Meeting of Disciples and friends of SDG
The Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall
845 Hudson Avenue
Stuyvesant Falls, New York 12174
There is plenty of parking near the Hall. The facility is just a few minutes’ walk from SDG’s home at 909 Albany Ave.
10:00 – 10:30 A.M. Kirtana
10:30 – 11:00 A.M. Presentation by Satsvarupa Maharaja
11:15 – 12:30 P.M. Book Table
12:30 – 1:15 P.M. Arati and kirtana
1:15 — 2:15 P.M. Prasadam Feast
Baladeva Vidyabhusana at [email protected] or (518) 754-1108
Krsna dasi at [email protected] or (518) 822-7636
SDG: “I request as many devotees as possible to attend so we can feel the family spirit strongly. I become very satisfied when we are all gathered together.”
******
Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya-līlā 20.124–125: “O great learned devotee, although there are many faults in this material world, there is one good opportunity—the association with devotees. Such association brings about great happiness. . . . .”
Srila Prabhupāda: “Therefore, our Society is association. If we keep good association, then we don’t touch the darkness. What is the association? There is a song, sat-saṅga chāḍi’ kainu asate vilāsa, te-kāraṇe lāgila mora karma-bandha-phāṅsa (Gaurā Pahū, verse 3). Sat-saṅga. Sat-saṅga means association with the devotees. So the one poet, Vaiṣṇava poet, is regretting that, ‘I did not keep association with the devotees, and I wanted to enjoy life with the nondevotees. Therefore I’m being entangled in the fruitive activities.’ Karma bandha phāṅsa. Entanglement.” [Conversation with David Wynne, July 9, 1973, London]
“Hari Hari,
“This week’s health report is anti-climactic in the sense that Satsvarupa Maharaja is still getting headaches and nausea despite the meetings and busy writing schedule being over. Hopefully he will come down to a sustainable pace soon. Just today he had two migraine headaches and had to cancel his physical therapy session. To end on a dramatic note, the stair-chair/lift just broke and can’t be fixed for eight days. Tomorrow’s an appointment with a neurologist which can’t get rescheduled for three to four months. It means that Satsvarupa Maharaja has to go down and up the thirteen stairs to his room. This requires sitting down and going slowly one at a time—a difficult task for anyone, since they are so steep.
“Baladeva”
Prabhupada says we need to adjust our lives so that they keep pace with the Lord’s mission. In other words, we may go on doing our own thing—working as a family man or whatever—but we have to adjust that activity so that we can chant and hear. It sounds easy, and Prabhupada says it’s not so hard; Lord Caitanya has made the impossible possible as long as we don’t lose our focus on the main goal of life.
******
I bypassed my usual midnight rising; stayed in the sleeping bag until 1:14 A.M. Got out (cool) and began to chant japa with two votive candles on either side of Prabhupada, and Prabhupada chanting japa in my ears on tape. I have decided not to criticize or judge my japa here. (Imagine an artist or musician having to read a review of his work the way I punish my japa: “You’re no good! You stink!”)
******
“I guess I don’t think I’m going to die,” said baby-faced, chubby-cheeked Eloise, to explain why she doesn’t chant her rounds. A puerile remark, but do I also think that way? I could chant to Krsna and His Radha, pleading, “Please protect me. Please allow me to serve You and grant me a drop of mercy so that I may receive Nama Prabhu.”
******
“O Holy Name, the tips of Your toes are worshiped by the Upanisads. The holy name is my only shelter and treasure.” Thus pray Rupa and Sanatana Gosvamis.
O Holy Name, the power of illusion grabs me. Please wrap me in the sonata and serenade of life-giving kirtana, and the breath of japa utterances.
******
Fortunately, Prabhupada has also indicated that we can prosecute Krsna consciousness in any place by chanting and hearing.
“In this age, devotional service of hearing and repeating the holy glories of the Lord is strongly recommended, and one who takes the vow of renunciation of family life need not imitate the parivrajakacarya like Narada or Lord Caitanya, but may sit down at some holy place and devote his whole time and energy to hear and repeatedly chant the holy scriptures left by the great acaryas like the six Gosvamis of Vrndavana.” (Bhag. 1.6.13, purport)
Prabhupada protects us in either case.
******
I sat chanting, enjoying the 6:00 A.M. atmosphere and high hills and harbor, trees, I saw high corn growing. That’s the outward. Inward, a contented cat, he looked at the tourists, thought what is it to be a devotee, wondered whether he could attain love of Krsna. Could he even think of that? Keep chanting.
******
I’ve told you how I for one want to stay aloof from the world of nondevotees, and even from the wrangling world of how to improve ISKCON and manage it. I can take this privileged position, free of other responsibility, provided I actually fill my time with chanting and hearing. Then it becomes responsible.
******
You need to chant and to see the Lord in His element, the dhama. Pray to Him. He can reveal Himself to you anywhere. For some of us, we may feel more at home in a Western country, but if we are devotionally-minded, we are not really living in that country but in Vaikuntha. Srila Prabhupada said that. Is it like that here? Yes.
******
Sometimes we allude to private (secret) interest in deeper levels of Krsna consciousness. For me, inner life means concentration, saving optimum time to read Prabhupada’s books and to chant japa.
******
I turn the pages of the book or write with a pen or finger my beads and enumerate mantras. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have an inner spark. Why else would I do it? I don’t read any book at this hour; I read Srlla Prabhupada’s book. I don’t write anything; I free-write and steer to Krsna consciousness. I don’t chant “Coca-cola” or “Mr. John;” I chant Hare Krsna Hare Krsna, Krsna Krspa Hare Hare/ Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare. The inner is outer and the outer is inner, if you know what I mean.
pp. 121-24
A new-generation brahmacari sits before you, Srila Prabhupada, chanting japa. He’s so young. I think, “I’m senior.” What does that mean? Do I think it means that I should be given honor and privilege? It means I should do more. I should know more and give more. I should freely tell your pastimes to others and assure them of their relationship with you. I should speak from my own experience and encourage them about the power of reading your books. That’s what being senior means. It means taking responsibility.
The letter on your desk today is to Kesava dasa, January 1972. Big, strong Kesava, Karandhara’s brother. Karandhara was the captain of L.A., and Kesava was the captain of San Francisco. Those good old days. He requested initiation for many boys. “I have been receiving so many reports about how my disciples of the San Francisco temple cannot be surpassed in distributing my books. Sometimes they are selling as many as seventy Krsna books daily.”
The beginning of the tidal wave of book distribution in America. By hook or by crook. How did they do it? Kesava used to say, “No secret. Just go out and try.” They were determined and enthusiastic.
“By distributing my books profusely, you are giving me great encouragement to translate. And you are all helping me to fulfill the order which my Guru Maharaja gave me. So I am so much grateful to you, and I am sure Krsna will bless you a million times over for doing this work.”
That famous “million times” line—all ISKCON knew about it. “I hope you all my beloved disciples in San Francisco are in strong health and jolly mood.”
Prabhupada includes his upcoming itinerary in the P.S.—Jaipur, Bombay, Nairobi, Mayapur, Hong Kong, Sydney, Tokyo, Hawaii “and then return to U.S.”
Srila Prabhupada, as I sit here, a young brahmacari interrupted me. Said he’s been reading Narada-bhakti-sutra and likes it. He said he used to be Steve, and now he’s Sudama Vipra dasa. I remained stern because he was interrupting me, but I said something. He wants me to look at some of his recent poetry. I agreed. Srila Prabhupada, I will definitely encourage him with words. That’s what you want, or what’s the use of being a senior disciple?
The day you came to America, you didn’t have any assistant! I could never do what you did. I complain of headaches, but you had two heart attacks on the way to America. In Boston the day you arrived, you felt helpless, but then remembered what was written in the First Canto. Krsna-katha will cleanse the heart of the Americans too.
I see the light from your desk lamp shining on your lap. Your left hand is touching the mattress. You have fine hands. The mattress is covered with clean white sheets. The bell is tolling eleven.
pp. 55-57
Stow away like a bear in a tree
and you’ll never be spotted you’ll
eat all the honey
and get so fat you’ll
split the tree.
I knew a stowaway who came to
America to join the Hare Krsna movement
and one from a Soviet Union country.
I won’t tell you the details because it’s
a secret, but they were definitely seeking
their freedom to help create
a wave. It’s easy. You pay someone a
small sum and he puts you in a
bag of rice. But the stakes are high.
The human body can only take
so much. Reach out to Krsna with right hand
and left in prayer: “Lord, please
make me Your devotee. It doesn’t
matter where I go. I don’t
need the advantage of escaping one
country for another.”
I just need Your assurance Your
mercy. Stow me within Yourself and
let me see You in every blade of grass.
Krsna, I don’t know how
to do much at all.
Where are You hiding?
Why are you mixing in this
welfare crap? Just tell us
of Gopala even if
people are being mistreated
and are singing
the blues.
Well, I’m on a health regimen
that requires that I do what I want
whatever that is
and I think of cops crashing
shooting and knives
and me resting with no cat
a crick in the back of my neck
and an on-the-way headache.
Do whatever pleases?
I am pleased to think this story.
But I don’t answer my mail.
Except the ones from
Satya, Shasta, Satya,
Santaya,
Suka,
Sheila,
Sunyas—all too dear to me
to ignore.
I know they have their
particular troubles and
I have mine. Mine are
almost the same—my
advice too.
Lord Caitanya was conducting sankirtana in the house of Srivasa Thakura when He suddenly announced that He no longer felt ecstasy. Something was wrong. He claimed that a nondevotee must be present. The bhaktas searched the room and finally found Srivasa Thakura’s mother-in-law hiding in a basket. She was expelled, and the happy mood returned. Don’t ask me about that one. A death in the family also caused Lord Caitanya to notice the change in mood. But sometimes He went on no matter what, regardless of whether He had eaten or slept.
Can a non-Govardhana sila stow away on that hill and be taken by someone and worshiped? Will that stone carry the same potency? Could God build a rock so heavy He couldn’t lift it? Could Jagai and Madhai be reformed? What about those imposter Yadu boys who brazenly dressed as women and went to Narada and the other sages and asked, “Will my pregnancy result in a boy or a girl?” Oh, they got their due!
Don’t mess around with the Lord.
Unless you’re His unalloyed lover.
Cowherd boys: “Krsna, open Your mouth. We want to give You a nice sweet.” Then they placed a flower in His mouth instead.
Krsna dressed as a barber’s daughter and served Srimati Radharani to Her amazed ecstasy. All kinds of cheating and posing and stowing away in the realm of divine love.
But not an inch is allowed where Yama’s constables watch over.
pp. 21-23
“But we do not require to study books, save and except for some reference … We have got volumes of books also, so it is better for us to mind our own business than to divert our attention in the studies of other books. This was definitely forbidden by Lord Caitanya. Krsna conscious philosophy is as old as 120 million years at the least. so nothing can be compared to our philosophy, either in the matter of antiquity, philosophy, ethics, science, morality, etc., all incorrect vision and approved by great stalwart acaeryas is. So far as others are concerned, they cannot be compared even. For example, if Lord Jesus Christ said, “Thou shout not kill” or “Thou shall not murder” to the people, it does not reflect very good social structure of the audience. Our philosophy is above all these things… So the summary is that instead of diverting our attention to read such unauthorized books, better pay attention to more authorized Vaisnava literature.” (Letter to Hamsadutta, November 2, 1969)
It is only logical to reject non-Krsna conscious literature in favor of the bona fide Vedic literature. Even the greatest Western literatures are but preliminary studies of the Absolute Truth found in the Vedic literature. Absolute Truth begins in knowing that the self is different from the body. If mundane literature approaches this topic at all, it is only to speculate about the “mind/body problem“ or some other puzzle. Such speculations only hinder one seeking freedom from ignorance and repeated birth and death. Readers seeking aesthetic pleasure can take pleasure in the Vedic literature and make spiritual gains at the same time, whereas literature devoid of spiritual knowledge benefit no one. The pleasure one takes in such literatures is like the pleasure funeral goers take in observing the decorations of a corpse. Despite attempts to beautify it, a corpse remains a despicable thing, and any pleasure one takes in a corpse is also despicable.
In his letter, Prabhupada states that the literature of Buddhism and Christianity may contain the words of God, but those words are directed towards less spiritually elevated listeners and thus reflect a lower standard. They are not eternally applicable in the same way the Vedic literatures are. But Prabhupada cautions the devotee about being overly aggressive. “You should read our books over and over again, and as far as possible, do not try to enter into controversy. We do not concern ourselves with any other religion. Our religion is to become the servant of the servant of Krsna.”
******
“You have studied the Sanskrit language for some years. That is sufficient of study. There is no more need. Now you read our books. Not that lifelong you have to study Sanskrit. Simply read our Sanskrit wherever it appears in our books and teach these slokas to the devotees. Do not waste time by studying Sanskrit independently of our books.” (letter to D. Swami, August 6, 1972)
Upon receiving this letter from Prabhupada, Hrdayananda Goswami then immediately put aside his Sanskrit grammar. Thenceforward he studied Sanskrit only by reading Srila Prabhupada’s books. In this way, he became an accomplished Sanskrit scholar. Reading Prabhupada’s books, memorizing slokas, and teaching them to others provides sufficient knowledge of Sanskrit for most devotees.
pp. 41-43
Unsure of date and you’re crazy.
Unsure of faith, unsure of your
spiritual master? Is that craziness or
just fresh honesty? One said he was
“over my head in naive idealism.”
He meant he could no longer keep up
serving the mission if it meant denying
his own needs. And not from a
selfish point of view—but what
kind of guru and mission,
he asked,
neglects the individual? It should not—
he protested,
in rage, in silence.
As for me, maybe I’m simple. He keeps
me under control with a small stick.
But I too want love and explanations,
more advanced teachings suitable to
my physical and mental age,
want food and drink and
rest. We demand
as if the guru is a welfare state
and we are on the dole.
He saw me speak into a Dictaphone,
didn’t know . . . “You write first and then you
speak it?” Yes, I said, that’s my process.
Then he realized he’d walked in on
my most private, innocent act.
Given time, take time—
all is His. Do you feel His
presence in your body, in your life?
Nothing? Something. Fall asleep.
Pray to Him. Give me buddhi.
Let me serve You.
Save food, store food,
get a fuel supply, you never know . . .
Everything can be taken away including the
privilege of writing a book and printing it.
What about the people who can’t
publish, or who can’t write? What about . . .
the people?
What about the heat in the radiator?
The last hour before taking rest at night?
Thank You, thank You—
too many letters arrived, but I’ll
get to them . . . Grateful. Dutiful.
But tonight I couldn’t summon the voice.
Tomorrow our last day
until travel. I’m
okay because I ascertain God’s
presence in my heart.
How else could I live and
breathe or die?
All of us, how else?
pp. 44-47
To the family of Prabhupada’s followers,
This morning I was thinking again about the preaching vocation and how its “job security” is unlike that found in other kinds of work. I was imagining that I had to present identification papers during my travels. Someone was asking me for some proof of employment. I was explaining that for the past twenty-six years, I’ve been working for this spiritual movement and we don’t have such papers. I don’t receive pay.
I began thinking that it is sometimes a disappointment for devotees when they leave their work in the religious institution and go back to the secular job force and have nothing to show for their years of service. There have been no payments as such, and the material world categorizes their experience in the religious movement as mere proselytizing.
Yesterday, one devotee told me that some teenagers raised in the movement feel betrayed in two ways. First, they were promised from their earliest years that the Krsna conscious society was wonderful, but it turned out, from their point of view, not to be so wonderful. Second, they were told that the material world was a bad place, but they’re finding out that that’s not true either. When I heard this I had to smile at the naivete of these teenagers to think that we have been misrepresenting the material world and that actually, it is a happy place. Then I wondered why I don’t feel betrayed, even though I too see the many faults and disappointments in our institution.
Another devotee asked, “Are we supposed to be blind to the faults and just accept them?” “No,” I said, “but despite the faults of the institution, we’re not going to stop serving our guru or his mission. And we’re not going to stop associating with devotees. Our spiritual master has saved us. We have already experienced the suffering of living in the material world. We tried to enjoy, but couldn’t be happy. We began to see that this wasn’t because we were misfits, but rather, because it is the nature of the material world. We gained wisdom from our experience and then happily took to Krsna consciousness as the alternative.”
Because my spiritual master saved me, I’m indebted to him, and I am tasting something sublime. Therefore, I won’t leave, and I won’t become overwhelmed by examples of hypocrisy or corruption. I appreciate that the young people, in their honesty, become disillusioned when they see the gap between the idealistic descriptions of the Krsna consciousness movement and what is actually practiced, but they are deluded if they think they can be happy as rock musicians or office workers. They’ll have to learn for themselves, as we did. Yet it is the failure of the first generation of devotees that the movement is not such a wonderful place.
I began this train of thought while thinking of the preacher’s vocation and his satisfaction with it. But preaching means many, many things. It means facing issues such as why the young people who grow up in the movement leave. Isn’t that a preaching consideration? Or does preaching mean that we just go on giving lectures and distributing books and making up some explanation as to why those who live with us after a while decide not to live with us anymore? Preaching, Prabhupada said, means to increase the family members. So a family has to stay together, or the preaching is not effective.
The questions of encouraging the family members and sustaining the movement are not considered part of the classic description of preaching. Yet they are vital elements. No one person can be said to be involved in all aspects of preaching. There will be those who take responsibility for educating the children born in Krsna consciousness and those who wander from place to place giving lectures and distributing books. Some with a greater capacity for management will become involved in many preaching activities. Like ksatriyas, they will see that the brahmanas are acting like brahmanas, that the vaisyas are acting like vaisyas, and so on. But then managers may not have much time for meditation and bhajana. A responsible person will be aware that there are many issues to be decided and conditions to be improved and he will begin to work compassionately to improve his field of activity. At least his own area will be clean and attended to.
pp. 19-22
You know what we mean by “jack-in-the-box writing”? When you write a topical article, you first explain a problem in the world, such as the Mideast politics or the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Then suddenly, you introduce Bhagavad-gita as the solution to the problem. When it’s done awkwardly, the preaching pops out of the essay like a jack-in-the-box. This happens when the preacher does not integrate the material and spiritual worlds.
He doesn’t apply the Gita’s teachings or think out how it can actually work—he just smooths texts over the problem and calls it fixed.
I thought my Prabhupada consciousness might be a species of “jack-in-the-box” thinking. I start by saying I feel sleepy. Then I say, “Prabhupada is the answer.” Or I start with the Irish countryside—the long streaks of clouds, the chill air in August, the sheep looking at me as if I’m crazy—and suddenly I say, “This reminds me of Prabhupada and Krsna.”
I want to improve in the way I cross over from anything to Prabhupada. Sometimes I fail to cross over at all, or I cross abruptly, as if suddenly slapping myself, “Don’t think that! You’re supposed to be thinking of your spiritual master.” It would be nice to demonstrate smooth, integrated transitions—to prove the harmony and all-pervasiveness of Prabhupada consciousness for a disciple of Prabhupada. But I guess my abrupt turnings to Prabhupada are also real moments, like the sleepy driver suddenly jerking the steering wheel to keep from going off the road.
If I catch myself wandering from Prabhupada’s shelter, I will have to come back as fast as I can, even if that return is like popping out of a jack-in-the-box. Sorry about that rough transition folks, our pilot just spaced out for a few moments.
I am just a tiny bug in Prabhupada’s hand. From his hand, I move to his field and back again. I explore the vast cosmos on a forty-minute walk. I come back singing his name. Veering off and returning.
The fact is, I still don’t know what to make of the cosmic manifestation, or at least the little bit of it I can perceive with my senses. I can see sheep in a field and start lecturing how cruel it is to kill them, how karma results from animal slaughter. Prabhupada taught us this. But when I first encounter the sheep, the cosmos, the world—sky, field, air, and myself as someone (I don’t know who) in a body (of which I know little except that it’s working)—when I encounter the morning and my place in it, I can’t figure it out. I am not that Krsna conscious. I start to think with moral sense, “Is this Krsna conscious? Is this maya?” I want to be Krsna conscious and think in a Krsna conscious way, but gradually I pop out like a limp jack-in the-box, slowly, hanging over like a bent flower on a broken stem.
pp. 35-38
As Tripurari traveled and introduced sankirtana, more devotees followed his example and began going out wearing a wig and conventional shirt and pants. This made relating to people much easier, and it increased the potential for distributing books. Some devotees, however, thought it shouldn’t be done.
One day in September 1973, while Srila Prabhupada was taking a morning walk on the beach in Bombay, a few of his sannyast disciples brought the matter before him. As usual, many respectable gentlemen were walking on Juhu Beach, and as they passed the devotees, the gentlemen would offer their respects and say, “Hare Krsna.” Srila Prabhupada commented that this was the sign of a real Vaisnava: anyone who sees him immediately thinks of Krsna. The devotees, therefore, must prominently display all the Vaisnava markings such as tilaka, sikha, and neck beads so that people know, “Here are Hare Krsna people.” One of the sannyasis remarked that in America devotees were now wearing long hair wigs and dressing like hippies for the purpose of book distribution. The sannyasi said that he did not let his men do this because he felt it was self-defeating; people wouldn’t even know they were speaking to a devotee. When someone wants to distribute books, he said, Krsna would help the devotee find a place where he can distribute without having to disguise himself.
Srila Prabhupada turned to the others and asked their opinions. One devotee suggested that the reason the devotees in America wore “disguises” was because in many places they were not permitted to distribute books in devotee clothes. Prabhupada heard the opinions and then gave his decision: this disguising should be stopped immediately. “We shall not in any way sacrifice our standards,” Prabhupada said. “We must maintain our principles strictly. This dressing with long hair and karma clothes is the tendency to once again become hippies. Because you were hippies, that tendency is still there. So this should be stopped.”
Walking back toward the temple, Prabhupada saw a poor man evacuating by the roadside in public view. “He is not changing his standard despite public opinion,” Prabhupada remarked. “We cannot maintain our standards as strictly as they are maintaining theirs?”
A letter was drafted and signed by Tamal Krishna Goswami, the G.B.C., and Prabhupada signed also, on a line marked “approved.” The letter stated that all traveling and temple sankirtana parties should always wear tilaka, dhotis, neck beads, and sikha, and depend on Krsna rather than disguises to help distribute books. At the bottom of the letter, however, was a P.S., “Srila Prabhupada, upon checking the above added, ‘If they like they may wear coat and pants….But tilaka, sikha, beads—these things should be there.'”
Srila Prabhupada had previously addressed this subject in various letters. When Jagadisa from Canada had asked the same question, Prabhupada had replied that there was no objection to wearing Western clothes, including a wig or hat. “We have to take whatever is a favorable position for executing Krsna Consciousness,” Prabhupada had written. “Sometimes we may adopt such means in order to help distribute books.” But in February 1973 he had written to Rupanuga that he did not want devotees dressing up as hippies.
“… This should be stopped, we should not give anyone cause to call us hippies, but the devotees may dress up in respectable clothes like ladies and gentlemen in order to distribute my literatures under special circumstances….”
Wherever there are individuals there are bound to be differences of opinion.
Srila Prabhupada wanted to be spared such details. He wanted his G.B.C. men to consult among themselves and then present their conclusion to him only for a final decision. “In this way,” Prabhupada had written Rupanuga, “I will be free to concentrate on my translation of Srimad-Bhagavatam.” But because there was individuality and because some of the particular details were very crucial, Prabhupada was again and again called on to make fine judgements.
This collection of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami’s writings is comprised of essays that were originally published in Back to Godhead magazine between 1966 and 1978, and compiled in 1979 by Gita Nagari Press as the volume A Handbook for Kṛṣṇa Consciousness.
This second volume of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami’s Back to Godhead essays encompasses the last 11 years of his 20-year tenure as Editor-in-Chief of Back to Godhead magazine. The essays in this book consist mostly of SDG’s ‘Notes from the Editor’ column, which was typically featured towards the end of each issue starting in 1978 and running until Mahārāja retired from his duties as editor in 1989.
This collection of Satsvarupa dasa Goswami’s writings is comprised of essays that were originally published in Back to Godhead magazine between 1991 and 2002, picking up where Volume 2 leaves off. The volume is supplemented by essays about devotional service from issues of Satsvarupa dasa Goswami’s magazine, Among Friends, published in the 1990s.
Writing Sessions at Castlegregory, Ireland, 1993Start slowly, start fastly, offer your obeisances to your spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. You just drew his picture with your pencils. He appears carved out of wood…
Last Days of the YearI found I had hit a stride in my search for theme in writing, then began to feel the structure limiting me. After all, I had given myself precious time to write full-time; I wanted to enter the experience as fully as possible. For me, this means free-writing—writing sessions with no predetermined shape, theme, or topic…
aily CompositionsThis volume is comprised of three parts: prose meditations, free-writes, and poems each of which will be discussed in turn. As an introduction, a brief essay by the author, On Genre, has also been included to provide contextual coordinates for the writing which follows…
Meditations & PoemsA comprehensive retrospective of poetic achievement and prose meditations, using a new trajectory described as “free-writing”. This volume will offer to readers an experience of the creativity versatility which is a hallmark of this author’s writing.
KaleidoscopeStream of consciousness poetry that moves with the shifting shapes and colors characteristic of a kaleidoscope itself around the themes of authenticity. This is a book will transport you to the far reaches of the author’s heart and soul in daring ways and will move you to experience your own inner kaleidoscope.
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A narrative poem. challenging and profound, about the journey of an itinerant monk who pursues new means of self-Seeking New Landexpression.The reader is invited to discover his or her own spiritual pilgrimage within these pages as the author pushes every literary boundary to boldly create something wholly new and inspiring.