Welcome to Vraja Journal. Musings, reports and photography
from the groves and meadows of the land of Vraja.
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The Five Prabhus
5th of February, 2008 - 19:04
Syamananda, Narottama, Srinivasa, Ramacandra and Rasikananda
A painting of the five Prabhus — Syamananda, Narottama,
Srinivasa, Ramacandra and Rasikananda. Prema-vilasa speaks of the three as the new avatars of Advaita,
Nitai and Chaitanya respectively. In this popular old painting, Ramachandra is equated with Gadadhar
and Rasikananda with Srivasa. A footnote mentions him as Aniruddha as well. Sri Priyacarana Das Babaji Maharaja
4th of February, 2008 - 14:04
Sri Priyacarana Das Babaji Maharaja
Sri Priyacarana Das Babaji Maharaja, one of the respected
pandits and mahatmas of the past decades, who was based at Govardhan on the banks of Manasi Ganga. Hermit in the Hut
27th of January, 2008 - 6:36
Madhavananda in the hut
If you ended up visiting this part of the world, you might bump
into ragamuffins like the one pictured above. Light, Wisdom and Love!
31st of December, 2007 - 8:17
Light, Wisdom and Love!
Wishes of light, wisdom and love for the upcoming year!
(And yes, it's a bit new-agey.) |
[24 Jan 2008 11:19] » For long was the journal silent.
May the weight and import of these entries compensate. I am writing the raw and unfiltered substance
that I feel and perceive. Whether it's good or bad I can't say, but it's real.
[21 Jan 2008 10:38] » Internet's been extremely cranky the
last couple of days. I hardly get online. Let's hope the going gets smoother soon.
[17 Jan 2008 01:44] » Two little birds seem to be building their
nest in my room...
[01 Jan 2008 13:31] » For the record, for the concerned, I'm not
as skinny as the loose sweater makes me look in the recent photo I posted!
[31 Dec 2007 09:09] » Changed my daily parikrama and bhiksha
from evening to daytime. Ah, sunlight! Warmth, rejuvenation, happiness. Need for survival at winter!
[24 Dec 2007 13:56] » I finally have a small gecko here to keep
company to me. Perhaps it'll chew away some of these darned flies, too. They should know it's mid-winter!
[23 Dec 2007 13:52] » A group of monkeys are having a midnight
confrontation on the roof of my kutir...
[22 Dec 2007 23:25] » And dammit, I'm even not an American to
begin with!
[16 Dec 2007 09:23] » A light diet with a single daily meal
since a couple of days has done wonders to my system, badly overloaded by one and half months of
excessive input of oily and spicy Bengali cuisine. I'm reverting to my old diet, say people whatever
they may.
[13 Oct 2007 16:24] » My departure is delayed by a few days.
Electricity has been off for three days and got back today. Franz is here and we're touring the dham.
[20 Sep 2007 10:58] » Happy Radhastami to all! (I'll get back
to pending letters once I get the technical issues solved.)
[19 Sep 2007 10:49] » Problems with net and electricity keeping
me from online activity.
[03 Sep 2007 15:43] » Happy Janmastami wishes for everyone!
[26 Aug 2007 16:17] » It's curious... Gaudiyakutir.Net has been
down since a small eternity, and no-one has noticed. Just paid attention today to the fact that the
nameservers were misconfigured and the domain dead. Should be fixed now. But please, all of you
folks out there with solid internet connections, do drop me a note if you spot something odd at our sites.
[17 Aug 2007 05:31] » Internal times. Not many thoughts are
flowing towards the world out there. Many wonders in the world within, leading to more introversion
and less presence with online communications.
[30 Jul 2007 01:58] » I'm back at Radha-kunda after some days
of peace at and around Varsana. I'll be getting back to e-mails and the rest tomorrow. Happy Guru-purnima
to all!
[24 Jul 2007 04:27] » Such madness bewitches the beings of
this world. They would, even after describing their best self-interest in so many words, act in
disgust of the very thing they covet, steering their ways further and deeper into the unknown mires
of matter, accompanied with cheers of joy.
[23 Jul 2007 14:07] » I apologize for the silence as of late as
far as more substantial blogs are concerned. I just haven't had much to say as of late. Not before a
broad public, anyway — some things, and often the best and most essential aspects of our lives, are
internal and shared only with the few near and dear.
[22 Jul 2007 12:20] » If you ever want harsh communication,
Reliance has just opened a new outlet called "HARSH COMMUNICATION" at Tilak Dwar Holi Gate Mathura
for your convenience, tells a SMS I just received. =)
[18 Jul 2007 12:21] » I got a phone call from Mathura, a
replacement adapter for the video camera has arrived. I dread the thought of a trip to Mathura
just to get a piece of hardware. What can you do, work must go on. In related news, I need a gear
upgrade to keep up the work with Lake of Flowers Productions,
read more at the site's front page.
[18 Jul 2007 12:07] » 300ml of yogurt and 250g of spinach
thrown into a blender with 50ml of water and a pinch of salt and pepper makes an excellent,
tasty and nourishing drink.
[12 Jul 2007 02:57] » For convenience of reading, the
thoughtbox can now be expanded (with a single click) and contracted back to normal (with a double click).
[12 Jul 2007 02:37] » A 18-hour electric outage certainly
made the night feel a bit longer and warmer, and those mosquitoes they were hanging around a lot more, too.
[11 Jul 2007 11:19] » I realize the latest thought scrap is
accompanied by the perfect picture of a meal for a 100 in the left column. I'm not hungry though,
even if water might do wonders. =)
[11 Jul 2007 11:13] » To ensure a pleasant Ekadasi, do not
sleep on the night preceding the day before Ekadasi, and on that day go up and down to Delhi with
a mild diarrhea, and in the evening crash out and wake up for a pleasant day of fasting. It ain't
over yet, but I'll come out the other end in one piece. It isn't that hot today.
[11 Jul 2007 02:23] » Following the 500V current that fried
my laptop adapter a few months back, I find that my video camera charger was also effected.
(I haven't used it for a while.) Let's see if they can get it fixed in Mathura, I need to go
there tomorrow to get my visa extension in any case.
[10 Jul 2007 11:08] » "Cancelled Without Prejudice." That's
what they stamped on my old passport as I picked up the new one from the Finnish embassy in New
Delhi today. The expression amused me. "Shot Without Malice," as if it were.
[08 Jul 2007 14:51] » Mitaṁ ca sāraṁ ca
vaco hi vāgmitā — "Eloquence in speech means conciseness and essentiality."
If only this noble principle was remembered, written communication would flourish. (And I would
find it easier to tend to my correspondence!)
[08 Jul 2007 14:05] » A problem with downloading Lake of
Flowers Productions videos has now been fixed.
[08 Jul 2007 10:28] » A group of ants are trying to build a
colony inside my keyboard... And no, I don't eat while working!
For all of you who want to spread the word
5th of February, 2008 - 14:39
Today I'm writing a note to all of you there, whether you're disciples of Narayana
Maharaja, gurubhais of mine, or just random folks who want to interpret what I've written and tell all
about it to your pals and all. And here's what I wish to say.
When the weather report is on
4th of February, 2008 - 14:30
I'd like to put in a note to all those who would judge me for what I am as I dive
into the dark depths of my heart and pull out these horrendous blog entries. And yes, also for those
well-wishers who have already concluded that I am a person with zilch spiritual authority or insight
and informed me of the same. As well as for anyone else who might alter their perceptions of me because
of what I have written, what I am writing and what I will come to write.
TBI - Part 3 - The factors that made me credulous
4th of February, 2008 - 14:16
From my last blog in this series, you'll remember the picture of someone rather
stressed out by noise and corruption, pondering his future direction. What were my inner workings in
the period that immediately preceded meeting this babaji? What made me so vulnerable to being duped?
That's in turn for today's blog.
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
1st of February, 2008 - 13:13
A word of clarification is in place, as my blogs as of late seem to have created
some buzz in the blogosphere. Was Bhaktisiddhanta right about those bad babajis after all? My recent
blogs were briefly mentioned in Jagadananda's recent blog, and a comment popped in: "Perhaps now
its understood what Bhaktisidhanta was talking about...?" This needs some attention.
Four virtues and four methods
28th of January, 2008 - 13:58
The Buddha had some wise insights into the means for getting to know another
thoroughly. While the text that inspired this blog entry is more of a chapter in general wisdom of
life, the principles certainly apply in examining a prospective guru --- which has been the subject
of many a discussion.
As for the misleading note
27th of January, 2008 - 4:34
My earlier note on misleading in the "Knocking on the Cocoon" entry led some to
wonder what exactly I meant with that. Let's let that be clarified.
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Copyright © 2004-2008 - Madhavananda Das & Malatilata Dasi
