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Every now and then a book is released which becomes a spiritual classic–a book that brings people in touch with a distant world, opens minds to new possibilities and becomes standard reading for spiritual seekers. Autobiography of a Yogi and Be Here Now come to mind. With the release of The Journey Home – Autobiography of an American Swami, I believe Radhanath Swami has given the world a new spiritual classic, one destined to both fascinate minds and touch the hearts of thousands. In recent memory, most presentations of bhakti that have arisen in the mainstream have been done by those not thoroughly seasoned in the practice itself. For instance, Deepa Mehta’s film Water and Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Eat, Pray, Love both have something interesting to offer, but neither can provide the appreciation of an insider. Therefore, I’m particularly delighted to see a presentation of bhakti-yoga enter the mainstream from a such a worthy practitioner. (more…)

To celebrate Gaura Purnima - the holy appearance of Sri Caitanya, I will share some verses of the book Sri Caitanya Candramrita by Sri Prabhodhananda Saraswati. Please forgive the lack of the original Sanskrit as well as my ignorance of the translator (Kushakrata dasa?) and the artist of the painting above. The verses below, Texts 57 through 79, comprise the Seventh Chapter of Sri Caitanya Candramrita entitled Upasya Nistha (Resolute Devotion to the Worshipable Lord). They are a beautiful example of Sri Prabhodananda Saraswati’s vivid and dramatic style. (more…)

Even as the world celebrates the eight Oscars that “Slumdog Millionaire” took home tonight - including the coveted Best Picture and props to A.R. Rehman’s infectious soundtrack - in its native Mumbai, the film remains a hotbed of controversy and a musical metaphor for India’s conflicted view of itself. It is hailed for shedding light on Indian slums, and yet condemned for exoticizing them. It calls Indians to cheer in pride (a film about our slums WON at the OSCARS!), while simultaneously hanging their heads in shame (a film about OUR SLUMS won at the Oscars!). It is either proof that India has finally arrived in the mainstream, or evidence of the film industry’s neo-colonialist agenda. Like the very city it depicts, “Slumdog Millionaire” is a land of contradictions. (more…)

On February, 23 the celebration of Maha Shivaratri was observed at the ancient Temple of Gopishwara Mahadeva in Vrindavan. Vaishnava’s honor the various Devas, seeing them as exemplar devotees of Lord Vishnu or Krishna. So in Vrindavan, the holy town of Krishna bhakti, Krishna devotees, following the edict of Srimad-bhagavatam, Vaishnavanam yatha shambhu,¹ worship Lord Shiva as a Krishna devotee in his form of a gopi (Gopishwara Mahadeva). (more…)

On January 31, I was fortunate to be present at the Radha Gopinath Temple in Mumbai for their annual Pushya Abhishek, a devotional festival in which the temple congregation comes together to profusely decorate the deities of Radha and Krishna with flowers, and then offer them an extended shower of over a ton of fresh flower petals.

In the early morning devotees gathered to pluck the petals from millions of fragrant flowers. In the evening 2000 devotees squeezed into the temple as thousands more gathered in the temple courtyards to watch via video screen. (more…)

What the punctuation in the title indicates:

Quotation marks: Draping the word God in quotation marks indicates that we are first concerned with the signifier, not the signified. (Compare these two sentences: I am interested in God. I am interested in “God.”)

Question mark: The mark of interrogation backstopping “God” points us next to questions concerning the concept or idea of God. What does it mean? Aren’t there many different meanings? Isn’t the meaning often vague or ambiguous? (more…)

[EDITORS NOTE: On December 26th I arrived in Mumbai and have been the fortunate guest of Radhanath Swami and the many wonderful Vaishnavas of the Radha Gopinath Temple. Having seen my previous article "Finding Selflessness Amidst Mumbai’s Sorrow", Radhanath Swami kindly shared some of his written thoughts about the Mumbai terrorist attacks. I'll share them with you below.

Kaustubha das]

It was a balmy autumn night in Mumbai. Over a hundred close friends were gathered for a reunion on a tenth floor rooftop garden near the sea. (more…)

In Bhagavad-gita (5.22) Krishna says this about enjoyment of the senses:

ye hi samsparsha-ja bhoga duhkha-yonaya eva te

“The pleasures that arise from contact between the senses and their objects are in truth the sources of all suffering.”

The Sanskrit word bhoga (with the long ‘a’ of the plural) means ‘pleasures’ or ‘enjoyments’. What kinds? The pleasures born (ja) from samsparsha, ‘the bringing into contact’—implicitly, the contact of the senses with their appropriate objects.

This is what we mean by “sense gratification”: enjoying the pleasures that arise when the eyes, or nose, or tongue, the hands, skin, or genitals comes together with their particular objects.

Krishna says something about those pleasures startlingly counter-intuitive: the enjoyments thus obtained (te) are the birth places or origins (yonaya) of suffering (duhkha). (more…)

When we see innocent people running our city streets, scrambling for shelter from acts of violence committed in God’s name, whether in Manhattan or Mumbai, it’s a good time to ask ourselves whether our religion is making us more divine or deranged. On the verge of 2009, it’s become all the more apparent that the first decade of the new millennium will, in many ways, be defined by the impact of religious terrorism on our nations, communities, families and minds. Times like these call for us to examine how our faith affects our reasoning. (more…)

Bhaktivinoda Thakura was a nineteenth century religious reformer in the Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampradaya. He was a prolific author, songwriter, poet and proponent of Krishna bhakti. The following is from his article “The Temple of Jagannath at Puri” written on September 15, 1871. (more…)