Everyone

“Although He is beyond the reach of all senses, His mother endeavored to bind Him to a wooden grinding mortar. But when she tried to tie Him up, she found that the rope was too short – by two inches.”¹

Of all the sacred Vaishnava scriptures, Srimad-Bhagavatam is considered the topmost. Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu hailed the Bhagavatam as the spotless authority (pramanam amalam) amongst the Vedic literatures. Srila Rupa Goswami, in his Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu, declared that hearing Srimad-Bhagavatam is one of the five most potent forms of bhakti-yoga.

Why the Unfamiliar Often Seems Unacceptable

“When you’re chanting the maha-mantra,” said the late Alice Coltrane, “your soul responds, because the soul knows these names.” The wife of the great jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane, she was known among her followers as Turiyasangitananda (which she translated as “the Transcendental Lord’s highest song of bliss”). She continues: “The soul relates to them, the soul is enlivened, the soul is lifted up upon hearing the names of the Lord. It’s something people would open their hearts to and experience.

We all have limitations, things we can’t do well or at all. Acknowledging our limitations is vital for self-acceptance, which in turn is essential to avoid negative emotions such as resentment and envy. By self-acceptance we can focus our energies on creating a good life for ourselves within the constraints of our limitations.

How would you feel if your parents were partial towards your sibling, or your teacher towards your classmate? It is natural to expect from one’s superior or guardian a similar treatment as one’s equals receive. Any discrepancy in that leads to disappointment. Perception of partiality is painful and can demotivate people and slacken their spirits. How does the idea of partiality apply to God?

“Let my mind be fixed upon Lord Sri Krishna, whose motions and smiles of love attracted the damsels of Vrajadhama [the gopis]. The damsels imitated the characteristic movements of the Lord [after His disappearance from the rasa dance].” – Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.9.40

A victim is a person who suffers from a destructive action. Often we think of victims as innocent and neither responsible nor accountable for what’s happened – for example, people who are randomly shot or children who are abused.

Five hundred years ago, at the time of Lord Chaitanya, there lived a very wonderful devotee named Jagadish Ganguli. His residence was in a small village near Mayapur. Although he was advanced in age, every year he would go on the nine-hundred-kilometer journey to Jagannatha Puri on foot to associate with his master, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, take darshana of his beloved Jagannatha, Baladeva, and Subhadra Devi, and participate in the all-auspicious Rathayatra festival.

“The same result obtained from seeing the Lord’s ten most prominent incarnations is available simply by once gazing upon the Supreme Person in His form as Lord Jagannatha.” (Skanda Purana, Utkala Khanda)