Saturday, March 24, 2007

Insight from Bhakti Caru Swami / Saturday at the Campus

Notes on a Bhakti Caru Swami class on Nectar of Instruction preface and verse 1:
Why does Rupa Goswami bring up this idea of making disciples in the first verse of Nectar of Instruction? Because Lord Caitanya wanted all his followers to become spiritual masters and spread Krishna consciousness all over the world.
Compared to during Srila Prabhupada's time, ISKCON is stagnant. When you go to the West, you see Indians manning the temples. This means that Westerners are not joining, and Indians, because it is their thing, are joining despite our lack of preaching.
King Arhat imitated Rsabhadeva in his avadhuta mood because he found Rsabhadeva, as an avadhuta, had more followers than he did as a king, and thus Jainism was born.
When there is dhanam and janam, the sundarim is not far away.

I went to the campus with the harmonium to chant for an hour. I practiced four Hare Krishna tunes, and one guy smiled and shouted "Hare Krishna" as he bicycled by. I passed one girl and her boyfriend doing a yard sale to and from the campus. She had a favorable attitude about Krishna Lunch, and so I told her there were two groups doing Krishna food at this weekend's Kanapaha Botanical Gardens festival. I also mentioned our weekly Sunday feast in Alachua. I found a piece of Radha-Madhava's mahaprasadam from Mayapur in my bag, and gave it to her as a treat from India and explained the historical significance of Mayapur and the spreading of the chanting of Hare Krishna all over the world from there. She liked the flavor of the sweet, and said it would be great with coffee. She asked about our vegetarian cooking class, and I told her about the yoga, Bhagavad-gita, and Nectar of Instruction classes which I knew about and told her I'd ask about the vegetarian cooking class, which I later found out we used to have but don't at present. I felt victorious that at least someone got a little mercy in the form of prasadam from the holy dhama.