What We Do
When the goal is set, one needs to find ways to reach the goal. Our views and objectives have been briefly described in the previous two pages: who we are and what we believe. On this page we will touch on what we do to unveil the soul’s natural inborn propensity to Love God and be supremely happy and prosperous. To help sincere seekers of the Truth on the path to perfection, the Vedic scriptures revealing the science of Bhakti outline a number of powerful and highly effective activities. The 3 most essential and beneficial of them are briefly described below.
Devotional Chanting – Kirtan
Kirtan means “glorification” of the ultimate and perfect beloved, God or Krishna. Even in this world love provokes one to see the good qualities in the beloved and glorify him or her. Every mother likes to say her child’s name and thinks it is really good. Similarly the spiritually fully awaken souls love to chant Krishna’s names and describe His unlimited amazing qualities and pastimes. Most of us may not be on that platform just now. We may not always feel we know Krishna well enough to really love Him and want to speak about Him. Yet luckily for us the holy names of Krishna work in reverse. That is if we chant the names, we gradually revive our intrinsic propensity of love; and our understanding that Krishna is none other than the perfect beloved will develop. The holy names of Krishna are as powerful as Krishna Himself. In fact they are non-different from Krishna.
So, the simplest and most popular way of kirtan is by singing His names in a group, just like in the video below.
By the way, the conversations disclosing the glory of Krishna’s holy names as well as any other conversations related to Krishna are also kirtan, as the purpose is the same – glorifying Krishna and sharing and discussing His wonderful qualities. Actually in a conversation there are two processes involved: speaking and hearing. We already know that speaking or glorifying is called kirtanam in Sanskrit. Now hearing is called sravanam, and this is another major item in the practice of Bhakti. Even the singing is done in call and response manner – so both chanting (kirtanam) and hearing (sravanam) are present there.
Here is another way to look at the two processes: kirtanam and sravanam. When one is interested in a particular subject, one will naturally look for association with like-minded people who are preferably more knowledgeable in the subject. Basically here again the person is looking to hear someone else speak, hoping this will nourish his faith and interest and give some new valuable understanding of the subject as well. The same natural principle applies here with the difference being that the sole subject of mutual interest is Krishna. By the way Krishna is the whole everything. He is God. But luckily He is not a mere bunch of energies and things randomly scattered around the Universe, He is a person, embodying all the nice things. Now doesn’t it make perfect sense – all the nice things are neatly packed in a perfect “package”, and wouldn’t such a person, who possesses unlimited good qualities and energies be attractive and lovable?
Beautiful, sweet kirtan lead by our Gurudeva, Srila Bhaktivedanta Narayana Goswami Maharaja (recorded in 1989)…
We strive to have as much sat-sangas, spiritual discussion and kirtans as we can in our Vedic Center. Please check our news page to know the schedules. Also you may want to follow us on facebook as we publish lots of photos and video recordings there.
Temple Worship
Deity Worship is called arcanam in Sanskrit. We will have this program in place daily once the Temple Deities are installed (some time in 2012).
Many of our members also worship Deities at home.