Looking out the window of the plane when flying from Dallas to Tucson, I could see that Arizona is indeed a desert state. Empty desert land, with sometimes gigantic mountains. Only rarely could I detect a township. The vastness of the continent reminded me of Australia. As a brahmacarini I was once driving from Sydney to Perth - right through the middle of Australia, the desert called Nullarbor Plain. It had taken me around four full days of driving....
Our ISKCON temple in Tucson is centered around the activities of a popular Govinda's restaurant which is located on the temple property. Behind the temple building are a number of nice little houses where devotees live,
surrounded by beautiful gardens. The temple room has an attractive altar with everybody there: Sri Sri Radha Govinda, Giriraja, Sita, Rama, Laxman, Hanuman, Nrsimhadeva, Gaur Nitai and Jagannath, Baladeva and Subhadra.
surrounded by beautiful gardens. The temple room has an attractive altar with everybody there: Sri Sri Radha Govinda, Giriraja, Sita, Rama, Laxman, Hanuman, Nrsimhadeva, Gaur Nitai and Jagannath, Baladeva and Subhadra.
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A nice team of serious devotees are living together to inspire and support each other in their services and spiritual practice. The very foundation is a strong emphasis on sadhana with a full morning program every day. Mother Sandamini, a disciple of Srila Prabhupada, serves as the caring and nurturing mother to all devotees and truly creates a family atmosphere. She is hard working and reaches out to everyone in affection, with spiritual strength and vision. Suresvara Prabhu, another disciple of Srila Prabhupada, is also a part of the community and adds another spiritual dimension to the atmosphere, with his strong preaching on Srila Prabhupada being the Founder Acarya. Since the leading devotees are in Western bodies, it attracts more Western people to take up Krishna consciousness.
On the temple property is a little birds' sanctuary with a variety of birds and a peacock-couple, their famous calls reminding us of Vrindavan. The days were warm, with cool and refreshing nights - the typical desert climate for this time of the year...
Devotees kept me busy with programs every day. On the last evening of my visit I got to experience a little preaching adventure - a visit to a community called "The Global Temple". Their leader had recently left this world, and people were a little lost and thus very open to hear about Krishna consciousness. I met people from all around the world, and some had met the devotees in Australia, New Zealand and also Germany. It was a refreshing "outside-the-box" preaching event....
On the temple property is a little birds' sanctuary with a variety of birds and a peacock-couple, their famous calls reminding us of Vrindavan. The days were warm, with cool and refreshing nights - the typical desert climate for this time of the year...
Devotees kept me busy with programs every day. On the last evening of my visit I got to experience a little preaching adventure - a visit to a community called "The Global Temple". Their leader had recently left this world, and people were a little lost and thus very open to hear about Krishna consciousness. I met people from all around the world, and some had met the devotees in Australia, New Zealand and also Germany. It was a refreshing "outside-the-box" preaching event....
The topic of feeling offended and maintaining grudges is always a relevant issue for us all. Resentment develops if we cannot let go of the internal ego battle in regards to a person or situation. Our false ego cries for justice, and we suppress and swallow our negative feelings and bottle them up. But inside of us the false ego continues to rebel and protest. And thus the resentment builds up.
We can understand our heart to be a sacred place. By maintaining grudges, we allow the toxic effects of resentment to pollute those sacred chambers of our heart. That which offends us only weakens us. Holding on to the feeling of being offended only magnifies the same destructive energy that offended us in the first place. And we poison our heart by hanging on to it, rather than letting go of it and moving on.
Nelson Mandela stated: “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” Within our minds, we try to punish the other person by maintaining our own anger and ill feelings towards them, but in actuality we punish ourselves. We continue to carry the negativity with us, and therefore maintain the negative association of the person with whom the ill feelings are associated.
Being easily offended can be a sign of being self-centred, insecure and lacking wisdom. It appears as a small problem, but in reality it will keep us from experiencing joy, peace of mind and Krishna’s mercy. Sometimes people carry the burden of resentments within their hearts for many years, whereas the other person forgot about the event a long time ago and moved on.
Unfortunately, so often we have devotees leaving the association of Vaishnavas because of this very reason: being offended. Some disagreement may have taken place and some harsh words may have been exchanged. A person may be offended, not being able to overcome the resentments building up in their hearts. They may find all the justifications within their minds and all the reasons why the community of the devotees is not worth associating with any longer.
And as a result, their spiritual practice becomes weak or even dries up entirely. They fade away, never to be seen again. Whenever anyone has affronted us, we can raise our consciousness so high that the offence cannot reach it. As our relationship with Krishna gradually becomes a tangible reality for us, we can take refuge at His lotus feet; we no longer look for occasions to be offended, and we do not judge and label others. We experience a deep satisfaction that is beyond the effects of anyone or anything external.
If someone has offended us, insulted us or disappointed us, let it go. If we are remembering all the ways we have been hurt or forgotten, let it go! We may ask ourselves, “What good does it do for me to hold on to this?”
Every day we have plenty of opportunities to get angry, stressed or offended. But what we are doing when we indulge in these negative emotions is giving something outside ourselves power over our own happiness and consciousness. We can choose to not allow things to upset us. The only real conflict we will ever have in life will not be with others, but with our false egos and ourselves. We have to come to the point of agreeing to embark on the journey of hard, internal labour.
The steps for this internal work are: 1)hearing about the phenomenon of being offended; 2) desiring to give up this tendency; 3) being introspective and honest, deeply reflecting within our heart what motives we are cultivating; 4) catching ourselves doing the wrong thing; 5) calling out to Lord Nrsimhadeva in helplessness, begging Him to help us let go of our feeling of being offended. We can cry out, “My Lord! Please, uproot this Hiranyakasipu of false ego from my heart! He is giving me so much suffering and pain. I can’t let go of him by myself, but You can kindly help me to shake him off and uproot him.”
If we do this internal work, by Krishna’s grace we will eventually be able to let go of our disposition to take offence.
On the 8th of April I was driven to Phoenix/Arizona....
Your servant, Devaki dd
Please visit www.theholynameretreat.net
www.therootsofspiritualculture.net
https://www.facebook.com/instituteforspiritualculture/
We can understand our heart to be a sacred place. By maintaining grudges, we allow the toxic effects of resentment to pollute those sacred chambers of our heart. That which offends us only weakens us. Holding on to the feeling of being offended only magnifies the same destructive energy that offended us in the first place. And we poison our heart by hanging on to it, rather than letting go of it and moving on.
Nelson Mandela stated: “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” Within our minds, we try to punish the other person by maintaining our own anger and ill feelings towards them, but in actuality we punish ourselves. We continue to carry the negativity with us, and therefore maintain the negative association of the person with whom the ill feelings are associated.
Being easily offended can be a sign of being self-centred, insecure and lacking wisdom. It appears as a small problem, but in reality it will keep us from experiencing joy, peace of mind and Krishna’s mercy. Sometimes people carry the burden of resentments within their hearts for many years, whereas the other person forgot about the event a long time ago and moved on.
Unfortunately, so often we have devotees leaving the association of Vaishnavas because of this very reason: being offended. Some disagreement may have taken place and some harsh words may have been exchanged. A person may be offended, not being able to overcome the resentments building up in their hearts. They may find all the justifications within their minds and all the reasons why the community of the devotees is not worth associating with any longer.
And as a result, their spiritual practice becomes weak or even dries up entirely. They fade away, never to be seen again. Whenever anyone has affronted us, we can raise our consciousness so high that the offence cannot reach it. As our relationship with Krishna gradually becomes a tangible reality for us, we can take refuge at His lotus feet; we no longer look for occasions to be offended, and we do not judge and label others. We experience a deep satisfaction that is beyond the effects of anyone or anything external.
If someone has offended us, insulted us or disappointed us, let it go. If we are remembering all the ways we have been hurt or forgotten, let it go! We may ask ourselves, “What good does it do for me to hold on to this?”
Every day we have plenty of opportunities to get angry, stressed or offended. But what we are doing when we indulge in these negative emotions is giving something outside ourselves power over our own happiness and consciousness. We can choose to not allow things to upset us. The only real conflict we will ever have in life will not be with others, but with our false egos and ourselves. We have to come to the point of agreeing to embark on the journey of hard, internal labour.
The steps for this internal work are: 1)hearing about the phenomenon of being offended; 2) desiring to give up this tendency; 3) being introspective and honest, deeply reflecting within our heart what motives we are cultivating; 4) catching ourselves doing the wrong thing; 5) calling out to Lord Nrsimhadeva in helplessness, begging Him to help us let go of our feeling of being offended. We can cry out, “My Lord! Please, uproot this Hiranyakasipu of false ego from my heart! He is giving me so much suffering and pain. I can’t let go of him by myself, but You can kindly help me to shake him off and uproot him.”
If we do this internal work, by Krishna’s grace we will eventually be able to let go of our disposition to take offence.
On the 8th of April I was driven to Phoenix/Arizona....
Your servant, Devaki dd
Please visit www.theholynameretreat.net
www.therootsofspiritualculture.net
https://www.facebook.com/instituteforspiritualculture/
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