God is controlled by love

How is this for a dynamite quote. One that you never hear the "lifers" in the various organizations mention, nor practice much for that matter.

Krishna becomes obliged to the loving spirit of the devotee and not exactly to the service rendered. No one can serve Krishna completely. He is so complete and self-sufficient that He has no need of any service from the devotee. It is the devotee's attitude of love and affection for Krishna that makes Him obliged. (Nectar of Devotion, Qualities of Krsna Further Explained. 40. Controlled by Love)

Meditations for the month of Damodar (Kartik, October/ November)

Ten prayers submitted to Lord Damodara’s lotus feet


-1-

O Damodara! Due to Your childish restless nature, mother Yasoda is always in great anxiety to protect You from the horns of cows and bulls, the teeth of monkeys, beaks and claws of birds, from fire, water and other imagined dangers. Always anxious to keep You safe and at the same time to execute her household duties, she knows no tranquility. May a tiny drop of Yasoda’s ecstasy in parental love enter my heart and drown all my so-called duties cultivated independently of You over innumerable births.

-2-

O Damodara! Bent on mischief, every morning at sunrise You visit the houses of Yasoda’s gopi friends. There, You let loose the calves before milking and then steal the gopis’ stocks of butter and yogurt. If someone calls, “Hey thief, stop!” You become angry and shout back, “I am not thief, you are thief!” May the truth of Your sweet words enter my heart and eradicate the deep rooted propensity to steal from You that I have nurtured over innumerable births.

-3-

O Damodara! With a mischievous smile You tell Yasoda, “Mother, you should know that I am expert at this art of stealing.” Thus, You plunder the gopis’ storerooms of butter and yogurt and feed the assembled monkeys. When the monkeys are satiated and will eat no more, You call the gopis and chide them, “Just see, this butter and yogurt is so useless even the monkeys wont take it!” May that vision of Your butter smeared lotus hands enter my heart and feed to satiation the assembled monkeys of kama (lust), krodha (anger), moha (illusion), mada (intoxication) and matsarya (envy) so that they will cease their incessant demands made on me over innumerable births.

-4-

O Damodara! When Your pastime of drinking milk from the breast of mother Yasoda was abruptly interrupted as she rushed to the stove to attend to an overflowing pot of boiling milk, You became very angry, bit Your lips, red like the bimba fruit, and cried false tears. Then, in retaliation, You picked up a stone and broke her churning pot causing all the yogurt to spill out. May that stone enter my heart and smash to pieces the unlimited pots filled with sinful activities I accumulated over innumerable births.

-5-

O Damodara! When caught by mother Yasoda after breaking her churning pot, You became afraid and admitted to being an offender. You cried in fear of her and Your tears mixed with the kajal (black ointment) around Your eyes. As You rubbed Your eyes with Your small lotus hands that kajal smeared over Your enchanting face. May that vision of Your kajal smeared hands enter my heart and wipe away the black layers of sinful recalcitrance encrusted there over innumerable births.

-6-

O Damodara! Although You delivered the two sons of the demigod Kuvera from the form of arjunatrees, You remained firmly tied by the love of mother Yasoda to a wooden grinding mortar. Why is this? To understand it is not the play of some incompetent fool. It is to show the yogis who drill their breath over lifetimes, the jnanis who assiduously cultivate knowledge and the tapasvis who undergo mortifying austerities that You can be bound only by the ropes of unalloyed love. May that mortar to which Yasoda bound You enter my heart and grind to dust the enormous mountains of false ego I accumulated over innumerable births.

-7-

O Damodara! When, by pulling on the rope tied to the grinding mortar, You caused the two tall arjuna trees to crash to the ground, they made a tumultuous sound that shook the entire universe. In great anxiety Nanda Maharaja came running to the spot. When he saw You unharmed, sitting peacefully between the fallen trunks, he smiled and immediately untied the knots that bound you to the grinding mortar. May that vision of the lotus hands of Nanda Baba enter my heart and untie the grovel of knots of the ropes of offensive activities which have bound me for innumerable births.

-8-

O Damodara! With the offer of half a sweet the gopis induce You to dance in the courtyards of Gokula. As they clap their hands to keep time, You gracefully move Your enchanting small lotus feet in a wide circle while gesturing artfully with Your hands. May the sound of the gopis’ clapping enter my heart and chase away the countless crows of sinful habits that have perched there over innumerable births.

-9-

O Damodara! Just to invoke the transcendental pleasure of the gopis, at their request You bring them various items such as a wooden plank or a wooden measuring pot. When unable to lift a requested item, You simply touch it and just stand there smiling and to show them You have sufficient strength You clap Your hands over Your arms in an heroic pose. May the vision of that heroic pose enter my heart and frighten off the host of demons I assembled there over innumerable births.

-10-

O Damodara! One day a fruit vendor came calling before the house of Nanda Maharaja. Imitating the vaisya custom of barter, You took some grains in Your hands to exchange for fruit. However, Your lotus palms were very small and in Your eagerness You were not careful to hold the grains tight; nonetheless, the vendor immediately filled Your hands with fruit; not in exchange for the few remaining grains, but for Your enchanting smile. I may not see Your glorious, gentle smile for millions of births—and that’s all right—but at least grant me those few grains so that I may exchange them for the fruits of the sinful acts stored in my heart over innumerable births.

Annad Bhavanti Bhutani: "All living bodies subsist on food grains"(Bhagavad Gita 3.14)

“Food grains or vegetables are factually eatables. The human being eats different kinds of food grains, vegetables, fruits, etc., and the animals eat the refuse of the food grains and vegetables, grass, plants, etc. Human beings who are accustomed to eating meat and flesh must also depend on the production of vegetation in order to eat the animals. Therefore, ultimately, we have to depend on the production of the field and not on the production of big factories. The field production is due to sufficient rain from the sky, and such rains are controlled by demigods like Indra, sun, moon, etc., and they are all servants of the Lord. The Lord can be satisfied by sacrifices; therefore, one who cannot perform them will find himself in scarcity-that is the law of nature. Yajña, specifically the saṅkīrtana-yajña prescribed for this age, must therefore be performed to save us at least from scarcity of food supply.” (Bhagavad Gita As It Is, 3.14. Commentary by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada)

Noam Chomsky's description of the dangers posed by U.S. elites' "Imperial Mentality" was recently given a boost in credibility by a surprising source-Bill Clinton. As America's economy, foreign policy and politics continue to unravel, it is clear that this mentality and the system it has created will produce an increasing number of victims in the years to come. Clinton startlingly testified to that effect on March 10 to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

Since 1981 the United States has followed a policy until the last year or so, when we started rethinking it, that we rich countries that produce a lot of food should sell it to poor countries and relieve them of the burden of producing their own food so thank goodness they can lead directly into the industrial era. It has not worked. It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake. It was a mistake that I was a party to. I am not pointing the finger at anybody. I did that. I have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people, because of what I did, nobody else.

Who is Crazy?

The thing about Prabhupada was his complete non judgmental approach to this world he came to. He saw a lot in the eighty years he was here. The imperial delusion, duplicity and connivery of the British in India. The gradual alienation of the Hindus and Muslims under that colonial rule. The decline of vedic culture and dharma. The apotheosis of Gandhi to a mahatma, Bhagavad-gita notwithstanding, and this in a period when he wrote a full commentary on that sublime book. He lived through the two world wars marked by unspeakable acts on all sides. In my experience with him no one better understood this place as the universal madhouse it actually is. Why else did he come to America, the very capital of the madhouse?

As a substitute for good company I spend a lot of time surfing alternative sites on the net. I try not to take sides: Israelis and Palestinians, Christians and Muslims, capitalists and socialists, obscenely rich and abject poor, irresponsible, criminal leaders of all stripes and in all fields — politics, art, education, health care, business, media, entertainment. The only way to keep my sanity is to remind myself of their madness. “God forgive them for they do not know what they do.”

For What We Are About to Receive…

The modern theory that starvation is due to an increase in population is not accepted by the demigods or the devotees of the Lord. The devotees or demigods are fully aware that the Lord can maintain any number of living entities, provided they are conscious of how to eat. If they want to eat like ordinary animals, who have no God consciousness, then they must live in starvation, poverty and want, like the jungle animals in the forest. The jungle animals are also maintained by the Lord with their respective foodstuffs, but they are not advanced in God consciousness. Similarly, human beings are provided with food grains, vegetables, fruits and milk by the grace of the Lord, but it is the duty of human beings to acknowledge the mercy of the Lord. As a matter of gratitude, they should feel obliged to the Lord for their supply of foodstuff, and they must first offer Him food in sacrifice and then partake of the remnants. (Srimad Bhagavatam 3.5.50 purport)

“As you sow so you shall reap” or to put it in scientific terms, “Each action has an opposite and equal reaction.”

On this planet every year we slaughter:

-- 45,895 million (45.9 billion) chickens
-- 2,262 million (2.3 billion) ducks
-- 1,244 million (1.2 billion) pigs
-- 857 million rabbits
-- 691 million turkeys
-- 533 million geese
-- 515 million sheep
-- 345 million goats
-- 292 million cows and calves (for beef and veal)
-- 65 million other rodents (not including rabbits)
-- 63 million pigeons and other birds
-- 23 million buffalo
-- 4 million horses
-- 3 million donkeys and mules
-- 2 million camels (and other camelids)

Blowback anyone?