ja_koniga

Tulasi seva Realizations

I appreciate your concerns over Tulasidevi. I ended up Moving all the Rama Tulasi into the temple house and The Krsna Tulasi are staying at the old temple greenhouse. It seems that the purple leaved Tulasi can’t handle the lack of light in the new tulasi house whereas luckily the green leaved Tulasi seem to be able to extract enough light to maintain good health.  I see that one needs to regularly check on Her, especially the growth of manjaris and clipping them and fine tuning the watering etc. I thought About the Tulasi Devi realizations or in better words some slightly deeper thoughts that I hope will fructify into realization.

  For about 8-9 years I’ve been trying to associate with and more recently for about 3 years to serve Srimate Tulasi Devi. I wanted to express some realizations or in better terms inner thoughts regarding her association and mercy in order to try to glorify her and purify my heart. Also hoping for the mercy of the vaisnavas.

(Comments anyone?)

Firstly Tulasi Devi has very kindly appeared in this world to serve Krsna and benedict everyone with her magnanimous association. Tulasi Devi is a divine manifestation of the feminine servant aspect of the absolute truth personified and present in the form of a plant .At the same time she is simultaneously fully present in that form as a transcendental personality with all her divine attributes. After Having had the chance and good fortune to serve her every day over the years. I’ve noticed some interesting things in terms of the effects of her association. Firstly just as the eyes can come into contact with the divine attributes of the absolute truth through the deity form or paintings which so nicely depicts the magnificence of Kåñëa, and His qualities and abode to such an extent that one can verily experience in a subtle yet, perceivable way , the presence of the divine attributes of the absolute truth. I feel that in the same way this experience of Kåñëa’s presence and the presence of His pure devotees can be experienced in many different ways. In our conditional state this is based on focusing the mind ,intelligence, senses and body in relationship with serving and associating with Kåñëa and his pure devotees. After having spent considerable time in her association as in watering and picking leaves and chanting before her I’ve noticed that her association can change one in many ways as in Physically, mentally ,emotionally , and spiritually. In the Srimad Bhagavatam it is mentioned that an advanced devotee is like a crystal. Anyone who comes into contact with the crystal, Vaisnava developes some of the reflected qualities due to association. The best example relevant to this bhagavatam verse is the effect that Srila Prabhupada has had on others. In terms of the association of Srimate Tulasi Devi I’ve noticed that she can change ones body, mind ,senses ,intelligence and also ones entire persona. That is of course relative to how much association one has had, ones desire and also occaisonal instantaneous krpa or mercy. In the material world when a man associates with a women then he develops through that association certain qualities. Both men and women have certain relative qualities and potencies. This is based upon the reflection of the spiritual world. In the spiritual world there is also some transcendental absolute difference of qualities and potencies as in Radha and Krsna and these specific qualities are described in the NOD. I’ve found that through associating and trying to serve Srimate Tulasi Devi that one is coming into contact with the divine womanly potency and qualities  of the absolute truth and that, that kind of association will gradually reflect onto the heart. It is a natural consequence of such association. Just like if one associates with cows who are in the mode of goodness then one will develop more of that mode. In the same way if one associates with someone in the mode of passion the tendency is there to become swayed by passion. I’ve found especially that through her association there is some degree of development of womanly qualities. Which can act to pacify the desire to seek out that association as in qualities and potency on the material platform which can at times be subject to lust or other inebrieties. In terms of Srimate Tulasi Devi’s association this is a relationship based primarily on servitude. I feel that her association and service which can be anything from watering, Picking leaves, Chanting before her and praying etc. That this association and service is a very valuable shelter for anyone attempting to lead a more spiritually progressive and renounced life. As a yogi, bhakti yogi should attempt to become self satisfied atmarama. Of course other than other types of aspiring transcendentalists the bhakti yogi attempts this through devotional service. Srimate Tulasi Devi’s association is very much helpful in regards to trying to become more atmarama self satisfied as in devoid of material desires. As the tendency to desire womanly association is a very powerful tendency which I feel has the possibility of being curbed and at the same time met in an absolute transcendental way based on service. It is described in the Bhagavad Gita that the devotee takes shelter of the divine nature as in Srimate Radharani not exactly directly but through her representative the spiritual master. Who is acting on her behalf. So Srimate Tulasi Devi Is very much present before us as a Divine manifestation of an eternal feminine servitor of Krsna the absolute truth. Being an eternal Gopi expansion of Krsna She is also one of the topmost sankirtan devotees always eager to try and make arrangements to help others to come closer to Krsna. So her association, service and mercy is a very valuable source of shelter and inspiration for anyone wanting to return to the spiritual world.

Srimate Tulasi Devi Maharani Ki Jaya.

I really enjoyed reading Prabhu’s realizations. Immersion in Tulasi-seva can really change one's mind and heart. Keeping manjaris and leaves picked is an important--and sometimes daunting--task, but it can also bring genuine happiness. I was the first in ISKCON to engage in Tulasi-seva right after Govinda dasi sprouted the first plants in Honolulu. I cared for those first Tulasi plants beginning with their first set of real leaves. After a little while, when many of them grew very large (some were over eight feet tall), I spent several hours a day just collecting manjaris and leaves, and I seemed to get farther behind each day. During that period, whenever I closed my eyes, I'd see tangles of manjaris. Even today, keeping up with the Tulasi plants at our home requires that I pay attention and budget some time every day.

Tulasi-seva involves both reverent and practical service and can be a service that demands much physical, mental, and emotional energy. Everything we do for her helps change our self-concept. This service is Krishna's mercy. When he initiated me, Srila Prabhupada assured me that because of my service to her, Srimati Tulasi-devi would ensure rapid advancement in Krishna consciousness.

Yours in service, Babhru das

I wrote:

I experienced the same when I had 20-25 tulasi, (one of which was 1 meter x 1 meter branches spread with 12 tube lights around Her, because the lights were so close to Her branches, there were profuse manjaris, this meant that I had to work 1 hour a day on that one big tulasi just keeping the manjari's collected and utilized properly. Your testimony proves once again, that commitment to Her seva,

(1) watering, (2) spraying Her 1-2 times a day, depending on season) (3) yearly once repotting, (4) daily collecting leaves and at the time one should cut all the manjari's,

If one has profuse manjari's then manjari's collection should supercede leaf collection in priority.                some reasons to keep the manjari's all cut unless one requires seeds:

(1) In CC antya 6.297 Swarupa damodara Gosvami advised Raghunatha dasa Gosvami to offer soft manjari's to Govardhana shilas. so one can appreiciate that all Visnu tattva must like soft manjaris much more then hard ones.

dui-dike dui-patra madhye komala mañjar… ei-mata a˜a-mañjar… dibe raddh€ kari’” SYNONYMS dui-dike—on two sides; dui-patra—two tulas… leaves; madhye—within; komala mañjar…—very soft tulas… flowers; ei-mata—in this way; a˜a-mañjar…—eight tulas… flowers; dibe—you should offer; raddh€ kari’—with faith and love. TRANSLATION “With faith and love, you should offer eight soft tulas… flowers, each with two tulas… leaves, one on each side of each flower.

(2) Bhaktivinode mentions in Saranagati bhakti anukula bhajana #4,

kusume g€‰thobu‰ h€r tulas…-maŠi-mañjar… t€r 3) I will string together a garland of forest flowers, in which tulas… buds shall be the jewelled pendants.

(manjari's should be put in the Lord's garlands.) She is known as Puspasara, (the essence of all flowers)

4) so that no unnecessary ripe ones drop seeds to sprout un-needed tulasi plants.

(5) She gets strength and reinvigoration for redirecting energy for producing green leaves/ new buds elsewhere on the stems where She has no new branches yet.

IN one warm Middle Eastern country where I regularly visit 2 times a year, the leader of the devotees who is relocating back to South India, had (has?) a huge tulasi garden due to unfortunate neglect of cutting ripe manjaris.

so I had a huge crew of Indian expats cut all the dried manjaris and give them to me for Russia travels (where I have difficulty getting manjari's for my Govardhana KB Lords).

then we repotted and distributed the tulasi's to the congregation, leaving only what the local devotee wanted.

after all the vollunteers had successfully cut all the manjari's off the 100 or so Tulasi plants, and sprayed Her divine forms, then the next day we all saw a wonderful greenness from all of Her divine forms that were there, much greener then in the days before.

As if it was a great relief She was showing us, that it was good for Her to have gotten them all cut. It reminded me of something similar to the requirement to milk a cow on time otherwise pain is caused to the cow).

This experience of my having to try to clean up the error in Tulasi management, by pleadingly request repeatedly the indian expats, for 2-3 days until the job was completely done, really drove home in my mind, that keeping the manjari's cut is a most important necessity of Her service, and devotees must realise that (as Babhru nicely mentions) they must budget the time to keep up with Her seva.

If they can't budget that time to cut the manjari's (for whatever reason) then they must keep the number of Tulasi plants within their means to serve.