Re: Vani, Temples, Sanga and Naama Bhajana

Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna!

Dear Guruji, Jagannatha Gauranga dasa, Bhakta Igor, Bhakta Srinath and devotees. Please accept my humble obeisances.

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. I think the foremost temple we have to built, maintain, and invite devotees to, is within our hearts. Our inner temple can be made unlimitedly beautiful and clean and it can be built with so much love that, when invited, Lord Nityananda, Lord Gauranga and Sri Sri Radha Krishna will come and occupy our hearts. They will sanctify your inner temple with so much transcendental attraction that it is the only place where you want to be. From this inner temple all you can see is eternal bliss in and around you. Your guru, the acaryas, and all the pure devotees of all the worlds will gather and come within your heart and join the eternal party of Lord Gauranga Krishna. In that inner sanctuary of the core of your being you will be given so much transcendental service at the feet of the pure devotees of the Lord as you could never have imagined possible. Or is it that your pure heart has joined the eternal party of Lord Gauranga Krishna? At this point it doesn�t matter anymore because all of your being is constantly drowning in that supreme love for Lord Gauranga Krishna.

After having established your inner temple to the degree as described above it is all up to Lord Nityananda where your life is heading too. The only thing you pray for is to stay engaged in which we are engaged already: that you may continue to serve the devotees of Lord Gauranga Krishna. Because sometimes you may fly high on the forceful waves of concentrated bliss, but you should never forget that you are extremely vulnerable. You should never assume that your Bhakti creeper has become indestructible, not as long as you remain within this material word. The dangers are luring everywhere around and it is absolute not certain that you may not fall. I totally agree with guruji that just one pretentious devotee with ulterior motives can disturb the whole atmosphere. However we also have to conclude that that atmosphere was then not strong enough to neutralize the ulterior motives of that devotee. No impurity can actually enter within the Sanga ultimately headed by Lord Gauranga Krishna neither in Vapu nor in Virtual association.

It seems that we all are better in the science of devotional service that in the art of living it. Yes it is a great challenge to live with devotees together and make it all work and I respect those who try it tremendously. The advantage is that they all chant (or have at least once chanted) the supreme holy Name of Lord Nityananda and should be considered pure devotees of Lord Gauranga Krishna. The only alternative is that we make our living together with materialistic people.

There is so much advantage in living as a group. Together we have so much more time for chanting and devotional service. When we share the devotional duties as keeping the cows, growing the vegetables, cooking for the Lord, taking care of the deities and attracting income for the group, the work for every individual becomes lighter. There are also other advantages. In a group, children have many fathers and mothers and when the natural mother or father dies the children have still all the other moms and dads. They are not ending up with somebody they hardly know and they stay in the trustworthy environment they know. The nowadays individualization of our society has put a tremendous strain on tiny families. Everybody has to work eight to ten hours just to maintain their house, car, electricity bill, and daily needs. Most people have no time for this and that, everything goes in a hurry, instant meals are thrown into the microwave, and nobody within the family has time to associate appropriately with each other. When you live in a group of people, as a �tribe�, all those tasks are divided over many people who lessen the �burden� of making the livelihood of every individual involved.

There is another advantage of being together physically and that is sankirtana, the foremost instruction of Lord Gauranga Krishna in this Kali yuga. When we congressionally sing the holy Names of the Lord the most pervasive phenomena in the universe is unleashed: synchronicity. When you have two pendulums moving within one room, regardless of there initial state they will adopt the same rhythm. Synchronization occurs when coupling signals are influential enough to overcome the initial vibration of individual frequencies. Below a certain threshold individualization prevails, above it there is a collective rhythm. In modern day this is a whole new science that has emerged but Lord Gauranga Krishna is the originator of this phenomenon and his incarnation as Lord Gauranga is to utilize this in the form of his sankirtana movement. Being collectively together singing His holy Names is the foremost instruction and naturally includes all other instructions because it gives participants and bystanders the collective synchronicity of Himself.

I personally love to associate with all devotees that naturally appear on my devotional path. Sometimes I encounter so called devotees with all the ulterior motives as described by guruji and initially I only look and try to activate the best in them. However as soon as I detect it is a danger for my own bhajana I part with the association. My inner question always is: does this association bring me closer to Lord Gauranga Krishna or further away from Lord Gauranga Krishna? Coming back to the inner temple as described above almost everybody fits within my heart especially when I get them to chant Lord Nityananda�s Names even just once. Because according to the promise of Lord Gauranga Krishna he or she will be His pure devotee. I just try to humble myself so deeply that I become lower then them so I can take them on my shoulders and carry them to the Lord. The Lord has given here the perfect formula for being undefeatable. So if it is necessary that a group chooses a leader, a temple president as you will, it should be the humblest of the devotees because he or she can not be brought down and will bring all others without fail to the lotus feet of the Lord.

I am very grateful for being able to share some of my initial feelings about this subject with the assembly of the wonderful devotees of this forum.

Your servant,

Hadai Nityananda dasa

Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna!

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