Fan The Spark

Success is Built Before it is Seen

You have to follow the scriptures —pramāṇais tat-sad-ācārais (BS 5.59), and you have to behave properly, tad-abhyāsais. You have to have abhyāsa; you have to practice again and again. And about that, I’m going to read you a couple of quotes. Do you want to hear a couple of quotes about practice?

Success is built before it is seen.

Growth requires commitment.

Leaders grow strongest in quiet consistency.

I was really inspired by 'Success is built before it is seen,' because in the early practices of devotional service, there are oftentimes complaints: 'How come I’m the only one who can’t get anything?' 'I’ve been left behind,' and 'I don’t have a taste,' and so forth. But if we apply ourselves—pramāṇais tat-sad-ācārais tad-abhyāsair—practice. How much? A lot!

How much should you practice? A lot. It’s two words. How much? A lot. Some people make it one word, 'a lot.' Okay, so how much abhyāsa? Nirantaram, he says. How much did you practice? Pretty much all the time. Nirantaram means without stopping.

'Bodhayan ātmanātmānaṁ' means then there will be awakening. Bodhayan means an awakening of the soul to the relationship with the Lord. 'Bodhayan ātmanātmānaṁ bhaktim apy uttamāṁ labhet'—one will attain this bhakti. Bhaktyā sañjātayā bhaktyā (SB 11.3.31), like this verse says: if you practice the first kind of bhakti properly, then naturally there will be an awakening.

So this idea of rāgānuga—it’s our practice, and we’re fully equipped. Everything is there. The Holy Name is the consolidated practice given by Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu, who has taken everything in all of the cultures of the Vedic system and all the śāstras, and He has put it in one place. We need that. By chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa without offense, then one can achieve the perfection of life which we’re just describing.

Success is Built Before it is Seen | SB 11.3.31| HG Vaisesika Dasa | POTH, Puri | 16 Feb 2026
https://youtu.be/7JI3yzv86F4

18 hours ago | [YT] | 58

Fan The Spark

Ami Bangla Boli !!

Books are what we call literary kīrtana. Nāmāny anantasya yaśo ’ṅkitāni yat (SB 1.5.11) — the literatures are written kīrtana.

Imagine you do a kīrtana, which we should do in every place we go; then, when you give somebody a book, they walk away with a kīrtana in their hand. It goes into their house, it goes into the company, it goes everywhere. It is the same thing only; it is called Bṛhat-mṛdaṅga. It is the 'greater kīrtana' because it can go further.

So: give out books, give out prasādam, give out the Holy Name, and then teach these basic principles. People will be very satisfied with you.

Two Key Instructions of Caitanya Mahaprabhu | HG Vaisesika Dasa | GYR | Kurma Kshetra | 26 Dec 2025
https://youtu.be/XWDSu2MmabE

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3 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 78

Fan The Spark

Hare Krishna,
Please accept our humble obeisances!
All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Here are the playlists of HG Vaisesika Dasa's talks on His Bhaktivedanta Thesis delivered at ISKCON of Silicon Valley so far.

YouTube: www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

SoundCloud:soundcloud.com/fan-the-spark/sets/talks-on-hg-vais…

3 days ago | [YT] | 45

Fan The Spark

My deepest thanks to the Mayapur Institute, to my teachers, Rādhikā Nāgara and Śrīvāsa Paṇḍita Prabhu, and my wife, Nirākulā Devī Dāsī, without whom I would not have been able to procure this diploma.
Seeing Śrīla Prabhupāda’s dedication to writing his books, and having received a personal instruction from him in 1973 to read his books, I’m very happy to offer this diploma to His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda. And noticing how much effort he put into writing his books, I’ve always thought: if I can put in as much effort into reading his books as he’s put into writing them, then maybe I will amount to something.

Of course, I can nowhere match his efforts, because he’s from the spiritual world, but I’m running behind him with that endeavor. So on this day, I hereby offer to His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda this diploma, which is an offering from my heart. Thanks for saving me from this dark material world through his divine books; and I intend, for the rest of my life, to continue studying them deeply, trying to assimilate what he’s given, which is the most valuable, heartfelt spiritual knowledge available anywhere within all three worlds. Hare Kṛṣṇa.Dear Śrīla Prabhupāda. I hereby offer you this diploma, and thank you very much for saving me from the material world. Śrīla Prabhupāda, kī jaya!

My sincere request to all my disciples: please read all of Śrīla Prabhupāda's books. Please take Bhakti-śāstrī, Bhakti-vaibhava, Bhakti-vedānta, and when it’s available, Bhakti-sārvabhauma. Always study Śrīla Prabhupāda's books, because they’re as deep as the ocean; and if you try to swim in that ocean, you’ll find out just how deep it is. In the process, you’ll become fully Kṛṣṇa conscious by the mercy of His Divine Grace. Thank you for considering my request.

Offering Bhakti Vedanta Diploma to Srila Prabhupada | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Mayapur | 12 Feb 2026
https://youtu.be/1UFqQTYIcz4

5 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 143

Fan The Spark

If you chant the Mahamantra, read some Bhagavad-gītā, and have a discussion—a little prasādam—what else do you need? Everyone feels happy and satisfied, and it’s complete. So, my plan was to keep going in Chapter 14; it would be nice to complete that. And then, when I thought about that, my next thought was: 'What about Chapter 15?' The Bhagavad-gītā never gets old. Sometimes we move on and think of other śāstras, which is nice also. The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, especially, is an ocean one could swim in for many lifetimes and still feel that one hasn’t gone very far.
But coming back to the Bhagavad-gītā seems to be foundational and very helpful, even for going into the Bhāgavatam and elsewhere. All the ācāryas gave commentary on the Bhagavad-gītā especially. It’s been well-preserved over the years because of their watchful eyes; it hasn't been interpolated because we have a record of so many commentaries over millennia.
So, we’re fortunate to sit here with this. Prabhupāda points out that reading the Bhagavad-gītā is the same as Arjuna hearing from Kṛṣṇa. In other words, the experience is direct because Kṛṣṇa is speaking not just to Arjuna, but to us as well. The first time I got a Bhagavad-gītā was when I was in high school, and I would say that I would thrill every time I went through it—and that was every day. Every time I read it, I felt as if Kṛṣṇa was talking directly to me, and I was experiencing Him on the page. That is the 'free sample' I got just from reading it again and again. I’m just expressing a little happiness.

Reading From Bhagavad-gita, Ch 14 | HG Vaisesika Dasa | Sridhama Mayapur | Feb 2026
youtube.com/live/LzZadpJmol4

1 week ago | [YT] | 34

Fan The Spark

Most people know that texting and driving is very dangerous because, even if you take your eyes off the road for a millisecond, you can end up piling into another car. It's amazing how just a diversion of attention while driving takes you into a precarious situation.
Similarly, when chanting, don't 'text' in your mind other things. Don't take it off—because it is so consequential, the connection that we make with our own will and our attention and giving it to Kṛṣṇa. That's the main—that’s the main connection that we have: willfully giving our attention to the Holy Name.

It’s not just 'chanting,' just as it’s not just 'driving.' Anybody can get in and drive, but driving and paying attention at the same time, that is the point. You can count with your fingers how many times the Holy Name hits your ear. Make that the count—not just that your fingers are moving or your lips are moving while the Holy Name is going somewhere else but actually count it like that: 'Okay, that’s one, it hit. Here’s two, it hit. Three, it hit.' And keep bringing it back, so that your voice is purposefully aiming at your ear and it keeps hitting over and over again. Then you can count it, and that's where the traction takes place.

Chanting is bringing the attention back. And if you divert, you'll 'pile into a car' somewhere; then you'll get some anxiety—I didn't do this, I didn't do that—and then you've completely forgotten your chanting. That means you crashed while chanting. So, don't text and chant. Stay very focused and try to hit the ear.

The Best Search Engine is Krishna in Your Heart | Japa Jolt | HG Vaisesika Dasa | 28 Jan 2026 https://youtu.be/zfOXhvz1iC4

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2 weeks ago (edited) | [YT] | 79

Fan The Spark

My grandfather was on the Titanic. I have a copy of the ticket because he got on the boat, but he hadn't paid the full fare. So, he—and many other passengers who hadn't been able to pay fully—had to get off the boat before it made its first voyage.That boat, called the Titanic, is famous (or infamous) because it was built not to sink. It was called the "unsinkable ship," yet it hit an iceberg on its first voyage—the maiden voyage—and it sank, and most of the people died. My grandfather always wondered how it was that he was taken off the boat before it sank.So, we don’t know; whatever arrangements we make in the material world, we don't know whether they'll be successful or not. This world, the Śrī Īśopaniṣad says, is pūrṇam—perfect.

People sometimes ask, "What does this mean, 'perfect'? My life doesn't seem perfect. If the world's so perfect, why do so many imperfect situations come into my life?" It seems most imperfect, but the meaning of the verse is that the world is a perfect arrangement for its purpose. The very purpose of this world is to give every soul an opportunity to go back to Godhead. For those who take advantage of this, there is full facility to go back to Godhead—perfect facility. And for those who don't take advantage of this opportunity, there is perfect facility for suffering, which is a perfect means of reminding us that we don't belong in this material world.


Don't Be Tricked by The False Promises of The Material World | HG Vaisesika Dasa | GYR | 01 Jan 2026 https://youtu.be/zpL3Wf2MLBY

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 33

Fan The Spark

So what we have here is an institution meant to continually channel the water that Śrī Nityānanda Prabhu, brought from the great ocean of mercy of Kṛṣṇa. We're kind of like civil engineers, right? Sometimes they cut channels like Mulholland; Los Angeles wouldn't be a name right now if Mulholland, a very expert engineer, hadn't figured out how to "steal" all the water and bring it down to Los Angeles to make the desert fertile. I learned from an economics book, is the science of managing scarce resources and thereafter the law of supply and demand; but we learn from the Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta that there is no scarce resource in the spiritual world. The more we channel the mercy of Nityānanda Prabhu to the world, the more the supply increases. That's a Haribol! That's a secret of success.

Also, when we have an institution meant to distribute mercy, "the devil is in the details," but we can come out of the details by principles. And one of the principles that Śrī Nityānanda Prabhu exhibited and taught to the world is the principle of adoṣa-darśī. Everyone is envious in the material world—my brother gets a raise, and I think, "Darn"; somebody else leads a great kīrtana, it feels like ughh!! As Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā, this is the lingering disease in the material world.

Śrī Nityānanda Prabhu represents the uttama-adhikārī who sees beyond the faults of all living entities, which are cataloged by Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura in the Fourth Canto of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam in his commentary, where he says there are four kinds of people that are highly expert at finding faults, some are better at it than others. There are four kinds of saintly persons who are expert at following finding the good qualities in others. The first fault-finder sees that there are good qualities and bad qualities and then he only sees the bad; second, he’s more advanced, he sees the good and bad qualities so he brings up the bad quality to make sure everybody knows about it; the third doesn’t even see any good qualities, just sees the bad; and the fourth is so expert that even in those that only have good qualities, he finds some fault.

Conversely, in those who represent Lord Nityānanda to one degree or another, the first sees good and bad qualities but chooses to see the good; the second one sees good and bad and brings up the good quality; the third doesn’t see the bad quality, just the good; and the fourth, even in a person who is sudurācāra, who has no good qualities factually, a person who is a representative of Lord Nityānanda finds a good quality.

(excerpt from Talk on Glories of Lord Nityānanda, 02 Feb 2023, ISKCON Mayapur)
YouTube Playlist of Talks on Lord Nityānanda: youtube.com/playlist...
SoundCloud Playlist: soundcloud.com/.../sets/talks-on-lord-nityananda...
Songs glorifying Lord Nityānanda: https://youtu.be/SeB3gAR87gc

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2 weeks ago | [YT] | 41

Fan The Spark

When I first got an iPhone, I tried out the feature in which you say something and then it prints the text back. Now, of course, it seems commonplace, back then it was a novelty. I said, "Haribol!" was the first thing I told my phone, and it translated it as "Honey bowl." I thought, "That’s pretty good. This is a very deep phone." It means that chanting is very sweet; it’s like a honey bowl. So, if you think of "Haribol" as "Honey bowl," and you chant sweetly—let the sound touch your ears sweetly—you don’t have to do much else because:
nāmnām akāri bahudhā nija-sarva-śaktis
tatrārpitā niyamitaḥ smaraṇe na kālaḥ
etādṛśī tava kṛpā bhagavan mamāpi
durdaivam īdṛśam ihājani nānurāgaḥ
(Śikṣāṣṭaka, Verse 2)
There’s a way in which Kṛṣṇa is already sweet. You don’t have to conjure sweetness; He just is sweet. Just like a honey bowl, you don’t have to make it any sweeter. You don’t need stevia or sugar; you just take it.
Lord Caitanya said Krishna’s names have His natural potencies, which are madhuraṁ madhuraṁ madhuram—sweet, sweet, sweet. So, just let that be the mode and keep letting it hit your ear. Just let it hit your ear and don’t worry about any mechanics other than that.

Let The Holy Name Touch Your Ears in a Sweet Way | HG Vaisesika Dasa | ISV | 24 Jan 2026
https://youtu.be/XypVgGSOMgI

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3 weeks ago | [YT] | 122

Fan The Spark

There are two things I want to impart that could be helpful. We find that a lot of times people are walking around with earbuds because they are listening to music, and they are seemingly impenetrable—but they are not.The technique that we have been using to stop people who are listening to music or something else (and who then have a tendency to not stop, generally) is this: when we see them coming, we start pointing to our ear like that, and we point to them and go like this. I would say about 70% to 75% of the time, they stop.

When they pull their earplug out, we ask them a question. In fact, what we tell them is: "We have been having a debate here. When we saw you coming, he said you’re listening to classical music; this person said that you’re listening to hip-hop. What are you listening to?" They always get really into it, and say, "Oh, no, I’m listening to this, or that" —whatever it is—because they identify with their music. As soon as they say that, we say, "Fantastic then! Here, this is for you," and we hand them a Bhagavad-gītā or whatever books we have. So, it’s not hopeless when people have earbuds; in fact, we are finding that sometimes they are better.

The other little tip I was using yesterday: we were in a downtown area; we show people the book and I say, "There’s no obligation. We ask for a donation—no obligation whatsoever—but there is an opportunity. If you would like to take advantage of the opportunity, you can give a donation. We use it to spread spiritual knowledge." There is something about the juxtaposition of these two words. One is 'no obligation,' and then we say 'opportunity for you to give.' It turns it into a very positive exchange when first, you take the pressure off them, and then you give them an opportunity. It has nothing to do with 'yes, but'; it’s just cleanly their free will to help with something beautiful. I found that most people respond very positively to that.


Be Brave | Live to Give- Super Sunday with HG Vaisesika Dasa | Oceania | 30 Nov 2025
https://youtu.be/meWCMZUk0ls?t=1088

1 month ago | [YT] | 106