From the vast cycles of the universe to a glass of water: learning to remember Krishna in the life we are living now.
Reflections from the online satsang with Gauranga Sundara Prabhu – Bhagavad Gita 9.7
Wednesday, 30 September 2026
Hare Krishna 🙏
Can a glass of water become an invitation to remember Krishna? During this week’s satsang, a discussion of creation and cosmic dissolution led us towards that very simple possibility. We may not be able to comprehend the lifetime of a universe, but we can notice where our attention goes while we drink, work, speak and chant.
Gauranga Sundara Prabhu’s teaching brought these two scales together. The material world passes through immense cycles; our own days pass through familiar cycles of desire, effort, satisfaction and distraction. Neither the passage of cosmic time nor the completion of another busy day necessarily changes the direction of the heart. Bhakti, loving devotional service, invites us to change that direction now.
A gathering in which remembrance is shared
The evening began with greetings and kirtan, the shared singing of Krishna’s names. There was also news of cooperation among devotional communities: the wish to connect projects, welcome visiting devotees and share the inspiration received from Srila Prabhupada. The conversation was not merely about organisation. It showed how association can nourish a spiritual life that might otherwise become isolated.
Before the main reading, the discussion also touched on Christian mysticism and the sincere search for God. Gauranga Sundara Prabhu acknowledged the depth that can be present in that search. His own account of finding clarity in the Bhagavad Gita gave the exchange a personal warmth. A firm devotional commitment need not prevent us from recognising sincerity in another person’s journey.
This atmosphere mattered. Remembering Krishna is an inward practice, but it is strengthened by hearing, chanting and serving together. The questions and recollections of the participants became part of the teaching rather than interruptions to it.
Bhagavad Gita 9.7: when a universe rests
The verse at the centre of the evening was:
sarva-bhūtāni kaunteya
prakṛtiṁ yānti māmikām
kalpa-kṣaye punas tāni
kalpādau visṛjāmy aham
In essence, Krishna tells Arjuna that at the close of a cosmic period all beings enter His material nature, and at the beginning of another period He manifests them again. Sarva-bhūtāni refers to all living beings; prakṛti means nature; kalpa denotes a vast cosmic period. The verse presents manifestation and withdrawal as dependent upon the Supreme, not as events beyond His care or power.
Drawing on Srila Prabhupada’s explanation, Gauranga Sundara Prabhu described the enormous timescales of traditional Vaishnava cosmology. A day of Brahma lasts 4.32 billion years, followed by a night of the same duration. These are the cosmological measures taught in the tradition; their purpose in the discussion was not to make our ordinary responsibilities insignificant, but to loosen our assumption that our present situation is permanent.
The teacher also recalled the contrast between Krishna’s inconceivable greatness and His intimate life in Vrindavana. The Lord upon whom the cosmos depends is also the beloved cowherd boy. Remembering divine power need not leave us at a distance: bhakti opens towards relationship.
A pause is not the same as freedom
One of the most helpful images in the lecture was a seed resting through winter. Its activity is not visible, yet its potential has not disappeared. When the appropriate conditions return, it grows again. In a similar way, the withdrawal of material manifestation does not mean that the eternal living being has ceased to exist.
Another analogy made the point even more immediate: a film projector can be stopped and started again, continuing where it left off. A long interruption does not give the film a different story. In the teaching presented here, the conditioned soul’s karmic situation can remain latent through a cosmic pause and become active again with renewed manifestation.
We therefore cannot entrust liberation to the mere passage of time. The universe may rest, but our tendency to seek fulfilment independently of Krishna does not automatically dissolve with it. The spiritual question is not only how long we have been moving through these cycles. It is how we may stop living by the same inward pattern.
Gauranga Sundara Prabhu returned to the image of a yo-yo: rising to more favourable conditions and falling again still belongs to the same movement. Even an elevated material destination remains temporary. Bhakti offers more than a better position within that movement; it changes the relationship around which life is organised.
Karma, responsibility and a different centre
Karma concerns action and its consequences. The discussion challenged the comforting idea that good and harmful actions simply cancel one another like entries in a single balance. A story about a brahmana before Yamaraja illustrated that pleasurable and painful results may each still have to be experienced. It was an illustration of accountability, not an invitation to speculate about another person’s suffering.
Nor does recognising the difficulty of acting without causing any harm justify indifference. The example of a tiny ant led to the devotional quality expressed as para-duḥkha-duḥkhī: being moved by the suffering of others. Sensitivity should grow as spiritual understanding grows. We cannot avoid every unintended effect of embodied life, but we can become more careful and less self-centred.
The teacher brought Arjuna’s situation into this discussion. Within the Bhagavad Gita’s particular setting, Arjuna learns to act under Krishna’s guidance rather than for private ambition. The lesson is not that religious language makes any action harmless. It is that surrender asks us to reconsider whose pleasure and whose purpose we are serving.
In ordinary life, that question can accompany work, family responsibilities, generosity and difficult decisions. Bhakti does not consist merely of labelling an activity spiritual. It involves a genuine movement away from “everything is for me” towards service, with attention to the quality of our conduct.
The mind remembers what we repeatedly give it
From cosmic cycles, the conversation came very close to daily experience: why does the mind wander so persistently during japa, the personal repetition of the Holy Name?
Gauranga Sundara Prabhu spoke about saṁskāras, the impressions formed by what we repeatedly see, hear, think and do. We cannot continually fill the mind with one kind of material and then be surprised when it returns during chanting. What occupies us through the day does not remain politely outside the time set aside for spiritual practice.
This is not a call to despise the mind or to condemn every contemporary medium. It is an invitation to consider what we are feeding our attention. Hearing about Krishna, reading devotional literature and deliberately returning to the mantra also leave impressions. Repetition can support remembrance, just as repetition has supported distraction.
The teaching was gradual and practical. A short period of attentive remembrance can become longer; the habit can grow. When the mind wanders, bringing it back is part of the practice, not proof that practice is pointless. We are training a relationship rather than trying to manufacture an impressive spiritual performance.
Krishna in the heart, Krishna in the day
A participant asked about remembering Krishna within the heart. Gauranga Sundara Prabhu affirmed the Lord’s presence as Paramātmā, the Supersoul. He also widened the question: remembrance need not be confined to a particular inward image or to the moments when we sit with our beads.
When we drink water, we can remember Krishna as its taste. This example is wonderfully accessible. The ordinary act is not abolished; its meaning opens. The water still quenches thirst, while gratitude gently reconnects the gift with its source.
Such remembrance cannot be reduced to a technique for avoiding the world. The discussion of Srila Prabhupada’s life repeatedly returned to his concern for others and his faithfulness to his spiritual master’s instruction. Prahlada’s compassion was also recalled. A devotee does not seek only a private refuge while forgetting those who struggle.
Murari’s personal recollections added another dimension: the warmth of being received and cared for, alongside the seriousness of devotional practice. Love is communicated through ordinary acts as well as through formal teaching. To remember Krishna more deeply is also to become more willing to serve.
Audible, quiet or mental chanting?
The questions became particularly concrete when a participant asked about chanting quietly in circumstances where speaking aloud was difficult. Gauranga Sundara Prabhu discussed audible chanting, softly moving the lips and mental repetition. These possibilities were addressed in relation to the person’s circumstances, not as a reason to abandon attentive practice or one’s commitments.
Mental chanting demands care because a wandering mind can quietly replace the mantra with something else. If attention slips away, audible chanting or the movement of the lips can help bring it back. The important point was actual remembrance, not an outward appearance of being absorbed.
In the Gaudiya Vaishnava understanding, Krishna and His name are not separate. The maha mantra is therefore an invitation to personal relationship:
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare
The prescribed rounds give the day a foundation, but the purpose is not to finish a number and then forget Krishna. The thread of remembrance can continue through the activities that follow. This does not make those activities less real; it gives them a different centre.
Remembrance calls for sincerity
The lecture also addressed offences to the Holy Name, including inattentiveness, criticism of devotees and the idea of acting wrongly on the strength of chanting. The Holy Name is not a device that permits us to disregard responsibility and then erase the consequences at will.
This warning belongs beside the encouragement, not against it. We need not wait until we are flawless before chanting. We can continue sincerely, acknowledge our tendencies and allow the practice to change them. What matters is the wish to turn towards Krishna rather than to use Krishna’s name in support of the habits we refuse to question.
The evening closed with encouragement to keep chanting and reading. Regular contact with the Bhagavad Gita helps remembrance become more than an occasional feeling. Hearing gives the mind something worth returning to.
A personal reflection: returning, gently and honestly
For me, the image that remains is not the immensity of Brahma’s day but the glass of water. The cosmic teaching shows how little security there is in anything temporary. The simple example shows where I can begin, without waiting for a different life.
I can pause before drinking. I can notice the impatience in a conversation. I can return to the name when I discover that my mind has gone elsewhere. None of these small acts entitles me to claim constant remembrance. They are opportunities to stop postponing it.
I receive this satsang as an invitation to let spiritual practice reach the spaces between my formal practices: the work still to be done, the person in front of me, the unremarkable gift I would otherwise overlook. May remembrance become less a separate task to complete and more a grateful way of being present — with Krishna, and in service to others.
Hare Krishna 🙏
— Ramananda Das 🌿
Watch and listen
Listen to “Constant Remembrance” on Spotify — The Bhakti Podcast.
Based on the satsang of 30 September 2026 and the corresponding official discourse. The concluding reflection is Ramananda Das’s own response to the teaching. Bhagavad Gita 9.7 and Srila Prabhupada’s purport.
