Tag: Jiva Goswami

How are we to understand that a disciple appears to be instructing her guru?

Shortly after taking sannyasa in 1959, His Divine Grace Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Svami Prabhupada took residence at the most important temple in Vrndavana, the Sri Sri Radha-Damodara Mandira at Seva Kunja. Sri Nirmal Candra Gosvami, the present Sevaite-acarya of Radha-Damodara Mandira, who was a young man at the time, remembers when Srila Prabhupada first came to reside at Sri Sri Radha-Damodara Mandira.

We did not venture to enter the details of madhurya-rasa. Our Guru Maharaja did not like it. But it will come irresistibly within you, you go on, sravana kirtana. Pujala raga-patha gaurava-bhange. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. It is so high. When it will come it will awaken within you. It won’t be awakened by any other person.

The Gaudiya conception of the maha-mantra is exclusive and stands distinct from all other sampradayas. The Gaudiya conception is exclusive in that it surpasses even the greatest expectations of the Vedas (liberation) and affords one the highest fulfillment of the ultimate goal of life. This is not simply party spirit propaganda or sampradaya jingoism, but an ontological fact.

I have read the book "Our Original Position" (OOP) published by the Iskcon GBC Press in which it is stated that the jivas (living entities) come to this material world after falling from grace in the spiritual world. Is this 'fall philosophy' correct according to sastra and previous acaryas?

After Gaura Hari, who descended to purify this age of Kali, made Himself invisible to the eyes of the world, the preaching of His religion of love carried on more or less uninterruptedly up until the time of Baladeva Vidyabhushan. In the time that followed, though there were still many advanced devotees present on the planet, a period of darkness descended on Mahaprabhu’s school of devotion. Many heterodox sects came into existence that vocally claimed to be following Mahaprabhu, but in fact were simply using His name to promote their own false doctrines.

I was recently invited to a program in Eugene, Oregon where it was said that the program would be in "vraja-bhava" so I was wondering how special is vraja-bhava and how does one actually attain it? When I went to the program there were various Hindi bhajans that I had never heard before and also some bhajans of Mirabai.