Image: The Spiritual Warrior / YouTube
In a short video released for Kartika, the West African sannyasi Bhakti Dhira Damodara Swami says the daily lamp offering to Lord Damodara is too often done without seeing the Lord at all, and describes the method he gives devotees to fix it.
KARTIKA — The YouTube channel The Spiritual Warrior published a two-minute clip on 24 October in which Bhakti Dhira Damodara Swami, the first sannyasa disciple of Bhakti Tirtha Swami, addresses how devotees offer the ghee lamp during Damodara arati.[1][2] His complaint is inattention: crowds waving lamps in every direction with “no concentration from the people, and you yourself, no concentration”.[1] His remedy is to sit down first and recite the prayers together before anyone picks up a lamp.[1]
The swami opens by saying he has watched for many years how people offer the lamp, and that at one crowded offering someone’s lamp burnt his ear, so he no longer goes to heavily crowded places for it.[1]
“Everybody is waving. Whom are you waving to? Whoever is there, whatever direction you are waving the lamp to. Of course, any direction you point to, He will know it is me, he or she is offering the lamp. That is a glory, so special. But if that can give us some blessing, is it not important for us to do it properly?”
Bhakti Dhira Damodara Swami, The Spiritual Warrior, YouTube, 24 October 2026[1]
Doing it properly, he says, means seeing the person the lamp is offered to with the eyes, remembering Him with the mind, and engaging the sense of touch through the hand that holds the lamp. He then recites the traditional sequence: the lamp is offered four times to the lotus feet, twice to the navel, three times to the face and seven times to the whole body. “Can we calculate the benefit of doing this? It is impossible.”[1]
“Therefore, to help devotees maximise this benefit, I used to tell devotees: let us sit down quietly, attentively, and recite the prayers first with full concentration. Everybody should participate in reciting the prayers fully. Then we can do the second thing, offering the lamp, also with full concentration. This is my idea to help us do the right thing, because we are used to being controlled by the mode of ignorance. Everything we do, we do in dullness. We don’t even see the person we are offering to. We don’t even participate in singing the mantra, and even if we sing, we are just singing for pride. Now let us remove all this unnecessary thing and do the right thing.”
Bhakti Dhira Damodara Swami, The Spiritual Warrior, YouTube, 24 October 2026[1]
Bhakti Dhira Damodara Swami is from West Africa and is described by the devotee video site HKTV as the first sannyasa disciple of Bhakti Tirtha Swami, known for his years of service to ISKCON and for teaching devotees in Africa the principles he received from his guru and from Srila Prabhupada.[2] The Spiritual Warrior channel, which takes its name from Bhakti Tirtha Swami’s book series, says it is dedicated to the teachings of Srila Prabhupada and his “Spiritual Warrior” disciples; it has about two thousand subscribers.[1]
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