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Wednesday, 19 September 2007

A cold day, and today guru-puja was shifted to a summer auditorium—which meant it was designed to let in the breeze which, in autumn, was freezing. The legendary Russian singer Aditi Dukhaha Prabhu was at the mike, and his kirtana really rocked!

Radhastami Srimad Bhagavatam class was given by HH Bhakti Visrambhava Maharaja, who spoke of the selfless love of Srimati Radharani for Krishna. Like Her, real devotees of Krishna do not care about their own happiness and distress, only about Krishna's. He may make us the butt of His jokes, but we do not feel distress, only happiness as we have given Krishna happiness.

At 10:30 we had the Bhakti-vriksha seminar. Today we conducted a demonstration group meeting. The volunteers first took part in an Icebreaker session and introduced themselves.

They were a couple owning a cake shop in Belorussia, conducting a Nama-hatta group in their house, an artist with two children, a mataji from Tomsk who had attended the festival in the Ukraine and came to recharge herself, a devotee from Severodvinsk, on the White Sea coast, a militia man. Karta Prabhu from the Caucasus came to get more devotee association. He wanted to learn to preach carefully so as not to offend anyone, and to serve the devotees selflessly in order to destroy his pride. He claimed he had little knowledge, and preferred to listen rather than to read.

The edification session, when the scripure passage was discussed, went very well. In fact, Karta Prabhu's answers were very learned, belying his humble claim to ignorance.

The Preaching session received enthusiastic participation from the demonstration group:

• One devotee got a lift in someone's car while coming to the festival and preached to that person;
• Another preached in the train, another on the street;
• When looking for a house in the village to stay in during the festival, a devotee got permission to chant every day;
• Another greeted some old men on the road with "Good Morning," and received "Hare Krishna" as reply;
• One persuaded a dropped-out devotee to come back by attending this festival, after a year away from devotees;
• Someone else, when getting into a bus, asked for permission to chant;
• Yet another had a landlord who loved harinama;
• One family sold spices in the train on the way to the festival, and the purchaser decided she wanted to became a vegetarian;

These devotees are always acting in a way that people get attracted to Krishna and are very interested in preaching. Such preaching sessions in a Bhakti-vriksha group would help them to plan their preaching in a systematic way.

Thursday, 20 September 2007

At 8 am, Srimad Bhagavatam class was conducted by HH Indradyumna Maharaja.

• It is better to be preaching Krishna Consciousness in hell than to be doing nothing in moksa, with no troubles;
• It is important to study spiritual history, the scriptures.
• There is no end to spiritual love; the essence of the soul is to love and be loved. This is the essence of Krishna Consciousness;
• Russian devotees are wonderful: sweet, artistic, sacrificing, and service minded. After India, the maximum number of devotees are to be found in Russia;
• Who is protecting ISKCON devotees in Srila Prabhupada's manifest absence? Lord Nrsimhadeva;
• Krishna will hear our chanting only if we do it from the heart.

Devananda Pandit & Parvati: Family / House Analogy

At 10:30. Davananda Pandit Prabhu and Parvati Mataji continued with their seminar. They drew a house, representing a family, and described the various parts. The foundation consists of family rules and traditions. Without these, the family is not situated on a firm footing.

• Usually parents are in the mode of passion, in relation to their children, while grandparents are in the mode of goodness.
• We should not expect our children to become immediately Krishna conscious. This would be like trying to build the roof of a house first.
• We should have good relations with our own parents and establish family rules.

Foundation

• All great saints in the past were born in respectable families. A good family tradition is a must.
• Rather than cut off relations with parents, as some devotees do, we should preach to our relatives so they can participate in bringing up our children. This is varnasrama dharma.
• Bringing up children as devotees is a great and purifying devotional service.
• We should take care of elderly relatives—selfishness destroys families. We should fulfil our dharma: work and take good care of our children.
• Don't prevent parents from participating in bringing up children; this breaks the foundation of the family. Try to live in the same town as the parents, if not in the same house. All this makes children self-confident; let them help their grandparents.

Ground Floor

The Ground Floor is the relationship between the parents.

• Let the child live in a good emotional atmosphere: peace and love are important, not wealth.
• We should preach to our children by example, not just by words.
• When a spouse criticizes the partner in front of a child, it causes great distress to the child. If you inadvertently quarrel in front of your children, it is better to apologise and make up in front of them, too.
• If a girl does not have a good mother, it is difficult for her to become a good wife.
• Always behave according to sastra. Then, even if children see other devotees breaking principles, they will not be so disturbed because they have their parents as example.
• Pay attention to children: if the parents are 'too busy,' children feel unwanted. When Nrsimha, the first son of Devananda Pandit, moved from his mother's home to his four years ago, Parvati did her bet to be nice to him. (With tear-filled eyes, she said that now, after his sudden death, she feels she should have given him even more love).
• The ideal situation is that the husband should earn money while the wife should run the home. Nursery school is not really necessary, because of the food problem, and wrong values may be learned very early. (Parvati said she hated her nursery school.)
• We should not force our children to wear tilaka and offer obeisances. Krishna does not want such mechanical devotion.

First Floor

The first floor, taking instructions from parents, belongs to the children.

• Sound is the most important medium of instruction.
• Our instructions and behaviour should not be contradictory. We should be honest and admit our faults, even if we cannot follow some of the Vaisnava standards.
• Don't wake up the child too early.
• Some children give up Krishna consciousness when growing up; but if they see that their parents have progressed spiritually to maturity, they will maintain a good opinion about Krishna consciousness.
• Some of the older generation of devotees had many problems because they were fanatic, and not good examples of mature devotees. The next generation should avoid this mistake.

Roof

The roof represents preparation for spiritual life.

• To become a good person, a child needs a good example.
• There has to be proper balance between spiritual instructions, own behaviour, and material instructions.
• Children need to associate with different types of people, otherwise they will not be able to live in society. For example, some children in the Vrindavana gurukula were found to be smoking ganja every day; isolating them from society did not stop them from picking up bad habits.
• There has to be proper balance between discipline and attachments.

...

At 1 pm we were invited to attend a meeting of the National Council of Russia. We spoke about our vision of strong Vaisnava communities, with grihastas helping brahmacaris and sannyasis and vice versa, built up through the implementation of the Bhakti-vriksha Program.

We described Bhakti-vriksha preaching, and the leaders seemed to be very keen on implementing the progam in those parts of Russia which have not yet done so.

At 3 pm we had lunch, followed by the closing session of the grihasta festival at 5 pm.

At 7 pm we celebrated the birthday of Angira Muni Prabhu! Different devotees (including us) spoke about him, and in betwee, he himself sang some of his own compositions.

Sikstastakam Prabhu's mother described how she and her son came to Krishna consciousness. They both went to attend a program where they met Angira Muni. He was smiling all the time, and she thought he might be crazy!

Still, she went to a class and her son did the same. She found the kirtana so powerful, she wanted to fill herself with its potency in order to be able to cure people.

She was amazed to find her son Sikstakam, who had until now been inimical, asking serious questions. They went home and he said: "let's finish the last piece of fish and last bottle of vodka, and never eat meat or drink alcohol again."

It was they who arranged the marriage of Angira Muni and Kaveri Mataji in Omsk, Siberia.

Your servants,

Vijay Venugopal dasa
Prema Padmini dd