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By Gokulananda das<\/strong> <\/p>\n Nov.1\/06<\/p>\n After an uneventful 24 flight across the Pacific into Delhi, our group of four devotees at last arrived in Sri Krishna’s sacred land in the early hours of Oct.2nd. Joining with thousands of other pilgrims already wandering the land of Braj to imbibe the special mood of Kartik vrata, we all felt deep joy in our hearts to be again in our true home, where our Sweet Lord eternally enjoys His loving sports among His dearmost servants. <\/p>\n Crowds of happy pilgrims are to be seen at all hours steadily filing down the parikrama paths as they contentedly pursue their Kartik seva. What a beautiful culture that sustains this land, where the insanities of Kali-yuga seem suspended and the people absorb themselves in the true business of humans: to seek out our true kinship within the Acyuta gotra, Lord Krishna’s limitless family of happy souls. As growing numbers of our Iskcon devotees kept arriving from all over the world, the temple programs became ever more blissful celebrations of our Lord’s sweet glories, as the real happiness pervading all our faces spoke volumes about our shared good fortune.<\/p>\n By the morning of Sharad Purnima, Oct.7th, close to 2500 devotees assembled for Mangala arotik, chanting and dancing to our hearts’ content to be together under the loving gaze of Krishna-Balaram, Gaura-Nitai and Radha Shyamasundar, in the sweet shelter of Braja Dhama. In the evening, even greater numbers of pilgrims etc. crowd into or around the Krishna Balaram Mandir for the Damodarastakam prayers. The sight of hundreds of ghee lamps floating among a sea of worshippers who offer their hearts in prayer along with the lamps is a most enchanting scene to contemplate, a window into the eternal Braj.<\/p>\n So many streams of nectar have been flowing from all quarters of the Dhama, each with their own special flavour to rejuvenate our faith and attraction toward our beloved Lord Brajendranandana. My own favorite reservoir of nectar is Dinabandhu Prabhu, who daily leads groups of devotees on a systematic tour of specific places of Braj-lila. He is so expert in delivering the sweetest and most detailed lila-katha, as he totally relishes sharing every nice detail of so many amazing pastimes. He is definitely an empowered deliverer of Braja-lila, a most prolific and generous “nectar walla”. <\/p>\n I forever remain in grateful awe for his unique absorption in Krishna-lila; he is surely blessed from above to deeply taste and share such taste with his fortunate parikrama pilgrims. And I will continue to seek out and store up all this life-giving nectar for my eternal benefit, grateful to be again allowed to experience the highest satisfaction of Vaisnava-sangha in this holiest land of Brajabhumi Vrindavan.<\/p>\n Krishna’s Magic Places<\/strong><\/p>\n There is a beautiful peaceful village in Braj Mandala named Gokula. One can sit there and gaze upon the pleasing vista of the sacred Yamuna as it serely flows across the wide plain, while hearing the subtle rustle of the neem and pippal leaves softly caressed by the soft breezes. Even the numerous birds in their cheerful songs seem to glorify this idyllic abode where the Supreme Lord sported as Nandalal, the loving child of Maharaj Nanda, the king of the gwall (cowherdmen). <\/p>\n When Gopal Krishna reached the age of six, He then joined with His friends the gopas to daily wander throughout the enchanting pastures of Gokula, the land of limitless cows, and thus enjoyed His sweet lila of protecting His beloved cows and calves. The indelible touch of His delicate footprints has saturated beautiful Gokula’s magical groves with His ever-fresh ecstatic chidhood pastimes. When His bhaktas come here to mine the immense spiritual wealth of Krishna-lila herein revealed, they are graced with deep feelings of peace and happiness, as was also our recent experience while visiting this enchanting village with over one hundred devotees led by Dinabandhu prabhu. For over an hour, he treated us to his brilliant retelling of the Gokula lila, keeping us all enthralled with his uniquely detailed and humorous narration, as he magically brought us right back into the very heart of this sweetest lila, leaving us all totally blissed out.<\/p>\n While soaking up all this enlivening nectar, I felt immensely blessed to be allowed such a deeply enjoyable glimpse into the sacred saga of our Sweet Lord’s childhood pastimes. Who would know that God can frolic in such simple and sublime sports to enjoy the most personal dealings saturated with His purest love? To know that such a beautiful loving God has walked upon these eternally sanctified places opens up a whole new world of delight and hope. <\/p>\n Such revelations offer us the greatest solace to asuage our fragile lives’ finality, by awakening in our hearts the aspiration to escape this world’s dualities by accepting the Lord’s calling us to regain His perfect loving service. The sure happiness,manorama, of hearing Krishna-lila is His invitation, the harbinger of His supreme sweetness. Such glorious lila-katha, the authentic renditions of Sri Krishna’s loving dealings, is the best place to direct our wandering hearts and minds, towards our spiritual rejuvenation. In the introduction to his Krishna Book, Srila Prabhupada states:”…if persons who are trying to be liberated hear about the pastimes of Krishna…then their path of liberation becomes very clear”. By the great mercy of Lord Manohara, the Captor of the purified mind, we can incrimentaly discover the lasting satisfaction, prasanatma, therein found. And we can thus choose to be here now with Krishna, in the safe shelter of His remembrance, which alone can satisfy all our best desires and our eternal need for love and happiness. <\/p>\n Jai Sri Krishna! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is a beautiful peaceful village in Braj Mandala named Gokula. One can sit there and gaze upon the pleasing vista of the sacred Yamuna as it serely flows across the wide plain, while hearing the subtle rustle of the neem and pippal leaves softly caressed by the soft breezes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-gokulananda-das"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Hare](\"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/24_yam2sonet.jpg\")
By Gokulananda das<\/strong><\/p>\n