Some favorite verses and quotes, please add yours too Options

[Pentagram]

Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
For you to come to him with your hunger and seek him for your peace.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
And when he speaks to you believe in him.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate loves ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
Love one another but make not a bond of love.
Fill each other’s cup but not drink from one cup.
Sing and dance together and be joyus, but let each one of you be alone.
And stand together yet not too near together, for the pillars of the temple stand apart.

Kahlil Gibran

[Pentagram]

Thou who wouldst make us devils
Thou shalt not poison me
The world hath been persuaded to believe thy heresy

I spit in the eye of Satan
And I will spit in thine
The devils that surround thee
Liveth only in thine eye

Bad Religion, Bad Religion
I need no gods or devils, I need no pagan rights
Bad religion, Bad religion
I need no burning crosses to illuminate my nights
HEY, HEY, You hear me now
You hear me now
HEY, HEY, For thou art Judas
The mark of Cain be on thy brow
Evangelistic Nazis, you cannot frighten me
The name you take in vain shall judge you for eternity

I spit in the eye of Satan
Spit right in your eye too
You are the spooks you´re chasing
You know not what you do

Bad religion, Bad religion
I know you lie, I know you lie
Bad religion, Bad religion
Thieves and liars
Cross my heart I hope you die

If there be such a being
Then thou art Anti-christ
Turn men against their children
Turn beauty into vice
I say thy God shall smite thee
He will perceive thy lust
His wrath shall fall upon thee
Thou that betray his thrust

Bad religion, Bad religion
I say that thou art liars, Thy souls shall not be saved
Bad religion, Bad religion
Here are the days of thunder, The days that thou hast made

HEY, HEY
Base seducers, I see thy greed
HEY, HEY
I am more fit for glory, Than any ten of thee

[Pentagram]

16 years old when I went to war,
To fight for a land fit for heroes,
God on my side, and a gun in my hand,
Counting my days down to zero,
And I marched and I fought and I bled and I died,
And I never did get any older,
But I knew at the time that a year in the line,
Is a long enough life for a soldier,

We all volunteered, and we wrote down our names,
And we added two years to our ages,
Eager for life and ahead of the game,
Ready for history´s pages,
And we fought and we brawled and we whored ´til we stood,
Ten thousand shoulder to shoulder,
A thirst for the Hun, we were food for the gun,
And that´s what you are when you´re soldiers,

I heard my friend cry, and he sank to his knees,
Coughing blood as he screamed for his mother,
And I fell by his side, and that´s how we died,
Clinging like kids to each other,
And I lay in the mud and the guts and the blood,
And I wept as his body grew colder,
And I called for my mother and she never came,
Though it wasn´t my fault and I wasn´t to blame,
The day not half over and ten thousand slain,
And now there´s nobody remembers our names,
And that´s how it is for a soldier.

(Ian Lemmy Kilminster) This is done with a cello in the solo. Nice

[Adrija]

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of
Children."

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit,
not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you
with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that
is stable.

-- Kahlil Gibran


My father gave me a birthday card with this verse when I turned 17 - at the time I was torn between between leaving home to live in a temple and my loyalty and affection for my parents - I took this verse to heart. A few months later I left and I couldn't comprehend why they were so distraught!

[babu]

...
preme dako caitanya-nitai

my favorite cuz then i got to eat

[metamorphosis]

Gaura Pahu
by Narottama das Thakur
(from Prarthana)

(1)
gaura pahu na bhajiya goinu
prema-ratana-dhana helaya harainu

I did not consider worshiping Lord Gauranga, but instead brought about my spiritual ruin by neglecting that treasure trove of pure Love of God.

(2)
adhane yatana kari dhana teyaginu
apana karama-dose apani dubinu

Although being quite in need of wealth, I have still worked very hard to reject the great opportunity of receiving Your riches. Then I submerged myself in the ocean of sinful reactions.

(3)
sat-sanga chadi’ kainu asate vilasa
te-karane lagilo ye karma-bandha-phansa

Avoiding the association of saintly persons, I sported merrily in the company of materialistic rascals. For that reason I have become strung up in the noose of my own fruitive activities.

(4)
visaya-visama-visa satata khainu
gaura-kirtana-rase magana na hainu

I perpetually drank the horrible poison of mundane sense gratification, having never absorbed myself in the divine mellows of the kirtan glorifying Lord Gaura.

(5)
keno va achaye prana ki sukha paiya
narottam das keno na gelo mariya

Oh, why has my heart not experienced any satisfaction? And why has Narottam Das not simply perished?

[Ayyapan]

Gaura Pahu
by Narottama das Thakur
(from Prarthana)

Oh, the whole Prarthana is WONDERFUL! (but I was always told in ISKCON we are not supposed to read it - which I of course never stopped doing, anyway... "I man got to do what I man got to do!")

[evakurvan]

Hi I'm not sure what verse numbers this is supposed to be but it sounds like an alternate translation of the last two verses metamorphosis posted. This is one of my favourite verses I used to have it in my profile!

" Always consuming the poison of sense pleasures, I can never absorb myself in the bliss of Gaura's kirtana.

Why am I still living, and what happiness do I have? Narottama dasa wonders why he hasn't died. "

[Ayyapan]

" Always consuming the poison of sense pleasures, I can never absorb myself in the bliss of Gaura's kirtana.

Why am I still living, and what happiness do I have? Narottama dasa wonders why he hasn't died. "

This sounds like Narottamas Aksepa (Regret) - that is Song 42 in his Prarthan. I have a slightly different translation...

"I continually drank the virulent poison of sense gratification. I refused to swim in the nectar of Lord Caitanya´s sankirtan movement.

Why do I stay alive? What happiness do I have? Why did Narottama das not die long ago?"

[Ayyapan]

This is the last song of Prarthan (Song 53) - and one of the absolute sweetest, I think.

"Soon all the residents of Brindavan will float in the nectar of pure love for Radha and Krsna.

Sri Krsna is like a dark cloud that showers the nectar of pure love, and Srimati Radharani is like a restless lightning flash sitting in the lap of that cloud.

The path of love for Krsna is winding and crooked. It is slippery, and filled with mud mixed with kunkum, sandalwood paste and musk.

The great ocean of love of Krsnastretches without limit in all directions. Although Narottam das does not know how to swim across that ocean - he plunges head first into it!"

This is the end of Prarthan. And upon reaching it I believe you have two options...

Either you just start all over again, from the beginning, relishing it once more - which is tempting!

Or you just laugh, and laugh, and laugh... while you are running towards the Ganga calling out: "He does not know how to swim! Ooh, he does not know how to swim!" Laughing, joking and crying. And then you plunge.

And then you have to explain to the ISKCON "authorities" things like "who cannot swim?" "Why do you laugh at somebody who cannot swim?" "Why do you laugh at ALL kinds of crazy things?" "Are you crazy - or just VERY advanced?"

Prarthan is DANGEROUS. But sweet. Dangerously sweet, you might say.

[metamorphosis]

Prarthan is DANGEROUS. But sweet. Dangerously sweet, you might say.

please tell me more! the only way that i have ever associated with this Gaura Pahu song, my favorite, is mostly listening to it through speakers in the cow barn. I probably heard it something like 10 years times 3 times a day, plus another 10 years 3 times a week.

If i was trapped on an island with one song it would be Gaura Pahu, follows is the purport from folio disk.......Prabhupada:Gaura pahu na bajiya goinu,prema-rathana-dhana helaya harainu.This in another song by Narrottama dasa Thakura.He's saying that "I have invited my spiritual death by not worshiping Lord Caitanya."Gaura pahu na bhajiya goinu.Gaura pahu means "Lord Caitanya," and na bhajiya, "without worshiping."Goinu,"I have invited spiritual death."And adhame yatane kari dhanu tainu."Why I have invited the spiritual death?" Because I am engaged in something which is useless and I have rejected the real purpose of my life."Adhana means valueless things.And dhana means valuables.So Actually, everyone of us, neglecting our spiritual emanicipation,we are engaged in material sense gratification, and therefore we are losing the opportunity of this human form of body to elevate myself on the spiritual platform.This human body is especially given to the conditioned soul to take a chance for spiritual emancipation.So anyone who does not care for spiritual emancipation,he is inviting spiritual death.Spiritual death.So in the animal life it is fully forgetfulness.They cannot be reminded at any circumstances that they are not this body,they are different from this body.It is only in this human form of body,human form of life, one can understand that he is not this body,he's spirit soul.So by chanting Hare Krsna, one can easily understand this fact, and by worshiping Lord Caitanya, following His principles and ways, one can chant Hare Krsna and very easily come to the platform of spiritual understanding.But Narottama dasa Thakura says on our behalf that we are neglecting this. Therefore we are inviting spiritual death.

Then he says that prema-rathana-dhana helaya harainu. Spiritual life means to develop real love.Everyone says love. There are so many signboards, so many papers,"love,love." But there is no love.This is illusion. It is all lust. Love for intoxication, love for sex, love for this.....This is going on.So actual love means....Love,this word,can be applicable only with Krsna,with God. Because we are created for that purpose.To love means to love Krsna. So that is wanted. That is spiritual love.So prema-rathana. I could achieve that transcendental position of love, but I am neglecting. Therefore I am calling my spiritual death. And these things are happening due to my past misdeeds. Due to my past deeds, misdeeds, I have got a type of body. Everyone who has got this material body, it is due to past misdeeds. The...sometimes we call pious deeds. Actually, so long one gets this material body there in no pious deeds.Pious deeds means no more material body. That is pious deeds. Otherwise it is to be taken as a fact that even Brahma, who is the chief living entity within this universe and has got a mass of years as duration of life, all power, still, that is also considered as misdeeds. Because he has got the material body. So we are going deep down and down, one after another, body, by our misdeeds. In the bhagavata also it it stated that they do not know that by this sense gratificatory process they will have another body. And the body is the cause of material pangs. Because I have got this body, therefore I feel headache, I feel stomachache. I feel this and that. But, as soon as we are out of this material body, there is no more material pangs.It is simply joyful life.Brahma-bhutah prasannatma. Prasannatma means joyful. As soon as one gets spiritual life.So due to my past deeds, I am missing this opportunity. Apana kara mada seva.....
And why it is happening? Sat-sanga chadi khainu asatyera vilasa. "I have given up the association of devotees, but I am associating with common nonsense men." Asatyera. Asat and sat. Sat means spirit. And asat means matter. So association of material attachment means implication in this material conditional life. So one has to make association with devotees. Satam prasangad mama virya-samvido. One can understand about God only in association of devotees. Therefore we are advocating this Krsna consciousness movement, society. Actually, you'll find, one who comes to this society, by associating a few days, a few weeks, he becomes conscious and he comes forward for initiation and further advancement. So this association is very important. And the, those who are conducting different centers and temples, they should be very resposible men. Because everything will depend on their sincere activities and character. If they are insincere, then that will not be effective. One may come and associate with us, but if us are insincere, then it will be not be effective. But if the devoteees are sincere, anyone who will come in contact with a devotee, he'll change. That is the secret. Sat-sanga chadi asatyera vilasa. And as soon as we give up this association of these devotees, immediately maya will catch me. Immediately. Maya is just side by side. As soon as we give up this company, maya says "Yes,come in my company." Without any company,nobody can remain neutral. That is not possible. He must associate with maya or Krsna. So everyone should be very much serious to keep association with devotees, with Krsna.

Krsna means..... When we speak of Krsna, "Krsna" means Krsna with HIs devotees. Krsna is never alone. Krsna is with Radharani. Radharani is with the gopis. And Krsna is with the cowherd boys.We are not impersonalists. We do not see Krsna alone. Similarly, Krsna means with Krsna's devotees. So Krsna consciousness means to keep association with the devotees of Krsna. Visaya visama visa satata khainu. And he says that "I have drunk always the most dangerous poison of sense gratification. Eating, sleeping, mating, and defending. These are called.... These four principles are called visaya. And visama means dangerously. And visa means poison. If one is simply engaged with these four principles of life, just like animals. Then it is to be supposed that he's simply drinking poison. That's all. Visaya visama satata khainu. "I know this poison, but I am so much intoxicated that I am drinking this poison every moment." Gaura-kirtana-rase maghana na painu. "And i could not merge myself into the sankirtana movement started by Lord Caitanya." Oh, that is actually the fact. Those who are too much attached to materialistic way of life, or always drinking the poison of sense gratification, they are not attracted by the sankirtana movement.


So at the last, Narottama dasa Thakura is lamenting. He's not lamenting. He's representing ourself. If one comes to that point of lamentation, that is also very nice. He immediatly becomes purified. Lamentation means purification. So he says, keno va achaaya prana kichu bali.... "Why I am living? I do not make association with the devotees. I do not take part in the sankirtana movement. I do not understand what is Krsna. I do not understand what is Lord Caitanya. Then what for I am living?" This is lamentation. "What is my happiness? What is the standard of my happiness? Why I am living?" Narottama das kena na gela. "Why I did not die long,long ago? I should have died. What is the meaning of my living?" So it is not Narottama dasa Thakura's lamentation. Everyone of us should think like that, that "If we cannot make association with devotees, if we do not understand what is Krsna consciousness movement, if we do not come in touch with Lord Caitanya and associates, it was better for me to die. And there is no other remedy" This is the substance of this song.

[Ayyapan]

Prarthan is really a wonderful prayer - for the association of vaisnavas, for residence in Brindavan, for devotional service, for love, for shelter, for guidence, for the attainment of Lord Krsnas lotus feet, for the taste of re-union, for the vision of Radha-Madhava seated together on a thrown of flowers under a kadamba tree, for the sound of peacocs, for the name to enter all of ones mind and senses, for envisioning ones guru in his true position, for the feeling of the softness of Srimati Radharanis beautiful long hair... ALL those things, desires and longings, that means so much to a devotee of Radha-Krsna. And all of it mixed up in a bewildered state of love, eagerness and supreme madness.

It is full of repetition, bewilderment, pride, eagerness, humility, sorrow... It goes in circles, again and again - more and more rapidly... until you... feel almost as mad as Narottama himself.

I am convinced, if you actually let Prarthan enter your mind - you go utterly mad in devotion and love. Who could possibly resist?

Narottama´s incredible intensity of prayer is like a transcendental drug of love.

And if you allow yourself to get entangled in it - get addicted!

"I timidly follow behind Sri Rupa Manjari. When will she say to me: 'Fetch some water for the Divine Couple!'

When will the Divine Couple, compassionately smiling, say: 'Where has Rupa Manjari gotten this young maidservant?'

Hearing these words, Sri Rupa Manjari will say: 'Manjunali gave this maidservant to me.'

At that time I will fell very humble at heart, and I will diligently engage in the service of the Divine Couple.

When, oh when, will the Divine Couple directly speak in this way to Narottama das, engaging him in Their service?" (song 19)

[metamorphosis]

Narottama´s incredible intensity of prayer is like a transcendental drug of love.

"I timidly follow behind Sri Rupa Manjari. When will she say to me: 'Fetch some water for the Divine Couple!'

When will the Divine Couple, compassionately smiling, say: 'Where has Rupa Manjari gotten this young maidservant?'

Hearing these words, Sri Rupa Manjari will say: 'Manjunali gave this maidservant to me.'

At that time I will fell very humble at heart, and I will diligently engage in the service of the Divine Couple.

When, oh when, will the Divine Couple directly speak in this way to Narottama das, engaging him in Their service?" (song 19)

thanks i needed that.

[Subhash]

If one could name the father of these things,
They would not happen to decide one's fate:
He woke one morning and the verbal truth
He went to bed with was no longer there;
The years of reading fell away; his eyes
Beheld the weights and contours of the earth.

One must be passive to conceive the truth:
The bright and brutal surfaces of things
Awaited the decision of his eyes,
These pretty girls, to be embraced by fate
And mother all the objects of the earth;
The fatherhood of knowledge stood out there.

One notices, if one will trust one's eyes,
The shadow cast by language upon truth:
He saw his role as father to an earth
Whose speechless, separate, and ambiguous things
Married at his decision; he was there
To show a lucid passion for their fate.

One has good reason to award the earth
The dog-like dumb devotion of the eyes;
Death, love, dishonour are predicted there,
Her arbitrary moments are the truth;
No, he was not the father of his fate;
The power of decision lay with things.

To know, one must decide what is not there,
Where sickness is, and nothing: all that earth
Presented was a challenge to his fate
To father dreams of talking oaks, of eyes
In walls, catastrophes, sins, poems, things
Whose possibilities excluded truth.

What one expects is not, of course, one's fate:
When he had finished looking at them, there
Were helpless images instead of things
That had looked so decided; instead of earth
His fatherless creation; instead of truth
The luckiest convention of his eyes:

That saw himself there with an exile's eyes
Missing his Father, a thing of earth
On whose decision hung the fate of truth.


IV

Castle and crown are faded clean away,
The fountain sinks into a level silence;
What kingdom can be reached by the occasions
That climb the broken ladders of our lives?
We are imprisoned in unbounded spaces,
Defined by an indefinite confusion.

We should have wept before these occasions,
We should have given what is snatched away;
O columns, acrobats of cheering spaces,
O songs that were the royal wives of silence,
Now you are art and part of our confusion;
We are at loggerheads with our own lives.

The order of the macrocosmic spaces,
The outward calm of their remote occasions,
Has lost all interest in our confusion;
Our inner regimen has given way;
The subatomic gulfs confront our lives
With the cold stare of their eternal silence.

Where are the kings who routed all confusion,
The bearded gods who shepherded the spaces,
The merchants who poured gold into our lives?
Where the historic routes, the great occasions?
Laurel and language wither into silence;
The nymphs and oracles have fled away.

And cold and absence echo on our lives:
"We are your conscience of your own confusion
That made a stricken widow of the silence
And weeping orphans of the unarmed spaces,
That laid time waste behind you, stole away
The birthright of innumerable occasions."

O blessing of reproach. O proof that silence
And condemnation presuppose our lives:
We are not lost but only run away,
The authors and the powers of confusion;
We are the promise of unborn occasions;
Our presence is required by all the spaces.

The flora of our lives could guide occasions
Without confusion on their frisking way
Through all the silences and all the spaces.


W.H. Auden

[Tapati]

Read this on ecauldron and got a chuckle out of it:

The rain it raineth every day
Upon the just and unjust feller
But more upon the just because
The unjust stole the just's umbreller.

[Tapati]

Heard this odd bit from Gary Busey (the actor) the other night:

Fear is the darkroom where the Devil develops his negatives.

[Kalisurfer]

Heard this odd bit from Gary Busey (the actor) the other night:

Fear is the darkroom where the Devil develops his negatives.

Wow, now I know where some of my unwanted pictures come from!!! A great new way to look at fear.

[babu]

"best dam food and drinks"

[Subhash]

"who was in here!.. i heard talking"

"noone i was..praying"

"but i heard two voices"

"well, i play both parts"

From Woody Allens Love and Death

[Homer]

And I laugh at my own jokes.