It was a very very ecstatic trip to Vrindavan and I want to highlight the glories of the yatra. One way visiting the dham or the holy place is one of the five important rules laid down by srila Rupa Goswami. There are 5 articles of devotional service and one of them is to reside in a holy place and why is this so important and mentioned by him? The reason for that is because we regularly read, we regularly discuss the words of Lord Krsna, we discuss the past times of Krnsa, the glories of the devotees of Krsna and that forms the key element of spiritual life. So going to the holy dhaam what does it do to our spiritual life? It brings all what we read to life. Because we start experiencing Krsna as a person. The dhaam reveals the personal touch of the Lord. The dhaam helps us to connect all the lilas and pasttimes in reality. When we see the places of Krsna we start to understand that oh yes this is real. That jolt is very much needed by a sadhaka and that is very useful for us.
When we see the Govardhan hill, Kaliya ghat, jiv ghat, oh yes these are the places Krsna performed all these lilas. So one poet has actually composed a poem describing the holy dhaam. Wherever my Lord Sri Chaitanya mahaprabhu went, I also want to go with him. Hence, if you want to progress in your spiritual life it is very important to go to the holy dhaam.
Yatra to Sri Vrindavan Dhaam
Vrindavan Dhaam is opened to us and made available by Srila Prabhupada. It is by his mercy that we have received entrance into Vrindavan dhaam. If not we would have gone but not understood the value of Vrindavan dhaam. The first thing is to fill our hearts with divine obeisances to Srila Prabhupada. Today we shall be visiting Sri Vrindavan Dhaam with our mind - manasa yatra. We first offer our humble obeisances to SP through whom we have been able to understand Vrindavan. after we have expressed our gratitude to SP, at his samadhi we get our energy and beg for his blessings and mercy to intensify our sadhana and spiritual life. And our gratitude to HH Radhanath swami who took 2500 devotees on the yatra. That was the association we were awarded. We stayed 10 days in the dhaam.
6a - breakfast
7a - board busses for dhaam darshan
The entire devotees were divided into 8 groups and each day each group would go to a differnt dhaam darshan. Senior devotees would then speak about the dhaam. Then lunch prasad and then maharaj spoke from 5-7:30p and then damodar astakam prayers and then we would go to bed. The yatra was so nice that whole day there was complete engagement and there was no need to think about anything else. So all day we were talking to devotees, chanting, and be absorbed in Krsna. Everyday you had chapatis, kachoris, ragada patis etc everyday - prasadam quality was amazing. The devotees put so much hard work that it all first class. Then after prasadam you were so eager to hear from Maharaj. Whole day just so eager to hear from Maharaj.
Days
1. Nanda Gaun and Ter Kadam - When Nanda maharaj saw that lot of deamons are attacking Krsna they took him to Nanda Gaun and Nanda bhavan. Around Nanada bhavan - Vrinda kund, Pavan Sarovar and then Ter Kadam - place where Krsna would go everyday to call out all the names of the cows. He was so personal that he would call out the names of all the cows individually of every cow. All the cows would come running to Krsna hearing. That is our goal - Krsna is calling us but our ears are filled with wax that we aren't able to hear Krsna's call. Please Krsna let me clear my conciousness, my heart - so I can hear you Krsna. Nanda Bhavan is so beautiful where there are deities of Nanda maharaj, Yashoda mata, Balaram and Krsna. We did kirtan there and very very holy place. We connected with the mood of each place, we were rejoicing that Nanda maharaj was enjoying the vatsala bhav and was in the child like activities of Kirtan and chanting for the pleasure of Krsna.
2. Barsana - The place where Srimati Radharani spent her time there from Raval. Barsana the key is that Brahmaji over there came and prayed there that your vraj gopis are so great that I want the dust of their lotus feet on my head every moment. My 4 heads become the 4 hills of Barsana. Brahmaji's teaching us from his own example on how to approach the Vrindavan dhaam - by taking the dust of the lotus feet of the gopis. Without this mood and without the mercy of Srimati Radharani's mercy we cannot approach Krsna. 4 hills of Barsana
- Maan Mandir - Place where Krsna pacified Radharani.
Other hill is Moor kutir - Blind sage was instructed by Radharani to draw the painting of Krsna and Radha dancing like peacocks and a beautiful painting. We all are blind but only when we take the shelter of Radha and Krsna we are able to see things otherwise what is the use of seeing things in this world. Only when we take the shelter of Krsna in that blindness then we become enlightented. Om ajnana timirandasya - only by the mercy of our guru we can get light.
- Sriji mandir - temple of Srimati Radharani - the headquarters of unconditional kind love is flowing from there. The whole area of barsana is so sweet and touching to the heart that the mercy of Radharani can be felt in every breath and it gives us the experience of KC.
3. Local Vrindavan yatra - Kaliya ghat, Kesi ghat, madan mohan temple (all 6 temples of Vrindavan), other ghats - all samadhis of Goswamis - Srila Rupa Goswami samdhi where SP prayed for months that please give me the mercy to satisfy my Guru - we prayed there. Radha Raman temple, Radha Vinod temple, Radha Govinda temple - begged the mercy of all the acaryas.
Vrindavan Dhaam From Day 4
In the first sloka of SB - Vyasadev is establishing the unique position of Sri Krsna and his holy abode - Golaka Vrindavan. In the first sloka he is addressing Krsna as O namo vasudeva. It is by his energy that the material world is both manifested and unmanifested and by his energy the whole spiritual world is existing.
The differnce between material world and spiritual world is that it is ever temporary. Everything happening in the material world is a dream. In the material world things happen, do things and then they are gone. They have certain set of experiences and then they are gone. With people passing all that is left is memories. Material world is compared to a dream. Spritiual world is eternal. The only hope of the material world or +ve is that Krsna's effort to take the souls back to Godhead. So they can remember their constitutional position. Vrindavan is such a place where Krsna descendes to give us that experience so we can taste what it is to live in this spiritual world. The experience and rememberance of Vrindavan is so amazing that it can put the conditioned soul to help him get back to Godhead. It is by the causeless mercy of SP that we can get to Vrindavan Dhaam.
One of the most amazing and enlightening experience was stay at Govardhan. Giriraj Govardhan is actually the eternal associate of Krsna. When Krsna requests Radharani, she says I want Yamuna and GOvardhan to also come down. So he had already come to Vrindavan before Krsna. He is know as the topmost devotee of Krsna because everything about him is to give pleasure to Krsna and his devotees. Krsna is very happy when his devotees - the cows and brahmanas are happy. Hence Krsna is very pleased and Govardhan is know as Haridas _____. So we should live and perform parikrama of Govardhan.
Every sila of Govardhan is Krsna. When we are taking darshan of Govardhan, we are actually taking darshan of Krsna. Krsna and Caitanya mahaprabhu have shown how to pray to Govardhan. The experience was so amazing, that whenever we have opportunity we should perform Govardhan parikrama. SP wanted to performa Govardhan parikrama at time of death. He was teaching us how to live our life practically from his life. It is all about our conciousness. In our consciousness if we give high regard and importance to the KC activities then our heart will be filled with these deep experiences. Many many holy places are near Govardhan. Radha kunda is the most most important place why? Because it is very dear to Srimati Radharani and hence it is very dear to Krsna. It is actually liquid prem of Krsna.
HH Radhanathswami was doing parikrama and it was very hot and devotees put their feet, but maharaj put his head in the holy water because of the importance of this kund. Just with a few drops of achaman of this water you can actually get Krsna prema. She is freely distributing prema of Krsna here. Then there were other places like - uddav kund, manasi ganga.
At Uddav Kunda, he understood that Vrajavasis were crying for Krsna and he was wondering how to pacify them. He realized that varajavasis were pure devotees and he wanted to experience a drop of their mercy, so he wanted to become a shrub in Vrindavan so vrajavasis can always keep getting the pure love of Vraja. He bows down at the lotus feet of vrajavasis. The mood of bowing down and surrendering to the vrajavasis, to the acharyas to the vaishnavas. When we cultivate this mood of vraja prema only then can we get to Krsna. Uddavji is teaching with his own example who was like Krsna, he looked like him, was a very close friend, minister and yet he became a shrub at Uddav Kunda.
Kusum sarovar, shyam van, anniyog, apsara kunda, many others where Krsna performed his pasttimes. Most importantly, these places enrich our faith in Krsna. When we meditate or talk about these places we are actually situtated in Vrindavan. Rememberance of Vrindavan can put us in presence of Krsna. There is so much to talk of Vrindavan and still it is not sufficient.
