New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

Dearest Vaishnavas,

During Kartik I greatly relish singing daily this English song glorifying Lord Damodar, and this year I thought I might humbly share this poem with others who might not be familiar with this superb rhymed verse originally penned in 1990 by my godbrother True Peace, and sung at New Vrindaban during Kartik for several years. I think you will enjoy the sensitively chosen word painting and the poetic skills of the author, as the meter, feet and accents fit very nicely to the traditional Vaishnava tune which begins: ” namamisvaram sac-cid-ananda-rupam.”

Sincerely Your Servant,

Hrishikesh (Henry Doktorski)
Oakdale, Pennsylvania

—————-

Damodar Prayers

English Verses by True Peace

(1) Omnipotent, eternal, omniscient in bliss,
In Gokula manifest, with opulence kissed,
Yashoda’s sweet butter thief, fearful to subdue—
My Lord Supreme, Damodar, obeisance to You.

(2) Wide-eyed, You were terrified, tearful, breathing quick,
With ropes bound by Yashoda, for her whipping stick—
Bound by your devotee’s love, Your mercy is true,
My Lord Supreme, Damodar, obeisance to You.

(3) Pastimes full of ecstasy with Krishna thus show
Lord Narayan’s devotees an intimate glow.
What love in Your devotee, sweet Lord, you embue!
My Lord Supreme, Damodar, obeisance to You.

(4) O Lord, my great champion, no gift is more fair
Than Your childhood’s sweet pastimes remembered in prayer.
Not even the Supersoul complete from the start
Is sweeter than Your childhood replete in my heart.

(5) All mystical darkness in Your sweet lotus face
Rose blushed by the kisses of Yashoda’s embrace—
To hold You and love You, Lord, what treasure could find,
Your mystical presence, now, always in my mind?

(6) Unlimited Shri Vishnu! O Master! O Lord!
I’m drowning in sorrow here. Let me be restored.
Show mercy upon me, Lord! Uplift and protect
Your unworthy servitor with nectar’s confect.

(7) Bound to a great grinding stone caught between two trees
The little Lord Damodar crawling on His knees
Freed both of Kuvera’s sons to be devotees.
O sweet little Damodar, please likewise bless me.

(8) O Lord, as the universe was made by Brahma,
Sprung up from Your abdomen, bound by Yashoda,
So let me obeisances to You my sweet Lord
Bind me to Your services, forever adored.

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Haribol everyone,

This Sunday at 1:00 pm I will be starting a Sunday School for children 3 years and up. I apologize for the long delay.

Ruci has taken on the new school and can no longer do her class, so I am trying to see if consolidating two classes will work. We will give it a try.

The Sunday class is basically going to be for whoever comes. There will be Sundays when I won’t be able to do it and I
will let parents know in advance. My main goal is just to have something for the children.

Our theme will be Kartik, Gov.Puja with the class structure starting with a small kirtan, then story and art project.

Thank you for your patience and let me know if I can serve you in any other capacity.

Your servant,

Rama Lila

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The following comment, was placed on the post titled

Confessions of the Prasadam Addict: Section 6 (final)

“His Divine Grace Srila Bhaktipada?!”

(the comment questions the use of this name in the article)

Thank you for pointing this out.

These articles were written in the 1970s.

That was his ISKCON approved name at the time. While it is no longer acceptable to use this name, it was when the article was written.

It would be Orwellian (please read “1984” if you haven’t already) to change historical documents to reflect current political correctness.

This does create a quandary when reproducing documents. We can only hope that readers read with an open mind, and take gold even from an unclean place.

While the problems of NV and Kirtanananda Swami (previously AKA Bhaktipada) have been widely distributed, the nectar has been under appreciated and mostly unheard.

Without understanding that NV had many positive aspects, it is impossible to truly understand how and why things transpired as they did.

In The Well

by Taru das

My dear readers, it is time to come to an understanding of the motivation behind these articles. We have attempted to be a little amusing and in this respect, there may have been a certain amount of success. But actually what we are trying to do is to describe the process of purification in Krsna Consciousness. We never wanted anyone to think that all the atrocities detailed herein are actually something to be admired or imitated. Yet the fear is there that we are encouraging the wrong type of behavior.

The process of devotional service does not always seem very amusing to the conditioned soul. Sometimes, yes, we can look back and laugh at our original misconceptions of spiritual like. But then again, there are times when it appears to be very difficult to struggle ahead towards spiritual advancement. This is what we have failed to capture so far, the up-and-down roller coaster ride the neophyte devotee experiences in his progressive march towards liberation. In order to offset the devil-may-care, rather zany mood of the first articles, I feel it is now time to plunge to the depths of despair, to take the dive, as they say, into the well.

We have surely mentioned many times the example set by the truly great souls, those who have conquered over their senses. The longing to actually follow in their footsteps is often keenly felt, even by one so incapable and unworthy as myself. One will surely be amazed to know that an all-out glutton can read about Raghunatha dasa eating only a pat of butter every alternate day and feel genuinely touched at heart. But it is a fact. Actually, such aspirations to imitate these great souls are at least as strong as the desire to beg, borrow, steal or by any other means attain quantities of delectable foodstuffs. One feels himself pulled in opposite directions by equally powerful horses. What a predicament.

The solution to the problem can be round in the all-merciful attitude of the Supreme Lord Krsna towards His fallen devotee. The Lord is always inviting the conditioned souls to return to Him. So once we embark upon the path of devotional service. He is much more willing than we are to hasten our advancement. His mercy is that He cuts down all our material desires and gives newer and fresher and stronger impetus to our spiritual desires. Krsna says that the first installment of His mercy upon His devotee is that He completely crushes all his material desires so that the devotee will take complete shelter of Him.

Divine Intervention

Were it not for such divine intervention, I would surely have gotten dragged away by mundane desires and would now be some celebrated champion on the amateur pie-eating circuit. I mean, Krsna guarantees that in whatever way one is attracted to Him, he will benefit spiritually. For example, one may come to Krsna to ask for money, but unless he ultimately gives up his desire to enjoy wealth, he will not be able to make any further advancement. It may have been well and good that I was so attracted to Krsna prasadam in the beginning, but as time went on, it became more and more imperative that I go beyond the desire to eat Krsna Conscious cooking and get down to just becoming Krsna conscious.

I kept missing the boat, however. All my God-brothers were advancing very nicely, increasing their service and attachment to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, giving up their material desires and working harder every day. As a stark example of what happened if a person maintains his material desires, I stood out like a crow amidst a flock of swans. Everyone else was moving ahead and I was sinking down fast.It must have been that everyone else saw where I was headed before I realized it myself. It always seems to happen that way. I couldn’t see any farther ahead than the next meal. But on the growth chart of spiritual culture, my curves were starting to dip down towards the bottom of the page. I took more and more to illegal methods of obtaining foodstuffs. I even consorted with family folks. You see, the householders had some little facility for getting extra goods. They might have some little money, they might go into town for some reason, they might even have a little hot plate in their rooms. Nothing very lavish, mind you, just a pinch more than the poor brahmacaris. But that little pinch made a big difference.

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Hare Krishna

Midday Jappa sessions have begun at the RVC temple Monday-Friday 12:45 pm.

Some devotees chant and briskly walk as did Srila Prabhupada for exercise. All are welcome.

In addition Damodar prabhu is willing to offer yoga sessions twice a week, Mon/Thur, following the jappa period. Again all are welcome.

Any questions or suggestions please contact Kuladri das: kuladridas@aol.com or just show up.

Courtesy of The Post, the student newspaper at Ohio University, check out this article about the recent visit by the kids from the Global Leadership Center, run by Dr. Greg Emery, a longtime friend of the New Vrindaban Community.

Click this link to read the article.

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This past weekend was chock-full! We here at the New Vrindaban Community celebrated Ramacandra Vijayotsava (“The Burning of Ravana”) in our usual harvest style, as a 15-foot high wooden sculpture of Ravana was expertly cut, painted, and assembled by the hands of HG Rupanuga Prabhu, all with the intention of shooting a flaming arrow into Ravana’s heart and into the lust in our own heart.

We also hosted a contingent of students from Ohio University and the Global Leadership Center, run by our good friend Dr. Greg Emery, who annually brings students to do a project with devotees from the Dham.

This year, they were focusing on “The Conversion Experience”, or why people of all shapes, sizes, and colors decide to become devotees of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

They came this weekend to get hands-on with real life in the Dham, receiving warm welcomes, expert tours, mouth-watering prasad, dance lessons, and even new saris for the ladies.

The students, in conjunction with the various devotees they are working with, will submit final papers, with the best ones appearing via the Pluralism Project from Harvard University sometime this winter.

Here are the photographic highlights

HG Caitanya Prabhu reveals the Dham to the kids from Ohio U.

All it takes is two legs and a little gusto to get the ecstacy

Two drunkards…..

…get a lesson in real enjoyment from Caitanya Prabhu…

…and feel real bliss as everyone relishes yet another spontaneous drama from the Brijabasi Players, led by HG Yugal Kishore Prabhu

HG Janaka Mahajana Prabhu with Hanuman

Ready, aim…….

…FIRE!

Ravana Burns!

Hanuman, Lord Ramacandra, and Lakshman look grave after their victory

Cosmo also is grave

HALLOWEEN

HARINAMA!!!

starring Lord Jagannath!

The fun happens this Saturday night, October 27th in Athens, Ohio, home of Ohio University.

Dress in devotional gear or your most transcendental costume.

For all the info, please see Chaitanya Das or Bhakta-Chris. We will be leaving early Saturday evening and arriving around 8pm. Bwahahahaha! Haribol!

by Gokulataruni d.d

In memory of,Bhakta Seva Prabhu, I thought I’d write down and share the kacchori recipe that he taught me many years ago, to the best of my memory it went something like this.

Filling:

2  large potatoes (peeled and boiled)
1/2 head of cabbage (chopped into tiny cubes and fried)

Chaunce:
(Heat a few tablespoons of ghee and add the below ingredients in the following order until they’ve
darkened a couple shades)

1 inch chunk of ginger (grated)
1 Tblsp Anise seeds
1 Tblsp Cumin seeds
1 Tblsp Caraway seeds (he always said it was these 
(The three seeds that really made the filling)
A dash of hing/asafetida

Mash together:
Filling
Chaunce
An appropriate amount of salt

Crust:

Bhakta Seva always used a standard pie crust recipe. He mixed it in the food processor in order to avoid touching it with his hands, which would cause it to lose flakiness. He also refrigerated it for a couple of hours before use and rolled the kacchoris out on wax paper in the cooler, as otherwise the butter would melt and make the dough too sticky for use. A sample pie crust recipe is as follows (this may need to be doubled for the amount of filling – it’s been awhile since I made this):

1 Cup butter (grated or chopped while very cold)
2 Cups white flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 Cup water

After refrigerating, the dough can be divided into balls with an approximate 2 inch diameter. They should then be flattened into discs and rolled evenly into circles. An ample amount of filling should be placed  in the middle, then the sides should be brought up around it, pinched together and twisted until the excess dough  comes off. The kacchori should then be flattened into a very thick disc-like shape, and fried in ghee on medium heat until golden brown on the outside.

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by Malati dd

Located adjacent to Room 3 and next to the Ladies Bathroom on the ground floor of the Guest Room Wing

First of all, it is still “The Library.” In spite of a clandestine effort to convert it into a facility for excess deity clothes and sewing, complete with a sewing machine, by removing one wall of shelves and the sound system,

The Library is still the Library and it will be back to full working order in no time at all. In the meantime, please avail yourself of the storehouse of knowledge that fills the remaining shelves, along with videos, dvd’s, tapes and cd’s on a wide variety of transcendental topics.

There are also books for practical aspects of life, including Vegetarian Cook Books and “How to do This’s and That’s.” as well as Health related topics. It is a place to meditate (the upper loft), study, and learn.

Please drop in! Jaya Murari has keys should it be locked, as do a few other folk (like the one’s who tried the renovation). You can expect a variety of new titles to arrive on Nov. 30th, fresh from India. There is also a computer with the Bhaktivedanta Veda Base installed on it.

Hare Krishna!

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