Care for Kruma Rupa Prabhu

Care for Cows is an organization started by HG Kurma Rupa das prabhu in Vrindavan. The organization protects abandoned cows. Today I heard that HG Kurma Rupa prabhu is in an advanced stage of cancer. He may leave his body at any moment. Please pray for prabhuji so he can go back to loving embracing arms of Sri Gopal and their transcendental cows.

Below is an email from H.H BB Govinda Swami maharaja who met HG Kurma Rupa prabhu yesterday in Vrindavan.

Hare Krishna

From BB Govinda Maharaj:

June 25th, 2015

Dear All,

Obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

Our wonderful god-brother Kurma Rupa Prabhu is dying of cancer in Vraja. Today may be his last day. He was diagnosed a few weeks ago with stage four cancer .. a big tumour at the base of his stomach. He has lived in Vraja approximately 31 years. 

He served with the Gurukula and later started the “Care For Cows” program. I went to see him the other evening. He was very weak but we spoke for about an hour. I asked him about his japa and he said he was too weak to chant. But then he shared that for many years he had chanted 64 rounds a day. And he said that during those rare, special moments of his life when Krishna would bless with a drop of mercy .. he could see that his only desire and aspiration was to serve Sri Gopal and His cows. He said that many great souls speak of service to the servants of Sri Radha, and, that he offers his obeisances to them millions of times. But all he prays for is the service of Sri Gopal and His cows. The next day he was planning to leave the room he was staying in return to “Care For Cows.” 

He said he wanted to be there to “hear the cows, smell the cows, have the dust of the cows walking cover his body.” Take a moment and offer a prayer to Sri Gopal that He quickly embrace Kurma Rupa Prabhu . and that arm and arm they walk together amidst 900,000 cows.

Hare Krishna. 

Affectionate regards.
Your servant,
BB Govinda Swami 

All right take it!

It is said that a pure devotee of Lord Sri Krishna is more powerful than God Himself in the sense that God is subserviant to that devotee. Therefore it is essential to seek the mercy of such a pure devotee of the Lord. Whatever the pure devotee desires, Krishna will fulfill without fail. Below is a nice story illustrating the compassion, and mercy of Srila Prabhupada and how Krishna was willing to fulfill Prabhupada's desire.

The scene is set in Mayapur where in Guru das prabhu is wanting Prabhupada's darshan late at night. The sky is overcast but no rain. Somehow, Guru das prabhu attracted the attention of Prabhupada. Below are the words of Guru das prabhu himself.

"Srila Prabhupada walked up and down on the balcony with me, then turned towards the fields and walked to the balcony railing. He looked out and said 'The farmers beg Krishna for rainwater.' He paused briefly. 'All right, take it!'. As Prabhupada swept his hand down as if dispensing rain, a lightening bolt crashed; suddenly the sky opened and rain came down furiously. ' Take it,' he said quietly, and walked into his room."

Srila Prabhupada ki jay!

Hare Krishna

a favored disciple

Sometimes, actually many times we may witness that a devotee does nice service and feels proud that he or she is close to his/her spiritual master - that he/she is special in the eyes of the spiritual master. Such thinking is not compatible with suddha bhakti.

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Takur Prabhupada had this to say regarding a disciple feeling puffed up and favored by the guru.

"If a student feels favored, he is like a mosquito perched on the lap of a king, thinking 'All these people are my subjects,' but all he can really do is bite the king" - by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Takur

A lesson duly to be noted if we are sincere!

Hare Krishna

Two verses characterizing the Gita and Kurukshetra battle

The Bhagavad Gita opens with a question by Dhritrashtra. His opening question is an indication of a veiled doubt - assembled in the battlefield to fight what happened between his children and Pandu's children? His question was laced with doubt filled with anxiety. He knew deep inside, however, his sons' will lose. He wanted Sanjaya to allay his anxiety.

Sanjaya in the last and final verse of the Gita does the opposite. He answers Dhritrashtra's question unequivocally by saying that your sons' will not win because wherever there is Krishna with His pure devotee Arjuna, there is surely to be victory, opulence and moral justice. I think Sanjaya's final answer put to rest in a poetic yet definitive manner any optimism on the part of Dhritrishra had towards his sons.

As an outsider, simply studying these two verses symbolize the characters involved in the Gita and sets the stage and outcome of the Kurukshetra battle respectively.

Hare Krishna

True quality of a vaishnava

Lord Chaitanya famously said that by speaking about Krishna to whomever you meet, you become guru. There is no need to move one's physical location. This is one qualification of guru- constant speaking about Krishna. To constantly speak about Krishna requires a significant quality - one of humility. The quality of humility cannot be over stressed, it is so important that it can tell the difference between a neophyte vaishnava and advanced. In Chaitanya Charitamrta Madhya Lila Ch 22 Text 131, Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says one should associate with a devotee more advanced than oneself and who are endowed with a similar type of affection for the Lord. So we should seek the association of a vaishnava who is humble by nature and associate with him or her.

Below are the words of a pure saintly person stressing on the value of humility.

"One who is real guru never says, “I am guru.” He sees everyone according to jīvera ‘svarūpa’ haya kṛṣṇera ‘nityadāsa’— he sees their svarūpa, he sees that all are servants of Krishna. The guru has such a vision. His vision is not material vision, therefore he is guru. Through him we get bhagavān, Krishna. Guru says, tṛṇād api sunīcena — “I am lower than the straw in the street.” He is so humble. He has no pride in being a guru. But if someone says, “Don’t you know who I am? I am a great guru! Great ācārya!” This is dambha, pride. It is a demoniac characteristic, not a divine characteristic. It is not a characteristic of a vaiṣṇava-sādhu-guru. A real guru has humility. If one thinks, “I am guru.” Then he is not guru. He is goru, a quadruped, a cow or a bull."

- HH Gour Govinda Swami Maharaj

Hare Krishna

Everyone is searching after Krishna

Everyone is searching after Krishna either directly or indirectly. Krishna means all-attractive and hence we are attracted. In the Standard English dictionary, Krishna is defined as a Hindu God or a mythological person. But when seers of non-dual truth talk about Krishna, they do not refer to Krishna as a Hindu God. Therefore, in essence, there are two Krishnas, (1) Krishna as seen by mundane vision through scripture, popular media and/or modern day guru/scholars (2) Krishna as seen through spiritual vision by pure lovers of God. The second Krishna is the real Krishna. The first one is a shadow. It is this second Krishna that seers of truth claim as the Universal Truth (not Hindu God). It is this second Krishna that permeates all time, all space and all beings and unto this second Krishna that all beings are directly or indirectly searching. Devotees directly summon the mercy of the Lord but non-devotees summon the energy of the Lord.

Krishna has multifarious energies or shaktis. When people search for mundane opulence in the form of money, fame, popularity, family, pleasure, pain, beauty, intelligence, food, piety etc etc, they are indirectly searching for Krishna through His energy. Because the mundane opulence which is an energy of Krishna derives its attractiveness from the attractiveness of Krishna. So actually it is the attractiveness of Krishna that is perceived within this world and that everyone is attracted to, and eventually searching after.

Why not just directly be attracted to Krishna?

Hare Krishna