Tag: nature

Life as a football is no fun

Are you living the football experience? Are you constantly driven by desires and impulses like lust and anger? Despite life’s turmoil, there’s hope for liberation through spiritual practice. By seeking connection with genuine spiritual guidance, you can experience true freedom and purpose, transcending the endless kicking in material existence. Want to try it out?

A football (soccer ball) is kicked around on a field, from one side to the other. Sometimes one team has the ball, sometimes another. Sometimes it’s thrown in from the sidelines, sometimes it’s kicked out of bounds. Rarely, it ends inside the net of the goalpost… Sometimes it’s held in the armpit of the referee… If a football match lasts ninety minutes, then football is constantly moving around, from here to there, to another place…

Now suppose the football claims that it is moving by it’s own free will. The football claims that it is bouncing around from here to there on it’s own accord. Would you agree with the football?

No, you would say to the football, you’re being kicked and thrown around by the players. You have no free will, some will add.

We are all like that football. We get kicked around all over the place. Yet we claim that our trajectory is by free will! Actually, we’re kicked around due a misuse of free will! More on that in a moment.

How am I being kicked around, do you ask?

`Well, we have the feelings of lust and anger. Lust means the intense greed to have or own something. Lust means the urge to please my senses and mind. That lust propels us to great lengths. So we can say that the lust is kicking us around. And if the lust is fulfilled? Then we want more, naturally. More and more. Stronger kicks. But if the lust is not fulfilled? Then anger takes over! More kicking!

We can also see that we have 6 senses, including the mind. The eyes, ears, tongue, skin, and nose… plus the most insistent of them all, the mind. The eye wants to see something? Kick. The tongue wants to taste something? Kiick. The skin wants to touch something? Kiiick! The nose wants to smell something? Kiiiick! The ears want to hear something? Kiiiiick! And of course, the most resounding kick comes from the mind! Of course, the biggest kicks are from the mind… Out of bounds!

Sometimes we are kicked by our own mind and body, but sometimes we are impelled by others… A swarm of mosquitoes? A bed full of bugs? Cockroaches or rats anyone? Teeming, jostling, pushing crowds of people? Black flies, bears, you name it!

Sometimes we’re impelled by the forces of nature. A kick from a flood, maybe. Or a kick from fire. Worse, a kick from a hurricane, or an earthquake even.

Sometimes we’re impelled by illusion, sometimes by envy. Sometimes we’re compelled greed or madness. And all of these kick us around, from one end of the world to another. From one lifetime to another sometimes. Again and again.

Being kicked for ever. Ad infinitum.

All of this kicking, and we say we’re doing everything “by my own sweet will”?

In the famous Frank Sinatra Song, a misguided protagonist foolishly croons…

And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I’ll say it…And more, much more than this clear… I did it my way

Regrets, I’ve had a few
…I did what I had to do
…And more, much more than this… I did it my way

Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew… …And did it my way

I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried
I’ve had my fill, my share of losing
And now, as tears subside
…Oh, no, oh, no, not me…I did it my way

For what is a man, what has he got?
…The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way

Yes, it was my way – Frank Sinatra “My Way”

Does that sound familiar?

It’s the football, even though getting kicked around all over the place, claiming “I did it my way”. Poor football!

But, there is hope, for all of us footballs in the material world.

কাম-ক্রোধের দাস হঞা তার লাথি খায় ।
ভ্রমিতে ভ্রমিতে যদি সাধু-বৈদ্য পায় ॥ ১৪ ॥
তাঁর উপদেশ-মন্ত্রে পিশাচী পলায় ।
কৃষ্ণভক্তি পায়, তবে কৃষ্ণ-নিকট যায় ॥ ১৫ ॥

kāma-krodhera dāsa hañā tāra lāthi khāya
bhramite bhramite yadi sādhu-vaidya pāya
tāṅra upadeśa-mantre piśācī palāya
kṛṣṇa-bhakti pāya, tabe kṛṣṇa-nikaṭa yāya

“In this way the conditioned soul becomes the servant of lusty desires, and when these are not fulfilled, he becomes the servant of anger and continues to be kicked by the external energy, māyā. Wandering and wandering throughout the universe, he may by chance get the association of a devotee physician, whose instructions and hymns make the witch of the external energy flee. The conditioned soul thus gets into touch with devotional service to Lord Kṛṣṇa, and in this way he can approach nearer and nearer to the Lord. – https://vedabase.io/en/library/cc/madhya/22/14-15/

Srila Prabhupada, the spiritual master of my spiritual master comments in a lecture on these verses…

Very nice. In this way we are being kicked up. The freedom of football. The football is kicked from this party and thrown to the other party. The other party kicks and it comes. The football thinks . . . if the football thinks that, “I am in freedom movement,” so what is that freedom? Kicked from this party to that party and that . . . so here the same thing is said, kāma-krodhera dāsa hañā tāra lāthi khāya.

Just like the football players—the football is under the kicking method of two parties—similarly, we are under the kicking method of two things, lust and anger. We are lusty, and when our lust is not fulfilled, then we become kicked by anger. Two things. Just like the football is kicked by this party and that party, similarly, our position is we are being kicked sometimes by lust and sometimes by anger. So we are going on leading our life in this way. – His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada https://vanisource.org/wiki/670109_-_Lecture_CC_Madhya_22.11-15_-_New_York?hl=football

I am a spirit soul. So are you, dear reader. As spirit souls, we’re not meant to be footballs of lust or anger. We are not meant to be subjected to the vagaries of the misuse of free will. As part-and-parcels of Krishna, we have free will. When used properly, it results in a loving harmonious life. This life is rich with ecstatic relationships with Krishna and with each other.

If we act genuinely as a spirit soul, then there is no more getting kicked around.

My dear reader, please pray with me… My dear Lord Sri Krishna, for ages, countless eons, and trillions of lifetimes I am kicked around. I have been struggling with my own lust and anger.

Please place me as one of the atoms at your lotus feet. Then, I can experience true free will in Your service.

Hare Krishna!

Beauty is not accidental or incidental. Beauty is Intentional.

The other day, in trying to help a friend, I met with Yolande Edwards, who definitely has an eye for spotting natural beauty. On the walls of her office were beautiful pictures she captured. Those pictures can transport one to natural serenity, even in the midst of the most chaos.

Looking at the pictures (all pictures in this blog post are by Yolande Edwards), I reflected on the phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, but actually there is no beauty to behold unless there is intrinsically some beauty to behold. So, Yolande definitely has the eyes to see that beauty.

Then, I started to reflect on how all that beauty came to be? A famous thought goes like this “If a tree crashes in the forest and there was no one to hear it crash, then did it make a sound?”, in other words, “if someone didn’t see beauty, then was there any beauty at all?”

But not to get sidetracked with pointless mental speculations… beauty is all around us, and talented poets, philosophers, artists, photographers, and other creative individuals give us access to that beauty that pervades the world, the universe, and is all around us.

Even if there is beauty to be perceived, without the right talent, without the right intent, that beauty may not be perceived. But we see that beauty is strewn all around almost carelessly, like a master artist whose every brush stroke is a masterpiece, or a musician who, even while tuning their instrument makes the most heavenly sounds.

I began to reflect that whether beauty was perceived or not, still, the creation of beauty, the perception of beauty, all of it is intentional, not incidental or accidental… it is not that somehow accidentally some leaves arranged themselves in some beautiful patterns, or the trees arranged themselves into some pretty scene… the clouds, the winds, the skies, the stars, didn’t accidentally show up as beautiful, but there is a grand master of beauty behind it all, as said in the Christian literature “The Lord God made them all”.

In giving thanks to talented souls like Yolande, we should not forget the Supreme Talented Super Soul, the source of all beauty.

Bg. 10.41
यद्यद्विभूतिमत्सत्त्वं श्रीमदूर्जितमेव वा ।
तत्तदेवावगच्छ त्वं मम तेजोंऽशसंभवम् ॥ १०.४१ ॥
yad yad vibhūtimat sattvaṁ
śrīmad ūrjitam eva vā
tat tad evāvagaccha tvaṁ
mama tejo-’ṁśa-sambhavam

Know that all opulent, beautiful and glorious creations spring from but a spark of My splendor.

https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/10/41/

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Surf’s Up!

In my recent travels, I’ve been to the coastal regions of Southern California quite a bit. There, I had a chance to witness surfers in action. My personal experience with them, (when they’re not far out on the water) is that they’re insightful. I feel a connection with surfer dudes and dudettes. They’re certainly out there seriously looking to catch the next big wave, and so are all of us.

There are different types of oceans to surf on. There are the traders who surf the waves of the markets, and the emergency medical staff who surf the waves of calm, accidents, and disasters, there are the surfers of corporate politics, and of course, among the most skillful surfers in the material world, politicians of various kinds… But all these oceans are material in nature.

Eventually one becomes too weak to be able to surf materially at all (old age, death, and disease), and then one has to eventually give up this body, and give up all the assets, relationships, privileges, and all identity associated with the present body left behind. The ocean of material existence is ultimately exhausting, all that effort and we go nowhere. And once all the waves I’ve earned are “caught”, there are no more left, until I strive hard to earn more, start from scratch. Such a waste. A bad deal.

I do have to surf a few different waves of material nature yet, but for the last couple of decades, had the great good fortune to first dip my toes, and then dive headlong into, the unlimited ocean of spiritual nectar. Those waves are sweet and refreshing, never-endingly adventurous, and one never tires of them. And one can go on surfing for all of eternity. These waves of spiritual bliss take one higher and higher, and there is no hankering, each wave is simply delicious!

It’s a matter of my previous actions and resulting reactions that I still have anything to do with the waves of material nature, but there will surely be a day when I will never leave the ocean of spiritual bliss.

While I do not yet have a personal experience of what Rupa Goswami writes below, I pray to never leave the waves of the oceans of nectar generated by the vibration of the syllables “krish-na”. Spiritual assets, relationships, privileges, and identity are guaranteed, I do take them all with me to any new destination.

tuṇḍe tāṇḍavinī ratiṁ vitanute tuṇḍāvalī-labdhaye
karṇa-kroḍa-kaḍambinī ghaṭayate karṇārbudebhyaḥ spṛhām
cetaḥ-prāṅgaṇa-saṅginī vijayate sarvendriyāṇāṁ kṛtiṁ
no jāne janitā kiyadbhir amṛtaiḥ kṛṣṇeti varṇa-dvayī

“I do not know how much nectar the two syllables ‘Kṛṣ-ṇa’ have produced. When the holy name of Kṛṣṇa is chanted, it appears to dance within the mouth. We then desire many, many mouths. When that name enters the holes of the ears, we desire many millions of ears. And when the holy name dances in the courtyard of the heart, it conquers the activities of the mind, and therefore all the senses become inert.” https://www.vedabase.com/cc/antya/1/99

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