The Journey Home Book - By Radhanath Swami

 

At the age of only nineteen, Radhanath Swami left his home in America seeking adventure and spiritual knowledge. After trekking across Europe for months,  Radhanath Swami reached his long hoped for destination: India. After living there for many years as a sadhu or wandering monk, Radhanath Swami returned to America in order to share the sacred knowledge and wisdom he had learned from the many holy men and women he had met there. It was an extraordinary choice, given what Radhanath Swami had survived to get there: a journey filled with bizarre characters, mystical experiences, and dangerous adventures. The story is recounted in his recently published memoir The Journey Home - Autobiography of an American Swami. Reviewers have called Radhanath Swami's saga  "at once an engaging yarn, a love story, and the evocation of a transcendent paradise in all its savagery, solitude, and splendor.

Radhanath Swami emerged from his years of travel wanting to explain for others the beauty and rewards of a life devoted to God, and therein lay a dilemma. Radhanath Swami's many followers and friends describe him as completely selfless and consequently unwilling to take credit for his work and restless when a spotlight is focused on him. By choosing A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami (1896-1977), a Bengali Vaishnava Saint, as his guru (after declining offers of initiation from several tyagis or renunciants in the Himalayas), Radhanath Swami cast his fate to the wind, cut his matted locks, and entered back into the society.

RadhanathMaharaj.net gives us a complete collection of the teaching of Radhanath Swami. Teachings consists of Transcriptions of lectures delivered by Radhanath Swami at various places. This website is to inspire the followers of Radhanath Swami to practice the philosophy of Vaishanavism.

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Untitled lecture

Krishna declares in the Bhagavad Gita, ‘patram puspam phalam toyam yo me bhaktya prayacchati’.This is the highest truth. If you offer the Supreme Personality of Godhead, food, with love and devotion, He promises that He will accept it. And then it will become mahaprasad and by eating it you will become purified. We have one hundred percent faith that everytime we offer Sri Sri Radha Gopinath, any milk or bhoga, THEY EAT IT! They accept it and They leave us the prasad. Our spiritual advancement does not come when Krishna drinks the milk we offer. Our spiritual advancement comes when He accepts the devotion we offer. If He accepts the spiritual quality of our devotion, we make progress. If He just drinks the milk we make no progress.
   If you think the Deity is an idol, then it will seem a miracle to you if He drinks milk. But if you know that Ganapati is in that murti and if you know that Krishna is in that murti, why should it surprise you that He drinks milk? Whether He drinks it physically or drinks the spiritual quality, for us it means nothing. We know He can do it. Because we have faith. The Lord doesn’t have to go through these material tricks to prove it to us. We know that He is drinking whether we can see it or not. So if Ganapati is drinking milk, we are happy. But the question is, 'Are these worshippers, after seeing Ganapati drinking milk, becoming detached from material sense gratification and surrendering to the Supreme Personality of Godhead through that inspiration?" Or are they thinking, "Will this God fulfill my material desires?". Mostly, all these people are only deriving the satisfaction that, “I have seen!”, or at the most the feeling that, “Yes! He is in the deity and therefore He will fulfill all of my material desires”. The great acaryas, the transcendental saintly persons are not affected by all this and the devotees of Caitanya Mahaprabhu should not take these things very seriously.
 When the Deity performs some wonderful activity just to reciprocate with the pure unmotivated love of His devotee, that pastime will purify our heart for ever. But when the demigods perform some material activity to give a little more faith to totally materialistic people, that will not purify our hearts. All these people who are giving milk, were they pure unalloyed devotees? Were They surrendered to God ? They are all just ordinary materialistic people approaching God for some material benediction. So we understand the demigods can do anything they want. They have all powers. But unless it is in reciprocation of pure love, it is below the dignity of the devotees to be impressed. The only thing that impresses us is pure devotional service.
   Krishna does not recommend worshipping demigods for materialistic things. The demigods or mystics may encourage you by giving you materialistic perceptions, but freedom from birth and death and elevation to real spiritual consciousness only comes through true bhakti, through accepting a bonafide spiritual master in a bonafide parampara and being trained under him in the process of service to the Lord, under the regulations of the scriptures. Krishna explains in the Gita, ‘If you worship demigods, demigods will accept and give you some material benediction. But it is all mundane. Give it up.’ Krishna tells us to give it up. It is less intelligent. It is mundane. Surrender to Krishna. Ask Ganesh to give you pure love of Krishna. Don’t ask Ganesh to drink your milk. We are more concerned with Krishna accepting our bhakti than our milk. If He accepts your bhakti you go back to Godhead, if He accepts your milk, then you just have that much less milk. Hare Krishna!
                                                 - H.H.Radhanath Swami Maharaj (22/09/95)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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