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Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Vāmana Gosvāmī Māhārāja
❝Are you enacting such sickness again and again just to test our composure? Once last year also you enacted such an illness. I do not know what Śrī Śrī Guru-Gaurāṅga Śrī Rādhā-Vinoda-bihārījī have written in our fortune, but I say there is no way you are allowed to leave before I do. If Śrī Guru and Gaurāṅga do not fulfil our heartfelt prayers, I will consider myself utterly bereft of good fortune.❞ ...
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by Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Vāmana Gosvāmī Māhārāja
❝Tomorrow we will return to Vasugaon from Tangla. We are being forced to leave one person behind here forever. Now I am without an attendant sevaka. If I have served Śrī Hari, guru, and Vaiṣṇavas with a pure and simple heart, then it may be that I will not have to suffer this sorrow of separation from this sevaka.❞ ...
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by Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Vāmana Gosvāmī Māhārāja
❝Many preaching centres of the Gauḍīya Maṭha have been established today in the East and West, yet I consider all of them to be a single indivisible unit. I know those who have been favoured by jagad-guru Śrīla Sarasvatī Prabhupāda and those who are his disciples and grand-disciples to be my own people, and I convey my obeisance to them, knowing them to be Gauḍīyas. I know every Vaiṣṇava who is bathed in the current of Śrī Gaura-vāṇī-vinoda (the delight of Śrī Gaura’s message) to be my supreme well-wishing friend and most intimate relative, but there is no way I can imagine a separate institution.❞ ...
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by Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Vāmana Gosvāmī Māhārāja
❝But then, for a servant, there is no such thing as a break from service. In the field of service, there is neither concession nor commission; service is the only fruit of service. Even supreme, liberated personalities continue to worship Śrī Bhagavān and are preoccupied with service. Hence, under no circumstance can the sevaka or sevikā take a holiday or break from service.❞ ...
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by Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Vāmana Gosvāmī Māhārāja
❝The terms jīva-sevā (service to other entities) and jīva-prema (eternal love for other entities) are fictions, contrary to conclusive truth, and are illogical. One will never attain the result of service to Śrī Bhagavān by serving the conditioned souls’ gross senses and becoming a regular purveyor of their bodily and mental demands. One can never attain a transcendental life of service by serving that which is inert or loving the illusory objects produced by māyā.❞ ...
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by Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Vāmana Gosvāmī Māhārāja
❝To refute misconceptions is guru-sevā. If, at any point, one can understand that someone is giving misleading teachings, one should, in a civil manner, refute them and establish the faultless siddhānta. Doing so is the ideal of conviction in service to guru. If, despite knowing and hearing the truth, one conceals it, hypocrisy finds its outlet, and that entails a lapse of duty. This (refuting someone’s views) is never contrary to humility or amānī-mānada-dharma.❞ ...
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by Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Vāmana Gosvāmī Māhārāja
❝When one reads spiritual texts on one’s own, often one does not attain the real result of hearing and reciting hari-kathā. That is why it remains imperative for one to hear the sounds issuing from the mouths of sādhu and guru. Only within a siddha (perfected) mantra is all potency manifest, and only that yields special results. Hence, there is more benefit and welfare contained within hari-kathā issuing from the mouths of the devotees [than from spiritual texts]. Dry skeptics who are bereft of sādhu-saṅga are incapable of appreciating the necessity and attracting potency of sādhu-saṅga.❞ ...
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by Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Vāmana Gosvāmī Māhārāja
❝If there is difficulty in receiving teachings and instructions from sādhu and guruin person, scripture grants the provision of associating with sādhus in the form of sacred texts. The lives and words of exalted personalities are synonymous. Should the sādhaka and sādhikā study and discuss them, they reap the ultimate welfare for their souls.❞ ...
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by Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Vāmana Gosvāmī Māhārāja
❝Know that if you can gain rapt absorption in śrī nāma, that is total perfection. “Niḥśvāse na hi viśvāsaḥ – there is no certainty in breath.” Time carries on. Using this time properly is imperative.❞ ...
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by Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Vāmana Gosvāmī Māhārāja
❝Maintain powerful enthusiasm and forbearance within your heart. If you envision the smiling faces of śrī gurudeva and the Vaiṣṇavas and remember their instructions and teachings, you will find peace of mind at all times, in all circumstances.❞ ...
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by Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Vāmana Gosvāmī Māhārāja
❝I lived with pūjyapāda Vāmana Mahārāja for almost sixty years and had the opportunity to closely observe and understand him. He possessed all the qualities that are inherent in a Vaiṣṇava. By nature, he was simple, grave, humble, tolerant, overflowing with guru-niṣṭhā and inclined to serve the Vaiṣṇavas.❞ ...
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by Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Vāmana Gosvāmī Māhārāja
❝It is not possible for the living entity to attain perfection in sādhana without weeping before Śrī Bhagavān and humbly supplicating Him. Although the restless mind is scattered here and there during the chanting of śrī nāma, one must draw it back and steady it. By abhyāsa-yoga (the yoga of practice), this becomes possible and, along with that, it is necessary to practice some vairāgya-yoga (the yoga of renunciation) or in other words, regulation of one’s diet and leisure and maintaining self-restraint.❞ ...
