Greetings to all!
First of all I would like to thank the moderators for accepting me on this forum. Several times while searching on the world wide web on vedic/hindu philosophical or historical topics I found myself reading discussion on this particular forum and found it very mature (if I can judge like that). That is also why I requested to join this forum.
My name is Luka, I'm living in Slovenia and I'm 20 years old. Since childhood I have been very interested in religion, spirituality and in general for "esoteric" topics. I was asking a lot of questions and I had and still have the good fourtune of having a spiritually inclined grandmother who could the only one in my familiy answer those questions. Later she gave me some new age spiritual literature to read. It was good for me to read it since it did not satisfy me completely and kept me thinking about these topics. So I was searching on. She also had some of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada's books. I was very much attracted to the picture of Paramaatma on one of the books (Life comes from Life). I was trying to read and go trough the book but was not able to understand a lot. Some basic concepts like karma and reincarnation and jiva I could. I was about 12 years old at that time. I also had an encounter with Jehova wintesses and they gave me a very nice book about the teachings of Jesus Christ which I see now gave me a lot. From my 12th year to about 16th year I was going to scouts which benefited my spiritual understanding a lot though I was not aware of that at the time. Around the end of my 15th year I began to smoke marijuana and had some really bad company around me. When I turned 16 I had the luck to meet a person of my age whose father was and is reading a lot of AC Bhaktivedanta Swami's books. This was great for me since I felt a strong urge to change who I spend my time with. It is true that we were smoking a lot of weed and I'm aware of it's negative effects but that is how it was. A few months before I met this person I was trying to read Bhaktivedanta Swami's Bhagavad Gita As it is and must admit that I did understand some of the concepts but in general it was really hard for me to grasp it. So now I was talking a lot about the philosophy of Bhagavad-Gita with my friend's father. He also invited me to come to a sunday feast in Slovenia's ISKCON temple. I found the process and philosophy of bhakti-yoga very natural. Since then I have been visiting the temple and trying to spend more time with devotees and also trying to make progress towards living in sattva-guna. I have read many books of AC Bhaktivedanta swami and also of other spiritual teachers in that particular sampradaya. Four years have now passed since I first went to the ISKCON temple in Slovenia. I am interested in philosophy of vedic scriptures especialy vedanta, also it's historical background and in general in vedic culture.
I hope this post is not too long and too detailed though I could mention some more details.
Namaste, please accept my humble obeisancess.
Bookmarks