Krishna doesn’t grow. He’s timeless, eternal, perpetual, without beginning and without end. Everything in the material world, organic and inorganic, has a beginning and an end.

Of the many exalted Vaisnavas who have shuffled off this mortal coil, Bhakti-tirtha Swami was, and still is, known and greatly appreciated for emphasizing the importance of deepening relationships between devotees.

One of the most quoted passages, if not THE most quoted Srimad Bhagavatam passage in lectures was: yasyatma-buddhih kunape tri-dhatuke, sva-dhih kalatradisu bhauma-ijya-dhih, yat-trtha-buddhih salile na karhicit, janesu abhijnesu sa eva go-kharah. [SB 10.84.13]

An animal (like a small pet, or a horse, bullock, or elephant) must hear a word hundreds or thousands of times before understanding what it means, or what the specific instruction is for them, or even how they should feel. Lord Caitanya has written, “O my Lord, Your holy name alone can render all benediction to living beings, and thus You have hundreds and millions of names like Krsna and Govinda. In these transcendental names You have invested all Your transcendental energies. There are not even hard and fast rules for chanting these names. O my Lord, out of kindness You enable us to easily approach You by Your holy names, but I am so unfortunate that I have no attraction for them.” And “O Govinda, feeling your separation I am considering a moment as twelve years or more than that, and tears are flowing down my cheeks like torrents of rain. I am feeling all vacant in the world without Your presence.” It’s my theory that Srila Prabhupada asked all initiates to chant 16 rounds daily knowing that we are all like ignorant animals, not able to grasp the deeper meaning of the Lord’s Holy Names. Therefore a great deal of repetition and concentration is required.

In his Bhakti-rasamrta-sindu, Rupa Goswami describes the percentages the various incarnations and expansions of Visnu possess. In Amhedabad, Srila Prabhupada reiterated these, as follows: “He [Rupa Goswami] has analyzed that Krsna is cent percent Bhagavan. And Narayana is ninety-four percent Bhagavan. And Lord Siva is eighty-four percent Bhagavan. And all other living entities, all living entities, we are, we are minutely seventy-eight percent Bhagavan. That means when you come to the perfection of life, when you are actually in the spiritual stage, then you are…, you have got the qualities of Bhagavan in minute quantity, but not all the qualities-eighty, seventy-eight percent.”

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati narrated a story about a man named Bhagavan, who became intimate with a king. Jealous royal guards told the king that this Bhagavan was dead. When they went out walking with the king they clustered close around him, so that however he tried, the man named Bhagavan couldn’t get the king to see him. He finally climbed a tree and caught the king’s attention. But the king’s guards convinced the king that Bhagavan was now a ghost. The metaphor, according to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta, is that most people, like the king’s ministers, can create such a wall of illusion, that reality is obscured. “The majority of the common public are strongly of the opinion that devotional practice is just like other material or academic practices. They advocate that there are as many ways of liberation as there are philosophies. They are unable to realize that devotional service is the ultimate philosophy of living.” (excerpt from Upakyane Upadesa, translation by Akhilatmananda Prabhu)

Srila Prabhupada said the Ksatriya spirit was still alive during the 17th century in India. In this regard, he related the following incident: “This spirit of ksatriya was prevalent even, say, three hundred years ago in India. There was a king, Yasomanta Sena. He was the commander-in-chief of Emperor Aurangzeb. So in one fight, he was defeated and came back to his home. So his wife heard that My husband has been defeated. He's coming back home.' So she asked the caretaker to close the door of the palace. So when Yasomanta Sena came there, he saw that his palace door is closed. Then he sent message to the queen thatWhy you have closed the door? I have come home.’ So messenger came and informed that The king has come. So he is asking to open the door.' The queen replied,Who is king? Yasomanta Sena. No, no. Yasomanta Sena cannot come being defeated. Yasomanta Sena either he conquers the battle or he lays down his body there dead. So the man who has come, he must be somebody pretender. He is not King Yasomanta Sena.’ So she refused to open the door. This is the spirit of ksatriya spirit.” (From a lecture on BGAII, London, September 3rd, 1973.)

The sudden death of nearly 200,000 people has made a lot of earth’s human inhabitants think “why?” But the tragedy is likely to become just another road sign on a freeway. People forget things like earthquakes, terrorist attacks, tidal waves, tornadoes, and floods and – unfortunately — God.

It’s been said that no two people have the same taste: I’ve noticed how this particularly applies in the realms of music and humor. It’s also been said that one man’s nectar is another’s poison. These kinds of sayings support the uniqueness of each individual jiva, the singularity of snowflake patterns, DNA structure, fingerprints and voiceprints.

On February 27, 1976 on a morning walk in Mayapur Srila Prabhupada said, “Bengali culture was very much adored all over India. Even one big politician, Gandhi’s guru, Goke, Gokule, he remarked, ‘What Bengal thinks today, other provinces will think tomorrow.'”