A Seed of Bhakti-lata

BY: HARAKUMARA DASA

Oct 30, TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA (SUN) —

A seedling cracking concrete
which eye-sore cumbers the earth:
breaking up to sky blue light
to bathe warm in solar mirth.

A seedling cracking concrete
which burdens heavy the earth:
breaking down to dark earth moist
to bathe cool in rooted mirth.

An empire of cracked concrete--
wide sea smothering the earth:
heliotrope, a small seed,
divides its oppressive girth.

A seed seeking sun on high,
furrowed under blazing heat--
meridian daily nigh,
ever cracking the concrete.

A lake of fire-hot concrete,
by man's will Soulless ensconced,
the living earth to bury--
rock-hard, dead, steel-reinforced.

A seed of life from on high,
falling tiny from the branch,
passing over nature's way,
planting in one stony trench.

A seed of truth from above,
emanated from the tree,
growing meet by nature's way--
Intelligence shown concrete'.

A forest stand of concrete,
by man's will passionate tall,
tow'ring over nature's way,
answering the senses' call.

A forest grove of towers,
by nature's passion-mode tall,
bearing karma's fruits/flowers,
to those below show the wall.

A grove full of goods concrete
flashing pictured on the walls...
moving human psyches deep
to answer the sirens' calls.

Airwaves daily broadcast seeds,
with gold-harvesting intent:
people spending... to cast free'--
"manufacturing consent".

A new media matrix
extends senses of mankind,
but engineers eyes and ears--
mold-controls the Godless mind.

A thousand points of light...
focus-grasping pictures seen:
moving mind by mirrored sight...
pixelated on a screen.

A spectrum of vibration
sways the human mind around,
with mental speculation
riding chariots of sound.

A new group of gods concrete
pictured sounding on the screens,
moving men to spend their ken
and work, live per Godless creeds.

A galaxy of stars rise
the nightly sky, turning men--
twinkling in the dark likewise
in the social firmament.

Airwaves daily vibrate words
worldly worth to gain, to hear--
conditioning human herds
to Godless' run to death here.

A new mass of herded men
runs for money in the strife,
but ‘what good the world to gain
and to lose eternal life?'

‘Abandoning eternal
for mortal,' Kautilya quoth,
‘one loses the eternal
and the temporary-- both.'

Attracted by sense pleasure,
men moil, toil, ‘enjoy', decease--
forgetting the real treasure
of the Source of bliss and peace.

A world awash: ‘Maya'-sounds
the forgetful condition;
‘Krsna'-- transcendental sound
saves jivas from perdition.

A worldly person listens
to Maya's whispers, ‘self' to please--
the body under pressures
of three/four-fold miseries.

A world appears so sweetly,
promises ‘senses to please'...
but torments souls completely
with birth, death, old age, disease.

A world appears concretely,
comely to the common man,
but disappears so fleetly--
Maya's ‘flash within the pan'.

Absolute is a Person--
Krsna, shining like the sun:
outside His World, illusion
dark acts in cosmos golden.

A man can't serve God and gold--
one must choose between the two;
endless war to grasp the gold
forces a demonic view.

A demon theorizes:
world's unreal, no God amid;
it's violence for prizes--
life is just a pyramid.

Aloft in power structures
standing over all the lands,
Godless rich in high tension
move men on with hidden hands.

A line of powered structures,
higher up from urban need,
along the lines grid-structured,
from mundane desire-- the seed.

Aloft with information
high in electric towers...
wanding dissemination
with people-minding powers.

A network electronic,
logic laid in maps concrete;
goals divine or demonic,
knowledge sped in bits discrete.

Aloft with digitation,
high on electric powers;
the demonic plan to get
it done in these final hours.

A net of monied nexus...
lies snaking over the land:
bank-button-pushing puissance
pushes hard the common man.

A banking speculation
(mysterious, like a fog)
and social peculation
let them roll ‘high on the hog'.

A forest of cracked concrete
and steel towers lighted all,
growing greedy for the height...
as if they would never fall.

Arising even higher
for the universe to see;
foundations ever deeper
in concrete iniquity.

A stand of concrete towers
against heaven rising tall,
proudly facing karma's wind--
"pride goeth before a fall".

An age past saw proud tower
the city Godless built tall:
‘reach heaven just with power'...
‘Lightning struck'-- proud left to fall.

A man can't reach to heaven,
for God lacking sacrifice;
redoing Babel's tower
in concrete will not suffice.

Aglory in the heavens--
Sun in splendid eminence:
one could stack lakhs of towers
in one solar prominence.

Arising ‘cross the heavens,
techno-man Nature attacks:
from seed to Sun aheaving,
he high beats with wings of wax.

Amid Moon and Sun, man's reach...
depending on Nature's facts;
but if he would Godless be,
man's proud works will melt like wax.

An empire rose o'er this plane,
‘mandate of heaven' onside:
like the Moon to wax (then wane)--
pulled in time the human tide.

A realm rose to Sun-like height,
first with God's favor crowned... then
sinful, fell from worldly sight:
"what goes up must come down"-- end.

Archetypal themes return,
‘though heedless men their minds close:
‘repeat history not learned'--
"plus ca change, c'est la meme chose".

Arising daily, setting...
the sun golden coursing round
takes away the lives of those
who, Godless, are earth-bound.

Arising daily, going...
masses run for work and bread:
Lord of the heart ignoring--
classes steer them by the head.

An info-system ‘wooly'
classes of the ‘know' control:
media monopoly--
‘we decide what you should know'.

A propaganda network
says to all: ‘there is no God'--
fools agree to play and work
‘til they die just like a dog.

A medic-oligarchy
says: ‘it's safe, just take a shot'--
no truth, yet they crave to keep
them paying... ‘sick as a dog'.

A presuming mass of men
elects government on high--
megarich-run regimen
rules, above their social sky.

A spin-deceived mass of men
is lied to in ev'ry way:
far from Krsna in their ken,
thinking that they have a say.

An exploited mass of men
is recycled ev'ry day:
plutocratic regimen--
it's the poor that have to pay.

A ‘rat-race' grand for profit
run by ‘kali-yuga's kings'--
service to Krsna's ‘prophet'
extricates their underlings.

A rat-racing commotion
runs the Godless ‘round in rings
of ‘rajas-tamas' motion
where the senses are the kings.

Amoving roads of concrete
moving men from here to there;
ditch-bound lanes, with signs replete,
conducting souls to nowhere.

A man counts himself lucky,
getting home without a hitch;
his roaming senses to enjoy--
but life's gone within a ditch.

A householder may not think
‘self unlucky in his ‘hitch';
lacking God, in Maya's ‘clink',
he's listening to a witch.

A fool, in his vacant heart,
thinks the lie: ‘there is no God'--
his mind and senses straying,
he struggles toward the sod.

Areaching for the heavens
in the way that he conceives,
seeking bodily pleasures--
but his mortal body leaves.

An abode is the body
entered by the spirit-soul:
‘we are not mortal bodies'--
but parts of God, Who's the goal.

Agnostic education
does not teach about the soul:
matter-orientation--
losing Visnu as the goal.

Acyuta, God, gives signs seen--
His servants, His books as well:
souls from matter to glean, wean,
help Home... far from heaven/hell.

Atheists spurn concrete signs
as they spin their Godless pitch;
fools follow them, lacking sense--
"blind leads blind into the ditch".

A social body four parts
(sage head, arms, torso, legs) hath:
not head-wise led-- Truth departs...
unGodly sped-- falls off the path.

A Godless society
is really rather scary...
the wise see consequences,
of spin and lies are chary.

Always Truth-- ‘truths' are tried
by Truth... ‘sage thinkers follow';
now's not the time: any lie
to ‘hook, line, sinker' swallow.

A season for ev'rything,
a time for ev'ry purpose
under heaven-- any time's
perfect: ‘Prema' to ‘purchase'.

Apart from ‘bhakti' concrete,
service to Guru and God,
all action is incomplete--
often fit for Yama's rod.

Apart from Visnu's service,
all karma to bondage leads,
if acts be virtue or vice--
only bhakti freedom seeds.

A ‘Visnu-bhakta' working,
giving results, serving God:
no work-reactions lurking--
ever free from Yama's rod.

A non-devotee working
is entangled in his craft:
motivated for himself--
actions after do react.

A sinful person acting
is bound by his cosmic crime;
the law of God forgetting,
souls come back to do the time.

Atangled in their karma,
souls return embodied new:
struggling hard for ‘good or bad'--
is it really deja vu?

Around their daily orbit,
humans sleep-wake like the sun;
souls revolve through death to birth:
live here-- down to death again.

A soul having gone through death
is sure to again take birth:
corpse is buried in the heath--
soul moves on for mundane worth.

A soul having taken birth
is sure to bow down to death--
transmigrating due to ‘thirst'
and Krsna-consciousness dearth.

A catenation karmic...
jivas lifetimes undergo,
within the cycles cosmic:
‘samsara'-- Krsna not known.

Ages turn-- ‘kali-yuga',
sin's time of iron and war:
sinful men, after bhoga,
in this age do sin the more.

Alright, turn-- ‘bhakti-yoga':
hear, and chant Name of Hari,
serve Krsna, offer bhoga,
in Love for God be merry.

Always drowned in Krsna's Love,
says Nityananda Prabhu:
‘chant Krsna, your mind above'--
He's the first Jagad-Guru.

Announcing "bolo krsna" ,
Caitanya Mahaprabhu
saves fallen souls from Maya's
"...asad-yoni-janmasu".

Always tasting Radha's Love,
Caitanya Mahaprabhu:
Krsna gives of Radha's Love
to all-- no restrictive view.

Ateaching to Sri Rupa,
Caitanya Mahaprabhu
spoke: "bhakti-lata-bija" --
highest devotional view.

Ascending speculation
can't perfect, reach up to God;
descending distribution--
perfect knowledge down from God.

Arjuna was sore perplexed--
he did not know what to do;
giving him spirit-knowledge,
Krsna cleared him through and through.

According to their action,
jivas wander up and down:
birth forcing karmic traction
in the cosmos... round and round.

Among this vastest number
of unhappy hapless souls,
meets Guru unencumbered
in God's grace a lucky soul.

A most fortunate jiva,
"guru-krsna-prasade",
gets ‘bhakti-lata-bija'--
devotional creeper's seed.

Attaining Krsna-grace-- Guru,
and Guru-grace gives Krsna:
amazing grace of them both
gives bhakti-creeper's bija.

Afterward, the seed sowing
in the garden of his heart...
the creeper of devotion,
hearing of God, makes a start.

As gardeners water plants
with gentle repetition...
chanting helps bhakti's plant
up, in divine condition.

A soul becomes a gardener:
watering every day
with ‘hearing-chanting' water...
helping seed to sprout away.

A gardener must take care--
elephants outside the fence:
mad elephant tramps in there,
if t'ward Bhakta makes offence.

A stamping of a raging
elephantine pachyderm,
from ‘vaisnavaparadha',
crushes creeper to the germ.

Aparadha at the feet
of Vaisnavas, beyond moot,
breaks lata, dries up leaves,
or the creeper does uproot.

Afencing off offences
diligently all around,
the gardener continues...
bathe the plant in spirit-sound.

Achanting Hare Krsna
(non-different from the Lord)
and hearing Hare Rama
feeds the plant from Prema's store.

Atimes unwanted creepers--
‘upasakhas' of desire,
in the garden-heart creep and
watered nourishment acquire.

"Asankhya" , says Caitanya--
unlimited profusion:
bhukti-mukti-maya wants
put souls into confusion.

A list of detrimental weeds
Caitanya Mahaprabhu
gave for Rupa's writing needs:
such cause bhakti's growth to skew.

Abandoning ev'rything,
Caitanya, God-desirous--
not gold, women, followers,
nor ev'n poetic genius.

Arrested by those creepers,
bhakti-lata struggles on:
they draw away her water--
she'd do well if they were gone.

Afailing to distinguish
sakha/upasakha ‘twixt--
sakha's growth extinguished
‘cause her nourishment is nixed.

A quick-witted devotee,
seeing lata threatened so,
chops off right away the weed,
so she to ‘Vraja' may grow.

Aclearing his garden-heart
of all desires and offence,
‘mula-sakha' growing starts--
bhakti springs inside the fence.

Ahearing and achanting
yet of Krsna's fame and name
perfects the bija's planting--
yet t'ward Vraja, far from lame.

A creeper often shelters
on a tree, but in this case
a spiritual creeper
in this world can find no place.

Aturning back mundane tide,
latas helped with some ‘green thumb'
break through to the other side--
all the way to ‘kingdom come'.

Abounding the ‘brahmanda',
God's cosmos to keep complete--
element-layers surround
(almost like divine concrete).

Ahankara, (to enter)...
subtle mind as well as space,
air, fire, water, earth cover--
tenfold thinner, place by place.

Asoaring ever higher
through the realm of death and birth
(elements with modes flowing),
lata reaches ply one-- earth.

Arising with spirit-force,
ever outward in her quest,
bhakti-lata penetrates
ply-earth and all the rest.

Afed on Krsna-nectar,
‘katha' sweet to ear and mind,
she swims Viraja's water--
leaves the universe behind.

Apassing through this river--
spirit-matter boundary,
she ‘brahma-loka' enters--
spirit-realm, eternity.

Ahigher, ever onward
(‘though beyond all time and space),
she, brahman's effulgence
piercing, enters highest ‘place'.

Aspreading rays of Visnu
in ‘paravyoma' glory
enlighten ev'ry soul's view--
hearing well Krsna's story.

Although gardeners remain
in the material world:
‘ever water ev'ry day'--
bhakti's inflexible rule.

Afloating in spirit-rays
of the transcendental sky
‘Vaikuntha' spheres are arrayed--
Visnu's realms pass by her nigh.

After these, bhakti-lata
climbing the spiritual sky...
‘Goloka-Vrndavana'--
Sri Krsna's home, the most high.

A creeper needs standing tree
to lean on to climb higher:
bhakti-lata did not see
shelter in cosmos prior.

Aseeking sun-like Krsna,
a creeper-heliotrope:
lata grew from the bija--
climbed with unlimited scope.

Attaining now her shelter
up at Krsna's lotus feet,
lata does not yet halt her
growth, ‘though she her goal does meet.

A spiritual creeper
needs a spiritual tree:
lata needs ‘kalpa-vrksa',
which is Krsna's lotus feet.

Attaching her tendrils soft
to this desire tree divine,
lata has the basis got'--
grows as a flowering vine.

A gardener continues
sprinkling here... hearing, chanting;
bhakti-lata continues
in Goloka expanding.

A creeper there flowering
from the lotus feet of God...
then the fruits fructifying
of ecstatic Love of God.

Abearing on her branches
the fruits of ‘Krsna-prema'--
fulfillment of her planting
by Guru-Krsna's mercy.

A Love for God is Prema,
which is Krsna-consciousness--
always thinking of Krsna,
desire to please His senses.

A non-devotional man
for ‘purusartha' reaches...
"prema pum-artho mahan" ,
Lord Caitanya him teaches.

A sage seeks, or mundane men,
of ‘moksa-kama-dharmartha';
a bhakta seeks Krsna-prema--
‘parama-purusartha'.

A fruit of Krsna-prema--
top perfection anywhere:
the lower fourfold artha
counts just when bhakti's not there.

Arthas four which most men seek,
re: seas of Prema from that plant--
‘shallow water in a creek',
really insignificant.

A gardener chanting (to
lata water) Krsna's name:
‘... nistha, ruci, asakti,
bhava', then Krsna-prema.

Aripened fruits of Prema
now grow, on her branch depend--
at lotus feet of Krsna
leaning, nourished to that end.

A fruit fully ripened there
falls down from her to the earth;
tasting Krsna-prema here,
planter avails of her birth.

A planter collects the fruit,
tasting its Love of Krsna,
falling from bhakti-lata--
by her gains kalpa-vrksa.

A gardener-devotee,
who watered lata day by day,
tastes fruit of prema-bhakti
at Krsna's feet, by her grace.

A devotee serving there
the lotus feet of Krsna
benefits from his past care--
tastes ‘prema-phala-rasa'.

‘Ananda-cinmaya' juice:
with bliss he tastes his bhava--
rasa of the fruit of Love
which grew from bhakti-lata.

‘Ananta brahma-saukhya':
he relishes his rasa--
‘santa, dasya or sakhya,
vatsalya or madhurya'.

A jiva dives, surfaces
in oceans of ‘bhakti-rasa',
flowing below the surface
of verses by Sri Rupa.

A seed of Krsna-bhakti--
planted, watered in the heart--
enabled the devotee
to reap fruit by bhakti's art.

A grace of God and Guru:
one gets seed and instruction--
plant seed, following thorough'...
transcendent vegetation.

A seed of such spirit class
cannot in this world remain:
eternity, knowledge, bliss--
not realms of three/four-fold pain.

A matter-revolving place,
eight bhutas three gunas churn--
goodness, passion, ignorance:
‘no Prema here'... the wise spurn.

A wisest bhakti-lata,
of dark matter's universe
penetrating the limits,
enters Krsna's universe.

A successful bhakti-seed,
up at Krsna's lotus feet,
makes her tending devotee
blissful in eternity.

Paying my obeisances
to Srila Prabhupada--
Krsna's representative,
immersed in Love of God, a
Sampradaya Acarya:
by order of his Guru,
spread West Krsna's words Arya--
in English to me and you.

If my faulty pen has crossed
anyone in any way,
and if anyone has lost
peace by what I had to say;
please know I tried to do well,
to Guru I tried to pay:
don't curse me to go to hell--
say a prayer for me today.

| The Sun | News | Editorials | Features | Sun Blogs | Classifieds | Events | Recipes | PodCasts |

| About | Submit an Article | Contact Us | Advertise | HareKrsna.com |

Copyright 2005, HareKrsna.com. All rights reserved.