Friday 16 June 2017

Krishna Farm - A Voyage of Spiritual discovery

Krishna Farm is a thriving Hare Krishna community located in Eungella, NSW. It is actually the border town of NSW and it is closer to Gold coast an Half an hour drive from the Gold Coast Airport. Murwillumbah is the closest town to the Farm is about 15 minutes’ drive. 
I visited the farm recently with my family and stayed for few days during the Easter Holidays.
Tweed River flowing across in the Farm
Situated amongst beautiful hills and valleys, the Krishna Farm is an amazing place to visit, stay and relax.
A Cow at the Farm

Temple on the Farm

A beautiful Pond - View from the Cabin


A Peacock Spotted near the temple premises

Kookaburra - a Friendly local visitor

Misty day

Near the Entrance to the Farm
Below is the review, which I wrote for the Accommodation in the Trip Adviser. I am hoping to write a full length article about the Farm, its activities etc. Stay tuned...

I stayed at this wonderful accommodation in the month of April 2017 with my family and loved every moment of it. The cabin is cute, comfortable and had all the basic amenities. The views from the cottage are beautiful overlooking a small lake. The location of the cottage is perfect, close to the nearby town Murwillumbah. Two minutes’ walk to the cottage was the temple. Anyone can visit the place, attend the temple morning programs like prayers, greeting the deities, a class based on Vedic wisdom, have a sumptuous, tasty breakfast, explore the farm which is filled with beautiful forest, a river that one can walk to and take bath. The place is filled with a wonderful spiritual vibrations and the residents of the farm community are happy, chirpy and helpful. If you are lucky you can have some rare visitors to your cabin, like a Kookaburra. My kids are thrilled to have one visit us in the cabin. We are also lucky to see couple of beautiful peacocks in the temple surrounds. Days passed like minutes and overall it is a spiritually uplifting and serene atmosphere. The cabin reminded me of a book called Walden or Life in the woods written by noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. My kids and even I wanted to stay there forever but, we had to come back to Melbourne to face the reality. I am looking forward to going there again to stay for one more holiday. By the way, there is no Wi-Fi in the room but, you can get it at the temple office by requesting them.

Thursday 1 June 2017

Benefits of Chanting Hanuman Chalisa

Someone asked me these questions on Quora,and here are my answers. 

1.Is it true that praying to Lord Hanuman or chanting the Hanuman Chalisa every day will not get you the person you love? Till what extent is this true and why? Because it always happens that all that I ask for comes true except my wishes related to love or relationships.

So many people have already given wonderful answers and their experiences that I feel that, I don’t need to answer this. However, I will try to put some of my thoughts about this question i,e without repeating what others already said.There are different ways of looking at this question,
Firstly, Lord Hanuman is the personification of servitor-ship - Dasyam to Lord Rama. Asta Siddhis, the eight super natural powers and Nava Nidhis - nine of the greatest treasures are given to him by Mother Sita Devi and yet, he choose to remain a humble servant of Lord Rama. Thus, he has power to do anything and fulfil any desires of people who worship him. But, it may be inappropriate to ask him for desires like this. For example, once a person went to a Sanyasi / Saint and asked his advice or blessing to make some woman to surrender to him. The saint said, if I had known this - why I would become a Sanyasi. I would have become a family man.
Secondly, the parent knows what is good for their child. If the child goes to their father and asks him for a Cigarette the father immediately slaps or try to discipline the child. Or, if the child asks for something unreasonable, like 1000 rupees for buying chocolates, the father would not give him.
It is said that marriages are made in heaven. May be true or not, but sometimes it looks like that. Sometimes, we don’t understand or can’t see the full picture.
Please, refer to the below blog post,
Also, it is said that to get results, firstly the endeavour or effort should be there. From your side, what efforts or actions you are taking to make the other person pleased, happy with you. Mere sentiment or silent adoration will not work. Then, once you do your part, the mercy from Lord Hanuman flows.
So many other things can be said, but in short keep chanting Hanuman Chalisa, worship Lord Rama of whom Hanuman is always serving and worshiping and at a suitable time, your sincere desires will fulfilled. As per my article above, have faith in God’s plan for you.

2. If you chant for Hanuman will it help you get over unrequited love, possibly even helping you get the courage and will to lead a celibate life?
Dear Chan,This an intresting question.There are so many dimensions to this question. Firstly, it is said that in pure or true love, one does not expect anything in return, including someone not reciprocating your feelings. It depends on the individual karma. For example, one of my friend during college days was in love (so called) with at least 5 girls. Each time, he would gather some courage to propose or convey his feelings, he would hear the news that, the girl who he was after was engaged to someone else. Today, my friend is happily married (arranged marriage) and leading a fulfilled life with wife, children etc. It is said that, in this world there is no true love. The closest one can see is that of a Mother and child. A mother goes through so much trouble to conceive a child, after that so many sleepless nights, looking after the baby, feeding him, taking care when the baby is sick etc. She does all this not because of some expectation that the child will grow up and do something for her, but out of pure love.
Coming back to your question of unrequited love - look at the situation from a different perspective. Maybe god has a different plan for you. And, yes Praying Hanuman will give you pure love for Hanuman, Ram and which in turn will give you strength to get over any obstacles in life. This too shall pass… (http://ausram.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/this-too-shall-pass.html)
Now coming to the courage and will to lead a celibate life. Hanumanji is a pure devotee and servant of Lord Ram, he can give you the courage to lead a celibate life. But, you have to be true to yourself and make a wise decision. The world is full of temptations and do you think, you will be and want to lead a celibate life, because someone did not reciprocate your life?
There is a nice pastime from Srimad Bhagavatham, where Gajendra the king of elephants was losing his strength and fight over a crocodile that caught him in the water. Why, because elephant is a land animal and for the crocodile water is the natural habitat and he is naturally stronger in water than the land animal elephant.
"That one has been found to be very weak in one place does not mean that he should stop fighting the crocodile of maya. One should take shelter of the lotus feet of Krishna, as we shall see Gajendra do, and at the same time one can be a ghastha if he is satisfied with sexual indulgence. There is no need to give up the fight. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu therefore recommended, sthane sthitah sruti-gatam tanu-van-manobhih. One may stay in whichever asrama is suitable for him; it is not essential that one take sannyasa. If one is sexually agitated, he can enter the ghastha-asrama. But one must continue fighting. For one who is not in a transcendental position, to take sannyasa artificially is not a very great credit. If sannyasa is not suitable, one may enter the ghastha-asrama and fight maya with great strength. But one should not give up the fighting and go away" - Purport by Srila Prabhupada.