This video fills me with such insane amounts of longing, admiration, love and gratitude, you’d think I was falling in love for the first time ever.

A friend and I were recently talking about falling in love and she shared an analogy with me that I found to be quite powerful and sticky. Here it is:

Our ability to fall in love with another totally and give of ourselves (and our hearts) in a deep relationship is like a band aid. The first time you put it on, it’s really sticky and stays on well. If it gets ripped off, the second time it doesn’t stick as well, the third time even less, and so on and so on. My friend shared how she wished she’d been more selective about who she gave her love and heart to in the past. She realized that being ripped off had an effect on the love she was able to give when she found the one she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. It just wasn’t as vital as the first time. Can anyone else relate to that?

That was a bit of a digression to make this point:

 Although my love band-aid has been ripped off in the past, and might not stick with the fervor it had the first and second times, this video (and the love it elicits in my heart) transcends all notions of limit-bearing mortal love and drives into a core part of me so deep that I can but marvel at the utter windfall of grace I was lucky enough to receive to take me there. That I was even able to perform an iota of devotional service is nothing short of miraculous, a mystical gift. My experience of living in Mayapur (the place depicted in this film) for 4 months is emblematic of waking in another realm of reality, another dimension of the material universal manifestation. There is no place on this earth quite as magical, as real, as important to discovering the essence of one’s humanity as Mayapur.

On one level, my wish is for everyone to receive the kind of mercy and grace it takes to arrive to such a place. On another level, I know that not everyone is ready or consciously seeking this kind of love and life experience. You can’t just buy a ticket to a place like Mayapur. You have to be led there, invited by the pure sincerity in your heart manifest outward. If you ain’t got it, you ain’t goin’. And for that, a part of me is glad. Because when you love and appreciate something or someone so much, the last think you want is for them to get ripped off.

As the rising moon dispels darkness, spreading its soothing rays in all directions, so too did the Golden Avatar Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu appear in this world to bestow infinite light, hope and love. Day by day, the worldwide bhakti revolution He ignited accelerates, as the background noise of doubt and fear is drowned by the vibration of sacred mantra. Entrance Into Eternity is a multi-part film series tracing this sankirtan movement back to its divine source, the epicenter of devotional ecstasy, the kirtan capital of the universe, Sridham Mayapur.

In Mayapur, the sweet melody of kirtan is never far and hearts are awakened to the sacred flow of mercy. Men and women, boys and girls, from all corners of the world, pierce through divides of caste and color to harmonize their voices and deeds in service to the Supreme.

Some say Sri Caitanya was crazy. Some say he’s gone. Others who know better still dance in His earthshaking kirtan, bathing in His limitless love and grace.

Dedicated to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

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Assistant Editor: Jennifer Moore/ Editor: Bryonie Wise

Photo: Jennifer Moore; Music: Anthem by Emancipator