economic crisis-what is it?

[Nanda-grama]

About this man "who depends on Krishna, not on the crisis"- indeed he is in ISSCON now(he is a disciple of Gopal Krishna Gosvami). He is nice person and old and sincere devotee. He has a big altar in his hous and loves and feels his Radha-Krishna, Gaura-Nitai and his shilograms. The basis of his job is good luck(he finds customers for my pictures, )- and he put this luck in hands of Radha-Krishna. I don't think that he worrys about Krishna was"historical person" or not, I think he is connected with Him and takes His help. I like it as a way of life in this difficult time. I was sankirtanist and I remember this condition when I depended on Krishna,prayed to Him, and wonderful things happened, all became favourable, all was a success.But now when I do something for myself, not for service to Krishna, often I am shy to pray about a success of my egoistic business and then I use own mistical "sidhas".
Therefore I am inspired very much by this devotee who binds all his affairs,even egoistic, with Divine.

[harsi]

I would say it is your "birthright" to be "egoistic" in this way. Who should be otherwise for you "egoistic" in this way. Should or would you like to be allways "dependant" for your maintanance in this world on someone else. We are a part and parcel of the Divinity and thus are entrusted in full right with his divine posibilities and qualities to be used for our well-being. The problem starts if we dont allow or give this posibility also to the other members of our community and only want more for ourself. Thus we become exploitive beings, thats the problem, not that we can or want to use our God given posibilitis in life for our own well-being.
That is my understanding "to bind" all our affairs or how Hari said in his last lecture "to allign" our well-being, and that of all others we are connected with in this world, to the well-being of the Divine.

[harsi]

I was mentioning Krishna as "a historical personality" refering to him as being described in books which tell the complete history of the vedic culture of the past like the Mahabharata or the Srimad Bhagavatam. That does not mean in any way that he could not be considered as some people do, I personally also, to be "the Supreme Personality of Godhead". I only wanted to mention that that is a personal faith, which belongs in the realm of religion. Again I dont want to say anything against religion, I am personally a religious person, at least I consider myself as such. But than again I must admit that there are many religious beliefs in this world. I cannot and should not say that one religious faith is in any way better than my religious faith. Why should it be in this way? There is no reason whatsoever that God or the Divine cannot or has not revealed himself or itself in the past or now in some other way known or not known to me or us.

I can well understand what you are mentioning with feeling happy while on "Sankirtan" alhough this term is again a typically wrong used term from our ISKCON days. Sankirtan or Samkirtan actuallly means only to chant or sing the names of the Lord in the congregation of those favorable or who are devoted to Him. Community singing or congregational chanting of the holy names of the Lord. When I think back many things which we were following or considering as valuable in our ISKCON days are concepts used or considered in a somehow wrong way, or typically ISKCON-style way.

The most personal experiences I made with feeling the Divinity or Krishna to be on my side or me as feeling "aligned" to the Divine, was when I decidet back in the beginning of the year 1990 to spread the knowledge about him to the people of my homeland Romania. In December of 1989 I was listening on my radio the news from Radio Free Europe about the revolution against the Communist dictatorship in Romania and how all ended. That was a great inspiration for me which inspired me to travel to Romania to see the posibilities of "spreading the Krishna Consciousness Movement" as I considered it than, to the people of my homeland. I emigrated in 1975 with my parents and my other brother and sisters from Romania to Germany.

So I put my harmonium in my car, took a few books I had collected over the years in English and French to be given to interested people I may meet in that country. Filled my siutcase, took my sleeping bag and a few other things and told my temple president from the Nrsimhadeva temple I was living at that time that I travel for a few days to Romania. Interestingly the first person I met in Bukarest on the street, at the place in the center of the town were many people got shot during the revolution there, was someone who invited me to stay in his apartment that night. I accepted and we were traveling with my car together to were he was living. It was a young man like me who told me how he also participated in street demonstrations against the Communist regime and that he was a eyewitness of how someone near him got shot by the security police at that night. Interestingly in his home while looking through his bookshelf in his room I found a Russian translation of Sri Ishopanishad. He told me that he was buying it on one of his visits to Kishinew, now Moldova Republic.

We were discussing a lot that night until we went to sleep, he also told me about one of his friend who is practicing yoga. The next day he called his friend and arranged a meeting with him. His friend was a member of a secret comunity of people who were practicing hatha yoga and were interested in Indian philosophy in Bukarest and in many other locations of Romania. It was a society and a spiritual practice forbidden during the Communist time. This man considered it to be a message or arrangement of the Divine that we met a few days after the fall of the Communist regime, it was the beginning of January 1990 I was there, two weeks after the Romanian revolution, and at that day he was calling some of his closer friends of his society and organized a meeting in one of their home.

We became close friends during the few days I was staying there and we organized a few month later in 12 town halls all over Romania a concert where many devotees from Germany came to participate in, the way it was also in Russia. There was also a multivision show involved with slides about India which Krishna Prema's wife was showing. Krishna Prema (Paulo Tofani) from Italy was astonishing everyone with his great expertise in playing his electric guitar at our shows on stage. I was involved in speaking to the audiance in the Romanian language and was translating Suhotra Swami's speech. The music concerts were a great succes attendet by many thousands of people where I made many more contacts with people all over the country which helped me later to start and found the Romanian ISKCON branch in a big house and property I was buying for that purpose in the town of Timisoara, where the Romanian Revolution began in December 1989. But that is another interesting or how we used to say before "transcendental story".

What I want to say by this is that indeed it is so that if you "align" your desires also in some way with the desires of the Divine, the Supreme, there is a great chance that your dreams become also fulfilled. Of course if one is identifying oneself only with a certain society of people and forgets about ones own independent needs and the needs of ones own family thats also not the way it should be in my opinion. So the best is I would say to find a way of ones own whereby one can fullfill as well the needs of oneself and those of the community of people one is in connection with.

[Nanda-grama]

I think all was so magicly on sankirtana not because our desires coincided with God's desires( I am not sure that God interested the sale of books) but because we thought that our activity was absolutely spiritual, and we desperately called God in our life. Now we think -my business is only my business, it is not interestingly for God, and we have not this confidence to ask God about help. Otherwise really would can we have some failures?
It seems to me when in "karma-yoga" it is necessary to offer all results of our work to Gog-it is a ruse for mind because so a man thinks that by this way he spiritualizes his material activity and begins to have his right to take God's blessings.
If we would can think that all that we do is uniquely, very importantly, spiritually and interestingly for God because we are unique, spiritual and interesting for God, we would can connect all in our life with God, and this magic would be present in our life again!
I have the conviction that when we do something connected with our talents and with what who we are and we fulfil our vocation, we can not worry about money because the universe will take care of us.

[Devendra]

Dear Harsi, I wish to express you my sincere respect! You have an extraordinairy pedagogical qualification. Nice example to follow. I suppose that you have big experience to work with ... children. Thank you!

[Sita]

Dear Devendra,
Having read what you wrote above I could not help but express my disappointment with your conclusion on the theme of the topic.
If the opponent is not an expert in the language she uses to state what she has does not make her in any way childish. And if you could conclude otherwise I believe you were not quite impartial and open-minded in your judgment. And this forum in my opinion is not the right places for efforts to prove any of its members is less personally competent any other.
IMHO

[harsi]

The way the comment was formulated by Devendra could indeed give rise to some misunderstandigs for the reader, what may not be in his intention. I appreciate that he took some notice of what I wrote. I am actually not a very educated person, I mean I didn't went to any high school or university, I have just the normal school education and learnd a handicraft proffesion I still try to work today for my families maintanance. My inteligence and intelectual abilities are in this regard somehow limited, but I would say I have a good common sense and a logical thinking and try to apply it in my life and in commenting on this forum.

[Nanda-grama]

I think, Devendra wanted to say something nice but simply expressed it not very good