we must serve the people through loving service to God.

It is not a matter of my personal opinion. It is a fact that just as we water the tree by watering it's roots, not by watering it's leaves and branches, in a similar way if we want to serve mankind, we must serve the people through loving service to God. The service that God has requested is that we deliver His suffering children back to their original home in the spiritual sky. If we simply serve the outer covering of the self, without serving the self within, we are not doing real service. Such service is only superficial, like blowing on a boil for temporary relief without removing it for permanent relief.

If your friend's son has run away from home, he desperately wants his son to return. If you see that boy on the street and you give him some money so he can get something to eat, but you do not return him to his father, have you served his father by feeding that boy? No. You have the given the boy the facility to remain a little longer away from home. So if you really want to serve God, you must bring his lost children back to Him. Then your service to man will be real service to God. Otherwise, your service to man, although apparently good, will actually be a disservice.

Vedic society is a fully rounded society in which all aspects of life are covered. A Vedic government makes sure that everyone is well fed, well clothed, and well housed and that everyone is happily employed according to their psycho-physical nature. This system of management is known as the varnashram system. And, most importantly in a Vedic society everyone is given full education and practical training how to utilize the human form of life for going back to home, back to Godhead. In such a situation, serving mankind by liberating them from the cycle of birth and death is the best service to God. By this one stroke all sufferings arising from birth, death, old age, and disease are immediately mitigated.

So I hope that you will understand that the science of how to give permanent relief to all the souls entangled in the cycle of birth and death is not rubbish.

By Sankarshan Das Adhikari

Why Most People Miss Spiritual Bliss?

The Bhagavad-gita (15.11) states, “The transcendentalists who strive to situate themselves on the spiritual platform can see the soul clearly. But others who are not spiritually situated cannot see the soul, even if they try, because their consciousness is misdirected.”
Let’s understand the blinding effect of misdirected vision with an example. If somebody stares at the back side of a canvas, he will never be able to appreciate the painting, no matter how long he scrutinizes it. Nor will he understand why connoisseurs of art are delighting over the painting; indeed he will call them crazy. Suppose the art connoisseurs are in minority; how will they communicate the beauty of the painting to the unsympathetic majority?
Like the art connoisseurs in our hypothetical example, the spiritual connoisseurs– the devotees who delight in remembering their beloved Lord, Sri Krishna – are considered strange, even crazy, by others. The joy they derive in singing the praises of their Lord – often in public kirtans – is, for the onlookers, interesting but incomprehensible. Even scholars who do doctorates in religion fail to experience, despite their years of scrutinizing study, a drop of the ocean of joy that the devotees experience in a few moments of devotional-musical festivity.
Why this difference?
This mystery of the simultaneous accessibility and inaccessibility of the spiritual realm is unraveled in the above Gita verse. For those situated on the material platform, pursuing worldly pleasures and possessions, their infatuation with matter blinds them to spiritual reality. Even if they study spiritual literature, their minds being filled with dreams and schemes for materialistic enjoyment, they are unable to see anything higher. Their endeavors to understand spirituality are in vain like the attempts of a blind man to see by squinting and straining his eyes.
But the blind man can see, if he follows the doctor’s process. Similarly aspiring spiritualist can experience spiritual bliss by redirecting their consciousness from matter to spirit. This redirection entails:

1. Avoiding materially entangling activities:
Four activities that especially entangle our minds in matter, as mentioned in the Srimad Bhagavatam, are gambling, intoxication, meat-eating and illicit sex. By eschewing these activities, we will find our consciousness becoming clearer and sharper to perceive spiritual truths.

2. Maximizing spiritually absorbing activities:
Mantra meditation – especially attentive, devotional contemplation on the sound of the mantras comprised of the names of God like the Hare Krishna mahamantra – connects us practically and joyfully with God, the reservoir of all spiritual bliss.
By regularly following this process, we can, figuratively speaking, turn our vision from the back of the canvas to the front.