What would be important consideration while visiting the Holy Dhama?

Besides the fact that Srila Prabhupada wanted His followers to visit the Holy Dhamas only, and not reside in them unless one doesn’t have a firm service assignment within an ISKCON temple, the foremost consideration should be regarding the qualification to visit such a transcendental place.

Srila Prabhupada never wanted grhastas to settle down in Vrndavana, but encouraged them to live more in Mayapur which was in first place planed to be a vedic city populated by devotees who were also farming, living very simple. Of course the picture we see today is very different in both Dhamas and there is a reason that most of the residents or visitors hardly even touch the Dhama when maintaining their mundane consciousness.

It is a typical syndrome which can be observed, kanistha adhikaris love to flock around the Dhamas in vain hope to download quickly their sinful reactions. By the didn’t of his piety the kanistha adhikari can feel the burden he accumulated in so many life times to be reduced and would like to find an easy way to find himself or herself refreshed and… capable to combine his material interests with the spiritual curiosity.

As Srila Prabhupada illustrates, a "premature renunciation" a bogus yogi, will settle down in a Holy Dhama in order to demonstrate his pseudo detachment. Leaving all his family responsibilities behind, ignoring his varna conditioning, he makes a display which makes him feel superior to others he considers inferior and mundane. At the same time a desperate women will travel to the same place, leaving her domestic responsibilities behind. Impressed by the "powerful mystic", she will seek his company, only to arouse his unpurified sexuality. And so they will both repeat the same what they left behind and face the reactions for their unchastely.

One of my genius godbrothers once described in great detail how such bogus "devotees" actually never enter the Holy Dhama. They simply hover above it. A special kind of maya serves as a filter, protecting the Holy Dhama from such imposters. And so they will meet a pseudo Krsna and a pseudo Radharani, illusory images generated from their minds and even they may feel occasionally some genuine spiritual influence, they will be forced not to cultivate it but return to the ocean of their unfulfilled material desires.

As Srila Prabhupada ironically commented, “if they would see Krsna really , they would never return to the place they came from”. As matter of fact the true mood of Vrndavana is the mood of the Six Goswamis who spent their time in desperate search after Krsna and Radha, tasting the same ecstasy as if they would find Them. Such rasas are forbidden to enter for hypocrites and so they simply get the shadow reflections of the original taste.

It is therefore the final instruction of Srila Prabhupada that to visit the Holy Dhama means to visit the holy man, in our case meaning to hear strictly from Srila Prabhupada and Him only. As Srila Prabhupada is the walking tirtha, whoever gets His darshan in form of genuine service to His lotus feet, visited already all the Holy Places.

But let’s follow this description of transcendental reality further:

As the bogus mediators dwell on the surface of the Dhama only, receiving only filtered images, are we so sure that we don’t dwell on the surface of the whole Krsna consciousness only? How deep does our understanding and realization of Krsna consciousness go? As kanistha adhikaris were described by Srila Prabhupada as being "barely devotees", how far did we really "joined" and entered Krsna consciousness? Are we just the routine-sadhana-mechanicals at best or no-authority-lets-feel-it-today-sahajiyas at worst? This question every sincere devotee may have to face. He may then keep firmly in his mind that our place in Krsna consciousness is not up to us to define, but it is finally assigned to us by the authority of guru, sastra and sadhu.

By the end of the day the level of material desires we may maintain will define our place in the spiritual hierarchy and the level of true renunciation. True renunciation means the complete absorption in Srila Prabhupada’s mission. That can be easily demonstrated by practical action.

But the question remains: As much we can be IN the Holy Dhama or ON the Holy Dhama, are we really IN Krsna consciousness, or are we simply affiliated by being ON Krsna consciousness?