Be attentive, be blessed

Today morning when I sat for japa the thoughts of starting new college program were swirling in the mind as I was relatively free after coming to Pune. Many times when people approach me & ask why are you spending time & money uselessly on others, I tell them "What will you do if you see somebody  committing suicide , wont you go & try to save that person", similarly a person trained in spiritual knowledge when sees a person not taking the human form of life seriously to perfect the life is committing spiritual suicide. And he can't allow that to happen
But it was a japa time & first I needed to purify myself then I could think of being instrument of assistance for others.

In spiritual life what makes any ordinary task as spiritual is the consciousness in which it done.
Any task which is done after taking blessings from the Lord & his devotees for his pleasure, brings the activity from mundane level to spiritual platform.
So the main key is being attentive, understanding that service is being done for the pleasure of the Lord.

In Kaliyuga the Lord incarnates as his Holy Names "Kalikale naam rupi Krishna Avatar"
So while chanting if I am not attentive to holyname & doing some other planning then very purpose of chanting & even activity we are planning to do is lost.
So I thought if I want to take the blessings of Krishna for the activity I am planning to do then I must be attentive in chanting & take blessings of the holynames.

So directing the mind in applying the conclusions of these thoughts I could chant remaining rounds as good as I could.

Combats with mind!

Chanting the holy names of the Lord is the most essential process of the Bhakti,
Srila Prabhupad said 99% of the advancement comes by chanting the holy names of the Lord.
Srila Prabhupad has given process of Daily chanting the names of the Lord in the morning.

So when I sit for chanting many times mind is distracted from the holyname's. After such deviation I try to fix my mind on the holyname while trying to take shelter of the shastras, or realizations which have come after studying them or after hearing from devotees. I find it very useful.

I thought of enlisting the Japa meditations for my own reference in future & it may be useful for others.


09th July 2012: Today when my mind was getting distracted while chanting. My meditation today was: Many times in neophyte stage the Sadhaka struggles with the fact "Does the Lord really exist?".
Although theoretically convinced, without practical realization, this thought sometimes haunts a devotee.
But Srila Prabhupada has written in his books that name, form , qualities & pastimes are orderly revealed to the devotee. means first the name of the Lord is revealed thne form then qualties & then pastimes.
So to expect to see to Krishna directly or perceive or get entrance into the eternal pasttimes of Krishna without first realizing the transcendence of Holy name is not possible atleast in Sadhaka bhakti process. Only when one chants sincerely, takes shelter of the holy name he will get realization that Absolute truth is fully contained in the holy names and it is non different from the holy name & then by the grace of the holy name every thing else will be revealed.

This really helped to get more focus on the chanting!

The wit of a barber!

Today morning I went to barber to have a hair cut. It was like any other indian barber shop.

The owner was a chubby fellow with a short height & tanned complexion. when started cutting the hair, he asked my whereabouts. While cutting my hears he was constantly conversing. He told some nice points which makes lot of sense. From his speaking I understood he was intelligent & had good observation of the outside reality. He was one among many who dared to think differently rather than shippishly following the trends as hyped by media & portrayed by modern society without giving much thinking. I have noted down those points along with my reflections on them as I heard & read from different bonafide sources.

1> The Indians were slaves of British reign few decades ago, now Indians are slaves of status symbols like car, mobile etc.
-Because people have no knowledge about the real spiritual nature of oneself & they identify with lump of body, they have to depend on the bodily designations for happiness than tapping real inherent inner bliss coming from relation with God. So most of people life goes in working hard for accumulating some pieces of paper to buy some pieces of metal thinking that will give them happiness.
2>Most of the life of the modern Indians goes in paying the loans taken for home & car.

-India was agrarian country & 70% of the population of India constituted peoples staying in villages & they had profession directly or indirectly related with farming. Because of the spoiling of the land  by inorganic farming, spoiling of the natures cycles causing irregular rains & spoiling of the ideology of one can be happy in the simple lifestyle because of the modern movies portraying the lavish lifestyle (fake) of the city causing normal villagers getting desire to come to city they have to work hard for basic necessities like few times of food just to survive in city.

3>Modern peoples lives are so much made busy by the modern capitalists that they should not have to think beyond the food. And they are made addicted to the alcohol so in ignorance they will not think deeply what they are doing & about the higher questions of the life.
-(I had also heard similar plot of the politicians, by gifting TV sets & laptops to the people make them be happy in that only. So they wont have time & brains to think how well the government is governing the state.)

4> He also told his observation  about educating modern people only in the certain field making them almost blind about the other branches of knowledge, practical vocational work & social scenarios. This limits their capacity, this makes them highly dependent on the economical currents flowing in the world making them vulnerable to shifts in trends in some other world.

- Srila Prabhupad used to say real science means study of spirit(The living force,Soul), matter & The controller of both (God). Now in education system there is no conception of God. Just study of the dead matter can not produce any happiness for the living spark, The soul. And study only about matter makes them succumb to misery in the end as matter is perishable in nature so can not give actual permanent happiness. Also this makes them blind about the real purpose of life to
stop the cycle of birth & death & enter into eternal kingdom of God.

Teekacharya- The master of commentaries!

I was searching nearby places to Gulbarga to visit. I got to see name of village malkheda having the samadhi of Jayatirtha on google, Sri Jayatirtha is one of the acharyas in the Madhva line.My spiritual master HH Radhanath Swami has given beautiful classes on Madhvacharya, that propelled my desire to visit the place. I have included one of his inspiring classes on Madhvacharya in the end of this post. It immediately reminded me of Parampara song written by Srila Bhakti Siddhant Saraswati Thakur,  Second Stanza of the song has the name of Jayatirtha...

nṛhari mādhava-baḿśe, akṣobhya paramahaḿse,
śiṣya boli' ańgīkāra kore
akṣobhyera śiṣya jaya-tīrtha nāme paricaya,
tāra dāsye jñānasindhu tore (The two other principal disciples of Madhva are Nrhari Tirtha and Madhava Tirtha. Madhava Tirtha accepted the great paramhamsa Aksobhya Tirtha as a disciple. The principal disciple of Aksobhya Tirtha was known as Jayatirtha. Jayatirtha's service was for his disciple Jnanasindhu.) 

      Around 40 KM  from Gulbarga is the samadhi of the Sri Jayatirtha at the malkheda, they call it is Jayatirther Vrindavan. I immediately decided to visit the place whenever I get a chance. Last Saturday me & my friend Sandeep reached Gulbarga early in the morning. Immediately after that we took bus to Malkheda.

Few kilometers before the city is the Uttarati muth, the place of samadhi of Akshobhya Tirtha & Jayatirtha. Its on the bank of the Kagini river.

We entered matha. It was big. The priests there welcomed us. I told them our sppiritual family connection. We had nice river bath in Kagini. Then we went to the Samadhi of Akshobhya Tirtha & Jayatirtha. 
Jayatirtha is known as Teekacharya for his unmatched commentary "Nyayasudha" on the commentary of the Madhvacharya on brahma sutra. Its said anybody studying Dvaita philosophy must study Jayatirtha's commentary to complete the study. I prayed to get the deep taste for studying the philosophy  & detachment.

I am pasting amazing Life History Of Jayatirtha below 

Legend

According to legend, in a previous birth, Sri Jayatîrtha was a bull that served as a pack-animal, and traveled with Srimad Ananda Tîrtha (Madhva) and his devotees, carrying his library of teachings. When Srimad Ananda Tîrtha gave a lecture, the bull would stand at a distance and listen silently. Once some disciples approached Sri Ananda Teertha to seek the privilege of writing commentaries on his works, and he told them it would not be any of them, but the bull, that would be is commentator. At this, some jealous disciples laid a curse on the bull, so that it would be bitten to death by a snake. When Sri Anand Teertha heard of this, he changed the wording of the curse slightly, so that the snake bit the bull and itself died immediately, leaving its victim unharmed.

Life

Sri Jayatîrtha's biographies include Anu-Jayatîrtha-Vijaya and Brhad-Jayatîrtha-Vijaya. Jayatirtha was born as Dhondupant (Dhondurao) to Raghunath, a Brahmin king, and Sakubai Deshpande. His birthplace was Mangalavedhe, which lies near Pandharapur, about 12 miles south-east of Pandharpur in today’s Maharashtra. Because he was heir to the throne, he had wealth, power, and the affection of his parents and the people. He was very handsome, healthy, intelligent, endowed with physical vigor, and given to outdoor activity such as horseback riding.

Once, when the young Dhond Pant Raghunath (his name during pûrva-âshrama) was horse-riding, he bent down and quenched his thirst from a river without dismounting or even stopping his horse. Sri Akshobhya Teertha, a direct disciple of Sri Anand Teertha happened to witness this and asked him in Sanskrit “kim pashuH pûrva-dehe?” (“Did you have an animal’s body previously?”). This question triggered the memory of his previous birth within young Dhondupant, and reminded him of his duties to Sri Anand Teertha. He was overcome by a desire to renounce material life and devote his life to the services of his master. Sri Akshobhya Teertha then initiated him in to Sanyasa (monastic vows). When Raghunath Deshpande, Dhondupant’s father came to know about this, he was very angry with Sri Akshobhya Teertha and forcibly took the boy back home, in order to get him married. Forced into marriage against his wishes, Dhondupant took the form of a snake, which made his father realize that his son was no ordinary being but was born to great deeds. He acquiesced to Dhondupant’s wishes, and Dhondupant, after blessing his father to have another son who would take care of the family, attained sainthood and became Sri Jayateertharu.

Sri Jayatîrtha's Brndâvana (sacred tomb) is at Malkheda, in the north of modern Karnataka state, from where he continues to bless devotees who, in spite of their own lack of any significant ability, seek to understand Srimad Ananda Tîrtha's writings correctly.

Works and thoughts

After Madhva himself, Jayatirtha is the most important theologian in the Dvaita tradition. He wrote 22 works, including many commentaries on Madhva. His depth of scholarship can be credited with raising the fledgling Dvaita School to a position of scholastic equality with Advaita and Visistadvaita. Jayatirtha’s lucid style and precise expositions Ananda Tîrtha's masterpieces established him as one of the greatest of the Sanskrit philosophical writers.

Nyayasudha is known as Sri Jayateertha’s magnum opus and is the exhaustive and detailed commentary (Teeka is Sanskrit for commentary, hence he is also known as Teekacharya) on Sri Madhvacharya’s Anuvyakhyana which in turn itself is a commentary on Brahma Sutras by Veda Vyasa. Sri Jayateertha has brilliantly and more importantly, sincerely, captured the pithy statements of his master in simple language. It is universally admitted in the Dvaita tradition that the philosophical depth and breadth of Tatvavada can only be appreciated with the help of the Nyaya Sudha. In a very attractive and lucid style, Sri Jayatirtha not only presents and strongly defends almost all the important philosophical and epistemological issues from the Dvaita point of view, but also severely criticizes other major philosophical systems of India such as the Bauddha, Jaina, Nyaya-Vaisesika, Bhatta-Prabhakara Mimamsa, Advaita and Visishtadvaita. Thus, in the Dvaita tradition, the work is held in very high esteem and it is believed that scholarship in Dvaita Vedanta is incomplete without a thorough study of this monumental work. A popular saying, "sudhâ vâ paThanîyâ, vasudhâ vâ pâlanîyâ," conveys the meaning that the joy of studying the Nyâya-Sudhâ can only be compared to the joy of ruling a kingdom.

Sri Jayatîrtha's VâdâvaLî, which is an original work, refutes the theory of illusion, and is considered to be the earliest major Mâdhva polemical text after those authored by Srimad Ananda Tîrtha himself; it also is a precursor to the Nyâyamrta and Tarka-tânDava of Sri Vyâsa Tîrtha, and other later works.

Dvaita

In contrast with the advaita (non-dualist) philosophy expounded by Shankara, Dvaita maintains that there is an eternal distinction between the individual self and the absolute. Souls are in bondage to the earthly cycle of life and death because they are ignorant of the true nature of God. Liberation cannot be achieved through knowledge and performance of ritual duties alone, but requires the grace of God, which can only be acquired through bhakti (devotion). The liberated soul does not become one with God but exists separately in bliss.

Major Works

§  Nyaya sudha (Nectar of logic)

§  Tattva prakashika (The light of truth)

§  Prameya deepika (The light of object of knowledge)

§  Nyaya deepika (The light of logic)

Audio biography Sripad Madhvacharya-