Over the Easter Holidays a nice group of serious devotees assembled in Lika/Croatia to embark on a 3-day Holy Name Retreat. I had done weekend retreats here twice before, and Murari Gupta Prabhu and his good wife Sundari Mataji are always wonderful hosts, opening their home with great pleasure to receive the devotees and feed them sumptuously. A great example of Vaishnava hospitality within ideal family life.
It was wonderful to have Subhadra Mataji and her husband from Zagreb participate in this event - she is almost blind and dependant on constant assistance from her husband or other devotees. And she leads very deep and powerful kirtans, confidently playing the harmonium. I can't help myself connecting this to the fact that she is blind, which must surely put her in a humble and helpless position - an important quality of feeling to deepen our chanting. As we know, Srila Prabhupada instructed us to chant the holy name just like a child crying out in helplessness and desperation for his mother. And naturally, if we are put in a helpless condition by external circumstances, it is so much easier to turn to Krishna in this mood of desperately crying out for Him.
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The sense of sight is the most distracting one, and at the same time gives most superficial and external impressions. If this distracting sense is eliminated, it is much easier to give attention to the holy name through our ears. Our previous acaryas were chanting in a bhajan kutir - a dark little cave-like place for meditation and seclusion. These bhajan kutirs never had big windows to have a nice view of the surroundings. No, a bhajan kutir had the function of protecting us from all kinds of external distractions which our eyes involve us in. Therefore we often chant in japa or kirtan with our eyes closed - intuitively, because we can sense that it then becomes easier to give all attention to the holy name through hearing. Prabhupada instructed us to "hear ourselves chant sincerely." Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur recommends to chant japa with a bucket over our head - a mini bhajan kutir. However, at this point we are not even qualified to apply this recommendation - we will most likely fall asleep under the bucket.....
In this way Subhadra Mataji's evening kirtans were setting a deep and sweet mood to our holy name retreat......
In this way Subhadra Mataji's evening kirtans were setting a deep and sweet mood to our holy name retreat......
After we concluded our retreat we all departed in various directions, and Divya Prabhanda Prabhu, the regional secretary of Croatia and his good wife Krishna Premi Mataji from Minsk invited me to visit their home in a little country town called Daruva, around 5 hours' drive from Lika. His father owns a farm there, and together with his sister's family who are also initiated devotees, they try to establish a village community based on simple living off the land, by taking care of cows and growing fruits, vegetables and grains. Both families maintain themselves in such way, by selling the extra produce over internet to the devotees in Zagreb.
I enjoyed being their guest and checking out the amazing potentials which could be further developed - indeed I could imagine how several families could maintain themselves with such satvic life style, simply taking advantage of the wealth and oppulence which nature provides for us human beings. So much more healthy and satisfying than commuting to work and sitting all day in some office...!
We also had a nice little evening program in their home with around 12 to 14 devotees attending, some of them being in Krishna consciousness for more than 20 years. I introduced the topic of spiritual culture, which was well received, and a lively discussion followed.
A couple of days later I took the train to Zagreb to visit the devotees here, who kept me busy with all kinds of engagements: a matajis' program, a BG program in one devotee's home, three SB classes at the temple, the Sunday feast program, and an evening program in the preaching center in the country town of Varazdin, 90 minutes' drive from Zagreb.
Over two evenings I offered the first session of the grhastha course entitled "Entering the Grhastha Ashram", which was well attended by around 35 nice and mainly young devotees, for whom it was a very relevant topic. We conducted the program in the preaching center in the city called "Supersoul" - a popular and more casual 'hang-out' for newcomers who might not be so inspired to attend temple programs. It was well received, people got transformational insights and came to realize that within spiritual life and its culture one enters a man-woman relationship with a very different approach and expectation than in material life. Krishna's culture is protecting us from the painful experience of being abandoned and ending up with a broken heart, whereas in material life we give our heart away, and it gets broke - again and again. People were keen to hear more - the best point in time when to end.....
I concluded my visit to Zagreb meeting with the leaders on how to adjust and fine-tune their attempts to start a mentoring system - I had given the course on sheltering relationships on my last visit, and now we were discussing further steps how to move forward.
It was an inspiring visit to Zagreb - I felt my humble attempts were falling on fertile grounds here, and everywhere my book was eagerly received. And the devotees requested me to come back again soon.....
On the 13th of April I flew off to Stuttgart/Germany......
Your servant, Devaki dd
I enjoyed being their guest and checking out the amazing potentials which could be further developed - indeed I could imagine how several families could maintain themselves with such satvic life style, simply taking advantage of the wealth and oppulence which nature provides for us human beings. So much more healthy and satisfying than commuting to work and sitting all day in some office...!
We also had a nice little evening program in their home with around 12 to 14 devotees attending, some of them being in Krishna consciousness for more than 20 years. I introduced the topic of spiritual culture, which was well received, and a lively discussion followed.
A couple of days later I took the train to Zagreb to visit the devotees here, who kept me busy with all kinds of engagements: a matajis' program, a BG program in one devotee's home, three SB classes at the temple, the Sunday feast program, and an evening program in the preaching center in the country town of Varazdin, 90 minutes' drive from Zagreb.
Over two evenings I offered the first session of the grhastha course entitled "Entering the Grhastha Ashram", which was well attended by around 35 nice and mainly young devotees, for whom it was a very relevant topic. We conducted the program in the preaching center in the city called "Supersoul" - a popular and more casual 'hang-out' for newcomers who might not be so inspired to attend temple programs. It was well received, people got transformational insights and came to realize that within spiritual life and its culture one enters a man-woman relationship with a very different approach and expectation than in material life. Krishna's culture is protecting us from the painful experience of being abandoned and ending up with a broken heart, whereas in material life we give our heart away, and it gets broke - again and again. People were keen to hear more - the best point in time when to end.....
I concluded my visit to Zagreb meeting with the leaders on how to adjust and fine-tune their attempts to start a mentoring system - I had given the course on sheltering relationships on my last visit, and now we were discussing further steps how to move forward.
It was an inspiring visit to Zagreb - I felt my humble attempts were falling on fertile grounds here, and everywhere my book was eagerly received. And the devotees requested me to come back again soon.....
On the 13th of April I flew off to Stuttgart/Germany......
Your servant, Devaki dd
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