Snapshot
(Close the day with an image of Srila Prabhupada. Close the life with a picture of him. Start a new life; maintain a life . . . Prabhupada walking into your dreams, into your life.)
So many morning walk photos. This looks like Mayapura again. Srila Prabhupada is shorter than the others, but he is in the lead. I seem less able to respond in words. His face isn’t clear in this photo. I am there too. Rupanuga as a sannyasi. Young Jaya Sacinandana dasa brahmacari . . . I just can’t write anything, Prabhupada. It would come out too literary. You are with me (with us) anyway. Let me close this day by leaving this page and squeezing out a last extra-extra round. This is my primary service to you with which we begin and end our spiritual life.
“Forget the past that sleeps and ne’er the future dream at all . . . ” But now, chant Hare Krishna.
(_Begging for the Nectar of the Holy Name_)
JAPA POEM
I look at a photo
of Prabhupada and the devotees
on a morning walk in Mayapura.
Prabhupada is not clear
in the photo, and I am
not so inspired
to write about it. Better
spend time chanting – a last
external – “with determination
we begin and end our
spiritual life.”