When I first started to write this post I said that I was amazed I've only posted photos once. But really I'm not amazed at all. I just tried to upload more and of course the computer timed out or the page was lost or any number of malfunctionings occurred and all that's left is a mild headache. I think I'll try to make an album on facebook instead. If it's not there, you can probably guess why.
I'm still not sure if it's safe to say that summer has arrived, because maybe it hasn't reached it's peak hotness. It's been pretty hot for a couple of weeks now though. Since I am not at all versed in celsius temperatures, I was kind of oblivious to the temperature when it started to heat up. When I finally did the conversion I was amazed to find that it had already reached 100 degrees. A few days ago I entered my room and thought "wow, it's pretty cool in here," which is not a normal feeling. I calculated the farenheit and it was actually 98 degrees. Funny how perspectives change. But really, it felt quite cool.
As always, I was inspired to tell you many things when I wasn't on the internet. But muses are fleeting and now I feel like going to the bathroom. haha... I am aware of the fact that for most people (perhaps even all people) when they think of what I'm doing their mind is swallowed by a void. Even though I've shared my daily schedule a few times, it's hard to understand what exactly these activities mean and especially how they are carried out. Two friends of mine visited me in Mathura for about 1 day in January. I bombarded them with everything I had been doing and learning the previous 3 months. By the time they left I felt as if they were going to explode, or maybe like I had just given them a very heavy sack of potatoes and they had no idea where to put them. Just imagine! A very heavy sack of potatoes with nowhere to go!!!! This is a little bit of what it's like for me at times, except maybe it's only a few potatoes but they are very very hot. Sometimes I just drop them on the floor. Is it clear that I'm not actually talking about potatoes, but spiritual life?
I used to think that we had to come up with all the answers ourselves. And of course the answers are limitless when we try to conceive of them. Everyone is busy answering the questions themselves. And of course I had so many questions. "must there be suffering for there to be happiness?" "why do bad things happen to good people" "whyyy is there suffering?" and on and on. Just like most people I was looking here and there. No one really had a straight answer. Everyone had their own answer, but then another person came along and refuted it or expanded on it, or it became outdated or it was vague, etc, etc. Unfortunately, we humans are imperfect, we are fallible. By the transitive property (still my favorite geometric property of all time), our answers to these questions are imperfect, incomplete and inadequate. Our massive egos help us ignore this quality of ours, but it is always there. Our answers are imperfect, our science is imperfect, everything we perceive with our senses, everything we calculate with our material vision, it is all imperfect. When my friends asked me how what I'm practicing here is different from any other spiritual path the answer for me was very clear: no question goes unanswered. What I never knew before was that God has given us all knowledge. All knowledge. Not a single question I've had in life has gone unanswered on this path. Some of the answers might be hard to swallow or hard to understand, but Truth hits your core and even if your mind can't wrap itself around the information, you know that it's you who is at fault, not the answer.
I used to think that truth was subjective, and in a sense it still is. In the Bhagavad Gita, God says that he will recipricate according to the level of love and devotion that is given to him. Because we each have a different desire and capacity to give ourselves to God, he reveals himself in different ways - he gives us different understandings of himself; some are more limited and some are more complete, but they are all God. The fullest, deepest and most complete understanding of all things is there. It exists. Ultimately, we do what satisfies us because this is what we are all seeking. happiness, love, satisfaction, fulfillment. We don't all find these in the same places. For me, Gaudiya Vaishnavism and the practice of bhakti goes deeper than anything else I've encountered. It is Pure Love. It's hard to write about because it is not something to be understood by the mind or intelligence. It is something that touches directly your soul. It is something that is nurtured in a different way in all of us. It is something that you must have faith in, or else it stays hidden in plain sight. I wish it were something I could truly share, but unfortunately all I can do is pass along philosophical points or historical information.
All I can say is that if you are searching, it will find you. If you are open, it will enter your heart. If you desire, love will manifest.
