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Thrill of Fulfillment. Five Purposes. Center - Worship, Sadhana Connect - Fellowship, Sanga Cultivate - Discipleship, Siksha Contribute - Ministry, Seva Communicate - Mission, Sankirtan. Sankirtana. Contributor not consumer Participator, not spectator.
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Five Purposes • Center - Worship, Sadhana • Connect - Fellowship, Sanga • Cultivate - Discipleship, Siksha • Contribute - Ministry, Seva • Communicate - Mission, Sankirtan
Sankirtana • Contributor not consumer • Participator, not spectator
“I have left India just to execute the order of Sri Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati in pursuance of Lord Chaitanya's order. I have no qualification, but I have taken up the risk just to carry out the order of His Divine Grace. I depend fully on Their mercy so far away from Vrindaban.”
“Simply by chanting the Holy Name of Krishna, one can attain freedom from material existence. By chanting the Hare Krishna mantra one will be able to see the Lotus Feet of the Lord.” “In this age of Kali there is no religious principle other than the chanting of the Holy Name, which is the essence of all scriptures.” CC Adi 7/73,74
“For one who explains this supreme secret to the devotees, devotional service is guaranteed, and at the end he will come back to me. There is no servant in this world more dear to Me than he nor will there ever be one more dear.” Gita 18/71,72
The greatest philanthropists are those transcendentalists who represent the mission of Vyasa, Narada, Madhva, Caitanya, Rupa, Sarasvati, etc. They are all one and the same. The personalities may be different, but the aim of the mission is one and the same, namely, to deliver the fallen souls back home, back to Godhead. SB 1/4/17
The constant companions of Lord Krishna, such as Uddhava, are all liberated souls, and they descended along with Lord Krishna to this material world to fulfill the mission of the Lord.
The Pandavas are also liberated souls who descended along with Lord Krishna to serve Him in His transcendental pastimes on this earth. SB 1/14/32 Bowl from Surya
Privilege & a Responsibility • Roles, rewards, & responsibilties • Did you fulfill 5 purposes • Is anybody going to be in Vaikuntha because of you?
Privilege to Participate A pure devotee has the privilege as the son of God to participate in the ecstatic eternal pastimes of the Supreme Lord, loving Krishna and playing with Him forever. For such a devotee the pale material nature, which is but a perverted reflection of the spiritual world, becomes totally unattractive. SB 11/2/48
Steady Progress • Either striving to get better or allowing to get worse • Not knowing your mission causes problems
Whether one has achieved great success in business, or has amassed great wealth, a nice family, fame, or any amount of worldly or mystical power, that dissatisfaction at the inner core of one’s being is liable to occur. This dissatisfaction is manifested in many ways, such as boredom, frustration, loneliness and disillusion, and in general it exists because our innermost desires for happiness and fulfillment are not being satisfied. BTG 1977 Cause of despondency, Vyasadev
Playwright Eugene Ionesco writes, "Cut off from religion, metaphysics, and roots, man is lost. His actions become senseless, useless, absurd.”
1. Boredom • 8 cylinder person in 2 cylinder job • Chewing the chewed • Chew some gum, crack a joke, change the channel, make a call, catch a flick
Kierkegaard “Unrestricted sense gratification leads to boredom, and ultimately to despair.”
Make Believe World For the soul to interact with the material world, he has to make believe. Make believe he’s some teen with his first driver’s license. Make believe he’s some proud new grandpa. Make believe he’s the body.
Lotus Leaf Everything in life happens to the body. Nothing directly touches the soul. No tear, no fear. Everything secondhand life.
Terminally Recurrent After many lifetimes, it gets pretty stale. And so we’re bored. When someone says this is a world of suffering, that’s often what he really means. It’s terminally recurrent boredom. BTG Is this Suffering?
JAPA Devotees always chant the name Krishna over and over, but they do not feel boredom or monotony. They feel ever-increasing transcendental bliss, and this is why they keep chanting.”
2. Escapism A few months before I was born, my dad met a stranger who was new to our small Tennessee town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer, and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the world a few months later. As I grew up I never questioned his place in our family.
Mom taught me to love the Word of God. Dad taught me to obey it. But the stranger was our storyteller. He could weave the most fascinating tales. Adventures, mysteries and comedies were daily conversations. He could hold our whole family spellbound for hours each evening. He was like a friend to the whole family. He took Dad, Bill and me to our first major league baseball game. He was always encouraging us to see the movies and he even made arrangements to introduce us to several movie stars.
The stranger was an incessant talker. Dad didn't seem to mind, but sometimes Mom would quietly get up - while the rest of us were enthralled with one of his stories of faraway places - and go to her room read her Bible and pray. I wonder now if she ever prayed that the stranger would leave. You see, my dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions. But this stranger never felt an obligation to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our house - not from us, from our friends, or adults. Our longtime visitor, however, used occasional four-letter words that burned my ears and made Dad squirm. To my knowledge the stranger was never confronted.
My dad was a teetotaler who didn't permit alcohol in his home - not even for cooking. But the stranger felt he needed exposure and enlightened us to other ways of life. He offered us beer and other alcoholic beverages often. He made cigarettes look tasty, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (too much too freely) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing. I know now that my early concepts of the man/woman relationship were influenced by the stranger.
As I look back, I believe it was the grace of God that the stranger did not influence us more. Time after time he opposed the values of my parents. Yet he was seldom rebuked and never asked to leave. More than thirty years have passed since the stranger moved in with the young family on Morningside Drive. But if I were to walk into my parents' den today, you would still see him sitting over in a corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures. His name? We always called him TV.
The human life is an opportunity to escape the Lord's external potency and enter into His internal potency.
KC Escapism “No materialistic creature—be he the great Brahma or an insignificant ant—can be happy. Everyone tries to make a permanent plan for happiness, but everyone is baffled by the laws of material nature. The materialistic world is called the darkest region of God's creation. The unhappy materialists can get out of itsimply by desiring to get out. Unfortunately they are so foolish that they do not want to escape.” SB 1/2/3
Yamaraj O Suta Gosvami, there are those amongst men who desire freedom from death and get eternal life. They escape the slaughtering process by calling the controller of death, Yamarja. SB 1/16/7 Acala Mrtyu Haranam
Real Charity Actual charity is to award fearlessness and freedom to others, not to give them some material means of temporary pleasure or relief. Any material "charitable" arrangement will inevitably be crushed by the onward march of time. Thus only realization of one's eternal existence beyond the reach of time can make one fearless, for it enables one to escape the bondage of the laws of nature. Real charity is to help people revive their eternal, spiritual consciousness.
3. Depression Why get up in the morning?
Mode of Ignorance “When one's higher awareness fails and finally disappears and one is thus unable to concentrate his attention, his mind is ruined and manifests ignorance and depression. You should understand this situation to be the predominance of the mode of ignorance.”
Intoxicants Wind us down, pick us, up, steady jangled nerves. Without some kind of buffer, life can often be too harsh to endure.
No Basis in Fact “What's wrong with a little intoxication to relax at the end of the day? The sensation of pleasure with no basis in fact; the drugged complacence that enables one to accept a life of pain as satisfactory. One lives, numb to the yearnings of his deeper nature, in a tiny world of make-believe people. He’ll never grasp the futility of his life as he wallows in his intoxicated stupor, and thus he will live and die with no more significance than the German shepherd chained in his backyard.” BTG 1986, “One More Round.”
Illusory Effect Wears Off Whiskey sours won't take the dent out of your new car, or pay for your son's braces, or make you attractive to your new secretary. They won't make you twenty again, nor will they diminish the flab around your waist. When the illusory effect wears off, you're left with the same harsh world.
Artificial Highs Unwanted Sat Chit Ananda
Arjuna, paralyzed with indecision at the prospect of slaying his own friends, relatives, and teachers in the opposing army, accepts his friend Krishna as his guru and appeals to Him for guidance.
“The power and energy which were bestowed upon Arjuna were required for fulfillment of the mission of the Lord, but when His mission was fulfilled, the emergency powers were withdrawn from Arjuna as they were no longer required.” SB 1/15/15
