Los Angeles SD Newsletter VOL. 3, ISSUE 24
VANCA KALPA…
INATTENTIVENESS
By Mahat Tattva Dasa
It seems that kirtan is becoming a standard part of the Sastra Dana home programs. At the last program at Jonathan Prabhu’s place devotees lost the control over themselves and without any consideration of time and circumstances performed a wild, uncontrollable kirtan very loudly chanting Krishna’s holy names. It was so ecstatic that we were not able to take any photos, no one wanted to miss out on even a second of the program. Few devotees who played instruments sitting on the floor said, that as the devotees danced, the wooden floor was moving up and down by 5 inches in diameter. They also said that the pictures on the walls were bouncing of the walls. When the kirtan stopped all of the pictures were disordered, devotees wet do to sweating profusely and all the three worlds seemed to be like empty.
Here I would like to make a point I think to be very important. Sometimes neophyte devotees tend to enjoy Krishna consciousness (which is not bad). But such enjoyment of Krishna consciousness may lead into neglecting to serve the Lord and the mission of His pure devotee, in our case Srila Prabhupada. Thus although apparently performing Krishna conscious activities a devotee may cultivate the enjoying spirit. (In the Srimad Bhagavatam 5.18.4 Srila Prabhupada calls this phenomena an inattentiveness in the transcendental position.) This enjoying spirit is very, very dangerous for spiritual life and can completely destroy devotees’ attempts to spread Krishna consciousness through preaching. Now-days we see many devotees practicing Krishna consciousness relaxed at their homes neglecting to serve Srila Prabhupada’s mission, the mission he wanted us to continue with after his departure. In this way the illusory potency, maya, is able to stop the powerful and potential sankirtana army.
When personally present on the planet, Srila Prabhupada never allowed devotees to be tricked by maya in such a way. Srila Prabhupada would make it sure that everyone was engaged to the maximum degree in serving the preaching mission.
I wanted to point out this because if it would not be for the greater cause of distribution of Srila Prabhupada’s books I would never allow even a penny spent on feasting and organizing the programs. In other words we do that simply to encourage and enthuse devotees to engage more and more in dissipation of spiritual knowledge. Otherwise, as I said, chances are there for devotees to enjoy Krishna consciousness and neglect the service to Sri Sri Guru and Gauranga.
Thank you all for making the Sastra Dana program successful.
