And of course, Kṛṣṇa is bound in love to the gopīs, as described by Kārbhājana Muni in the 11th Canto of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam: 'māyā-mṛgaṁ dayitayepsitam anvadhāvad,' which is a verse describing Rāmacandra, Lord Caitanya, and Kṛṣṇa in the matter of the description of Kṛṣṇa, he says māyāmṛgam means he becomes like a toy—one of those play toys that children have—in the hands of the gopīs of Vrindavan, because they love him so deeply. Kṛṣṇa is Ajita; he is unconquerable, but he is conquered by the...
Jun 28, 2025•1 hr 12 min
I like the metaphor, "leaning in." It's like crossing through a doorway where we have no other awareness except for The Holy Name. I was thinking back to what I read at the beginning—that there are states of consciousness that we cycle through, and one of them is the deep sleep. Even then, we have proximity to Kṛṣṇa. If we can learn to cross beyond the chatter of our minds and enter that door, lean into it—where we're enveloped by Kṛṣṇa, then our lives will become enriched by this internal poten...
Jun 26, 2025•22 min
The general theme of all these literatures is that anyone can rise in due course of time. And if you do it step by step, first by getting knowledge and then having practice, these are the two things you have to have. First, you have to have knowledge; then, you have to practice. Ignorance doesn't help. Ignorance could also mean "ignore- ance." This is the story of a famous musician. His name was Warren Zevon, and from the time he was a child, he was always afraid that he might die of cancer. He ...
Jun 25, 2025•59 min
In the Age of Kali, intelligent persons perform congregational chanting to worship the incarnation of Godhead who constantly sings the names of Kṛṣṇa. Although His complexion is not blackish, He is Kṛṣṇa Himself. He is accompanied by His associates, servants, weapons and confidential companions. (SB 11.5.32) ------------------------------------------------------------ To connect with His Grace Vaiśeṣika Dāsa, please visit https://www.fanthespark.com/next-steps/ask-vaisesika-dasa/ ---------------...
Jun 24, 2025•36 min
Devotional service and taking up spiritual practice can be heroic. You actually take a stance. You take a stand. If you don't stand for something, as they say—sorry about this—you'll fall for anything. And Krishna invites us to stand up, be strong. In another language, in the Third Chapter of the Gita, he says, "evaṁ buddheḥ paraṁ buddhvā saṁstabhyātmānam ātmanā jahi śatruṁ mahā-bāho kāma-rūpaṁ durāsadam" (BG 3.43). He's telling Arjuna, "You stand up and fight for conquering over the lower self ...
Jun 24, 2025•1 hr 10 min
Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura Disappearance Day Celebrations | HG Vaisesika Dasa | ISV | 07 Jul 2013 by Vaisesika Dasa
Jun 24, 2025•15 min
Get consistent and stay on a program. And once you feel confident that you've got it down at the level that you can do it now—whether it's coming to the temple every day or whenever you can do it on a regular basis, say, once a month, or whatever you can add into your schedule—once you've achieved consistency in a certain level of practice, then move your foot to the next rung. That's Bhaktivinoda's advice in the Caitanya-sikṣāmṛta. He said, "If you try to run up the ladder too fast, you're goin...
Jun 23, 2025•1 hr 21 min
In the next verse, he says: "Kavim Purāṇam anuśāsitāram, aṇor aṇīyāṁsam anu smaret yaḥ, sarvasya dhātāram acintya-rūpam, āditya-varṇaṁ tamasaḥ parastāt, (BG 8.9)" starting with the first word, which is Kavim, which means "the one who knows everything." So he knows everything; he knows everything about us. And this is a very powerful meditation, because mostly we have difficulty with our relationships because people only partially know us, and sometimes they misunderstand us. But when we're stand...
Jun 22, 2025•14 min
Rūpa Goswami says, "Just as young boys are naturally attracted to young girls, and young girls are naturally attracted to young boys"—if you unload a busload of teenagers in front of the Grand Canyon, they won't see the Grand Canyon because they're in samādhi. He said, "In the same way, may my mind be drawn to you." So when Prabhupāda said, "This is a feeling festival, the Ratha-yātrā," there is a story behind it, a love story. But it's THE love story; it's not any love story, it's THE love stor...
Jun 20, 2025•1 hr 24 min
Māyā gives combinations and permutations of apparent enjoyment to every soul to exhaust that person's idea that "I can enjoy separately from Kṛṣṇa." Queen Kuntī says: 'janmaiśvarya-śruta-śrībhir edhamāna-madaḥ pumān naivārhaty abhidhātuṁ vai tvām akiñcana-gocaram (SB 1.8.26).' We should be very, very humble, because Māyā can sneak into our lives at any time, and one of the ways she sneaks in is through the door of pride. There are some attitudes that we can be very careful about and avoid, like ...
Jun 19, 2025•1 hr 3 min
There are various ways in which we can organize our lives so that we elevate our consciousness. Now, the first and most important is to take an inventory of what we call the soundscape, or the soundtrack, of your life. Do any of you have a soundtrack in your life? If any of you have ever been to a movie, they have soundtracks. That's what defines the era of the movie, isn't it? Yeah, you look at a movie, you can also understand from the very beginning, after the opening credits, when the movie c...
Jun 19, 2025•52 min
Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad Gītā asked us to manage our expectations, and he tells us that the material world is a place of suffering. I know this is a family show, and I don't mean to bring a downer to everybody, but it's just a fact. It's there in the Bhagavad Gītā, where Kṛṣṇa says, "duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam." "Duḥkha" means what? Duḥkha, misery, and "ālayam," it's a place. So duḥkhālayam is the place where you go to get misery. So if you manage your expectation and you know that this is a place of mi...
Jun 17, 2025•1 hr 9 min
This is the sensitivity of the heart of a Vaiṣṇava—that he or she will see within everyone the good qualities. What to speak of a dog who wants to join the party, and he considers him part of our group and Prabhupāda had such quality, he would invite people to stay. Of course, he said it is not a hotel for lazy people, the āśram, but there were some devotees who were slightly dysfunctional, and devotees would complain. And Prabhupāda was very tolerant because he said, "They have not understood t...
Jun 16, 2025•1 hr 6 min
I took some devotees from a faraway land who visited California into a forest called Muir Woods, and it's got a stream going through it. One day, when we were walking through, we saw a ranger in there pulling out something: these long tongs, in gaiters on boots that go up to your hips. And so, we stopped by to talk to the friendly ranger. That's what you should do: always talk to a friendly ranger. And we asked him, "So, what are you doing?" And he said, "I'm taking micro trash out of the river....
Jun 16, 2025•1 hr 40 min
We don't have to be envious because Kṛṣṇa is so opulent that if you just have your own bhajan, it's enough, because Kṛṣṇa gives everything to everyone, all at once. You don't have to worry that somebody got more fame than you do, or they can sing better, or they have better association. We all have an eternal relationship with Kṛṣṇa, who's the Supreme Personality of Godhead. And there's no lack ever—that feeling of, "Oh, I didn't get it," or "Somebody else is better than me," or something. We do...
Jun 14, 2025•5 min
Kṛṣṇa does admit in the Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta when He meets Gopā Kumāra, He says, "I made special arrangements for you, although I'm neutral with everybody. I made you take birth in Govardhan, and I came personally. That spiritual master that you met, that was Me. I came personally because I've been waiting too long." So there are ways that Kṛṣṇa tries to bring us back to Godhead, and especially when we take a step towards Him, then He takes license to pull us further. I love this whole section. T...
Jun 14, 2025•1 hr 6 min
Sometimes, devotees can try to be more Catholic than the Pope. Prabhupāda had certain ways; he had a certain mood, and it wasn't fanatical. We were fanatical, a lot, and a lot of times we amplified certain things Prabhupāda said and just took that as all in all. We think that by being more and more austere, physically punishing our senses and so forth, that we become more advanced. It was in youthful energy like that; it's not sustainable. It can even make the heart hard. I'm not saying we shoul...
Jun 13, 2025•29 min
Well, maybe we can just give a quick definition of this word: surrender. It also sounds a slightly intimidating from the word itself: surrender. Somebody says, "Surrender your passport," or something, or there's an image of somebody getting chased by police in a car and trying to run away, and then finally they surrender. It can be applicable to us, but śaraṇāgati and the path of taking shelter of Krishna can be more comprehensible in the sense that it describes six methods of taking shelter of ...
Jun 13, 2025•1 hr 41 min
Vaisesika Dasa: It's easy to surrender to Krishna than not. I stand by that, from extensive experience. Audience: It feels easier sometimes not to surrender. Vaisesika Dasa: That's ignorance. You know, we get absorbed in ignorance. For instance, scrolling may seem to be a kind of shelter, but it's shelter in the mode of ignorance. And Kṛṣṇa then enlightens us In the Bhagavad Gītā, He says, "Shelter in the mode of ignorance leads to more foolishness. The shelter in the mode of passion leads to mi...
Jun 12, 2025•1 hr
Sometimes we meet people and we tell them something about Kṛṣṇa, give them a book, and it’s not immediately evident, but later, we’ll meet them. Or maybe we won’t meet them, we’ll meet somebody else who had an incidental contact with the devotee, and then they’ll tell how everything started from that one statement. “I heard that thing. He said this, I read this one thing, and then it started.” And we’re in a liminal state. Any minute we can cross back over into the spiritual environment by a lit...
Jun 12, 2025•1 hr 8 min
When I was a new devotee, we went in to meet Prabhupāda in his room. The Temple President very proudly introduced us as his saṅkīrtana team and told the scores for book distribution. Prabhupāda immediately said to us, "You must also read my books. I've not written them just for selling." He went on from there and said more, but I got from that that he wanted us to balance our lives, and we have to be self-determining. That one statement he made so directly and sternly empowered me a lot through ...
Jun 12, 2025•1 hr 35 min
When you're used to something, you don't see it after a while. And when somebody new comes and looks at it, they go, "Oh, that!" Like, if you have a beautiful picture in your house, you see it all the time, so you don't even notice it until you bring someone over and they look and say, "Where'd you get that? It's beautiful!" And you go, "Oh, that? Yeah, I haven't seen it for a year." That's why it's important to bring new people into Kṛṣṇa consciousness, because they come in and they're wide-eye...
Jun 11, 2025•29 min
The other one I was thinking of was that Śukadeva Gosvāmī gives this verse (SB 10.90.48): jayati jana-nivāso devakī-janma-vādo yadu-vara-pariṣat svair dorbhir asyann adharmam sthira-cara-vṛjina-ghnaḥ su-smita-śrī-mukhena vraja-pura-vanitānāṁ vardhayan kāma-devam You know that one? It's in the padyātis as a good, recommended verse to say when you first wake up in the morning. And I have said it for a long time when I wake up. But then, when I was studying that section of the Bhāgavatam, I found o...
Jun 10, 2025•1 hr 25 min
In the verse today, by context, boy met girl, they got married, and then, at some point, the husband went away to the forest to hunt, which means he left his wife for some time. Obviously, he wasn't satisfied, so he went away and tried to enjoy separately. Now he's come back to his wife and to his kingdom. And this verse, after he's been away hunting in the forest, describes him feeling hungry and thirsty. So, he eats, he takes a bath, he puts on sandalwood pulp, and now he's feeling relieved. S...
Jun 09, 2025•59 min
Chanting the holy name, dancing in ecstasy, singing, and playing musical instruments, the spiritual master is always gladdened by the sankirtana movement of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Because he is relishing the mellows of pure devotion within his mind, sometimes his hair stands on end, he feels quivering in his body, and tears flow from his eyes like waves. I offer my respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of such a spiritual master. (Śrī Gurvaṣṭakam, Verse 1) --------------------------------...
Jun 09, 2025•19 min
Student: How did you find your path? Did you do something else before, right? Vaisesika Dasa: Well, I got involved in this when I was around 16. Student: Oh, that's pretty early. Vaisesika Dasa: I became a monk when I was 16. From the time I was born, I had a curiosity about what life was, why I was here in the world, and why I had to die, things like that. Student:Okay Vaisesika Dasa: But in high school, I came into this Bhagavad Gita and other spiritual knowledge. My teacher is from the tradit...
Jun 09, 2025•1 hr 58 min
There are five stages in Deity worship starting with gathering paraphernalia and putting it together, that's the first stage. And then the second, once the paraphernalia is assembled, it is called Yoga, which means that one has to conceptualize oneself as an eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa, separate from the body. To that end, there's the Bhūta Śuddhi; 'I am by nature the eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa, but by misfortune, due to being inimical towards Him since time immemorial, I have been wandering in the c...
Jun 08, 2025•59 min
This morning, I was listening to Prabhupada, and he was talking about how there are different kinds of liberated souls: "muktānām api siddhānāṁ nārāyaṇa-parāyaṇaḥ su-durlabhaḥ praśāntātmā koṭiṣv api mahā-mune (SB 6.14.5).' There are millions and millions of sages and different kinds of people who have achieved liberation through knowledge. They've seen the impersonal Brahman and Paramatma. But it's the most rare that someone can understand Bhagavan -Kṛṣṇa. And it's only by association with pure ...
Jun 07, 2025•19 min
When we chant with intention, and we remember that we're requesting Krishna for service, or requesting Him to give us the best of association and the wherewithal to take advantage of it, then our chanting can be more pointed. ------------------------------------------------------------ To connect with His Grace Vaiśeṣika Dāsa, please visit https://www.fanthespark.com/next-steps/ask-vaisesika-dasa/ ------------------------------------------------------------ Add to your wisdom literature collecti...
Jun 06, 2025•9 min
There's a fairy tale called "The Princess and the Pea." The princess, the true princess, was born into a kingly family and then somehow or other was estranged from her family. There was a mix-up, and when the royal family came to know of it, they wanted to reclaim their daughter, the princess. So they put out a royal edict that anyone could come to their home, because they were in search of the real princess. Thousands signed up for it, and there was a lineup, because everyone thought, "Well, ma...
Jun 05, 2025•56 min
