Radhanath Swami
Radhanath Swami
Radhanath Swami is a guide, community builder, activist, and acclaimed author. He has been a Bhakti Yoga practitioner and spiritual teacher for more than 40 years. He is the inspiration behind ISKCON's free midday meal for 1.2 million school kids across India, and he has been instrumental in founding the Bhaktivedanta Hospital in Mumbai. He works largely from Mumbai in India, and travels extensively throughout Europe and America. In the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, he serves as a member...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionClergyman
Date of Birth7 December 1950
CountryUnited States of America
Through the practice of devotion to God, I was coming to learn that preserving loving relations in this world required much forgiveness, tolerance, patience, gratitude, and humility. An essential virtue of humility is to accept others for what they are, despite differences. I contemplated again how the tendency to judge others is often a symptom of insecurity, immaturity, or selfishness, and I yearned to rise above it. Everyone is a child of God. God loves all of His children. If I wish to love God, I must learn to love those whom He loves.
Familiarity leads to lack of Gratitude.
Actual Gratitude is the Symptom of Humility.
We should honor Mother Earth with gratitude; otherwise our spirituality may become hypocritical.
In our conditioned nature we do not understand value of something until we lose it.
The only way we can make this world a better place is to transcend it.
Parallel to our vast strides in technology, there is a dangerous rise in unemployment, foreclosures, and degrading education. Millions of people are stricken with hopelessness and strife. Sadly, in the name of progress we have polluted the air, water, soil and the food we eat.
Humanity evolves when we realise that animals have the same rights to the Earth as we do.
Whether we fear pain and suffering or not, pain and suffering will come to everyone. Why not keep our minds focused on where we want to go?
How can our hearts not break? How can we hold our tears? How can we bear the pain of losing those loving children and their guardians, who were slain in Newtown, Conn.? Why can't we face the reality of our times and restrict deranged people from having these destructive powers?
When spirituality is the basis of your life, it gives you the strength, wisdom and courage to surmount the many storms of life that could destroy a weaker person who doesn't have this foundation.
When people unfortunately use religion to facilitate their envy, arrogance and hate, communalism surfaces.
Religion is meant to teach us true spiritual human character. It is meant for self-transformation. It is meant to transform anxiety into peace, arrogance into humility, envy into compassion, to awaken the pure soul in man and his love for the Source, which is God.
One who loves God sees everything in relation to God. Therefore, their love flows spontaneously toward everyone, at all times, everywhere. They even love those who wish them harm. If you love God, you can't hate anything or anyone. If the love one offers is met with hate, it doesn't die; rather, it manifests in the form.