Vaisesika Dasa - Podcast Details

Shows

Sound Bhakti Material World: Much Ado About Nothing | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Kartik Immersion Retreat | 19 Oct 2025When we come to see Kṛṣṇa and He glances on us and we see His beautiful form, then we are looking at the ultimate object of meditation. If we drive through Jaipur, we'll see many signboards, and everyone's trying to catch our attention to look at something. Maybe there's Coca-Cola, and they have a picture of some attractive-looking person drinking sugar water. They are not going to look so good in a few years, I guarantee you. And they are hoping that that will catch our attention and we'll say, "Okay, I would like to look like that." And everyw...

2025-10-2115 min

Sound Bhakti Kirtana | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Govardhana | 07 Aug 2025Everybody carries a song in their heart. That's what moves all of us. Melody and rhythm are universal. So in Bhakti, when we sing these bhajans, they go deeply within our body. They overwrite the other sound vibrations that are there, and they leave us with the clear, pristine spiritual sounds of another realm. And when we have those and we can aspire for that realm, actually, we'll be carried to that realm by the power of that sound vibration. (excerpt from the talk Material World Has a Shelf Life | Prabhupada Picks #6&7 | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 16 Aug 2025) ------------------------------------------------------------ To connect with...

2025-10-1509 min

Sound Bhakti Hari Haraye Namah Krsna Yadavaya Namah | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Govardhana | 01 Oct 2025(1) hari haraye namaḥ kṛṣṇa yādavāya namaḥ yādavāya mādhavāya keśavāya namaḥ (2) gopāla govinda rāma śrī-madhusūdana giridhārī gopīnātha madana-mohana (3) śrī-caitanya-nityānanda śrī-advaita-sītā hari guru vaiṣṇaba bhāgavata gītā (4) śrī-rūpa sanātana bhaṭṭa-raghunātha śrī-jīva gopāla-bhaṭṭa dāsa-raghunātha (5) ei chay gosāir kori caraṇa vandan jāhā hoite bighna-nāś abhīṣṭa-pūraṇ (6) ei chay gosāi jār—mui tār dās tā-sabāra pada-reṇu mora pañca-grās (7) tādera caraṇa-sebi-bhakta-sańe bās j...

2025-10-0404 min

Sound Bhakti Midnight Arti & Kirtan | Janamshtami | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 16 Aug 2025Everybody carries a song in their heart. That's what moves all of us. Melody and rhythm are universal. So in Bhakti, when we sing these bhajans, they go deeply within our body. They overwrite the other sound vibrations that are there, and they leave us with the clear, pristine spiritual sounds of another realm. And when we have those and we can aspire for that realm, actually, we'll be carried to that realm by the power of that sound vibration. (excerpt from the talk Material World Has a Shelf Life | Prabhupada Picks #6&7 | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 16 Aug 2025) ------------------------------------------------------------ To connect with...

2025-08-2432 min

Sound Bhakti Why Drink Poison? Drink Srimad Bhagvatam | HG Vaisesika Dasa | ISV | 10 Aug 2025That's the first step in spiritual life: to be self-effacing, or effacing the false self, and say, "I'm not anything in this world. It's just a dream that I'm something." My main designation is, "I'm a servant of Kṛṣṇa" And that's what comes out of this is that Kṛṣṇa is so kind; he gracefully helps us to divest ourselves of the false ego that I'm something great. What to speak of the poison that we get. Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā, "Icchā-dveṣa-samutthena dvandva-mohena bhārata sarva-bhūtāni saṁmohaṁ sarge yānti parantapa." Everyone gets born into this wo...

2025-08-131h 09

Sound Bhakti Sri Guru Puja | HG Svavasa Dasa and HG Vaisesika Dasa | ISKCON Los Angeles | 01 Aug 2025O my Lord! Transcendental poets and experts in spiritual science could not fully express their indebtedness to You, even if they were endowed with the prolonged lifetime of Brahmā, for You appear in two features — externally as the ācārya and internally as the Supersoul — to deliver the embodied living being by directing him how to come to You. https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/11/29/6 ------------------------------------------------------------ To connect with His Grace Vaiśeṣika Dāsa, please visit https://www.fanthespark.com/next-steps/ask-vaisesika-dasa/ ------------------------------------------------------------ Add to your wisdom literature collection: https://iskconsv.com/book-store/ https://www.bbtacademic.com/books/ https://the...

2025-08-0610 min

Sound Bhakti Take Responsibility For Where You Direct Your Attention | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 23 Jul 2025"I respect the principle that I am fully responsible for where I direct my attention at any given moment." Just on that, being aware of the fact that it's up to us—we can't blame it on someone else, we can't blame it on our mind. We have to take full responsibility for where our attention is going, and that's our free will. Our free will is where we're directing our attention. So, if we let our mind run off in a different direction and it bites somebody, then we are the one that the police come to and say, "He...

2025-07-2423 min

Sound Bhakti Remembering HG Paramhamsa Prabhu | HG Vaisesika Dasa and HG Nirakula Dasi | 20 Jul 2025Tonight, with a heavy heart on one side and lightness of heart on the other, I'd like to honor a dear Godbrother who passed away just yesterday, unexpected to us. He was one of Prabhupāda's secretaries in the early days, and a kind-natured person, Paramahaṁsa Dāsa. Even though we didn't see him all that much, last time we drove up there with Śrutikīrti, he and Paramahaṁsa, who had traveled together to take care of Prabhupāda for several years, talked into the wee hours of the night, remembering their time together serving their Guru Mahārāja. So i...

2025-07-2126 min

Sound Bhakti Hari Haraye Namah | HG Vaisesika Dasa | ISV | 28 Jun 2025(1) hari haraye namaḥ kṛṣṇa yādavāya namaḥ yādavāya mādhavāya keśavāya namaḥ (2) gopāla govinda rāma śrī-madhusūdana giridhārī gopīnātha madana-mohana (3) śrī-caitanya-nityānanda śrī-advaita-sītā hari guru vaiṣṇaba bhāgavata gītā (4) śrī-rūpa sanātana bhaṭṭa-raghunātha śrī-jīva gopāla-bhaṭṭa dāsa-raghunātha (5) ei chay gosāir kori caraṇa vandan jāhā hoite bighna-nāś abhīṣṭa-pūraṇ (6) ei chay gosāi jār—mui tār dās tā-sabāra pada-reṇu mora pañca-grās (7) tādera caraṇa-sebi-bhakta-sańe bās...

2025-07-0310 min

Sound Bhakti Glorify The Unsung Heros | HG Vaisesika Dasa & HG Nirakula Dasi | 28 Jun 2025We've had in the past devotee appreciation days. We call them D.A.D. — Devotee Appreciation Day. We did it for maybe four years, and by the fourth year, I remember driving home and saying to Nirākulā, "How do you feel?" She said, "Alright." And I said, "Well, I don't feel quite right." We felt some anxiety. As we discussed it more, we realized that we were both feeling some anxiety, and we were able, finally, by Krishna's giving us intelligence, to understand what it was. We couldn't say enough about the devotees, although we tried. For those of you...

2025-06-2947 min

2025-06-2415 min

Sound Bhakti Krishna Knows Everything, You Don't | SB 2.10.9 | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Prabhupadadesh | 10 June 2025Vaisesika 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 misery, but shelter in the mode of goodness leads to a sense of happines...

2025-06-121h 00

Sound Bhakti Reading From Srimad Bhagvatam | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Prabhupada Desh, Italy | 09 Jun 2025The 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 out that Śukadeva, according to Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura, recited that verse for a ver...

2025-06-101h 25

Sound Bhakti Mangal Arti | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Sofia, Bulgaria | 06 Jun 2025Chanting 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) ------------------------------------------------------------ To connect with His Grace Vaiśeṣika Dāsa, please visit https://www.fanthespark.com/next-steps/ask-vaisesika-dasa/ ------------------------------------------------------------ Add to your wisdom literature...

2025-06-0918 min

Sound Bhakti Book Distribution | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Sofia, Bulgaria | 07 June 2025Student: 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 tradition of Bhagavad Gita. You know Bhagavad...

2025-06-091h 57

Sound Bhakti Happy Japa | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 06 June 2025There 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 cycle of birth and death again and again in this material existence being burnt by the t...

2025-06-0859 min

Sound Bhakti Spiritual Lessons on a Japa Walk | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Sofia, Bulgaria | 07 Jun 2025This 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 devotees, He said, that only by understanding Bhagavan is there Ananda. When you have that relationship, you...

2025-06-0719 min

2025-06-0608 min

Sound Bhakti Spiritual Lessons on a Japa Walk | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 26 May 2025'Bhejire munayo ’thāgre bhagavantam adhokṣajam sattvaṁ viśuddhaṁ kṣemāya kalpante ye ’nu tān iha.' Suta Goswami says in the Srimad Bhagavatam, First Canto, Second Chapter, that previously - agre, all the great sages worshiped Lord Narayan because He's beyond the modes of material nature. Therefore, they attained the highest benefit. Anyone who follows in their footsteps, even if they're not great sages, is eligible for the same result. So, this point that Ranchor Prabhu is making is very important: if we follow the pathway of the great acharyas—mahājano yena gataḥ sa panthāḥ—however insignificant we m...

2025-06-0513 min

Sound Bhakti Embrace The Strength of Your Determination and Effort | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 25 May 2025Prabhupāda writes: 'Regarding your last question about the ecstatic symptoms of chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa: You should know that the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra has an equal effect upon all devotees. Just like the sunshine has an equal effect on everyone, but when it is covered, the sunshine has a different effect. Similarly, the influence of the Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra becomes manifest when one is no longer covered by the ten offenses to chanting. The more we become free from the ten offenses, the more the effect of chanting becomes manifest through us. Everyone can become a great devotee, being free...

2025-06-0403 min

Sound Bhakti If You Don't Feel Satisfied, Feed Your Soul More | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 01 Jun 2025Just to summarize, we are not our bodies; we're spiritual beings. You have to feed the soul. If you're feeding something other than the soul, that's what is causing the anxiety. Simple equation, not a difficult algorithm to change. Change where you're giving your nurture. Don't nurture just the body; just nurture the body enough so the soul can be properly situated in the body, so that you can feed the soul as much as possible. And if you don't feel satisfied, feed your soul more.Just remember that, because it's what the Bhāgavatam says: "All the brightest people i...

2025-06-031h 16

Sound Bhakti Spiritual Lessons on a Japa Walk | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 24 May 2025I saw this sign when we were coming down here.This restaurant is called 'A Land Remembered'. And it just sounded poetical to me - A Land Remembered ! And I was thinking, "Land means somewhere you can land." We can't land anywhere in the material world. There's no place that will accommodate us for very long. We just have to get pushed along. So everyone's remembering that land where we can stay, and that's the place, that's the home we're looking for. ------------------------------------------------------------ To connect with His Grace Vaiśeṣika Dāsa, please visit https://www.fanthespark.com/next-steps/ask...

2025-06-0304 min

Sound Bhakti Progress Comes In a Series of Comebacks | SB 2.2.8 | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Krishna House | 23 May 2025You have to reinvent yourself every day and don't become disappointed, because progress comes in a series of comebacks. You have to be the comeback kid, because even during one round of Japa, you may have to make 10 comebacks. What to speak of You know, in a lifetime of devotional service, you have to reinvent yourself, start over, make comebacks constantly, and be willing to do that. And that's the way to put together one whole lifetime in which you're on an upward trajectory. And as Prabhupada writes, in the Light of the Bhagavata, missteps may not be detrimental. They...

2025-06-0247 min

Sound Bhakti Be a Morning Person: Chant Japa | Japa Jolt | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 28 May 2025Don't you find that the more you practice listening to The Holy Name and being fully present, the more the mind has a glimmer of attachment for the chanting of the Holy Name? If so, that's great advancement. Even the slightest inclination of the mind that 'I'd like to do this' shows that you're moving forward in Krishna consciousness. And even if you're not, if you have that sense of determination, that śraddhā in the śāstra, in the words of Guru-Paramparā, that you should do this, and you do it based on this sense of 'I must do it'—in the vai...

2025-06-0219 min

Sound Bhakti The Magic of Srimad Bhagvatam: Bhadra 2025 Launch | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 26 Apr 2025Someone told me the other day that we've done over 150,000 sets of Bhāgavatams from our concerted efforts. You know, so many of these things happen when we're not looking because we're just looking down at what we're doing right now and what we're going to do next. But together, as a team, 150,000 sets of Bhāgavatams! Inconceivable six years ago. But somehow or other, by the combined energy of all of you working together and all of the all over the world devotees feeling the same impetus to do service for service, and believing in that magic of the Śrīm...

2025-05-311h 01

Sound Bhakti Great Japa Is The Secret of Spiritual Progress | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 20 Mar 2021Japa is the mainstay of every practitioner, and anyone who takes it seriously, starting with the idea that no matter what every day, "I always finish my prescribed number of rounds." Anyone who thinks like that is a high-level sādhaka, and anyone who does that without fail will make advancement in devotional service without any doubt. So this is "Make japa great again!" And it means make it great again. Even if it was great yesterday, you have to start over again today and make it great today. Every day is a compartmentalized unit, and we can't rely on t...

2025-05-3122 min

Sound Bhakti Association With Sadhus Is The Foundation of Faith in Krishna | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 22 Apr 2022Sometimes, at a certain age, devotees wonder, "Am I really going to be a devotee? What about the rest of the world? What about my other opportunities and so forth?" These thoughts are all going through a person's head. Jhanavi Jivan talks about how she and her family went to Sharanagati. You know where that is: it's a farm up in Canada, not too far from Vancouver, I believe. And it's a big devotee farm, obviously. Living there was a very famous sādhvī, a female sādhu. Her name was Yamunā Dāsī. She was one of Prabhupāda's earlies...

2025-05-301h 30

Sound Bhakti Chanting Hare Krishna Is As Right As Rain | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 27 Mar 2021I heard Prabhupāda speaking this morning. Tāmal Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja, as a very young devotee, was telling Prabhupāda, as he was listening to him in awe, he was saying, "Prabhupāda, I always want to remember you speaking. I always want to be able to remember what you're saying and then to be able to recall it and say it myself." And Prabhupāda said, "This takes cultivation." He said, "Everything takes cultivation." So our "right as rain" process, where we sit down and chant every day and just do it—do the activity—because it's following in...

2025-05-3021 min

Sound Bhakti Doyal Nitai Caitanya Bole Nach Re Amar Man (Song Only) | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 25 May 2025'Māyā-mṛgaṁ dayitayepsitam anvadhāvat' - Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu chases after the conditioned souls to embrace them and bring them back to Godhead. He'll take anybody back to God who wants to go. But Lord Nityānanda will even take those people who don't want to go. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and Lord Nityānanda are the most merciful of all incarnations in the world. Even māyāvādīs with stone-like hearts, when they hear the names Nitāi and Gaura, begin to cry and dance in ecstasy. Let the whole world hear the sound of their Holy Names...

2025-05-3009 min

Sound Bhakti Doyal Nitai Caitanya Bole Nach Re Amar Man | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 25 May 2025'Māyā-mṛgaṁ dayitayepsitam anvadhāvat' - Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu chases after the conditioned souls to embrace them and bring them back to Godhead. He'll take anybody back to God who wants to go. But Lord Nityānanda will even take those people who don't want to go. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and Lord Nityānanda are the most merciful of all incarnations in the world. Even māyāvādīs with stone-like hearts, when they hear the names Nitāi and Gaura, begin to cry and dance in ecstasy. Let the whole world hear the sound of their Holy Names...

2025-05-3014 min

Sound Bhakti Make Your Life Perfect by Chanting Hare Krishna | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 10 Apr 2021Prabhupāda signed his letters, "Your ever well-wisher," which means he wished us well. He gave us the instructions, which were his blessings. You find at the beginning of his letters, he says, "Please accept my blessings." So the blessing is that I'm giving you this sound, this vibration, and now I'm your well-wisher, but you have to take advantage of it. There's only one kind of true happiness in life: the happiness of applying oneself to the order of the ācāryas. In that endeavor, taking some austerity means prying myself away from what I want to do or wha...

2025-05-2928 min

Sound Bhakti Develop Faith And Pure Intention To Chant | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 24 Apr 2021Here's an excerpt from the Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Ādi-līlā, chapter four, in which Prabhupāda quotes from the Bhakti-sandarbha. This is the verdict of Jīva Gosvāmī in describing the process of chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa: "Chanting the holy name is the chief means of attaining love of Godhead. This chanting or devotional service does not depend on any paraphernalia, nor on one's having taken birth in a good family. By humility and meekness, one attracts the attention of Kṛṣṇa. That is the verdict of all the Vedas. Therefore, if one becomes very humble and meek, he can easily attain the...

2025-05-2923 min

Sound Bhakti Everything You Do In Bhakti Counts And Is Never Lost | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 25 May 2024Every time we're able, even two minutes, to talk about Kṛṣṇa, to be together, to remember Him, it's like that gold that you're talking about that may come in the form of dust, but it adds up. And Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu is also compared to a capitalist, and we are also following in His footsteps, so we want to have that sense of accumulation, but not materially obviously, spiritually. Link to entire talk:https://youtu.be/DTMlTw5ZG4Q ------------------------------------------------------------ To connect with His Grace Vaiśeṣika Dāsa, please visit https://www.fanthespark.com/next-steps/ask-vaisesika-dasa/ ...

2025-05-2903 min

Sound Bhakti Only a Heart Without Envy Can Enter The Spiritual World | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 22 May 2025Now we find out what happens when one who is qualified by Brahma Bhutah. After all, we know from Gita (BG 18.54): 'brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā na śocati na kāṅkṣati samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu mad-bhaktiṁ labhate parām.' When one comes to this point of Self-Realization, one's no longer obligated to the senses in the way one was before. They're always demanding. Senses always feel entitled, "I demand that, and I deserve it! You give it to me now!" No more. There's no more obligation by the senses, and the incredible weight of the world comes off one's head that "...

2025-05-2858 min

Sound Bhakti Bhagavad Gita: The Best Thing That Has Ever Happened to The World | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 22 May 2025In this world, it's important to be informed about what's important. We need an intervention. Caitanya Mahāprabhu said to Sanātana Goswami, māyā-mugdha jīvera nāhi svataḥ kṛṣṇa-jñāna jīvere kṛpāya kailā kṛṣṇa veda-purāṇa.'" For that reason, Kṛṣṇa personally comes in the form of Śrīla Vyāsadeva, and he makes available very clear knowledge that is comprehensible to humans. Humans can pick up a piece of literature or hear from someone who's heard from others wisdom that's been passed down through an authorized line, and when they hear it, then they can transform and im...

2025-05-271h 18

Sound Bhakti Kirtan @ Sadhu Sanga - Mangalacharana, Hare Krishna & Doyal Nitai | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 25 May 2025In Vṛndāvan, the devotees depend exclusively on Kṛṣṇa and the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam begins speaking about the holy name in the first chapter: āpannaḥ saṁsṛtiṁ ghorāṁ yan-nāma vivaśo gṛṇan tataḥ sadyo vimucyeta yad bibheti svayaṁ bhayam (SB 1.1.14) If anyone feels fear in their heart—and who doesn't, here in the material world?—bhayaṁ dvitīyābhiniveśataḥ syād. Fear arises at every moment when we forget Kṛṣṇa, as Śrīmad Bhāgavatam says, "To be free from fear and achieve all safety, call out the name of the Lord." So now we're all together in this sanctified place—more...

2025-05-2657 min

Sound Bhakti Kirtan@ Sadhu Sanga- Upadeshamrita, Hamsadhvani & Parama Karuna | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 24 May 2025In the tenth Canto of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, we find a verse left for all of us here today by Śukadeva Goswāmī. All of those who feel left behind, who feel hopeless in life, who are striving for the spiritual world, find that it's like reaching for the moon. He wrote: 'Jayanti 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 (SB 10.90.48).' The verse starts with the word Jayati, which means victory, but it is written in the present tense because Śukadeva understood that people after Krishna's...

2025-05-2655 min

Sound Bhakti Chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa: Practice That Completely Satisfies Your Heart | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 17 Apr 2021Actually, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa is the only thing that can completely satisfy the heart, and one of the reasons is—or the main reason is—that we’re part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. We have a very intimate relationship with Him. In one sense, we are Kṛṣṇa because we’re one of His limbs. On the other side, achintya bheda abheda: we have our own identity. It’s achintya, inconceivable. But if you consider how intimate we are, as Prabhupada explains, if you have a limb like a finger, what will you do to protect your finger? How will you take care of it...

2025-05-2523 min

Sound Bhakti Don't Think You Can't Advance | Disciple Sanga | HG Vaisesika Dasa & HG Nirakula Dasi | 24 May 2025The main way that we develop our character in this world, or any other is by our association. As Kṛṣṇa says in the Gītā: "kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya sad-asad-yoni-janmasu." Any situation you're in now, whatever way you've developed in your life, that is because of your association. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, when teaching about devotional service to Sanātana Gosvāmī, starts with talking about the power of association. Whenever you can get an opportunity to associate with those that you feel are ideal, take the opportunity to hear from, to serve, and to observe. That's very powerful th...

2025-05-251h 08

Sound Bhakti How to Amplify Your Spiritual Experience at Sadhu Sanga | Q & A | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 25 May 2024When we have service, we feel naturally satisfied. My tendency is, in material consciousness, to think, "Why aren't people serving me enough?" And that's why I'm dissatisfied. "Let's make a list: my such-and-such isn't serving me enough." Suggestions -Wife, husband, start there. Let's start at home. "The kids aren't serving me enough. Who else?" My contractor, whatever it may be. You can make a long list, and you say, "They're not serving me enough." You'll be in endless anxiety, because no one will ever serve you enough, and we'll never be able to serve them enough, either, on the materialistic...

2025-05-2307 min

Sound Bhakti A Pastime of Spiritual Transformation | SB 3.15.28 | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Alachua | 21 May 2025The Bṛhat-bhāgavatāmṛta mentions that devotees don't look for peace. They're not looking for peace of mind; they're looking to satisfy Kṛṣṇa. In the endeavor to satisfy Kṛṣṇa, there are many complex situations, and there are many anxieties. And on record, a devotee asked Prabhupāda, "Devotees sometimes are in great anxiety." For instance he gave the example of distributing books, "they are in so much anxiety about it." And Prabhupāda said, "Tell them that that is spiritual anxiety." Then he gave the example of Yaśodā. And he said, "Yaśodā is always in anxiety. There's neve...

2025-05-2342 min

Sound Bhakti A Lifetime of One Pointed Dedication to Devotional Service | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 01 May 2021We've been given full permission to give our complete attention to chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, talking about Kṛṣṇa, and worshiping Kṛṣṇa. And if somebody brings up another topic, you can say, 'I appreciate it very much. If it were any other lifetime, I would be happy to discuss it with you. However, in this lifetime, I no longer have time, because I have been given one business—and that is to chant about Kṛṣṇa, worship Kṛṣṇa, and spread the Holy Name to people all over the world. If it was any other lifetime, I would be happy to talk to you about it. B...

2025-05-2324 min

Sound Bhakti Soaking in Sadhu Sanga | SB 1.2.16 | Round Rock, Texas | HG Vaisesika Dasa | May 26 2023Vaisesika Dasa discusses the importance of hearing and serving pure devotees as outlined in Srimad Bhagavatam 1.2.16. He explained that devotees, free from vice, are bridges to higher spiritual realms. The conversation emphasized the significance of Vaishnava association, or sadhu sanga, for spiritual advancement. Vaisesika Dasa highlighted the stages of devotional service, from shraddha (faith) to bhava (prema), and the role of devotees in transforming asuras (non-devotees) through their association. Practical tips for managing friendships and developing a taste for reading Srimad Bhagavatam were also provided.

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Sound Bhakti Hare Krishna Mahamantra: The Best Place to Put Your Heart | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 12 Jun 2021When all else fails, chant Harē Kṛṣṇa, and everything else will fail. There's no question about it; any of my plans that don't include chanting Harē Kṛṣṇa will fail. In fact, even the best-laid plans of the most intelligent people in the world always get reversed one way or the other in this world. So, we have to come to the position of submission to the will of the Supreme Lord, and the best way to express that is by chanting Harē Kṛṣṇa sincerely. In fact, just the idea of every day taking time just to say Kṛṣṇa's names over an...

2025-05-2120 min

Sound Bhakti Lessons From The Golden Monk: Living The Enlightened Life | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 16 May 2025I was just in a redwood forest a couple of days ago. Wednesday, I was there, today is Friday. I was in Muir Woods. Looking with a friend of mine, we were looking at the trees, and you have to strain your neck to see upwards; they're so tall! Then we were looking at a seed of one of the redwood trees that is there, and it is minuscule. How does it all start? It starts from a seed. How much information is in that seed, enough to grow a huge tree? And all you have to add is light...

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Sound Bhakti Lessons From The Life of Jayananda Thakura | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 17 May 2025This morning, I was reading a eulogy of my dear godbrother, Jayananda Ṭhākura, who is very dear to Śrīla Prabhupāda. And Śrīla Prabhupāda had written him a letter that I very much appreciated, regarding the chanting of the holy name, and it has a very straightforward purport. So I wanted to read it to you. And here's what he wrote: 1967 Prabhupāda wrote the following: 'Your service attitude for Kṛṣṇa and your sincere attempts at being advanced in Kṛṣṇa consciousness will work with you and make your life more and more glorious and a happy state. I have...

2025-05-1910 min

Sound Bhakti Service for Service: The Gold Standard of Bhakti | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 11 May 2025When the devotees first went to India, Prabhupāda was there, and he invited devotees to come over because he wanted to show what happened. You know, he went alone to America, and he comes back with all these Americans. In India, at the time, people were looking to Americans and go, like, 'How are we going to catch up to these guys? We want what they have.' And then Prabhupāda plays this trick on them, where he comes to America, he gets all these Westerners, and he comes back with a big airplane full of Westerners. 'Here yo...

2025-05-181h 08

Sound Bhakti Bhajans @ RISE Retreat | HG Vaisesika Dasa | April 2025Last year in Kārtika, one of our devotees, Kṛṣṇa-sakha, was on Govardhana parikramā, and just came around the hill. A boy who was begging started to follow him, and he followed him for several kilometers. And Kṛṣṇa-sakha said no, and the boy kept following, and they got to Rādhā-kuṇḍa. And then he kept following. They'd gone a quarter of the way around Govardhana Hill, and the boy kept following. And someone who saw that offered to give the boy something, but he said, 'No, I don't want anything from anybody else but him. I've already followed him...

2025-05-182h 08

Sound Bhakti Sankirtan is Fun and Easy | HG Vaisesika Dasa | RISE Retreat | 20 Apr 2025We're not going out to collect money, really. We're going out for our own purification, first and foremost. It's a high sādhana to go out into the great unknown and present the Vedic literatures to people. And it's also something that they really appreciate too, because frankly, life is really boring in the material world. Same things happen all the time, and people are sick and tired of it, and they're waiting for devotees to come door to door. In fact, Prabhupāda wrote in his poem "Vṛndāvane Bhajan," before he came to America, "The people are sitti...

2025-05-1747 min

Sound Bhakti Krsna Deva Bhavantam Vande | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 03 May 2025(1) (kṛṣṇa) deva! bhavantaḿ vande man-mānasa-madhukaram arpaya nija-pada-pańkaja-makarande (2) yadyapi samādhiṣu vidhir api paśyati na tava nakhāgra-marīcim idam icchāmi niśamya tavācyuta! tad api kṛpādbhuta-vīcim (3) bhaktir udañcati yadyapi mādhava! na tvayi mama tila-mātrī parameśvaratā tad api tavādhika-durghaṭa-ghaṭana-vidhātrī (4) ayam avilolatayādya sanātana! kalitādbhuta-rasa-bhāram nivasatu nityam ihāmṛta-nindini-vindan madhurima-sāram TRANSLATION Refrain: (1) O Lord Sri Krsna! I am offering a prayer unto You. Please let the bee of my mind be offered the nectarian honey of Your lotus feet. 2) Although Brahma in...

2025-05-1605 min

Sound Bhakti Beyond The Mirage of Material Happiness | SB 3.5.30 | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 28 June 2024The purpose of the creation, ultimately, is to give the living entities an opportunity to come out of this illusion. And Saṅkarṣaṇa, who is not intimately, but somehow indirectly—connected with the creation of the material world, as mentioned in the Fifth Canto of the Bhāgavatam, before He starts His destruction in the material world through the agency of Rudra, He becomes a little annoyed because He's given unlimited chances for the jīvas in the material world to come back to their senses and come back to Him, and then they say, 'Oh no, I'm not intere...

2025-05-1553 min

Sound Bhakti The Happiness Equation | Success Sadhana | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 13 Dec 2024If somebody unjustly takes your property, rendering selfless service doesn't mean, 'Oh, yeah, let everyone violate me, and I'll just sit by passively.' That's not what it means. That's why I say it's not mutually exclusive. One must do one's duty dutifully. If you're in the corporate environment, however, I know for sure that there's a sense even from the top of the big corporations—that's why they invite people like us to come there and speak all the time. I'm going there on Tuesday to give a presentation, and there's an open invitation from so many of these co...

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Sound Bhakti Everything is Achievable by Being Present With The Holy Name | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 09 May 2025In Japan, where we go frequently, there's this little tranquil river that's barely flowing, but enough so that there's life in it, and it's beautiful. And retired people in Japan like to fish. Some do, and they'll stand by that little stream and they fish. When I go for my walks there, I watch, and I have never seen anybody catch anything, but what they do is they put the lure in the water, and then they pull it back and put it in and pull it back. With fishing, the fish has to see the lure and then get...

2025-05-1309 min

Sound Bhakti Consistency in Practice: The Secret of Spiritual Progress | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 09 May 2025It's broken down by Viśvanāth Cakravartī Ṭhākur in the Madhurya Kadambinī. He says, when you eliminate certain obstacles, then you're known to be in niṣṭhā. And I mentioned some of them, like sleep, distraction, the awakening of lower desires—suddenly they come out in different ways, indifference; you're not distracted, you're not sleepy, but you just don't care. Meh! All of that evaporates in time by good association, by following the process, and then one has this sense of no obstacle. There's nothing holding me back from the process. And that's called niṣṭhā—steadiness, consistency. From that platform, t...

2025-05-1241 min

Sound Bhakti Krishna Helps When You Sincerely Ask The Right Questions | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 08 May 2025When we become frustrated to the point of despair, there's an opening for us. And that opening for Arjuna in the Bhagavad-gītā was that he gave up. There's so much effort I put into trying to organize everything in the world so it'll come out straight, and it always comes out crooked. Prabhupāda mentions in one of his purports, in the Second Canto of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, that observing our own frustration can be enlightening because it means that we're incompatible with the nature of the world. And that's because, as he says, 'We are a different catego...

2025-05-111h 02

Sound Bhakti Spiritual Lessons Prahlada Learnt in The Womb | SB 7.7 | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 28 Apr 2018So, this is one of the very important lessons that Prahlād Mahārāj teaches us, is to become trained in the spiritual science. Don't neglect the Bhagavad-gītā. Or should I say it in the positive? It's better, isn't it, because that might go and you may think, 'Neglect the Bhagavad-gītā.' No. Read Bhagavad-gītā every day. How's that for a challenge? If one reads Bhagavad-gītā every day, then you won't have to make excuses for why you make mistakes, or why you made mistakes, or why you feel morose, or why you feel confused, and so fort...

2025-05-1055 min

Sound Bhakti Three Timeless Lessons From Prahlada Maharaj's Prayers | Youth Jam | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 04 May 2025The third theme, besides sincerity and wanting to help others, that's so prominent in Prahlāda's prayers is that he said, "My Lord," when he's right in front of Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, he says, "I just want to serve my spiritual master." Kṛṣṇa has appeared for him. He's right in front of him, and he doesn't say, "I'll serve You, my Lord." He said, "I'll serve my spiritual master to serve You." And that mood of being the servant of the servant, servant of the servant, he said, "Nārada Muni saved me. My spiritual master saved me. So how could...

2025-05-1014 min

Sound Bhakti Prahlada: An Epitome of Selfless Service | SB 7.9.7 | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 28 Apr 2018In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Seventh Canto, ninth chapter, we get a kind of fruit because we hear the prayers that are coming from Prahlāda's heart, and from those we can learn many, many lessons. The fact that the Lord came to save Prahlāda and to answer his prayers, and hearing the prayers that Prahlāda offered, is an important exercise for the devotees because Prahlāda represents the foundational position from which one can actually enter into devotional service—that is, selfless service. As he says to Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, who offers him benedictions, "I don't want anything...

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Sound Bhakti Trust The Process of Chanting | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 23 April 2025Of all the practices, japa is the most essential. It's the one that we do ourselves. We depend on our own sincerity to fuel the process. In the beginning, we also do it as a medicinal process, as when a doctor gives a prescription and says, "Take this many for the next two weeks, and then don't miss a dose. If you do, then make it up." And when the medicine acts, then we can see for ourselves its efficiency. In the beginning, we have to trust the doctor, and we have to trust the medicine. Śrīla Rūpa Gos...

2025-05-0902 min

Sound Bhakti Five Prayers To Lord Narasimhadeva by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 04 May 2023We have a special treat, which is a bhajan written by Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, five prayers to Nṛsiṁhadeva in Navadvīpa. In a very revealing way. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura mentions that by his worship of Nṛsiṁhadeva, ostensibly in Nṛsiṁha Palli, and by rolling in the courtyard in ecstasy there at NṛsiṁhaPalli, the place where Nṛsiṁhadeva himself gives 24-hour darśana (the temple is never closed, because even if you go there and the door is closed, there's still a grid; you can look in and see Nṛsiṁhadeva), and of course, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura...

2025-05-0814 min

Sound Bhakti Find Strength in Kṛṣṇa's Shelter | SB 7.9.19 | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 04 May 2023We've noticed here at ISKCON of Silicon Valley, which is a small little laboratory somewhere tucked away in California where we experiment. We experiment and see how far can we push the goals and how far will Krishna meet us? And every single time we make a new goal, we're not sure how we're going to make it. In fact, it seems like last time it worked, but this time, everything's different. So how will we possibly do it this time? I propose that that's where real life is. It's in that gap where we know what we want to...

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Sound Bhakti Stay Present In The Mantra | Spiritual Lessons On Japa Walk | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 1 May 2025Unauthorized or improperly parked vehicles will be towed away at the owner's expense." Means that if—if you leave your mind unattended and not engaged in Kṛṣṇa's service, it's like you just parked it somewhere in the wrong place, it'll get towed away. And when you get your mind towed away, if you've ever had your car towed away, you've got to go down to the impound and pay some exorbitant amount of money to get it back. It's not easy, and so don't park your mind in an improper place and just leave it there, because it will get towe...

2025-05-0702 min

Sound Bhakti What Is The Root Cause of All Suffering ? | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 04 May 2025In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna says, "There is a right, there is a wrong. Wrong means you're going towards the darkness. Right means you're going towards the light, which is Krsna. And when you go towards darkness, then there's a repercussion. Your consciousness becomes dark, and there are dark ways in which you relate to other people, heartless ways. And what about animals? How could one even think of harming an animal when when one would think that there's a divine soul within and God's there next to him, within his heart?" Therefore, in the Śrī Īśopaniṣad it is said: 'yas t...

2025-05-0645 min

Sound Bhakti Every Worthy Goal Requires Discipline | Japa Jolt | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 30 Apr 2025Every worthy goal has a discipline. Some people work for becoming a surgeon—four years of college, seven years of medical school, residency, waiting for this and that, maybe to cure cancer. Is there a cure for cancer? No, but they still keep doing it. And there's this practice of reaching our original position with Kṛṣṇa in the spiritual world. What's that worth? Four years of college, seven years of special training? It's worth lifetimes, and every session of chanting japa is a testament to our determination to reach Kṛṣṇa, who says in His teachings to Uddhava, "This dedication tha...

2025-05-0614 min

Sound Bhakti Soundtrack of Your Life | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 01 May 2025By taking a little time to chant, either while you're sitting or you're standing, or even if you're walking, to repeat the mantra, you'll notice that it lifts the mind above the many thoughts about the past and the future. Often times, future is about worrying, past about lamentation, what I could have done. And when we chant the the mantra, then, by its very definition, Mantra, the the word tra comes from trayate, which means to deliver. The mind gets delivered from the myriad worries, lamentations that are constantly churning within the mind, and by the power of the...

2025-05-0645 min

Sound Bhakti Purify Your Purpose | SB 3.13.49 | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 03 May 2025What Kṛṣṇa is saying is that if you find your sincerity and you offer it to Kṛṣṇa, and you say, "Kṛṣṇa, I'm Yours, and I will surrender to You and only depend upon You," then Kṛṣṇa is already there, as Gajendra, I mentioned, said, "He's there waiting." It's not that He becomes bored; He's always interested in us. He's always aware of us, and what He's mostly aware of, as we found out in this verse today, is our motive. That's the most secret thing within the heart. In the Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa says, rāja-vidyā rāja-guhyaṁ—it's secret...

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Sound Bhakti Don't Forget To Ask | Make Japa Great Again | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 3 May 2025So in japa, this principle can be applied of asking Kṛṣṇa for what's most valuable, and we can ask again and again, because the mind might go to something lesser. The main obstacle is a clear path to a lesser goal, and in japa, we're forging a path to the highest goal, but it has to come from us, and that's why it's an individual practice. Kṛṣṇa wants to know especially what we want. He's attentive to every living entity in an individualized way. So if you remember that it's personal and that the only kind of chanting or asking th...

2025-05-0408 min

Sound Bhakti Drive With Care | Spiritual Lessons on Japa Walk | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 1 May 2025'Drive with care' is something Kṛṣṇa points out in the Bhagavad Gita. First he says, "yānti deva-vratā devān pitṝn yānti pitṛ-vratāḥ bhūtāni yānti bhūtejyā yānti mad-yājino ’pi mām (BG 9.25)." Yanti means to go. He said, You can go any direction you want. In this universe, it's a matter of where you push your attention. Because where attention goes, energy flows. And he says you should drive with care, because, for instance, if you drive blindfolded, you're going to smash into somebody, and it's going to have a negative consequence on you...

2025-05-0305 min

Sound Bhakti Each One Teach One: The Parampara Principle | HG Vaisesika Dasa | WISE Davis | 1 May 2025There's a principle that when you appreciate the good qualities in others, then they become part of you. But if you become envious of others, or don't try to understand actually what they're doing and you disparage them, then you lose that advantage. So in the culture of respect, when you see somebody that's doing something, I think you said it too. When you see somebody doing something better than you're doing it, you should have the humility to appreciate them and be able to approach them, and that way you can receive knowledge. I f you see somebody who's...

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Sound Bhakti The Opposite of Love is Indifference | HG Vaisesika Dasa | MJGA | WISE | 1 May 2025When you're reading a book, if you've ever had the experience that you get finished with a paragraph, you know you read it. But if somebody said, "What did you just read?" you'd say, "I have no idea," because although my eyes are going down the page and somehow the reading process is happening, I'm thinking about something else, like signing up for the next set of classes or paying my taxes or something like that. So, when you're chanting, it's a time where you can become more observant of your mind and notice whether you're aware that you're chanting...

2025-05-0222 min

Sound Bhakti Beg to Krishna For a Little Something | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Japa Jolt | 23 Apr 2025Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura gives this technique for success in chanting which is to beg. If you beg Kṛṣṇa for a place in devotional service, you will make advancement, although we're helpless—just tiny beings enveloped by the material energy and conducted by the modes of material nature—if we beg Him to be a servant and just keep begging over and over again, think of a very persistent beggar who follows somebody for miles and miles and miles and won't give up. That's how Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says that he was successful. He received the Holy Name from Lord Caitanya because...

2025-05-0120 min

Sound Bhakti Be Sincere and Keep Going | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Sacramento | 29 Apr 2025I find that when something looks too hard, then it's easy to get discouraged. If you put the bar low enough, and someone says, "So anybody could do that," that's a good place for it, which is what Lord Caitanya is doing there. So oftentimes, devotees become intimidated because they think, "It's too hard," or "It's too much," but there are many encouraging statements like that in the śāstra. Can you hand me a Bhagavad-gītā? Is there one available right there? If you can't get a Bhagavad-gītā in a Hare Krishna temple, I don't know. So, at 3.31, this is one...

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Sound Bhakti Disobey Your Mind | Youth Jam | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 27 Apr 2025This uncontrolled mind is the greatest enemy of the living entity. If one neglects it or gives it a chance, it will grow more and more powerful and will become victorious. Although it is not factual, it is very strong. It covers the constitutional position of the soul. O King, please try to conquer this mind by the weapon of service to the lotus feet of the spiritual master and of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Do this with great care. (https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/5/11/17/) ------------------------------------------------------------ To connect with His Grace Vaiśeṣika Dāsa, please visit http...

2025-04-2804 min

Sound Bhakti Aim Your Consciousness Towards Kṛṣṇa | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 26 Apr 2025Prabhupāda also says that one can be attentive when one has a sense of love for Kṛṣṇa, and following the process of chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa requires some adjustment to one's lifestyle and also consciousness, in that we remember that "I'm helpless," as Kuntī says, "let go of any sense that you have a maintainer or protector, and just take shelter of Kṛṣṇa, then your chanting will be effective." 'Janmaiśvarya-śruta-śrībhir edhamāna-madaḥ pumān naivārhaty abhidhātuṁ vai tvām akiñcana-gocaram (ŚB 1.8.26). So it's the one opportunity we have. Of course, every moment is an opportunity, but...

2025-04-2812 min

Sound Bhakti The Meaning of Morning Prayers | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 03 May 2025 | SLOThe person who's representing Kṛṣṇa is 'priya' dear to Kṛṣṇa. So there's a philosophy Prabhupāda used to say, "Love me, love my dog." So there's a way that, if you're walking around SLO, if you just approach somebody and try to talk to them directly, appreciate them, they may be taken aback. But if they're walking their dog and you say, "Nice dog," they'll stop and they'll say, "Oh, do you have a dog too?" And then you can say, "Well, what kind of dog is it?" You'll immediately have a rapport—"love me, love my dog." So in a similar...

2025-04-2424 min

Sound Bhakti The Art of Receiving #1 The Power of Empty | HG Vaisesika Dasa | April 4 2025One of the principles: the less you claim to have or to know, the more you're open to learn, and the more grateful you are for what you get. There's a way in which entitlement—thinking that I deserve more, leads to disappointment, to the degree we have this sense of entitlement. And also in learning, one may see, "The more I know, the more I know I don't know." Oftentimes people, including myself, when I'm hearing some valuable information or getting a lesson from someone, I may think, my unruly mind may say, "I already know that." One of my...

2025-04-2359 min

Sound Bhakti Your Pledge is Your Wedge | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Make Japa Great Again | 5 Jun 2021If we sincerely try to fix our mind on Kṛṣṇa and we practice, then: teṣāṁ satata-yuktānāṁ bhajatāṁ prīti-pūrvakam dadāmi buddhi-yogaṁ taṁ yena mām upayānti te Kṛṣṇa directly gives us intelligence, the practice of devotional service. He's there. He's speaking to us. Actually, He's always trying to direct, but it's like when somebody's speaking to you and you're looking into your cell phone and you're not actually paying attention, or your mind is going somewhere else, and then you say, "What'd you say?" And they say, "I just told you." It's like, "Yeah, but I didn't hear you," but it we...

2025-04-2225 min

Sound Bhakti Focused Japa Isn’t Chance, It’s Earned Through Practice | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 20 Apr 2025Extended mental concentration. If you can practice this, your mind gets better at it. If you practice scrolling, that's what you'll get good at. It's not helpful, because it puts rajas in the mind, and that's one of the reasons we have a problem sitting and concentrating—too much rajas. The mind wants to go somewhere else, somewhere else, somewhere else, but the more we can practice in our japa extended mental concentration and stay focused on hearing the holy name, just the sound vibration, keep coming back to be aware that we're chanting, the stronger it will become. It's li...

2025-04-2123 min

Sound Bhakti Sankirtan is Fun and Easy-1 | HG Vaisesika Dasa | RISE Retreat | 19 April 2025Books are beloved in human society. People revere them, and when somebody takes the trouble to put a book together and organize thoughts put in a bound form or electronic. Then people respect it, and they read it. It gets passed around, the ideas that get embedded in society. So it's actually a good idea to inculcate various philosophies into wide sections of society and perhaps even the whole world by distribution of books. It's not a sentimental process. It's extremely practical. ------------------------------------------------------------ To connect with His Grace Vaiśeṣika Dāsa, please visit https://www.fanthespark.com/next-steps/ask...

2025-04-2137 min

Sound Bhakti Three Ways to be More Personal With Kṛṣṇa | Q & A | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 18 April 2025Well one is to express gratitude. One of my godbrothers told me, while we were traveling, and this is an example of getting something valuable from association. He said, every morning when he wakes up, as soon as he swings out of bed and puts his feet on the floor (of course, if you're a brahmacārī—I don't know how you're going to do that), but before he stands up, he says, 'Thank you, Śrīla Prabhupāda.'" And I said, "I'm going to start doing that too." So I started doing that upon getting up. And then I start...

2025-04-2003 min

Sound Bhakti Understanding The Heart of Kṛṣṇa | HG Vaisesika Dasa | RISE Retreat | 18 Apr 2025Don't underestimate the power of reading Bhagavad Gita everyday, it can be that - "I think, oh, yeah, Bhagavad Gita, I've read that." I distribute Bhagavad-gītā. I mean, I meet people—all the time in the street. In fact, I don't hand Bhagavad-gītās to Indians, because they're going to say, "I already know Bhagavad-gītā, my mother read Bhagavad-gītā, and my grandmother memorized Bhagavad-gītā." So as everybody knows, if they see me distributing on the street, I withhold and I say, "You already know this. This is not for you. Your mother read Bhagavad-gītā, your grandmoth...

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Sound Bhakti Take Full Shelter of Kṛṣṇa When You Chant | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 12 Apr 2025We're really in a pickle here, and there's a way in which Kṛṣṇa absolves us of all that, if we just come back to our happy life, happy Life means, "Kṛṣṇa, I'm Yours. I'm Your servant." So the meaning of chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa is very profound. It means that you've come to the pinnacle of understanding that my life is meant for Kṛṣṇa, and everything I do is to be used in His service, dedicated to Him. When you chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, you can take full shelter of Kṛṣṇa and just say, "Kṛṣṇa, I am a lost soul. I'm not liberated. I hav...

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Sound Bhakti Discover Your Higher Nature | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 12 Jan 2025That eagle then leapt out from his hands and began to soar. And in that moment realized that it was not a chicken, but it was an eagle. The story—many people may take various lessons from the story—but one of the ways it relates to the practice of what we call Kṛṣṇa consciousness, which means to come back to our original consciousness, is to see that the ways that we work in this world and the idea that we're a material entity ,"I belong to a particular family"—when you perform a yajña, there's a recount of your famil...

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Sound Bhakti Meaning of 'Vaisesika' | Q & A | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 03 Feb 2025 & 05 Apr 2025It comes from the root word viśeṣa, which means specific or special. It's a name of Kṛṣṇa, indicating that His creation is unique in every aspect, and that means that there's no one particle that's the same as another. There's no one relationship that Kṛṣṇa has, as Brahmā mentions in his prayers, in the 14th chapter, of the 10th Canto, that it's multifaceted, or unlimitedly faceted, his relationships with living beings—they're all unique. So it means "unique Kṛṣṇa's unique nature and His unique creation." It's also a name of Lord Balarāma, found in the Balarāma-sahasranāma...

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Sound Bhakti Find Your Own Gambhira | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Bhaktivedanta Manor | 12 Apr 2025When Caitanya Mahāprabhu asked, "What is the most unbearable pain in this world?" He said, "The most unbearable pain in this world is separation from the Vaiṣṇava." There's nothing more severe than that, which indicates that the way that one finds this thread of connection is to become very deeply attached to a Vaiṣṇava. The way to become most definitely connected is through service necessity. The service is passed down through the disciplic succession. If one can find a Vaiṣṇava who's fully engaged in service, having had that bequeath to him or her, and then one is able to ta...

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Sound Bhakti Let The Holy Name Enter Your Mind | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 09 Apr 2025Just a reminder, there are thousands, tens of thousands, millions of scriptures. They have admonitions about what to do and what not to do. But when we come to our Vaiṣṇava śāstras, and it's repeated in the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī and agreed upon by our own ācāryas, there's only one purpose to all of them, and that's to somehow or other fix your mind on Kṛṣṇa. There's no other place where the mind is satisfied, anywhere in the three worlds. Doesn't matter where you go, how much you get, it won't be satisfied. It...

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Sound Bhakti Life Lessons From The Ramayana | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 06 Apr 2025There's another aspect of the Rāmāyaṇa that always touches me very deeply, and it's a story that's told again and again about Rāvaṇa's brother. Rāvaṇa, of course, was the archetypal demoniac king who wanted to enjoy the whole world—the opposite of what we're talking about. Rāma gave up silk to wear tree bark; Rāvaṇa, he wanted everything in the world for himself and couldn't help himself. One of his family members, his brother, Vibhīṣaṇa, tried to dissuade Rāvaṇa from his suicide course, stealing Sītā and holding her there in h...

2025-04-1257 min

Sound Bhakti Take Time to Refocus And Remember The Purpose of Chanting | HG Vaisesika Dasa | ISV | 22 May 2021You are very rare, because not many people take the time to practice spiritual life, and the ones that do are not so focused; they don't have the specificity that you do and the momentum that you do, that you're getting from the mercy of the paramparā. So let's take the advice we're giving ourselves every day and keep practicing, because the ultimate test comes ante nārāyaṇa-smṛtiḥ—to remember Kṛṣṇa at the time of death. It's serious business. Prabhupāda says, "Going back to Godhead is not a plaything." We're not doing it as a hobby or a show or...

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Sound Bhakti How to See Kṛṣṇa as Your Best Friend | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Q & A | 06 Apr 2025In friendship, we require trust between the two. So it's not just that we're trying to develop faith in Kṛṣṇa. It's also that we're trying to act in such a way that He'll have faith in us. Easy come, easy go. If one has very easy access, it would seem like something very insignificant. We do have access, but it's a serious relationship also, where Kṛṣṇa, when He sees that we're sincere and serious, the more that He does reveal Himself to us and talk to us.He does talk to those who are pure devotees and who have no othe...

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Sound Bhakti Secrets of Ancient Yogis for Training the Mind | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 22 Nov 2024I read a quote—I hope it's accurate, it was from Einstein. He said, "You can see the world as an ordinary course of events, or you can see everything as a miracle." And the poet Blake had mentioned how you can, through observation, appreciation and gratitude, actually notice within a drop of water the entire cosmos. So there's this sense of, when you look out and you see the rain, or you see the ocean, or you see the ability in another person, you can notice that all these things are coming from a source, and it's overwhelmingly amazing. Wh...

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Sound Bhakti From Darkness to Crystal Clear | Youth Jam Presentation | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 05 Apr 2025Hearing the voice of his master, Kirāta, suddenly stood up, breaking the anthill. And as he emerged from the anthill, Nārada said, "Your name is Vālmīki." In Sanskrit, the word Vālmīki means "one who emerged from an anthill," chanting over decades, centuries, being absorbed in the mantra. His heart became pure. He was a new person. He made his journey to meet Sītā and Rāma, and as we know from the Rāmāyaṇa, he took to a life of compassion. What's more, he became so empowered by chanting the Rāma mantra that...

2025-04-0923 min

Sound Bhakti Take The Simple Process Of Chanting Seriously | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Japa Jolt | 02 Apr 2025The service that we do is always based on our intention. If we're cooking something or we're dressing The Deities, or let's say, leading a kīrtana, we're chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. But if that mantra coming from our heart is actually, "Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Everybody, look at me," it's not the same as if you're expressing, you know, "Kṛṣṇa, You're everything." So the real service comes from that intention of the way you're doing it. And chanting is the time, as I said in the very beginning, when you can fully express that, and eve...

2025-04-0818 min

Sound Bhakti The Two Main Ways To Become Perfect In This Life | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 05 Apr 2025This is a great privilege to have specific knowledge of the entryway into The Lord's heart, as mentioned by Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī in the book Laghu-bhāgavatāmṛta, that there are two means by which one's liṅga-śarīra, or subtle material body that holds one to the material world, is destroyed, and one can attain one's spiritual form. The first is by chanting Kṛṣṇa's names, and the second is by seeing Kṛṣṇa's beauty. And there's a way in which Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu describes nāmākārī bahudhā nija-sarva-śaktis, that The Lord's Names have His full p...

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Sound Bhakti Only Kṛṣṇa Awards The Ultimate Liberation | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 05 Apr 2025We find in the case of Śiśupāla, a couple of things happen as he took birth. He was also extremely opulent. You may have noticed in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Śiśupāla was materially no slouch. He was practically described as more opulent than Kṛṣṇa. He had so much opulence he was killed by Rāmacandra in his next life. He had all these assets, and we all know that when he was a little child, he began saying the Lord's Names, and it's a chanting, but he was blaspheming Kṛṣṇa. He still had this hatred towards the Lor...

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Sound Bhakti Lessons From The Rāmāyaṇa That Will Transform Your Life | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 21 Jan 2024One of the teachings that comes down to us from Kṛṣṇa, 'tad viddhi praṇipātena, paripraśnena sevayā, upadekṣyanti te jñānaṁ, jñāninas tattva-darśinah (BG 4.34),' is that to find the path forward in spiritual life, then you must find a representative, one who's following the process of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, of spiritual life, who emulates the teachings of the scripture and also speaks authoritatively, and then attach yourself to the instruction. And for better or for worse, in fact, the world moves in strange ways we cannot predict. We can't hold on to our so-called good fortune in...

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Sound Bhakti Japa is Good Because.. | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Youth Jam | 30 Mar 2025HG Vaiśeṣika Dāsa encourages young minds to share the benefits of japa, a form of mantra meditation. They concur that japa is good because it helps individuals connect with Kṛṣṇa, providing assistance and guidance. Japa is particularly beneficial in Kali Yuga, as it is the recommended process. It helps one remember Kṛṣṇa, even when not actively chanting. Japa is also useful for calming down during moments of anger, promoting rational thinking and better decision-making. Additionally, it fosters a sense of interaction and closeness with Kṛṣṇa, potentially making one more spiritual. ------------------------------------------------------------ To connect with His Grace Vaiśeṣika Dā...

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Sound Bhakti Be a Gardener And Cultivate Bhakti Seeds | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Pilgrimage of The Heart | 12 Feb 2025One has to become an expert gardener to know what weeds look like when they come up under what circumstances, and one has to protect the creeper. Going around on Govardhana parikramā. You see very frequently that people try to plant things, and when there are new plants, you'll notice that there's more fence and barbed wire around each plant than there is plant, and it takes years for it to grow up, because everybody wants to eat that plant. The monkeys will come and break it, just for fun, the cows will eat it. Others will deface it one w...

2025-03-2945 min