Rasayatra

In response to requests from our friends and in order to better facilitate the archiving of our pictures, we are compiling all the pictures of Gandharvika Giridhari Jiu in a blog titled Rasayatra, a Journey into our hearts and a Journey through the various Rasa filled moments of Gandharvika Giridhari Jiu. Here is the link.http://rasayatra.wordpress.com/

Gopastami 2012

Some meditations from Srila Prabnhupada's Srimad Bhagavatam and pictures of Gandharvika Jiu and Giridhari Jiu on the occasion of Gopastami 2012...

The gopīs at Vṛndāvana could not forget the Lord when the Lord was away in the forest cow herding. When the Lord boy Kṛṣṇa was absent from the village, the gopīs at home used to worry about Him traversing the rough ground with His soft lotus feet. By thinking thus, they were sometimes overwhelmed in trance and mortified in the heart. Such is the condition of the pure associates of the Lord.


"The eighth lunar day of the bright fortnight of the month of Kārttika is known by authorities as Gopāṣṭamī. From that day, Lord Vāsudeva served as a cowherd, whereas previously He had tended the calves."
SB 10.15.1, Translation and Purport: Śukadeva Gosvāmī said: When Lord Rāma and Lord Kṛṣṇa attained the age of paugaṇḍa (six to ten) while living in Vṛndāvana, the cowherd men allowed Them to take up the task of tending the cows. Engaging thus in the company of Their friends, the two boys rendered the land of Vṛndāvana most auspicious by imprinting upon it the marks of Their lotus feet.
Lord Kṛṣṇa wanted to encourage His cowherd boyfriends, who had been swallowed by Aghāsura and then stolen by Lord Brahmā. Therefore the Lord decided to bring them into the palm-tree forest called Tālavana, where there were many delicious ripe fruits. Since Lord Kṛṣṇa's spiritual body had apparently grown slightly in age and strength, the senior men of Vṛndāvana, headed by Nanda Mahārāja, decided to promote Kṛṣṇa from the task of herding calves to the status of a regular cowherd boy. He would now take care of the full-grown cows, bulls and oxen. Out of great affection, Nanda Mahārāja had previously considered Kṛṣṇa too small and immature to take care of full-grown cows and bulls. It is stated in the Kārttika-māhātmya section of the Padma Purāṇa:
śuklāṣṭamī kārttike tu
smṛtā gopāṣṭamī budhaiḥ
tad-dinād vāsudevo 'bhūd
gopaḥ pūrvaṁ tu vatsapaḥ
"The eighth lunar day of the bright fortnight of the month of Kārttika is known by authorities as Gopāṣṭamī. From that day, Lord Vāsudeva served as a cowherd, whereas previously He had tended the calves."
The word padaiḥ indicates that Lord Kṛṣṇa blessed the earth by walking on her surface with His lotus feet. The Lord wore no shoes or other footgear but walked barefoot in the forest, giving great anxiety to the girls of Vṛndāvana, who feared that His soft lotus feet would be injured.

Deepavali.

Taḍit-suvarṇa-campaka-pradīpta-gaura-vigrahe
mukha-prabhā-parāsta-koṭi-śāradendu-maṇḍale
vicitra-citra-sañcarac-cakora-śāva-locane
kadā kariṣyasīha māṁ kṛpā-kaṭākṣa-bhājanam.

O goddess whose form is as splendid as champaka flowers, gold, and lightning, O goddess whose face eclipses millions of autumn moons, O goddess whose eyes are wonderful, restless young chakora birds, when will You cast Your merciful sidelong glance upon me?

Deepavali is essentially a row of lamps, how would millions of autumn moons look like and what would that face which eclipses these millions of moons look like?

The Rainbow Gathering!

Hare Krishna! I deliberately chose the title despite the fact that this post has nothing to do with the Rainbow Gathering that happens annually, except that what i am going to be writing about is a gathering and happens outdoors. Thats about where the similarities end.

This is the month of Kartika, the month of Govardhan Puja, In his classes on Madhurya Kadambini in the month of Kartika, several years ago, Guru Maharaja encourages us to share our reflections and realizations with others in this month. I write this hoping that he will be pleased with my small offering.

 This morning, as I was reflecting on the Govardhan Puja pastime something very sweet unfolded in my thinking. Our Back to Godhead Magazine has the following motto-
"Godhead is light. Nescience is darkness. Where there is Godhead there is no nescience." Elsewhere in our scriptures Sri Krishna is compared to the Sun. I was thinking how in the pastime of Krishna lifting the Govardhan hill, the Lord is like the sun. As per laws of physics when there is sunshine and rain at the same time, the rain drops act as a prism and refract the light to form a rainbow of colors ranging from Violet to Red. The famous VIBGYOR spectrum. Similarly in this pastime, the Lord is like the sun and even though there was intense rainfall, of the kind that appears at the time of Pralaya or the final devastating deluge, there was no destruction. Instead there appeared a Rainbow of colors in the form of the devotees assembled under Govardhan Hill.

In the Nectar of Devotion, different mellows are assigned different colors and different deities preside over various mellows and colors. Sri Giridhari is the reservoir of all mellows being the Akhila Rasamrta Murtih. When the entire Vraja took shelter under the expansive umbrella or the prism of Girirja Govardhana, they consisted of devotees practically of every rasa and every color of the spectrum in the rainbow. For seven days sakhas like Madhumangala and Subal, Gopis like Srimati Radharani and the Asta sakhis, servants such as Patraka, Vrajavasis in the mood of parental affection such as Nanda and Yashoda, those in fraternal mellow such as Balarama, animals and devotees in every other secondary mellow took shelter together, each relishing their own Rasa with the Reservoir of Rasa, Rasaraja Sri Krishna. It was a conglomeration of all the Rasas. A Rainbow Gathering! 

The most endearing part of this pastime was when the seven year old Lord Krishna gives freewill to the devotees, to  gather under the formidable Govardhan hill held atop the pinky of his left hand.

"O Mother, O Father, O residents of Vraja, if you wish you may now come under this hill with your cows." From the Srimad Bhagavatam,

The moral I learnt from his story was that when we endeavor to keep Krishna in the center of our universe at all times, and whole heartedly surrender to Him, even when the adversities threaten to delude us, only a lovely rainbow of colors and nectarean experiences can emerge. Trying times are very interesting because they intensify our Rasa with the Lord of our hearts. All Glories to my worshipable Gandharvika Giridhari Jiu and my Spiritual mentors for teaching me this valuable lesson.

Gandharvika Giridhari Jiu

It has almost been 6 months since we started worshipping Gandharvika Giridhari Jiu. Now everything seems so complete, satisfying. Here is a small video of 3 mins featuring Gandharvika Giridhari in Their various outfits, made at the behest of a dear friend. Praying to Gurudeva to keep us enthused in trying to serve this All Attractive Couple to the best of our ability.

Fall..

Srila Prabhupada has described Autumn elaborately and beautifully in the Light of the Bhagavata. The Autumn season in Vrindavan is characterized by blooming lotuses and a full moon.  For us here, it is quite the opposite, characterized by falling leaves and bone chilling winds...Gandharvika Giridhari however are transcendental to miseries afflicted by material nature and enjoy in their seasonal groves. Here they are in Their fall outfits!

Making their outfits was comforting because Krishna never forgets any little service rendered to Him, unlike us humans who praise someone for their seva one day and when they are no longer capable or unable to perform seva, we immediately shun them or measure them up with our myopic vision. Fortunately we have Krishna who is so endearing and Srila Prabhupada who has shown the way to love Him!

Abhinnatvam Nama Naminoh

On the occasion of "The World Holy Name Week" Gandharvika Giridhari Jiu are dressed in a Harinam Outfit. Inspired by the deities in New Vraja Dham, who were dressed in such an outfit some years ago, the deities look extra special even though They have very less jewelry and are in simple cotton, the only embellishments are the Holy names, not ordinary, but the greatest wealth from Goloka, that has descended to rope us back to our original home.

Before i brought home Gandharvika Giridharijiu, I heard from several mentors and debated whether I should really bring home any more deities. Everyone whom I met and revealed my mind to stressed on the Holy Names and how chanting the Mahamantra should take more precedence over anything else, but i could not understand it with my dull mind. I was stubborn and even though I knew that chanting Mahamantra and chanting it constantly is our only Goal, I still could not understand or imagine my life without deities, which I attribute to some  samskaras in early childhood.

 As a child I would carry my clay Hanuman doll around, feeding him, making him sleep and playing with Him, stealing him away from the Dasara arrangement and taking care of Him. When devotees said they worshipped the Srimad Bhagavatam, I looked at them in disbelief. How can one serve the Bhagavatam? We cannot offer fruits, flower or beautiful ornaments to the Bhagavatam. My conditioning and immaturity prevented (and still prevents) me from seeing the Bhagavatam as being non-different from the Lord. It is  only later that I learnt that while you can place the Bhagavtam on the altar and offer worship, the best way to serve the Bhagavatam is by following the instructions of the personalities in the Bhagavatam. I tried worshipping the holy name by placing the Mahamantra on the altar, but i was missing the point. in order to understand the position of the Holy names, one has to be surrendered, which i was not.

I find it easier performing Arati to a Bhajan describing His pastimes than the Mahamantra, because I simply lack the taste. Sripad Aindra Prabhu changed all this to a large extent, by giving a glimmer of taste, but there is a lot more to be changed.

In Sri Harinam Chintamani, Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur describes Haridas Thakur's thoughts on the holy name and writes. " Lord Krishna and His holy name are identical: They are one and the same Absolute truth, the all inclusive yet supremely independent form of dynamic spirituality, full of emotion,without beginning or end. Always situated in pure goodness, the holy name descends to this world in the shape of  letters as the complete incarnation and embodiment of the highest sweetness: rasa."

Of course i understand all this only theoretically and my immediate understanding of the oneness of the Holy Names and the Lord is by this incident which happened several years ago in Mumbai.

There was that Taj Hotel where the terrorists attacked. They were fighting in there for three days, complete carnage. The terrorists had arranged in such a way that they would always be up higher. They would shoot from a lower vantage point down. Radhanath Maharaja told me this. They had all these grenades and they would throw the grenades and the grenades would create so much smoke that if you were down looking up you couldn't see anything.

Picture that you are one of these soldiers or police officers and you are in this cloud of smoke and up above you there is this hail of bullets from the terrorists shooting at you. One of those soldiers was one of our devotees. At one point, they were trying to chase these people through the hotel. They are trapped. The terrorist were throwing all these grenades, they are in a complete cloud of smoke. They cannot see one foot in front of their face. They can't see left, right or anything and this hail of bullets is being fired at them. Just a wall of bullets coming at them.

This devotee police officer, with two other police officers on either side, he is in the middle, he actually was completely helpless. He couldn't see left, right, he couldn't see his colleagues. He remembered that he had on his ring tone on his phone Nrsimhadeva prayers. He began playing the Nrsimhadeva prayers and praying intently to Lord Nrsimhadeva, "Please I am absolutely helpless. I am going to die. Save me, in an absolutely hopeless state."

When the shooting stopped, the smoke cleared, his friend to the right and his friend to the left were completely killed, riddled with bullets, and he was unscathed. In front of him, which he couldn't see at the time, was a giant pillar. And because they were shooting at him the pillar protected him.

He thought, "Just as Lord Nrsimhadev came out of the pillar to save Prahlada He put a pillar here to save me!" So my point is, simple point, is if we have that faith, "Oh, how will I be taken care of?" Krishna will take care of you, don't worry. Let me give my life to the sankirtana movement.

from Srimad Bhagavatam class in Mayapur



Praying to Sri Haridas Thakur and Nam Prabhu in all earnestness to some day understand the purport of this verse and experience it completely. Nama Chintamani Krishna Caitanya Rasa Vigraha, Nitya Mukta Purna Shuddha Abhinnatvam Nama Naminoh.
Chanting the Holynames incessantly is the Prayojana of our lives, the greatest truth. It requires persistence Humilty and courage to pay the price in return for gaining this topmost wealth and I am ready for this endeavor.

                                              Gandharvika Giridhari Jiu in Their Harinam Dress

Radhastami at Home: A picture Post.