Bhakta to bhakta-who are we to each other?

[atma 0]

I don't think I like the idea of what I wrote here posted in VNN, Jagat you really took 'liberty' doing so. Next time would you please ask? Now I'm going to get all kind of nasty letters from the ex because he has his own version of things. I won't let this became a Jerry Springer show. With reason I was aprehensive with revealing my heart. It was stupid.

[Guest guest]

Atma didi,

 

Please forgive my facetious response to Jagat's post above. Of course I would not want this on the JS show, I was just revealing my impressions on how these incidents will be viewed in karmi society. It was not my intention to embarass you in any way. I feel these histories/stories are best left between email exchanges between individuals or thru personal contact, and not broadcast to the world thru the World Wide Web.

[atma 0]

RandOM dada: I'm learning from my mistakes. Not hard feelings here. I have to learn to shut my mouth. Simple.

 

[This message has been edited by atma (edited 07-01-2001).]

[Maitreya 0]

Jagat you should contact VNN and ask them not to post it.

[animesh 0]

Rahim wrote,

"Rahiman nijman ki bithaa mana hi raahko goye

Suni adhilaihein log sab, baant na laihein koye"

 

i.e.

 

"Keep your problems within your heart. People will just laugh on listening to these. Nobody will share."

 

There are different kind of people. Some really feel like helping others on knowing their problem and some are so stone-hearted that they make fun. So, it is true that it is dangerous for one to tell one's problems to public at large. But that does not mean that one should never tell one's problems to anyone. Many times it happens that we are very sad at heart for some reason. We just want to tell our problems to someone. It is not that we want others to help us. We just want them to listen. Even if they just listen to us without offering any help, we feel relieved. When people tell their problems to me, then I do not take this as an opportunity to make fun of them. It hurts me a lot when I come to know that my statements have hurt someone, even if unknowingly. When people share their problems with me, then I feel very close to them. I feel that they consider me as their well-wisher and not some stranger and that's why they are sharing their problems with me.

 

I have met many kinds of people in this world. I understand that there are many instances which show that women are really treated very badly. But, it sometimes happens that even if somebody is genuinely concerned about some woman, she does not trust him. But it can not continue for ever. One day she has to trust someone. Then, she starts trusting those who take advantage of her. I know one such lady myself. Since she kept on listening to those who did not care for her and did not listen to the person who was genuinely concerned, her future was really going to be completely spoiled, but she was saved for two reasons:

 

1. The person who cared about her became very tough with those who were misleading her, even though it was dangerous for him.

 

2. Once that lady was in trouble. Then, all those who were pretending to be her well-wisher left her. Only the person who was really concerned helped her. Of course, he was very much angry with her but at the same time he did not want any harm for her. Now, she is completely changed.

[Jagat 1]

If you wish, Atma Didi, I will ask them not to post it. I personally believe that your story needs to be told, because as Jaya Radhe points out, it is one that has been repeated many times. It is a brave thing to tell your story publicly, because it touches others. Yes, it may cause controversy and of course we know that there is another side to the story.

 

But your tale shows how we neglect personal values when we get overtaken by a "cause." We have far too much philosophy on these forums. It takes real-life stories to show us how we forget about the down-to-earth aspects of our movement. How the destruction of interpersonal relationships and duties to our families and friends destroys our society.

 

My God, perhaps Arjuna was right in the first chapter of the Gita!

 

As I said, your husband's behavior somewhat resembles what I did myself.

 

I lived in Mayapur from 1975-1979. My wife did not follow me to India, as she had given birth to our daughter only a month or so before I left. When I remained in India, it was unplanned, because I received a new service there -- that of running the Gurukula.

 

My poor wife went collecting in the streets of Dallas so that she could join me in India, but when she arrived that August, she found the situation very difficult for her. She got dysentery and in those days, the women lived above the kitchen and had to come down the stairs and outside to a rather unpleasant outhouse near the gate. My baby daughter was also bitten terribly by the mosquitos and this caused her mother great anxiety. No doubt the worst problem was me. I was almost totally indifferent to her: completely absorbed in my service and fired up with the spirit of renunciation.

 

Our bonds were never close, as she and I were married by arrangement. Over the four years we had been married, we had had many ups and downs. Mostly we had lived in the temple as brahmachari and brahmacarini. In India, this lifestyle separated us even further because the segregation of sexes was so much more pronounced in Mayapur than it had been in America.

 

My wife decided to leave Mayapur after three months when her return ticket had to be used. She spent the next three years in Canada, getting into trouble, it must be said. Jagadish was very displeased with me because he considered her something of a sexual loose cannon. I did very little to try to convince her that she should come back to me, though I felt strongly that she should accept the sacrifice and take her place in India with me. I figured that she should "take it like a man." Let us just say that my knowledge of applied psychology was not outstanding. The affectionate bond was too weak for me to make much of an effort.

 

My wife came to Mayapur again in 1978, with our daughter. I think she wanted to see if we could get back together again, but I guess she did not like me that much. So it was easy to leave things as they were. We were officially divorced later that year and in 1979 I took sannyas.

 

I was OK for about six years as a sannyasi, but then a clever woman burst in on me and found me in a weakened state of resistance. This blew open my whole vision of life and was probably the major reason I left India.

 

When I came back to North America, my daughter was already ten. I wanted to see her. I was feeling great remorse for having left my wife after my "falldown" and I thought that I should try to make up with her. But she was justifiably suspicious and angry with me. She had gone through another marriage and breakup in those years and at the time wasn't very big on devotee men in general and me in particular.

 

I made a few weak efforts at reconciliation, but I didn't really read her very well. Had I made a more determined effort, things may have turned out differently. As it happens, I met another woman, my present wife, and decided to get married again.

 

The evening before our wedding, my ex-wife suddenly called and told me that she wanted to get together again! She reminded me of my responsibility to my daughter. But by then it was really too late.

 

Right now I have been married to the same woman for 15 years and we have a ten-year-old son in whose upbringing I play a considerable part. But I have a deep-seated guilt about my past neglect of my daughter. We have been in touch, but our relationship is not close. You can imagine how she felt about me. I think that she has dealt with these issues to some extent -- she is living her life. She is married, works, has a daughter of her own, but she lives far away. We are practically speaking non-factors in each other's lives.

 

My ex-wife is still a devotee in the movement. Despite her marital misadventures, she has remained faithful to Srila Prabhupada and considers me to be a great apostate.

 

Your servant,

 

Jagat

[Jagat 1]

I have just sent the following letter:

 

Dear Prabhu,

 

I have been asked by Atma to ask you NOT to post the article I sent you. I am sorry for the trouble, but I must respect her wishes. I hope that you will too.

 

Your servant,

 

Jagadananda Das.

 

If you wish to write to them personally, it is news@vnn.org

<small><font color=#dedfdf>

 

 

[This message has been edited by Jagat (edited 07-02-2001).]

[kailasa 0]

>I don't think I like the idea of what I wrote here posted in VNN

 

Hari bol!

[melvin 1]

Maitreya was a disciple of the

Saravastivadin Buddhist Sect in

Kashmir(100 A.D.) I fell he is

the boddhisattv of Jesus Christ.

It is just a hunch. There is a

link somewhere between Christ

and Krishna(Vishnu). The Hari-

Hara. Add one element, Brahma

and you have the Trimurti or

Trinity. Siva, Vishnu and Brahma.

Or Rama/Govinda/Brahma. So, where

does Radha fit in the scheme of

things? Just asking.

 

Melvin

 

[amanpeter 0]

So, where

does Radha fit in the scheme of

things? Just asking.

 

Melvin

Everywhere, prabhu, ABSOLUTELY everywhere! Interesting that your question should appear on this particularly personal thread...

[atma 0]

Jagat, still I don't want my posting in VNN.

 

Anyway, today is a new day and things are looking good. Last night, taking a nice bubble bath and relaxing like anything, finally I understood why I'm going through all this. For the last 20 years I was always depending in a temple, now I'm completely on my own. I'm living outside the property, paying my bills, first time in a karmi job, when I joined I was just 17, first year in college. Never needed to work. I did work hard as a devotee, did lots of sankirtan and selling of different kind of paraphernalia.

Now if I go to the temple, chant japa and do seva is because I want to, not because I have to please somebody. How many times I went to the program because of pressure, how many times I chanted because I have to finish a number. It was becoming stale. Now is my choice, I don't have any kind of pressure to do anything spiritual and I can continue developing my relationship with the Supreme Lord because I desire it.

 

Whatever happened in my personal life, is a close chapter. I got my kids that are really nice and survivors. I spent 15 years of my life in India that I don't regret a bit. So many memories, experiences and blessings. While I was there, I counted my blessings every day. How many times I looked out of my window and saw so many families living on the pavement. Every day I met lepers, homeless, destitutes, thousands of people with so many miseries and I was always grateful that I did have a roof on top of me, health, food and desire for living.

There I was last night taking my bath and I realized that I was so fortunate to be able to do that. Maybe here in California is something that you take for granted but for billions of people is a luxury. I got a nice apartment, a good roommate (an Indian lady that was afraid to tell me that her problem is that she drinks tea!!) I got a job and good friends (doesn't matter that most of them are not devotees). The kids and I are in good health. I have no money at the moment but I have no debts (that is a big blessing here in America). I live in a nice location, the weather is wonderful, love the Sun, I can go to the beach anytime I want to. I can take darshan of their Lorships any moment, I live just half block from the temple, have prasada anytime that I want to. The fridge is full and life goes on.

 

Still I think that the devotees should implement a social system in that way more people will remain. Maybe in the future I can be part of helping to do that. Actually when I met the devotees I was in my first semester of Social Services. I continued for 2 more years even after initiation but in the end I decided to do the greatest service doing full time sankirtan.

 

I believe that every experience is for the best, always something good comes out even from a bad situation. Sometimes we have to go through rough situations but in the end we emerge stronger. I have no doubt that our situation will improve and with the blessings of all of you out there (vaishnavas or not), will continue in our path of self-realization, trying to get love for Sri Sri Radha-Krsna (our only shelter).

 

 

 

 

[atma 0]

Originally posted by rand0M aXiS:

Atma didi,

 

Please forgive my facetious response to Jagat's post above. Of course I would not want this on the JS show, I was just revealing my impressions on how these incidents will be viewed in karmi society. It was not my intention to embarass you in any way. I feel these histories/stories are best left between email exchanges between individuals or thru personal contact, and not broadcast to the world thru the World Wide Web.

About the point how the karmis will view these incidents, they'll see how dysfunctional as a society we stand, that's it. They know already, how many scandals and incidents over the years published all over the world.

 

Any new person get turn off just seing the women in the back of the temple room. In India, the ladies come and go straight to the front in front of the deities. Even in Mayapur they divide the temple in half for the matajis to see Sri Sri Radha Madhava better. Women on the right, men to the left.

 

BTW, RandOM dada, I think I'm your bahen or bon (younger sister in Hindi and Bengali), not your didi. Younger sisters get really protected by the older brothers.

[Jagat 1]

Good for you, Atma Devi.

[Guest guest]

 

 

"When faults in other misguide and delude you -- have patience, introspect, find faults in yourself. KNOW THAT OTHERS CANNOT HARM YOU

UNLESS YOU HARM YOURSELF".

--- Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura, discourse in Dhaka, Bangladesh, 1935.

 

 

[animesh 0]

Jagat ji,

Let me make one confession. When I found that you had sent Atma ji's story to VNN, then I thought that inspite of being so old (much elder than I am), you are so naughty. I was also thinking that if I was not younger than you, then I would find you out and twist your ears for this. Anyway, now I know why you wanted that story to appear in VNN.

 

Sorry.

[dasanudas 0]

Dear Atma Devi,

kindly accept my dandavat pranams,

Nice happy and auspicious post to read.

Refreshing to read your new adjustment and it gives us joy to hear Krsnas' grace bestowed on his devotee after a long spell of austerity and I think it is greatly to your credit to have endured the hardships I have heard you relate. The devotees sufferings in this world always remind me of Gopa Kumara in Brhat Bhagavatamrtam upon returning to the spiritual world and there being reunited with his beloved Lord. At that time Krsna relates He knew all the long-suffering Gopa Kumar(Swarup) had to endure in His Name, and was now overjoyed at their reunion to which they both embraced and fainted together.

It's said "the sweetest songs are those that tell of the saddest things." I don't know who said that, but they certainly do stir the ethers, even in the most fortified of hearts.

 

I know one nice story of a lady devotee who also spent most of her time in India living on the smell of a ghee lamp, untill poverty finally forced her to return to Australia to re-evaluate her material predicament for the sake of her children. She desperately tried to adjust to the devotional community but could'nt relate to all the sectarian politics that had divided all her old friends, who were once all united in one sankirtan party.

The holy land was so much in her blood and heart that she could no longer live in the mundane atmosphere, so she decided to try to work, so she could some how return to her Heartland. One day Her young Indian child Nila asked his mother what these scratchie tickets were that everyone was always scratching.His mom altho by no means condoning it, bought him his one and only ticket to scratch and there it was a $65,000 motorcar that she immediately sold for 50 grand and flew her family back to the land of her dreams, where with a keen sense of austerity she has been ever since, fullfilling her internal hearts desire.

Not that I'm recommending devotees go out and start scratchin, as it does'nt work, I've tried it, only once (that's my confession) This to me is just a little modern day parable of Sudhama Brahmans internal relationship with his Lord who always looks after his dearly beloved devotees in one way and another.

On the other hand it is sad to hear your friend who lost that simple thread she had, but again Krsna knows our soul better than we know ourselves and it is a joy to see your appreciation of all He bestowed on you, and your adjustment to the new environment you find he has placed you in for your own present wellfare, what a beautiful friend we have huh!

Srila Sridhara Maharaj once told you can allways measure your own spiritual development by how much one feels the pain of others leaving Krsna Consciousness. It will effect an honest devotee as it does the Lord, like a lightening bolt to the heart. If we understand our own fragile and precarious predicament on this path to Sraddha Devi, we should always try to never bruise anothers delicate bhakti lata, but rather help water all who are treading this tender soil of bhakti.

 

 

Originally posted by atma:

I spent 15 years of my life in India tthat I don't regret a bit. So many memories, experiences and blessings. While I was there, I counted my blessings every day. How many times I looked out of my window and saw so many families living on the pavement. Every day I met lepers, homeless, destitutes, thousands of people with so many miseries and I was always grateful that I did have a roof on top of me, health, food and desire for living.

There I was last night taking my bath and I realized that I was so fortunate to be able to do that. Maybe here in California is something that you take for granted but for billions of people is a luxury. I got a nice apartment, a good roommate (an Indian lady that was afraid to tell me that her problem is that she drinks tea!!) I got a job and good friends (doesn't matter that most of them are not devotees). The kids and I are in good health. I have no money at the moment but I have no debts (that is a big blessing here in America). I live in a nice location, the weather is wonderful, love the Sun, I can go to the beach anytime I want to. I can take darshan of their Lorships any moment, I live just half block from the temple, have prasada anytime that I want to. The fridge is full and life goes on.

 

Das reply:In short Krsna is truly looking after you if only we can constantly remember this all the way thru this life, then any misfortune we may have, will very soon turn into more blessings, that is the way of a well adjusted devotee they see all as the grace and mercy of their Lord and master, be it poverty or prosperity, sickness and health, union and seperation, happines and distress we have earned it all by our previous actions, and no one to blame but ourselves for an unfavourable circumstance.

 

Still I think that the devotees should implement a social system in that way more people will remain. Maybe in the future I can be part of helping to do that. Actually when I met the devotees I was in my first semester of Social Services. I continued for 2 more years even after initiation but in the end I decided to do the greatest service doing full time sankirtan.

 

Das:This is a noble aspiration, and I sense you have the heart for this kind of social relief work, Krsna detected it in you and snookered you for His own campaign, my feeling is you would be perfectly suited to this kind of service. Compassion is that essential ingredient in mending the broken hearts.

I believe that every experience is for the best, always something good comes out even from a bad situation. Sometimes we have to go through rough situations but in the end we emerge stronger. I have no doubt that our situation will improve and with the blessings of all of you out there (vaishnavas or not), will continue in our path of self-realization, trying to get love for Sri Sri Radha-Krsna (our only shelter).

 

Jaya Guru deva Jaya Vaisnavi Thakura

 

 

So is this the confessional or what, where is that pastor MC, I don't know much about the proceedure, never been to a church. I got some tales that would set the box on fire tho. Is this strictly revealing ones life and heart in confidence. How honest can a vaisnava be. If Truth is the only leg left to stand on in this age of Kali, are we really standing, kneeling or crawling?

I'm impressed with the courageous confession of Jagat Prabhu it does take some gumption to purge those skeletons from the dark recessors of our past. Maybe that's why Atma devi is feeling that everfresh brand new day feeling.

 

Okay here I go I have to admit I too on occasion have the odd cuppa tea, English conditioning. Once upon a time i used to practise Teaism which almost grew into a social reform movement in China. Untill I heard Prabhupads comment and I stopped for 25 years, thats how powerful his words were to me. Mind you I only indulge in the decaffinated strain or an occasional chai, i can't let out too much at once or maybe everyone will just scroll past my posts, if they don't already.

I think the 'Tea or me' thing might have been taken out of context a little, that is I would say there was a lot more cookin' in the background.

I'm waiting to see Maitreyas' and others next admissions before I'm prepared to reveal any hard core stuff.

Anyway I like this kind of thread for devotees it is essential to be honest and open in a mood of honor and concern for others and I'm right with JNdas' screening of the real nasty stuff. It has to be, otherwise it will all turn into a massacre that no one can relate to.

 

I hope I have'nt offended anyone unknowingly in our exchanges if so please kindly accept my apologies as I may choose to withdraw somewhat from cyberspace in the future. To all the vaisnavas please accept my prostrated dandavats in the service of Sri Sri Guru Gauranga and our eternal guardians.

Gaura hari bol

Yf affectionately

dasanudas

 

[Maitreya 0]

 

das, Maitreya stepped out for while.I think to have a fully cafeinated double latte and watch the parade of young females forms on campus.

 

Poor chap is so easily hypnotized.Then when he remembers what's under the skin he becomes traumitized.It's crazy to watch this guy's mood swings.Almost as if he is caught exactly in middle of two opposite worlds.Or sitting on a fence between them trying to decide which one to live in and thus not living fully in either one.Riven cloud?

 

"To exploit or serve that is the question".You can hear him mumbling that to himself as he moves through the house.

 

He is truly a weak one, that without the gracious glance and support of the vaisnava's[of all levels]hasn't a prayer of awakening love for Krishna.

 

I'll tell him to check the thread when he wanders back in.

[Maitreya 0]

I found this on a Christian forum.Do we find something to learn from here?I mean I know we have a deeper theology in many ways, but still I ask is there something we can learn here?

 

I remember the first time I went to our Church with the wife and kids. I got dressed up in my Sunday best, grabbed an old Bible I had laying around, got the family in the car and drove to Church.

After we pulled up in front of the Church, we got out of the car and started waking toward the doors. I was feeling divided inside myself. Half of me wanted to walk right into those church doors with my chin up, half of me wanted to turn around and run, half of me wanted to cry, and half of me wanted to laugh, and my other three halves weren’t sure how to act!

 

I started thinking about what I was going through those doors to do! I was thinking to myself, "I'm going to worship the Lord God Almighty Creator of the Heavens and the Earth!" My knees started to shake, the palms of my hands started to sweat, and I could feel my face turning red. I really didn't know what to do. About the time I crossed the threshold of the door I was about to faint. I prayed inside myself, "God! If You don't help me get through the doors my first entrance into my new Church is going to be flat on my face!"

 

I reached the door and opened it for my family. As I held the door, a man in a brown suit walked up to me and said, "Hello, glad to see you hear. Have you got a bulletin?" I was holding the door for a little old lady who was following my family into the church as the man handed me a church bulletin. I smiled politely at him. You know, when I held open the door for Lois and took the bulletin from Reverend Crowley I had never met them before. With time they where both going to turn out to be very close personal friends of mine. On that day though, something inside me just told me they were special people and I was going to get to like them. They were ‘different’.

 

As I walked into the sanctuary, someone came up to me and asked me my name and walked with us to our pew. Someone else asked my wife, “Is this your husband?” Someone behind me asked me if I this was my first time I came. The kids started waving to their friends as they came down the isle. Although I still felt a little frightened at meeting so many new people, I suddenly realized that all of those people had came to the same place I came to for the same reason I came. We had all came from our homes to the Church to worship the Lord. Suddenly, the Spirit inside me told me I found a home. I said another little prayer inside my heart, “You know God this is going to be OK!”

 

May God be twice as generous to you – Amen

What must it feel like for someone to first walk in the doors of a Krishna temple here in America?Many may feel just like this.Are we sensitive to it?Do we see that Krishna has just brought someone that may become a life long personal friend?

 

 

 

 

[This message has been edited by Maitreya (edited 07-02-2001).]

[dasanudas 0]

Originally posted by Maitreya:

das, Maitreya stepped out for while.I think to have a fully cafeinated double latte and watch the parade of young females forms on campus.

 

Yeah right, heard all that before! lets hear some real personal stuff, we want tears and tingles from every pore in the bod. We want salivating movie scripts, we want hair standing headlines. We want suicidal song material.

 

Poor chap is so easily hypnotized.Then when he remembers what's under the skin he becomes traumitized.It's crazy to watch this guy's mood swings.Almost as if he is caught exactly in middle of two opposite worlds.Or sitting on a fence between them trying to decide which one to live in and thus not living fully in either one.Riven cloud?

 

Das:Sounds like Madhurya Kadambini, it's called 'caught in the waves,' I've been there my whole undecided devotional life mate. But this is just general, we want actual events, living breathing pulsating drama, that pounds the ribcage. The little voice inside pleading to 'stop!!! I can't take any more'

 

"To exploit or serve that is the question".You can hear him mumbling that to himself as he moves through the house.

 

Das:I can hear him, echoing his confucian. I can hear him. But what were some of the results of his answers? Cut to the juice man, you know him better than anyone, what is he really like? From our perspective he appears to be a well balanced honest kind, give us the inside story, no gossip of course only the Truth.

 

He is truly a weak one, that without the gracious glance and support of the vaisnava's[of all levels]hasn't a prayer of awakening love for Krishna.

 

I'll tell him to check the thread when he wanders back in.

While you're at it let's get to know you also.

 

[JRdd 0]

Hi all, this has been a real nice read, haven't been here for a few days so there was a lot. Well, while you are all becoming braver in revealing yourselves, and I am grateful for your trusting the rest of us with your stories, I am becoming less so, and have deleted my personal stuff here.

 

I wish to make it clear that I would never take part in a book which had to complain about men, or ill treatement in ISKCON (actually I was blessed with mostly wonderful experiences while living in the temple), and I also wish to explain that when I told a bit of my experience as a single mother newly imported from abroad, it was a narration intended with no ill will toward anyone. I like myself too much, and value my peace of mind and spiritual growth too much, to hang on to things of the past. You can't hold grudges if you want to move on. Atma's experience is fresher and so she may have needed to really unload that, and it is so wonderful that many have supported her in that, which is mainly what I intended to do when I empathetically added a bit of my own history. I also hoped to encourage her that things get better, easier (at least if that is the Lord's will).

 

My daughter's dad is here off and on for a month visiting, and this is a reasonable and not inharmonious visit. I see no reason not to offer him our wonderful back porch and couch for sleeping on, and allowing him the facility of being comfortable and visiting his daughter, without having to pay through the nose to stay somewhere. I sprouted wheat and chickpeas in anticipation of his raw fruitarian arrival, knowing the travel would have made it difficult to eat in his usual way. He has helped get me started building an altar. While there is no possibility for being in a married situation together, there is a possibility of behaving as friends, for the sake of our daughter, and finding our common ground. I am just trying to make it clear, here, that while one can choose to be bitter and hang on to old things, I choose rather to take each day as new, each person as new, and myself as new each day. This is forgiveness. Not all of us who have had bad experiences in life (whatever they have been--and we all have had them; certainly I hold no monopoly, for sure) lose our fresh outlook. However, wisdom comes with age and experience and through the grace of God, and right or wrong, I felt that I wanted to delete my personal story here. It has been read by she for whom I intended it. Last year I posted very personally on a forum, calling on the support of the devotees, and their wonderful and caring responses helped me move right through my trauma, very swiftly. There were a few who did not wish me well and I got some negativity there, but over all, I felt no regrets, only gratitude, in having successfully evoked the compassion and sage advice of my friends. So I laud those of you who are doing that here, and I wish more would, but I have been dealt with too harshly too many times in cyberspace this year to have much taste for making myself vulnerable in such an assembly.

 

Tea you say? Is that the worst you can come up with?

 

There is one in this assembly who has a strong dislike for me (and also continues to regard me as a clone of my sister). To you I say I do not hold grudges, though you may. I may be twice bitten thrice shy, and choose my association based on what is mutually spiritually nurturing, which necessitates excluding from close proximity to me certain persons, but I do not hold onto things. Or should I say I do not let things grip me. At least I try not to.

 

I appreciate your forthrightness in opening up, Jagat, but I see no reason to feel that your past has much to do with your present.

 

I will be meeting you, Atma, in the mailbox, and am very glad to, too.

 

It would be a good idea if we wore our names at Rathayatra. Wouldn't that be a kick? I decided to go regardless, after being reminded by Lord Jagannath's namesake of all the happy smiling faces that will be there.

 

Ditto to Mr das' last comment, Maitreya. Out with it already.

 

ys, Jayaradhe

[jagannatha das brahmachar 0]

<h4 align=center> Jaya Nitai-Gaura HariBol</h4><hr>

<font size=5 color=FFFFCC><u>San Francisco Ratha Yatra </u> is one final step closer to reality for me</font><font size=4 color=33OO99>

 

Maybe Krsna Janmastami will be next. Who knows ? ?</font><font size=4 color=330099> It kinda amazes me to think when we're just so busy all of the time pooping in "our own" back-yards, meanwhile others are fully absorbed in SERVICING their own respected temples... <hr><h3 align=center>"so therefore, don't poop in <u>"your"</u>

own backyard"</h3>

 

- jagannatha das brahmachari</font>

 

 

 

 

[This message has been edited by jagannatha das brahmachar (edited 07-03-2001).]

[JRdd 0]

Who is pooping in their own backyard prabh? Can you be a little more specific? As your post came right after mine, I am feeling a little hurt by this remark, and wish I hadn't looked in here now.

 

JR

[Maitreya 0]

Haribol JRdd,

 

I took it Jagannatha was not aiming his comment at you but only making the observation that some are complaining alot while others are busy doing some pratical service.

 

I could be wrong but I took it as a generalized statement.

 

Mind at ease dasi.

 

YS MC

 

[This message has been edited by Maitreya (edited 07-03-2001).]

[Jagat 1]

"Service" as a transitive verb means to repair, or to maintain regularly, as in "service a car." I don't think it applies in this case. Perhaps you mean "serving" or "rendering service."

[Maitreya 0]

Jagat, I more or less stopped going to and participating in school in the seventh grade.If you want to start nit picking on my grammer you will be kept very busy.

 

And why start now when I have been abusing proper grammer and speeling[sp?] on various forums for more than two years?

 

What is really up?

 

Go ahead, let it out.This is the thread for it.