Shiksha from Shikshashtakam (Audio-visual presentation)
Chaitanya Charan Das: When I came to Alachua, Florida, USA, last year, I felt embarrassed to speak about Krishna to an audience primarily of senior devotees, many of whom are Prabhupada disciples. Still, they have been very kind to encourage me and appreciate my classes.
This year, Janmashtami Prabhu, who had started the Mayapur Institute (MI) in Mayapur and has started a Krishna Institute here for similarly revitalizing an educational ethos in our movement, asked me to speak on a workshop entitled “Relishing Shikshashtakam” at the Alachua Learning Center.
Fifty-seven devotees participated in the three-day workshop from 3rd to 5th Sep, 2016, with around forty-five of them being non-Indians and over a dozen being Srila Prabhupada disciples.
I spoke on the Shikshashtakam in twelve talks each of about one hour and fifteen minutes. The first text took three talks and the third took two talks, with all the other texts covered in one talk each. All the talks are available here: https://goo.gl/z8niHK
The Shikshashtakam talks about exalted levels of consciousness and, also in its later verses, about esoteric states of devotion. I tried to take those lofty topics as starting points for descending to the practical challenges in our life as seekers.