1312: Our Heaviest Burdens are the Thoughts in Our Heads
Release Date: 05/10/2024
1333: Q & A Volume 227
Wisdom of the Sages
I want to be initiated into the path of Bhakti but I struggle to chant the required 16 rounds per day, so I feel guilty - can you please share some advice? / How can I keep myself and my daughter on the path of Bhakti when we live far away from other devotees? / Can you explain the analogy from Srimad Bhagavatam - that when one’s face is decorated, the reflection of one’s face in a mirror is also decorated? Check out our new website at
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1332: The Courage to Lead a Spiritual Life
Wisdom of the Sages
It does not matter that you are in the material world - so long as you stay connected through hearing spiritual content / St. Francis’s counterintuitive formula for life / the courage to lead a spiritual life / St. Francis gets naked / your net worth is your spirit to contribute / by bringing your awareness to the purity of a devotee's love, our own awareness is purified / decorating oneself with the qualities of patience, tolerance, and kindness, etc. / devotees purify all places SB 7.10.13-22
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1331: The Loss of Our Spiritual Identity
Wisdom of the Sages
Thomas Merton on climbing the ladder of success / analyze what your win is before you start the hustle / in a generation or two we will be forgotten / the Bhakti-yogi’s goal is a pure, soft heart / accepting that we are both very close and very far from the goal / “As soon as we have material desires, we lose our spiritual identity.” - Bhaktivedanta Swami / even as we live in the material world, by regularly hearing the sacred texts, our hearts and minds remain absorbed in spirit SB 7.10.8-12
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1330: An Exposition on the Nature of Pure Love
Wisdom of the Sages
Can there be competition on the spiritual platform? / can there be fear on the spiritual platform? / “Your problem is that you are not afraid enough of maya” A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami / by contemplating the objects of the senses ……. / 2 types of perfected Bhakti Yogis - the eternally perfect and those who achieve perfection through practice / “love” desiring material benefit in exchange for their devotional service is no better than a merchant / a “master” who bestows benedictions motivated by a desire for prestigious is just as bad / filtering out all the impurities that...
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1329: Bhakti Yoga is an Internal Beauty Routine
Wisdom of the Sages
"Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart." - Kahlil Gibran / if external beauty is our currency, the market is gonna crash / for the Bhakti-yogi - the primary concern is the quality of their own heart / somehow, winning the lottery doesn’t buy happiness / one can reframe life’s struggle and pain as a purification of the heart / if we lean into Bhakti (and focused on the internal work) we could solve the world’s problems / religion doesn’t cause war - but the superficial understanding of it does / you’ve gotta start working on not being a dirty old man when you’re...
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1328: An Arrow Sharpened by Constant Meditation
Wisdom of the Sages
It’s not ALL about the journey - there is a goal to yoga / OM is the bow; the self is the arrow; God is said to the target / Marcus Aurelius on having a purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward / when Raghu received the pretentious “Do less” instruction / Bhagavad-gita showed how to focus all of your worldly responsibilities as part of your spiritual goal / the hodgepodge lodge of spirituality / the relative value of silence, vows, study, austerities, duties, mantras, etc. / spiritual posers / all becomes revealed through love and service SB 7.9.46-51
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1327: Q & A Volume 226
Wisdom of the Sages
Where does desire reside, in the mind or in the self? / Is everything Krishna’s grace, or are there pockets of free will where His Grace doesn’t penetrate? / How to give life advice to someone who is resistant? / How to keep an elevated mind when experiencing chronic pain? / How to make my life an offering?
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1326: Q & A Volume 225
Wisdom of the Sages
How can I learn tolerance and not get upset with people? / What should I keep in mind when raising my children? / How to explain my Bhakti practice to people who don’t like the fact that I have changed?
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1325: Your Senses Have Their Own Agenda
Wisdom of the Sages
“Caught in that sensual music all neglect, Monuments of unageing intellect.” – William Butler Yeats / all the great wisdom traditions were able to recognize the inability for sense gratification to deliver happiness / the devotee has one optimistic eye and one pessimistic eye / your senses have their own agenda for you / Prahlad doesn’t want to be delivered alone / sex desire is like an itch - the more you scratch it the more it itches SB 7.9.40-45
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1324: A Love Supreme
Wisdom of the Sages
John Coltrane – “God breathes through us so completely, so gently we hardly feel it, yet, it is our everything.” / spirituality starts as a vague intuition there’s more / Coltrane’s symbolism of Divine love in all 12 keys / the greatest secret of the sacred text - there is a person behind everything and He can be connected to through love / Vishnu as the soul of the universe / the universe manifests as a tree grows from a seed / Brahma meditates and discovers God spread throughout his own body and senses / Little Prahlad drops the universal manual in our laps! SB 7.9.32-38
info_outlinethe burdens of hate and resentment / “Some of the worst things in my life never even happened” - Mark Twain / the attractiveness of the unburdened / Bhagavatam juxtaposes the burdened and the unburdened / Brahma expresses wonder / brahma gives credit for creation to Vishnu / Shiva gives credit for destruction to Vishnu / Indra’s prayer and lamentation of mixed devotion / Vishnu dissipates the gloom in our hearts / austerity can bring about creative power and lucid thought / The forefathers were burdened with concerned about sacrifice / The siddha yogis were concerned about their mystic abilities being restored / The Vidyādharas were concerned about the knowledge they attain through meditation
SB 7.8.40-46