Christmas Eve hits different when life feels fractured: broken family emotions, grief, longing, and that uneasy feeling that the world keeps taking what we hoped would stay. Raghunath and Kaustubha let it get real. can Kaustubha cheer up a very Fonzie-alone-with-a-can-of-beans Raghunath—using Christmas carols, classic lyrics, and bhakti logic as the rescue plan? Can they, together, reframe Christmas through a bhakti lens: holidays aren't just celebrations, they're yogic instruments—designed to interrupt the daily trance, soften the heart, and pivot us from self-centered survival to love, giving, and forgiveness?

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Bhakti-yoga doesn't ask us to escape the world—it shows us how to set it right by placing love at the center. This episode begins with a "zoomed-out" perspective on human conflict and confusion, then pivots to a vision of reality grounded in three distinct expressions of divine love. Through a sequence of luminous verses, the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam reveals a theology in which the soul of the universe is present and personal, reciprocating heart-melting love through the songs of His friends, the shy glances of the girls of Vṛndāvana, and the protective, affectionate care of His mothers.

As Raghunath and Kaustubha explore these verses, a deeper pattern emerges: when life lacks a spiritual center, even small grievances grow large and divisions harden. When consciousness is centered on bhakti, the heart softens, perspective widens, and love becomes the organizing principle of life.

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In this episode, Kaustubha shares deeply moving stories from his recent Vaishnava Scholars' retreat in Vṛndāvana—revealing why Vrindavan bhakti feels so alive and unmistakably different. Through encounters with Goswamis and sacred lineages, visits to the Rādhā-vallabha and Rādhā-ramaṇa temples, and time at the mystic Tatiyā Sthān—where the "soft sand" of Vrindavan is worshiped by off-the-grid sādhus—a vision of devotion emerges that isn't driven by rules or rituals, but by intimate love that captures Krishna's heart. With warmth, humor, and insight, Raghunath and Kaustubha explore the four major Vrindavan bhakti lineages, why Śrī Chaitanya empowered the Six Goswamis to ground ecstasy in Vedānta, and how history, politics, and bhakti unexpectedly converged in Vrindavan through figures like Akbar, Aurangzeb, the Rajputs, and Shivaji.

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When devotion becomes a transaction, spiritual life starts to thin out. In this episode of Wisdom of the Sages, Raghunath and special co-host Pranapriya Devi Dasi explore how bhakti deepens not through bigger offerings or louder effort, but through listening, responsibility, and presence. Drawing from the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, stories of karma and mercy, and everyday struggles with anxiety, chanting, and family life, the conversation points to a quieter truth: spiritual growth begins when we stop managing outcomes and start showing up with sincerity.

A grounded, humorous, and sobering reminder that bhakti isn't about getting more—it's about giving attention.

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Netflix has a price, but what's the cost of what it does to you? Raghunath and Kaustubha riff on Oscar Wilde's brutal truth—people know the price of everything and the value of nothing—and trace how modern consumption can quietly make the mind coarse, restless, and spiritually numb. They then turn to the 10th Canto of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, reading radiant verses of Kṛṣṇa's Vṛndāvan pastimes—scripture meant to purify the heart and elevate consciousness from crude appetite to the highest spiritual taste. Drawing from Bhagavad-gītā 2.57 and Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura's explanation of Dhenukāsura as the ass-like mentality of gross sensuality—overcome by Balarāma as guru-tattva—they show why the greatest wealth in life is finding guidance that reveals the true value of spiritual life, and seeking it with real intensity.

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Bhakti moves like a river between union and separation, carrying the devotee through remembrance, longing, and love. In this episode, Raghunath and Kaustubha explore spiritual experience as it naturally unfolds in devotional life—through divine arrangements, moments of ecstasy, and the quiet ways sacred places awaken the heart. As the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam describes Vṛndāvana, Kṛṣṇa's footprints are said to make the land auspicious, showing how even a trace can hold both presence and absence at once. Here, Vedānta appears in its most beautiful and poetic expression, where bees, breezes, forests, and dust don't explain truth so much as embody it—and Vṛndāvana becomes something the devotee learns to carry wherever they go.

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Is a monk living in a temple necessarily deeper than someone living an ordinary life in the world—or could it be the other way around? In this episode, Raghunath and Kaustubha explore that question through Brother Lawrence's realization that you don't have to leave ordinary life to find God—you only have to bring God into ordinary life. That insight opens directly into the stunning conclusion of Krishna's childhood pastimes in the Tenth Canto of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, where after humbling Brahmā with cosmic revelation, Krishna returns to the simplest childhood games, revealing that the deepest exchange of love doesn't require grandeur at all.

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Einstein called it an "optical delusion of consciousness." The yogis call it forgetfulness of the Self. In this episode, the illusion of separateness gets dismantled—from modern physics to the sacred Bhakti texts—revealing how the love of enlightened people doesn't shrink to "me and mine," but expands to everyone. Traveling from Japan to the banks of the Gaṅgā in Rishikesh, Raghunath and Kaustubha unpack radical teachings on love and life. Listen to explore the idea of expanding the sense of self as the key to freedom from fear, loneliness, and the prison of "me and mine."

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