Jagat

From 2018, this article seems to never have made it to the blog before. I rather like this picture of Barsana, so I posted in full. I was also rather pleased with some observations from 11 years ago. Confident words about love are not always forthcoming. Facebook memories from June 22

2022 क्षमी दाता गुणग्राही स्वामी पुण्येन लभ्यते । अनुकूलः शुचिर्दक्षः कविर्विद्वान् सुदुर्लभः ॥ Only after much pious action does one attain a master or husband who is forgiving, generous, and a taker of one's virtues. Even more rare is one who is favorable, pure, expert. wise and learned. Bhoja-prabandha 93 व्याघ्रीव तिष्ठति जरा परितर्जयन्ती रोगाश्च शत्रव इव प्रहरन्ति देहम् । आयुः परिस्रवति भिन्नघटादिवाम्भो लोकस्तथाप्यहितमाचरतीति चित्रम् ॥ Old age awaits like a tigress, threatening, menacing; diseases, like enemies, attack the body, Life is slipping away like water from a burst jug, and even so people engage in evil acts... is it not astonishing? Vairāgya-śataka 38 यावत्स्वस्थमिदं शरीरमरुजं यावज् जरा दूरतो यावच्चेन्द्रियशक्तिरप्रतिहता यावत् क्षयो नायुषः । आत्मश्रेयसि तावद् एव विदुषा कार्यः प्रयत्नो महान् सन्दीप्ते भवने तु कूपखननं प्रत्युद्यमः कीदृशः ॥ When the body is still healthy, when old age is far away, when all the senses are working with peak efficiency, when there are stil...

  This is the second time that I mentioned that I was preparing to leave for Canada three years ago and how I was nervous. Often before traveling to Bengal or elsewhere I would try to spend a few days at Priya Kunj. Baba even arranged for me to stay in a nearby house one time for a week. Usually though, I would stay in a guest house on the main entry road to Barsana a few hundred meters away. I often had to climb over the fence outside to get in at night because the kirtan would end at 11 when everyone at the guesthouse was already tucked away in their own quarters. I liked the top floor room at Radha Guest House, because I could work there nicely during the day in peace and privacy, but still get to observe the street  life down below. This time also I missed getting Babaji's association. On account of Covid I hadn't been to visit for the whole two years I was back. I get to see him on video, which is uploaded every day, but it's not the same. The last two years were weird...

Binode Baba with Pandit.  Well I am back, folks. Radhe Radhe. Barsana is really my best place right now. I feel so natural there. I love the narrow lanes and streets. I love the sandstone stairways that go up to the temple. The upward climb is invigorating and I try to do it without stopping or slowing my gait. As I write I can feel the effects in my upper calves. I also love going on the Parikrama around the hill with Vinode Baba and his entourage. Brahmachala is amazing. The view from Ladili Lal's wide deck is like a glow of orange brown effulgence in the orange setting sun sky. When you walk along the ridge from Maan Mandir towards the Jaipur temple, with all these shriveled trees and the skinny monkeys it seems to shimmer with a divine luster. The monkeys run like mad when Vinode Baba comes disttributing his goodies -- sweets and chapatis. I don't think there is that much food on the mountain. The monkeys in Barsana are much smaller than their cousins in Vrinda...

Bishwambhar Dasji's Gaur Nitai are about 1 1/2 meters, perhaps a bit more. They are unique in Braj.  Just came back from a weekend in Barsana. Made a new friend, Bishwambhar Das , who has a nice Gaur-Nitai temple on the Govardhan Road. I was with a couple of Bangladeshi devotees that I met after arati in the Ladlii temple. They had recognized me from Birnagar where they had come a few months before for Bhaktivinoda Thakur's utsav. They are from Khulna, one is a disciple of Sachinandan Bhaktiprabha, who made a large number of devotees in that area. After they left me, I noticed that an effulgent-looking sadhu in his early 40s with nice Radha Kund Nityananda tilak in yellow-orange cloth was still sitting alone in the same place where he had been talking with a group of babas a few minutes earlier. Being attracted to him, I went and sat down with him and struck up a conversation. He told me a bit about his life, how he came to Braj when only eight years old an...

It rained during the night quite heavily. I had been sleeping on the roof in the open, so I had to escape downstairs where most of the other guests and some ashram devotees sleep. The air was cool and the fans running so I did not sleep very well. This was the first time that I slept there. An alarm went off, a rather gentle one, at about 4.30. I groggily struggled to stand up and gather my things, thinking I would go somewhere back to sleep as soon as I could. Suddenly I saw Binode Baba standing at the edge of the veranda with a couple of disciples, putting a plastic shower cap on over his dreadlocks. Then the entire group walked out the front gate to take bath in Priyaji Kund. Last time I was here, nobody took bath in Priyaji Kund. Even thought the Braj Vikas Trust had done a nice, tasteful renovation of the kund a few years ago, it face all the typical problems of Braja waterbodies. The water level was low, the water was stagnant and full of algae, and people and the wind h...

I am feeling a bit blissful today. I am going to escape to a holiday in Barsana, and if Radharani is merciful, I will spend it in the proximity of Binode Bihari Baba and his merry band of bairagi bhajananandis. Oh how I have looked forward to this day! There is a lot of preeti for me in Barsana. In my crazy life... what kind of crazy... I guess I have been talking a lot about my crazy in the past few weeks. But, today, I am diving deeply into a project that I have been meaning to do for a long time: I am finally getting into revising the current available English translation of Bhaktivinoda Thakur's Jivani. I cannot tell you all how much I feel guru-kripa raining down on me as I read this book with care. So let me take care to thank two Ukrainian devotees, Hanna Chaikovska (Anu Krishna Dasi) and Muraliswara Das, who have been continuously pressuring me into doing this task after exacting my promises, and without whose insistence and strong desire, I would probably s...

I have been enjoying getting back into the "groove" as it were. I had been off-kilter since the latter portion of the Jiva Tirtha program and was finding it hard to orient myself. Too many foreigners!!! Going to Barsana and immersing myself in Braj bhava and Bhakti Sandarbha has been tremendously rehabilitating. The company of Binode Bihari Baba in particular has been very salutary. Kirtan each night with him and his core group -- Pandit, Madhu Baba and Ram Kamal Dasji -- was a very powerful reinitiation into the Yuga Dharma. The heat was stifling. I had a room on the top floor of the Radhika Nivas guesthouse. 250 Rs. a night. No A/C or cooler. I spent my days sleeping and working on Bhakti Sandarbha . In the evening I would go to the Ladli temple and drink in the ambience. Then at about nine I would go to Binode Bihari Baba's ashram for kirtan. For my main meal I was going either to Binode Baba's or to Ladli Das Babaji's ashram in Radhika Bagh. I sl...

The Rutgers students who came for a three-week course during their Christmas break went with a few others from Jiva including myself. We went to Binode Bihari Babaji's ashram near Priya Kund and then went with him on Barsana parikrama. I first met Binode Bihari Das Babaji Maharaj in 1984 when his guru Tinkori Goswami came to Nabadwip. In those days, Tinkori Prabhu was the topmost bhajananandi in the Gaudiya Vaishnava world. It was a great surprise to everyone when, like Jagannath Das Babaji, he decided to spend the last part of his life in Gauda desh. So naturally there was a great attraction to go and visit him in Manipur Ghat, not far from the crematorium. I visited several times since in those days there was a general enthusiasm building for Mahaprabhu's 500th appearance day anniversary. Tinkori Prabhu had many disciples in Nabadwip, and I used to join them daily for early morning nagar sankirtan through the streets of Nabadwip, singing "Sri Krishna Chaitanya, ...

The dana-lila has so many manifestations. Here is another one that had passed me by. I posted this on Vrindavan Today today, crossposting here: Women spectators crowded on the slope. Barsana, 2011.09.14 (VT): The Radhastami celebrations at Barsana turn into a festival that lasts a week. On the Bhadra Trayodasi, which this year fell on September 10, people in Barsana run from door to door through the village with young boys on their shoulders. Dressed as Krishna and Radharani with her girlfriends, these young boys are given yogurt and sweets at each house. This tradition is a part of the Sankari Khor pastime, which is all about Krishna stopping Radharani and her friends and asking them to pay taxes for their yogurt and other wares. It is also known as the burhi-lila festival, It is reenacted every year in a very special way at the Sankari Khor site itself. The custom is said to have been inaugurated by Shri Narayan Bhatt, one of the 16th century stalwarts of Braja bhakti, the...