I believe Prabhupada would really like the weather we are going through. It will be a mild twenty-one degrees Celsius (seventy degrees Fahrenheit) today, and that’s pleasant. He didn’t mind the heat though and the sun. I was blessed to be on a walk with him (and others) at a park in Atlanta. It was February and cold, even for residents there, but he was all bundled up. If I’m not mistaken, he wore the long coat custom made for him in Hawaii by Jaya Sri, an outstanding devotee from the states. S
reflection (3)
The first verse of the 15th chapter from the Bhagavad-Gita reads like this: “Bhagavan spoke, it is said that there is and imperishable banyan tree that has its roots upward and its branches down and whose leaves are the Vedic hymns. One who knows this tree is the knower of the Vedas.”
I was always intrigued with this verse and am often in my walks reminded of this tree of knowledge by reflections seen as an ordinary tree by a pond of water or an image of a double-up upright and upside-down pos
By Giriraj Swami
Terrible forest fires have been raging around Ventura and Ojai, California, devastating homes and everything else on their way. I recalled Srila Prabhupada’s discussion of the first verse of Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura’s Sri Gurv-astaka:
samsara-davanala-lidha-loka-
tranaya karunya-ghanaghanatvam
praptasya kalyana-gunarnavasya
vande guroh sri-caranaravindam
“The spiritual master is receiving benediction from the ocean of mercy. Just as a cloud pours water on a forest fire