Dancing to (love of) Krishna, instead of faster running to death

Gym, aerobatics, etc running etc for health is all faster running to death. There is a saying, “Fast runners are (to) death runners”: Srila Prabhupāda: “We have got a limited number of breathings. The heart is palpitating. it has got a limited number of palpitations. Just like if you have got a bank balance, so if you go on drawing it daily, so very quickly it is finished. But if you don’t draw it, keep it, balance, then you can continue for several years, several months, as you like.” (Bhagavad-gita 4.26–30, January 13, 1969, Los Angeles)

We’d better dance, alone, or in sankirtana with our family, or friends, making our own music or go on internet to find a flow, rhythm, beat, swing, good time.

“We must know the vijnāna, how practically. That is taught by the Gosvāmīs, kṛṣṇot-kīrtana-gāna-nartana: always chanting the glories of Kṛṣṇa. Kīrtana, gāna, nartana. Nartana means dancing. Dancing is very good. The more you dance, the more you become light; means the burden of material contamination becomes reduced. Dancing is so nice.

Even if you don’t feel ecstasy, if you dance by force, that will also help us. Kṛṣṇot-kīrtana-gāna-nartanau-parau premāmṛtāmbho-nidhī. By dancing, dancing, we shall develop our dormant Kṛṣṇa consciousness, love for Kṛṣṇa. This is a nice process. Kṛṣṇot-kīrtana-gāna-nartana-parau premāmṛtāmbho-nidhī. Then you will merge into the ocean of love for Kṛṣṇa. So this is the highest stage of ecstasy for Kṛṣṇa consciousness, always chanting Kṛṣṇa’s name, dancing in ecstasy, and to be merged in the ocean of love for Kṛṣṇa. These are the perfections.” (Srila Prabhupada lecture on The Nectar of Devotion—January 8, 1973, Bombay)

Our comment. “dance by force…by dancing, dancing” means this is a vaidhi – bhakti – sadhana, a must, rules and regulations bhakti, devotional service, which becomes raghanuga – sadhana, spontaneous bhakti: “dancing in ecstasy….(in) Kṛṣṇa consciousness, love for Kṛṣṇa”.
We are to dance, not to get or be healthy, but as part of the Krishna conscious, spiritual health of the soul program, plan of action, order of the day, solution, routine, play.
The health of the body will be a corollary or technical externality.
Thus, instead of going out of your temple home to your coffin on the graveyard, make your home more and more a Temple of Radha Krishna, Gaura Nitai, as Srivasa Thakura’s house in the Golden Gauranga avatari, became as the Rasa – Lila Dance forest, province, park, grove.

As Srila Prabhupada lectures on The Nectar of Devotion, October 28, 1972, Vṛndavana: “But when this function will be done spontaneously, “Oh, this is the time to offer maṅgala ārātrika to my Lord…” That is wanted. That is wanted. Not that “Oh, it is a heavy burden to rise early in the morning and to offer maṅgala ārātrika.” That is not spontaneous. But one has to act under the direction of spiritual master and śāstra, which is called vidhi-bhakti, regulative devotional service. So after one is being trained in regulative devotional service, he comes to the platform of spontaneous service.”

Four aratrika’s (4.30. 7.00, 12.30, 18.30 h) and/or a (few) kirtana festival(s) a day, keeps all bodily and mental diseases away.

His Divine Grace AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada gave the universe an all-round, all-around, well-rounded solution for everything problematic, difficult, hard, problematical, taxing, troublesome, awkward, controversial, complicated, complex, knotty, thorny, prickly, intricate, vexed, paradoxical, puzzling.

Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!
Hare Krishna.

ys: Radha Mukunda das