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EDITORIAL  About the AuthorOther Stories by this Author Ceto Darpana Marjanam: Cleaning At Ter Kadamba BY MAHAVEGAVATI DASI EDITORIAL, Aug 3 (VNN) — Ter Kadamba is one of the (most beautiful) bhajan kutirs of Srila Rupa Goswami. Situated in Nandagoan, it is a very secluded and peaceful place, most conducive for doing bhajan. Practically speaking, one is transported to a different realm when s/he goes to Ter Kadamba, where there is no sound of beeping horns from cars, trucks, rickshaws, etc. There are no dogs, screaming children or anything of that nature. Other than the resident animals, natural to the habitat there, and the resident sannyasi who renders service there, sometimes there are visiting individual sadhus who come for darshan and sometimes some groups of devotees. Ter Kadamba is surrounded by many gorgeous trees, so quiet a setting. There are two beautiful kundas as well. Srila Rupa Goswami used to stay here to write and chant, (and one can easily see WHY Ter Kadamba is such a place so conducive for this). I don't see how anyone could not appreciate such a beautiful and secluded place for bhajan. Even for a neophyte like me, one can just FEEL the atmosphere. Sadly, due to the influences of Kali Yuga - one of them being environmental pollution - the two kunjas at Ter Kadamba are becoming infested and strangulated with a specific type of green weed. I may be wrong, but as it was explained to me, there is some bacteria (green in color) which has come to reside in the kunda, and because of the increase in the use of unnatural pesticides, the nitrogen content in the air has increased. These green entities in the kundas absorb the nitrogen, and this increased absorbtion of nitrogen in turn causes a gigantic increase in the size of these green entities. With so many of these minute green entities in the water growing to such extreme proportions, (extremely large in comparison to what their normal size is supposed to be), the kunjas end up becoming completely (totally) covered by these green things, and are prevented from getting the necessary ingredients for them to maintain their water level. Thus, they eventually become strangled, and the water will dry up. If these weeds are allowed to continue to grow and multiply, eventually the ponds can go completely dry. (Sorry, I am not a scientist. I don't know the technical scientific terminology for this phenomenon. We will have to go to Damodar Svarup Goswami or Sadaputa prabhu, or any other scientist who knows to get this term.) Cleaning up at Ter Kadamba Starting out at 5:00am a group of devotees consisting of Bhaktivedanta Paramahamsa Maharaj, Bhaktivedanta Sridhar Maharaj, Patita Pavana das Adhikari prabhu, his wife, Jaya Sri Mataji, Mother Radha Kunda, and I, Mahavegavati Dasi, went by car to Ter Kadamba to begin our service of cleaning up the kundas at Ter Kadamba. This was done at the request of Srila Bhakti Alok Paramadvaiti Maharaj, the founder of VRINDA. (I must say, if someone had seen all of who was on the crew, they MIGHT have laughed at SOME of us.) When we arrived at Ter Kadamba, after paying our pranams to Srila Rupa Goswami, we first took prasadam, honoring that particular rupa of Krsna which nourishes both the soul and body. Immediately after pradadam, Paramahamsa Maharaj, Sridhar Maharaj, Patita Pavana prabhu and I started making a "net" with bamboo, wire, and metal (window) screen material. Paramahamsa Maharaj, Sridhar Maharaj, Patita Pavana prabhu, and I then entered into the kunda. I cannot describe what the bottom of the kunda felt like. I have never felt the bottom of a lake feel like that. It was as if it was ethereal, bottomless, almost not solid, and ? well - just INdescribable. (25% love potion, 25% THICK molasses and/or honey, and 57 1/2@ of I don't know.) I wasn't sure if I was going to be absorbed into the bottom and merge with it - never to be seen in this body again - or if I was going to be able to come out of that Kunda the same way I started. It was of a phenomenon of its own. Mother Radha Kunda, (NO intention of rasa-bhasa here), who is a little bit of an 'older' mataji, (being a kunda all of her own), sat on the bank chanting; she didn't want to get her feet wet. (I think she came along to chant to us to inspire us, although she did tell me later, "I just wanted to get a darshan of Ter Kadamba. I didn't know that we were coming here to clean the kundas.") The four of us were in the kunda scooping by arm and gathering by hand those green things, picking them out, and putting them into the ONE basket that we had brought. Mother Jaya Sri would take the full basket and then dump the green things on the side of the kunda. Then I got the (brilliant) idea to just scoop up the green things with the basket. That worked a lot more efficiently. (Hey, sometimes we women DO have some intelligence. After all, Krsna says that HE is the INTELLIGENCE in women.) Actually, there were SO MANY (as if endless) green things in the kunda - and then we realized that there was a second kunda as well - our effort to clean the kunda of those green things was like the sparrow trying to drink up the ocean, but we continued on until evening set in, remembering Krsna's Garuda. One basket not being efficient enough for us to make too much progress, Paramahamsa Maharaj told Radha Kunda Mataji to go with the driver to purchase more baskets. After searching throughout the whole market, they were only able to come up with one basket, which they purchased from a potato seller, who charged them at least four times the price of what the basket should have cost. (But what could be done? When you need a basket, you NEED a basket. And when you are White-skinned in India, the price can go up at least four times, plus there is the body tax included as well.) By this time things had become coordinated down to an art. Sridhar Maharaj and Patita Pavana were straining the lake by walking in different directions capturing the green things into the net that we had made. Then when they had gathered so many of these things into the net, Paramahamsa Maharaj, Jaya Sri Mataji and I would gather the trapped green things and put them into the baskets and then dump the baskets. At one point the driver seeing our efforts decided that he also wanted to become a part of the endeavor, (or I should say fun, because we were having fun), so he joined us as well. With the extra helping hand of the driver, we reorganized things a little. Sridhar Maharaj and Patita Pavana were still trapping the green things in the net, Paramahamsa Maharaj and the driver would fill the baskets, and Mother Jaya Sri and I would dump the baskets. At around 2:00pm we decided to take lunch prasadam. (The sun is also quite strong at that time, so we needed a break.) After that some of us either chanted japa, or took some rest. Then at 4:00pm the service began again until the sun went down and darkness started setting in. By evening we felt very exhusted due to the physical nature of the service - some of us being above the age of 45 as well, and NOT having those Dvarapa Yuga bodies. At the same time, we also felt very elated after performing this service. Such a wonderful opportunity to serve Srila Rupa Goswami directly at His bhajan kutir, and to serve the Vaisnavas who go to take darshan of Ter Kadamba. Indirectly (or directly), the cleaning of the kundas also serves to cleanse one's heart: Ceto darpana marjanam... Due to there being only six of us (including the driver) and without upgraded facilities which could have made the service easier, although we could hardly put a dent into the "infinity" of the task which, even with more devotees would have been a gargantiun task considering how these kundas have been overtaken with these green things, we felt a sense of accomplishment for the service which we had just performed. (Feeling that sense of accomplishment was not material. It was one of those feelings that a devotee perceives is coming from Krsna when Krsna is pleased with a service rendered.) I am sure that Krsna was pleased with our service, not only due to the service effort itself, but also due to the fact that different devotees initiated by different spiritual masters, could come together and serve in such a cooperative spirit so cohisively to get a task done for Guru, Krsna's and Vaisnavas' pleasure, and that they could accomplish that goal WITHOUT those "extras" that can often enough come along with the neophyte devotee consciousness - guru bashing, guru "comparing" - "my guru is better than your guru" (even to the point of TRYING to PUSH one's guru down another devotee's throat (heart) - etc. Sadly in this day and age, due to our being so young and immature (neophyte in nature), there exists this secular mentality, "My Guru is better than your Guru," (or, "My institution is better than your institution") the "I, me and mine" idea, but in another cloaked form. In so many ways Maya can enter (and has entered) so strongly into the various devotee sangas, disguised in what may SEEM to be a spiritual form. Ultimately there is only ONE Guru, but he appears in a variety of forms, and the Guru is teaching us how to develop love, surrender to, and render service to Krsna and His devotees. Ultimately there is only one sanga; that association which is guiding to the lotus feet of Radha Krsna and Their devotees. Krsna is not looking at the material magnitude of external service and our material abilities, but He measures our service by our internal love and surrender. Lord Ramacandra told Hanuman that He equated the service of the spider to be equal to that of Hanuman, this calculation being based on love because their love was equal despite the difference that existed in the externals. Foolishly we so often pass our judgment on other devotees seeing only the externals and using only material criteria to judge them, and due to this foolishness, we make so many mistakes in our assessment of such devotees, and inadvertently we often end up denying ourselves that association with these devotees which MAY be able to uplift us. Krsna Himself sent Uddhava to Vrndavan to deliver a message. Although that was one of the purposes for sending Uddhava, Krsna's OTHER purpose was so that Uddhava, who being a disciple of Brhaspati was so learned in all of the sastras, etc., could learn from the Gopis and residents of Vrndavan the essence of pure bhakti. Uddhava's bhakti was mixed with jnana and Uddhava also had some pride. Uddhava seeing the unmixed love for Krsna possessed by the residents of Vrndavan, especially that of the Gopis, Uddhava felt ashamed of his bhakti mixed with jnana, and he prayed that somehow, he should be able to get the dust from the Lotus Feet of the gopis. Thus, Uddhava prayed to become a blade of grass, or a creeper in the forests of Vrndavan, so that when the Gopis, in separation from Krsna would run crying through the forests, he would be in a place where their Lotus Feet could touch him, so that he could be a recipient of that mercy. Srila Prabhupada (Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj) was with a disciple one day when many of the ISKCON sannyasis returned from a morning walk. The disciple told Srila Prabhupada, "Oh Srila Prabhupada, look; here come the advanced devotees!" Srila Prabhupada replied, "They are not the advanced devotees. THIS is the advanced devotee," and Srila Prabhupada pointed to one devotee who was humbly sweeping along the side. In order to be effective servants for the mission of carrying out Lord Caitanya's desires, we must give up all of our misconceptions, pride, bodily hangups, and anything else which contributes to that mentality that keeps one separated from the Vrndavan mood. Lord Caitanya's movement is meant to go to every town and village, and even throughout the universe. SOMEHOW we must put aside ALL of our bodily MISconceptions, recognising ourselves as part of the SAME family, and come together under the phenomenally (unconquerable) STRONG banner of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, as did His bhaktas so many hundreds of years ago did, for the sankirtan movement. Thus, the desire of Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu can be fulfilled, and our Guru Varga, going all the way to Radha and Krsna will be MOST happy. I would also suggest that if anyone is thinking that they would like to render a service to Sri Vrndavan Dham one possibility to consider is this service to Ter Kadamba - cleaning out the kundas - which is a very important bhajan kutir of Srila Rupa Goswami. The wonderfulness of this service in so many ways, can not be described, and the pujari there welcomes devotees who want to come to render service. Of course there are SO MANY (practically UNlimited) services that one can render in Vrndavan, but maybe not so many devotees are aware of this one, and it CAN be VERY ECSTATIC, (and very effectively accomplished) especially when done in a big group. Param vijayate sankirtanam. I remain your servant, Mahavegavati Dasi Hare Krsna About the Author Other Stories by this AuthorContact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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