Last night was a noisy as the bikers were partying pretty much all night for the conclusion of Bike Week Spring Rally. Most were already gone when we woke up. They will return next week… for Black Bike Week!!
Today we decided to do some housekeeping, sweep, mop, dust, clean, do a week’s laundry. We also went to a local Camping World store to get supplies. We have a “central vacuum” and it needed some new vacuum bags. It is easy to get carried away in an Camping store. With a Good Sam Club membership that I signed up with our upcoming reservation at Smoky Bear Campground in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee we got were eligible for a further 5% discount on everything. We bought a new Turkish Cotton Towel set, a BBQ Cover for our Weber Q1200, some collapsible silicone strainers, a drawer organizer, a sewer extension, and a large foldable mat with LED lights!
We came back early enough to have a quick lunch prepared on the grill.
In the blue sky a little plane flew by carrying a banner from the local buffet restaurant. With the gas prices the way they are today, we were amazed that restaurants can afford to advertise this way! Only in Myrtle Beach
This time we drove up to the beach so we can take our beach chairs and umbrella. We had a lovely swim and walk on the beach. I caught up on some reading…
In spirituality…I am reading the chapter called
DEVOTIONAL SERVICE Chapter 8 Verse 9 of the Bhagavad Gita As It Is by His Divine Grace A.C Bhaktivendanta Swami Prabhupada
My dear Arjuna, O winner of wealth, if you cannot fix your mind upon Me without deviation, then follow the regulated principles of bhakti-yoga In this way you will develop a desire to attain to Me.
This love of God is now in a dormant state in everyone’s heart. And, there, love of God is manifested in different ways, but it is contaminated by the material association. Now the material association has to be purified, and that dormant, natural love for Krsna has to be revived. That is the whole process.
To practice the regulative principles of bhakti-yoga one should, under the guidance of an expert spiritual master, follow certain principles: one should rise early in the morning, take bath, enter the temple and offer prayers and chant Hare Krsna, then collect flowers to offer to the Deity, cook foodstuffs to offer to the Deity, take prasadam, and so on. There are various rules and regulations which one should follow. And one should constantly hear Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam from pure devotees. This practice can help anyone to rise to the level of love of God, and then he is sure of his progress into the spiritual kingdom of God. This practice of bhakti-yoga, under the rules and regulations, with the direction of a spiritual master, will surely bring one to the stage of love of God.
Is it that easy? offer prayers, collect flowers, cook food, work… and offer it to Divinity – and achieve the stage of love of God… They have a name, an address, a personality to God. His name is Krsna. Makes it personal. It’s hard to offer prayers, collect flowers, cook food and serve an abstract Almighty. Bhagavad Gita makes it easy and logical. Service to Divinity is devotional service… Or is it service to humanity?? Then why call it “devotional”???
And that wasn’t the end of it. There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, “Business as usual.” But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening. These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart . Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defense, not God’s, that the self-righteous should rush.
Once an oaf chased me away from the Great Mosque. When I went to church the priest glared at me so that I could not feel the peace of Christ. A Brahmin sometimes shooed me away from darshan. My religious doings were reported to my parents in the hushed, urgent tones of treason revealed. As if this small-mindedness did God any good.
To me, religion is about our dignity, not our depravity.
I stopped attending Mass at Our Lady of Immaculate Conception and went instead to Our Lady of Angels. I no longer lingered after Friday prayer among my brethren. I went to temple at crowded times when the Brahmins were too distracted to come between God and me.
So it is a personal relationship with God. How does one get personal with God? Only once one knows His Name, His Address, His Likes and His personality… is it not?
This is the first time we watched TV since we left May 14th! We made a mental note to pickup Fire Stick or some other streaming device so we could catch up with on “Queen of the South” on Netflix.
It is Monday tomorrow and back to work. We are awaiting lawyer instructions for a closing June 8th and a commitment for our overseas business owner with a $1.835,000 purchase closing early August.
If you want me to review your mortgage needs call Yasmin Virani the Traveling Mortgage Broker at Cirrius Finance Corp! Tomorrow is our last day at South Carolina and we look forward to visiting real Myrtle Beach
