Realization of the day 9

"You're gorgeous, jump in the back here with me" the pretty little blond Irish girl said from the back of the Audi. "Come on I won't tell anyone, I'll make it fun" she continued undeterred by the fact that I was a monk. Then came a flurry of rather obscene suggestions which I dully laughed at and gave my presentation of a Reservoir of Pleasure to her. She took the book as did the other 2 people in the car and they all gave a donation. I said goodbye, she gave her lusty advances one last go and when I declined she waved farewell with a rather bemused look on her face. That had probably never happened to her before.

It's quite funny because before I became a monk these things never happened to me.

13 years ago I would have jumped at the chance, my uncontrolled senses going into overdrive. But now the illusory nature of lust no longer has such a strong hold over me. Due to association with Krishna Consciousness I have come to realize that the enjoyable yet temporary pleasure of sex just isn't as attractive as a good few hours of kirtan (chanting with live music).

Yet the material energy still tries to tempt me away, she knows my mind is fickle so she will never give up. Thankfully I also know my mind is fickle and so does Krishna and that is why I became a monk, to be in a atmosphere that promotes spiritual enjoyment and progression, with like minded people experiencing a higher pleasure. Just like the Irish girl at Creamfields was going to associate with 50,000 other ravers to get what she was looking for, so should we. If we are looking for spiritual happiness we won't get it by association with materialistic people, we have to search out the company of the saintly persons who can give us a higher, more satisfying happiness than anything the material energy (Maya) can offer us. Then in that association we will become spiritually strong, resolute on our path of devotion towards God.

Lastly for today I have to apologize for not posting anything for a few days. I have been having some problems with posting to this blog from my Blackberry, which is the only way that I can when I am not at the Temple. These problems have now been sorted out and I will be leaving Vodafone as soon as I can :)

Realization of the day 8 ??

Laughter really is the best medicine ................ ( After chanting of course)
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Realization of the day

Today was a very windy day and because of this I noticed a wide varity of clouds. Sounds a little Forest Gump I know. But what I find amazing about clouds is the fact that they can hold tons of water yet float in the sky for 100's of miles, truly amazing. Krishna has designed things so perfectly, where is the fault in a cloud. And if this sounds a little hippie-ish, sorry but its late and I've had a very long and tiring day. Off to Oxford tomorrow, always nice.
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Realization of the day 6

I know most days I tend to have a very subjective view on life. In other words I tend to see everything and how it relates to me, is this activity, conversation, food etc pleasing to me. Is it what I want. This way we guarantee that we are happy, don't we?

Most of the time I am thinking why people aren't taking my feelings into account when they do things, why aren't they thinking of me. Me, me, me.

Have you noticed that when we have a objective outlook then we tend to be a bit more peaceful.

We understand more where people are coming from and our daily relationships improve.

so next time I get caught up in my own world and how everything relates to me I think I will try harder to put myself in others shoes and be a little less selfish. Then I might actually be able to get that little bit closer to dealing with God (Krishna) in a more personal manner as well.

Realization of the day 5

I don't know if this counts as a blog or a tweet or what ????

Any way it is very hard to pray with any depth of sincerity when you are knackered.

Realization of the day 4

Very late at V festival; its an oldie but a goodie; Never judge a book by it's cover!!!! ( Especially 'Krishna Consciousness ones)
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Realization of the day 3

Phew late night, just got to Chelmsford in Essex. - was going to try and post this in the van on the way here but it was tooo shakey. Which was a shame as I was stuck on the M25 along with a multitude of other people and I realized that most of the cars around us were very nice. Then I wondered how many of these people in these nice cars do this journey every day. Stuck on the motorway for hours everyday in a vain attempt to make the material situation thay are in better. In fact I would think being on the M25 every day would make me want to give up material life. How many hours must be wasted just sitting in a car going nowhere fast???? Isn't this a tragedy all those hours in a life time that could've been used for spiritual realization gone, never to return. I wonder how much of my precious time I waste???
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Realization of the day

Todays is a short one.
Its funny how we think everything around us should run to our plan. How upset do we get when it doesn't?? Funny how karma hits us and we don't have any choice in it at all :)
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Prema's Daily Realization's Part 1

Ok so I've actually made the first one of what's going to be a 2 week, daily post. Some of these posts are simply going to be brief thoughts and some more full comments, I can't pretend that they will all be that lucid as some of them will be posted while I'm at V festival, Reading and Creamfields and some just typed as I think. Normally I would spend a little time on what I write but due to the tight schedule that I have given my self....... I guess we'll see.

On with the daily thought/realization/whatever it is.

Today I was speaking with an old friend who was celebrating his 30th birthday, I've know him since he was 17 and have seen him go through many changes in his life. He's one of these people who have never settled but keep coming back to the same place. In other words he hasn't realized what it is that he wants out of life. Now he's 30 and is starting to worry, he's realizing that he's getting older that he is no longer a young man, times passing and he still "hasn't figured it out".

This I thought is the same for all of us no matter what age we are. If we look around ourselves we can see such a diversity of people all trying to make statements about who we are and what we are about, by the clothes we wear, the music we like, the films we watch, teams we support etc etc. Aren't we all searching for that elusive feeling of lasting peace and happiness, isn't this the real reason that we put labels on ourselves, so that we can finally fit in with someone, be able to relate to some one and have them understand us. Unfortunately no matter how hard we try we are never going to get this from the material world. we can try for lifetimes but we will never feel at home here because as the Bhagavad Gita informs us " we are spirit souls" and the material world is not our home it is not our natural environment. I thought to myself how lucky I am that I have found such a deep path of devotion towards God, then just as quickly I thought I too am getting older am I really taking full advantage of this priceless jewel that is Bhakti (devotional service). I realized that I haven't, I have become far to comfortable in my routine Krishna Consciousness. So I have my friends impending midlife crisis to thank for showing me that life is short and if we really want to make the most of it we have to start right now by making the most of our spiritual nature not our material.

Writers block mmm

This started about 2 weeks ago. I fell out of our van and landed unceremoniously on my backside.

unfortunately I also tore a tendon in my ankle and ripped up some muscle tissue. This left me pretty much doing nothing for about a week. Great I thought, now I have loads of time for so many things including putting some needed attention into this blog. This didn't happen. I read a lot and chanted a lot but when it came down to writing nothing was there. I began to think about what I could write and found everything contrived and lacking in honesty. Days have turned into weeks and I have been thinking more and more about why I have had nothing to say. I have been busy so there should be loads to comment on, but no. Nothing.

This morning I realized why.

I have said before so many times, that spiritual life is based on an internal dialog, not the external activities. This is why I have had nothing to say for nearly a month, because I fell into the very common trap of performing devotion service with a mechanical mentality. Just performing activities externally. It made me realize we always have to be vigilant with our spiritual practices, always be aware of how our consciousness is, how we are praying. Are we really making our relationship with Krishna (God) our priority or has it become just another thing in our life. Do we feel that at the end of each day we have made some progress towards our goal of self realization?

With this in mind I am going to spend the next 2 weeks writing about my daily realizations, you could call it a " how have I become closer to Krishna today" column. I haven't decided yet whether to post it every day or collect daily tweets on the subject and post those weekly. I guess we'll find out tomorrow.