From Back to Godhead
A child of Indian-born parents in America discovers herself in the context of competing cultures.
“So, tell me about yourself. Where are you from?” asked the chief resident in pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh medical center, where I was interviewing for a residency position.
My answer started off something like this, “My parents are from South India, and I was born and brought up here in the U.S.”
Although his question implied that the place one
I just meditate on mercy. The point is this – we have to appreciate that this is a mercy movement and we somehow or other just take shelter constantly. We do not measure ourselves all the time, because if we start measuring ourselves, we will always fall short and then we will become increasingly frustrated. So, there is no need for measuring, instead, we just take shelter. Take shelter of the Holy Name, take shelter of the Srimad Bhagavatam, take shelter of the devotees, take shelter of prasad
This Sunday was exciting. Sundays usually are. One of the reasons is that I get very busy with people. Today, it was three locations, so that makes it three presentations. The theme for all these venues, in addition to chanting sessions and prasadam (blessed food), was the topic of “shelter.” The first gathering was actually in the Conference Room of ISKCON Toronto. There I presented a borrowed story about shelter and the nature of a cat or a dog. Perhaps you have heard it before?
A dog thinks,
How did all these cows, cowherd boys, cowherd men and cowherd women fit under Govardhana Hill? How? The answer is, simply by Krsna’s shakti. Mathematically, it was not possible. If you measured it with a measuring tape and calculate the area that these cows and other living beings would be taking, it would not be possible that they could all fit under Govardhana Hill. No way, they would have to stack the cows on top of each other. But no, by Krsna’s shakti, they all fit. This was an amazing thi
In response to my last blog ‘Turning distress into an opportunity‘, I received a few calls from devotees on taking shelter of Krishna in times of distress. In all the calls the crux was the same- Should we trouble Krishna with our material problems? Shouldn’t bhakti should be practiced without any motivation. My response was- of course bhakti should not be motivated, which means we practice bhakti for no other purpose than to please Krishna. But when faced with challenges in our lives then whos
