The Price of a Ticket Back Home ~ Humility
The month of Kartik which is dedicated to Srimati Radharani began on October 14. Here are some priceless meditations from the publication "The Price of a Ticket Back Home" to inspire you for this special month from my dear friend and sister Srimati and the Iskcon team who live in Sri Vrndavan Dham. ~ Rukmini Walker
“.. at this point, perhaps we need to remind ourselves that Krsna is more interested in our mood than our achievements. So what should be our mood during this sacred month, if our goal is Krsna-prema? Krsna, in His form of Sri Caitanya Mahäprabhu, gives us a very clear and strong clue:
trnad api su-nicena
taror api sahisnuna
amanina mana-dena
kirtaniya sada hari
[perfectpullquote align="full" cite="" link="" color="" class="" size=""]'One who thinks himself lower than the grass, who is more tolerant than a tree, and who does not expect personal honor but is always prepared to give all respect to others can very easily always chant the holy name of the Lord'.— Siksastaka 3[/perfectpullquote]
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Loving devotional service is far different from disciplines such as karma, jnana, and yoga. At every stage it is decorated by indifference to them, and its root is dainya, utter humility. When one allows secondary means and goals to become prominent, one deviates from bhakti. The most essential support — and a candidate for pure bhakti must always take help from it — is utter humility.
An intelligent person should carefully cultivate speech, behavior, and thinking that fix him in utter humility, and anything that stands in the way of it he/she should avoid.
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Inspiration for a Successful Kartik
[perfectpullquote align="full" cite="" link="" color="" class="" size=""]"This valuable human form of life is rarely achieved by the conditioned souls and even rarer is the opportunity to observe the vow of Kärttika, which is very dear to Lord Hari." -- Excerpt from the Sri Hari-Bhakti-Vilasa of Srila Sanatana Gosvamī; HBV 16.1 [/perfectpullquote]