“Hari Hari,
Satsvarupa Maharaja started the week off by having a urinary tract infection. He had to take strong antibiotics, which fortunately kicked in by the day of the family book festival on Saturday, July 5. Prior to that he had all the classic symptoms of UTI, urgency, incontinence, some disorientation. But our stalwart hero was able to participate fully for the necessary four hours and completely satisfied all the devotees. He had to leave before prasadam was served out—going to his room to “crash” for several days, as was expected, with many headaches but no migraines. He was enlivened that so many books were sold and that the one hundred and fifty guests were fully satisfied by the prasadam feast sponsored by Nimai-ananda. By the end of the week things calmed down to around one headache per day.
“Hare Krsna,
Baladeva”
Chanting extra rounds is a good way to go. It’s an excellent way to pass the time. You receive credit. You strengthen your muscles, like a weightlifter with a bench press. Chanting leads to chanting. You get past the boredom and run down the field for a touchdown. Every four rounds is another touchdown, and you score a big victory as you increase the quota. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare. Prabhupada said, “Why stop at sixteen?”
******
The names are Krishna in His most merciful form. Try to build faith in that by chanting. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu came to deliver us with this maha-mantra, and Prabhupada gave it to us in this exact form. He led us in kirtana just to demonstrate the importance of the call-and-response form of harinama. And he chanted on our beads to personalize our japa and impress upon us how it is important service to the spiritual master.
*******
You are never alone when you chant. You needn’t be lonely in this big world. You can be with Krishna just by moving your tongue and lips and vibrating the mantra. Prabhupada said, “Krishna is as close as your jugular vein, and He’s in your heart.” All this is realized in the simplest manner. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare/ Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.
*******
I rested right away for an hour, but woke after a nightmare with a headache. However, it’s clearing up, and I think I will be able to go to the beach after breakfast. I put this in Tachycardia because it’s what’s happening first and foremost, even before japa, and I can’t avoid it. But the good is that I’ve chanted twelve rounds. I did that between 3:00 A.M. and 5:00 A.M., when I was clear.
*******
Someone wrote me and said his years as a devotee are in the past, but that they have a lasting effect. I wrote him back and said, “Why should you say your years of devotional service are in the past? Why not take them up again in the present? It is easy to do, especially by chanting Hare Krishna, which you can do anywhere.” But he may have his heavy reasons why he says his Krishna consciousness is a thing of the past. We did it, and we don’t do it anymore. Surely he can take up his personal sadhana again, even if he cannot be as active as he was in his youth. I know the feeling myself. But never say die. Keep the flame burning, fan it. Take up your chanting.
*******
“Consequently, although his duration of life gradually came to an end . . . [it] was not spent in wasteful life, since he ever- engaged in hearing, contemplating, writing down and chanting the pastimes of the Lord” (S.B. 3.22.35).
*******
Stop this self-bashing. Be at peace with yourself. Accept who you are. Turn to Krishna as you are, and ask Him to give you service. Live with your ailments and treat them and give yourself time to rest and time to do the work you are capable of. Every day, chant at least sixteen rounds of Hare Krishna mantra and read some Krishna conscious literature. Answer your mail as best you can. Be kind and sociable with your roommates.
*******
Please, Lord, give me mercy to cry out Your names in the maha-mantra. Let me do it better. The daily japa yajna is the most important thing, and yet I cannot cry out with tears of love. You have made Yourself most accessible in Your holy names, but unfortunately I commit offenses and do not have full taste for chanting. Somehow I have fallen into this ocean of material suffering, and I cannot extricate myself. I beg You to pick me up and make me one of the atoms at Your lotus feet.
*******
Despite my neglect in chanting, You remain close to me and are always ready to take me back. You remain as my best friend, enclosed in my heart. You never turn your back on me, although I fail in many ways to reciprocate with You in the easy, sublime method You have given. When will the day ever come when I will taste the nectar of the holy names?
*******
Prabhupada has written that we should keep our hearts clean, the way Lord Caitanya and His associates cleaned the Gundica Mandir. Make a throne in your heart, and Krishna will sit there and be honored and pleased to bestow His bliss upon you. First reach the point of regretting your neglect of Him and feel intense unworthiness. Then realize the gift is still open for you. Then perform austerity for controlling the mind and fully embracing hari-nama; Krishna will not abandon you.
*******
I pray that You may increase in me that desire to be a pure devotee. I am confident it can be done even living here with friends in Delaware and engaging quietly in devotional duties, starting with the chanting of the holy names early in the morning. Please spare me from distraction and spiritual amnesia. Let me be a good person and not lose my fervor with the aging of the body. Let me help others.
pp. 57-59
Srila Prabhupada was author, publisher, worldwide book distribution manager, and creator of a transcendental competition among his disciples. When in 1971 he had observed Kesava in San Francisco leading the field in Krsna book distribution, he had written to Kesava that if he out-distributed Karandhara (his brother both materially and spiritually) then Srila Prabhupada would leave Los Angeles and stay in San Francisco. He continued to instigate such competition over the years, fanning the fires of book distribution among his followers. He encouraged the leaders to send in reports, and on hearing them he would respond with letters that raised the book distribution fever even higher.
The whole of ISKCON waited to hear the next letter or quote from Prabhupada inciting them to go on and on. Devotees’ lives became completely changed by these words. For example, when Srila Prabhupada had given the lecture in January 1974, stressing, “Distribute books, distribute books, distribute books,” several devotees in the audience had vowed on the spot to dedicate their lives to that instruction above all others. And when Prabhupada had sent the handwritten note down from his room in L.A.—”Everyone should go out with the Sankirtan Party as soon as possible”—that one line created a deepest spirit of sacrifice and dedication in the hearts of many disciples who felt themselves destined to take up that order as their life and soul. Although Ramesvara had been completely caught up in the waves of the sankirtana ocean from the beginning, Srila Prabhupada cast his perpetual service to the cause of book distribution when he wrote,
“Make program to distribute our books all over the world. Our books are being appreciated by learned circles so we should take advantage. Whatever progress we have made is simply due to distributing these books. So go on and do not divert your mind for a moment from this.”
When devotees in London reported to Srila Prabhupada their increase in book and magazine sales, he responded by inviting them to compete.
“I have heard that in San Francisco they are selling daily not less than 75 KRSNA Books. So I am very much encouraged to hear this. Now take this spirit of transcendental rivalry and consult with Dayananda and the others there in England to be the first-rate book-sellers.”
When writing to a sannyasa disciple preaching in Scotland, where perhaps the devotees were not fully aware of the scope of book distribution in the U.S., Srila Prabhupada had given a report on the latest book scores he had just received from New York and had commented, “New York is leading the list.”
Srila Prabhupada also inspired the society as a whole to compete with its previous years’ efforts. “Somehow the book distribution must be doubled and tripled as far as possible. Do it.” As soon as the BBT Library Party had been formed, Prabhupada had told the members to get fifty thousand orders. And he had asked the Radha-Damodara party to get one hundred buses.
These were not careless boasts by Srila Prabhupada. He knew the determination and sacrifice required to achieve these nearly unattainable goals, but he wanted his devotees to work with total dedication, as he was doing. Ultimately, he simply wanted them to try their utmost to serve guru and Krsna sincerely. He called this logic “shooting for the rhinoceros.” If a man, attempting to kill a rhinoceros, failed, no one would criticize him. But if he succeeded, that would be very wonderful.
He wrote to Rupanuga:
Your sankirtana reports are very encouraging, especially that one girl, Gauri dasi, has set an all-ISKCON women’s record of 108 big books. This is very wonderful. Formerly this would have been considered impossible, but now by Krsna’s grace everything is becoming possible. Encourage them all to increase more and more.
The competition was particularly high between Los Angeles, the Radha-Damodara party, and Australia, and Srila Prabhupada encouraged them all, like a maestro calling for a fortissimo from the orchestra.
pp. 188-91
The Visiting Sannyasi said, “Hey, we are entering Spain. I was there last year. I wrote poems every day and breathtaking descriptions of the land. I called it Machado’s Spain. Can you match that?”
Yes, the author mumbled, but this year is different. You were at the end of a fictional role, A Trip to Spain. I’m in a different place.
“Still,” the Visiting Sannyasi insisted, “you could try something. Tell about the day it rained and you were afraid attackers might surround your van and cut you up or at least throw you into the cold and rain in your slippers and sweatpants. You said, ‘This is it, now. We have to depend fully on Krsna.”
As the Visiting Sannyasi spoke, Narahari started up the engine of the Renault Master van—and I ended this here, for now.
The scientists say we don’t even bother to discuss the argument from design (for God’s existence), but Sada-puta Prabhu bopped them with examples of how the atheistic scientist himself uses the argument for design inadvertently to support his theory that everything happens by chance and only we humans are here to declare it.
Visiting Sannyasi was saying
in Spain Machado wrote
great poems and I
penned at P-stop
urgent song, don’t make fun
don’t tread on me.
Hail
rain full of grace
the Lord is with thee.
I am blessed too,
although I don’t live in Vrndavana.
I keep a picture of Rupa Gosvami’s
samadhi or kutir—I
don’t know which is which.
The picture is better for me
than “reality” because
the monkeys unnerve me
when I go into the
six gosvamis‘ courtyard.
Srila Prabhupada wrote me,
“I like your mobile temple and will see it when I go to Detroit.
“Keep yourself comfortable so you can work nicely. There is no need for dry vairagya.”
Wipe the windows from the inside. Rituals of our driving life. I wear slippers while riding up front and sleep when I get tired, like Srila Prabhupada did in New York City days in 1965-66.
France has the best highways with their park-like rest areas, but we hit a patch where they are extending the road, so it was a twisty morning. Had to stop on a small patch just off the highway for breakfast and rest. Heard Srila Prabhupada lecturing from 1966.
Machado’s, Jiminez’s Spain.
My experience, toothless, hurried
never mind, I am a devotee.
Does that mean I can do
no wrong? Don’t need to
rhyme or measure line in
a poem? No, it means
please accept this.
Time shaped this line because it was written before taking rest: “Inches off the highway, cars whoosh past our heads, two more hours and we pass over the border showing our passports as if they were secrets
and then we can flourish in Spain.
No, it will be the same there—
good, rest for lunch and then—
highways. It’s sterile you say?
I say keep in Bhagavad-gita,
I know no countries or
peoples but Sri Krsna and
my master and those words
that lead us back
to Godhead.
This is not Machado’s
Spain.
pp. 118-121
“. . . Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu asked Sanatana to go get a shave.” (Madhya 20.68) This is a practical instruction. Prabhupada takes the opportunity to write in his purport that Lord Caitanya’s followers should be shaven. “If anyone with long hair or a beard wants to join this Krsna consciousness movement and live with us, he must similarly shave himself clean. The followers of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu consider long hair objectionable.” Prabhupada sometimes used this incident in his preaching to disciples about shaving their beards and long hair.
Lord Caitanya also asked that Sanatana’s torn and dirty garments be replaced. When Tapana Misra attempted to buy Sanatana new cloth, Sanatana refused, but instead asked for old cloth. Then he tore the old dhoti into pieces to make two sets of outer cloth and underwear.
Later, Lord Caitanya introduced Sanatana to a Maharastriyan brahmana, who immediately invited Sanatana to take all his meals at his house. Sanatana replied, “I shall practice the process of madhukari. Why should I accept full meals in the house of a brahmana?”
“Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu felt unlimited happiness to observe Sanatana Gosvdmi’s strict following of the principles of sannyasa. However, He repeatedly glanced at the woolen blanket Sanatana Gosvami was wearing.” (Madhya 20.82)
Sanatana could understand that Caitanya Mahaprabhu did not approve of his expensive blanket, so he went to the riverbank and traded it for a torn quilt owned by a Bengali mendicant. Upon seeing Sanatana Gosvami’s torn quilt, Lord Caitanya said, “I have already deliberately considered this matter. Since Lord Krsna is very merciful, He has nullified your attachment for material things. Why should Krsna allow you to maintain a last bit of material attachment? After vanquishing a disease, a good physician does not allow any of the disease to remain.”
Sanatana Gosvami surrendered to Lord Caitanya as an ideal disciple and begged the Lord for instruction. “Being pleased with Sanatana Gosvami, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu bestowed His causeless mercy upon him. By the Lord’s mercy, Sanatana Gosvami received the spiritual strength to inquire from Him.”
Lord Caitanya personally instructed Sanatana Gosvami about Krsna’s identity, His conjugal love, and His personal opulences. He also instructed him in the mellows of devotional service.
“Putting a straw in his mouth and bowing down, Sanatana Gosvami clasped the lotus feet of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and humbly spoke as follows:
‘nica jati, nica-sangi, patita adhama
kuvisaya-kupe paḍi’ gonainu janama!’Sanatana Gosvami said, ‘I was born in a low family, and my associates are all low-class men. I myself am fallen and am the lowest of men. Indeed, I have passed my whole life fallen in the well of sinful materialism.’
—Madhya 20.98-99
Sanatana Gosvami is speaking out of intense humility. This verse is a description of an ideal disciple’s attitude in approach ing his spiritual master. The disciple needs the spiritual master’s mercy. Therefore, he must give up all prestige and self-misconceptions and surrender at his guru’s feet. Sanatana Gosvami continues, “I do not know what is beneficial for me and what is detrimental. Nonetheless, in ordinary dealings people consider me a learned scholar, and I am also thinking of myself as such.”
Srila Prabhupada would usually quote these two verses together. Often he would give a brief description of Sanatana Gosvami’s credentials—he was fluent in several languages, including Arabic and Sanskrit, he was born in a Sarasvata brahmana family, and he had been a highly placed government official. Therefore, people would praise him for his learning and he would feel their praise was justified. When he surrendered to Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s feet, however, he asked, “Ke ami?” Who am I? Why am I suffering? “If I do not know this, how can I be benefited?”
Srila Prabhupada said that this question is the most important philosophical question that any human being can raise: “Who am I?” It takes intelligence to ask these questions, and it takes intelligence to accept the answers when they come to us.
pp. 87-89
Lord Krsna is time and is killing everyone, but He can save you and you can go to eternal time. He is the respectable authority on whom we must have faith. Please Lord, just as in my dream last night where I felt I was at the edge of a cliff and about to fall over and die, yet I trusted if it were to happen I’d consign myself to the protection of the Lord—so without fear I call out to you from the soul. Please protect the bhakti instilled in me by your pure devotee. I cling to that time when he came to us and the fact that he picked me up. O Lord, Your pure devotee is Prabhupada.
May he always be remembered by his good servitors.
May Lord Caitanya dance in the hearts and homes of people all over the world, as taught in Caitanya-caritamrta presented by our spiritual master. No one can do it as charmingly and convincingly as he. He is the one who is empowered to place Lord Caitanya’s lotus feet in the hearts of people everywhere. Just as he convinced us in America in 1966.
Hare Krsna Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna Hare Hare.
It’s cold and you are prompted to type fast and stay awake. I could not sleep last night. I was thinking of these nice activities today and here I am, a nonfictive fool, a non-expect, not a master like Chekov or Henry James. I am the fool, Adam’s apple and goruh-guru, the one who wants nonviolence and yet doesn’t work as hard as he could, who is afraid that if he fasts he’ll get a headache, who would like to weigh more than 120 pounds—in short, he who thinks he is the body, the greatest fool. But Lord Caitanya is like the moon who shines even in the courtyard of the candala. He has come to us by the grace of His pure devotee.
I’ve got my own truth to sing, poet-say, my own Pulitzer Prize Mary Oliver “In Blackwater Woods.” She says, “But this too:/the little words/leaping up like hairs!”
Yes, I know what that is. Now don’t get carried away, drunken sailor. Forget your nights. You go to bed by 7 P.M. so you can get up early. You are not proud that so many words come. It is all due to Krsna. Don’t be immodest. Chekov said Dostoyevsky was immodest and pretentious to write such long books. But if you are in a line of Krsna consciousness, then you have a lot more to say.
It is not immodest. Krsna is endless, and on Gaura-Purnima who will stay silent? Rise up, cold spirit, feel your pulse, hear your spiritual master speaking to you from a 1966 lecture and think, “Yes, this is it, he did it, he convinced me. This is a very sweet lecture, I should note this one and save it.” But are they not all like this, if only I can hear? Oh, banish that stupid doubt and that dislike of the one who teaches you. “There is nothing to dislike except your own dislike.”
Use it up, burn up the coal and the air and the oxygen. But the love of God cannot be exhausted. Be kind to your flock and pupils and your master will be kind to you.
He said the prayer is, “Please accept me.” The Lord is delighted if you think of Him in connection with one of His devotees as in the prayer, “Ayi nanda-tanuja kinkaram.” He likes that. So you call out, “Please accept me,” by chanting His holy names. The names and forms cannot be known by any other method. But He reveals them to one in Krsna consciousness. What is Krsna consciousness? It means to accept the Swami and believe what is stated in the books. The books of knowledge, that’s Krsna consciousness. No other way. It’s true, but not known by material experiment. What more proof do you want? Become a devotee and gradually you will see and know of the pure devotees in your midst.
pp. 117-20
The Supreme Lord is unlimited. Only a very expert personality, retired from the activities of material happiness, deserves to understand this knowledge of spiritual values. Therefore those who are not so well situated, due to material attachment, should be shown the ways of transcendental realization, by Your Goodness, through descriptions of the transcendental activities of the Supreme Lord.
At first glance this verse may appear disconcerting to us, as if only a rare soul, perfectly detached, can hear about Krsna. Even if by the mercy of the pure devotees we ourselves are not left out but can hear something about Krsna, what does that mean for the conditioned souls? How will the sankirtana movement be spread? Will it always remain small?
Srila Prabhupada makes it clear that even a layman can take to Krsna consciousness. Hearing about the Lord will act as “medicinal doses,” even while we suffer from the disease of ignorance. The Bhagavatam is as good as Krsna Himself, so contact with this literature through the words of expert devotees will allow even ordinary souls to come into direct contact with Krsna.
This point will be stated again at the beginning of the Tenth Canto when Maharaja Pariksit requests to hear specifically about Krsna:
“Descriptions of the Lord are the right medicine for the conditioned soul undergoing repeated birth and death. Therefore, who will cease hearing such glorification of the Lord except a butcher or one who is killing his own self?” (Bhag. 10.1.4)
In the purport to 10.1.4, Srila Prabhupada writes that Krsna consciousness is appropriate and effective only when sincere disciples hear from a bona fide spiritual master, but, “When discourses on krsna-katha take place between a liberated spiritual master and his disciple, others also sometimes take advantage of hearing these topics and also benefit. These topics are the medicine to stop the repetition of birth and death.”
Although there are many terminal diseases in this world, the disease known as bhava-roga, by which we are born again and again, is the worst. It is caused by attachment to matter. Krsna-katha is so potent a medicine that if we are induced to hear it, we will certainly become free of this disease. The disease is symptomized by absorption in illicit sex, meat-eating, intoxication, and gambling, and the proof that krsna-katha works is that those who participate in it are freed from these symptoms.
The last part of Prabhupada’s purport to 1.5.16 is dear to me:
“The expert devotees also can discover novel ways and means to convert the nondevotees in terms of particular time and circumstance. Devotional service is dynamic activity, and the expert devotees can find out competent means to inject it into the dull brains of the materialistic population. Such transcendental activities of the devotees for the service of the Lord can bring a new order of life to the foolish society of materialistic men. Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and His subsequent followers exhibited expert dexterity in this connection. By following the same method, one can bring the materialistic men of this age of quarrel into order for peaceful life and transcendental realization.”
Because Vyasadeva misled the people with his Vedas, he should now use his genius to catch their interest and imagination with direct Krsna conscious writing. Prabhupada is firm that this instruction should be adopted by the members of the Krsna consciousness movement. Previously Prabhupada wrote that Krsna consciousness does not need to be presented in a stereotypical way. Rather, we should express our realization in our own words as long as we do not change the original meaning offered by the parampara. Loyalty to the parampara does not require that we become parrots. Rather, we are meant to add our own sweetness by speaking from the heart and in the language that is natural to us and to our listeners.
Bhava-roga does not change from one culture to another, although it may have its particular cultural idiosyncrasies. An expert physician will recognize the disease’s symptoms, however, and find ways to apply the medicine according to time, place, and person. Formerly devotee-physicians presented the literature in Sanskrit and used a repertoire of metaphors and slokas to discuss krsna-katha. Nowadays people may not be so receptive to that and we may need to try other methods of expressing the same truth. Such attempts to be relevant are not signs of unfaithfulness to the parampara. As Prabhupada writes, “Devotional service is dynamic activity, and the expert devotees can find out competent means to inject it into the dull brains of the materialistic population.”
The success of our efforts will be judged by the results we achieve. If people who are troubled with bhava-roga respond favorably to our attempt to express Krsna consciousness, and if we are giving them Krsna consciousness without adulteration, then it is pedantic to remain critical toward the innovation. We should be prepared, as Prabhupada suggested, to package the old medicine in the new bottles. The nectar itself is immortal.
pp. 81-83
We should understand that our seeing Prabhupada as a nitya-siddha and saktayavesa-avatara, or our claiming that he was especially empowered by Lord Nity?nanda, is not sentimental or concocted; by studying Srila Prabhupada’s words and activities in relation to the scriptures, we can understand that these exalted designations are true.
Prabhupada also fulfills the descriptions of maha-bhagavata and paramahamsa. He had equal vision for all living entities, although he also acted with the preacher’s discrimination. Once, an Indian gentleman accused Prabhupada of not seeing everyone equally because Prabhupada made a distinction between the sinful nondevotee and the devotee. Prabhupada responded by saying that he was not on such an elevated platform. He saw the sinner and felt compelled to tell him to stop. And he did this on the authority of the Bhagavad-gita and the past acaryas. When the man asked further, “But what have you done (besides repehating the words of the disciplic succession)?” Prabhupada said that he had done nothing more than offer these teachings indiscriminately to the world: “That is my contribution and that is my version of pandita sama-darsinah.”
With that equal vision, Prabhupada, by his pure association, was able to create thousands of bhaktas. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura said that a Vaisnava is measured by the number of devotees he creates, and by this standard, Prabhupada was certainly very meritorious. Not only did he create devotees in the relatively fertile preaching field of those born and raised with some understanding of Vedic culture, but he crossed the ocean and brought the mlecchas to Krsna’s lotus feet.
Srila Prabhupada also revealed the mood of a maha-bhagavata when he asked his Godbrothers’ forgiveness for his offenses. He presented himself as maha-patita, greatly fallen, but his Godbrothers exclaimed that he was maha-patita-pavana, “the great savior of the fallen.” They sincerely said that he had committed no offense. This attitude of humility was a symptom of the highest stage of devotional life. While a second-class devotee (madhyama-adhikari) makes distinctions between the devotees, innocent nondevotees, and the demons, the first-class devotee (uttama-adhikari) sees everyone as perfectly serving Krsna except himself. Although the maha-bhagavata may sometimes come down to the second-class platform to preach, the devotees who were with Prabhupada at this time were able to see his status as maha-bhagavata fully displayed, as Srila Prabhupada referred to himself as the most fallen and asked for forgiveness.
Srila Prabhupada was jagad-guru, the spiritual master of the entire world. Mayavadi sannyasis use this term to proudly refer to themselves (even though “they cannot see the entire world,”and because the title has been taken in this way, we do not so much use it in reference to Prabhupada, although it is fitting. Srila Rupa Gosvami defines the term “jagad-guru” to mean “one who is able to control the tongue, mind, words, belly genitals, and anger” (Upadesamrta, text 1). The jagad-guru is fit to make disciples all over the world. In the Adi-lila, 7.83, Prabhupada says:
When one is completely fit to chant the holy name… he is eligible to make disciples all over the world, and he actually becomes jagad-guru. Then the entire world, under his influence, begins to chant the holy names of the Hare Krsna mantra.
Another term used to denote an advanced devotee is “acarya.” A great spiritual master such as Srila Prabhupada has the devotional intelligence to teach Krsna consciousness according to time and circumstance.
An acarya is an ideal teacher who knows the purpose of the revealed scriptures, behaves exactly according to their injunctions, and teaches his students to adopt these principles also… Every acarya has the specific means of propagating his spiritual movement with the aim of bringing men to Krsna consciousness.
—Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi-lila 7.37, purport
An acarya makes proper innovations to preach, as Srila Prabhupada did in so many ways in ISKCON. By performing marriages for his disciples, allowing women to live in the temples, forming a brahmacarini-asrama, allowing for Western dress on sankirtana when necessary, holding a Sunday Love Feast, and many other adjustments for Westerners, Srila Prabhupada was able to establish a “foreign” culture among the mlecchas.
pp. 6-18
His father got a BTG at his job. At that time his father was a Rastafarian, with long dreadlocks down his back. He told his wife that they were going to visit the temple at 55th Street in Manhattan. And they took with them their son, Bob, who was only eight years old.
“I walked into this tall building,” Bahulasva recalls, “and saw monks dressed in robes. We went to the restaurant. And then to the temple room. My parents stood in the back, but I just plunged into the kirtana. The devotees encouraged me. I didn’t know the words, but I enthusiastically danced, just as if I was one of them. After three or four visits, my father bought a full set of books and we got Deities of Nimai-Nitai. One night there was supposed to be a video of the Ramayana, but it wouldn’t end until 11:00 P.M. My parents said we had to go because it was dangerous to travel on the subways late at night. But I said I wanted to stay and watch it. My mother said, ‘But you’ve got to go to school. You can’t stay here, and who’s going to take care of you?’ I said I could stay with the devotees, and the bhakta leader said, yes, he would look after me and make sure I brushed my teeth and went to school. My mother was real angry, but she didn’t express her anger, and so my father agreed and just left me there. From that day I started going to school straight from the temple.”
Bahulasva is not only “boy of the year” but he is the captain of the debating team and is leading in many other academic committees and fields. His plan is to get further education and to become a lawyer. Even if he has to go away for education, he wants to come back and live in Jamaica. It isn’t very hard for me to imagine the day when he could become a very prominent citizen, yet accepted as a Hare Krsna man with sikha. He says, “Wearing a sikha gives me protection.” Bahulasva appreciates the fact that he was trained at Bhaktivedanta gurukula in Vrndavana. This has been a real solace for me to hear, since I’ve heard so much negativity from the other boys who speak of Vrndavana like Vietnam veterans telling about the war. Bahulasva knows that Vrndavana gurukula has given him a considerable academic edge among the other boys, and he is also aware of his spiritual identity, and therefore he’s not afraid of the typical teenage group pressure. He emanates something special, and the other boys admire him for it.
Bhagavatananda and family (his wife, Devakinandana, Bahulasva, and two young girls) are very enlivened about the preaching field of Jamaica. Devakinandana dasi has become a recognized hatha-yoga teacher, with her own group of women students. She also regularly lectures as a member of the PTA of the local high school. Her recent lectures on topics such as chastity, crime, and self-esteem were very well received by students and faculty. She is also friendly with church leaders and is hoping to get ISKCON accepted on the council of churches for Jamaica, with opportunities for regular TV appearances. Jamaica is a small place (population two million), and these activities of Bhagavatananda’s family are gaining them a wide reputation. The people of Jamaica don’t see the Hare Krsna movement as a cult. They see Mr. Mereday’s (Bhagavatananda’s) family. The family breaks the stereotype of ISKCON.
We were delayed at customs when they wanted to cut open my danda because the agent thought it was green bamboo. It was a passionate scene as we tried to cut off the plastic surrounding the case with the custom man’s knife. After five or ten minutes, when it still wouldn’t come open, he asked me about our Sunday feast. Then he calmed down and under-stood—and I also calmed down and communicated. “The bamboo is a religious staff, I carry it all the time.”
“You carry it all the time?” he asked emphatically. He apologized and let us go once he knew that it was not green bamboo. His change of attitude was also because he realized we were religious, and because he remembered something about our Sunday feasts at Gurabo.
Can you help us to pay the rent?
Do you know how we can stop quarreling?
How can we have more faith in ISKCON?
Can you revive our inspiration
to go out daily and meet the nondevotees,
to give them books, prasadam, and the holy name?
Can you overcome the ennui?
Do you know what’s wrong with us?
Can you impart some wisdom?
Do you have cures for rheumatism,
or at least relief from boredom,
relief from doubt and envy?
Can you create a taste
for reading the gastra,
Can you crash through the reluctance
of laziness
and the suspicion
that if we work hard
the others will remain lazy?
Can you convince us—and not just
by theoretical words of logic or
by quoting scripture, and not just
some momentary relief—but can you
make change that will last,
can you give us a new vision?
Can you bring back old days
when Krsna consciousness was happy and fun
and we served without much thought for ourselves?
Can you lead ecstatic kirtanas,
give inspiring classes?
Will you sit and share prasadam with us?
Can you stay with us?
Or are you also
part of the problem?’
pp. 21-25
I am tired out. I could spend this last energy in the day talking to the few devotees here. Be a warm person. But I turn to warm-up on the page. Someone says, “If you only write a journal, then you observe life and not participate, and if you only live and don’t write a journal, you are participating in that observing.” So you should balance. Sharing in this small apartment.
Go to bed with new earplugs. No mattress, just a rug and sleeping bag and my sharp hips. I used to do this on the wood floor of the BTG office in L.A. and wherever. Then I became old and soft and demanded comforts. I don’t like driving around Dublin and involuntarily seeing the billboards, shops, women, and strutting men. Madhu said, “See how important drinking has become in life.” If it is not Guinness, it’s Harp (or Heinekin or Budweiser), and so many pubs. And younger people opting for drugs like cocaine. I am far from it.
Shelter, shelter, give me shelter. Man putting
up new billboard with brush and glue over old one.
One rock concert over . . . one horse show, horse
race over . . . June coming to an end.
“When did you arrive in Ireland?”
“May 31.”
“Prove it, show me the stamp on your passport.”
The bastards. Even after we satisfy all requirements, they turn us down on a technicality and what can you say? They know their job and how to read the rules, and turn you down. But we are rich, comparatively, and not really suffering such a hardship.
It will be much worse in Kali. No vans and freedom to travel. And you, old timer, you can’t forever go around being honored, even in your modest way. Just give me a private room, I say. Just give me a good lunch. My assistant must take care of affairs. Give me whatever I ask and let me sleep early and don’t involve me. Give me plenty of earplugs.
The world spins and orbits at once, moving and spinning, and yet everything is steady, by the will of God. He’s a person. Supreme. The Absolute Truth is not impersonal or void. Not a blind chance of Adams.
That supreme
truth is hard
to understand
but one can
know it by
bhakti. Who is
the atma?
Who is the
Supreme? It
is He who we
must worship.
6:30 now. Hey, I wrote a letter to our host’s wife. Thank you, gratitude, I mean it. Lie here for five hours and whisper a few dreams. You have Krsna with you. Non-optional, one hour reading in His books. Maybe I made that quota by preparing for the lecture. What can you do in this place? It’s like being in a room in New Delhi except I’m not on the way to Vrndavana. I’m in Dublin. Look for something to paste into this book. Six good posters of Prabhupada. I can write down what I see. That’s just as good. Write letter to God, thank Him for letting me write poems, even here. Whatever He wants, the devotee accepts. If God wants me to suffer, I accept that. Krsna, Krsna, Krsna.
Brother computer. Macintosh. “Hop in” to the mall. Bach flower remedies on sale. Guitars, Ireland postal system in green, red hair bleached, women streaming over the bridge. A devotee I know earns money drawing pictures in colored chalk on the pavements. People throw some money to him. Another devotee is on the dole. Someone else makes sweets and sells them to a health food store.
“You worked for GN Press?” he asked me.
He wanted to see utilities bills. Income tax. I said I never had to pay that. He wanted more
proof. He was fairly satisfied, but not quite enough. The fair-haired, freckle-armed rascal.
“You would not qualify,” he said. What do you mean, would not qualify? Say it direct—you do not qualify. Stinker. He didn’t care for us. His mind was already drifting to later in the day. Couldn’t expect him to care for us in our Ford Econoline. So ask us for taxes. Oh, but he was enthusiastic to explain our rights to us and how we could appeal his decision, we had that legal right according to such-and-such law of 1995, and even now he would call the office in Donegal and explain and see if they would overrule him, but as far as he was concerned, “You would not qualify. You would be denied.” Yeah, you horse’s ass, and you’re making it sound so okay and that’s the way it is. Good day. See you later. All very pleasant.
You’d better cool down and take rest. It doesn’t mean anything. No loss. No loss or gain in this material world. Go on singing the glories of Narayana. In the beginning there was only Narayana—no Siva or Brahma or motor vehicle bureau—only Narayana, and so it will be at the end of life. Be in the protection of Supreme Lord by chanting His holy names. It’s all right. You have the best spiritual master and the best process. Please, Srila Prabhupada, let me do what is best. Let me respect and honor your devotees. It all will pass—esteem and good looks don’t count. Don’t mind that yours are fading and fading. Keep alive as much as you can, as long as you can, and the writing is certainly your way. Hare Krsna. That’s true.
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.
“This is a different kind of book, written in my old age, observing Kṛṣṇa consciousness and assessing myself. I believe it fits under the category of ‘Literature in pursuance of the Vedic version.’ It is autobiography, from a Western-raised man, who has been transformed into a devotee of Kṛṣṇa by Śrīla Prabhupāda.”
The Best I Could DoI want to study this evolution of my art, my writing. I want to see what changed from the book In Search of the Grand Metaphor to the next book, The Last Days of the Year.
a Hare Krishna ManIt’s world enlightenment day
And devotees are giving out books
By milk of kindness, read one page
And your life can become perfect.
Calling Out to Srila Prabhupada: Poems and PrayersO Prabhupāda, whose purports are wonderfully clear, having been gathered from what was taught by the previous ācāryas and made all new; O Prabhupāda, who is always sober to expose the material illusion and blissful in knowledge of Kṛṣṇa, may we carefully read your Bhaktivedanta purports.
I use free-writing in my devotional service as part of my sādhana. It is a way for me to enter those realms of myself where only honesty matters; free-writing enables me to reach deeper levels of realization by my repeated attempt to “tell the truth quickly.” Free-writing takes me past polished prose. It takes me past literary effect. It takes me past the need to present something and allows me to just get down and say it. From the viewpoint of a writer, this dropping of all pretense is desirable.
Geaglum Free WriteThis edition of Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami’s 1996 timed book, Geaglum Free Write Diary, is published as part of a legacy project to restore Satsvarūpa Mahārāja’s writings to ‘in print’ status and make them globally available for current and future readers.