Wonderful Kirtan by HG Aindra Baba

Wonderful Kirtan by HG Aindra Baba at Krsna Balaram Mandir, Vrindavan..

Ramayana The Game of Life- The rise of sun prince by Shubha Vilas

       I am currently reading the book "RAMAYANA THE GAME OF LIFE-  RISE OF THE SUN PRINCE' penned by Sri Shubh Vilas, a monk from a Hare Krsna monastery, ISKCON Chowpatty in Mumbai. This is his first book in the series of books he is going to publish on the great epic scripture - 'Ramayana'. This book is based on the first kanda of the Ramayana - Bala Kanda, life of Lord Rama from his childhood until he gets married to Sita devi. There are total six kandas in Ramayana so we might expect six books from the author on this subject matter.

Front Cover of the book - illustrates Rama and Laxmana protecting the sacred arena of the sage Viswamitra's  Hermitage from the Demons Marica and Subahu

                      

       
 My first impression of this book after reading a few pages is - it is re-written, with out losing the original touch, message and story-line form the authentic Ramayana written by Valmiki and many other sages. But it was re-written in such a way that almost at every incident of Ramayana, the author tried to import a message for the common man to learn a lesson and to imbibe it in their life. These messages or anecdotes by Shubha Vilas are so touching and practical in the sense that one can easily understand those and can implement to improve their lifestyle and change their thinking for the good of themselves and for the society at large.

Few anecdotes by Shubha Vilas in this book-

• Soothing words of love are more gratifying than luxuries offered without love. 
• The urge to take must be balanced by wish to give. 
• Relationships of love are beyond logic and reasoning. 

Author Shubha Vilas with his book 

          Often, people are unable understand the deeper intricacies of the great scriptures and holy books such as Ramayana and thus it results either in misunderstanding, misinterpretation or complete rejection of value system in their dharma or religion. Lord Rama's character is one such for  people to often blame for his actions or decisions in Ramayana. Though he was the ideal king and adhered to dharmic principles all thorough out his life, but these actions seem to be not acceptable for the "social standards" for some and therefore perhaps, Lord Rama was the most demonized or misunderstood god in the Hindu religion by the propaganda of some antagonistic atheists.

         The author, Shubha Vilas, tried to explain these intricacies in Ramayana in a much simpler language and to properly understand the divine reasoning behind each of such actions by the lord and the actual purpose behind it. I am currently in the last pages of this book and could be finishing this in a week or so. Surely I am going to read it again for proper understanding (otherwise the celestial dog he mentioned in this book will be barking at me for not properly understanding the content of it :-) ). The sequel of this book is already in making, titled as "Shattered Dreams". I am eagerly waiting for this book release...

To order the book in online - go to this flipkart page ..

          One important observation that struck me while reading the introduction of this book is - The author greatly thanked Sri-vasnavacharyas, Sri Vellukudi Krishnan and Sri Bhasyam Appalacharyulu garu to name a few for their commentaries on Ramayana. I am so glad to hear and respecting the great personalities in other sampradayas which I regard it as a very rare quality. I also often do listen to Sri Sri Bhasyam Appalachryulu garu because he was a great scholar of Bagavata dharma. He has got a very profound knowledge on scriptures like Bagavatam and Ramayana. All my respects to these great teachers ....

Sri Bhasyam Appalacharyulu garu

Here are the Video lectures of Sri Subha Vilas speaking about Ramayana The Game of life...

Gita Parayanam - 2013

     Myself and Lavanya decided to read all the verses from the Bagavad-Gita on the auspicious day of Gita Jayanti in the year 2013. This very day, Lord Krsna spoke the Bagavad-Gita during the conversation between him and his friend, relative and disciple - Arjuna on the battle filed of Kurukshetra five thousand years ago. Reading Bagavad Gita daily has an immense effect for greater spiritual realizations. One can find great stories related to reading Bagavad Gita religiously from 'Gita Mathmya Stories', where Lord Shiva explains the those benefits to Mother Parvathi in the form of many stories.

     We started reading Bagavad Gita at 9AM and finished at 11:30AM with out taking a break!! I think I did the same in the year 2009 in Singapore Lakshmi Narayan temple along with around thirty devotees from the local congregation. This year has been so special that we two did it in our prayer room.

    Our experience has been great and we promise to do it in future regularly whenever time permits us.

   

  

KURUKSHETRA : The place where Lord Krsna spoke Bagavad-Gita to Arjuna

             Kurukshetra is the place where Lord Krsna Personally spoken The Bagavad-Gita which is the great philosophical discussion ever happened between him and his great devotee Arjuna. This place still exists in the state of Haryana and the very same spot where it happened still maintains its glory and give many of the devotees great joy to have pilgrimage to it. Here is the nice article on its significance and its history of chronicle events.

Jyotisar at Kurukshetra

7 Goswami temples of Vrindavan

1. Radha Madana Mohana Temple – Sanatana Goswami discovered the deity of Madana Mohana and this was the first temple to be built in Vrindavan. The original deity of Madana-mohana was taken to Karauli for protection during the Muslim attacks led by Emperor Aurangzeb in 1670.

2. Radha Damodara – The original deity was carved by Rupa Gosvami and gifted to disciple, Jiva Gosvami, who built this temple.

3. Radha Syamasundara – This is one of the lesser known but very important temples as the deity was manifested from Srimati Radharani’s heart and given to Syamananda to worship.

4. Radha Ramana – “Radha Ramana” means “one who gives pleasure to Radha”, andRadha Ramana is one of the few original deities still left in Vrindavan. Radha Ramana is said to be self-manifested from one of the Goswami’s saligram silas in 1542.

5. Radha Govinda – This temple was built by Maharaja Man Singh and the original Govindaji was reinstalled in Jaipur during the Muslim attacks.

6. Radha Gokulananda – This temple has a Govardhana shila gifted by Lord Chaitanya to Raghunath Dasa Gosvami and is believed to contain the thumbprint of Lord Chaitanya. The temple also has Radha-Vinoda deities of Lokanatha 
Gosvami, Vijaya Govinda of Baladeva Vidyabhusana and Viswanath Chakravarti’s Radha-Gokulananda deities.

7. Radha Gopinatha – Gopinatha was first installed 5,000 years ago by Vajranaba, Lord Krishna’s grandson, and rediscovered at Vamsi-vata by Paramananda Goswami.

RadhaGopinath in Vrindavan

RadhaGopinath in Jaipur (original)

Collection of Folk stories from Pitt U

                 Folk stories are simple yet a great moral conveying tools for all classes of men. It contains a subtle message to be imbibed for an ethical upbringing of human being. Often animals plays lead roles in these stories and their conversations with human beings and other species brings a completely different experience to the reader. This style is very natural and in the sense you don't find much similarities often in the contemporary literature.

First in this domain known to exist and spread across the world in different languages is - Panchatantra by Vishnu Sharma from India. This is the most celebrated epic ..

Here is the electronic collection of some of the stories by a professor D.L.Ashliman from Univ of Pittsburg.

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html

Krishna Janmastami - 2013

Krishna Janmastami is different experience  for me this year - 2013.. I celebrated this here in Penang, Gelugor temple.. For last few years I was in Singapore and we used to celebrate this in a much bigger scale in a auditorium. This year in Penang we were about 50 people and the celebration went up to 2'o clock in the night. We danced to maximum extent for the sweet kirtans by devotees.

Here are some of the pictures by famous artist B.G Sharma on Krsna lila ..

http://m.dandavats.com/?p=1119

Rama-lila photos by B.G Sharma
http://m.dandavats.com/?p=1954