Bhakti Collective

Category: Weblog

  • Slumdog Millionaire: An Oscar for Hope in the Face of Hopelessness

    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…

  • Shivaratri in Vrindavan

    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. Shambhu (Lord…

  • Flower Festival In Mumbai!/SLIDESHOW

    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…

  • “God”?

    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…

  • Radhanath Swami: A Few More Thoughts About Terror in Mumbai

    [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…

  • Sense Gratification: An Essay in Pathology

    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?…

  • Finding Selflessness Amidst Mumbai’s Sorrow

  • On Reason and Love

    Thus we find that the object of Reason is to help Love and not to create it. Reason may be properly styled as the servant of Love and must always be subject to her in all her hopes, aspirations, and holy works.

  • May You Be Blessed

    May your eyes be blessed with sweet tears of longing for the beloved of your heart, Sri Sri Radha and Krishna, for such tears cure the “mistaken outlook” and make the bitter tears of misery disappear.

  • Pointing

    Sometime in the 1730’s, a young Scottish philosopher tried, and failed, to find himself. David Hume reflected upon this experience in his first book, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739). The passage is much quoted and anthologized. I encountered it frequently as an undergraduate philosophy major, for my teachers regarded it as a watershed in…