Harimedia Forum

I would also be very gratefull to you if you would give me some information related to the way you are worshiping or please the Deities there in Saint Petersburg. Maybe I could get from it some hint on how to please or worship my own deities even better. What happened to the website from your center in St. Petersburg http://www.gauranitai.info ? Until last year one could find therein some information and photos about it, but now look yourself. An interesting name you gave to this center there, as I was reading recently on a youtube video by Siva-hari. You call it the center "Another World." Is it on the place and location one can stll find written on the internet? Saint-Petersburg ul. Burtseva 20-147 or at Bumazhnaya str. 17 (metro Narva) as I could read recently on the site of the book shop Pangeya.ru. Phone (812) 252-46-53, (812) 252-15-12 and other Russian Sites?


- Deity offering
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Evening of Indian Dance.
Ezopiter.ru Sep.13, 2009


-» A Master class on Indian classical dance Kuchipudi. (9.11.2008)


Translated Google links to the Center for Human and Spiritual Growth "Another World" (Центр "Другой мир") in Saint Petersburg.

What could be so secret about how one may please / worship Radha Krishna in Saint Petersburg's "Another World" Center?

Its quite interesting for me to see that this place is not a kind of devotional place of worship of Radha Krishna or the Supreme, as in an ordinary temple, rather a place where a variety of spiritual practices and various cultural events like dance, art and music are offered to the public.
As the links show to "Another World" (rus.). / 2 / 3 /4 /5 /6 /7 /8 /9 / 10 /11 /12 /13 /14 /15 /16 /17 /18 /19 /20 /21/22

Translated from Crimbiocomp89.com: Human Development Center "Another World" welcomes you!
"Dear colleagues and dear friends, the St. Petersburg Center for Human Development "Another World" welcomes you! We offer you to meet and engage in partnerships, friendships, to exchange experiences and information, to implement joint projects aimed at comprehensive development of man. Our Center since 1998 , and now we come to the point where further development involves tying contacts with colleagues from other cities."


- Center "Another World" - Spb.org.ru


From Drugomir.ru:

18-20 December will be a jubilee festival "Soul, Space, Time"

- Each moment which takes place is a great mystery! We are born in this space around us!
We create ourselves, our thoughts, feelings, actions, ideas, images ... the soul is creative!

What will it be -- The World of Tomorrow?

Jubilee Festival "SOUL, SPACE, TIME" invites: active creative people, spiritual leaders, leading schools, clubs and groups for self-development, healthy lifestyles and spiritual growth to participate in the preparation of the festival

Festival - is:
- A unique opportunity to show themselves in the role of an organizer, coach, volunteer, sposnsora, artist, musician, artist, or simply members of the festival,
- Fountain of paints emotions and impressions,
- A palette of aromas, tastes, music, costumes and traditions from around the world,
- Live communication on the topic of psychology, astrology, tarot, systems of consciousness, health practices, ethnic culture, self-knowledge, creative implementation,
- Fair ideas and trends in the spiritual, physical, energetic, psychological, social development

The applications are accepted in the organizing committee of the festival from November 1 to December 10, at:
Center "Another World", ul.Bumazhnaya 17, Phone for information 252-53-55 E-mail: colscy@yandex.ru

I go to S-Peterburg rarely, but I can tell about this center what I know. The center places in the building which has 8 floors. Before 98 year all it was a temple, on different floors brahmacharis and brahmacharinis lived . Now in this former habitable lodgings auditoriums place. Different specialists in astrology, psychology, in ezoteric and spiritual practics conduct their studies. There life seethes, very many people come to this specialists , there is atmosphere of healing and spiritual search. On 3th floors there was and is gigantic altar's room. Wonderful Radha-Krishna, Gaura-Nitai, Shiva-Parvati, Garuda and other Deities live there. In this room quiet music plays, people meditate and associate with Deities. Behind the altar there is a kitchen where people cook for Deities, also there are rooms where pudjaris live who serves Deities. I don't know time-table of day of Deities, I sow only how a pudjari offered food Deities and changed Their clothes. I associated with one pudjari. He has a wife and a small child. His " work" of pudjari gives him some money for support of his family. It is like brahmans who serves in Indian temples or like a priest in a church. He loves Deities, he likes his work. He told me about wonderful cases connected with his association with Deities and with discoveries which came to his consciousness. I had happiness to serve this Deities, I coloured Them a little. I can say that Deities look "satisfied" and happy. When you ask about the time-table of worship , do you take care of welfare of Deities? Or do you want to check how high are standarts , how right do people serve Deities ? Personally me it came to my head never, usually I go to this temple in order to associate with Deities. If They would want to tell me something They would say it. You can connect with Deities(do you have photo of this Deities?) and ask Them how They live.

I am happy Nanda-grama that at least you understood me and what I wanted to know, and wrote so open-heartedly about this.


Thank you for your time and your information. Sincerely


Indeed I could not really understand why Hari installed Radha Krishna deities in this place if they would not be also worshiped by someone there on Their altar. Now I know that indeed someone is doing it in the way known somehow also to me. And by you I know now also something more about the history of this place there in Saint Petersburg, which is quite interesting to me.

Actually I like it how the Center "Another World" opend its doors and facilities to the greater public in the way they did it there. I am a very open-minded and liberal person. I like to view and do things more in a progressive way rather according to the old ways. I am not at all so backward-oriented or so inclined towards traditional thinking and acting, some of you may consider me to be. Continue in this enlivening progressive way of doing things, I am sure that is the right way which pleases Radha Krishna and all the divine beings the most. They live also in the present.


www.ethnolife.ru

Its interesting the Gaura-Nitai deities in St. Petersburg seem to have the same beauty and size of the one
I was driving ones with my car from Germany to Russia, to Sochi on the Black Sea, in February of 1991.








- Spb.ethnolife.ru

I'm glad that you are content . But if about Deities, it seems to me, Their day-table is not most main thing about what we should take care. As it seems to me, They like more when people associate with Them, have some contact with Them, than when people simply DO something for Deities, especially if they do it not because they spontaneously want to do it, but because it is necessary to do according to some rules. I can tell my own sad history. In ISKCON I was busy by sankirtana, I directly served Deities never, generally I was in temples a little, I traveled more. And I associated with God in my mind, I had not beloved Deities. In 98 year I married, and I got my small Gaura-Nitai. I began to do all this right things with Deities. But I found that I continued to associate with God in my mind as before, but my Deities were as some mehanizm for creation of prasadam. Of course, I liked my Deities but I did not feel such deep connection with Them like this connection which I had with Krishna in my heart. Do you understand me? At first I thought that with me something was not well. Then I began to think that with my Deities something was not well. I thought that God in my heart and God in my Deities were different personalities. Or that God displayed Himself in different degree in my heart and in my Deities. But then I understood that all cause was in this rules of worship. I began to violate this rules specially in order to feel as Deities reacted upon it. When They slenderized , when I began to feel what They liked and what They did not love I became to perceive Them as living beings. And I did for Them what I felt and wanted without some rules. And by such way it happened to talk with Them and to exchange with Them feelings and energy. Therefore I think that strict rules can prevent connection with Deities.And as it seems to me, They like more to associate with people than to have servants who subordinates his life to strict regimen and to rules which somebody invented many hundred years ago.

Of course the greatest question of all here is where should the worship of God in his deity form take us. What is the use of it in other words, should I not rather try to enhance my knowledge about God and just trust, belief or have faith in the Divine Being on my ways through life. Some say it is just idol worship and not really required for spiritual salvation. Should salvation be the goal in worshipping the deity or our feeling or emotion of togetherness with the divine being? That is indeed a big issue to discuss, something which many philosophers went through in the history of mankind.

Some may say in this connection: "The difference is that God authorizes the worship of Deities. For example, if you put mail into an authorized mailbox it will be delivered to the address written on the envelope. But if you drop that mail into some box other than an authorized mailbox, it will not be delivered. Similarly, if you create some form, call it God, and worship it, all according to your own mental concoction, there will be no benefit and your act will be condemned by God. If however, you create a form according to the actual description of God's form given in the revealed scriptures, and if you worship that form according to the rules and regulations given by God in the scriptures, you will achieve excellent results. The result of that worship is love for God." See Google Search

So some say "love of God" should be the goal. But than again love of God can also be experienced without worshipping or pleasing God in any form which may be revealed in scriptures. Of course those who worship the deities in order to develop their love of God may not really know what love of God really means or where should it really take one in life or beyond. People speak and write so many things about love of god as if love would be something which comes out of a kind of process you would have to follow. You just do this and this and you will get the end result: Love of God. Try it with someone and see if it works. I would not be so confident about it. Of course "Small gifts will best maintain friendship" But as you may know love has also something to do with feeling, emotions to be and feel some responsibility for the person one loves. A feeling which may hardly just develop by a kind of process one would have to follow ordered by some scriptural injunction. Indeed what a naive conception that is. And what will you do if the person you love doesnt feel the same for you? Is there a garanty that God loves you the same as you may love him just by doing something without involving also your feelings in that relationship?

I personnaly would agree with you that all this is a personal matter between me and God and whatever helps me to feel and experience my connection with the divine being is good. I like in this connection what Krishna reveals to Arjuna in the Bhagavad-gita: "Those who know Me, the Ultimate Personality as the governing principle of the phenomenal existence, as the underlying foundation of all the demigods and as unmitigated sustainer of the performance of all sacrifices; they with their minds absorbed in Me can know Me even at the moment of death." God, the governing principle beyond this visible existence we live in. I like this statement made by Krishna as a revealed information about the Supreme and not as a kind of scriptural injunction I should or must follow. In this way Deity worship is for me also a kind of "principle" I may or may not follow in life. My "belief" or trust in God does not really depend on seeing or worshipping his deity form although it helps me to know and "feel" his or her presence in my life. Its indeed hard to write about the Supreme living Being by using all this terms he or she.
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Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them to what is deepest within themselves. ~ Teilhard de Chardin

Yes, it is interestingly.Generally how is it possible to try to love someone? I can try only to know somebody better, to be more in harmony with him, but I can't compel myself to fall in love with someone.
I think the form of Deities was created as element of yoga- as means of connection with Divine (like now internet-for communication between people). Love can't arise without contact . If I tune myself in energy which goes from Deities I can contact with Divine. But if I simply do some outward things which somewhere someone did who had his love and connection with God , and I worry correctly or not correctly I do it, and all what I do or feel is regulated and described in books , I collate my sensations with already described sensations and I try to develop in myself signs of love - by such way I easily can lose myself. It is unnatural process, I'm agree with you. Feeling, love is very delicate thing, and any compel can break it .
Deities are perfect environment of communication with Divine . It seems to me, old instruction for this means of connection overcomed itself and now it can even prevent from free association with Divine. Nevertheless wonderful Deities continue to be, and everyone can feel lavourable energy which They radiate. And we can exchange energy with Them. I think in it the main point is.
I want to say you some more that whenever I associated with God I felt always that He or They loved me. And They are always online.

I have several photo of Deities in S-Peterburg. I put them on Hari's music and a small film came of it.
Here it is:
http://video.mail.ru/mail/nandagrama/_myvideo/1.html#
Thank you Harsi that impeled me to think about Them.

Thank you Nanda-grama its nice to open up this forum in this way. Nice Images. You write: "If I tune myself in energy which goes from Deities I can contact with Divine." I dont know what you exactly mean by "energy which goes from Deities" but I do know that the Divinity is always interested in an exchance of love with us who want and feel the same. As a matter of fact everyone is happy when one finds someone who does love us in return, Radha-Krishna is no exception in this regard. If this feeling and intention to make someone else feel good and happy in ones presence is to be called an "energy" which may emanate from someone or ones preferred deities is I guess just a matter of word expression. It can well be called also a good feeling which one may experience in the presence of someone one dearly loves and appreciates, as a matter of personal preference. Of course that is something very good in the presence of the Divinity and their deity form, which I can just encourage everyone to experience.

The conclusion of some people is that one would have to qualify oneself first in order to get, receive or really experience God's love. But in my opinion love is love and not a buisness contract one may sign with someone in order to get and experience his or her love in return. Of course one may educate ones children, out of love, but at one point in time one will also have to let them go and let them experience their own ways in life. The concept of education one may know from the practice in the Krishna Consciousness Movement is the perfect example in this connection of how education should not be practiced in life.

Brahmacarya or the time in ones life one may have become educated, in ancient times, by ones spiritual master or teacher was meant also as a period of education for children and pupils to become qualified and full time members of the society they were living in and not for mostly adult people, how it was and still is understood in certain societies of today. In fact this concept of brahmacarya is today not up to date anymore or out of date as also all the so called Vedic concept of education. Although in a closer look at it, one may also find some parallels to certain features of today's education system.

I mean to say to someone, you will have to live according to the old ways of now 5 or 10 thousand years ago, would mean in essence that you will also have to experience the life and facilities of the society 5 or 10 thousend years ago. But who does that really? We are living and do experience the life and facilities of the 21th century. Arn't we? And I thank God that this is so. I know that many people who join so called spiritual societies do it out of some aversion against the world and society of today, do we not have been encouraged before to lieve and get out of the society we were in and "join" the "wathever society", pleasing thus the Supreme Godhead, although like I wrote to you ones, God and the divine beings are living also in the presence, and not in the past. Life is lived in the present, one moment at a time, not, in the past or future. Spirituality in itself can be defined as life lived in the presence of God. It embraces not only traditional and formal modes of religious expression, but also more informal individual and communal efforts to remain mindful of the sacred in all aspects of experience.
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"What we need is a form of life which is completely pointless [...]. Rather than serve some utilitarian purpose or earnest metaphysical end, it is a delight in itself. It needs no justification beyond its own existence. In this sense, the meaning of life is interestingly close to meaninglessness. Religious believers who find this version of the meaning of life a little too laid-back for comfort should remind themselves that God, too, is his own end, ground, origin, reason, and self-delight, and that only by living this way can human beings be said to share in his life. If there is such a thing as eternal life, it must be here and now. It is the present moment which is an image of eternity, not an infinite succession of such moments"
~ Terry Eagleton, "The Meaning of Life"

ARE /there / THEIR / DEITIES IN SANKT PETERSBURG ? I F yes , the people there got their own rome. I life in GermaNY : in the whole tiny country there was once a temple, but thats already 34 years gone... First i felt only lonely - yet one year ago - i learned how to send mails and surf (NOT ON boards, i fear the great ocean like nothing anywhere !!