Mindfulness helps, but it isn’t everything…

Posted on 30 December 2019 by Aniruddha

“Bhakti teaches us that joy comes from the awakened heart, not from a controlled and stilled mind. Happiness lies in loving, not in knowing or mindfulness or any sort of mental peace that is the goal of most meditation and all of psychoanalysis. By the practice of bhakti, the heart expands with love and the mind with awareness of the self, and gradually we move from simple human love to an all-encompassing, otherworldly wise-love. d”

— Wise-Love: Bhakti and the Search for the Soul of Consciousness by Pranada Comtois
http://amzn.asia/1xJJEE4

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Email list extractor

Posted on 25 November 2019 by Aniruddha

Here’s a cool site that solved a little problem I had, in short shrift!

I had a bunch of emails in a mailing list that I wanted in simple text format.

I cut and pasted the list into a form on Email Extractor and it gave me exactly what I needed.

Very cool.

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Janmāṣṭamī — all systems go!

Posted on 10 August 2019 by Aniruddha

There was a lot happening at the temple this morning in preparation for Jhulana Yatra which starts tomorrow, Balarāma Purnima which is on Thursday, and is the end of Jhulana Yatra, and Janmāṣṭamī which is Saturday week.

Chandeliers getting their annual clean-up and a sweet preparation in the kitchen.

Instagram shots here.

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LA Ratha Yatra August 2019

Posted on 10 August 2019 by Aniruddha

Here’s a very enthusiastic appreciation of the Ratha Yatra recently celebrated in Los Angeles. The gentleman who created this video is unknown to the devotees apparently. You’d hardly pick it! Well, apart from the fact that he jumbles the mahā-mantra at the end. What he lacks in technique he makes up for with enthusiasm.

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This is how Melbourne feels today.

Posted on 10 August 2019 by Aniruddha
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8th quality of a devotee

Posted on 9 August 2019 by Aniruddha

kāmair ahata-dhīr
kāmaiḥ — by material desires; ahata — undisturbed; dhīḥ — whose intelligence
his intelligence is never bewildered by material desires
a devotee never sacrifices his auspicious position of steady intelligence, even in the face of so-called material opportunity
ŚB 11.11.30

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Consciousness

Posted on 9 August 2019 by Aniruddha

What is consciousness? It is the effulgence of the soul. It is like the illumination of a lamp. The soul has illumination. That illumination is consciousness.

Adapted from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam lecture 7.7.22-26
March 10, 1967
San Francisco

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Hare Krishna Valley Spring Cleaning

Posted on 31 August 2018 by Aniruddha

20180829_114659

The troops have been working on the hot house getting it ready for a spring planting. Beds dug over and topped up with compost. Old plastic stripped with new cover on its way. $500 for a big roll of plastic. Youch. Farming isn’t cheap. Thank you to the farm volunteers.

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Dream of Mine

Posted on 31 August 2018 by Aniruddha
Here’s a dream of mine. I’m not sure if I’m in love with the idea or the reality of cycling this route in one day. Port Augusta to Quorn, then to Wilmington and back around to the Port! Six and a half hours, or thereabouts, according to Google. I’ve chosen some back roads which should be safer given there shouldn’t be much traffic on them. There are plenty of hills. It’s a 495 metre climb to the highest point just outside of Wilmington which would be a tad over 80km into the ride. That gives me plenty of time out in the bush and farmland to contemplate the meaning of life.

The real challenge will be putting in the effort required to be fit enough to go the distance. The logistics of riding that far are also a challenge. I’ve ridden from Port Augusta to Quorn and back on a few occasions. I was pretty tired after doing that. Going the extra forty km is not going to be easy.

These are roads I’ve driven on as a teenager with my family and later with Acintya Rūpa on visits to Port Augusta over the years. The Aussie bush is barren out here. It’s marginal land just above and below Goyder’s Line.

Goyders Line in the mid-north of South Australia.

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Kīrtana Noise – what’s healthy? What’s not!

Posted on 31 August 2018 by Aniruddha

ISKCON News: Kirtan Sound Engineers Raise Awareness About Harmful Sound Levels [Article]

The first step is to reduce the number of instruments. In many kirtans, devotees spontaneously pick up instruments no matter how many are already in session. But Dvija Vara advises that just one pair of kartals and one mridanga (no whompers or gongs) are usually enough even in a large kirtan.

I know that the parents want to encourage the boys to learn the mṛdaṅga and one of the best ways to do that is in a live kīrtana. There’s nothing like struggling to keep up with the big boys whilst enduring their discouraging frowns. That’s how I learnt to play instruments under the loving scowl of say, Kūrma Prabhu and Govinda Svāmī’s sternness. But, as is mentioned above, there really is no need for more than one mṛdaṅga and one set of karatālas in the temple room. Maybe two karatālas.

The article referred to above has a few sensible recommendations.

I’ve ordered the sound meter for our temple room.

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