4:30 A.M
Last night I had to take a migraine medicine. The pain went down, and I slept peacefully until 3:00 A.M. There has been a snowstorm all night and just now the lights went out. Then they came on again. There is a gusty wind outside, but I’m snug inside the Yellow Submarine. I have chanted sixteen rounds. My rounds went swift and wide awake. I’m happy for that. It wasn’t the deepest kind of meditation, but the mechanics were good, and I heard the syllables in my mind. Now I have time for writing. My head is clear. I just hope the lights don’t go out again and leave me unable to do my dictation. Or leave me unable to write a poem. Chanting can go on even with darkness, but you can’t keep accurate count of your beads. Anyway I’ve finished my quota, and now I have the even more difficult task of writing if the lights go out. I’m happy that the chanting went so well and that I wasn’t the least bit drowsy but chanted at a quick pace. These are the kind of days you look forward to, but alas, you were not deeply into the meditation of crying for the holy names and yearning to be merged into Krishna. Yesterday I read in Prabhupada’s books that a pure devotee of Krishna is always thinking of Him and never wastes a moment in any kind of distraction. This is not true of me. Even when I chant quickly I am not merged deeply in union with Radha and Krishna. I still have a long way to go, but I’m thankful for progress.
Chanting at a quick pace
in a warm room
while a gusty storm
rages outside. You hope
you won’t be left in the
dark and cold. Millions
of people live without
electric power and heat and
many millions don’t resort
to harinama prayer. Be
thankful you are in on
the secret of internal
power which cannot
be shut down by loss
of material power. You
can go on chanting and
with a candle even
go on writing. Krishna’s
accessibility is undeniable
to the sincere devotee.
“I was standing in darkness
with my eyes shut, but
my spiritual master forced
open my sight with
the torchlight of knowledge.”
Steadiness and Realization
I answered letters this morning that reverberated with my personal concerns. One devotee asked if it was all right to sometimes act beyond his realization. He gave the example of his acting more humbly than usual during a confrontation he had with another devotee. He thought perhaps it was good to break through to new ground; such humility in the face of conflict, which he said, is not his usual behavior. I replied that we should especially emphasize steadiness in spiritual life. We’ll always know when we have acted beyond our present understanding because we will not be able to uphold the attitude and will later resent our own behavior.
Another devotee wrote that he takes very cold showers and tries to practice other harsher austerities. This devotee struggles, however, simply to follow the four regulative principles. Again I emphasized that steadiness was more important than performing extraordinary austerities. Better to learn to look for shelter in the Lord’s names. I can already say that because I know it is true.
Bad Times
They write of war and growing up in
a dysfunctional family. I skip
over that and center on Krishna.
He’s the meaning of everything. If we
pay attention to Him, we can be
liberated from the inevitable miseries.
People are cruel to each other and
dumb and kill each other, and the
only solution is making peace with
Krishna.
You do it by praying His names, hearing
of His nature and activities. He’s
transcendental to all this broken
glass and sorrow, and He comes carrying
you to the place of peace.
It’s not easy to reach Him because
there are so many distractions and
people blocking you. But you
can make it, moving quickly
and taking care.
The wars and terrorists are acting
against His orders, and they have
to pay. The politicos are pushing and partisan to the point of
noncooperation. No one wants
to help for the greater good,
they only want their party
to win. But Krishna is above all
parties. He is fair to all.
We have to turn to Him
for peace and harmony.
Even if a man wants to do good,
the system works against him.
When there was monarchy like
King Yudhisthira’s or Maharaja
Pariksit’s, it worked because they
fought under one banner for the
whole earth, the cause of
Krishna.
Now it is fractured and the
flags are increasing, there is
no getting together over a
common good.
Lord Caitanya taught the way of
harinama for everyone, but
people are not interested and
we have wars in every country
and nationality. The guns
are firing and the suicide
bombers are threatening the
innocent citizens.
No on is actually innocent.
The karma is spread out everywhere.
Bhaktas make their effort, and
there is hope within ten thousand years.
After that, no hope, only Kalki’s
sword.
The best thing is to leave this place
and go to Goloka where peace and
joy reign eternal. Krishna is in His
abode with the majority of souls,
and He wants His servants to keep
on trying to rectify the worlds
of violence. It doesn’t look likely,
but they work on His behalf tosave a few.
Krishna is pleased if you can deliver
even one to the safety of devotional service
where arms and legs don’t get cut off,
where the all-protected body is never
vanquished, and His devotees never perish.
Work with Him, and He’ll be pleased.
Free write
Free write moves smoothly, and bullock cart wheels cover the landscape of India. The devotees carry Gaura-Nitai Deities and chant Hare Krishna kirtana, walking barefoot. They give out flyers to the villagers announcing there will be a festival in the evening. Five hundred people attend. They show a movie of the Hare Krishna movement around the world, but halfway through the film the power fails. The devotees give out hundreds of plates of prasadam and hold a loud kirtana even without loudspeakers. A sannyasi gives a lecture through a battery powered megaphone. The crowd is satisfied, and the town allows the devotees to lie down and sleep on the floor of the village school room. By 9:30 A.M. the next morning, after chanting mangala-aratrika and japa and breakfast, the parikrama party is moving to their next destination.
Krishna stops to find a suitable place for a picnic with the cowherd boys. He discovers a soft sandy bank of the Yamuna river. There are shade trees and a soft breeze is blowing. They decide to lunch there and take out the foodstuffs their mothers have prepared for them. Some boys place their food on a large leaf, some place it on a flat rock. Krishna sits in the middle of a circle facing out with the boys facing Him in rows. By His mystic potency Krishna manages to face each boy as if He is looking at him only. They allow the calves and cows to wander in search of fresh grass while they tell funny stories and share items from their lunches. After a while they notice that their cows and calves have wandered off out of sight. They become alarmed but Krishna assures the boys that they should just stay in their places, and He will go off and find the cows. Krishna cannot find the cows but by His omnipotency He knows they have been kidnapped by lord Brahma who had attempted to compete with Krishna’s mystic opulence. Brahma also kidnaps all the boys at the picnic spot and places them in a cave. Krishna takes on a challenge and expands Himself in all the missing boys, calves and cows and returns to Vraja. Thus begins the year-long bewildering of lord Brahma and the chance for all the parents and cows of Vrndavana to treat with Krishna as their offspring.
Letters to Srila Prabhupada
Dear Srila Prabhupada,
Please accept my humble obeisances unto you. All glories to you. I am trying to find my voice in these letters to you. I have stated they are a literary exercise for coming closer to you. I hope each day I can say something pleasing to you. You once said something to the effect that Krishna likes to hear praise of His name and qualities. There are opposite stories such as Shakespeare’s King Lear who asked his daughter Cordelia what she had to say in praise of him. Cordelia knew the other daughters of the king were just flattering him so they would get big parcels of land. When Cordelia was asked what she had to say she replied “Nothing”. Lear retorted “Nothing will come of nothing” and the foolish flattery-searching king gave her nothing. In the end of the play Cordelia proved herself the only daughter who loved the king, but this is not an example to follow by us. We should praise you Srila Prabhupada, with our words and with our actions. Like Krishna, Prabhupada, you are a person, and you like to be liked. You like to be respected for your true qualities of being a mighty servant of Lord Krishna. You are very humble and don’t like to be called mighty, but you are.
In Caitanya-caritamrta it is stated that no one can spread the chanting of the holy names around the world unless he is empowered by Krishna. This statement proves that you are an empowered avesa personality. I want my letters to accurately praise you in this way.
I wish to write you letters as I used to when I knew you received them in the mail and read them or had them summarized to you by your secretary. I no longer have news to report to you from about half a dozen temples in my GBC zone. I can only report to you about my sadhana and writing. But I hope I can also reveal my feelings, aspirations, even my troubles, as one confides one’s mind in confidence. I want to be even closer than I was before, if that is possible. Please help me write letters from a disciple to his spiritual master and not think it is no longer possible or practical.
4:17 A.M
I had trouble getting to sleep last night but woke up at 2:30 A.M. My chanting was very good. I’ve chanted straight through sixteen rounds before my shower. I was not sleepy and uttered the syllables rapidly through my mind. It was much better than yesterday. I was wide awake and steadily gained at numerical strength. My mind did not go to distracting thoughts but stayed with the mantras. I only wish I could do this every day. I drank herbal tea and “Smooth Move” laxative tea which perhaps helped keep me awake. But it was something more than material aids, it was Krishna’s mercy that enabled me to chant proficiently.
You don’t know why one
day you chant so well.
Try to find the secret and
keep it up daily. It was,
of course, not offenseless
but better than usual,
and you are still awake
and ready to write. All
I can think of is that you
tried harder and paid
attention a little better.
You have miles to go
before you really improve,
but I thank you for
improving your effort.
Your angels from your
very early days are still
with you, and old age
is not a bar. I pray
to stay in the aura of the
bhajana-kutir and learn
all the lessons before
I’m forced to finish.
Remember what you
did today!
Prabhupada meditation
I was just reading Prabhupada, in your book that the Vedas personified wanted to be gopis. They tried to be gopis directly, but they couldn’t. But then they became born as the daughters of gopis in Vrndavana and got finally trained up perfectly to go and join you in Goloka Vrndavana. One disciple of mine, by which I mean a devotee to whom I gave initiation to in your disciplic succession, wrote to me whimsically sentimentally and said, “I don’t see why you would have to be born again as a gopi in Vrndavana and not just go back to Goloka immediately after this life.” What was she getting at? I’ve already made it clear in my writings that I don’t think I’m fit. But I could be born in Vrndavana, if I can be born just a devotee. Tandera carana-sevi-bhakta-sane vasa janame janame haya ei abhilasa, I only wish to be born again and again to serve the Vaisnavas, to chant Hare Krishna. That’s my desire.
Dear Srila Prabhupada , I have so many petitions in my mind—make me strong, let me overcome the pain, let me think of you in difficulty. They’re natural but let me switch also to saying you’re great Prabhupada, you love me Prabhupada, you accept my service. You do want me to do more though. You wish I was braver, stronger, and that I get out there and fight, try to spread Lord Caitanya’s glories, tell people about Krishna. Well, I will do that Prabhupada, by your mercy.
Thinking of the Ability to Write Poems
1.
I have confidence that Krishna
and Prabhupada will help
me and even empower me
to write poems. The well
should not dry out. You
just hope to be sincere and
hard driving. You have to
be a singer, and there is plenty
to sing about.
Krishna rides above the clouds
of material miseries. He finds
His way into the hearts even
of the most distressed. Sometimes
we are afraid, and we pray to
Him. I heard a woman say
that when she learned she had
cancer she didn’t take to
chemotherapy or medical treatment
but just prayed and worshiped
and recited healing statements
from the Bible. That is all
right, but we can also use
medicine.
The important thing is to depend
on Him and take what’s happening
to us as Providence, His mercy.
He knows what’s best for us.
You have to depend on Krishna
whether you use medicine or
not. I am simply saying I
didn’t chant well today so
far. The music keeps
coming and going giving you another
chance to write a poem.
I forgot to look at the
published poets. I will
have to go on my own power
and experience and what
He allows me.
2.
My adventures are little,
but I don’t think that
will stop me. Emily Dickinson
lived mostly in her room
like a hermit and wrote
many deep, lovely poems.
My advantage is I have
the Krishna angle. I am
not seeking to catch the
attention of people who
are against Him or indifferent
to Him. Like the Gosvamis,
I write poems to the
devotees. I don’t have many
specific encounters with
Krishna so I borrow from the
books and the accounts of pure
devotees who have had exchanges
with Him in their bhajana.
I can dig within myself and
find some things too, sentiments
and dynamics and sorrow that I
don’t know Him better.
I have knowledge of my spiritual
master. I lived in his proximity for
a number of years, and he spoke to
me and knew my name. One time
he called me to come
from Texas to join him as his
personal servant. That lasted
six months because I couldn’t
understand the invaluable gift
of living as his menial servant.
I wanted to preach actively and
independently in his service. But
I didn’t leave him.
I still serve him by recalling things
he did and the debt I owe
him for rescuing me from the
material mire. I will always
be grateful for that and pray
to him, and now I have
rededicated myself to firmly
follow the vow I took
at the time of my initiation.
He is the most important person
in my life. I like the
way he smiled and laughed.
It always made me smile and
laugh in a reflection of his
mirth. And when he became
annoyed with me I was
mortified by him. And
when he emphasized that he
was making a very important
point, I noted it and took
it as something grave and
very serious. I am molded
after him.
So I don’t see why I should
ever run out of the juice of
writing about Krishna and guru
and devotional service. I am praying for this because
it’s my prime duty and pleasure
in life. Please Lord,
please Gurudeva, let me
lower my bucket each
day and come up with
clear water of Krishna conscious
poesy to refresh the devotees
and purify my heart.
You can do it, and I’ll simply
be Your instrument, penning
down a simple “sonnet”
for the welfare of the world.
Free write
It’s supposed to snow again soon. That doesn’t matter to me because there is no place I have to travel. No matter how bad it gets I can still take my daily walk in my waterproof boots. I can chant Hare Krishna. Prahlada-priya has been coming to lunch each day to read to us from Srimad-Bhagavatam in the absence of Narayana. He also does a lot of talking and sometimes goes on the walk with me. Muktavanya has stayed with us but will leave Saturday and then it will be just Baladeva and I. Baladeva is taking good care of me. I have had two headaches today, and it is only 7:30 A.M. I am thinking I would like to write something else in my journal, maybe a letter to Prabhupada. I seem to have extra time in the afternoon, but I may not have the energy. What would you like to say to him? It would be repetitive. You would express yourself honestly and not worry that it was repetitive. You thank him and praise him and remember him.
Yesterday was the appearance day of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. Prabhupada said he gained much in devotional service when he read Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura’s comment to Bhagavad-gita in the ekeha kuru-nandana verse. It means one should take the advice of the spiritual master as one’s life and soul. When he read this, our Prabhupada took it very seriously and decided to dedicate his life to his Gurudeva’s order to preach to the west as his life’s vocation. And as he did so he was empowered by Lord Caitanya and remained uninvolved in the Gaudiya Math’s quarrel over leadership, acaryaship and possession of buildings. He said never did he go without financial and spiritual support. We know from biographical data that Prabhupada was sometimes down and out. but he never saw it that way, and gradually, plenty of devotees and money came his way. Prabhupada didn’t just wait idly for the money to fall on his shoulders, but he worked hard in translating and writing purports to prepare the three volumes of Srimad-Bhagavatam to bring with him to America. Once situated at 26 Second Avenue he spoke tirelessly to individuals, teaching them about the beauty and ease of Krishna consciousness, and slowly and gradually gaining followers.
Bhaktivinoda Thakura writes “They lie who say that Vaisnavas die.” Actually no soul dies, but he takes another body. You have certainly taken a spiritual body somewhere in the spiritual sky, Prabhupada. If we desire strongly to join with you and if we think of you at the time of death, we can join with you. You once said there would be an ISKCON in the spiritual world and you also wrote in Caitanya-caritamrta that ISKCON is a branch of the Caitanya tree. So either going with you in Krishna’s pastimes or preaching with you in the material universe in Caitanya’s movement, we can join you. You can choose what is best for me. I don’t want my chanting to be “stupid and sticky”, I want it to be blissful with you as it was in 1966. I don’t want to be dragged off like Odysseus who listened to the Sirens’ songs and crashed his boat on the rocks. When I catch up to you (and it will be relatively soon) I want it to be forever and fully satisfying in your service.
Letters to Srila Prabhupada
I am playing with the idea of doing some more journal writing later in the afternoon. I thought of letters to Prabhupada. They may be too personal than I want to print on the internet. And they might be too formal and official. Could I find a suitable voice as I did with My Dear Lord Krishna…? You can start out by searching for the voice. “My dear Srila Prabhupada, please accept my humble obeisances. I have been thinking of writing to you in my journal, but I don’t know in which voice I could write to you.” It has been many years (thirty-three) since the year of your disappearance. You live in your instructions and in recorded memories of you. You live in our lives, in our hearts. Don’t bring it down to the level of séances, special audiences, even frequent directional dreams. Show your love for Prabhupada by following his instructions and preaching and reading his books. Be practical.
When you were present I wrote you many letters. During the week I would think beforehand what to write. I would even take notes and include the best and exclude the worst. I was responsible for reporting on a GBC zone. I would bring up an issue, and I would tell you how I dealt with it or ask you for your advice on how to do it, and possibly tell you how it was difficult. Your answers always satisfied me as to where to go and what to do. And so I shall attempt writing you letters. I hope it shall build up to where I am actually addressing you and assuming you are hearing me, although I won’t expect a specific answer. It will be a genuine exercise in coming closer to my spiritual master.
4:44 A.M.
I’ve chanted ten rounds so far, and they have not been very good. I woke at 12 A.M. last night with a headache. I took some medicine and the headache went down, and I was able to sleep two more hours. But when I got up to chant, I didn’t feel so great. The taste of the tea made my stomach upset. And I think I should confess that I watched a little television last night and that left me distracted. So I’m feeling blue and ashamed. I hope I can pull out with my remainder of chanting and do better. I’ve been chanting in my mind and not paying very close attention. It is not a red letter day. I beg to Krishna to forgive me and to give me another chance. I don’t want to miss God for eternity because of bad day’s chanting. I want to recover and reform. Remember your first book, Japa Reform Notebook? Well apply it now. You teach so much about japa, now teach it to yourself. Say the names with concern and tenderness. Baladeva just told me that Prabhupada and I are his ista-devatas. But what a sorry ista-devata I am if I can’t chant Hare Krishna nicely. I must devoid all distractions and grind out chanting when it doesn’t go smoothly. Now I’ll stop bashing myself and get back to chanting with better hopes.
A poor chanter for
today, he laments
but holds out hope
for himself because
he feels there’s still more
time and courage for
improvement. He believes
he will do better even
in the midst of his worst.
He chanted his numbers
today not too far behind,
but the quality was low,
little concentration on what
he’s actually supposed to be
doing—crying like a child for
its mother, pleading to Radha
and Krishna for engagement in
Their service. The opportunity is
eternal, the door is still open,
but missing a single day of your
life duration is a serious thing
and needs to be reformed by
remedial chanting.
Prabhupada meditation
What does it mean to treat our “Prabhupada moments” favorably? We can treat them more carefully, for one thing. Just as we tend to plants by watering them and keeping them free of insects and ensuring that they get enough sunlight, we can tend to our connection with Prabhupada. Paying attention to our “Prabhupada moments” will make us more conscious of our entire relationship with Prabhupada. Perhaps we can pray to Prabhupada as we wipe the dust from his framed picture. Or when we say something like, “All glories to Srila Prabhupada,” we can stop and think about him for a moment, rather than just rattling it off mechanically.
For example, I like to remember how Prabhupada used to stop between Calcutta and Mayapur in a mango grove. He did it a number of times. It was his habit. But it was always something special for the devotees who were with him. The grove was almost halfway between Calcutta and Mayapur. Stopping there broke the three-hour journey.
We used to bring tiffins filled with puffed rice and fruits—mango, papaya—and maybe sandesa. Usually two car loads of devotees would be at the grove. The women would sit a little apart, and Prabhupada would sit with his secretaries and male disciples. Prasadam would be served to Prabhupada first, and then he would wash his hands and mouth. After Prabhupada was finished, his prasadam would be distributed, and we would all eat. We all felt happy to be with him and honor prasadam before getting on with the journey.
Even while it happened, the stop at the mango grove with Prabhupada was just a “moment.” Now when we recall it, it is not a “major” event. We have these experiences, and then life goes on, yet what is life but a collection of such moments? Some of them are special, although they may not actually be earth-shaking events. Then what is a tremendous event? Usually we think of them as disasters or violence or sudden windfalls. But with Prabhupada, so many things happen subtly, quietly. For example, the publication of Srimad-Bhagavatam will revolutionize the world. It is a tremendous event. But Prabhupada composed it morning after morning. Although he was internally intense, the mornings were routine for him. Morning after morning, he added a little bit to the entire Bhagavatam. As Prabhupada himself said, “Little drops of water wear away the stone. In this way I have written all these books.”
Poem to Krishna and Prabhupada Who Deserve Better
1.
Krishna is the prime name.
I don’t know much about
Him, but I want to.
I try listening to His pastimes
and uttering His names with
my friends.
Krishna is the Supreme Person, He
exists in multi-impersonal energies
and personal expansions. It’s
all explained in the scriptures.
He has love for each one of
us, but we have to reciprocate
with that love. We are His
tiny servants, and we should
never think we are great or
equal to Him. That is absurd.
We are only able to move under His
power, under the direction of His
demigods. I do love Krishna and
feel His presence in my heart.
He has given me life in this
body, and He will take it
away before too long. I only
hope He will be satisfied
with me and give me a place
close to Him and my guru
in the next life.
In His Goloka He always
sports with His friends.
They love Him with all
their hearts and have no
distractions from that
love. They are never bored,
but they suffer in
separation from Him when
He leaves for the day or
leaves longer for Mathura.
That separation is created
by Krishna to increase the
love of His devotees for
Him.
I am not on the level of a
Vraja devotee. I don’t even
hanker to go to Bhauma Vrndavana.
But I do like to write
poems to Krishna and extol
His qualities. I like to
serve Him in separation.
But I have to confess to
you my bhakti is tepid.
It’s not fired up like
a fiery preacher who
is always eager to
move people into Krishna’s
camp. My flame
burns low. I don’t
like to dwell on how low
it is, that’s a kind of self
pity or downer. I like
to write of Krishna Himself or
Caitanya Mahaprabhu. They
are the forms of Krishna who
appeared thousands of years
apart to attract us to
His lilas.
2.
Caitanya Mahaprabhu is more
liberal. Krishna didn’t as fully
distribute love of God though He
demanded “surrender to Me and
I will protect you. Do not fear.”
Lord Caitanya goes further and
doesn’t demand or set a
prerequisite. He simply gives out
love of God most freely by
His public sankirtana which transformed
people on the spot from sinners
to lovers of God. He and Nitai
showed that expert mercy to
Jagai and Madhai in this way.
Prabhupada has said in those
days there were only a few
Jagais and Madhais, and even
they had more auspicious
qualities than the drunkards
and thieves and woman hunters of
today. But Lord Caitanya’s mercy
still works and thousands of
persons like Jagai and Madhai
have become uplifted by the
Krishna consciousness movement.
So there is hope.
I want to be very thankful
for my own upliftment.
I owe it all to Prabhupada.
I was most fallen and
even after saving me, I
tripped again. But he and
Krishna are committed to
giving conditioned souls
all chances for going
back to Godhead. I am very grateful
for his kindness in
accepting writing service
as another type of
bhakti. It’s all
that I can do to
satisfy Him, tell of
His qualities and lilas
and the way He appears in
His holy names.
Prabhupada, please be like a
shepherd and keep your flock
from wandering off the cliff or
some similar danger. I know
the world is full of danger at
every step, but you make this
ocean shrink up to a size
of a calf’s hoof. We can
easily cross over if we keep
you in our mind and our central activities.
Please let me remember you
and serve you as my master and best friend. I don’t want
it to die out. You have done
so much for me and thousands
that we owe you our lives.
Please keep us even as we
fail to be the perfect servitors
you desire. We do love
you.
Free write
I’m writing poems about Krishna and Prabhupada and talking about them. I try to think of something clever and deep, but the poems are not so. And the free write yesterday drifted out of control with a few fantasy sentences as if I were dizzy on my feet.
“Hmmm?”
“He said don’t make them clever just because it was ground hog day and the man in the movie kept living the same day in his life over and over again.” You said if you want to be creative, and even fantastic, make links to Krishna. The day before that, I told the story of Bhisma and how Krishna ran at him carrying the wheel from the chariot of Arjuna and threatened Bhisma to stop fighting. Bhisma likes to hear Krishna addressed as the friend of Arjuna or Krishna in relation to Queen Kunti. Krishna Himself likes the family relationship with His devotees.
I thought of making a list of all of Krishna’s names in which He relates to His devotees, but then it occurred to me that He is related to all of His devotees and to all living entities. Nityo nityanam cetanas cetananam eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman. He’s one with all, and yet He is one who is maintaining them all. This is a roaming free write. I am passing over many sentences that occur to me and not writing them down because they are not connected to Krishna. That is selection. A pure devotee naturally selects only Krishna conscious thoughts. He knows the art of yukta-vairagya or higher renunciation. To reject material things is not as high a renunciation as to use all things in Krishna’s service. We don’t reject an automobile, we use it in the service of Krishna. But we don’t use it for sense gratification. When you begin to think about it, there are many things you would not use in Krishna’s service, such as nineteenth-century French poetry, such as television situation comedies. If you are clever there are many things you can link to Krishna consciousness. But it may be better to play it safe and just report adaptations the acaryas have already made in their presentations. Read their words extensively and become familiar with their examples. Inevitably you will use your own voice and examples. Out of sincerity and maturity, you will use a combination of sastras and original examples, with the emphasis being on the side of sastric examples.
4.24 A.M.
I had trouble getting to sleep last night. But I woke at fifteen minutes to three and began my chanting. Baladeva came up, replacing Narayana. We talked some, and then he left me for chanting. I have chanted twelve rounds so far, and they were decent. I paid attention and rolled the mantras through my mind. It’s the best part of the day. Even when we don’t perfectly focus on Radha and Krishna we are saying Their names, and we get great credit. I have faith in these words, and I chant with full attention. After about ten rounds I became a little sleepy but pressed on without taking any rest and moved up my numerical strength. A good body is necessary for chanting Hare Krishna and as we grow into old age, the body starts being less reliable. But chanting does not require tremendous physical effort. So you are thankful for that and keep on with the easy process, gently saying the mantras and praying to Krishna to enable you to continue to say them for all of your years. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare. May He please always let me chant and increase my awareness of my dependence on chanting. There is no shortage of statements of the power of the holy name in the scriptures. Lord Caitanya told the Mayavadis at Varanasi that His spiritual master had given Him the holy name because He said He was not fit for studying the Vedanta. But as a result of chanting He had developed signs of a madman. His spiritual master told him that it was good and He should continue it, and that these symptoms are love of God. My symptoms are calmness and not madness. But I’m grateful for the calm attention and the serious feeling that I’m doing the most valuable thing. Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati said sometimes even advanced devotees don’t show the physical symptoms of madness and crying of tears and standing of hairs at end but that the change of heart is best indicated by one’s practical activities. I only wish I could chant more during the day and have more interest in it. I pray to Krishna to help me. Yesterday on our after lunch walk Prahlada-priya was with us, and he was chanting with his beads. This prompted me to chant, and so it was extra chanting and I felt good about it.
Quiet chanting in peaceful
hours is as good as it
gets. You hang on not to
get sleepy, and if it comes
anyway, you go to take a shower
or wait until you are wide awake.
That much physical prowess is
necessary, the alertness and attention
to the sound vibration. It doesn’t
take an Olympic athlete but
a sincere, non sleeping prayer-maker
fashioning the mantras one after
another like on an assembly
line of devotion with each
syllable uttered, not cutting
off, no slurring, no thinking
of other things. Is it too
much to ask? No it’s not,
it’s your supreme effort
at a simple thing, a
natural act, your love
of God in spoken, sincere
words. That’s all He asks for.
Prabhupada meditation
To stay alive in Prabhupada memories, while remaining free of dilettantism, is to know that he has a current connection with us. Don’t relegate Prabhupada to the museum in your mind, and think that you are the antiquarian collector of rare books and artifacts. Prabhupada is out preaching.
I want to serve those devotees who have that “face-to-face-with-Prabhupada” realization. I am poor in Prabhupada consciousness. Am I trying to compensate for that by collecting Prabhupada memorabilia? It’s okay, it works. But let me take the dust on my head of devotees who are alive for Prabhupada.
It is not so difficult to be situated at least somewhere on the map of bhakti-yoga. One can usually see some connection between what one is doing and Krishna’s service. But a pure devotee isn’t satisfied with only a nominal connection to Krishna consciousness. He wants to experience a mood of intense service and surrender to Krishna in everything he does.
It’s Not Parochial
Krishna is the subject of all my poems.
That’s not parochial,
just the opposite. To those who
know, He’s everything so you should
always focus on some aspect
of His manifestations.
He’s the oldest, and He’s always a
person. He always appears like
a beautiful youth in His
original form. He has many
forms as avatar, hog, tortoise,
fish but to His devotees He’s
always handsome and awesome.
We can’t please all the people
of the world because they
are fixed in their worldly conceptions and do not accept
the scriptures. They are
unfortunate and stubborn due
to bad association and sinful
acts in the past. But anyone
can change completely and meet
a pure devotee and his followers and
come to accept the practices
of chanting and hearing as nourishing
food for his confused
and hungry heart.
I remember when I first
came I didn’t automatically
accept all the tenets and
incarnations and sixteen thousand, one hundred and eight wives.
I even told the Swami, “I am
trying to accept Bhagavad-gita
philosophy of the transmigration of
the soul, but what is this
about sixteen thousand wives?”
His answer was adamant and brusque.
“You can not accept? Even
the greatest scholars can not
accept.” I felt defeated
and listened for more.
I realized there was a special
way to understand it all.
You had to believe in the
words of the spiritual master
which were coming from the
scriptures which were coming
down from thousands of
years ago. I loved and
accepted the fact that what
the swami spoke was like
a mouth piece for all the
previous acaryas in
disciplic succession.
On leaving the
temple I said to my old college friend Murray Mednick,
“What the swami says is not his
own thing. He’s making a sound vibration
that’s coming from
a time immemorial. Murrey said
something like, “everyone accepts
his own thing”, not very encouraging
toward him becoming an acceptor
of Bhagavad-gita and the
Absolute Truth.
I was just lucky. Another
old marijuana smoking buddy visited
and after the Swami’s talk I
inexpertly told him the truth was
in the revelation of Brahman.
He gave me a look as if I’d
said something weird, he was a
materialist and couldn’t accept
something immeasurable like Brahman.
One after another, all of my acquaintances
couldn’t accept it. One welfare
worker read Swami’s phrase “from
Lord Brahma down to the insignificant
ant, all are in maya” and he said
it was beautiful but not
something he could take seriously.
Another professor saw Prabhupada’s
Dedication in the Srimad Bhagavatam
“on the disappearance day of my spiritual
master” and he said it was a jewel
expression. But he thought it was
just a euphemism. We took these
words as reasonable, transcendental
facts, where they saw them as
fanciful expressions of people out
of touch with reality.
“Who is crazy?” Prabhupada asked.
Are they crazy or are we? He
concluded that anyone who took the
body as the self was insane.
It still stands.
There are things and beings happening
on other planets and universes
that are not happening here.
This world is not the all
in all.
Similarly, the utterance of hari
nama is the sacred sound vibration.
It is not an ordinary thing.
The select few pick it up
and treasure it and feel progress
in their spiritual lives.
What is it that makes
one a believer and one a
denier? It is the existence
of fortune in one and misfortune in
another. It is the difference between
submission and refusal.
“You are fortunate,” Prabhupada told
us, “now don’t become unfortunate.”
Some of us lost the fortune but
regained it again. Krishna is always
waiting to take us back. Remaining
fortunate means following the
rules and believing in a truth.
I pray to always do this and
remind others of the transcendental
plane where all things are possible by Krishna’s grace.
Free write
I was able to accept the authoritative statements of Lord Krishna as given in Bhagavad-gita with commentary by Srila Prabhupada. This was my introduction to Krishna consciousness, along with Prabhupada leading us in kirtana and living with us and giving us his time at 26th Second Avenue. He had better things to do than answer all our questions but he patiently nurtured us. In fact, recruiting disciples was as important as writing his books because he had to assemble workers for his mission. And after about six and a half months he left us and went to San Francisco where he repeated his act of gathering new followers, approximately twenty initiations in each place. And then he came back to us in New York City. It was his breaking ground in the Krishna consciousness movement.
As I write these sane sentences, fantastic sentences come to my mind and I almost write them down. I was going to say Prabhupada caught two dozen fish in San Francisco. And I was going to say he brought a dog with him to America but he had to part with it in New York. I think I have a desire to give new biographical tidbits about his life, and also my mind is going off uncontrolled. I have a tendency for fantasy.
You’d like to say there was a rock band playing with Prabhupada. Some of these daydreams have links to reality like the Mantra Rock Dance in San Francisco, and comparing the catching of fish to the recruiting of disciples. If you want to be creative, why not link it to guru and Krishna? But you don’t want to do things that are whimsical.
Yesterday I expressed myself about writing prayers and letters to Prabhupada. I wrote a few sentences and then stopped. Haridasa pointed out to me that I recently wrote something about the genuine nature of our thinking of Prabhupada at the time of our death. I don’t remember writing that. But come to think of it, it is a very important point, and I hope I have genuine sentiments for him at the end, gratitude and a desire to serve him eternally. The relationship with the spiritual master is eternal, and it continues even in the spiritual world. You serve him in your liberated body. If you are not liberated you come back to the material world and continue serving him. I think it works like that. You don’t give up your connection.
4:58 A.M
I slept well last night and woke up at ten minutes to three. Narayana came up and we spoke. He’s leaving today for India. I told him to try to come back soon. He thinks he will be less than two weeks away. I’ve chanted twelve rounds so far, and they were good. I paid attention and chanted in my mind. I chanted quickly and enjoyed the accumulation of the numerical strength. After this writing I’ll finish my last four for the minimum quota. Sometimes I don’t finish my rounds until after breakfast, but I always do them before lunch time. It’s a wonderful thing. We are all so grateful to Lord Caitanya for giving us an easy method. We have faith in the scriptures that we’re achieving tremendous good in spiritual advancement by this simple process. Prabhupada was very kind to come in his old age and ill health to deliver the kirtana and give us the japa beads. Somehow we realized the importance of it even in the beginning and took to it with great enthusiasm. Over the years we may have struggled to keep up the enthusiasm, but the commitment is still with us, every day at least sixteen rounds. I’m in touch with many devotees around the world who are keeping their commitments and who are happy to do so. Now if we can only get more people to chant Hare Krishna, then the world can change for the better. If only ten percent of the world population were chanting, great changes would come about. What a great man does, others will follow, and what examples he sets will become the standard. We have to chant with hope that we are leaving a legacy, and our children and future generations will take up japa.
The same thing,
rising early and
fingering the beads.
You are fully satisfied
with the routine
and wouldn’t exchange
it for all the honors
or riches or responsibilities
of the world. Too bad the
prime ministers and presidents
aren’t chanting. We have faith
that by our chanting Krishna is
pleased, and there is betterment
for the planet. Just one chanter
does more than other welfare
agencies with all their endeavor.
Have faith in this and prosecute
your yajna, call on Lord Hari
for the salvation of souls in
devotional service.
Prabhupada meditation
Prabhupada, I’m your servant serving in separation. You’ve gone back to Godhead we say thirty three years now, longer, ’77 you left. ’87, ’97, ‘07, yeah it’s thirty-three years. Hard to believe. But what does that mean, thirty-three years, thirty-three minutes?
We read how Lord Caitanya walked on the road. When he saw the dome of Lord Jagannatha it was six miles to go from where He saw it. But each mile seemed like it took many, many, many years. Because He was so much in anticipation that became the reality to Him. Ecstatic. So ecstatic or not ecstatic what is a few years? And then where do we go? If we think of you, we go to you. That’s why I don’t want to get diverted.
Srila Prabhupada with a gong.
Here’s a picture of you, your left hand is gripping a cloth that’s attached to a gong. One-two-three you’re gonging, one-two-three. There’s a nice cloth backdrop behind you. It’s the Henry Street temple with one of their many different fancy vyasasanas. This one shaped like a lotus. You have yellow roses on you and a big garland with red roses. You can get those kinds of things in New York City in the florist shop right on the garden. You’re wearing soft fabric and soft color, sort of a pale saffron sweater which is open in the front. And a pale pink sock we can see on your lotus foot. Your bed bag and kurta appear to be almost like a light yellow. You weren’t so strict as to the exact shade it had to be. O paramahamsa, O maha-bhagavat, O great preacher, my spiritual master.
You wrote in this letter, “You’re a sincere devotee of the Lord and certainly He will bless you with auspicious advancement in the matter of spiritual understanding.” I’d ask you, “Prabhupada I can’t understand the Bhagavad-gita unless I get spiritual intelligence. How will that happen?” Now I guess I “understand” the Bhagavad-gita, at least with some theoretical jnana. I can answer questions from the vyasasana but still what I was referring to in that letter is still what I’m looking for—that mystical spiritual understanding. Actually I’m looking for love. Love in my own heart in action. Unselfconscious action to serve you to please you in a way that you will recognize.
Wishing I Could Write of Radha and Krishna
Krishna is far away but very
near. My emotions for Him
are distant, but factually He
is situated in my heart in His
localized form. I believe this,
I just can’t feel His presence.
When I think about it enough,
my emotion and perception of
Him arises. He is the God of
all creation, but He has expanded
to be in everyone’s heart.
He is very kind and lenient.
He lets us do what we want,
within limits, but we have
to pay the price for our
actions.
Moments in devotional service
count as eternal credits.
I want this poem to be an
eternal act of devotion to the
Lord of Goloka. It’s there in
Vraja that He sports in
His best, original form by having
the greatest fun and meaningful
exchanges with His parisads.
The gopis love Him
best. They can’t think of
anything but going to Him and
receiving His favor. The topmost
gopi is Radha who enchants
even Krishna. We can hear about it and pray to Him that
our devotion to Krishna may also
attract Him. We are not
beautiful or attractive but
He is bhava-grahi-janardana,
He sees the good essence
in our overall attempt
to live as His willing
servants.
I said I wanted this poem
to be an act of devotion. That
can happen if I direct
it sincerely as praise and
honor of Radha and Krishna.
Think of Him playing His
flute and bewildering the
demigods, think of Him
lifting the Govardhana Hill on
the pinky of His left hand.
There are countless pastimes
beyond even what’s mentioned
in the Bhagavatam.
You just have to think of Him
favorably, the way He cares
for each of us. Think of
the best possible person of this
material world and then multiply
it millions of times, and you
may begin to approach appreciation
for Krishna.
Radha is as good as Krishna.
She’s His tender female
counterpart. The devotees
of Radha say Krishna is important
only because Radha has chosen
Him as Her boyfriend.
However you take it,
She is dear to Him and
that makes Her exalted
beyond the demigods.
My poem is intended as a sincere
act, praising Radha and Krishna when
They meet for a tryst or when
Krishna fails to meet Her which
causes another variety of love
known as quarrel, which Krishna
eventually breaks because He’s
irresistible, and Radha’s friends advice
Her not to put Him off
indefinitely. Krishna never
acts cruelly towards Radha,
He just varies His approach to
Her to add to the flavors
of loving exchange.
Perhaps I should not even
speak of this, but I was
drawn to it by the sweetness,
and I meant no harm.
I actually realize so little
of The Divine Couple, but
Prabhupada has told us
these things and said we have
not taken a vow to boycott
the gopis.
You have to be sober and divorced
from any hint of material enjoyment or what passes as
love between men and women
in this world. If you can do
this you can occasionally write
some lines telling us
you appreciate Radha-Govinda.
You can leave people with
a reminder of the topmost
rasa and something to aspire
for.
Radha and Krishna remain pristine,
and when you are pure enough you
can approach Them in a reverent
mood, serious but joyful.
Touch the love eternal, and
your death will have no sting.
Free write
Today I wrote a poem about Radha and Krishna. In one stanza I said perhaps I shouldn’t be doing it, but it is inevitable as long as you don’t go in over your head. After all, why would Prabhupada have installed so many Deities of Radha and Krishna if he didn’t want us to worship Them? For worship he required that there be a significant number of brahmanas and the temple devotees should be mature in their behavior and practice of devotional service. Gaura-Nitai worship is more lenient as the brothers do not accept offenses. But service to Radha and Krishna is strict. Prabhupada once said if the service wasn’t satisfactory, Radha-Krishna would kick the offering off the altar. Krishna-ksetra Prabhu, the ISKCON minister for Deity worship, told me the standard for Deity worship at home is much more lenient than in the temple. As for writing about Radha-Krishna we can discuss our preliminary attraction for Them without going into details of Their conjugal union. Prabhupada writes that all the pastimes of Krishna in Srimad-Bhagavatam should be relished equally and nothing should be omitted. He actually states that Krishna’s relationships with the Pandavas are as good as His relationship with the gopis. The rasas or mellows are different, but Krishna is absolute and devotional service is absolute. Krishna enjoyed being pierced by the arrows of Bhisma just as He enjoyed the love bites of the gopis. Krishna’s body is not material, and so He was not actually wounded by Bhisma but enjoyed the chivalrous humor.
Duryodhana accused Bhisma of being soft toward the Pandavas and not exerting his full fighting strength against them. Duryodhana held five special arrows for killing the Pandavas and kept them to be given to Bhisma on the day of the battle. But the evening before, by tricks, Krishna managed to get the arrows from Duryodhana. When Bhisma heard this he swore that he would kill the five Pandavas the following day. He would either kill Arjuna or force Krishna to break His promise not to fight. Bhisma fought so violently that he put Arjuna and Krishna into a difficult position and was just about to kill Arjuna. Krishna broke His promise not to fight and grabbed the broken wheel of Arjuna’s chariot and rushed to attack Bhisma. The fighting of the day ended at that moment and Arjuna was saved—at the cost of Krishna’s breaking His promise. On his deathbed of arrows, where Bhisma lay in the company of Krishna and the Pandavas, Bhisma fondly remembered this bellicose exchange with Krishna and worshiped Him as the Supreme Lord, assuring his entrance into Vaikuntha. Bhisma also remembered the gopis and asked for their blessings.
4:49 A.M.
I slept well overnight and woke with a clear head at 2:30 A.M. Narayana came up and talked with me for a long while in preparation for his departure for India in a few days. After he left I settled into peaceful chanting. I’ve chanted thirteen rounds so far. I was able to chant undistracted, at a good pace and with my mind fixed on the syllables of the holy names. This is my main sadhana, and I try to execute it with care. I don’t know how much Krishna is pleased with my chanting, but I know even imperfect chanting brings good results. I have to improve if I am to reach the higher stages. My chanting is still involved with the mechanics of avoiding the ten offenses and meditating on Radha and Krishna.
“When, oh when, will
that day be mine,
my offenses ceasing,
taste for the holy name increasing…
When in my heart will Your mercy
shine?” The peaceful hours
are pleasing, and I am doing well
to increase the number,
but I know it is not topmost.
I have read the symptoms of
ecstatic chanting and love of God,
and notice their absence
in me. I have no choice before
me but to continue on course
and try to improve.
That is my goal, to
enter the life of prayer
in harinama, to go
forward and overcome
offenses.
Prabhupada meditation
Dear Srila Prabhupada, I want to read now a letter that you wrote me. You included my name in a group letter that you wrote from San Francisco on January 19. But then on the 30th of January you wrote in one envelope a number of letters to about four of us, and I was one of them. My letter begins:
“My dear Satsvarupa,
Please accept my blessings. I understand that Neil has left us and you have taken the responsibility for typing the records. Please let me know how many tapes are with you. I think you have five tapes with you because I have got only three with me. See that the tapes do not miss. You are a sincere devotee of the Lord and certainly he will bless you with auspicious advancement in the matter of spiritual understanding.
“Your assistant Ranchor is doing well with me. He is not now disturbed in his mind. I hope you are all in full cooperation in the service of Krishna. I shall be glad to hear from you.”
Prabhupada you worked these eight tapes. Nowadays when I make tapes, before I’ll put them in the mail I first make copies. You didn’t even do that although your tapes are infinitely more valuable than mine. I could say you depended on Krishna, but also you just didn’t demand so much. Maybe this is a better system that I have now. What if I asked you, Prabhupada before we mail this tape would it be better to make a copy in case it gets lost? But we didn’t think of things like that. We didn’t think in the beginning that you ought to fly first-class or at least business-class. Maybe they didn’t have business-class in those days on the airplane. We didn’t think of so many things that we think of now. I’m thinking of you now, everything else is a distraction.
Lord Caitanya said to Sanatana Goswami, “I feel the grace of Krishna flowing through Me to you. I do not know all these things, they are not Mine.” This is why it is said, vyaso vetti na vetti va. The Vyasa who has written Bhagavatam may or may not know its meaning. It is coming from others through him. This is sometimes possible, but not always. Krishna is so independent. All glories to His independence!
Prabhupada Poem
This is going to be a poem about
Krishna and me. I’m sorry I
can’t write Him prayers anymore.
I just lost the literary touch, the
attitude of verisimilitude required,
and the sheer strength of head.
I’m simply glad I did them long
enough to produce the book
My Dear Lord Krishna, which is
circulating now. They say I’ll
think of something new.
I used to write prayer-like
to Prabhupada, and that’s
always welcome. They come out
sometimes in Prabhupada Meditation.
You pray, “Please let me serve
you. Please remember my vigorous
years. Please accept my compositions
to you.” You can remember past
incidents, but it is hard to relive them.
The present is most important, serving
his vani.
Do as he says. Chant Hare Krishna
and associate with devotees and
encourage people to practice
Krishna consciousness. That’s how to serve
him. Look at his pictures for
inspiration. He moved so
gracefully through the world in
his old age. He was strong
and composed and entirely devoted
to the mission of his Guru Maharaja.
He would call us to his rooms,
once during mangala-arati at
Atlanta when devotee-scientists
were present, and he urged us to
argue against Darwin’s theory.
Then he would go on the morning
walk and talk in mock-
debates with his disciples.
These things are recorded, and
you can hear them still.
But it’s not the same as
when he was here, and he might
turn on you and direct something
toward you or decide on a new
service for you. He was dynamic and unexpected.
He walked vigorously and then
returned to the temple to
receive guru-puja singing and
dancing in front of his
vyasasana and when
that quieted down he
would give an impromptu lecture
on Srimad-Bhagavatam. We all sat
on the floor and tried our best to
pay attention.
That was his routine in the temple.
Then he’d go to the room they
provided for him. It always
had a low desk, and he sat on a mattress with bolsters.
He might nap a little or
answer letters by dictating
them to his secretary who wrote
down his replies in a notepad
and typed them up. He might
talk with the local temple
president about management of
the temple, and of course, he’d
have breakfast. He was very regulated and calm
and inspiring in his presence.
Around 11:00 A.M. he’d change to
just his gamsha and sit for
his oil massage by his servant.
That took about forty minutes, then
he would go to his shower and
change into fresh clothes.
After that he’d have his simple
lunch of rice, dhal, sabji and capatis.
In the afternoon he’d rest an hour or so. Then
he might meet some guests
or chant some extra rounds on beads.
He was always preaching the philosophy. He
didn’t make ordinary talk.
You have to realize when he
was in one place, like Atlanta,
he was thinking of many places,
such as Bombay, Mayapur,
Vrndavana and Los Angeles. He would
direct devotees what to do in those
places through his mail. He
sometimes said he wanted to
be free of the management so he
could concentrate on his literary
work, but his young disciples
couldn’t manage things without his
direction. They would fight
among themselves or get cheated
by businessmen.
When he did write and translate
it was in the middle of the
night. After only a few hours
of rest, he’d rise by 1:00 A.M. and open his book of
commentaries and painstakingly
do the translation and purport of
every verse. He said it required
great concentration, and he considered
it his greatest contribution. We
wished he could spend more time
on it.
Prabhupada was a great spiritual master
and founder-acarya. He tended to
all aspects of his Hare Krishna movement.
Dealing with lawyers, realtors,
financial institutions and his
leading managers was one side of
it, and affectionately giving his
attention to all his disciples was
equally important. He was a
great teacher, devotee and spiritual
person. We cannot estimate how
great he was but only go on
praising and serving him in
gratitude for what he gave. He
managed to work with all
kinds of persons and bring out
the best in them, a near-
impossible task.
Now in his absence his followers
continue to carry out his work.
They have faith that if they do so
it will be pleasing to Lord Krishna.
There is no other way.
Free write
I wrote a poem about Prabhupada and mentioned the possibility of writing him prayers like I did in my prayers to the Supreme Lord in My Dear Lord Krishna. Ghanasyama (later Bhaktitirtha Swami) used to write a prayer-letter every day. They were personal and private, and I never read them but I have some idea what they were like. Could I attempt to write some? What would I say? Say the truth. You don’t have to write them everyday. Use your strength to write to him, be unabashed and express your troubles, your obstacles and your hopes.
Dear Srila Prabhupada, I want to be close to you and dear to you, but I don’t know if I can perform the required austerities.
A disciple cries tears to his spiritual master and the master says, “Come now, you don’t have to cry. Dry your eyes and perform some service.”
The disciple replies, “But I can’t perform for you with the strength I used to.”
The master says, “That’s alright. Do what you can, and whatever you do, do it as an offering to me.”
The disciple takes heart and tries to make some effort according to his limited capacity. There is also the matter of making dandavats before the spiritual master. He has to be able to do that at least once in the morning. The disciple must avoid association with women. This of course applies to the sannyasi and brahmacari, but a householder must also restrict his association with his wife. Not eating meat is obvious and needn’t be explained and so is gambling.
The spiritual master asks, “What is this reduction in prowess and vitality?” The disciple replies he has ill health and cannot travel and lecture although he is planning to go the the Caribbean in the spring. The spiritual master asks, “Then what can you do for me?” The disciple replies that he is able to write; he keeps an internet journal which he adds to every day and twice a month he does video broadcasts on the internet.
The spiritual master replies, “Then do it. Keep it up.”
The disciple replies he will do his best to keep up the regimen, and he adds, “I of course chant my daily quota of rounds which I do on your order.”
“Yes,” says the guru, “that I take for granted. That is your bare minimum requirement. And you previously told me you are regularly reading Srimad-Bhagavatam and Caitanya-caritamrta, that is also not heroic but a daily must, like the eating of grains.”
“Yes,” says the disciple, “I realize I am not like you, beginning my real preaching at the age of seventy.”
“Do what you can,” says the guru, “not what you cannot.”
5:03 A.M
At bedtime last night I had a migraine and had to take medicine. The pain went down and I was able to sleep. I woke up at 2:30 A.M. and began chanting. The japa performance was good although it was a little bit slow. I’ve chanted ten rounds so far. I kept my attention without distraction although I was distracted on trying to sleep last night. But once I was on the beads other thoughts went away and I concentrated on the syllables of the mantra and smoothly passed them through my thinking. We should never think that the mantra is not substantial enough thinking matter even though it is the repetition of three words constantly. We have to dive into their meaning and always remember the sastric injunctions about the potency of the holy name. It is not an intellectual exercise but a devotional act. Yesterday Baladeva and I gave Radha-Govinda new dresses and cleaned Them. So They are very shining looking and beautiful this morning. They wear blue and orange outfits and Narayana fixed Govinda’s dhoti so that His feet show. This was an aid to my chanting. I’m sorry the chanting was a little slow but I will make up for it. Krishna always gives us the chance to make up for inadequate chanting. There is almost always a time for a second chance. The chanting is a lenient process. To the devotees who read this website I want them to be encouraged to know that I am trying my best and I want them to try their best also. Although we are chanting in different parts of the world we are all packed up together in japa-yajna.
Chanting with my friends
around the world and
making a poem of our
progress. The rounds accumulate
as I sip my herbal tea and
relish the solitude in which
to reciprocate with Radha-Krishna.
Radha is in the name Hare,
it’s an address to Her name,
and Krishna and Rama refer
to the all-attractive Lord, the
enjoyer of Radhika.
You recite Their names with
attention to the meaning, not just
bland utterances but pointed
supplications: “O energy of
the Lord, O Lord, please
engage me in Your service.”
They like to hear you chant
because They have the same tendencies
as the human being, They like
to hear you call Them with devotion.
Prabhupada meditation
Memories of Prabhupada are nectar. Without them, there would be no substance to Prabhupada consciousness. If there were no memories of Prabhupada, then he would become only a legend. For example, although I don’t have any direct experience of Lord Caitanya’s appearance in the world, many persons who were with Lord Caitanya recorded His pastimes in diaries and books. Therefore, I can know who He actually was. Similarly, followers of Prabhupada hunt for memoirs and encourage Prabhupada’s disciples to compile their accounts before they pass away so that everyone now and in the future can know what it was like to be with Prabhupada.
But there is a lot more to Prabhupada consciousness than memories of him. We may enter that “unreal” world of the past, but eventually, we must return to the present and surrender now. By meditating on the memories and practicing internal, minute-to-minute surrender, we will be Prabhupada conscious. This internal cultivation is very important. Prabhupada recall doesn’t mean only remembering what he did in the 1970s, it means recalling our need to serve him now.
It’s exciting that there are so many facets to recalling Srila Prabhupada. It is not a matter of thinning out or extracting the same memories again and again, until they get so thinned and refined that it’s not really Prabhupada anymore. That can become a kind of mayavada meditation. No, Prabhupada consciousness is personal. It has to do with very basic things like reading his books on a daily basis and understanding when we chant Hare Krishna that Prabhupada gave us the maha-mantra. It also means referring to him in a basic way as our teacher—our beloved teacher who compassionately instructs us in Krishna consciousness. Prabhupada is with us at all times through his vani. He shapes our lives to fulfill his purpose. Also included in this many-faceted way of meditating on Prabhupada is the nectarean activity of recalling what he did when he was here.
Prabhupada Murti of Satsvarupa Maharaja, Delaware
An Offering from Poverty
You are tired you know but
you must write your poem.
But beautiful. Krishna is
beautiful and Radha is more
beautiful to Him. I am far
away from Them but respectful
and would like to know Them better.
But beautiful. Beauty is the
essence of The Divine Couple. They
are dressed in lovely apparel
and jewelry and They attract
each other in a wonderful way.
I am way down on the ladder
but I see my Radha-Govinda
murtis and They are replicas
of the original persons. I don’t
do wrong things, ain’t misbehaving,
saving my love for You.
The naked cry of the true
sadhu comes out in his prayers
and recitation of the names.
Raghunatha Gosvami and Rupa
and Sanatana were not in
good health because they
didn’t eat or sleep much
and they made many dandavats and parikramas
and wrote books. They led internal lives as gopi-manjaris.
It’s hard to understand the
extremity of their devotion
and their bhajana. But
beautiful, they worshipped
The Divine Couple.
We want to improve our
life, I mean “I” want
to. I want to live in
an ashrama-house with
two close friends and write
poems that make sense
and have some balance.
This morning I was tired
when I chanted japa
but I reported that it
went well, because it
did for a while. I ran
into a point of exhaustion
as happens in the early
morn after ten rounds
or so. You can’t reach
the desired place of
alert harinama. You
drink jasmine tea
and keep on going hoping to come out of it.
It’s going to be alright.
I will recover and pay
attention to the Lord in the
form of sound vibration.
It’s going to be alright.
It’s zero degrees outside but I
will be warm in our house
with layers of clothes. I
can’t find a theme to write
on so I just say what
comes to mind like Krishna
is the Lord of all creation
and I’m one of His tiny servants.
Krishna in the form of Lord Caitanya
came chanting sankirtana and
spread it as a movement.
Chanting comes first, He said,
and speech from Bhagavatam.
He named one of his devotees
Bhagavat Acarya because when
the Lord heard his explanations
of the Bhagavat-purana He fell
unconscious. He told him you
should make your only occupation
speaking on the Bhagavatam.
The Lord had plenty of branches
on the tree of His devotional service.
They were all stalwart devotees
and wrote many books.
They loved to be with Him and
He gave them each attention
and affection.
Anyone who doesn’t know and
love Lord Caitanya is a
fool. You read about Him
in Caitanya-caritamrta and
Caitanya-bhagavat and those
two books are all you need
for the authorized life
of the most munificent avatara.
I hear C.C. read to
me and I become satisfied.
Baladeva reads to me while
I honor oatmeal prasadam
in the morning and a little
cup of yogurt in the evening.
I don’t need to go out and
do anything. Hearing of Lord
Caitanya is complete.
I have a cold, headache’s
coming, but that’s expected.
I live in a fragile shell.
The main thing is to go on
hearing and wait until you’re clear
so you can finish your rounds.
The poem is a random, wandering
prayer, asking the Lord that
I can be with him. I can
barely write at all, and it
has no story, but I give
it to you as an offering from poverty.
Maybe the next one will be
better. This is all I have today.
Free write
A h.a. hampers the beginning of my free write. I wrote a poem that was a wandering prayer but it contained some genuine cries and descriptions of the Lord and the simple sadhu’s life. I am responsible for writing something Krishna conscious. I am also responsible for telling a true report of what I feel. So what happens if I don’t feel like regurgitating the philosophy? Do I become completely silent or do I go ahead and speak something that’s not siddhanta? I think the answer is I should not write unless it is siddhanta. Lord Caitanya’s immediate followers never spoke prajalpa nor did they speak improper versions of the Vedic philosophy. After Lord Caitanya settled down to live at Jagannatha Puri, some of His devotees stayed with Him while some of the householders who had been with Him in Navadvipa stayed there and traveled once a year to Puri to spend the four months of Caturmasya with Him. Lord Caitanya stayed in the house of His disciple Kasi Mishra. Lord Caitanya stayed in a small cell-like room called the gambhira. In His last years He engaged with His intimate followers, Svarupa Damodara and Ramananda Raya in personal talks. Lord Caitanya spoke out loud like a madman, speaking in the gambhira. He expressed Radharani’s mood of separation from Krishna and His companions urged Him on by quoting eloquent verses and singing songs in the mood of the gopis. Sometimes He would stay up all night and rub His face against the walls, injuring Himself. To prevent this the devotees suggested that one of them should stay in the room over night. A devotee was chosen and he served with his body as a pillow for Lord Caitanya to lie on. But sometimes, even though all the doors of the gambhira were locked, He would somehow escape and be found at a different place. He underwent bodily transformations and once jumped into the sea unconscious and His body was carried for miles downstream and caught in the net of a fisherman. When the devotees recovered Him in these situations and brought Him to external consciousness by chanting, He would sometimes say something like, “Where am I? Was I speaking some words of humility? I was just with Krishna and you have interrupted Me.” Finally after twelve years of internal ecstasies like this Lord Caitanya disappeared in His forty-ninth year, by merging into the body of the Tota-gopinatha Deity of Krishna. The Deity of Tota-gopinatha can still be visited as well as the room known as the gambhira. There are many holy sites of Lord Caitanya’s pastimes in Jagannatha Puri.
4:58 A.M
I slept well last night and got up from bed at 2:30. For the first ten minutes my chanting was drowsy, but then I pulled out of it. I began to chant wide awake, and it was smooth like a sailboat on breezy but non-dangerous waters. I heard the mantras clearly in my mind and paid attention. I enjoyed chanting and did not have to chant cautiously. So far I’ve chanted nine rounds. I feel confident the balance will be good. I was not distracted but stayed with the japa as my main occupation. It was very accessible and quietly joyful. This is how chanting should always be, and from a foundation of peaceful concentration I can build up to higher stages of offenseless chanting.
Japa on a smooth
alert day. You find
your way to accumulate
the numbers meaningfully,
watching Radha-Govinda,
and noting the clock.
Everything is given by Krishna:
if you do not want to chant, He
will give it to you,
if you have little desire
to chant, you will get that too.
But if you strongly seek
the nectar that grows on the
tree of Lord Caitanya, Krishna
will award it.
Which do you want?
Choose offenseless chanting.
If you knock all
the pins down in bowling,
and they ask you how
you did it, say the truth,
you practiced, and Krishna did the rest.
Prabhupada meditation
Hayagriva wrote a book, I heard—he told me in the last letter he wrote me—called The Death of Deaths. He invited me to go see him, but I didn’t dare to go to New Vrndavana which was infested by the changed mood with “Bhaktipada” presiding. I couldn’t just go to see Hayagriva without getting entangled in the whole scene. That’s how I felt about it. Since he’d cast his lot with New Vrndavana, and I with ISKCON, I was not able to cross over for a last visit. People like Satyaraja, who went to see him, said he was very Krishna conscious in those last days, crying and calling for shelter of Srila Prabhupada.
Until each of us can honestly say we like Prabhupada’s company, how will Krishna bring us to Prabhupada in the next life? Krishna looks deep into our hearts at the time of death. As Supersoul, He fulfills our heartfelt desires. He also gives us what we deserve. We may say that we want to go to Prabhupada, but if we do not deserve it by our surrender and service, or if we do not really desire it, then Krishna will award us accordingly. Of course, Prabhupada will not forsake us, and he will return in some form or other to awaken our Krishna consciousness and bring us back to his service. Our duty is to realize Prabhupada’s mercy on the heart level and then to serve the pure devotee. We cannot realize his mercy only philosophically. As we advance more, we will come to relish his company.
Don’t be afraid of it. (“Too much surrender.”) Don’t be afraid to ask for it. It enriches all your acts, gives you security. So you do more than just look at your watch and read-chant-write in a somewhat uptight and perfunctory way. You came to a retreat for this purpose.
Clang clang clang clang—4 P.M. The town sometimes erupts into loud passersby, radios’ rock music, slam of door, car goes by. But then it becomes quiet again. You are free up here. They call it the “city of science”, but I needn’t be affected by that or by the tourists who go to the old, old stone churches or sexy women hiking with men and looking around. Keep behind these doors, keep the heat out . . . I thought of Vrndavana, not being interrupted or pressured in the Krishna-Balarama guest house. But that is a place of intense lila devotion which is pursued by many people there. It’s so much better than the West can offer. Yet Mayavadis live there too. Still, you know that just outside are many parikrama places, a tree where Lord Caitanya sat when He visited Vrndavana. Did He actually sit there? Maybe. At least people want to think like that. And you can sit by the tree or by Govardhana and think those thoughts. Here Krishna accepted the prayers of Lord Indra, here Krishna stopped the gopis with their milk and demanded a tax . . .
And here is the Hare Krishna mantra which my spiritual master gave to me.
A Chanting Poem
My poems are all directed towards
Krishna, because I am religious.
It is my duty.
I believe the poem has no ultimate
value unless it speaks of Him.
But what shall we say? We can
profess we love Him although
we barely know Him. We can say
we serve Him, although lately,
we do it only in composition.
That is alright too, for
composition is the way of
the mahajanas. They make
prayers placed in the
Bhagavatam which nourish
bhaktas, and the bhakta
can compose his own song
from his softened heart.
Krishna wants to see us working to
serve Him and to spread His
glories to the world. This makes
us dear to Him. In every
town and village, He wants
His names to be chanted.
Whoever works for that becomes
His favorite person.
What is so special about His
names? They contain His essence,
His power and love.
These are sound vibrations as
good as His personal form.
They are the prime benediction
for humanity at large.
His names must be taken to
whole-heartedly, not as a
mechanical act. The chanter
has to pay attention and
avoid offences. Then he
reaches the full benefit
of this precious gift.
I chanted them this morning in
a quiet way in a lonely
room. It brought me peace
and satisfaction. I did it
on the order of my guru.
I entered a sacred space
but then became exhausted.
I tried my best but that
was not good enough to
achieve suddha-nama,
or perfect chanting.
I shall try some more today, adding
to the quota and praying to improve.
Perfect chanting is all we need to
do to enter the spiritual world.
The ISKCON members are holding
seminars and workshops to
help improve this most important
practice. On two days out
of five they do sixty-four
rounds, a mighty number.
If you can do it, it brings you
beyond the offenses to a space
where the counting starts to
eliminate the half-hearted effort.
I do mostly only sixteen,
the bare minimum and stop
at that. But I do them
earnestly, calling out to Radha and Krishna and
praying for the knowledge
that They reciprocate with
me.
It’s the quality that counts.
Carefully enunciating and putting
your heart into it.
Such a simple sacrifice,
anyone can do it.
It’s been given to us
by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu,
the yuga-avatara, because
nothing else is possible in
this fallen age.
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati
required his disciples to do
sixty-four rounds a day but our Srila
Prabhupada, coming to the west,
saw that this wasn’t possible
for us. He reduced it to
an easy sixteen. He said
anyone who couldn’t do it was “an animal.”
Get out your beads, preferably
in the early morning, in
an erect posture and
enunciate the names of Radha
and Krishna. You are doing
the most important act for
a truly human being. You
are fulfilling your destiny
and making progress back
to Godhead. In the
spiritual world, you’ll go
on chanting with greater
ease and ecstasy in the
very presence of the beloved Lords.
Free write
Yesterday in my free write I wrote about going back to Godhead in this lifetime. I quoted Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati as saying you should not wait for another lifetime. And I repeated words of Prabhupada that if we take shelter of him he has the key to the backdoor of Goloka Vrndavana. But then I heard in a Bhaktivedanta purport that a pure devotee is not very eager about entering the spiritual world. All he wants is direct service to the Lord and that can take place anywhere. Coming back to the material world to render devotional service would be favorable only if you took it up right away. If you had to live twenty-thirty years in forgetfulness it would not seem desirable. We have heard of Maharaja Pariksit who played with Krishna dolls in his babyhood, and Prabhupada was raised by a pure devotee father. He said, “There was never a time when I was not Krishna conscious.” Pious souls pray while they are still in the embryo asking to become Krishna’s devotees when they are born. But in a song, Bhaktivinoda Thakura says as soon as you are born you are patted affectionately and put into bodily consciousness. Maybe even an advanced soul has to wait a few years before he develops. How old was Sankaracarya when he took sannyasa, five years old? I suppose it is possible to be born a pure devotee. Many of the devotees of Prabhupada (such as me) suffered decades before they came in contact with the pure devotee. And you might die before you even meet him. Therefore I see the sense in Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati saying finish up your business in this lifetime and don’t come back for another life. But it is a high attachment. Prabhupada once said you had to have a hundred percent Krishna consciousness to go back to Godhead. Then when he saw that his remark made his disciples look crestfallen, he said, “At least eighty percent.” And when they still looked disappointed he said, “At least seventy-five percent.” You have to accept whatever next body you get without resentment. Pick up your next human life from where it starts off and be determined to make it the last lifetime in the material world. This was the attitude of Jada Bharata after he had to pass a life as a stag. Born next in a brahmana family, he disguised himself and kept himself protected from any social intercourse by acting like a dumb urchin. He lived internally in Krishna consciousness in unbroken meditation. People mistreated him, but he didn’t yield to any frivolous activities. It seems best to consign yourself to Krishna at death and form a firm resolution to be Krishna conscious in whatever your next situation is. “Krishna please accept me as an atom at Your lotus feet.” Pray for the mercy of your spiritual master.
4:45 A.M.
I only got four hours of sleep last night. I took a nasal congestion medicine which had wake-up ingredients, and I didn’t get to sleep till 9:30 P.M. and then I woke at 1.30 A.M. Narayana is going to get me a new medicine that doesn’t have wake-up ingredients. Nevertheless I was still awake and was able to chant my rounds nicely. I stayed close to the mantras as they flowed through my mind. I chanted quickly, and I’ve so far chanted fourteen rounds. I was attentive to the syllables and didn’t get distracted. On the last four rounds I started getting confused and a bit drowsy. I thought that I had two alternatives, either to struggle and continue chanting or to take a nap. I decided to continue with determination. I pushed on through and managed to do fairly well. Chanting through a struggle is worthwhile. Narayana commented that I don’t let anything stop me, and I like to think that’s true, at least for japa.
Krishna’s kindness is to
give us harinama, and
in the sastras He emphasizes
how important it is.
No one should minimize it.
Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna…Rama
Rama Hare Hare, you repeat
them again and again and
it doesn’t get tired or boring.
You could not repeat a
word like “Coca-Cola” or
”Mister John” repeatedly without
becoming disgusted and
having to stop. Harinama
has special ingredients
that makes it flow like
a bubbling stream without
cessation. Great chanters
like the Gosvamis chanted
most of the twenty-four hours
of the day. Prabhupada has
given us sixteen rounds as
the bare minimum and given
us many other things to do.
But if we can chant more
it is to our credit,
it enhances our bhakti.
Prabhupada meditation
I came across Prabhupada’s statement that you cannot enter Vrndavana without the mercy of Lord Nityananda. This is also described by Narottama dasa Thakura in one of his songs. The mercy of Lord Nityananda comes through Prabhupada. Also, Narottama sang, you cannot enter Vrndavana as long as you have visaya chariya kabe, attachment for the demands of the senses and the body. You cannot enter Vrndavana except through the line of the Six Gosvamis. Prabhupada told us all these things, although we may have missed their import before because of our lack of interest.
Now I am reading his books again and benefiting from the various sections where he talks about the Vrndavana mood. Prabhupada quotes all the previous acaryas right after the most important information about madhurya-rasa. Nothing is lacking.
Right now I am a little too tired to write at length. I want to take rest and write for Prabhupada. I was thinking that since Prabhupada’s disappearance, the Supersoul seems to gain more importance as one kind of guru, the caitya-guru. When he was with us, Prabhupada’s beating on the brhad-mrdanga (and the clay mrdanga), sending devotees around the world, managing men and money, and working with the GBC, were all manifestations of the internal energy. Krishna’s pure devotee desired to do wonderful work. He was like Lord Nityananda and Lord Caitanya. Just to be near Prabhupada inspired so many people to take up the charge. If you wanted to be his disciple, then you wanted to help him in his work.
Left: SDG, center Ghaneshyam (H. H. Bhakti Tirtha Swami)
The Library Party
Tell a story, about the
library party. I didn’t
go out selling much myself.
I was too “honest” they said,
and felt self-conscious in
my cheap, constricting wig.
I wasn’t good at playing the
game that we were commercial
book sellers and not devotees
of the Lord. I could show the
books and sell one or two, but
I couldn’t clinch a sale for
a standing order of all the
Bhagavatams and all the Caitanya-
caritamrtas as Ghanasyama and
Mahabuddhi did so expertly.
So mostly I stayed in saffron and
read his books in the library.
I managed the personnel and
settled the quarrels. I plotted
out our travels with the road
atlas and read to the men at
night from not-yet-published
manuscripts of Caitanya-caritamrta.
The men did not resent me
for the most part but accepted
me as their sannyasi leader.
One GBC man referred to
my role as “baby sitting”
but it was more crucial
than that. Everyone wanted
to see the most important
professors, but I decided
who should go where.
And I wrote letters to Prabhupada
on behalf of the party,
telling him our results and
sending him the letters of
appreciation written by
the professors. Prabhupada
wrote to me and gave the
new men their initiation
names, and I performed the
fire sacrifice when we stopped
at the temples. It was
known as my party; I
was the figure head.
They were wonderful years,
traveling around the entire
United States and visiting almost
all the colleges and universities.
We played tapes of bhajans
and sometimes sang, we
stopped in camp grounds
and they ironed their suits.
The strategy was like clockwork.
First thing in the morning, they visited the
head librarian and told him what
we wanted to do. He told us we
would have to visit relevant professors
and get their written recommendations
for the purchase of the books. Then
we spread out knocking on doors
and catching the teachers in their offices.
The BBT books were handsome, authoritative
and well-done. The sellers just had to
convince them they were needed for the
school. They referred to other well-known
professors in the field who had already
ordered the books and showed them their
letter. “Are you religious people?”
No, we are representatives of the Bhaktivedanta
Book Trust, the biggest publishers of Indian,
Sanskrit, ancient literature in the world.
They parried the skeptical questions and
thought quickly on their feet.
By late afternoon, Mahabuddhi and Ghanasyama,
by persistent salesmanship,
almost always had two standing orders.
Just before closing time they reported
back to the head librarian and showed
him what the professors had recommended.
The librarian obediently wrote up the
standing orders and the deal was done.
Happy at heart we drove in
three vans some miles to reach
our next college destination,
swapping stories of the day’s events.
All male association, footloose
and carefree, with enough money for
our travels supplied by the BBT.
Wigs were taken off, ties loosened
and banter and Krishna consciousness
filled the air. Mahadyuti was
in charge of the vans, Dodge
Rams, and traded them in after
thirty-five thousand miles.
We were well equipped.
Our scored were listed in the weekly
sankirtana newsletter, and we definitely
were an apple in our spiritual
master’s eye.
We have since heard stories of students
who found the books in their libraries
and were turned to Krishna conscious
membership. It was a glorious
time of youth that only happens
once in your life. I recall
it with deepest satisfaction,
the big days going to the University of California,
Berkeley, to Stanford, to Ann Arbor,
Michigan, the huge sales at Harvard
and Yale and all the little college
towns which were so expertly
worked that the men managed to get
standing orders miraculously through
the sociology and anthropology
departments. They could convince a
man in the desert to buy a cart
of sand, empowered by Prabhupada and Krishna.
Prabhupada even wrote about
it in his purports how the
intelligentsia were taking his
books and they were being studied
in universities.
I thank God that I was
physically fit and part
of it, the golden days
of the ever-roaming,
all successful
library party.
Free write
Whatever Krishna wills, happens. He does not need time or effort to execute His will. For men to build the Egyptian pyramids it took thousands of slaves exerting themselves pulling rocks for a long time. All Krishna has to do is think, “Let there be a pyramid” and it exists. He could, therefore, liberate all conditioned souls within a moment, but He does not. He allows us to exercise our efforts in the material energy, and He does not interfere by rescuing us. There are rare souls, who when faced with their predicament of suffering the four-fold miseries, waken up immediately and become liberated. Prabhupada used to say, “You can be liberated in a moment or you can fail to be liberated for thousands of years.” It depends on one’s submissiveness to the desire of Krishna and the expert spiritual master. Lord Krishna comes to this world, and he leaves the perfect scriptures and example. His acts are not to be imitated but followed. When we follow the principles that are just suitable to our taste, such as chanting or hearing or remembering, we purify our minds and become free of material attachments.
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura said that we should attempt to go back to Godhead in this lifetime; we should not expect future lives in which to perfect our progress. Life in Kali-yuga is so risky, and it gets worse as time goes by. I had to wait and suffer twenty-six years before I met the pure devotee and chanted Hare Krishna. I came close to dying before I met him. I have been practicing for forty-four years under his protection, but still I see ways in which I fall short of perfection, such as my execution of japa. What will it take to bring me to perfection? And now I have such limited time and energy to reach the state of eligibility to go back to Godhead. I believe that Prabhupada still lives in the spiritual world and is on the other side of death. He can help me to cross over. He is waiting for me to come to him and reach out to him at the time of death. I pray to him and to Krishna to allow me to cross the necessary distance still remaining for me so that I can reach them, and they will agree to take me this time, without having to come back.
4:32 A.M.
I didn’t sleep well last night. Narayana said it was due to taking a cough medicine, which has wake-up ingredients, just before bedtime. I stayed awake until 9:20 and then decided to get up and watch President Obama’s “State of The Union” speech. That was over at 10:30, and I went to bed and slept. But I woke up at 1:30 and got up from bed. Despite my few hours of sleep, I was wide awake for chanting. I had a good chanting session and have so far chanted twelve rounds. The japa was smooth, attentive and concentrated. It was a quiet joy to execute the yajna. There is nothing so comforting and protective as the feeling you get when you are chanting alone in your bhajana kutira. You feel Krishna is with you as you accumulate the rounds. A devotee asked me if I ever had anything extraordinary happened to me, such as receiving saksad darsana or direct vision of Krishna’s personal form. I told him nothing like that has ever happened to me, but I have faith in the scriptures, that the arca-vigraha or deity of the Lord is as good as Krishna’s personal form in the spiritual world. Krishna enters material elements, like brass of marble, and transforms them into spiritual substance. When we worship the deity sincerely, we are getting the direct benefit of serving Krishna’s personal form. Even more important than that, Krishna is personally present in the sound vibrations of His holy names. In my room I have a picture of a devotee chanting with his japa-mala, and I have written over his head, “The holy name of Krishna is more merciful than the form of Krishna.” And then I have the maha-mantra scattered around his body like rays emanating from it. Good chanting will also lead to the further stages of becoming aware of the pastimes, qualities and yes, the personal form of the Lord. But we should not be disappointed that we haven’t had an extraordinarily darsana. We are getting plenty of darsana in the holy names and in the deity form.
Japa-yajna, wide awake
despite little sleep.
You feel so light it
makes you happy.
At the first sign of
strain you take a
shower and revive again.
This early morning practice
is a gift from Caitanya Mahaprabhu,
personally handed to me in
the form of red beads which
my spiritual master chanted
on to sanctify them for my
use. Over forty years later
I still have those red beads, and
his blessings are eternal,
unbreakable and never to
be lost. I’m grateful for
harinama and treasure the
daily hours. Have you ever
had the saksad darsana of
Krishna Himself? Yes I
have it in sound, in the
transcendental repetitions of His names.
Prabhupada meditation
Stories about Prabhupäda are meant for our improvement. It is not fair to be envious of someone who is contributing so much to our lives by speaking about Prabhupäda. He or she may have waited thousands of lifetimes to get the association of Prabhupada, or maybe he is a recipient of kripa-siddhi, the causeless merciful glance given by the pure devotee. If we express envy or act upon it, we will hurt him in that part of his life which is most sacred. No one should take that risk.
It is not that we have to hear without discrimination. If there are flaws in the presentation of his story—if he exaggerates or uses the story to advocate his pet theory—we can note it. We have to become like a swan who knows how to take the milk from the mixture of milk and water. We should ourselves be trained enough to recognize an authentic story about Prabhupäda, and we should have developed our own convictions about Prabhupada by reading his books. A single story is only an isolated report; it has to be fitted into the total life of Prabhupada. But stories have their place, just as the person who is speaking about Prabhupada has his place. Why not sit back and enjoy hearing Prabhupada-katha, instead of being hung up by the servant of Prabhupada and his ways that you don’t appreciate?
Life Of a Sadhaka
A poem rises from the
gut and emerges as
praise of Lord Hari. He
is the Divine One and prompts
us to sing about Him.
I have known about Him vaguely
since my childhood when I
prayed to Him at night on
going to bed and on Sundays
in formal recitation—
the protector of my family,
the one I confessed to about
my trivial sins. But I
abandoned Him in college,
when they taught He was just
a myth invented by the
hypocrites and unscientific
religionists.
I was not satisfied with
that and on my own, developed
a hunger to worship and believe.
I read in the books of the East and was confused but
interested in the One, the Atma, the Brahman.
Then I met my spiritual master
and everything changed. He
convinced me of the Vedic
scriptures and of Krishna in
the chanting of His names.
I became a believer.
The Swami argued in His
favor and defeated the
atheistic arguments. I
took up active devotional service
by typing and donating money
from my job. Whenever
I could, I listened to the
convincing words of the
self-realized soul.
I took on the way of
life: no sinful habits,
and chanting sixteen rounds
a day. I made a vow,
and he accepted me as
a disciple.
I rendered practical service
in spreading the mission,
opened the branch of ISKCON
in Boston, and with some
other devotees, we held
Sunday feasts and went
out, chanting in the park.
Slowly at first, some
people converted and joined us,
became followers of Prabhupada.
He came to our center and
initiated them and installed
Radha-Krishna deities on our altar.
It was a struggle against disinterest
and even hostility. We performed our duty just
to see him smile.
I gave lectures, repeating his
words and rehearsing just
how to do it in my mind.
He heard recordings of my
talks and said I was proficient.
My whole life was dedicated
in his service.
My life has passed this
way with expanded duties
in his mission. I joined
the elite management and
took on stress beyond what
I could actually accomplish.
I became ill and had
a breakdown and relinquished
my position among the top
managers.
I took to traveling in a van
and visiting temples throughout
Europe. But increasingly,
I stopped for writing
retreats making and printing
books on bhakti yoga.
Finally I settled down in
one place and lived more
like a hermit painting
and writing and lecturing
once a week. I was hampered by chronic
headaches. I did this for five years in
Ireland.
Later I moved to California
and Mexico and live the
same way. For two years
I’ve lived in Delaware,
being cared for by two
devotees as I grow older
and less active. I’ve
discovered the internet
and found a new life
for preaching on the web.
I can make a video and be
seen by interested persons all
over the world. And I continue
printing books. I am satisfied
to preach in this way and meet
with the circle of friends, reading
them my poems and books
from the past.
As long as I’m able,
I will serve my Prabhupada
with the written word. I
pray he will accept this service
as sincere and intended to please
Lord Krishna by telling of His glories
and the effort of a sadhaka
to remain fixed at His lotus
feet.
Free write
Krishna conscious life is satisfactory. You live in knowledge that you are not the body, you are an eternal spirit soul. You know at death you’ll take another body, and it’ll be better than your present life. You will make progress back to Godhead. If you have executed your duties to completion and perfection you’ll attain Goloka Vrndavana, where life is eternal, full of bliss and knowledge, playing and serving with Radha-Krishna and all the residents of Vraja. If you have been incomplete in your service you will still progress. You will be born in a rich family, or a family of brahmanas or devotees. Then you can continue your Krishna consciousness from where you left off. The best thing, of course, is to go to the spiritual world. Praying for Prabhupada’s direction and blessing is the surest way to please Krishna. I have been following Him for forty-four years, and I think that is a long time and worthy of reward, but it’s the quality of the service that counts. Have I been following Him without personal motive and just for His pleasure? By pleasing the spiritual master one pleases Krishna, and by not pleasing him one’s whereabouts are unknown. I have heard that Prabhupada said, he has the key to the backdoor of Krishnaloka, and if we take shelter of his lotus feet, he will let us in. The concept of going to Krishnaloka by the backdoor is appealing to someone like me, who may not be presentable with my service record at the front door, where there may be a stern examination before you are let in. But Prabhupada is an intimate servant of Radha-Kirshna and Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. He can let his disciples, who may be less than perfect, but are dedicated to Prabhupada, into Goloka by special lenient entrance. That’s why it is so important to concentrate our devotional service to him. You hold the mace, you have the right, mission accomplished by His Divine Grace.
5.05 A.M.
I rose at 2.30 A.M. with a clear head and began chanting. At first I felt resentment toward my japa thinking, “Why do I have to do this old thing?” But I soon overcame it and found my natural liking. I moved through the mantras silently with attention and devotion. A devotee wrote to me telling me that he had been praying for my improved health but that I had told him not to do it because that’s up to providence. But he now wrote to me and told me that he’s hoping that I can achieve ruci for the holy names. I thanked him for this prayer. If I can attain a higher taste it will inspire others. In the meantime I have to honestly tell them that I’m struggling, still with the mechanics, still apparently committing offenses, but steadfast in my execution of the yajna. I will not give up. I will not dislike it. I will enter the holy name earnestly every morning and give it my full attention. I believe in the words of the scriptures that it is the most merciful form of Krishna and the only sacrifice possible in this age for attaining God realization. So I’m not an unfortunate despite the fact that I have not reached some extraordinary state, not yet.
Chanting as duty,
a deeply ingrained
habit. A friend wrote
me that she is too
busy to do sixteen. I sympathize but
will not let it happen
to me. In my twenty four hours
per day I find over
two hours to give to
Krishna, even though it’s
not pure chanting. Giving
Him my time is the least
that I can do,
and the other demands
must wait until
this is done.
Prabhupada meditation
We have to keep asking ourselves whether we can go beyond what Srila Prabhupäda taught us in 1966, 1975, etc.—can we go beyond it in this lifetime? Did he expect us to grow, become purified, and ask more questions?
According to Vaisnava siddhanta, the sincere disciple meets up with the spiritual master in the spiritual world. For the slack disciple, the spiritual master has to return to the material world in some form to bring the disciple back to Godhead.
Meeting with the spiritual master in his eternal form is esoteric information. Some of us are so attached to Prabhupada in the form in which we saw him, that we don’t even like to hear that he has another spiritual form. It seems to diminish our Prabhupada as we knew him. But as we advance in understanding, we have to at least honor the fact that there is more to our relationship with Prabhupada than has been manifest so far in this world.
Prabhupada accomplished so many things in a relatively brief time. He set a flawless example and gave us volumes of written and spoken instruction. We cannot estimate the value of Prabhupada’s contribution to our lives. Everything he gave us continues to exist after his departure, and it will continue to sustain the Krishna consciousness movement for centuries. All this has come about just from the “temporary” appearance of Prabhupada.
Srila Prabhupada said in that morning walk, “Don’t ask someone else. When you eat, you will know yourself what the result is.” One thing I want to do is read Srila Prabhupada seriously. When I read “something else,” either from others or on my own, I have to test my reactions and make them conform to my faith in Prabhupada. I don’t want to minimize or relativize his influence in my life.
The Branches of the Caitanya Tree
I played background music
while I read my poems on the
internet. It enhanced the lyrics
providing an add-ease mood to
make the parampara more accessible.
The poems spoke of “Stardust”
and “The Gardens of Vrindavana,”
my version of what Radha and Krishna
do in Goloka Vrindavana and a
hope to go there and enjoy
devotional service. These are
impossible hopes, but I
expressed them in the asa-bandhu
spirit, “hope against hope.”
The music laps against the shore
as my words stand up clear and
simple, repeating what I’ve
heard from confidential conversations
and purports to Prabhupada’s books.
I can’t remember what I wrote
and so I make a new one.
I need to always be expressing
Krishna’s lila, either in Vrindavana
or in His appearance as Caitanya Mahaprabhu.
Krishnadasa Kaviraja is describing all
the branches of the Caitanya tree, the first through the twenties.
He mentioned Gadadhara das who
is the incarnation of the luster
of Radharani. He mentioned
Vasudeva Datta who wanted to take
the sins of all the living entities
on himself so they could be
free of karma. Lord Caitanya
repeatedly said he was living
in the world only because of
Vasudeva Datta and that His
body belonged to Vasudeva.
He mentioned Haridas Thakura
as the twentieth branch, who
chanted three hundred thousand holy names
a day and passed the test
when Mayadevi came
to allure him. He mentioned
as another branch, Jagadananda
who was formerly Satyabhauma
in Krishna lila and who
argued with Lord Caitanya
over trifles. He mentioned Nrisimha Brahmacari
who sometimes talked to Nrisimhadev
and who constructed a beautiful
pathway in his mind for Lord Caitanya
to walk on to Vrindavana. But his
meditation was broken enroute
and he announced to the devotees
that Lord Caitanya would not
travel all the way to Vrindavana.
He mentioned the householder Satyaraja
Khan who came each year from
Kulina Gram and brought silken
ropes for Jagannatha and asked
the Lord essential questions which
are forever recorded, such as,
“Who is a Vaishnava?”
He mentioned Brahmananda Bharati
who once appeared before the Lord
wearing a deer skin and was ignored
by Caitanya until he changed into
saffron and who accompanied the Lord in many of His pastimes.
He mentioned Vakresvara Pandit
who was a great sankirtana dancer
and could dance seventy two hours without
stopping. Raghava Pandita used
to carry the food his sister Damayanti
made for Lord Caitanya. He carried
it in bags to Jagannatha Puri, and
the Lord used to eat from it
all year long.
There are many more names
of devotees on the branches
of the Lord Caitanya’s tree which
Krishnadasa Kaviraja mentions and he says, “I offer my respects
to all the branches of the tree
of devotees of the Lord who
distribute the fruits of love
of Krishna.”
Prabhupada mentions that
ISKCON is a branch of
the Caitanya tree and that
means his followers
could one day be listed
and their accomplishments
mentioned. They have
done the work of pioneering
Krishna consciousness in many
countries around the world,
and they maintain their
practices in obedience in the order of their spiritual
master. Krishnadasa Kaviraja
says none of Lord Caitanya’s followers
should be considered better than the others. They
are all very dear to Him.Similarly, we should
not judge some ISKCON devotees
as better than others.
All sincere
devotees are absolute and dear
to their spiritual master and to Krishna.
Yet each of us should strive
to improve and take a place
on one of the branches of the tree,
making ourselves memorable for a
singular contribution to the Lord, that can be listed in the expanded
Caitanya-caritamrta that is being written
in the mind of Lord Caitanya.
Free write
Write through a writing block and try to catch a daydream. They are similar to night dreams, and you can’t remember them. But even if you were there and saw them you were dead. Many old politicians hold on to their positions as long as they can. Different and sometimes contradictory sub-persons in you. On prominent issues they may disagree. Lord Caitanya bestows His causeless mercy upon His devotees in three ways. His own direct appearances are called saksat. His prowess within someone He empowers is called avesa or sometimes saktyavesa. In the age of Kali the only spiritual function is to broadcast the holy name of the Lord but it can be performed only by one who is empowered by Lord Krishna. (By this evidence, Prabhupada is such an avesa or saktyavesa person.) A manifestation of the Lord even when He is not present is called avirbhava. This occurred when Sri Sacimata offered food to Lord Caitanya and although He was far away in Jagannatha Puri, when she opened her eyes after offering the food, she saw that it was actually eaten by Him. Similarly when Srinivasa Thakura performed sankirtana, everyone felt the presence of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu even in His absence.
I can’t think of anything to say. You behave yourself. You leave your room only once a day to take a walk. Yadunandana Swami said when he travels and preaches he feels alive. I am living virtually by writing a few pages. I hope to give inspiration to others, but am I inspired? Ricard is playing on his drums. Jaya Govinda is taking care of his family. Sastra is on pilgrimage in Jagannatha Puri, visiting Tota Gopinatha temple for mangala arati and listening to Dhanudhara Swami lecture during the day. Narayana is writing his bhakti-sastri exam. Nitai Gaursundara, and Saci-suta, and Haridasa, and Kirtan Rasa, are all at work at their jobs. Baladeva is taking care of me, cooking an Ekadasi lunch.
I finished my quota of rounds just before lunch time. I was feeling weak. But I did them rapidly and dutifully. It is the main obligation of the day. I chanted in my mind and heard the syllables. I was like a child crying out to his mother. Mother Hara heard my cries and was kind upon me. Krishna was pleased. Even imperfect chanting gives great achievement in spiritual life. The ultimate way to overcome offenses in chanting is to go on chanting with determination. I don’t know what else to do. It is a great satisfaction to complete the rounds.
5:07 A.M
I woke up at 2:30 A.M. with a continuation of the sore throat and running nose that I had yesterday. I took two hot drinks and a throat spray. This interrupted the rapid pace of my chanting. But fortunately I was wide awake and attentive to the holy names. I stayed close to harinama and was mindful of its meaning. Despite my ailments I chanted in a good mood, feeling protected and happy. But the chanting was slow, and I’ve only chanted five rounds so far. I have to chant in my mind, and my voice is very hoarse. I have an appointment this afternoon at the orthopaedist, but somehow or other I’ll get my quota done before the day is over, and I hope I’ll get some relief to the throat condition. So far my head is clear, and that’s a grace. All glories to the chanting of the holy name which makes any day and any condition bright and cheerful.
You are chanting with
impediments. Your
throat is not smooth,
but your mental
chant is smooth running
over the syllables in your
inner ear. Chanting
alone is bliss under
any condition as long
as you can stay
alert and awake.
Radha and Krishna
reciprocate with you.
Clear cries assure you
you are doing
the very best thing.
Prabhupada meditation
Prabhupada gave a lecture in 1966 in which he answered the question, “Why does Krishna expand?” Krishna expands to enjoy. Then he said, “Take, for example, myself as spiritual master. Suppose I have some disciples. What is the meaning of these disciples? It is to enjoy. I take disciples so that we can be together and have kirtana and prasad. We eat together, we have kirtana, and we talk together about Krishna. It is to enjoy.” Prabhupada offered this as an analogy to Krishna’s expansion. It was a particularly suitable analogy for those days. Nowadays, if someone asked, “What is the meaning of a guru and his disciples?” one might reply, “The guru has to deliver his disciples from birth and death.” Or, “Guru and disciples should push on the sankirtana movement together and distribute many books.” Prabhupada said the meaning is to enjoy—not in the forbidden sense of sense gratification, but to enjoy spiritually. It was like that in those days. We didn’t have to come up with any other reason to be together than that we enjoyed his kirtanas and his cooking and his talks about Krishna. He enjoyed saving us.
From Rupa Gosvami’s Govinda-virudavali: “O Lord,be pleased by the brief prayers of Your servant … O Lord expert at defeating restless demons … O Lord who brings great happiness to Your friends … Please grant auspicious to me.”
His soles are reddish, His bodily aroma very nice, He attracts all the gopis, shoots His arrows at them and stuns them. He is glorified by happy Nanda Maharaja. I pray to repose my love in Him.
“O Lord who displays all good qualities, O Killer of Sakatasura, O Lord who carries a new stick, O Lord who wanders through the forest …” He enjoys pastimes of dancing, O charming Lord. The slightest scent of His mercy is as great as an ocean. He steals the yogurt jar. He’s a devoted lover of beautiful and playful girls.
“O beloved of Tulasi, O Lord who made the demon’s wives into widows and made them remove the part in their hair, O Lord, please be compassionate to me” (Govinda-virudavali. Song 16).
O Lord who controls the gray-blue sky over Jagannatha Puri, O Lord whose material energy sends thuds of waves onto the beach and thunder and rain, O Lord whose material world is just a tiny tear drop out of the oceans of eternity and infinity, O Lord who plays carefree while His devoted agents serve Him, I wish to write of You with faith and attraction. Please catch me up to become mad in devotion to You. Then I can be a Vaisnava poet.
“O Lord who loves simple humble servants of His servants, O Lord who is very pleased with our Srila Prabhupada, please know me as his servant and let me be with him always.
Jesus and Prabhupada and Me
I just dusted of the picture
of Jesus Christ at Gethsemane,
It was filled with lint.
Now I see him clearly praying
while leaning against a rock.
In the sky he sees the chalice
and at first he asks the Lord
if he can be spared from drinking
its bitter contents. But then he
says, “But Your will, not mine.”
You have to undergo the horrible
suffering so that mankind can be
saved from their sins. His
incompetent disciples are asleep
in the background. He will say
to them “Wake!” which Salinger
said was the most important word
in the Bible. We must stay
awake because we do not know
at what moment death will
come for us. Shortly, Judas
and the Roman soldiers will
come for him.
By comparison I have it easy,
my yoke is light, and it
appears I will not be called
for crucifixion. The times
are different, and I am not
such a danger to the state.
I have my daily cross, but
I find respite in medicine.
I have time to peacefully
chant on my beads, and
I have two friends who take
care of me. I find time
and choose words to write
a daily poem, and I’m
happy to hear the readings
from Caitanya-caritamrta
and Srimad-Bhagavatam.
Listening to relaxing music,
I spin my own tune.
It’s a simple melody
of my dedication to
Prabhupada. I always
think of him in fresh ways
and appreciate
how much he sacrificed
to bring Krishna consciousness
all over the world
in his old age.
At an age when most
men would be resting
in their home or ashram,
he set out from India
to America, and despite
ill health, he preached
vigorously and managed
groups of young men and women,
building a world religion in
eleven short years.
I’m at the age when he was
very active, but I’ve become
less active. I cannot imitate
his prowess. At least I stay
faithful to his teachings
and publish books as he
instructed me to do.
I’m forced to spend my
days indoors in mainly
invalid condition. But
I write letters, and now
I’m doing video broadcasts
of readings from my writings.
I am no Jesus at Gethsemane
or Prabhupada traveling
around the world despite
weak health. I plan to
make a trip to Trinidad,
and sometimes I go to
the dhamas in India,
but mostly I stay
in my room nursing my
wounds.
I can’t claim great honors
but only basic faithfulness
to my Guru Maharaja.
I look upon his pictures
in quiet hours and
receive inspiration as
I chant my quota of
rounds. I hope he
doesn’t judge me harshly
for my slowdown but
sees the good in my
effort and allows for
my disabilities.
I am fortunate to live
free of Kali’s vices—
that’s a gift from Guru, as I follow the
basic sadhana. It keeps me clean in
goodness and inclined
to help others in the
ways I can.
I have dedicated my
earlier years to vigorous
efforts traveling widely
and lecturing and managing
and that will hold me
in good stead. Now
I have to keep up a semblance of devotional
service befitting a senior
disciple and not
shame him. I will try my best.
Jesus at Gethsemane, at
thirty-three years old, haunts me, and Prabhupada at
eighty-two is an emblem of
perfection. I hold a
small flame in their
honor and write a
few lines of appreciation
from the heart.
Free write
I want to thank a few devotees for their service. Ricard in Sweden and Jaya Govinda in Italy are typing The Yellow Submarine and other projects for which I’m grateful. Caitanya-candrodaya is managing the website and publishing books. I thank the many devotees who read The Yellow Submarine and write to me about it. While I’m at it I could thank so many people in my life. I thank my parents for bringing me into this world and providing me care and necessities in my early years. I thank the government and the armed forces for protecting me against the Nazis and the Japanese as I grew up safely in the U.S.A. during World War II. I thank my teachers in the public schools where I learned reading and writing and other useful things. I thank my playmates for the fun we shared, playing games in the streets and reading comic books together. I thank my body for growing up hale and hearty as a youth. I thank my father for working hard and getting a G.I. loan and building a house on Staten Island so we could move out of congested Queens and live in a healthful environment with woods and lawns. I thank my dog, Mickey, who lived with us for fourteen years and provided a boy’s companion. I thank my older sister, Madeline, for being a co-conspirator and a popular girl at high school which broke the way for me, even though she razzed me and rubbed in that “the truth hurts”. I thank the fact that I grew up with my own room, where I could live in privacy and have my own phonograph and hand-me-down TV. I thank the Brooklyn Dodgers for being the most colorful, heartbreaking baseball team to root for during the 1950s. I am thankful for hearing Jean Shepherd on the radio. He woke me up to a nonconformist way of thinking. I was disappointed that my grades weren’t good enough to enter the city colleges. But at the Staten Island Community College I met two intellectual professors, Dr. Pessen and Dr. Alexander, who cracked my shell and made me aspire passionately to become an intellectual. I thank these professors for giving me a liberal education. I thank the writers at Brooklyn College for publishing my poems and stories and allowing me to be their friend. I feel no gratitude for the two years I spent in the U.S. navy, although I am grateful I got to serve in the public information office as a journalist rather than in the gunnery department. After the navy, I went to live alone on the Lower East Side. I suppose I am grateful for the lessons I learned there. The romance of living as a drug-taking artist led to disillusion and loneliness. I was perfectly ripe for meeting the Swami in the summer of 1966. Everything seems worth it because it led to coming to him. I am eternally grateful to Prabhupada for saving me from a disaster course and leading me to pure, spiritual life. One is a joker if he thinks he can repay the spiritual master. One can only serve him for the rest of his life.
5:09 A.M
I woke at 3:00 A.M. with a clear head and began chanting. Narayana came up to wake the Deities, and we spoke. He came up again later and told me how much he was enjoying his chanting session. He said once he’s on a roll of chanting many rounds he doesn’t want to be interrupted and feels increasing pleasure. All the things that we’re forbidden to do in Krishna consciousness which we may want to do evaporate when one takes joy in the superior taster of harinama. Krishnadasa Kaviraja says that we should not chant mechanically. He defines mechanically as chanting with the ten offenses, any one of them. In the ISKCON temples the temple president recites the ten offenses before the group japa session. I remember one temple president refused to do it because he did not like reciting so many negative injunctions. Bhaktivinoda Thakura reversed the negative injunctions and turned them all into positive statements. For example, instead of saying the first offense is to blaspheme the devotees of the Lord he said one should be happy at seeing a devotee of the Lord. And instead of saying it was an offense to blaspheme the Vedic literatures, he said one should read the Vedic literatures with joy and imbibe the taste of their transcendental message. My chanting this morning was quiet and pleasurable. I’ve already chanted twelve rounds, doing them quickly and thoughtfully. It is a high point of the day and this morning I’m able to do it without impediment. I’m very thankful to harinama for allowing me entrance today. I am enunciating the syllables and am occupied with whispering the sound vibration without distractions.
Prabhupada meditation
You’ve given us such good Vedic conclusions, Prabhupada, and I’m not going to gain much by learning Buddhist conclusions, beat generation conclusions, lack of conclusions, my own speculations…. And it’s not going to be good if I doubt the Vedic conclusions. What’s the sense of going to them unless you really go to them and not as mere cultural India, Hinduism; just one view out of many views, mythical, and so on and so forth. I don’t want to be anti-authoritarian, neither do I want to be blindly dogmatic. I want to be a free spirit. Freedom is the pivot. One doesn’t lose freedom in serving Krishna but realizes real freedom from birth, death, disease and old age. That I can’t get by becoming a master dreamer, a shaman. No, that comes from learning those books that teach the very subject matter—what is self? What is atma? What is Supreme? And to overcome birth, death, disease and old age. Nobody else is teaching it but you and your line.
Here’s another line I think is memorable. It’s idealistic and yet filled with worldly wisdom: “Krishna-prema, Krishna consciousness is the highest gift which can be bestowed on anyone whom we presume to love.” (SB. 3.23.8, purport) If we love someone, we want to give them something. If we really love someone—our spouses or children—then give them love of God. In one sense, Prabhupada is implying that it is presumptuous to claim that we love someone. If we claim to love someone but do not give them krishna-prema, then our so-called love is not very valuable.
These expressions were flowing into our lives because we were producing them into books. It completely transformed our lives to be linked so directly to Prabhupada. The information superhighway connects unlimited households by a telephone and a computer screen. People can see videos, preview computer programs, read the news, find entertainment, and gather information. People no longer have to leave their desks to shop for clothes or appliances. In Boston, we were connected to Prabhupada’s information superhighway. We just had to plug in our headphones, turn on the transcriber, and hear Prabhupada reciting and commenting on the Srimad-Bhagavatam. It gave us access to all the wisdom of the previous acaryas and scriptures, which according to the Bhagavatam are too difficult to assimilate in this age. We were such poor receptacles. We were still lusty, still low-class, still quarrelling, yet we had access to a great treasure that we didn’t really deserve and didn’t know how to spend. We spoiled it to some degree by our impure attempts to take it and distribute it, but nevertheless, Prabhupada gave us the link.
Remembering the Bhagavatam
A Krishna conscious poem can
be written by any person
with the will and a little
inspiration to praise Sri
Krishna according to the scriptures
or what he feels in his heart.
It cannot be done with a
material motivation, seeking
a claim or thinking “I’m a
poet, and I must make
some praise to garner
praise for myself.”
Queen Kunti’s prayers are without
a slip, they are impeccable verses
acclaiming His glories and ending with
her request that He stay
with them. Krishna replies, “I cannot
stay any longer,” and He smiles
mildly at His aunt’s request.
Yudhisthira then interjects and
asks Him to stay, and Krishna
submissively agrees.
King Yudhisthira has a heavy heart.
He is lamenting for the six hundred and forty
million lives lost in the battle
of Kuruksetra which he feels
was done on his account.
No one can console him, not even Krishna, the
performer of super human activities.
This failure to give Yudhisthira peace was a direct arrangement
by the Lord. He wanted Yudhisthira to approach Bhismadeva
who was lying on a bed of arrows
under his own will.
(Bhisma had a boon that he could
not be killed except when he
willed to leave his body.)
Krishna gathered there, along with
all the Pandavas, and
elite sages from all
over the universe.
Although Bhisma was in
a painful condition, he was
able to speak fluently
according to the time and
circumstances.
He told Yudhisthira and
the Pandavas that the
cause of the Kuruksetra war
was not self-aggrandizement.
Rather it was the will
of Providence (so that
good might triumph over evil).
No one can ascertain
the plan of the Lord,
which is caused by Time
and there is no use even
inquiring into it. Sages
have tried to understand the
Lord’s plan for thousands of
years, but they have been
unable to penetrate its
meaning. Thus Bhismadeva
brought consolation to the
ailing Yudhisthira, who had
been seeing the whole thing
from the bodily perspective.
Then in the presence of the
sages, Bhisma spoke some
glories of Krishna’s pastimes and
finally passed away, at his
will.
Krishna’s purpose was achieved, that
through His pure devotee, words
of wisdom were delivered, which
apparently even He could not
speak, to give King Yudhisthira back
his life.
Narayana reads these
thrilling chapters at
our lunchtime and
we absorb ourselves
in hari-katha. We love
the way the Lord
assigned a task to
his devotee which
even He couldn’t do.
There’s plenty more where
that came from and
we’ll be listening eagerly.
It’s the first process
in bhakti-yoga, sravanam, and takes your mind
away from your troubles
and anxieties.
It brings out the
qualities that you
should follow in
your own life, even
though you’re tiny
compared to the
giants of the Bhagavatam.
I thank Srila Prabhupada
for taking the time and effort
to present to us these timeless
classics, and I promise to hear
them until the end.
Free write
Baladeva meddled and had my doctor’s appointment cancelled today. Without asking me he phoned the office and asked if it was alright that I came in with a cold. At first they said yes but called back later and said I should come in on Thursday. I resent his intrusion into my affairs. Now I’ve become unreasonably anxious whether the doctor will be there on Thursday. It’s a rainy, windy day, and I think this had something to do with Baladeva’s inadvertently cancelling my appointment. He made a mess of my schedule, and he admits it. Free write is for whatever comes into the mind, but you want to nourish people with Krishna consciousness. Jaya Govinda volunteered to type the Yellow Submarine, and I said yes, but English isn’t his first language so I hope he doesn’t make lots of mistakes. So far our somewhat patchwork typing team has been doing pretty well, although they’re not first language English speakers. The scripture say Krishna conscious literature is accepted by those who are thoroughly honest, even if it has some literary defects. When there is fire in a house the residents can make basic communication even if they don’t speak the same language. We are interested in the techniques of bhakti-yoga and not the literary niceties.
In the chapter on Bhisma’s passing away there are important instructions for everyone. Bhisma was fortunate in that Lord Krishna was sitting quietly by his side, and Bhisma was aware of Krishna’s position as the Supreme Person. Bhisma spoke hari-katha for his own benefit, for the benefit of all who were present and for all the future people who would read Srimad-Bhagavatam. He remembered Krishna in different scenes and rasas. He remembered Krishna driving Arjuna’s chariot toward him, with the dust of the battlefield in His hair and looking very beautiful. He recalled his piercing the body of Krishna with arrows. This piercing was a pleasure to the Lord and Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura compared it to the amorous bites between lovers when they are in conjugal union. Bhisma also pictured Krishna rushing toward him on foot carrying the wheel from Arjuna’s broken chariot and threatening to kill Bhisma if he did not at once desist in attacking Arjuna. Bhisma relished the love between Arjuna and Krishna. And although he was a great, old warrior, in his last moments Bhisma remembered the gopis of Vrndavana, and he made his humble obeisances to them. Thus he was a well rounded, pure devotee.
5:07 A.M
I woke up at 2:30 A.M. with a continuation of the sore throat and running nose that I had yesterday. I took two hot drinks and a throat spray. This interrupted the rapid pace of my chanting. But fortunately I was wide awake and attentive to the holy names. I stayed close to harinama and was mindful of its meaning. Despite my ailments I chanted in a good mood, feeling protected and happy. But the chanting was slow, and I’ve only chanted five rounds so far. I have to chant in my mind, and my voice is very hoarse. I have an appointment this afternoon at the orthopaedist, but somehow or other I’ll get my quota done before the day is over, and I hope I’ll get some relief to the throat condition. So far my head is clear, and that’s a grace. All glories to the chanting of the holy name which makes any day and any condition bright and cheerful.
You are chanting with
impediments. Your
throat is not smooth,
but your mental
chant is smooth running
over the syllables in your
inner ear. Chanting
alone is bliss under
any condition as long
as you can stay
alert and awake.
Radha and Krishna
reciprocate with you.
Clear cries assure you
you are doing
the very best thing.
Prabhupada meditation
Prabhupada gave a lecture in 1966 in which he answered the question, “Why does Krishna expand?” Krishna expands to enjoy. Then he said, “Take, for example, myself as spiritual master. Suppose I have some disciples. What is the meaning of these disciples? It is to enjoy. I take disciples so that we can be together and have kirtana and prasad. We eat together, we have kirtana, and we talk together about Krishna. It is to enjoy.” Prabhupada offered this as an analogy to Krishna’s expansion. It was a particularly suitable analogy for those days. Nowadays, if someone asked, “What is the meaning of a guru and his disciples?” one might reply, “The guru has to deliver his disciples from birth and death.” Or, “Guru and disciples should push on the sankirtana movement together and distribute many books.” Prabhupada said the meaning is to enjoy—not in the forbidden sense of sense gratification, but to enjoy spiritually. It was like that in those days. We didn’t have to come up with any other reason to be together than that we enjoyed his kirtanas and his cooking and his talks about Krishna. He enjoyed saving us.
From Rupa Gosvami’s Govinda-virudavali: “O Lord,be pleased by the brief prayers of Your servant … O Lord expert at defeating restless demons … O Lord who brings great happiness to Your friends … Please grant auspicious to me.”
His soles are reddish, His bodily aroma very nice, He attracts all the gopis, shoots His arrows at them and stuns them. He is glorified by happy Nanda Maharaja. I pray to repose my love in Him.
“O Lord who displays all good qualities, O Killer of Sakatasura, O Lord who carries a new stick, O Lord who wanders through the forest …” He enjoys pastimes of dancing, O charming Lord. The slightest scent of His mercy is as great as an ocean. He steals the yogurt jar. He’s a devoted lover of beautiful and playful girls.
“O beloved of Tulasi, O Lord who made the demon’s wives into widows and made them remove the part in their hair, O Lord, please be compassionate to me” (Govinda-virudavali. Song 16).
O Lord who controls the gray-blue sky over Jagannatha Puri, O Lord whose material energy sends thuds of waves onto the beach and thunder and rain, O Lord whose material world is just a tiny tear drop out of the oceans of eternity and infinity, O Lord who plays carefree while His devoted agents serve Him, I wish to write of You with faith and attraction. Please catch me up to become mad in devotion to You. Then I can be a Vaisnava poet.
“O Lord who loves simple humble servants of His servants, O Lord who is very pleased with our Srila Prabhupada, please know me as his servant and let me be with him always.
Jesus and Prabhupada and Me
I just dusted of the picture
of Jesus Christ at Gethsemane,
It was filled with lint.
Now I see him clearly praying
while leaning against a rock.
In the sky he sees the chalice
and at first he asks the Lord
if he can be spared from drinking
its bitter contents. But then he
says, “But Your will, not mine.”
You have to undergo the horrible
suffering so that mankind can be
saved from their sins. His
incompetent disciples are asleep
in the background. He will say
to them “Wake!” which Salinger
said was the most important word
in the Bible. We must stay
awake because we do not know
at what moment death will
come for us. Shortly, Judas
and the Roman soldiers will
come for him.
By comparison I have it easy,
my yoke is light, and it
appears I will not be called
for crucifixion. The times
are different, and I am not
such a danger to the state.
I have my daily cross, but
I find respite in medicine.
I have time to peacefully
chant on my beads, and
I have two friends who take
care of me. I find time
and choose words to write
a daily poem, and I’m
happy to hear the readings
from Caitanya-caritamrta
and Srimad-Bhagavatam.
Listening to relaxing music,
I spin my own tune.
It’s a simple melody
of my dedication to
Prabhupada. I always
think of him in fresh ways
and appreciate
how much he sacrificed
to bring Krishna consciousness
all over the world
in his old age.
At an age when most
men would be resting
in their home or ashram,
he set out from India
to America, and despite
ill health, he preached
vigorously and managed
groups of young men and women,
building a world religion in
eleven short years.
I’m at the age when he was
very active, but I’ve become
less active. I cannot imitate
his prowess. At least I stay
faithful to his teachings
and publish books as he
instructed me to do.
I’m forced to spend my
days indoors in mainly
invalid condition. But
I write letters, and now
I’m doing video broadcasts
of readings from my writings.
I am no Jesus at Gethsemane
or Prabhupada traveling
around the world despite
weak health. I plan to
make a trip to Trinidad,
and sometimes I go to
the dhamas in India,
but mostly I stay
in my room nursing my
wounds.
I can’t claim great honors
but only basic faithfulness
to my Guru Maharaja.
I look upon his pictures
in quiet hours and
receive inspiration as
I chant my quota of
rounds. I hope he
doesn’t judge me harshly
for my slowdown but
sees the good in my
effort and allows for
my disabilities.
I am fortunate to live
free of Kali’s vices—
that’s a gift from Guru, as I follow the
basic sadhana. It keeps me clean in
goodness and inclined
to help others in the
ways I can.
I have dedicated my
earlier years to vigorous
efforts traveling widely
and lecturing and managing
and that will hold me
in good stead. Now
I have to keep up a semblance of devotional
service befitting a senior
disciple and not
shame him. I will try my best.
Jesus at Gethsemane, at
thirty-three years old, haunts me, and Prabhupada at
eighty-two is an emblem of
perfection. I hold a
small flame in their
honor and write a
few lines of appreciation
from the heart.
Free write
I want to thank a few devotees for their service. Ricard in Sweden and Jaya Govinda in Italy are typing The Yellow Submarine and other projects for which I’m grateful. Caitanya-candrodaya is managing the website and publishing books. I thank the many devotees who read The Yellow Submarine and write to me about it. While I’m at it I could thank so many people in my life. I thank my parents for bringing me into this world and providing me care and necessities in my early years. I thank the government and the armed forces for protecting me against the Nazis and the Japanese as I grew up safely in the U.S.A. during World War II. I thank my teachers in the public schools where I learned reading and writing and other useful things. I thank my playmates for the fun we shared, playing games in the streets and reading comic books together. I thank my body for growing up hale and hearty as a youth. I thank my father for working hard and getting a G.I. loan and building a house on Staten Island so we could move out of congested Queens and live in a healthful environment with woods and lawns. I thank my dog, Mickey, who lived with us for fourteen years and provided a boy’s companion. I thank my older sister, Madeline, for being a co-conspirator and a popular girl at high school which broke the way for me, even though she razzed me and rubbed in that “the truth hurts”. I thank the fact that I grew up with my own room, where I could live in privacy and have my own phonograph and hand-me-down TV. I thank the Brooklyn Dodgers for being the most colorful, heartbreaking baseball team to root for during the 1950s. I am thankful for hearing Jean Shepherd on the radio. He woke me up to a nonconformist way of thinking. I was disappointed that my grades weren’t good enough to enter the city colleges. But at the Staten Island Community College I met two intellectual professors, Dr. Pessen and Dr. Alexander, who cracked my shell and made me aspire passionately to become an intellectual. I thank these professors for giving me a liberal education. I thank the writers at Brooklyn College for publishing my poems and stories and allowing me to be their friend. I feel no gratitude for the two years I spent in the U.S. navy, although I am grateful I got to serve in the public information office as a journalist rather than in the gunnery department. After the navy, I went to live alone on the Lower East Side. I suppose I am grateful for the lessons I learned there. The romance of living as a drug-taking artist led to disillusion and loneliness. I was perfectly ripe for meeting the Swami in the summer of 1966. Everything seems worth it because it led to coming to him. I am eternally grateful to Prabhupada for saving me from a disaster course and leading me to pure, spiritual life. One is a joker if he thinks he can repay the spiritual master. One can only serve him for the rest of his life.
[gplayer href="http://www.sdgonline.org/audio/1/SDG-100124-001.mp3" ]Satsvarupa dasa Goswami – voice[/gplayer]
5:10 A.M
I woke at 3:00 A.M. and met with Narayana Kavaca. I’ve gotten off slow and have only chanted four rounds so far, I don’t know exactly why. My chanting has been alert and attentive. I have a sore throat, and I’ve been sipping a throat-coating tea during japa and that has slowed me down. But I’ve just taken my shower, and I’m alert so I will try to pick up on the pace. It is always a pleasure to spend these early hours alone, uninterrupted, living with the maha-mantra. I think of my spiritual master and the gift he has given, the gift of Lord Caitanya to chant and hear. All over the world lucky devotees are chanting early in the morning paying attention to the sound vibration and making progress in bhakti. I like to think that I’m with them all together even though we are not physically present packed up. It is a solemn duty and an individual satisfaction. I’ve nothing else to do but say these mantras. Prabhupada gave us such an easy process. It was the first thing he did when we met him. He told us to get beads and to string them, and he settled on sixteen rounds minimum for our quota. All his followers are carrying this out now, long after his disappearance. We are firmly obeying him with trust in his words and feeling the benefit for ourselves. It is tangible and yet at the same time intangible. You know if you did not chant you would be without a precious gift and would be unhappy. Those who have given it up suffer a great loss even if they don’t feel it at once. Once taking this promise up, you have to keep it always. It is not something to be given up under the pressure of worldly duties or the excuse of one kind or another. Even if on some days it takes longer to complete your vow, you do it and get them done before the day is over. Chanting in ecstasy has yet to come, but you are patient and execute the seva in the mood of vaidhi-bhakti. Someday the day will come when you will chant with bodily transformations, maybe not in this lifetime but in the future. You chant and wait for the day when it will be your most fulfilling occupation, and in the meantime, you give it your full attention.
Chanting with a purpose.
You sit and ruminate over the
beads. Your master’s order
and gift firmly in your
mind, you enjoy the
accumulation of numerical
strength. The hours go by,
you don’t take up any
distractions but keep repeating
your calls to Radha and Krishna
Who are embedded in the chant.
You are praying that They
hear you in reciprocation
and will be pleased by you.
O spirit soul, please
keep it up, these
brahma-muhurta hours
are the most precious in
the day and are meant
for mantra meditation.
Prabhupada meditation
I walked upstairs realizing I don’t belong to anyone. Also, when I first went downstairs and made dandavats I thought, “Do this seriously and nicely for Prabhupada. I am his representative.”
I want that Prabhupada consciousness, my own Prabhupada consciousness. Things are churning. When I said I didn’t belong to anyone, I meant I am a person who has his own place and duties. I function mostly for those who are close to me and want direction from me. It’s hard for me to be the tiny child before the guru.
And so much interaction is just formality. Even in Vaisnava society, there’s all this etiquette that may not always come from the heart. I speak blarney. I say what I am expected to say.
Don’t be proud that you want to be alone most of the time, but don’t be ashamed of it either. I can’t live to jump through hoops for temple presidents or all sorts of other people. I don’t want to be treated with formal bowing down like I’m a guru. I’ve had enough of that. Give me Wellies and a black thorn walking stick and let me loose in the Wicklow hills. Give me a desk and a pen and plenty of time. Give me honesty and self-searching. I will dance the expected dance, but I can’t live for that or be enlivened by it. I am eka-nistha toward Prabhupada. It has always been that way. I want to clear away the innuendoes that Prabhupada made mistakes or that someone knows things Prabhupada didn’t know. Let’s say I have learned from him in an intense way as much as I have wanted. I see the raganuga aspirations, and I see that Prabhupada didn’t teach them to us much, although they are in his books. I’ve learned this now. But how to proceed?
Miles Better
Miles better, what does
it mean? Does it mean
I think I’m better than
my Godbrothers? No, I am
humble about that. Does
it mean I think I am
presently miles ahead of
what I used to be? No,
I have to acknowledge that
I wrote with more energy
in my earlier years when
I happily drove myself
to produce and was able
to turn from volume to volume.
Now I am slowing down.
I am making video broadcasts
of me reading from my
past works, making a review
of all I’ve accomplished and
publishing out-of-print books
on demand.
I still hope to be able
to tune into music and
write my own music.
I’m not too old to do so.
I just have to write
when my head is clear
and write in parampara.
I acknowledge my major
work may be accomplished,
but I still move along
in a poem or prose.
It’s in my blood.
But I want to do it
freely not by force.
A man should be able
to serve until his last
days and why not do
better? It is up to
Krishna whether I can
do it, but I think
about it a lot and
pray to be able to
continue.
You can always turn to
the pastimes of Sri Krishna
and Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.
Tell what you are reading.
Tell about the tree of
devotional service with
its two main trunks of
Advaita Acarya and Nityananda Prabhu.
Tell how the gardener of the
tree wanted to distribute
the fruits without discrimination.
Tell of the mission of your own
spiritual master, ISKCON, which
is a branch of the Caitanya tree.
These are subject matters for
further poems, even into your
seventies. And you can write
of your own little life,
how you’re living in The Yellow
Submarine and hoping to move
to upstate New York.
I said I was following an
invalid’s schedule but
Narayana urged, “We
want to see a Guru Maharaja
walking and talking.”
I want to do miles better,
but I don’t know if I am
capable. I will at least
attempt it. Why not attempt
a daily poem and always
write your daily thoughts?
You have friends who
are willing to hear from you.
As for music, it spurs me
to make my own. I am
a poet of the balanced line.
I have written so many
simple ones, not
necessarily great but
uttered in play and
simplicity and in the
spirit of the first ones
I did which pleased
the Swami and were
printed in our first
mimeographed Back to
Godhead.
I may not be miles better
but I am still active,
musing Krishna consciousness in
the only way I know how.
I beg for kind readership
as I ply my way through
another written piece offered
to Guru and Gauranga.
Free write
Yesterday I did a video broadcast of a reading from Write and Die. I forgot to acknowledge that we were not set up for the live audience to respond to me. We decided it was too complicated and unwieldy to handle. I meant to invite them to write me individual letters. I’m feeling sad with my health condition and my stay-at-home confinement due to headaches. It reminds me of my two-year restriction onboard the aircraft carrier in the U.S. Navy. I was like a prisoner there, and so I am now. I read that Madhavendra Puri at the end of his life, was so ill he could not move. But he was protected by Krishna and served by his disciple Isvara Puri. He cultured deep inner feelings of separation from Krishna and did not experience mundane malaise.
Lord Caitanya wanted many helpers to assist him in distributing the fruits of love of God. He asked all those born in Bharata-varsa to learn the science of bhakti and spread it to others everywhere. Prabhupada comments that not only Indians but all people of all countries should take part in sharing Lord Caitanya’s fruits of love of God.
Baladeva jokingly told me that if I live long enough, they will find a cure for old age. I replied, “What about the process of freezing the body at death with the hopes that it can be revived when science finds a cure for death?” We both remarked on the futility of freezing the body at death, as was done at the request of Walt Disney and Ted Williams. Old age and death are material laws enforced by the Supreme Lord’s material energy. They can not be avoided by any so-called advances of material science. Despite my complaints I have to accept old age and disease, and I will accept death as a natural course.
[gplayer href="http://www.sdgonline.org/audio/1/SDG-100123-001.mp3" ]Satsvarupa dasa Goswami – voice[/gplayer]
5:35 A.M
I woke at 2:30 with a clear head. I chanted and spoke with Narayana Kavaca. Our meeting in the morning is always pleasing and encouraging. I talked while he woke the deities and then massaged my head with lavender lotion. When left alone I chanted eight rounds before I became sleepy. I went to the shower, and after that I felt more awake and continued my japa. What is the difference between myself and a non-chanter? The main difference is that I chant, and they do not. Do I get special realizations? I get the realization that I am completing a sacred vow, that I am executing the only yajna possible for God realization in this age. I have full faith in the chanting and nothing would stop me from practicing every day. Beyond this I cannot make any claims.
The chanting requires patience
and reverent attention.
I sit back and finger
my beads. I’m even
tempered about the
fact that my japa
has not much fervor.
I do it quietly and
think of the example of
spiritual masters past.
They all stressed harinama
yajna as the only sacrifice
of the age. I do believe also
and practice my utterances
alone in my worship room.
To the average man it
is a foolish endeavor,
but I have learned and
appreciate the purpose of
my chanting.
I remember standing in the
hallway of the Boston temple
with other devotees
and scaring the attacking demons
by waving two-by-fours
and chanting Hare Krishna.
Now I sit in peace
and scare away the drowsiness
with mantras of intent.
Prabhupada meditation
Devotees sometimes try to guess what was on Prabhupada’s mind. Whenever this question comes up, someone inevitably quotes the familiar saying, vaisnavera kriya mudra vijne na bujhaya, “One cannot understand the mind of the Vaisnava.” Prabhupada sometimes added, “Nor should one try to inquire into his previous life.” The meaning of this verse may also be extended to mean that people should not criticize an acarya or try to give him advice. Prabhupada makes this point in Nectar of Instruction: “The spiritual master must not be subjected to the advice of a disciple, nor should a spiritual master be obliged to take instructions from those who are not his disciples. This is the sum and substance of Srila Rupa Gosvami’s advice in the sixth verse” (Nectar of Instruction, text 6, purport).
It is especially important for disciples not to try to second guess their guru. I remember in the beginning days at 26 Second Avenue, devotees sometimes wondered, “When does Prabhupada actually talk to Krishna? Maybe he does it in his sleep.” For awhile, there was even speculation whether Prabhupada was actually Krishna Himself. The disciple can only understand things rightly when they are explained by the acarya according to sastra and sadhu. It is stated in the Caitanya-caritamrta, “Although I know that my spiritual master is a servitor of Sri Caitanya, I know Him also as a plenary manifestation of the Lord.” (Cc. Adi-lila 1.44)
Interpretations on the position of the spiritual master are probably inevitable though. I remember once hearing some devotees talking about japa. One devotee said that we should chant very intently and call out to Krishna. Japa, when done rightly, is an intense experience, either of love of God or of aspiring for love of God. But another devotee countered this by saying, “I’ve heard Srila Prabhupada chanting japa on a tape. I don’t mean to speculate about the mind of the acarya, but his voice sounds very regular and not particularly emotional.” This is an example of someone making a judgment based on an external perception of the guru’s activities. He heard the guru’s voice and decided that he wasn’t chanting Hare Krishna with much emotion. From that, he concluded that he was chanting “like Prabhupada.”
I yearn for that simple attitude where everything was settled by whatever Srila Prabhupada said in a particular conversation or text. He knows how to teach us and what is best for us. We shouldn’t think we have “graduated” from being his punishable, foolish disciples. One brother read something in my Begging for The Nectar and gently challenged me (or as he put it, “wanted to hear my comments”). I had mentioned “direct service” and referred to the manjari’s service. My brother stated, “I once heard Srila Prabhupada say that Bhismadeva’s position was not inferior, only a different taste.” (Of course, in his purports Srila Prabhupada makes it clear that all rasas are absolute. Each person thinks he has the best, but by objective analysis we see that madhurya-rasa is the highest and that it contains all the other rasas.) Then he quoted a morning walk conversation by Srila Prabhupada, Denver, July 2, 1975: “Try to become purified. Don’t imagine or guess what will be the condition when I am purified.”
Prabhupada Memories
He dedicated his Krishna book to
his father Gour Mohan De, who
was a pure devotee and prayed
that his son would grow up and
become a devotee of Radharani.
His father gave him mrdanga lessons
and Jagannatha ratha (cart)
and Radha-Krishna murtis for his
childhood play. “He was kind
to me, and I imbibed from him
the ideas later on solidified
by my spiritual master, the eternal father.”
At his first meeting with his Guru
Maharaja, he received the order to preach
to the west, and he accepted Bhaktisiddhanta
Sarasvati in his heart. He stayed and
heard his long lectures, even when he
couldn’t fully understand the content.
Later he said, “Because I was good at
hearing, now I am good at kirtana.”
In his fifties, his business was failing
and his family life diminished.
None of the family members supported him
in his efforts to preach. He left
his family and as a mendicant, he
went to live in Jhansi.
He was driven out of the
headquarters of “The League of
Devotees” when a ladies’ social
club exerted political pressure.
Alone without money
he took shelter at the
mandira of a Godbrother in
Mathura and went on writing for their magazine.
In the 1960s he accepted
sannyasa and began to
translate and make commentary on
Srimad-Bhagavatam. Within
a few years he had privately
printed three volumes,
completing the First Canto.
He went to live alone in
the Radha-Damodara Mandira
in Vrndavana-dhama.
In 1965 he received sponsorship
to make a visit to America.
With great difficulty he secured
free passage on an Indian freighter,
he suffered two heart attacks in the crossing.
In New York City he lived through
a winter with little success.
Finally in the spring of 1966, he
moved to a storefront at 26 Second Avenue.
There he gained a following and
initiated twenty five disciples by the end
of the year.
He went out with his flock
on Sundays at Tompkins Square
Park and held kirtana for three
hours.
In January of 1967 he flew
to San Francisco where his
followers had rented a storefront
in the hippie land of Haight-Ashbury.
He held initiations and weddings
and made himself beloved to
about two dozen disciples, while
many others gathered daily
to taste prasadam.
He returned to New York in April
of ’67 and suffered a stroke
which sent him to the hospital.
He decided to go back to India,
to Vrndavana to recover or die.
In the heat, he recovered and was well enough by the
end of the year, to return
to San Francisco. After that, for nine years he continued
traveling around the world
keeping his disciples alive.
Every night he rose at
one to translate and make
purports to his books. And they were sold in hundreds in
the airports. The money went for temple construction
in Mayapura, Vrndavana and Mumbai.
He was dearmost to over four
thousand disciples and when
he wound up his pastimes
in Vrndavana in November
of 1977, they gathered to be with him.
Now on his appearance and disappearance
days, they gather in the temples
and speak fresh memories. There
is a biography and many memoirs
and thousands of photos and portraits
to remind us what he did for us.
He was a bona-fide eternal guru
who came to engage the people in
Krishna consciousness and relieve
them from the bonds of maya.
He had full faith in his Guru
Maharaja and followed him
without concocting, serving
in paramapara.
We can serve him best by
carrying out his vani, even
in the absence of his
personal presence.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada,
we do love him,
and all glories to Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu.
We must worship them together,
not slighting one for the other,
and keeping as active as we can.
Free write
Madhavendra Puri’s dearmost disciple was Isvara Puri. In his old age, Madhavendra Puri was invalid and could not move, and Isvara Puri took care of him, even cleaning his stool and urine. For this intimate service he was blessed by his spiritual master. Madhavendra Puri was a very advanced devotee. He was a member of the Madhava sampradaya but that sampradaya was filled with ritualistic practices. Madhavendra Puri was the first to introduce pure love of God. He wrote a prayer “ayi dina dayardra…” which expresses the love in separation that Radharani and Lord Caitanya experience. No one else can enter the mood of that prayer. For his service to his Guru Maharaja, Isvara Puri was empowered to become the initiating guru of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.
Krishnadasa Kaviraja also tells more about the process of transcendental writing. He took permission from the Vaisnavas, and he also went to the Madana-mohana vigraha in Vrndavana. He was praying before the Deity when a garland slipped from His neck. The priests who were present took it as a sign and placed the garland around Krishnadasa Kaviraja’s neck. He accepted this as a gesture of permission from Madana-mohana. Krishnadasa Kaviraja presented himself as a servant of Lord Caitanya and all His devotees. Unless one offers respect to Lord Caitanya, His associates and His disciples, one should not attempt to write transcendental literature. Krishnadasa Kaviraja states “Whether I know it or know not it is for self-purification that I write this book” (Cc. Adi-lila 9.5) Srila Prabhupada writes, “ This is the sum and substance of transcendental writing. One must be an authorized Vaisnava, humble and pure. One should write transcendental literature to purify one self, not for credit. By writing about the pastimes of the Lord one associates with the Lord directly. One should not ambitiously think, I shall become a great author, I shall be celebrated as a writer. These are material desires. One should attempt to write for self purification. It maybe published or it may not be published but that does not matter. If one is actually sincere in writing, all his ambitions will be fulfilled. Whether one is known as a great author is incidental. One should not attempt to write transcendental literature for material name and fame” (Cc. Adi-lila 9.5, purport)
[gplayer href="http://www.sdgonline.org/audio/1/SDG-100122-001.mp3" ]Today’s entry[/gplayer]
5:16 A.M
With stress I worked on eight rounds so far and managed to stay awake. I kept full concentration and heard the syllables in my mind. I chant alone as does Mother Kaulini in upstate New York and Haridasa Dasa in Maryland. We like the privacy. Chanting with other devotees is also alright for those who like it that way. The main thing is to be able to hear your own chanting undisturbed. And quality is more important than quantity. We chant and now I think of Krishnadasa Kaviraja’s verses about the need to do it without offenses or else you’ll not reach the goal which is love of God. I try to avoid the offenses and keep the mantras in my heart. If only the average person chanted Hare Krishna, it would be a much better world.
Prabhupada meditation
We do not know how Prabhupada chants, although we can hear the sound of his chanting. Neither do we know what he thinks about when he chants. He was not obliged to reveal these things to us. He sometimes quoted Jesus Christ’s statement, “There are many things I have to tell you, but you can not bear to hear them now.” Prabhupada said, “Yes, the acarya knows things, but he does not tell everything to the disciples.” Lord Caitanya also followed this principle. Although He was so deeply immersed in the conjugal rasa, he spoke about Radha and Krishna’s pastimes to only a very intimate few. We can be certain that Prabhupada did not reveal everything on his mind to us. Even if we were to ask him, “What do you think of when you chant, Prabhupada?” it is unlikely he would reveal his innermost state.
The gopis say to Krishna, “You started this fire, and You can put it out. You better extinguish it soon or we will die. Then You will be an assassin.” They say all kinds of wild things to Him. “Don’t be a killer; don’t neglect us. Be kind like Lord Narayana is to His devotees.” Krishna loves to hear it. Who can understand their loving talks back and forth? Only the rasika acaryas like Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura and Jiva Gosvami, and those who follow them. Yes, I could leave here and depend more on Prabhupada to lead me on. We need a mature bhagavata devotee to teach us krishna-prema. He does so in his books and Srila Prabhupada, in his eternal form, can guide me even into gopi-bhava. He didn’t write that much about it, but that doesn’t mean he can’t guide me. Yesterday we read him in Krishna book, Chapter 29. But a stern, eternal brahmacari from Bharata-varsa may come up to me and say, “Beware! If you dare commit aparadha to a saint, we will cast you in hell.” Remember the time I was criticizing Indian kitchens and Prabhupada told me to mind my business? So don’t criticize Indian sadhus and their followers and their right to speak in their own language while relishing the rasa dance.
O Lord who danced and leaped at Ratha-yatras in Puri, O Lord Caitanya, who called out and cried to Krishna in the Gambhira, we humble members of ISKCON wish to know You and serve You. We want to love You in this world and the next. O Lord Caitanya, You embody Radha and Her mood. You lay Your feet on the pillow of Sankara Pandita. O Lord Caitanya, please be kind to Your devotees in ISKCON who chant the Hare Krishna mantra in every town and village. Please let us serve our Prabhupada.
A Writing Life
I began keeping a diary
at seventeen years old.
I wrote of my uncertain future
and under the influence
of the radio raconteur, Jean
Shepherd. I wrote in longhand,
in a three-ring binder.
Into my diary I pasted a picture
of a boy and girl under a blooming
apple tree and a picture of an
American soldier running forward with
an extended bayonet, under which
I wrote, “Whither goest thou, O
mankind?” In college I began writing
poems and short stories. At Brooklyn
College, I won the literary prize
two years in a row. I took
a writing course and was encouraged
there to make a literary career.
During those years I wrote
novellas about myself and
my friends on Staten Island.
After college I entered the navy
and didn’t write much, but I
wrote a short novel about my
relationship with my English professor
at the community college. After the
navy I went to live on the
Lower East Side and wrote directly
of my experience, under the influence
of marijuana.
Then I met the Swami.
My life completely changed.
I stopped doing drugs. I
decided that my writing life was
all false ego, and one day
I carried all my manuscripts
and dropped them into the
incinerator at the Swami’s
apartment building. But
his disciple Hayagriva told
me, “I’m going to continue writing.
I’m writing for Krishna!”
I realized it was something that
I needn’t renounce but just
change from confession to
devotional service. I wrote
essays for Back To Godhead
magazine, and poems too,
about chanting.
The Swami approved.
For twelve years I published
many essays in BTG, some
of them stories from the
Bhagavatam, some of them
realizations in bhakti-yoga.
I also wrote Readings in Vedic Litterature
aimed as a textbook for the colleges.
After the disappearance of
Srila Prabhupada, I was
commissioned by the GBC
to write his biography. Along
with a team of researchers, I
gathered data and interviews and
wrote his life story in seven
volumes. It took five years.
Then I began my personal
writing career. I published
sastric studies such as Living
with the Scriptures, and memories
of Prabhupada based on meditations,
prayer life and three volumes
of commentaries on his letters
to me. I’ve written books on
japa and volumes of poems.
I’ve written many kinds of books
published by Gita-Nagari Press,
and about two years ago I
started publishing on the
internet, a daily journal
and poems. From this I
collected a series of direct
prayers to the Lord, My Dear Lord Krishna
and published it as a book.
The web has also supplied
me material for books on
japa and volumes of poems.
It has been a fruitful, virtual
life, writing for my guru in the
mission of Lord Caitanya.
I do not regret the effort
that I made and the emphasis
on internal monologue.
Our sampradaya stresses books,
and I come in that line.
It’s the brihat-mrdanga, the
major sankirtana which is
heard around the world.
I have given my life to
choosing words of praise to
Prabhupada and Krishna,
and I feel they have empowered
me. May it go on after I
am gone, may my books
stay in print and be read
by eager readers. That is
all I ask: that I be read
in the generation to come,
that my books and postings
help people in Krishna consciousness.
Free write
From Caitanya-caritamrta I heard the author praise Caitanya-bhagavata and Vrndavana Dasa Thakur. Prabhupada comments about transcendental writers. He states that one cannot write about the pastimes of the Personality of Godhead unless he is empowered by higher authorities. “It is not possible for a common man to write books about bhakti, for his writings will not be effective. He may be a very great scholar and maybe expert in presenting literature in flowery language but this is not at all helpful in understanding transcendental literature. Even if transcendental literature is written in faulty language, it is acceptable if it is written by a devotee, whereas so-called transcendental literature written by a mundane scholar, even if it is a very highly polished literary presentation, cannot be accepted. The secret in a devotees writing is that when he writes about the pastimes of the Lord, the Lord helps him; he does not write alone. Since a devotee writes in service to the Lord, the Lord from within gives him so much intelligence that he sits down by the Lord and goes on writing books.” (Cc. Adi-lila 8:39, purport) Krishnadasa Kaviraja was asked by Haridasa Pandita and other great devotees of Vrndavana to write the later pastimes of Lord Caitanya which were not covered in Caitanya-bhagavata. In humility, Krishnadasa Kaviraja felt ashamed that it was he who was asked to write. He considered himself inadequate, but actually, although in old age and ill, he was quite fit and executed the Caitanya-caritamrta with all proficiency. There are indirect hints given by Srila Prabhupada about his own position in composing the Bhaktivedanta purports. He was in his seventies, often ill and burdened with the management of his worldwide movement. Nevertheless, he accomplished the translation and commentaries of his books with clear head and firm purpose. They are a literary and theological triumph. Increasingly, I am burdened by old age and weak health as I make my daily notes from a little life. My writing is like the broken words of a little child speaking to his father. My father hears my utterances and approves of them, as long as I speak in parampara. Prabhupada says a transcendental author is privileged and should be proud of his position of writing under higher authority. Writing about Krishna can’t be done by a university professor or someone writing from a speculative viewpoint. One who writes about Krishna has to have his work approved from without by the spiritual master and from within by Krishna.
Narayana K. has given me an 24-hour schedule of my treatment and prevention. He has noted my times for activities and rest. He has emphasized “Be vigilant for first sign of pain and treat immediately!” I should not tolerate or ignore pain or work more than one and a half hours without a break. It is an invalid’s schedule. I am following it scrupulously.
[gplayer href="http://www.sdgonline.org/audio/1/SDG-100121-001.mp3" ]Satsvarupa dasa Goswami – voice[/gplayer]
5:01 A.M.
I have faith in the scriptural statements about chanting the holy names. Even by imperfect chanting one gets rid of all his sinful reactions. The proof is in the history of Ajamila. But removal of sins is not the ultimate goal. It’s Krishna prema, pure love of God, that only comes by chanting without offenses. It seems easy enough to avoid the ten offenses, but it is hard to control the mind and be attentive and prayerful. It takes great practice. I like to chant, especially early in the morning. I feel occupied, warm and intimate. I feel like I’m in the presence of my parents, my true beloved parents. But do I cry out like a child calling for its mother? That is the recommended attitude. Prabhupada says that Mother Hara hears the chanting of the sincere devotee and rewards him with Krishna consciousness. I go on chanting in the hopeful mood.
Prabhupada meditaion
“What is that essence of Prabhupada that makes him so special?” I can’t exactly say, but I’m trying to come back to it. So, dear assembled devotees, this verse tells us that Maharaja Pariksit saw the faces of some people and knew they were envious. Therefore he asked a question just to relieve their doubts. On and on you go, waiting and then receiving the inspiration and teachings to say more, all issuing from your teacher.
(As I write these words, the lights suddenly went out. I’ll take it as a cue to chant japa, but I’ll be back. Maybe the sand won’t be so heavy next time, and my steps so dogged.)
“How powerful is the mercy of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu! Without even inquiring about the King, the Lord made everything successful” (Cc. Madhya 14.10). Srila Prabhupada writes, “Devotees of Krishna must persistently seek the favor and mercy of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu to become fit to return home, back to Godhead.”
Another concept: by meeting with a rasika Vaisnava, your progress for going back to Godhead can be accelerated by hundreds of lives. Is Srila Prabhupada a rasika Vaisnava? Is he a siksa-guru in raganuga-bhakti? The implied reply is that he himself is a gopi manjari, but by association with him in his books and mission, you won’t get this. I like to think that Srila Prabhupāda, seeing some of us eager for raganuga, can guide us in his aprakrta form. He can give us everything. He can give us divine eyes to see Radha bhava in his books. And by preaching, we will become purified enough to accept it. “Oh, Satsvarupa is not a rasika.” Okay, he’s a Prabhupada man. No, don’t be phony in any way. But if you want some boosts in Prabhupada worship and consciousness, fine.
“One should worship and chant the holy name of the Lord by accepting it as the Lord Himself.” And quoting from the purport to this verse from Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi.7.73, “Simply by chanting the holy name of Krishna, one can obtain freedom from material existence. Indeed, simply by chanting the Hare Krishna mantra one will be able to see the lotus feet of the Lord.”
Radha Krishna Worship
One should worship
Gaura-Nitai before
worshiping Radha-Krishna.
One should chant the
Panca-tattva before chanting
the Hare Krishna mantra.
One should not follow the
process of Bhagavat Saptaha
and present Srimad-Bhagavatam
in only seven days,
going immediately to the five
chapters on the rasa-lila.
One should follow in the
footsteps of the Six Goswamis
and read their books before
going to Vrndavana.
Not following the parampara
just creates a disturbance.
I worshiped Gaura-Nitai
for many years, and They
are now on the altar at
Gita Nagari dhama.
Now I worship Radha-Govinda
in a simple way
on the altar in my
room.
The divine couple
wear fine clothing
that ornaments Their forms.
They stand together
not like that difficult
picture of Radharani
sitting all alone, crying
for Govinda.
Krishna plays His flute
and Radha extends Her
hand to Him.
They are together like
magnets. In Rupa Gosvami’s
drama, Lalita-madhava,
Radha goes to live in
New Vrindavana disguised
as Satyabhama. Krishna lives
there too with Rukmini,
who rules. Rukmini gives
difficulty to Radha, but
in the end, Radha
weds Krishna, and They’re
happy forever.
I do not indulge in intimate
pastimes of Radha Krishna
but worship the Deities like
Laksmi-Narayana with formal
offerings and bowing down.
I do not treat the Deity
as Sanatana Gosvami treated
his Krishna in Vrndavana.
He was so intimate and so
poor, that the Deity spoke
to him, “Sanatana, why
don’t you offer me salt
on my chapattis?” Sanatana
replied, that he did not
have the means to offer
salt and Krishna had to accept
it, being at the mercy of His
devotee.
My Deities do not speak
to me, but stand silent
and tolerate my meager
services, rendered through
my caretaker who bathes
Them and rubs Them with
gopicandana and changes
Their clothes once a
week.
I worship my Deities
in quietude, and They
support the calm and
quiet atmosphere of the
bhajana kutir.
Just now they wear
yellow, light blue and pink
outfits with flower patterns.
Radha wears a candrika
of silver and pink. Krishna
wears a tall crown with
pearls and jewels of
pink and blue. He leans
upon a curvy, silver
stick and plays a silver flute.
His glowing feet peek out
from under the dhoti,
Her skirt touches the altar.
They accompany me through
the long hours. I stretch
out my feet but don’t
point them at the Deities. We’re together
in a tranquil way.
I stare upon Their Lordships
through the morning and afternoon,
like the child Abhay staring
for hours upon the Mullik’s
Radha-Govinda in the temple
in Calcutta. He grew up
to be our Prabhupada and
installed Deities of Radha-Krishna
all around the world. I sat
beside him and was the priest
in installations at Boston and
Dallas.
Some of my friends worship
Radha-Krishna in their homes,
and I encourage them.
You can keep it simple
but do it nicely,
treating Them with respect.
They transform your
home into a little mandir,
where madhurya rasa reigns.
Free write
Yesterday afternoon was quite difficult. Right now I’m in a clear space. I just wrote a poem about simple worship of Radha-Krishna deities. Saci-suta has a slightly larger pair than I have here. I gave Them and the murti of Prabhupada to him. He doesn’t find time to worship Them everyday. When he worships, he has an elaborate ritual when he changes Their clothes and bathes Them once a day. When I’m at Stuyvesant Falls I usually do the puja with him. This time I didn’t do it because my health was too fragile. Anything I do brings on stress. Narayana K. says that after decades of suffering, the capillaries in my head are worn out and have a tendency to be triggered into headache patterns. Thus I have what is called “anticipatory anxiety.” I never go a day without multiple headaches.
NK reads to us at lunch. He is reading the Eighth Chapter of Canto One, “The Prayers of Queen Kunti” and A Poor Man Reads the Bhagavatam, Vol. 4, which covers the eighth chapter. A Poor Man is a little tedious with its long, involved questions, but Narayana tolerates it and likes it. We like the “personal comment” section of the book. It’s good that I wrote four full volumes of PMRB, although I probably will not write anymore. This Saturday I’m scheduling to do a live video broadcast of reading new poetry and sections from Write & Die. We want to give attention to different books I have written and invite viewers to order copies. Some of the books are out of print, but our new printer can print on demand.
The readings from Caitanya-caritamrta are our life line. Krishnadas Kaviraja keeps stating, that unless you chant the Hare Krishna mantra without offense you can not attain pure love of God. I judge that I have some offenses in my japa. I strictly avoid chanting more than sixteen rounds although it would be helpful to my sadhana if I did more. I seem to fear that it would be boring and also too strenuous and compared to relaxing. Previously I was chanting two hours of extra rounds in the afternoon.
[gplayer href="http://www.sdgonline.org/audio/1/SDG-100120-001.mp3" ]Satsvarupa dasa Goswami – voice[/gplayer]
5.02 A.M.
Yesterday they read to me this verse from the Caitanya-caritamrita, which is a quote from the Srimad-Bhagavatam: ”If one’s heart does not change, tears do not flow from his eyes, his body does not shiver, and his bodily hairs do not stand on end as he chants the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, it should be understood that his heart is as hard as iron. This is due to his offenses at the lotus feet of the Lord’s holy name.” On hearing this verse I was ready to condemn myself as iron-hearted and as an offender to the holy name. But in the purport Prabhupada quotes Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakur as saying that sometimes a maha-bhagavata or very advanced devotees does not manifest the transcendental symptoms such as tears in the eyes, where as sometimes a kanistha-adhikari, a neophyte devotee, displays them artificially. Prabhupada remarks that the real change of heart is that one becomes detached from material enjoyment. “The change must be manifested in terms of one’s real activities.” So there is a chance for me. I have become detached from material activities, and this may be the benefit of my chanting although I also chant without perfection. But I do not have to expect to get the physical transformations to prove that I am chanting in a good condition.
Yesterday afternoon I had to endure a migraine, and I could not stop it even with two administrations of medicine. I went to bed with a headache, and it went away over night. This morning I got up at 2.30 and after talking with Narayana, I’ve been chanting and chanted nine rounds so far. I get close to the mantra and take shelter. I like to chant but chant in a cautious way afraid that if I get too intense it may bring on pain. At any rate, I persist in chanting and move towards completing my sixteen rounds. It is still the most important part in the day, along with my time for writing.
Prabhupada meditation
Prabhupada did not take too much care of his body. The fact that he continued to travel so frequently in airplanes, and also the fact that he didn’t keep a very strict diet but kept to his regular, Krishna conscious prasadam, were in his case, transcendental acts. He was more concerned with preaching and did not consider preserving the body for the optimum number of years into advanced old age. Of course, Prabhupada’s life was naturally healthy. He went to bed early and rose early in the morning, took his morning constitutional walk, and his mind was always pure and invigorated. Prabhupada was full of life. He certainly wasn’t like the old person who has lost his purpose in life and therefore dwindles away. There was never even a touch of senility or depression in old age. But it is not wrong if we think of Prabhupada as suffering for us. He accepted these things without a complaint, in a manly and philosophical way.
One time, one of his young disciples came to Prabhupada in Hyderabad and reported that he had jaundice. The disciple said that his stool had changed color. Prabhupada replied that sometimes his stool was also one color and sometimes another color, but this wasn’t very important; it was simply the changing nature of the naturally defective body. This is summed up in Krishna’s statement to Arjuna, where He says the material world is temporary and changes just like the seasons, from winter to summer. Sometimes you are happy and sometimes you are unhappy, but one should learn to tolerate and not become attached.
We can learn a lot from this attitude. It can free us from many anxieties and from wasting precious time when we worry about our mouth or our back or even our heart. Better to use our time in Krishna’s service. If Krishna wants to protect us, then we won’t die from ill health; and if Krishna wants us to take another body in another life, then no amount of health cure will save us. We can be responsible and not neglect our health simply by leading the regulated life of sadhana-bhakti. But since there is no way to keep perfect or permanent health, we should follow Prabhupada’s example and fully engage ourselves in Krishna consciousness. Materially speaking, we will be very lucky if we can live as long as he did and keep in active form. As for accomplishing as much as Prabhupada did in his old age years, that is not possible. But we may worship his example.
The Yellow Submarine
The bhajana kutir in
Lewes, Delaware has been
my home for two years.
It’s been kind to me. I’ve
been left alone to write
and chant. I sit
back in my chair and
rest.
In The Yellow Submarine
I’ve written many poems
and a whole volume of
first-person prayers to Krishna.
I had visits from Jayadvaita
Maharaja who read from his
commentary on Ecclesiastes.
Giriraja Swami ate here and
enjoyed himself. He said,
“I know what’s so nice about
this house. There are no women
here.” Gunagrahi Maharaja and I
read together from Srimad-Bhagavatam,
and I’ve endured many headaches,
lying low and lying back,
waiting for clearance.
Sastra bought me a TV
for Christmas, and I watch
a little baseball and football
and evening news. But
I go to sleep by 7.30 pm
and rise at three to pray.
The poems I composed and
gathered in the book Soul Eyes,
are parampara and prayerful.
I aspire to go back to the spiritual
world and live with Krishna and
the gopis. I think of Prabhupada.
Recently my illness has become
prominent, and I’m writing less.
What I write is naked and
personal, “writing down the bones.”
The Yellow Submarine is solitary,
on the top floor of a three-story
townhouse. Everyday for lunch
I go down to the first floor
and sit at the dining table with
the other men who live here.
Lunch time is for warm
socializing and devotee association.
After lunch I go for a
walk in the neighborhood.
That’s my only exercise.
Maybe I should do more,
but my head is delicate.
I return to from my walk
and go to my room.
Mostly, I stay in my
room.
Here at breakfast and for
evening snack, they read to
me from Caitanya-caritamrita.
I take it in carefully
and share it in notes.
I hold down the fort
in The Yellow Submarine.
I stay in the cell and
the cell teaches me about
prayer. It’s a good place
to recite meditative gayatri mantras
and to measure out the
months of old age.
The Yellow Submarine
takes me on a ride.
Just by sitting in one
place, I have access
to the higher realms.
Just by looking within,
I see the cosmos.
I’m happy here and
don’t need to travel
in the material world.
I’m glad to be separated
from the work-a-day
rat race, I’m grateful to
those who support me
to live alone. I
have two caretakers who
stay with me, who see
“taking care of the old fart”
as their important duty.
I could never do this
on my own. So I feel
grateful. Gratitude
and quietude are essential
parts of my nature, and
the nature of life in
The Yellow Submarine.
The bhajana kutir is not
a passionate place, but
the flame burns brightly
here. Radha-Govinda stand
on Their altar, and Prabhupada’s
books fill the shelves.
I’m comfortable, and
we all protect the sanctity
of a male celibate ashrama.
I pray to my master that
I please him in this way,
after all I have done.
Free write
I’m reading the poems in the proof copy of the Soul Eyes which has just come from our new printer. I enjoy them, but I want to add some more before we print one hundred copies. It’s a real accomplishment to publish a book of poems. I like this collection better than the last.
In his Caitanya-caritamrita purports, Srila Prabhupada writes that human society has become fallen and almost all are sudras or less. Woman hunting, intoxication and thievery have become standard behavior. The only hope is Sri Caitanya’s sankirtana movement or the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Krishnadas Kaviraja requests his readers to use their logic and reason and compare the munificence of Lord Caitanya to any philanthropic movement. He says if you do so you will find Lord Caitanya is wonderful. His gift of love of God surpasses the good done by any cause which only brings temporary material benefit. Sometimes material benefit is necessary, such as now in the country of Haiti, where a devastating earthquake has cost two hundred thousand lives and left millions of people homeless and in need of food, water and medicine. The Christian fundamentalist Pat Robinson is being widly criticized for saying the earthquake is a punishment from God because the people of Haiti practice voodoo. We have to be careful not to give a shallow dogmatic conclusion that karma is the cause of the earthquake. We have to be compassionate. If we want to comment on Haiti, we’ll have to be prepared to get involved in food distribution or other practical aid. Otherwise, it is such a volatile situation, it is beyond the scope of preaching words, and it is better left to the armed forces and welfare agencies who are prepared for a hands-on response to the crisis. The TV news showed footage of a thirteen year old girl living with her family in a tent city for survivors. Crimes like rape and looting are being committed in the city at night. This girl says she is not afraid because she feels that she is being protected by God. The camera showed her sitting on her cot with a copy of the Bible. It was good to see someone turning to God rather than becoming faithless because of the earthquake. The earthquake may be caused by the strict laws of the material nature, but God is always kind to His devotee.
[gplayer href="http://www.sdgonline.org/audio/1/SDG-100119-001.mp3" ]Satsvarupa dasa Goswami – voice[/gplayer]
5:04 A.M
My sleep was interrupted during the night. I got out of bed at 2:30 with a headache and took medicine which subdued it. I spoke extensively with Narayana-kavaca. He’s very soothing to me and is an irreplaceable companion. I chanted my japa with a clear head. The mantras went very nicely in my head, and I enjoyed the accumulation of the numerical strength. I paid attention. Nowadays I am not writing such extensive commentaries on japa. I wrote more longer ones previously, and we’ve collected them into a manuscript which will be published as a book, Transformations in Chanting. I’m grateful that I had the presence of mind to record these meditations at a time when I had more strength. This morning while chanting I thought of Prabhupada’s remark about how chanting brought him close to his disciples. He made a remark when he was leaving his American disciples to go back to India for ill health. We were expressing our sorrow that he was departing from us. Prabhupada assured us and said “I’ll be chanting there, and you’ll be chanting here, and we will all be packed up together.” As I chant I think of all my friends chanting around the world and how we are together through this wonderful process of harinama.
Prabhupada meditation
We all wanted to see Prabhupada when he came to a nearby city like New York or Boston, but we knew that the most important way to advance in Prabhupada’s service was by carrying out his orders. That often meant sticking to one’s particular location. For example, after Prabhupada visited Boston in May 1968, he went on to Montreal. I wanted to go to Montreal with him, but it was more important to stay in Boston, both because of my work at the welfare office and my duties in the temple. I knew I could realize Prabhupada by service, and not by whimsically traveling where he was. If I had gone to Montreal over that summer to visit Prabhupada, I would now be able to tell firsthand some of those Montreal pastimes. I stayed back, however, hoping that by sticking to my place, I would make spiritual progress in separation. It is still true that we serve Prabhupada in separation by carrying out his orders.
If you could be in the same place with Prabhupada, then your reward was to see his actual lila. On the other hand, if you served him anywhere in the world, you had the advantage of actually attracting the pure devotee. By that attraction he would come to you. Prabhupada said that we should not try to see Krishna, but act in such a way that Krishna sees us. He gave the example of an office worker in a big company who does his job very nicely. One day the president of the company examines his file and is impressed at the man’s work. Then the president comes to that man’s desk and congratulates him. We attract Prabhupada by carrying out his orders. Let us make our hearts pure and enthusiastic to receive him. Then when he comes to see us, we will have something to say to him. His coming will not occur just by hanging out as a guest, with no particular service, in the temple where Prabhupada is visiting.
Sometimes the happy combination occurred when we could please Prabhupada by rendering him service while in his personal presence. This happened the day that I was walking to work up Second Avenue in New York. I met Swamiji walking south toward the storefront. In those days, he didn’t usually take morning walks, but he had started this habit after his stroke.
I saw him coming around the corner and walking my way. It was a great relief to see him because I was feeling anxious. I was anticipating the difficulty of going to work that day. The caseworkers were on strike, and in order to enter the building, I would have to go through their picket line. I had not joined their strike because I was working for Swamiji. I was not interested in losing weeks of pay in the name of trying to get a higher salary. I knew they would all hoot and holler and threaten to hit me when I walked through their double file.
Swamiji knew about the welfare strike, and he had already passed the picket lines from the other side of the street that morning. The workers had yelled at him because they knew he was sending me to work. Swamiji was accompanied by Kirtanananda, and, just before I reached them, I bowed down to Prabhupada, touching my forehead on the sidewalk. As I rose, I saw Swamiji smiling very beautifully. He reached out and touched me slightly. We exchanged only a few words at that time, and I went off to my task filled with his blessings. That was certainly a moment to treasure: service in Prabhupada’s shelter, approved by him.
A Day’s Journey
We left at 7:55 A.M.
after a photo session
with Saci’s family.
It was a pleasant stay
with hopes of moving
there. I felt the thrill
of anticipation for the motor
trip. We passed orange
plow trucks clearing the
roads and dropping salt.
Baladeva is competent at
the wheel.
After an hour the
thrill is gone. If I
get impatient on a
seven-hour drive, just
imagine Srila Prabhupada for
thirty-five days at sea on an
Indian freighter. He
had no secure place to
go and no money, but
he had the deep purpose
of service to his
Guru Maharaja.
In my mind I say
”Talk Baladeva, talk,”
to keep him alert.
I resist from playing
music and stare out at
the road. On entering
New Jersey, the road is
free of snow and even
the land to its side, only the threat
of rain. The time passes
slowly, we do 60 miles per hour.
Traffic congestion on
the New Jersey Turnpike.
I think of my disciples
and friends scattered
throughout the world.
What can I give them?
I’m printing books like
My Dear Lord Krishna and
a forthcoming volume of
poetry and a book on japa.
I signed five copies of
books which Sastra took
to friends in India. This
is the way I serve.
I transport my body
from upstate New York
to Lewes, Delaware and
go on writing as preaching
in the mission of Sri Caitanya
Mahaprabhu. We pass
a UPS double trailer, an
endless stream of cars,
and I watch the progress
of the clock.
We stop for lunch at the
Clara Barton rest area.
Prasadam is sprouts,
tomato and guacamole sandwich.
Baladeva refrains. He’s struggling
with a chest cold and drinking
herbal tea to fight it off.
It’s 1:00 P.M., and we are on the
road again, no delay.
On the last leg of
the journey, I feel
satisfied. It looks like
we won’t have an accident.
The sun is shining brightly.
I accept loss forever
and chalk it up as
another day of my
life duration.
We’re driving through Dover
as I write this, and
we should make it
home in a total
of six hours. I
thank Sri Krishna for
the safe travel.
I don’t intend to travel
for a while. I hope
I can keep up writing.
Free write
During the football game I thought of a sentence from Jack Kerouac’s list of prose essentials. It goes something like this: “Accept loss forever.” The meaning of the sentence touched me, and I accepted my own loss, my sense of mortality. The important thing is to accept it and live with it. You are going to die.
At Saci-suta's
We are planning to leave this Monday morning at 8:00 A.M. But on Sunday starting at 4:30 P.M. a heavy snow is falling from the sky. I hope it doesn’t fall all night and make it difficult to travel. Baladeva came by and said the snow is wet and won’t cause a problem for driving. The highway department will put salt down, and the car’s tires will create heat that will efface any snow buildup. I’m taking comfort in his words that the trip will be “a piece of cake with icing on top.”
It’s nice to be back in the groove in The Yellow Submarine. The room does not seem to be spinning in orbit but is stable and fixed. Yet the whole planet is spinning through space. It is so nicely arranged by Lord Krishna and Lord Brahma that it appears to be not spinning at all. The trip took less time than I anticipated. I thought the snow would slow us down. I arrived with a headache but controlled it. Now I’m staying quiet through the late afternoon.
We are reading about Lord Caitanya and the holy names. Krishnadasa Kaviraja says you have to worship Lord Caitanya along with your chanting. You can’t be a devotee of Krishna but neglect Lord Caitanya. Rupa Gosvami called Him the most munificent incarnation because He distributed love of God even to rejected persons like Jagai and Madhai. We in the west were more fallen than Jagai and Madhai, but Prabhupada delivered us with the kirtana of the maha-mantra and the teachings of Bhagavad-gita. He was the most munificent guru for the whole world. We are serving him in separation. He lives forever in his instructions and his follower lives with him.
[gplayer href="http://www.sdgonline.org/audio/1/SDG-100118-001.mp3" ]Satsvarupa dasa Goswami – voice[/gplayer]
5:30 A.M
Yesterday in the Caitanya-caritamrta we read this verse from Adi-lila, chapter 8, verse 16, “If one is infested with the ten offenses in the chanting of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, despite his endeavor to chant the holy name for many births, he will not get the love of Godhead that is the ultimate goal of this chanting.” I think I am infected with some of the offenses, and therefore, I have not attained the ultimate goal by chanting. But Prabhupada has told us not to get discouraged, rather to go on chanting in a regulative way and try our best to avoid the offences. I try my best early in the morning to chant with attention. Inattentive chanting is the offense I am most likely to commit. This morning I got out of bed at 3:00 A.M. and began my chanting. There is a crest of snow on the ground outside, but we’re planning to leave after breakfast. I started to get the beginning of a headache while I chanted, and I’ve stopped after eight rounds. I may chant some of my prescribed quota in the car during the trip.
Prabhupada meditation
Prabhupada memories are part of Krishna conscious culture. We may even see them as entertainment. Just as the Mahabharata or Ramayana are forms of entertainment which also mold character and infiltrate into the lives of the listeners, so memories and anecdotes about Prabhupada can change our lives while they entertain us.
After a full day’s work, the nondevotee watches TV or goes to the movies. Other nondevotees get their entertainment through books or by doing any of these things in conjunction with intoxication. Devotees, on the other hand, use their leisure time for hari-katha. Like-minded friends in Krishna consciousness can read Krishna book together or spend an hour with the Prabhupada-lilamrta.
A good place to start when we choose to read about Prabhupada is the first volume, A Lifetime of Preparation. Usually when we think of Srila Prabhupada, we conjure up images of Prabhupada in America, either as a lone preacher, struggling alone in New York, or as the grand founder-acarya of ISKCON. But when we read the first volume of the biography, we glimpse Prabhupada’s life in India, before we met him, before he came to preach.
Even when Prabhupada was a young businessman traveling around India, he was still our Prabhupada. He said about himself, “I don’t remember a time when I ever forgot Krishna.” Krishna was waiting to fulfill the preaching mission through Prabhupada, and Prabhupada was preparing himself.
Sometimes Prabhupada would present himself humbly, saying he wasted most of his life, even after meeting his spiritual master, “but better late than never.” Prabhupada said, “I wasted so much time. I realize that now.” These are statements of humility. But Prabhupada also said, “Actually, I was preparing myself. I was looking for the opportunity.”
Slowing Down
Slowing down in old age.
You do less and guard
yourself against the
chronic blues, the headache
news.
Even chanting japa slows
down and takes a long
time. Reading is confined
to out loud readings given
to you by a devotee
while you eat your meals.
This morning we heard from
Krishnadas Kaviraja, that
you must worship the
Pancha-tattva if you
want to reach the
ultimate goal of serving Krishna.
University professors who
talk on Krishna topics without
spiritual understanding are
wasting their time. Their
vibrations are like the
croaking of the frogs who
invite the predator snakes
to come and eat them.
I listen to it
carefully while mixing
the blueberries in with
the oatmeal.
In the commercial for
Dr. Pepper, they say slow down
and savor the different tastes
of the soda. “Drink it
slowly. Trust me, I’m a
doctor.” Similarly, I slow
down and savor my latter
years, tasting with
discrimination. I sit in
my chair and remember
the past, I pay attention
to the present moment
and hold it before me
like the holy Eucharist.
I hear a slow blues piece
and appreciate the tempo.
It walks deliberately
and blows the horn
mournfully. It changes
chords and improvises
with a steady beat.
Kirtana-rasa’s son has
learned to play the tenor
saxophone and plays it
on the street collecting
money. He’s learned to
improvise and says participation
in the high school jazz
band is his favorite thing.
The piece I listen to is
talkative and purposeful,
spinning a slow, deliberate
blues.
I have to slow down,
it’s imposed upon me,
but I take it in stride.
It’s my newly adapted
pace, and it consists
of lots of relaxation.
I don’t drive myself
to write a big output,
but dwell on a poem
and free write every day.
Slowing down is natural,
it comes with old age.
You don’t play basketball,
but you take a walk
a day. Up here you
can do the bath and
sauna. Moving to
upstate would be a
final settling down.
Slowing down you gradually
lose your grip.
It’s like the winter with
the trees all leafless.
Your eye is half involved
in a chronic pain even
on a good day.
You have to act reserved
and don’t go with
Saci and his family to
the YMCA for swimming
and track walking.
That’s too much for you.
You talk with your doctor,
Nitai Gaurasundara.
He proposes titration,
a slight change or adjustment
in meds, a little more of
this, a little more of that.
You begin to give up hope
of any recovery and settle
for patch work pain relief.
Your body is slowing down
and losing it’s resiliency.
You don’t mend from a
broken collarbone and your
ankle doesn’t allow you
to walk far, nor do you
wish to resort to surgery,
you’re past the stage
of recovering from something
like that.
Slowing down is imposed
upon you, but it’s only
a bodily condition. The
spirit soul is forever young.
The soul is not lame or
in pain, you have to
stay in contact with your
self. It’s the joyful stage
and what you really want,
it’s available to you by
remembering guru and Krishna
and serving them with all
your heart, despite your
crippled and aged apparatus.
Free write
Yesterday I wrote a poem of chronic pain and then experienced it overnight. Today I wrote a poem about slowing down in old age. But you can live in Krishna consciousness, the spirit soul and God and guru. Stay connected in bhakti under all circumstances. Today I’m feeling the presence of migraine in the right eye, but all morning I’ve avoided taking medicine. If it lingers on a few hours, I may take the med, even though the pain is not fully developed.
The right eye pressure increased, and I took the medicine and the pain went down. In my poem today, Slowing Down, I wrote of my regimen of relaxing and not pushing myself to produce so much in writing or otherwise. It’s my senior citizen, invalid way of life. I have to live this way to avoid repeated rainfalls. Today I’ll be sitting for lunch with Saci-suta’s family. Afterwards, I may watch part of the football game, the Minnesota Vikings vs. the Dallas Cowboys. These are playoff games and the final winners go to the Super Bowl. Saci-suta is becoming decisive about which house he wants to purchase for me. He’ll try to make arrangements. I have to leave The Yellow Submarine after four years, so this place in upstate New York will be my final location for the rest of my life. I plan to share my residence with Baladeva and Narayana-kavaca; they will be my caretakers and friends.
In Caitanya-caritamrta, Prabhupada described three paths of perfection: 1) Sadhana-siddhi or the path of following regulative principles, 2) Nitya-siddhi or never forgetting Krishna at any time and 3) Krpa-siddhi or receiving the mercy of Krishna and the acaryas. Krishnadas Kaviraja stressed krpa-siddhi. He wrote that if an ordinary person takes shelter of Lord Caitanya and the Pancha-tattva, he can speak or write splendidly even if he is dumb, he can cross a mountain even if he is lame, and he can see the stars in the sky even if he is blind. I liked hearing the power of causeless mercy even beyond the achievement of one’s own merit in rigidly following the principles.
[gplayer href="http://www.sdgonline.org/audio/1/SDG-100117-001.mp3" ]Satsvarupa dasa Goswami – voice[/gplayer]
Last night, when I went to bed, I had a slight disturbance in my eye but not enough to take any medicine. At 11:30 P.M. I woke up with a fully developed regular headache and took medication. At 1:30 A.M. I still had the headache and took more medication. Gradually the headache went down, but I wasn’t able to sleep so I was actually up since 11:30 P.M. I began my japa in the mind, but it was very sleepy. After four rounds I wasn’t able to come out of the slump. I decided to pause and write in my journal. I think I’ll do better when I’m back in my regular place, in The Yellow Submarine.
Prabhupada meditation
Prabhupada, sometimes I pray directly to Krishna in the journal, but even then it’ll be only because you allow me to approach Krishna Himself as He says in Bhagavad-gita 8.7 that one should think of Him as always a person. He says that we should always think of Him in the form of Krishna and go on with our activities of fighting like Arjuna. “With your activities dedicated to me and your intelligence fixed on me you will attain Me without doubt.”
Then Krishna says in the ninth verse of the eighth chapter, “One should meditate on the Supreme Person as the one who knows everything, as He who is the oldest, who is the controller, who is smaller than the smallest, who is the maintainer of everything, who is beyond all material conception, who is inconceivable and who is always a person. He is luminous like the sun and He is transcendental beyond this material nature.” We can pray like that, we can move in this sacred realm of Bhagavad-gita with faith because you’ve delivered Bhagavad-gita As It Is.
Prabhupada, I want to praise you more. I want my heart to break in the best sense. I’d like to cry tears, I’d like to fall down on my knees in dandavat. But I can’t do it in a feverish way. I mean an imitative way. You know me, Prabhupada, I tend to be sort of dry by nature and always suspicious of excessive emotions. But emotions placed in loving service to you are the perfection of emotions, and you even say the perfection of devotional service can be achieved by crying tears.
Let that day come when twice a day or more, I can cry tears of love feeling my unworthiness in praise of you—the praise that I didn’t do enough when you were present, and the praise that I haven’t done enough since you’ve been gone. And the lack of work, I may cry that I’m not serving you enough and cry that I haven’t achieved what would be just a normal and decent amount of advancement and not be complacent. But still I feel confident that you do love me, and I want to keep praying like this. Krishna loves me, Prabhupada loves me, don’t doubt it. Now you love him back. You can do it with words, you can do it with writings, and of course, you can do it with your acts, show that you are grateful to Prabhupada for what he gave. I guess I did it today Prabhupada, by talking to the devotees here, and I’ll do it tomorrow. I’m doing all these things for you. But that’s your mercy that you engage me in this way, otherwise, I’d just be a vagabond of one kind or another, faithless, foolish and so on, in this material world heading for a next birth not desirable.
Now I’m coming to the end of the prayer, Prabhupada. It’s just a short exercise you could say, but I feel my vocal cords are really vibrating in what they’re meant to do instead of just loitering around and saying things that I have heard somebody say or whatever useless things. I want to vibrate this kind of praise for you even though it’s foolish and like a baby speaking. You will not find fault with me or stop me from trying to serve you and praise you.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada. Thank You, dear Lord Krishna, for sending us a perfect spiritual master. Please give us the divine vision to see him as pure devotee and not with any material vision which would imagine defects in the body or the activities of the spiritual master. This is forbidden as described by Rupa Gosvami in Upadesamrta, and I want it to be forbidden in my life too.
Chronic Blues
My blues are daily
headaches which have been
with me almost
thirty years.
Sometimes I wait to die
so they’ll be over,
sometimes I transcend them,
sometimes I endure them,
tolerate the syndrome and
live around it in a
limited way.
When I get clear time I’ve
written books or even
lectured and met with
people and carried on
correspondence.
I’ve tried many different
cure regimens for my
chronic blues, but
nothing has worked,
so I take it that Providence
wants me this way.
It’s either a token punishment
for my past misdeeds
or a personal handling
by the Lord for my
ultimate purification.
It has been worse in
the past with pinning-down
migraines forcing me to
bed for many hours in a
dark room. Such crucial
pain has lately avoided me,
but I get regular daily
headaches every day twice
a day.
I don’t like to complain.
There are people suffering
worse diseases, and
even terminal disease
has come to colleagues in
Krishna consciousness. My
chronic blues “terminate”
my active life on a
daily basis but do not
threaten to kill me.
I’m writing now in clear time.
I make limited endeavors,
writing, chanting and hearing the pastimes
of the Lord. This morning
Saci read that Lord Caitanya
visited the temple of Lord Shiva
daily when He was in Varanasi.
Prabhupada explains that
a devotee honors every living
entity, so why not honor Lord Shiva?
But he does not accept him as
the supreme lord, but as His
servant. After His victory over the
Mayavadis, Sri Caitanya had become
very famous in Varanasi and when
He went to the bathing ghata,
hundreds of thousands of people
would gather to see Him.
The Lord would raise His
arms and shout “Hari!”
He also taught Sanatana Gosvami
for two months and sent him
to reside in Vrndavana.
I hear the readings and
relish them and relish
sharing them with you
in a conversational poem.
I just spoke with Matsya
Devi Dasi on the phone. She
has a torn rotor cuff in
her arm. An MRI scan
revealed that she may have to
undergo surgery, although there
are risks. She’s just another
example of someone with
the chronic blues. Life in
this body leads to pain.
When people ask me how
I feel I say, “Alright.”
Prabhupada has teased about
the man who’s lying in
traction in the hospital
and when asked how he
feels he replies “I’m alright.”
”What is this alright?”
comments Prabhupada.
We’re all suffering in one
way or another, and we have
to make do.
You make a song
in your illness and
it comes out soulful.
Blues are a method in
music, you transcend grit
pain and downtime with
a melody that celebrates
and cries in rhythm.
I like to hear it,
it accompanies me in
my solitary hours.
Oh cry, spirit soul,
we are all dear servants
of our spiritual master
who bore his own physical suffering
to deliver us from maya.
Cry out, spirit soul,
you’ll be delivered in good
time and join your
spiritual master in the
painless spiritual world.
This period of suffering has to
be, it is the nature of
living in the material world.
Cry, little servant, and
celebrate your good fortune.
Encourage others and wish
them well in their austerity,
just as you wish yourself
well in your inevitable
journey with chronic blues.
Free write
I’m waiting for Kirtana-rasa to arrive and meet with me. We’ll have our talk in Saci’s house because a yoga instructor will be conducting a class in the upstairs room of this house. Kirtana-rasa is a criminal lawyer who works to support his dynamic family of three growing children and a wife in their big, old house in Saratoga Springs. His wife, Beth, conducts a popular yoga class in a downtown studio and once a month she sings bhajans with harmonium at their house. At that time Kirtana-rasa gives a lecture on Krishna-lila from Prabhupada’s books. I’ve heard his lectures, and they are very good.
The painting of Radharani in separation really dominates this room....
The painting of Radharani in separation really dominates this room. I will be relieved when we leave here, and I don’t have to look at it. Although Her pain is transcendental it is unnerving to look at. I try not making eye contact with the picture. Radha-Govinda are on a shelf in the room, but I sit at the desk with my back to Them.
My poem today, Chronic Blues, is about my headache syndrome. I turned it into grist for the mill of writing. My life is like living in a region of high probability of rain. I never know when it will cloud over, and I’ll be visited with the next headache. At least twice a day the rain falls. I spoke on the phone today with Nitai Gaurasundara. He said he will phone me again on Monday when I’m back in Delaware and maybe prescribe some new medicine to counteract the alarming frequency of the “rainfall”.
I talked for over an hour with Kirtana-rasa. We spoke of many things, including his family life, a book about how cruelly animals are treated before they are slaughtered for the fast food industry and how that book changed his wife’s viewpoint and made her radically inclined toward no eating of eggs or even milk.
I went with the men into the hot tub with water-jets and then the sauna. It was an intense experience, sweat opening up my pores all over the body. The sauna was over 200°, and I only stayed in it for about ten minutes. Baladeva kept making comparisons to the sauna and Vrndavana in the summer.
[gplayer href="http://www.sdgonline.org/audio/1/SDG-100116-001.mp3" ]Satsvarupa dasa Goswami – voice[/gplayer]
5:50 A.M
I rose at 3:00 A.M. and used the bathroom. Then I began my silent chanting. Kaulini told us she chants in her comfortable chair, facing the street. She sees a distant light from a house, and it reminds her of seeing distant lights from the train in India. She fantasizes seeing the shapes of peacocks in the trees, probably from her impressions at Gita Nagari. I like to think that she’s up early chanting in her chair, just as I am. The picture of Radharani over my desk dominates me, although I do not like to look at it so often. I timed my chanting and one round came out seven and a half minutes. So I’m not chanting so rapidly, but I am carefully enunciating the words and paying attention to the syllables. Baladeva is probably up now too and Saci-suta also. I told them that I’d rather not be disturbed while I chant, I’d rather chant alone. That is my habit. I had a headache at four, but I subdued it with medicine.
Prabhupada meditation
I want to thank you, Prabhupada, for giving us Krishna and giving me so many opportunities to serve you including this one of being able to talk with you to clear my mind of bad things.
Just today, Prabhupada, I was listening to your lecture while I was massaging you in your murti, it’s always nice to be able to do that, but somehow my head was a little weak being prone to headache, and it seems at times like that I need physically soothing mellow sound vibration, or so I tell myself. Your voice was speaking in Bombay over amplification in 1974, and it sounded harsh to me. It sounded rough, it sounded gruff. You were preaching strongly the same examples. You were giving the example of matter and spirit. Material becomes spiritual like when an iron rod is put into the fire. As you spoke you became enthusiastic by the example with that wonderful quality you have of treating the same material freshly, and you said again the same example and you repeated it. It’s a very good example you said. The iron rod becomes hotter and hotter and then it becomes like fire.
But rather than hearing with deep appreciation and understanding that that’s happening to me and resolving to stay in the fire, my mind was rebelling and saying that I couldn’t hear this. Then saying, I better not hear it then if I’m not going to appreciate it, if I’m going to be offensive and think that Prabhupada’s voice is too rough. But I stayed with it, and I hope I rode through the storm of finding-fault with your voice. But that’s the kind of thing I mean, those kind of irritations and outward disturbances that come as I become a prey of the fault-finding mentality.
I don’t want to fall like that, Prabhupada, that’s why I like it when I do get inspired hearing you. It’s a fact that I do have certain attitudes or moods where I’m more receptive. It may have to do with physical strength, time of the day and so on, that one is more receptive. I listen to you early in the morning when I go into the bathroom, you know all this, and some times are better than others. But I don’t want some velvet smooth orator or popular singer’s dulcet tones to soothe me. I want your words, and if you’re rough I know it’s the hoarse voice of the military general who’s been giving orders and himself going forward with battle cry for many hours and years and he’s grown old like Grandfather Bhisma. You can’t expect him to be like some court eunuch or some Gandharva or cinema singer all pampered and nice for ladies. If he’s rough, if he’s tough that’s another source of inspiration.
I’m less than ideal. I’m not so brave, in some ways I was better. But I don’t want to be centered on myself. I want to be centered on you and that way be centered for going to Krishna. My lacking should be seen as self-realization of my tinyness and my weakness in comparison to all-great, all-pure Krishna. Not that I am only here myself in the universe to rejoice about greatness or to lament over my smallness. But I see myself in humility, in contrast to you and Krishna, and therefore I want to stay and glorify you.
Straight Street
1.
I live on the straight
street where I follow the
four rules and chant
sixteen rounds. No deviations
for me but straight
sannyasi life confining
my association with women
and not playing guitars.
They can examine my lifestyle,
and all they’ll find is a
quiet life of writing
and relaxing of the head.
I can expend my energy
today to meet with devotees
and examine houses up
for sale.
I’m considering moving to the
”Bhajana Belt”. In the future
even if I leave my
Yellow Submarine, I
would live the same
among new friends,
keeping mostly to myself
in a yellow-painted room
where I count the hours
in solitude.
Straight Street for me
means staring at pictures
of Radharani in
Dhanurdhara Swami’s room,
and a portrait of Prabhupada.
I don’t venture very far.
My days of much physical
travel and lecturing are
over. I taste the
sweet remnants of
prasadam and finish
my older years in
a conservative vein.
I welcome the memories of
what I’ve done and go
over them in my mind.
I love the people of
Krishna and encourage
them in their ways.
My days are limited
but I find content
in simple pleasures
and excursions I am
able to complete.
I love the music in my head,
the slow coursing of blood
through my veins and
intend to live out my
years in simple comforts
in a place of protection.
I cannot expect to accomplish
great projects but my daily
journal and keeping
myself clean in habits
and attitude.
I’m on Straight Street
in Prabhupada’s movement,
among his entourage carving
out a preaching place for
myself via the writing
of a poem and free write
and more, if I’m able.
I pledge to stay straight
in his service and finish
my life without a hitch.
2.
In bhakti the devotee
considers hearing about the Lord
to be the topmost practice.
The Mayavadi does not know
his position and considers
himself equal with God
or that everyone is God.
Despite being puffed up that he is
liberated, he falls down
and takes to humanitarian causes,
although he declares the universe
to be false.
The bhakta takes to spiritual
humanitarian work and spreads
the holy name around the world.
On Straight Street I hear
of Lord Caitanya’s debate with
the Mayavadi sannyasis of Varanasi.
They confessed to Him that the
arguments of Sankara did not
satisfy them and they accepted
them just as party policy.
They preferred the conclusions
of the Vaisnavas as presented
by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu.
He convinced them, and they
shared prasadam together.
They then saw His sankirtana
as exalted spiritual emotions
and no longer called Him a
sentimentalist.
I hear these conclusions and
share them with you
on Straight Street.
Free write
Saci-suta has brought the Radha-Govinda Deities down to an altar in the room where I’m staying.
We looked at three houses up for sale. They each had pros and cons, each seemed usable, and we could not arrive at a decision. Baladeva said we should not be in a hurry because it is such an expensive commitment.
Saci read the closing sections of Lord Caitanya in Varanasi. When the Lord ate lunch with the impersonalists, Prabhupada remarks that it was not exactly prasadam, because the Mayavadis don’t offer their food to the deity, or if they do it is to Lord Shiva or the five deities they worship, including a group of demigods. But Lord Caitanya is God, and He can do anything He likes as He distributes His mercy of love of God. A preacher should follow Lord Caitanya and engage all people he meets and offer them full love of Krishna.
I want to do another video/audio live reading of poetry. The webmaster said there was a surge of visitors to the web site after I did the first broadcast. There are technical difficulties, however.
We visited for an hour with Kaulini Devi Dasi. She is a fine person, and relaxing to be with. She is in contact with many devotees. She is transcribing interviews with female disciples of Srila Prabhupada for a book of memoirs by his daughters.
There is a soulful painting of Srimati Radharani on the wall right over the desk of this room. She is sitting alone on the ground, with Her elbow on Her raised knee and Her hand on Her head. Her eyes are filled with tears, and they streak down Her cheeks. It is not an easy picture to look at, just as Christ crucified is not easy to look at. She looks rejected and stunned. The painting could be titled, “Radha Feeling Separation From Krishna”. She is all dressed up and garlanded, looking beautiful and waiting for Krishna to come and enjoy with Her. But He is not coming. It gives you subtle pain to see Her sitting in this situation.
[gplayer href="http://www.sdgonline.org/audio/1/SDG-100115-001.mp3" ]Satsvarupa dasa Goswami – voice[/gplayer]
5:00 A.M
I got up at 2:30 A.M. and took a shower and dressed. I had difficulty chanting and tried to take a nap. But it felt too cold in bed, and I had to get up. I’m unaccustomed to my new situation here in New York, being out of my usual environment. Chanting is difficult. A headache has begun, and I’ve taken medicine for it. I have a busy day ahead with appointments to see houses, and I’ll be seeing devotees. And I’ll continue to chant my rounds and hope that they can get better.
Chanting Hare Krishna in
a new location. You
try to adjust to a
new chair, and the
fact that Saci plans
to join you for japa
and the fact that a
headache came.
You press on with your
silent mantras
as you are bound
to do. It is a sacred
duty, otherwise you’d
leave it aside
and relax in your
chair. But go on,
man, chant your
beads, and merge
holy with harinama.
Prabhupada meditation
In 1972, Hridayananda Maharaja and I were traveling together with a group of brahmacaris in two vans. We were in St. Louis when we heard that Prabhupada had arrived in Los Angeles. During one morning japa period, Hridayananda Maharaja began to speak about Prabhupada, and before long he was advocating that we should immediately go and see Prabhupada in Los Angeles. I reminded him that we had programs to do in St. Louis and in other Midwest states, but Hridayananda Maharaja reminded me how rare it was to get Prabhupada’s association. It would also be good for the men on the party. I agreed, “All right, let’s do it.” When we asked the men, they said, “What a great idea! Haribol! We’re going to see Prabhupada!” And off we went.
When we arrived in New Dvaraka, even before seeing Prabhupada, we heard about him. Devotees told us what Prabhupada was saying in his lectures and on walks, and we became more anxious to see him. We stayed with Prabhupada for about a week, and then he traveled to New York and on to Europe. Rejuvenated by his personal association, we were happy to return to our Midwest program. In those days, although devotees sometimes went out of their way to be with Prabhupada, no one attempted to travel with him all the time except for his designated group. You couldn’t become a tramp and travel around just to be with him. Perhaps if we could do it over again, knowing how rare Prabhupada was and what we have now lost, more devotees might have attempted to tag along with him. But perhaps not, because Prabhupada set the standard, and he did not like taggers-on. If, for example, he was leaving Australia, he did not expect a bunch of devotees from Australia to fly on the plane with him to Hawaii and America. If he saw even one extra person riding on the plane with him, he would say, “What is he doing here?” Prabhupada was also responsive to the ISKCON leaders. If the leader of Australia said, “Prabhupada, I need these men,” Prabhupada would not allow them to tag along. In the case of our run from St. Louis to Los Angeles, we were able to do it without too much disruption. The ability to run to Prabhupada, just to be with him, was a great freedom.
If you stayed in your place, Prabhupada would come there sooner or later. Or, if you were in a small outpost, Prabhupada would visit nearby. If you were in St. Louis, you could go to see him when he went to Detroit; if you were in Boston, you could go to see him when he was in New York. And then there was the annual Mayapura festival, beginning with 1974 when it took international shape. Once the routine started, it seemed there would always be another Mayapura festival (although in retrospect, we see that Prabhupada participated in the festival for only four years). From 1974-77 it was a very important part of Krishna consciousness to go to the festival and be with Prabhupada in Mayapura and Vrndavana. When a temple leader mentioned to Prabhupada that it was very costly for the devotees to visit India every year, Srila Prabhupada insisted that as many as possible should go. He gave the example that although food prices rise, people continue to eat. Almost everyone had a chance to see him from time to time and at least a chance to write to him. No one thought that it would be impossible to ever see Prabhupada or that he would never visit near your center. You would go on doing your service, but there would be that anticipation. This was also the mood of the gopis; after Krishna left Vrndavana, they served in separation, but they were always in anticipation of His return.
When Prabhupada visited your center, friends of the temple could see him, and some were fortunate to see Prabhupada on repeated visits. I remember one old man who used to visit the Calcutta temple. When Prabhupada would arrive there, only a few devotees would come downstairs and play on the mrdanga and karatalas to greet Prabhupada as he came up. But that old man would always come running down with great enthusiasm, make his obeisances, and cry out, “Prabhupada! Save the whole world, Prabhupada!”
A Hound Dog’s Poem
1.
I see the master going
in and out of the house,
loading the mini-van with
luggage and paintings.
I anticipate he’s going to travel
and so emerge from under the
porch making a moaning sound
as I wait for the car door
to open and then jump in
the backseat to be sure
they won’t leave without me.
They’re packing sandwiches
for a picnic stop and
music CDs to pass the
time and keep the driver
awake. There will be
just one driver for the
seven hour journey so
he’s sleeping late to be
well rested. The one
passenger has been up
since 2:00 A.M. having
weathered one headache,
and he’s holding steady.
He’s like the hound dog,
mentally already sitting
in the car with big
eyes, watching every move.
The passenger will
wear his hat, sweater,
coat and boots with
foot brace in the car,
though it may get too
warm for all that
paraphernalia.
He’s armed with CDs
of jazz, bhajans and
Prabhupada lectures,
to keep the driver alert.
He’s also prepared to talk
with him and employ
all strategies of T.P.
(time passing).
If he gets a headache
he’s prepared to engage
in “whack-a-mole”.
Whack-a-mole is a game
where a child holds a
hammer and faces a play-
board where “moles” pop
up in different places. The
idea is to smash the moles
down as soon as they appear.
So at the first sign of
headache he will engage
in a preemptive strike
with aggressive medication
to smash the H.A. back
in its place. If it doesn’t
work he’ll have to endure
as they drive the long miles
up the New Jersey Turnpike
heading for New York State.
If you’d like to accompany
us I’ll give you a travel log
of what happened as we attempted
a uneventful trip.
2.
The three of us, Baladeva,
me, and the imaginary hound dog in the
back, left promptly at 8:00 A.M.
We drove for an hour, in
sunshine, and stopped at a health
store for water. On the way
we passed geese and Baladeva
queried, “How do they know which
goose is the boss?”
I said “The biggest,” but he
said he might be slow.
I said, “The young feisty one.”
And we continued to the
Delaware Memorial Bridge.
So far so good. We
saw a bad accident on the way,
two cars “totaled” in a
face-off with a school bus.
It’s not just crazy out there
it’s certifiably insane.
We saw the sign for Albany,
we were two-thirds through our
trip. We just passed a rest
area and opted to stop at
the next one in thirty miles.
There we’ll stop and have our
sandwiches and orange juice.
I told Baladeva how I
traveled through the
U.S. It seems like a
past life when I
was strong and young.
He also traveled around
the country, selling
paintings from a truck.
Thousands of miles,
decades of years, survivors.
“Thar she blows!” Baladeva
sights the Catskills. The
last leg of the journey goes
smoothly with a clear head
under sunny skies.
Free write
Last night I was nervous trying to relax, fearing a headache, and looking forward to our travel. I went down to the kitchen were Baladeva was puttering around. Narayana soon joined us. Baladeva began teasing me, comparing me to a hound dog who suspects the master is going to travel and jumps into the truck a night before, just so he won’t be left behind. He carried on in a comical fashion, laughing at his own jokes and causing me and Narayana to crack up. Once Baladeva gets into a routine, he’s an excellent comedian. He diffused my nervousness with this exaggerated, absurd comparison of me to the hound dog who’s determined to travel in the family truck. It put off my head ache, and I went on to be clearheaded—until I woke in the morning with clanging pain. Now I’ve chanted all my rounds, and I’m quietly waiting, like the patient but anticipatory hound dog, for the hours to pass until it’s time to travel.
On the New Jersey Turnpike we got caught in a bumper to bumper traffic jam. I asked Baladeva, “If we actually had a hound dog, would he be impatient now?” (I was feeling impatient.)
He said, “No, the dog would be sleeping.”
“Intelligent,” I said. “He knows how to pass time.”
Halfway through the journey I started feeling twinges behind both eyes. The sun shone brightly through the windows. I wore sunglasses. I made easy conversation with Baladeva, to keep both of us alert and in good spirits. At his suggestion I took headache medicine and hoped to calm down.
We arrived safely at Stuyvesant Falls at 2:30 P.M., after a six and a half hour journey. Saci-suta greeted us and showed me where I’ll be staying. I met Kaulini Devi Dasi who was upstairs in the yoga studio cleaning the Radha-Govinda Deities with lemon juice and gopi-candana. Baladeva moved me in with all my paraphernalia. Saci-suta said we have appointments to look at houses tomorrow. Now I’m doing the same thing I’d be doing in The Yellow Submarine. “There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done/ There’s nothing you can say that can’t be sung/ There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done/ All you need is love/ All you need is love/ All you need is love, love, love/ Love is all you need.”
We’re going with Saci-suta to see his daughter play basketball.
I’m back now from the basketball game. Saci-suta’s daughter made crucial points in a victory for her team in overtime. It was exciting watching the game along with my god-sister Kaulini Devi Dasi. Keli-lalita coached the girl’s team, and Saci-suta will coach the second game of grown-up girls in high school. I came back after the first game and took my snack.
[gplayer href="http://www.sdgonline.org/audio/1/SDG-100114-001.mp3" ]Satsvarupa dasa Goswami – voice[/gplayer]
4:18 A.M.
I woke at 2 A.M. with a ringing headache. I aggressively attacked it with medicine and stayed in bed chanting. Within half an hour the headache was subdued, and I was happy to get up and continue my chanting in my chair. Narayana came up and woke up the Deities and we talked pleasantly. Now I am continuing my chanting quietly in the shelter of my bhajana kutira. The chanting goes well as I pile up the numerical strength and keep steady, paying attention to the mantras in my mind. It is a simple exercise but deep and meaningful. I am very grateful to have been given this maha-mantra by Prabhupada. Just as Lord Caitanya expresses to the Mayavadis in Varanasi how happy He was to have received the maha-mantra from His spiritual master, so I am indebted to Srila Prabhupada, even though I have not received the results that Lord Caitanya received from chanting, such as experiencing bodily transformations and as His guru told him, “The highest stages of love of God.” I experience fulfillment of my vow and a nice enjoyment of mantra meditation.
Narayana came up and we spoke. He has decided not to go with us to New York, so it will be just Baladeva and I, leaving at an estimated departure of 8 A.M. I may do some journal writing on the road. I look forward to the trip with keep anticipation and hope I do not get plagued with too many headaches as to jeopardize the mission of the visit. I’m trying to prove that I can still function outside of sitting in the chair all day.
Prabhupada meditation
I want to speak to the inner Prabhupada although I can hear you saying there’s no difference between inner Prabhupada and outer Prabhupada. But when we’re out of the habit of doing this kind of talking it takes a concentration of will to go from the outer duties of life to think within. Some devotees are always living with you by virtue of their dedication to your mission through one of your temples or protecting your movement, preaching your movement in various ways. I like to think I’m also doing that but I want to be able to talk with you in separation from you.
I want to thank you for giving us all Krishna consciousness by your coming to the West and taking so much time to travel everywhere and give your devotees a perfect example of dedication to a movement for Krishna consciousness, a society of Krishna consciousness and to what individual practice of it is. You gave such an example of being absorbed in the philosophy and preaching it. You gave an example of being compassionate. Your compassion sometimes took the form of anger towards the mudhas, the non-devotees who don’t accept Krishna and those who even directly try to stop others from taking to Krishna consciousness. You preached to them with logic and scripture. Those who came to you, you took individual care of them, and you certainly did that for me from when I first came to you in 1966 in New York City, 26 Second Avenue.
So I want to thank you for that example you gave us and a mission that you gave us how to stay clear of the vices of Kali-yuga and to become followers of Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam. There was no chance of that for us by our birth and upbringing but only when you came to give us Krishna’s message. Now it’s a wonder of wonders that people like me are practicing Krishna consciousness.
Prabhupada, I still have misgivings and doubts that hold me back. As far as I can see there’s no question of my leaving your service, but Maya is very strong and even that could happen. She could take me away. We have to be very serious you always said, to show Maya that we don’t want her anymore. Otherwise you give her just a little indication, and she’ll take you away. So I’m praying Prabhupada
My Foolish Heart
1.
Some years ago my
foolish heart betrayed me
and I fell down with
a woman.
That’s all over now.
I’ve been chastised and
chastened by the public
confession, which was widely
read on the internet.
The wounds have healed,
although some ugly scars remain.
I’m not allowed to initiate,
and I’m expected to stay
low profile.
I’ve adapted to that
and accepted that I’ve
been treated fairly for
what I have done.
I committed adultery.
It was my foolish
heart that betrayed me
and let me into a
snare. I disobeyed
my spiritual master
and acted toward
a man and woman unfair.
I repent my misdeeds
daily, I’m sorry for
what I’ve done.
It was my foolish heart
that betrayed me, and
it will never happen again.
I am not a stainless
sannyasi but a man
with a past.
I am
forgiven by kind Vaisnavas
but I bear the brand
on my forehead:
I committed adultery.
2.
I believe that Krishna
and Prabhupada have
accepted me back again.
I request the devotees to
overlook my mistake and
to accept me back again.
My actual heart is not
foolish, but wed to Krishna
and Prabhupada. I live
in a post-falldown world,
where I have not temptations
or mayic flirtations, I’m
freed from the bondage
of falldown.
I’ve paid for my sin.
I have a headache disease,
and it’s my “cross” to
bear through my old age.
I wish I was deeper
and purer and stronger,
but I must accept myself
as I am and surrender
to Radha and Krishna and
my Guru Maharaja.
My Dear Lord Krishna….
I just noticed today that for several days I have not written to You in prayer. I stopped doing them in my new attitude of trying to relax more and to write less. As Baladeva said, “Something has to go.” So the daily prayers stopped, but I am making one today. I acknowledge that I need more rest, that I cannot exert myself so much, and therefore, perhaps I can not write You a long prayer daily. I produced a whole book of prayers, My Dear Lord Krishna, and I am glad I can share them.
I wrote the above paragraph in the morning, but then I felt a headache approaching and had to stop it. I am not sure I’m “into” praying anymore to my Lord, at least not in formal prose exercises. I know my readers have liked my prayers, but that’s not enough reason to write them. I have to really want to direct myself to Lord Krishna. I’m not sure I can do it, not for the time being. It’s part of my change in attitude towards my abilities to produce.
Free write
I had a dream last night about Scandanavian devotees living under the oppression of the Nazis. I was supplying them with contraband literature which had an indirect rasika purport. It was fascinating how the books conveyed Krishna’s confidential pastimes in an obscure, hidden way. The books gave these devotees life and nectar in their restrictive existence. Dreams are so strange and chart their own way even regardless of siddhanta.
So we have informed Saci Suta that we are coming to visit him on Thursday. He is preparing places for us to stay. I will stay in Dhanurdara’s Swami’s rooms. It will be a long, trying car journey to get there. I go for a daily walk in the neighborhood, on the footpath bordered by a white fence. There is a big flock of geese who are staying for the winter. They walk and cackle on the ice in the pond. Two ducks were floating in the water. We approached a man and a woman walking towards us, holding hands. They were both black people. I raised my hand in the peace position and said, “Hi.” He said, “Take Care,” in an almost warning tone. I asked Baladeva, how long he’ds been away in India, and he replied, “Six months.” I said, “I don’t know how I did it without you.” But then Dattatreya was here, helping with the typing.
I get through the day fragilely. I will be expected to be more active over the weekend, meeting with devotees. I chant my sixteen rounds all in the morning, starting as soon as I get up, at 3 A.M. I keep using the word “cautiously” to describe the nature of my japa. As with everything else, I can’t be too strenuous in chanting. But I desire to be attentive to the names and to add up the numerical strength. I chant maha-mantras during the day, in my mind. And I sing songs and think of melodies. One of the songs I think of is the following: an introduction to a children’s cartoon shown on TV, “Everyday, when you’re are walking down the street,/everybody that you meet/ has an original point of view./ And I say: Hey! What a wonderful kind of day,/ if we can learn to work and play,/ and get along with each other./ You’ve got to listen to the heart,/ listen to the rhythm of the heart./ It’s a simple message, and it comes from the heart,/ just believe in yourself and that’s a good place to start.” I’ve been hooked by such optimistic pleasantries.
Satsvarupa dasa Goswami