Please introduce yourself to the group

[Nitaidas]

Sounds like a good plan. Both programs are pretty strong. Jan Brzezinski (Jagat) got his degree in Sanskrit from SOAS and look what he has accomplished. There is not much you can do with a degree in Sanskrit except teach or get yourself onto the staff at Clay as a translator. But, the ability to read this wonderful literature is surely worth the privations it occasions. Besides, there are plenty of things you can do to make money while you also read and translate Sanskrit. One of the students of one of my Sanskrit teachers is a first rate cook and another is a lawyer. The latter can still recite large portions of the sutras of Panini. His heart is really in Sanskrit.

[Ekantin]

Apr 11, 2010 8:51:03 GMT -6 rahulhb said:

I am considering taking Sanskrit at degree level , here in the UK , SOAS and Edinburgh offer it as a degree , they seem to have good Sanskrit departments. I visited them earlier on this year. Employers also seem to respect the degree allot , law or banking etc. Its a option i am thinking of , otherwise i would do Modern languages , Spanish and Portugese. Trying to decide which one will be more beneficial.

I think it's really admirable that you are consideringtaking Sanskrit. I can't imagine what it must be like to study such a language at degree level. Good luck with it!

[hike108]

Hare Krsna! My name is Vinode Vani d.d. and Nitai dasa invited me to join, to keep abreast of discussions and news. I joined ISKCON in 1971, and live near the Alachua ISKCON community. From '87-88 then again from '90-98, I lived in India: Mayapur, Vrindaban, Bhubaneswar. My journey has been varied; I was at one time part of the fledgling Narayana Maharaja group in the early '90s. While in Mayapur, I spent time with Gadadhar Pran, who shared with me a copy of his Govinda Lilamrta translation and commentary, which he was still editing. When I returned to the US in 1998, I completed my undergraduate and graduate degrees and finished raising my twin sons. I currently work as a licensed clinical social worker in a hospital setting; you do what you have to do to get by, right? My desire is to increase my association and absorption in KC. I appreciate the free exchange of thoughts and insights, and the sharing of past learning experiences. Thank you for your association. Jaya Sri Radhe!

[Nitaidas]

Welcome Vinode Vani d d (hike108). Glad to have you here. It sounds like you have a lot of experience to your credit. Explore the site and ask questions or make comments. Start a thread if you have a question or topic you would like to discuss. But have a look around first. Chances are good that your question or topic has come up before and has a history of discussion already in existence. Many of us have recently been bit by the Mahabharata bug and have started reading or rereading it. Since it forms the background for the Bhagavata, it is a useful area of study and discussion. Anyway, make yourself at home.

[Deleted]

Hare Krsna, all CSers, nice to meet you:

I have been interested in eastern traditions, and particularly the esoteric yogic and tantric aspects for about a decade. In 2006 I did a year of undergraduate sanskrit, so I admire those of you (including Nitai) who can actually translate, and in the long-term as a hobby it is something I aspire to. I have been interested in Gaudiya Vaisnavism for over a year. I am not entirely sure what drew my interest initially. I have had my own personal experiences using yogic and meditative systems directly from the literature. By personal preference I was always more interested in the Saiva and Sakta traditions than in the Vaisnava path. But, something about Radha and Krishna just drew me in more. As my understanding grew to include a knowledge of Raganuga Bhakti, I was hooked.

I live in Australia, and so there are certain things which are quite difficult for the forseeable future: such as sadhu sangha, and initiation. I do not feel that ISKCON will meet my needs. There is the Gaudiya Math here, but they are not in my state. Ultimately, I would like to meet a genuine guru, but I am unable to visit India, and do not wish for the lack of favourable circumstances to bar my development in bhakti.

So, in the meantime I am working on the idea of a gradiant scale of practice. I have an altar with a nice image of RadhaKrishna and the Varistha Gopis, underneath which is the Six Gosvamis, the Pancatattva and Nrsimha. I have the Jagganath deities below that, and the scriptures I currently have. I offer food and drink, and am working on expanding my rounds of japa. I intend to incorporate kirtan, and then slowly include vraj-lila smarana. If nothing else the latter may develop virtuous karma to meet a genuine guru who can initiate me in the practice in the future. I also intend to study the Bhagavata, Caitanya Caritamrta, and the works of the Gosvamis.

I do not have any external association with other Vaisnavas, but I feel perhaps this way I can build a solid foundation in bhakti.

AspiringDevotee

[Nitaidas]

Welcome, AspiringDevotee. Glad to have you here. Thanks for the introduction to yourself and your quest. Don't we have some bhaktas who check in once in a while who are living in Australia? Perhaps they might be a source of sanga for you. This forum seems to move in cycles. Sometimes there is a lot of activity and sometimes not. Anyway, please make yourself at home. Check out the various texts and if you have a specific interest that we don't already have a thread for, please feel free to start one. If you have a recording of a kirtan that you would like to share with us, please do. I don't know the state of the contest at the moment, but even if it is temporarily suspended, it will be back online at some point. ADRS has not yet revealed what the prize is, but she has assured us that it will be worth the efforts of submitting entries.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the warm welcome, Nitai Das! I don't have a kirtan recording, but I think I will try and cobble up something. It is a good thing that Krishna cares about the thought more than the quality of the product! On Kirtan, I have thought quite a lot about it. I feel that the traditional songs and bhajans of India are really great and I am sure if you listen to them alot and absorb that influence through sangha then it could become a real part of your own soul-stream. But for me, I do not have a big background in listening to devotional music. I think the most prema-infused song I ever heard was a Bhakta just longingly calling out "Hari Hari Hari" over and over again. With my religious background I am more used to blues/gospel type influences, but even then If I was to write it would be more folk/country if it was to be authentic. So I think I will need to just muck around until I produce something that feels real.

On Mahabharata, earlier this year I listened to an Audiobook version of it, 9 hours long or something, as I couldn't find a copy of the book in the local library. It was amazing! I first read the BG over a decade ago, but to hear the background for the first time was really something.

[Deleted]

There is a fabulous recording (3 CD set) of the Gita-Govindam by Jayadev. I don't have it in front of me, but let me know if you have trouble finding it, and I'll tell you who the kirtaniya is.

[Nitaidas]

Sounds great AspiringDevotee. I look forward to hearing what you come up with. I am also partial to the blues and folk music. For me the most lovely words for a song are Radhe Shyam Gaur. I can sing that for hours to various tunes, rhythms and speeds. It seems to say it all. The divine duality and the divine singularity are both represented. But it is also fun to make up words and create songs in English. Anyway, now that my duty to Oxford in over I can experiment some more.

[malatimanjari]

Dear members,

Nitai Das has kindly admitted me access to this symposium and requested me to introduce myself. Here is a little background: I am German -bodied and have been a member of ISKCON for almost 20 years, until I left the society this spring. It all started when I took interest in other philosophical Gaudiya perspectives and did a little research. I had been Hridayananda Maharaja’s secretary for a while and as such was requested to do a summary of a discussion on a perennial ISKCON topic: the origin and nature of the jiva. Not completely satisfied by all the arguments, I wanted to understand why ISKCON obviously has such a different understanding than most traditional Gaudiyas.

A friend finally advised me to inquire from Satyanarayan das babaji, which I did in Vrindavan. He made me aware of many inconsistencies in ISKCON’s philosophy and the problem of parampara. It didn’t take me too long to understand that ISKCON wasn’t the right place for me anymore, and that I want to take diksa in the Gadadhara parivar. After I “came out” officially a few months ago , not to my surprise I was banned by the ISKCON authorities from doing any more service (deity worship and writing articles).

While I am now leading a quite secluded life - except for going to my office – I utilize my time to study and connect with devotees on the internet. This is how I came across the nitai-zines, and ultimately this Symposium. I look forward to getting to know all of you and learning more about this fascinating Gaudiya Vaishanava tradition. Radhe, Radhe!

[Nitaidas]

Greetings Malatimanjari dasi,

Welcome to the site. It is great to have you here and things will get more active now that I am back from my journey. I will start to pick up some of the projects I was working on: Tattva-sandarbha, Bhagavat-sandarbha, Ascarya-rasa-prabandha, etc. There is also a Sanskrit grammar written by my teach that I am typesetting and posting. It is a great way to develop some understanding of and skill at reading the language. It sounds like you have some skills as a researcher and editor. Perhaps we can enlist your help on some of the projects at the press (Blazing Sapphire Press). Please check out those sections of the forum. I have some long term projects that I am working on and information on those will be posted soon. There are also Bengali translations posted here and there. Most are still pretty rough, but I hope to improve those as time goes by. As usual I start many things and then have trouble working on all of them. My main goal is to try to make available CV works in reliable bi-lingual translations and then to try to build on them. Just repeating faithfully is not enough and none of the inspiring acaryas of the line have just done that. They have all tried to add new insights to the tradition. We are, after all, living in a very different world than the world they lived in. We need to study the inherited works very carefully and create a new literature based them.

We have been having some interesting discussions of Sri Krsnaprem and Prabhu Jagadbandhu Sundara. Hopefully, those will continue. We have several members of the Nitai-gaur Radhe Shyam sub-tradition here who post some interesting things relative to the insights of their tradition. It is a very lively and powerful tradition. I am trying to make the writings of Prabhupada Sri Kanupriya Goswami available, too. He was close to my gurudev, Prabhupada Sri Tinkudi Goswami. In short we are open to anything from the mainstream Caitanya Vaisnava tradition. IGM (Iskcon-Gaudiya Math) is generally excluded here, or at least not encouraged, because I don't regard them as part of the sampradaya. Nothing is really banned or excluded. That was the reason for opening this site. No one is censored or ejected. Still the works of IGM are full of Vaisnava-aparadha and Sadhu-ninda so they are generally avoided. Anyway, look around and pipe up wherever you want. I at least will try to respond and the others will come out of hibernation too, eventually.

[malatimanjari]

Thank you very much, Nitai Prabhu. Your projects sound interesting. For the past year I have been studying a little Sanskrit on my own with the help of books, so this Sanskrit grammar could be helpful. As for service opportunities, I would be happy to offer some help when I find the time. I am story / TV online editor by profession, and most of my services have indeed involved some form of editing. However, since English is a foreign language to me, my help will be limited. Krishna has always kindly blessed me with plenty of seva, and presently also there are a few projects I am working on. So let's see how all that develops and let me know if something concrete comes up.


At present

[Nitaidas]

Dec 17, 2010 10:55:31 GMT -6 malatimanjari said:

Thank you very much, Nitai Prabhu. Your projects sound interesting. For the past year I have been studying a little Sanskrit on my own with the help of books, so this Sanskrit grammar could be helpful. As for service opportunities, I would be happy to offer some help when I find the time. I am story / TV online editor by profession, and most of my services have indeed involved some form of editing. However, since English is a foreign language to me, my help will be limited. Krishna has always kindly blessed me with plenty of seva, and presently also there are a few projects I am working on. So let's see how all that develops and let me know if something concrete comes up.


At present

Your English seems perfectly good, better than that of many native speakers. Anyway, I would be happy have your help whenever you are able to spare some time. As you have probably realized by now, this site is full of unfinished works. I am good at starting things but weak at finishing. Not that I don't finish things, but the startings out number the finishes by at least 10 to 1. I had hopes once of putting together a committee of translators, editors, typesetters, proof-readers, and just general PR people (to make the works produced known in wider circles). Then we would not have to depend on any IGM productions to study and cultivate Krsna-bhakti. As an example, gerardji has cited a translation of Murari Gupta's Sri Krsnacaitanyacaritamrta produced by an IGMer. I have my own edition and translation, but it is not complete. So people will read the IGM version and become corrupted. They will be fed the apasiddhanta of IGM and then correcting those mistakes will become even more of a problem.

One of the hardest lessons I had to learn, and really am still learning, is how deeply misguided I was when I was in IGM. I have had to question everything and work hard at deprogramming myself for years. And still I find new misapprehensions and wrong assumptions surfacing even now. IGM offers a deeply corrupting and twisted representation of CV. One cannot simply leave IGM. One has to question everything one has learned while in it. Old habits die hard and that is especially true of habits of thought and in cases such as this. One has initially to turn away completely from the old literature and become immersed in the new. But where is the new? That is the tragedy of CV in the West. CV is most represented in the West by corrupt and corrupting texts and the genuine article is regarded with disdain or is simply not available. That is the sad failure of myself and others who have somehow come into contact with the real CV tradition.

[malatimanjari]

Nitai-ji, I can fully subscribe to what you are saying. These misconceptions are very deep rooted. Advaita Das has compiled a good number of these in his parampara article and I am presently putting together something about the inherent svarupa dormant love vad. Indeed I am in the process of deprogramming myself - or rather, allowing myself to become deprogrammed. So I am very inspired by your ideas and would very much like to help. However I am also dedicated to the seva I already accepted. When I get back from India maybe I'll have a better idea, and maybe you can let me know the priorities. Radhe Radhe!

[Nitaidas]

Good. When you have something concrete on the inherent svarupa business please share it with us. I know you have other commitments and obligations and I certainly do not want to interfere with any of those. Whenever you find you have some time let me know.

Here are some of the assumptions I think that need to be critically examined and either rejected or altered:

1. There is only one surviving and authentically empowered lineage of Caitanya Vaisnavas:

Bhaktisiddhanta-Bhaktivedanta claim this for themselves (Bhaktivedanta even against the claims to authenticity of his own guru-bhais). It is a severe mental disease that strikes those who are fundamentally confused or ignorant. It also implies a deep criticism of the tradition bordering on Vaisnava aparadha or ninda. The mainstream tradition recognizes several lineages that are not just surviving but flourishing. All are recognized as authentic and vital. And though there is very little institutionalization in CV, the one essential thing is diksa into one of those lineages and with that preserving and remembering the guru-parampara. Nothing else externally distinguishes the authentic from the false, the member from the non-member. Though diksa is no guarantee of spiritual advancement, the door is opened by diksa whether one enters it or not. Most importantly, that door has many keys, not just one. Beware of Vaisnavas, or anyone for that matter, who claim to have a monopoly on the truth or the sacred.