Journeying Beyond the Festival

an interview with Rukmini devi dasi

This year, ISKCON Toronto turned its biggest festival of the year in to a virtual one -- Festival of India. Celebrations took place over twelve days.  Rukmini Walker gave the last spiritual seminar of the festival on the last day called, Journeying Beyond the Festival.  She shared reflections about the mood of Ratha Yatra and the importance of "pulling the Lord back to Vrindavan by the ropes of our love."

To watch this inspiring seminar, please click here or on the image below:

The Eye of the Needle

About a month ago, I posted a blog called The Thread of Life, about a chain of islands off the coast of Maine. I’d been in Maine visiting my sister, Susan and her family there.

Susan’s husband, my brother-in-law, George has the intuitions of a native about the coast of Maine, having spent his childhoods there swimming, sailing, canoeing and kayaking the coastal waters.

After George read my blog, he pointed out to me that I had forgotten to mention the Eye of the Needle. The Eye of the Needle is the only place in the middle of those islands where it’s possible for a boat or ship to navigate passage through safely.

Only someone who knows where the safe passages are can help us navigate the treacherous waters of this world, which is compared to an ocean of birth and death.

There are so many mysteries in the depths of the ocean! There are so many mysteries in learning how to cross this vast ocean of repeated birth and death, that, inevitably, we require an able captain, favorable winds, and a seaworthy vessel in order to cross to the other side.

[perfectpullquote align="full" cite="" link="" color="" class="" size=""]In the Bhakti tradition, great holy teachers are compared to able captains; the wisdom books of the Vedas are compared to favorable winds; and a rare human birth is compared to a vessel capable of crossing such a dangerous ocean.[/perfectpullquote]

But then sometimes God’s Holy Names (which are innumerable, and given in holy books of every culture!) are also compared to such worthy ships. And the mystery of those ships is that although so many saints in the past, throughout history have used them to cross over the ocean of nescience, still they have left them on this side of the shore for us to use as well.

Those who are immersed in deep waters of wisdom can help us navigate our way to finding the eye of the needle in this long thread of our lives.

All the best,

Rukmini Walker

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Ode to the Holy Name

by Jahnavi Harrison

Whisper it beneath the summer oakswhile swallows dive aboveShout it in your morning shower,share it with the ones you love.Sing it loud, groups of ten,three or seventy-five,brand it on your beating chest andkeep your heart alive.In the garden, on the bus,before exams and interviews,at joyous birth and bitter death,sing this name, loud and true.Call it when your days are long,breathe it in and out with heavy head,cry it over your morning tea,and into your pillow before bed.Wash this name through every fibre,rinse and repeat, rinse and repeatsing with everything you have,soft, sweet, subtle, deep.

(This poem originally appeared in Bhakti Blossoms: A Collection of Contemporary Vaishnavi Poetry, Published in August 2018, with Golden Dragonfly Press)