Pastimes of Lord Balaram – Balaram Purnima Lecture

Artist: His Holiness Indradyumna Swami
Verse: Srimad Bhagavatham – 10.65.16
Where: Aug 26′th 2007, Warsaw, Poland.
Occassion: Lord Balaram’s Appearance day.
Essence: “In His relationship as elder brother, He (Lord Balaram) is very protective of Krsna…Lord Balaram killed long list of demons in their earthly lila to protect Krsna and the cowherd boys. Srila Bhakthi Vinod Thakur explains these demons represent obstacles on the path of devotional service, they also represent anarthas.”

“Lord Balaram is also original Spiritual Master. So duty of Spiritual Master is also to purify the heart of the disciple…We can think of Spiritual Master as Balaram’s representative, Lord Nityananda’s representative or Radharani’s representative.”

“In Rama Lila and Krsna Lila, these two transcendental brothers, they displayed nectarean pastimes, which they performed in the Spiritual World. But they didn’t invite jivas to participate. But beauty of Gaura lila is, Lord Chaitanya comes and through the medium of Sankirtana movement, He invites everyone to taste the nectarean mellows of pure devotional service – Braja bhakthi. And Lord Balaram, the Acharyas say, He especially loved this opportunity, why? Because He is the original Spiritual Master, and He takes great pleasure when He sees Sankirtana movement spread.”

“This is a good day to pray for the mercy of the Holy Name which Lord Balaram gave to the whole world as Lord Nityananda.”

Risk of Uncontrolled Senses

Artist: His Holiness BhakthiVaibhava Swami.
Verse: Srimad Bhagavatham – 7.8.10
Where: Aug 13′th 2007, Poland.
Courtesy: Candrasekhar Acarya Das.
Essence: “Senses are like thieves. They steal away everything. They are always demanding. For a conditioned soul, they are like masters….very very ungrateful..always demanding more, more and more…They steal away even our Spiritual Life not just our body, this mind..even Spiritual  life..”

How to see things as they are?

Artist: His Holiness Indradyumna Swami 
Verse: Srimad Bhagavatham – 7.8.5
Where: Aug 8′th 2007, Kostryn, Poland.
Ocassion: Wood Stock Festival, 2007 
Courtesy: Candrasekhar Acarya Das.
Essence: “So far in Bhagavatham we have heard only about saintly qualities of Prahlad Maharaja. Here Hiranyakasipu sees only bad qualities Srila Vishvanatha  Cakravarti Thakur comes to the rescue of devotees by mercy of Mother Sarasvathi, and gives us the right understanding…Therefore we have to be very careful to always see things in the light of Shastra and in the light of words of pure devotees and not according to our intelligence. Because in our stage of devotional service, we still have little bit of Hiranyakasipu inside us.”

Inspiring devotees for last 2 1/2 week beach festivals of Polish 2007 tour: “Let us continue our unmotivated uninterrupted service upto last day – Aug 20’th…Don’t let yourself think you are tired…you are going to jump out of the bus tomorrow as  if it were very first day of the tour – June 20’th. You all look very tired, how are you going to do it? You are going to go deep within your hearts and find the sincere desire to please your Spiritual Master and Krishna. That’s how you are going to do it. Because you know it pleases your Spriritual Master and Krishna you are willing to do anything for that.”

Unique Festival – Krishna’s Village of Peace

Verse: Srimad Bhagavatham – 7.8.3-4
Where: Aug 1′st 2007, Kostryn, Poland.
Ocassion: Wood Stock Festival, 2007 
Courtesy: Candrasekhar Acarya Das.
Essence:“We have golden oppurtunity to preach in this Maha Maha Mahostava. We find more people than you can meet in 10, 20 years all in one place.  By combined effort we can inject Krishna Consciousness in a very potent way. These are rare moments. We have our routine devotional service and these Golden moments. We have to take advantage of them..These are historic moments.Vaishnavas coming together is very auspiscious. And they preaching together is extremely auspiscious…This is my favorite type of festival…We all coming together to preach, this is something unique, very very special…This is all nectar because it is all to fulfill desire of Lord Caitanya and Srila Prabhupada to deliver these young students.”

Qualifications Of A Disciple – WoodStock 2007

Verse: Srimad Bhagavatham – 7.8.1
Where: Jul 29′th 2007, Kostryn, Poland.
Ocassion: Wood Stock Festival, 2007 
Courtesy: Candrasekhar Acarya Das.
Essence:“We often hear glories of Pure devotees. It is important to also learn about qualification of a good disciple of such Master. Prahlad Maharaj gives us a hint regarding this in Brahmacari guru-kule verse (SB 7.12.1). A disciple after entering into guru-kula or Krishna Consciousness should practice control of his senses…either by restricting them from sense enjoyment or better yet by engaging them in Krishna’s service. The second duty is to practice being very submissive…you have to be submissive else cannot get full mercy of the Spiritual Master. And finally disciple should develop friendship or goodwill towards the Spriritual Master. Prahlad Maharaj sets a best example of how to reciprocate with mercy of Spiritual Master by starting to preach at the age of 5 years. Following in the footsteps of Prahlad Maharaj, let us try to preach to 350,000 young people at Wood Stock this year.”
>> More Nectar about today’s festival

Secret of Success

Where: Jul 24′th 2007, Poland.
Verse: Srimad Bhagavatham – 7.7.51-53
Artist: His Holiness Trivikrama Swami
Courtesy: Candrasekhar Acarya Das.
Essence: Because Prahlad has one pointed devotion to please his Spiritual Master, therefore he is not attracted to anything else.. We have to take Srila Prabhupada’s order as our life and soul. Because He is acharya for next 10,000 years. Ultimately we all have to please Him. Under His order, though difficult, we all have to cooperate to push Lord Caitanya’s movement forward. This is secret of success.

Cross Over the Line

Verse: Srimad Bhagavatham – 7.7.43
Where: Jul 17′th 2007, Poland.
Courtesy: Candrasekhar Acarya Das.
Essence: “We are in between the two – material enjoyment and spiritual enjoyment. But at some point in our Krishna Consciousness, we have to cross over the line..Enough is enough fully surrender to Krishna. We have to make that decision – no more sense gratification only Krishna Consciousness. It will come some stage in our life, where we have to cross over.”

Overcome Addiction to Sense gratification

Verse: Srimad Bhagavatham – 7.7.38
Where: Jul 10′th 2007, Poland.
Courtesy: Candrasekhar Acarya Das.
Essence: “This process chanting, hearing is so easy, why don’t people take it? Because they are addicted to sense gratification. We have to help them overcome this addiction. It is very easy they simply have to hear and chant. And that is our life as tour devotees – Just sit and chant Hare Krishna and go out on streets and dance to the Holy Names.”

Sadhana->Bhava->Prema

Verse: Srimad Bhagavatham – 7.7.34
Where: Jul 4′th 2007, Poland.
Courtesy: Candrasekhar Acarya Das.
Essence: “So actually this is the beginning we are training ourselves to do all these for Krsna, by this vaidhi or sadhana, it is a little hard in the beginning, but then it will become natural (bhava) and eventually it will become prema, Love of God”.

Discover the hidden treasure

Verse: Srimad Bhagavatham – 7.7.30-31
Where: Jul 2′nd 2007, Poland.
Courtesy: Candrasekhar Acarya Das.
Essence: “…Love of Godhead is hidden in the hearts of Pure devotees. But it has to be discovered and enjoyed by sincere seekers of Absolute Truth….Qualified or Unqualified, ignorant or knowledgeable, what ever we may be, if we just join the kirtan of our Spiritual Master, and loudly chant the Holy names of the Lord for benefit of others, eventually cheto darpana marjanam, our hearts will become purified and by Guru’s grace everything we need to know about Krishna will be revealed.”