Wisdom of the Sages

dying as a spiritually aware person / time is creeping up on us / Time gives birth to Old Age, who teams up with Fever & Disease to attack our body / Vaishnavas are immune the anxiety and suffering of old age and disease / even curses can be blessings / old age can be an impetus for our spiritual life / separating ourselves from our external reality through Bhakti / yoga leads to boundless happiness, truth, and steadiness through life's greatest challenges Bhakti Tirtha Swami's last kirtan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0B8vOZJ3WY SB 4.27.21-30

we're here to observe, learn, grow, love and then return home / you don't need to decorate your hotel room / Postulate 14 - let Krishna be the attractive one / we can't handle fame, wealth, beauty, etc. / both materialistic piety and decadence lie on the other side of truth / Krishna comes in the form of time and forces us to surrender / our life airs are being attacked by time, along with the days and nights / every time the sun sets we can reflect that my body is losing a battle / for those who identify with the body, time brings anxiety / time brings disease SB 4.27.5-20

what is normal now is really abnormal / the blind pursuit of materialism is a hamster wheel of debt / making sense of an upside world through Bhakti / stay where you are but cultivate wisdom / Bhagavatam juxtaposes spirituality, not only with moral decadence, but with materialistic piety as well / material enjoyment is just a thin veneer over suffering / material happiness will shoot you in the groin / disease and time are creeping up on us / what's your pillow, that helps you sleep through life's important messages? SB 4.27.1-4

the desires of the guru are always in the heart of the disciple / "What is sacred is considered to be ordinary & what is ordinary is considered to be so important." - Radhanath Swami / Clear out the junk in your mind to make space for the extraordinary / let your Inner archaeologist dig deep / Krishna's Lila as the ultimate focal point / It's not just cleaning and emptying the house, it's filling the house with love / the higher consciousness is inaccessible through the material senses / meditation on Krishna's Lila arises in the consciousness, reveals itself and summons the eternal, blissful participation of those who meditate upon it / Krishna's dance is the churned essence of all the Vedic literature

How to associate with "wonderful" non devotees? / How to find joy again after the loss of my daughter? / Can you share 1 everyday practice for people who don't live in an ashram? / How to gracefully receive worship, praise, validation & love?

clutter smothers, simplicity breathes / the results that arise from weakness of heart / what unsteady spiritual practice looks like - (1) enthusiasm based on over-confidence, which is thus feeble and short-lived, (2) irresolute, sporadic, endeavors, (3) indecisiveness and doubts constantly assailing one's resolve, (4) the battle with desire for worldly sense objects, (5) the inability to uphold vows, (6) delighting in the mundane benefits afforded by bhakti

once we neglect it, dharmic intelligence does not come back so easily / a mind without devotion and dharma endowed intelligence is like an empty home / worse than the tangible karmic reaction is the deepening of adharmic disposition which steals our freedom / reestablishing dharmic intelligence through giving up false ego and respecting the Bhakti-yogis / battling the voices of adharma in the mind / we are both tiny and significant / our subordination to insignificant objects / in weakness we buy into false arguments SB 4.26.14-26

"No man was ever wise by chance." – Seneca / the lifelong attempt to acquire wisdom / I want your body, but not the emotions that come with it / the mind's power over us is eroded by hearing (śravana), reflecting (manana), and meditating (nididhyāsana) / working the renunciation muscles / resetting the algorithms in the Mind / what do we need to "unfollow" / coming back to our dharmic intelligence SB 4.26.10-13

"Remember that pain has this most excellent quality. If prolonged it cannot be severe, and if severe it cannot be prolonged." - Seneca / "There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall."- Gandhi / there is something to learn from our pain / "Apart from separation from the devotee of Kṛṣṇa, I know of no unbearable unhappiness." - Ramananda Raya / cynical German hippies / we're all spirit souls, treat everyone with dignity / animals are not dead stone, but the killers of animals are stonehearted / attachment covers truth perception SB 4.26.5-9