandemic. When they weren’t tou...

All glories, all glories to the beautiful arati ceremony of Lord Caitanya. This Gaura-arati is taking place in a grove on the banks of the Jahnavi [Ganges] and is attracting the minds of all living entities in the universe. (Translation, Verse 1, Gaura Arti) ------------------------------------------------------------ To connect with His Grace Vaiśeṣika Dāsa, please visit https://www.fanthespark.c...

If you're following Kṛṣṇa’s authority and you take initiation, you're authorized. It means you become a follower of the original author; and the word '-ize'—say, 'ize' and 'ized'—it’s almost like a bolt of electricity. You’re 'author,' and then 'authorized'—you suddenly become endowed with a kind of śakti. Where does that śakti come from? It comes from Kṛṣṇa, and it gets passed down through the Śr...

Pradyumna said, “Prabhupāda, I'm studying all these things about this yajña, that the other, this name, that, in this part of it. What would you like?” Prabhupāda leaned over and said, “Shortcut.” Jīva Gosvāmī says something similar. He says, any of the rituals we perform in Deity worship or anywhere else have to be preceded by and ended by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. That's what makes them successful—no...

(1) boro sukher khabor gāi surabhi-kuñjete nāmer hāṭ khule’che (khoda nitāi) (2) boro mojār kathā tāy śraddhā-mūlye śuddha-nāma sei hāṭete bikāy (3) jata bhakta-bṛnda basi’ adhikārī dekhe’ nāma becche daro kasi’ (4) jadi nāma kinbe, bhāi āmār sańge calo, mahājaner kāche jāi (5) tumi kinbe kṛṣṇa-nāma dasturi loibo āmi, pūrṇa ha’be kāma (6) boro doyāl nityānanda śraddhā-mātra lo’ye den parama...

(1) boro sukher khabor gāi surabhi-kuñjete nāmer hāṭ khule’che (khoda nitāi) (2) boro mojār kathā tāy śraddhā-mūlye śuddha-nāma sei hāṭete bikāy (3) jata bhakta-bṛnda basi’ adhikārī dekhe’ nāma becche daro kasi’ (4) jadi nāma kinbe, bhāi āmār sańge calo, mahājaner kāche jāi (5) tumi kinbe kṛṣṇa-nāma dasturi loibo āmi, pūrṇa ha’be kāma (6) boro doyāl nityānanda śraddhā-mātra lo’ye den parama...

We are creating our own bodies. The body you have now is a 3D printing of the kind of sound vibration—the kind of data we took in, the kind of data that we listened to, and that we perpetrated in our last life—and therefore, we got printed. Here's your 3D-printed body, exactly because of the sound vibration you put into it. Kṛṣṇa’s creative force is inconceivably powerful—the material apparatus—bu...

We are at an amazing time, an amazing juncture, because we are here at a time not so long after Śrīla Prabhupāda landed in America and spread Krishna Consciousness. Perhaps most beneficial is that some of the devotees that first met Śrīla Prabhupāda are still with us. Śyāmasundara Prabhu lives just down the road; I talked to him a couple of days ago. He's working on consolidating his three books i...

Today, I’m dedicating our Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam class to His Holiness Badrinārāyaṇa Swāmi. Whether you knew or knew not, he was our GBC for many years although he never came here. He was dedicated to Śrīla Prabhupāda since he was a teenager, joined around 1971.He was known as a stalwart in practicing Kṛṣṇa consciousness throughout his life. He was a householder, took sannyāsa. I had the fortune of ser...

Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu every day would walk from Akrūra Ghāṭ in Vṛndāvana and sit down at Imlītala. It’s preserved in a temple, and there’s a little shrine outside where Caitanya Mahāprabhu used to sit under the tree and see the Jamunā. It’s a celebrated place where you can remember Caitanya Mahāprabhu sitting and chanting, as it is mentioned in the śāstra that he would come there early in the mo...

We have here in our first slide a personality sitting, and you'll notice the aura around her. She has a myriad of images; and if we sit in a similar posture and note what we have moving about in our aura around our minds, we might notice something similar. Can you identify any objects in there, anybody? Are they descriptive enough to identify any of those things? Twitter? Social media? God! That's...