Mid-program Update

All glories to Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura! All glories to Gadādhara Paṇḍita!

Before I talk about the Rūpa-śikṣā program, I'd like to share a couple things that might be helpful in your observance of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura's 108th disappearance today.

Back in 2014, on Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura’s centennial disappearance day, our Rays of The Harmonist team published a special magazine issue with 18 articles by our guru-varga extolling his glories, some that had never been published in English before, as well as songs about him and four essential articles by him. You can download it below.

Also, on the Gaudiya Kirtan mailing, I  sent out three special songs that you can sing today for Śrīla Bhaktivinoda and Śrī Gadādhara Paṇḍita. If you're not already subscribed, then you can find the songs here.

I’m writing this as I’m sitting on the train soon to arrive in the Jagannātha Purī station. For a while now I've been wanting to update you on the current situation with this Rūpa-śikṣā program. Some of my friends told me how annoying it is when I apologize for being late in almost every video and posting. So I'm going to try and get out of that habit and just let you know as a matter of fact: I'm five articles behind here. After Ratha-yātrā, I’m planning to start frequently posting here until I catch up to where we are in the videos.

Here are the videos I need to write articles for so far:

WEEK 6 – Cc Madhya 19.152–155
(pt1) Watering the Seed ❧ https://youtu.be/h4SxnAB7YVU
(pt2) The Growth of the Vine of Devotion ❧ https://youtu.be/xS31lJADwoA

WEEK 7 – Cc Madhya 19.156
The Mad Elephant of Vaiṣṇava-aparādha ❧ https://youtu.be/3yIVBleGa0g

WEEK 8 – Cc Madhya 19.157
Building a Fence Around the Vine of Devotion ❧ https://youtu.be/i8pnLHykt8I

WEEK 9 – Cc Madhya 19.157
Parasitic creepers (anarthas) ❧ (video soon to come)

So I certainly have a lot to catch up on!

One very big lesson I've learned throughout this program is that I should never again start a program like this without having already done lots of preparation. Every week I’ve been starting from scratch with a blank doc and no idea what to say. I have a day to write down whatever comes to my head and do a bit of research, and I often realize that there is too much to say to fit in one video. Then I work extra hard trying to make two videos in one week. By the time I put out the second video, I'm late to start preparing the next one. That's the reason I've not been getting the time to post here on the Vine of Devotion newsletter for so long. This is my first experience making YouTube videos like this, and now I'm beginning to understand the amount of work required. It takes five times longer than I had imagined to make these videos. I'm hoping that with time and experience, my skills will increase and it won't take this crazy amount of energy to put out each video.

We will complete this Rūpa-śikṣā program on Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī’s disappearance day (August 9th). Once this is over, I need to give most of my focus to my Gurudeva's publications for a while again, but I want to continue contributing to Vine of Devotion as well. What I'll probably end up doing for a while is reading and posting some of my favorite articles from Rays of The Harmonist issues.

As new ideas come to my head on various topics, I want to add them to slowly cook on a slow burner over a good period of time, adding more quotes and video clips by our guru-varga. Once one of these ideas have developed to a certain point, I can record the video and write the article with a lot less effort and it will be of much higher quality. This weekly heavy-lift of making a video completely from scratch is exhausting and not sustainable. Also I'm not able to get as deep into each topic as I'd like. I got a lot of inspiration to start this method from a book review by a successful YouTuber I follow on how to build a "second brain", which is basically just making a good capturing system for all the information that comes our way. He talks about "slow burning" approach as opposed to "heavy-lifting" in putting out YouTube videos. That's definitely the route I need to go in with this YouTube channel and VoD mailing list.

Tomorrow is Guṇḍica Mandira marjana, and the verses for us to memorize this week couldn't have fallen on a more perfect day:

On that special day, my Gurudeva used to speak about these very same anarthas that we need to cleanse our heart of to make a suitible, clean place for the Lord to sit in. The other day on the Vine of Devotion channel, I read the chapter from my Gurudeva's Jagannātha Ratha-yātrā where he explains this.

I haven’t begun to write the script for the next video yet, but I’m hoping to prepare something tonight so that I can record myself speaking about these verses standing in front of Gundica Mandir when our parikramā party goes there tomorrow morning. That'd be pretty cool, wouldn't it? Because of the extreme time limitation and how busy it is in our maṭha here, I'm going to have to make a pretty simple video. The day after tomorrow is the big day of Jagannātha-deva's Ratha-yātrā!

Thanks for your patience and wish me luck with getting this next video out in time!

Aspiring to please Śrīla Gurudeva and the Vaiṣṇavas,

-Madhukar das