Sunday, August 17, 2014

Hari Bol!

Yesterday was sweet beyond words. Spending the day with our twenty-two amazing Courage & Grace Advanced Teacher Trainees, talking all things bhakti, and dissolving together was such a gift. The second stage of the bhakti path is sadhu sangha or association with a holy community. It felt like just that. I'm so grateful for this time, and for this life I've been blessed with. Bowing deeply.

In the Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu the science of devotional sevice is explained as follows:

In the beginning stage there must be a preliminary desire for self-realization. This will lead one to the platform of desiring to associate with spiritually advanced persons. The next step is to become initiated by an authorized spiritual master and to perform devotional service under his guidance. Through the execution of devotional service under the guidance of the spiritual master, one will become free from all material attachments, achieves steadiness in self realization and finds taste in hearing about Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This taste leads one to further attachment in Krsna consciousness which is called bhava or the preliminary stage of pure love of Godhead. Pure love to the Lord is called prema or the supreme perfectional stage in life.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

faith

Faith is not a belief. Faith is what is left when your beliefs have all been blown to hell. Faith is in the heart, while beliefs are in the head. Experiences, even spiritual experiences, come and go. As long as you base your faith on experience, your faith is going to be constantly flickering, because your experiences keep changing. The moment you recognize that faith lies behind experience, that it's just being, but the experience of being, then it's just "Ah, so".

~ Ram Dass from Be Love Now