Mayapur's Mercy Awaits You

by Janmastami dasa

Perhaps you are meditating on how to optimize your spiritual development and your contribution to Srila Prabhupada’s movement, or perhaps you feel the need to revitalize your spiritual life. If you are in either of these situations, then please consider the opportunities to study Srila Prabhupada’s books in the association of advanced devotees in Sridhama Mayapur at the Mayapur Institute for Higher Education and Training (MIHET)* .

A team of very senior devotees will facilitate the 2006 – 7 MIHET VTE Bhakti-sastri Course sharing their realizations in an interactive format designed to empower devotees as preachers, leaders, and lifetime servants of ISKCON. The course will begin on Bhisma Pancaka (November 2, 2006), enabling devotees, during the last five days of Kartika, to get credit for their austerities as if they had performed them for the entire caturmasya.

The MIHET has recently developed a women's ashrama facility, whereby ladies can live in a modern, peaceful, protected facility with senior Vaisnavi association.

For those that have already taken Bhakti-sastri, the MIHET will pilot (also on November 2) a unique approach to studying the Bhagavatam with its Canto 4 Bhaktivaibhava Module. Students will hear from fully trained VTE facilitators in the morning Structured Learning Classes and from senior ISKCON sannyasis and leaders in the evening Thematic Discussions.

After the Canto 4 Module, Ravindra Svarupa Prabhu will facilitate a 3-week course entitled Vedic Cosmology in the 5th Canto. He is leading a team of scholars studying this section of the Bhagavatam and he will share their realizations with his students.

Most Saturdays, while these courses are in session, the MIHET sannyasi teachers will lead out parikramas throughout Navadvipa Dhama.

Due to the unprecedented stature of our teachers this year, the MIHET expects many devotees will enroll in these courses and thus encourages devotees to register online as soon as possible to secure their seats.

These courses will end before the Mayapur Festival when the MIHET will offer the VTE Teacher Training Courses, the VTE Leadership Management Course 1, and the Temple Worship Courses providing opportunities for our sastric students to increase their devotional and life skills.

For those wishing to stay on in Mayapur after Gaura Purnima, the MIHET will offer a Curriculum Development Workshop on Srimad-Bhagavatam Cantos 5 & 6 from March 12 to June 16, 2007. This workshop will be a combined MIHET / VIHE project with teachers from both institutions participating. It will be conducted as a course with the normal facilitator student interactions, but qualified students will also have the opportunities to participate in curriculum development projects for future Bhaktivaibhava courses. We have experimented with this combination in the past and  our students have found this arrangement substantially enhances their learning.

Studying in Mayapur, the dhama with the most sakti in this age of Kali (Navadvipa-dhama Mahatmya), will be even more potent during this workshop because the month of Purusottama takes place from May 16 to June 14, 2007. Here is a description from the Padma Purana of the potency of the month of Purusottama:

"This month of Purusottama is even more glorious than all other months including the month of Kartika. The glories of all other months are not even equal to one sixteenth of the glories of month of Purusottama. The merit of a person who takes a holy bath even once in this month is equal to the merit of taking bath in Ganga for twelve thousand years . . . .

Suta Goswami continued to speak to the sages of Naimisaranya, "O brahmanas, in this way, the great sage Narada Muni became very pleased by listening from Lord Narayana about the month of Purusottama . Narada paid his obeisances again and again to Lord Narayana and started to speak, "This month of Purusottama is the best of all months; it is best among all kinds of vratas and austerities. One who just listens to the glories of the month of Purusottama faithfully will achieve pure devotional service to the Supreme Lord Purusottama. All of his sinful reactions will be immediately nullified. One who performs the whole vrata and worships the month of Purusottama properly will achieve unlimited glories and attain Goloka."

We hope to be able to serve you in Mayapur in the months ahead.

Please visit http://www.mihet.info for details or write to us at mihet@pamho.net.

*With a desire to emphasize the Devotional and Life Skills Training Program within our ethos, we implemented a name change from the Mayapur Institute for Higher Education (MIHE) to the Mayapur Institute for Higher Education & Training (MIHET).

Piloting the New Version
VTE Bhaktivaibhava Course - 4th Canto

November 2, 2006 - January 19, 2007

Vedic Cosmology in the 5th Canto

January 20 -February 4, 2007

Our sannyasi teachers will lead parikramas throughout Navadvipa Dhama for our Bhakti-sastri and Bhaktivaibhava students on most Saturdays from November 2, 2006 to February 6, 2007. Please consult our website for details.

 Curriculum Development Workshop: Cantos 5 & 6

March 12 - June 16, 2007

*Prior to entering this module of the new Bhaktivaibhava Course, students will complete at home a 13-week Preliminary Self-study Unit using distance learning technologies on the MIHET website.

Testimonials:

"Here in Mayapur, you have the Bhakti-sastri program. I've heard from so many devotees who have studied Bhakti-sastri here in the holy atmosphere of the dhama that their lives were transformed by three months of daily full time study of Srila Prabhupada books. They said it just turned their whole life around.

Why? Your life will become transformed when one way or another you deeply accept the principles, these sacred principles of sastra, Bhagavad-gita, Srimad Bhagavatam. You have to think about these things and allow your head and your heart to be challenged. That is how you experience spiritual growth. Srila Prabhupada was expert at doing that on his morning walks. He would challenge your conceptions, he would challenge your assumptions, and then he would insert the real knowledge that Lord Krishna gives."

                                                                                                                                          Devamrita Swami, GBC, in a Bhagavatam Class on March 1, 2006 in Mayapur


"It was without a doubt the most wonderful experience of my life. I'm sure that either systematically studying Srila Prabhupada's books or residing in Sridhama Mayapur for a few months fully engaged in service would have been transcendentally enlivening, but the combination was exponentially ecstatic. I very much appreciated Atul Krishna Prabhu's enthusiasm, expertise and mood, Jayadvaita Maharaja's patience and thoughtfulness with all our questions, and Hari Sauri Prabhu's dedication and expert intertwining of his experiences with Srila Prabhupada. Although I've practically grown up reading the Bhagavad Gita As It Is, I felt like I read it for the first time at the MIHET. Best of all was the association of the students. It seems like Caitanya Mahaprabhu Himself screens who is allowed to come (how I snuck in I don't know), because everyone was so sincere in their desire to deepen their Krishna Consciousness and better equip themselves to spread the Lord's mercy.

                                                                                                                                          Navin Jani is a Ph.D. student at University of California at Irvine, with a M.A. in city

                                                                                                                                          planning from University of Florida, where he wrote his thesis on the proposed Mayapur city.

Please visit http://www.mihet.info for details