Seva Ashram Community Meeting

July 6, 2009

Photos courtesy of Swarnangii ::: Click on the pictures for larger view (you must have javascript enabled)

The monthly community meeting at the Seva Ashram for July began with arotik for Their Lordships Sri Sri Guru Gauranga Gandharvika Giridhari Jiu

The devotees gathered in time for the arotik ceremony. These meetings are held to bring the devotees closer together and share in the progress of the ashram and discuss and share seva opportunites.

Sripad Janardan Maharaj opened the meeting by reading from the instructions to Srila Santana Goswami in the Madhya Lila section of the Chaitanya Caritamrta.

"What Mahaprabhu is describing here is what we are trying to live, by having a temple here and putting these principles into practice. Everybody living here is trying to follow Mahaprabhu's principles with a mood of service. People who are coming here we hope are trying to decorate their lives with these precepts.
They are a great wealth and we have to protect this place because Srila Govinda Maharaj has great affection for this ashram. He would like to be here. He talks about it and thinks about it often.
We are even a little ahead on the mortgage. We are looking toward the future when we can have eveything developed as an offering unto the spiritual master and all the devotees."

Hasyapriya Prabhu after extending a warm welcome to our new guests and residents, happily reported that we have made dramatic progress in our financial situation and thanked everyone for their help. He also announced that in the next few months he plans to continue the development project and prayed that everyone would help so that we could offer this development to Srila Gurudev and the devotees.
Please be kind! That is my last request. Be respectful. We're expanding and this brings natural anxiety and conflict but we have a formula for living together successfully:
Trnad api sunichena....

Sripad Parvat Maharaj told us that Srila Gurudev has sent the Goddess of Fortune to us : Vrinda! and he implored her Don't Leave! This resulted in a big applause. Sureshwari Didi told how Srila Gurudev sent her here to be Hasyapriya's right hand man.

Vrinda Devi is the inspiration behind these meetings and the chair. She told the story about a brahmana who asked Narada Muni to go to Narayan and ask the Lord to have all his life's wealth put under his pillow while he sleeps. Narada Muni complied and the next day the brahmana found five rupees under his pillow. He thought "This is all? " and then he used the five rupees to prepare a feast for Vaishnava Seva. The next day he found another five rupees under his pillow. Again and again, every day he found five rupees and he prepared a feast for the Vaishnava Seva. Finally the brahmana asked Narada Muni why this was happening.
Because you are not spending your wealth on yourself then it's replenishing itself every time.
So whatever energy we put towards the service of Srila Gurudev's Ashram will increase our own fortune. We will never be the loser.

We were all very happy to welcome Srimati Keli Kadambana Devi Dasi who is visiting from Australia.

Srimati Sureshwari Didi, remembering Srila Gurudev's instructions that we should memorize Sri Sharanagati, read one of the songs to share with everyone.

These meetings are held the first Monday of every month.
In August it will be held on August 3rd, 2009 beginning at 6:30 p.m. Please join us.