Skip to main content

TWO DECADES OF HARE KRISHNA

"Sometimes the longest journey we make is the sixteen inches from our heads to our hearts." - Elena Avila

Coming December 2019 marks 20 years of my consistent and daily chanting of 16 rounds of the Hare Krishna Maha-mantra, one of the prerequisite for a committed practitioner of Krishna consciousness. I started, chanting 16 rounds in December of 1999 and now, 20 years have passed by so quickly. One thing that helps me, be focused in spiritual life is watching the passing of the imperceptible time. How weeks turn into months, how months turn into years and how years turn into decades is a great wonder of life.

This article is in no way to glorify my two decades of chanting Hare Krishna but it is just meant to share my little thoughts and my little experiences in my spiritual life at this junction in life. I feel so grateful to Krishna and His wonderful devotees who have been extremely kind to me by showering their grace on me and thus helping me sustain my spiritual life for so many years. I know that without the grace of God and His devotees, it is impossible to chant Hare Krishna even for one day, what to speak of so many years. Srila Prabhupada would always remind devotees that Maya is extremely strong and impeccable. It is not within our power to resist her forces. Thus, we need to feel very humble, helpless and constantly seek and plead for the mercy of God and His devotees. Without their mercy we have no other hope.


I am also extremely grateful for all the wonderful and exciting opportunities to serve, that I was blessed with. I got to be part of so many successful projects and events in the course of pushing on this great movement of compassion. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to serve so many elevated and sincere lovers of God. I am so grateful to visit so many holyplaces in the company of holy devotees, chanting and hearing the holy Katha of the Lord. I also feel blessed to have gone through so many difficult tests and challenges in my spiritual life, which have helped me become a little humble, a little mature and a little wise.

At this junction in my spiritual life, as I feel grateful for all the wonderful things, I also feel simultaneously a little shameful and regretful for all the time I wasted in wasteful mental imagination, sheer laziness and in wasteful mundane engagements. I strongly feel that I could have advanced to a much higher spiritual stage than the stage I am at present. If I was more focused in my spiritual life all these years, I could have gone more deeper into my understanding of scriptures, developed genuine attachment to the chanting of the Holynames of Krishna and performed greater services to Guru and Gauranga. Now, that the time that is gone is gone and can't be relieved again; the least I can do, is to be more focused in my spiritual journey from this point on firstly, to make up for the spiritual time lost in the last 20 years and secondly, so that 20 years from now, I can be proud and unregretful of my life. Seeking your blessings and good wishes for my journey ahead.
 
- Achyut Gopal Das

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

GOVARDHAN REFLECTION

While doing parikrama around Govardhan Hill, I was reflecting back on all the times I have performed Govardhan parikrama in the last so many years. I reflected that each time I have performed it, it was always with different devotees at different phases in my life. My companions during the parikrama and my situation during the parikrama were all different. The only similar factor in all these parikramas was Govardhan Himself. Being an eternal form of the Lord, He is always the same. The more we realize Krishna and His various forms to be the only constant factor in this changing world, we can seek our refuge in the Lord and experience shelter and stability in a changing world.   Srila Prabhupada, one time was sharing with the devotees life lessons connected to his visits to Jagannath Puri. He explained that, he came to Jagannath Puri for the first time as a small child along with his father. He then came as a young college student. Then as a young married man. N

THE PARALLEL OF LEAVING "THE WHATSAPP WORLD"

A few weeks ago, I exited from the WhatsApp platform after using it for years. Here are few parallels I drew between the experience of leaving "the WhatsApp world" and the experience one has of leaving this world. I WILL ALWAYS EXIST After leaving the WhatsApp world, I still exist similarly after leaving this world, one will still exist because as spirit soul, we are all eternal. Lord Krishna explains in Bhagvat-gita 2.12 na tv evāhaṁ jātu nāsaṁ na tvaṁ neme janādhipāḥ na caiva na bhaviṣyāmaḥ sarve vayam ataḥ param "Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be." "N" NUMBER OF WORLDS The WhatsApp world is not the all in all similarly, this life of ours is not the all in all. Exiting from WhatsApp is just texting from one platform. There are so many other platforms to operate from. There are "n" number of little worlds that exist pa

TRANSFORMING CURSES TO BLESSINGS - A tale of two trees

"Perhaps someday I'll crawl back home, beaten, defeated. But not as long as I can make stories out of my heartbreak, beauty out of sorrow." - Sylvia Plath, American poet and writer. Who doesn't like stories. Stories have always been loved by human civilization for eons probably because in the story of others, humans find semblance of their own stories. Some stories are entertaining, some inspiring, some touching and some enlightening. Here is one such story from the Srimad-Bhagvatam which contains all these aspects. This is a story of two trees - a story of the journey from bondage to freedom. This is a story of hope - a story of transformation. Even though this story happened 5000 years back, the lessons from it are still relevant and fresh. As you read this story, you may find clues to write or rewrite your personal story of transformation, hope, bliss and freedom.   THE TURNING POINT This is the story of the deliverance of the twin Yamala Arjuna trees by L