His Holiness Satsvarupa dasa Goswami Maharaja
Vyasa-puja Birthday Celebration
Saturday, December 7, 2024What
Meeting of Disciples and friends of SDG
Where
The Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall
845 Hudson Avenue
Stuyvesant Falls, New York 12174There is plenty of parking near the Hall. The facility is just a few minutes’ walk from SDG’s home at 909 Albany Ave.
Schedule
- 10:00 –10:30 A.M.: Kirtana
- 10:30 – 11:15 A.M.: Presentation by Satsvarupa Maharaja
- 11:15 – 12:30 A.M.: Book Table
- 12:30 – 1:15 P.M.: Arati and kirtana
- 1:15 – 2:15 P.M.: Prasadam Feast
Contact
Baladeva Vidyabhusana at [email protected] or (518) 754-1108
Krsna dasi at [email protected] or (518) 822-7636
Hari Hari,
It was a mixed week again. The issue with operating a Dictaphone is mostly resolved, and Satsvarupa Maharaja is finally writing again. No days were completely free of headaches, but they were regular Excedrin headaches and not migraines. One drama was going out for a COVID vaccine. The next day Satsvarupa Maharaja was completely exhausted, having to be held up in the chair and spoon-fed by one of the caretakers, etc.
Hare Krsna,
thank you,
Baladeva
Follow the guru’s directions. If our spiritual master did not tell us what to think of during japa, then we should think of him. But he did tell us. He told us to listen to the holy names. If we listen, we will eventually remember Krsna’s pastimes. Listen to Krsna’s pastimes in the company of devotees and we will remember Him throughout the day. Our guru has already given us many directions.
******
We walked to a secret grove to chant. At sunrise, some people use the same area to squat and evacuate; we use it to walk back and forth and chant japa. I allowed two more men to join us today, “But no talking.” They obeyed the rules. We each take a separate space, far enough apart so that we cannot hear each other, but close enough to see each other.
While I was chanting, two young Vrajavasi boys walked by. They were collecting peacock feathers. It is a way for poor people to make money. The boys stopped and stared at me. I looked down and went on chanting. “Maybe they will help me improve by their presence,” I thought. Then one of them signaled to the other and they left me alone by the flowers.
******
This spot is nice, I invite you to share it. Don’t bring a pillow. Sit on the cold, rock slab. When you feel inattentive and frustrated, slam the point of your walking stick hard into the ground. Twirl it in the air, draw circular designs in the dust. Bow down after each japa round, recite the Panca-tattva mantra and then stand up and brush the dirt off the front of your dhoti. The air is cool. You have an hour clear of all other concerns.
At my present level, day after day I fail to use this time as I would like to. At least I stay awake and chant the rounds at a timed clip. But I cannot go deeper. There is no easy answer. So I am here with the cold seat, slamming the poke end of my cane into the earth, getting up and sitting down.
******
On the way back to the temple, I had the nerve to speak to the others about japa. I said devotees are often concerned with whether they are improving in their japa. Sometimes they think they are doing better and sometimes worse. We know it is not in our control; it is up to Krsna. However, one basic principle is that the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. This may mean saving the best time in your day in which to chant, giving your whole effort, and trying to connect other things in your life to chanting. My friends had some thoughts about japa and spoke them too. We will remember this later, this nice spot for chanting . . . and how on Ekadasi so mans people were out walking on parikrama. Find that best place to chant. The thing about the grove near Ramana Reti is that it is nice, but still I cannot chant in love. Krsna knows my desire He will help me as He sees fit.
******
There are nice pictures in the Vrndavana mood which I can assemble on a table while I chant japa. I can keep sacred sand, water, and rocks. I can stop to read a verse here and there. But a brother said we shouldn’t become too dependent on the pictures and paraphernalia. The offering of bhajana comes from the heart. Find the heart and worship from there.
Even that beginning eludes me. Without it, our collection of verses and pictures doesn’t bring us to bhava-bhakti. The acaryas encourage us, however, that steadfast performance of vaidhi will lead to higher stages. We have to yearn for the transformation.
******
When will the day come? When can a fallen rascal obtain the mellows of the holy name? When will he be able to chant “Radha” and “Krsna” with a choking voice and beg to be admitted to Their service, at least in his mind? When will a small drop of that mercy fall on him by the descending process? When will he at least look toward and meditate upon the cloudbank of sweetness, just as the cakora birds turn to the thundercloud and refuse to drink any water except that which falls from above?
******
Chanting japa before a table altar full of pictures, I look up to the open window. The day-after-Ekadasi thin moon, a reddening dawn—I curse myself that I indulged in so much sinful activity in this lifetime. That small bit of enjoyment now prevents me from entering Vrndavana where Radha and Krsna are yugala-kisora.
******
Stay awake and pray in japa. I look at the pictures of Krsna’s pastimes, but they don’t always “work” for me. I cannot expect to see the spiritual world unless there is the ointment of premanjana on my eyes. I try to hear. If that doesn’t work, I fall back to the mechanical practice of counting up the quota, getting it done. Only by descending mercy can we improve. May Krsna hear my cries and sighs—I require that mercy and will do anything to obtain it.
******
I always feel hopeful about the next morning’s japa. Maybe it’s not warranted. I shouldn’t analyze it so much; just accept it. See the sitting mat, votive candles in glasses, three shelves of pictures, boxes of memoirs from Vrndavana, incense, my beads …
O Harinama, please forgive my offenses. When I come to You in the morning, please overlook my mistakes. Please appear in my heart.
******
This morning I finished eight rounds while sitting in a darkened room. The votive candles illumined the holy pictures, and the moon shone full through the windows. A few times, I tried recalling that I am fallen.
I may not make full progress in this lifetime. It isn’t the worst thing that could happen to me, but it seems likely that I will have to take birth again. Will I ever just accept it as a matter of fact, that the higher powers will transfer me to my next life? As Bhaktivinoda Thakura prays, let it be an insignificant life in the family of devotees. At least allow me to take birth where devotees are chanting Krsna’s name and hearing His pastimes.
pp. 11-12
I like it when I 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, 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 tininess 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.
Prabhupada, sometimes I pray directly to Krsna in these talks, but even then it’ll be only because you allow me to do it that I can understand Krsna Himself as He says in Bhagavad-gita that one should think of Him as always a person. He says that we should always think of Him in the form of Krsna 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.” (Bg. 8.7)
Then Krsna 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 dandavats. 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, Srila Prabhupada, by talking to the devotees in the temple, 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 this Prabhupada smaranam session. 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.
pp. 209-211
Tamala Krsna Goswami, Acaryadeva, Tridandipada and I gathered together to talk about writing. TKG’s play, The Drama of Lord Jagannatha, is a great success. It was performed last night by a professional Bengali troupe; tomorrow night an English-speaking production. These Godbrothers also encouraged me about Journal and Poems. (If they didn’t like it, it might give me doubts, and yet I have to have my own deep conviction.) Each Krsna conscious writer is expressing himself in a particular form; we are each virtually first-time pioneers in our areas. TKG has written the first devotional play in the English language following all the strict rules of Sanskrit drama as given by Rupa Gosvami. Acaryadeva’s field is philosophy and literature. He says he wants to root out the deepest misconceptions in the Western mind that prevent intelligent people from taking to Krsna consciousness. He’s preparing a book on Western philosophy.
******
I noticed that guru-puja was being held on the roof of the opposite building for Jayapataka Swami and also for Harikesa Swami, so we had a version of guru-puja here. Disciples of mine from different countries gathered, I led a small kirtana and then spoke. I asked them to get the full benefit of the festival by imbibing the inspiration and also preparing themselves to return to regular duty in their prabhu-datta-desa. While I was speaking, I noticed different disciples and thought of their problems and their individual natures. It inspired in me a yearning to be fully fit physically to be able to deal with all my different services. I made a prayer for health, for that desire to return to full service. Krsna can do as He pleases, grant me ability to show some other direction.
A meeting with Gaura Govinda Swami of Orissa. He has translated the one-volume Prabhupada biography into Oriya, and he presented me with a copy of the book. He is a wonderful example of a steady BBT worker, translating and printing Prabhupada’s books and a monthly magazine. He has a vow not to eat each day until he first finishes a certain amount of translation.
Just before the mangala-arati in the temple, I noticed Niranjana Prabhu. I turned to him and said, “I wasn’t sure whether you would be able to come. I was just thinking of you and the legal case.” He smiled and said that they recently had two good decisions in their favor. It was a lift to hear this just before the curtains opened and we saw the Deities. Either way, in happiness or distress, we surrender to Krsna.
A meeting with Prthu Prabhu. He told me about his wonderful experience with the Irish devotees in Jagannatha Purl, where they stayed for a week.
After lunch Brahmananda dropped in, and we spoke about nature cure and about his taking on a teaching position in Africa. He said that we should do more than teach cooking classes in universities, and so he is eager to do that.
One of the devotees gave his opinion that there was too much commercialism on the dhama. He referred to the selling of different kinds of foods, like veggie burgers, pizzas, ice cream, sodas, all of which are selling for what he thought were high prices. He also complained that there weren’t enough spiriitual programs for the devotees. I reminded him that devotees had already gone on parikrama and now they were just spending rest days, but that there were also seminars. Today, for example, at four o’clock there are two simultaneous seminars, one on college preaching and one on Deity worship.
When I think of “the main river of ISKCON,” I certainly don’t think of it as being commercial sales of veggie burgers. There are impurities, but there are also impurities in the Ganges, and yet it remains pure. Prabhupada said that Ganges’s worshipers simply push aside the impure things like stool, industrial waste, or even dead bodies, and they bathe in the Ganges and get the purification. ISKCON’s mainstream is pure because it follows Prabhupada’s basic instructions—chanting the holy name, following the four rules, following the G.B.C., following the temple program, preaching, book distribution, worshiping Krsna. These elements are intact. One can be sarcastic or bitter about the wrong things or see it as corruption, or see it from a historical point of view, as professors do, and see inevitable corruption entering new religions. But we are within this movement, and our responsibility is to have faith and also to work to purify it. Despite commercialism and complaints, a thousand devotees are gathering from countries around the world, from faraway places like Australia, Europe, South and North America, and throughout India. This is certainly a testimony to the potency and vitality of ISKCON. The devotees have not come here for commercial reasons or for sense gratification, even if they are indulging in it somewhat once they’re here. We can look at the bright side. As when Prabhupada wrote his letter to Lynne Ludwig, “They have given everything, even their lives to Krsna—and that is never a mistake” (SSR, “Protecting Oneself From Illusion”).
In the holy dhama,
one summons up energies
beyond pain and pleasure.
Don’t stand dumb,
focus on the Deity
you’re in the kirtana of His name!
Go to the life beyond
bones, flesh, and the wavering mind.
Use more heart.
pp. 102-5
My father was an anti-intellectual. He called intellectuals “eggheads.” Politically, he was a Republican war-hawk. I started subscribing to the Village Voice while in college and my father didn’t like that at all. It was partly because it came from Greenwich Village, but also because the politics were too much for him, the heavy criticism of American foreign policy. I was sympathetic to the black civil rights movement and he was not, but we rarely discussed our differences.
Aside from the newspaper, my father did not read books. He had one book called As You Pass By. It was a history of the fire department, starting from when they had horses pull the wagons. It had stories in it like how two different fire companies would get to the fire at the same time and start a fist fight over who would put the fire out, while the house burned down. My father was amused by stories like that. He also used to subscribe to a magazine, WNYFD (With New York Fire Department). The best part of that was a gossip column that was divided up into all the different districts and fire houses. It would say things like, “We hear within the Great Kills Station, Lieutenant Jimmy Matthews wasn’t very pleased when one of the fire laddies threw a firecracker into his office . . . Congratulations to Captain Zusekner, whose wife gave birth to baby boys on August 3rd.”
So there was a growing distance between us as I started reading intellectual books, not just as part of the college syllabus, but on my own. In my third year at college, I won a twenty-five dollar literary prize. As soon as I received the cash, I went to a bookstore and bought Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover. This was before the breakthroughs in freedom of the press for obscenity. I brought these books into the house covertly. After I read Lady Chatterly’s Lover, I lent it to my sister with a recommendation, “This is a very good book.” A few days later, my sister told me, “Daddy took the book from me.” I said, “Wow! How could he do that? That’s my book.” I was on fire with my new sensibilities, so I went to him and said, “I heard you took the book.”
He responded, “You’re damned right I did. You know, if a girl her age reads that book, she’ll get all sexed up. I can’t have her reading that book.”
I said, “Okay, but anyway, I want my book back.” It was an intense exchange. I was so righteous, but now that I think of it, he was right. He was right, but I was defending intellectual liberty.
So who was better, the father who didn’t know romantic poetry, or the pseudo-intellectual son? It was all maya—being his son, trying to assert freedom for obscenity, pretending to be a free intellectual, buying books with bright blue dustjackets, turning to the front page, “Ours is a tragic age . . . ” I do not know where my father is now, but he scared the hell out of me the way he forced me to live as he wanted me to be. Following Henry Miller seemed to be the way out. I liked the way he could write whatever he wanted. He could write “f___ ” in his books, so he must have been free . . . I am saying do not read their books. But also, do not listen to the maya of mothers and fathers who just read their newspapers and their dumb books and watch their TV.
Who do I think I am now, a liberated teacher? No. But I am free of some things. I am free of that parental maya. I thank Lord Krsna! I am free too, of posing to be a reader of “great books” filled with obscenities. Therefore, I am writing this story hoping it will please those who are also free of these things, and maybe it may help some who are still within the nightmare and don’t know how to get out.
I confess that when I go to read the Srimad-Bhagavatam, it is not always easy. But I know the Srimad-Bhagavatam is beautiful. I have studied it quite a few times. Sometimes it is not easy to read it again, but it is the only book (along with other Vedic literatures) that gives you a direct darsana of the Supreme Lord. That is what a book is for. Not for saying, “Ours is a tragic age,” or “F___ you.” And one reason that we have trouble reading Srimad-Bhagavatam is because we have read the other books.
Each person has his or her own karma. Mine was to read many nondevotee books in this lifetime before reading Srila Prabhupada’s books. Maybe your karma was to be born of Krsna conscious parents and to never read other’s speculation or novels. We all have to become lovers of the Srimad-Bhagavatam, but not because someone is forcing us. We have to know that there are plenty of books to choose from, yet we still have to decide on Krsna. Life is short. What we read will be on our minds at the time of death. Better it be Krsna. We go to the next life according to where our minds are now. At the time of death, we want to think of Krsna. We can do it by reading His words now.
pp. 39-42
1 a. to contend physically for victory with vigor, fierceness, and determination; to strive to overcome or destroy a person, animal, or thing especially by blows or weapons—often used with “against” or “with.”
b. to engage in prize-fighting; BOX.
2 a. to put forth a grim, determined, or dogged effort (as for the achievement of a goal or purpose)—often used for [fight for freedom] or to [fight for salvation] —vt.
3 to contend against in or as if in battle or physical combat especially with determination to cease only upon achieving victory or sustaining defeat.”
And on it goes: “to struggle with the inconvenience, discomfort, or hardship of; to struggle, to endure, to surmount.”
Fight has a broad meaning. It can mean boxing or it can mean fighting for salvation. No one said we should not fight for the right reasons. Arjuna was asked to fight as a ksatriya. We’re asked simply to fight off sleep, sex desire, gluttony, and other forms of ignorance. Fighting means we don’t just flow with everything.
Of course, many of us carry a more Taoist attitude about fighting. The Tao tells us not to fight battles we can’t win. Rather, we should go with the current of time. The Tao teaches a mystical awareness of how things move in the world—God-willed—and how we are a part of His plan. To fight or create resistance will not get us where we want to go.
Striving is part of spiritual life. I remember years ago reading one book, Unseen Warfare, that described an old-style Christian meditation in which the meditator fights off the demons that attack his meditation. Yogis have a similar meditation when they suggest we beat our minds with a shoe.
A devotee fights. Prabhupada was emphatic that we shouldn’t follow the cult of nonviolence as if it were an absolute religious principle. It’s good to have some fighting spirit if it’s properly applied. We shouldn’t fight among ourselves, certainly, and we should fight only to uphold Krsna’s cause. We should also fight until the death. It takes energy and will power. We fight the oppression of our non-devotee dreams by begging to be lifted out of illusion. We fight disease with the will to live for Krsna’s service. Each of us goes through times when we have to fight to stay alive in spiritual life. If we have no taste for such exertion, we’ll be swallowed by our material desires as a rabbit is swallowed by a fox.
“Now the fight has begun,” Prabhupada said when the anti-cult movement began in America. He called his devotees to battle and said, “Now we have to go door to door and, by preaching, fight. We fight by sankirtana. Not by sticks and guns, but by propaganda.” We also fight by setting a good example.
I tend to be queasy about physical fighting. I don’t like to see people punching each other, and I hate the sight of blood. I don’t get pleasure from the sound of the crack of someone’s fist against someone else’s head, or even a slap. It’s too shocking. I do like to fight in the sense I am discussing here. We have to conquer the enemy within.
I find writing a fight. I have to fight to get up early, and fight to wield my pen. It’s not a cheap fight, and it’s not meant to cause violence to others, but to give them strength in Krsna consciousness. Therefore, writing can’t be a battle fought in false ego. It takes purity and fearlessness.
From the German, meaning, literally “food, feed.” ‘To eat voraciously, devour.” Then, “Debris or excrement produced by insects.” That’s the usual definition—”Debris or excrement produced by insects.”
What could be more lowly or ignominious than insect excrement? And what can I possibly say about it? I don’t think I’ve ever even seen it. I remember in college when we studied geology, they used the word “coprolites” to describe fossilized excrement. When I took the final exam, I wrote a couplet on my paper. I found geology dry and analytical. It was probably risky to hand that poem in with my exam, but I couldn’t help myself. It went something like this:
“Of all this fellow’s passion./ all he’s sung,/ behold forever fossilized,/ his dung.”
We can just imagine these geologists having to study, enthusiastically, the fossilized dung of long-dead animals because then they can tell what the animals ate, the nature of their intestines, and so much other important information.
Why am I talking about this? It’s scatological. Well, I don’t want to talk about this any longer. I was dragged to the topic by the word “frass.” Therefore, I will make an official, Krsna conscious statement about “frass” and move on.
Every living entity eats and passes stool. Gopal Bhan showed the king that this was the greatest pleasure in conditioned life. We feel so much pleasure because we obtain so much relief. Mark Twain said something similar: “Sex is one of the most overrated pleasures, and passing stool is one of the most underrated pleasures.”
As devotees, we know that relief has little to do with real happiness. Real happiness comes from engaging the entire self in service to Krsna. Therefore, we no longer have to dwell on the body’s functions, but on spiritual life.
As for insects, well, all I can say is don’t become one. As an insect you’ll produce frass and as a human you’ll produce feces. There is little difference if you are functioning on that level of consciousness. Just be Krsna conscious and serve Krsna.
That’s all on frass.
pp. 34-39
I’m a writer
but willing to sacrifice
product for process
to go beyond the usual concerns
by examining them minutely
looking for a deeper self and life itself
searching sastra and
the holy name.
I no longer seem capable of sustained efforts
no theses burning to be born
no novels no
form. I’m
simply seeking
Krsna.
I am a spider a spider man, and
living in a world of safety valves
and Krsna conscious contexts,
I let my heart soar like a blues horn
or pulse like a drum
my life energy beating time
as I turn to prayer
even as I chant.
Cold and so tired walking I have
to stop a dozen times. You’d think I
had been on an all-day trek. I could
lie down and fall asleep on the road or
on this page—just curl up and be gone.
But I made a promise to hear Prabhupada speak
and several rabbits just interrupted their breakfast
to escape and bhakti is rare.
I don’t have it, only selfishness and lust.
How can I sleep?
Let me walk into the mist-filled woods
and clearly hear his voice, the kitchen pot
banging outside. He’s speaking about
Raghunatha dasa Gosvami lying down
on the bank of Radha-kunda and crying.
Prabhupada, I think of you in Vrndavana
those days when we prayed you’d be all right
and you were
because you were with Radha and Krsna.
I wrote you letters after I left India
many unsent
to thank you for nourishing me
my allegiance to you to
ISKCON
but it’s time I went to bed.
Prabhupada, I know you are all right now
with the previous acaryas in your nitya-lila.
Did you see me looking at the Maverick Poets anthology,
seeing how poets talk?
Take it like a farmer in ISKCON looking
at an almanac.
But I don’t need it.
I need you.
Prabhupada, you let me type for you and
I thought I was sincere.
Now I know better and truly wish
I could become plain and grateful
enough to join you
in Krsna’s world. Please, Prabhupada,
help me cast off everything but the vision of you
chanting japa, pacing,
alone with your Krsna.
jamuna-jivana, keli-parayana,
manasa-candra-cakora
jamuna-jivana, keli-parayana, manasa-candra-cakora
These words describe Krsna,
the life of Yamuna, the gopis’
only moon. It’s beautiful,
but it’s not through Sanskrit that I can know
this Lover and His Beloved, dark
Syamasundara and His beautiful Gaurangi.
When Prabhupada sings I feel his
feeling—I mean I know he knows
and I listen to his tune
with more heart.
Cassette tapes spilling onto the floor, Prabhupada
lecturing. It seems he will never stop
nor I hearing him
and Krsna becomes truth again,
handed over, part
of me.
Just read that material life is miserable and material attempts to mitigate it fail. If we’re smart and stuck with thorns, we’ll use other thorns to remove them.
Nice walk in a park. They’re happy to hear it.
The clear divine profound sound of a horn
to which they can dance if
they want, although the idea is to hear
with the heart.
“They say the intelligence—
or something else—
is the soul,” but what
can they know? Let it go.
The abrupt dropping of a bomb
by the drums
that want to improvise.
In a moment of truth
my head and yours, my
hands and your hands—our
pains unite and dissolve as we sit and look out
at a gray island sky, fog, rain
and Krsna is suddenly there.
Will we find our own voices again
after that? My song grows more complicated
as we become a sacrifice we always wanted to make
anyway.
I’m on an island and there are no chestnuts yet, no snow
although it’s autumn and the ladies and old men
are becoming as crinkled as leaves.
I feel the rain in the soles of my feet
but this world is spinning past me fast the
Navy already long past even gone
and a father who pushed me in. I was vulnerable
but what can you expect
when Celine is your guru?
Or Genet? No hope but to be blind.
Krsna changed the melody and although I was sad,
angry, lost, serious
I heard His freedom song
and now see blackbirds landing on the grass
gray-hooded ravens
and can feel love.
This sadhu goes public with his
private thoughts
anomalies exposed.
He knows that either we have to say,
“We should, we
should,
because our leaders
are perfect
and we believe everything
perfectly”
or some other sickness
or we have to be
who we are
and pray from there.
pp. 189-93
I watched the ants at a rotting stump on a hillside. They were large, with a red front half and a black, ball-shaped rear. They looked like they could give me a mean bite, and so I took care not to get too familiar with them.
I noticed that the ants leaving the stump were usually empty-handed, but some of those returning carried pieces of other insects. When you came close enough, the whole hillside seemed alive with moving ants. But once you stepped away for a few yards, they were hardly noticeable on a quiet sunny day. This reminded me of Srila Prabhupada’s comment when he flew for the first time, on his journey from New York to San Francisco in 1967. He said, “From the sky the houses look like matchboxes. Just imagine how it looks from Krsna’s point of view.”
Sometimes when I felt morose because of our isolation from humans, I would go and crouch among the ants at the stump and watch the frenzy. That they were highly motivated was obvious, but the purpose of it all was never clear to me, or whether it was absolutely necessary for the ants to live that way in order to survive. Watching them used to cure me of a desire to once again take part in highway traffic at rush hour, or in the downtown pedestrian traffic during the morning and evening bustle.
While condemning materialistic civilization, Srlla Prabhupada used the phrase “anthill civilization.” “Both humans and ants build tall edifices,” he said, “but if a man doesn’t know of the soul and Krsna, then despite his proud skyscrapers, his civilization is no more than a glorified anthill.”
The hunter who was turned into a Vaisnava by Narada Muni stopped in his rush to Narada to gently brush aside the ants in his path. Jada Bharata did not want to step on ants, and so he incurred trouble for himself by not properly carrying the king’s palan quin. Stepping on ants is also mentioned as one of the items of unintentional violence, for which a person must be purified by yajna. The Jains avoid it by walking with a broom before them. Vaisnavas serve the Lord and chant Hare Krsna to absolve themselves from unintentional violence.
The closer you look at any square foot of forest earth, the more it comes alive. Here’s a hole in the ground, an opening to some creature’s house. Here are some tiny mushrooms, partly knocked over. The weeds are blowing slightly, but their whole bodies move from top to bottom. Specks of bright lichen have taken hold. If you had a microscope, you’d see much more. Everything is moving, nothing is still.
Into the quiet, the woodpecker’s drill sounds as sharp as an electric tool. The sound reminds you that all here are predators and victims. Each plays both roles, hunter and hunted. These are nature’s truths, not man’s, and no one can alter them. The more we enter this world, the more we think to get out of it.
When the moon was bright you could see him in the branches of a tree. The owl eats only meat. With his big eyes and facial discs, “the wise owl,” is a fat, downy killer.
It depends with whom you empathize. Just as in a Hollywood movie or in a novel, when you enter the life of the leading character, you sympathize with him; his enemies become yours. So in nature, every creature has its own children to raise and feed, and the parents have to work hard and long hours. From the wolves’ point of view, they are not cruel or savage, just hungry. They have to track many miles and days before catching a moose. Still, my sympathies go to the moose. But then the moose ravages many living plants.
And so with these owls. If there are mice afoot tonight, no matter how careful they are, the swift, silent owl will see them with his enormous eyes and snatch them and eat them whole. Mother Durga punishes us according to our karma and desires. As Narada Muni warned King Praclnabarhisat:
My dear king, please see in the sky those animals you have sacrificed without compassion and without mercy in the sacrificial arena. All these animals are awaiting your death so they can avenge the injuries you have inflicted upon them. After you die they will angrily pierce your body with thorns.
— Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.25.7-8
pp. 30-34
. . . It is our fault if they are not convinced. Srila Prabhupada is awake, alive by this philosophy, convinced that the soul is eternal. Vedic authority is sound, right before us. It is available—transcendental information—it is more convincing than any other religious system against atheism. We have already accepted it—now we have to become absorbed and alive and convinced. Once absorbed in the ocean of Krsna consciousness, then I don’t think there would be so much worrying, planning, “How shall I best engage? Shall I travel outside the temples? Shall I do this? Why doesn’t anyone come to our university lectures? What is the most effective engagement?” If I am absorbed, the answer will be there. Really joyful, really alive, reaBdIlly preaching, convincing.
The devotee also requires to be convinced, not just the non-devotee, the sympathetic or unsympathetic guest. The initiated devotee, the brahmana, everyone—one who is alive in Krsna consciousness can convince others.
Srila Prabhupada spoke with a French professor who objected to Prabhupada’s explanation of “Thou shalt not kill.” Srila Prabhupada told him that it is because he is accustomed to killing. “You have to agree on the principle that killing is not good business.”
Later, Prabhupada said the Christian religion does not support animal-killing. Jesus first became disgusted with Judaism when he saw they were killing animals in the synagogue. He thought, “What is this?” and went to India to study. He was a great personality; undoubtedly he wanted to give them something sublime. Now the followers are killing. How abominable. And they say, “What have we done wrong?” when no one comes to church. They are trying by flattery to get people to come, but there has to be something substantial. Not that you can make a friend by flattery. You cannot simply cry, “I love you, I love you.” That will not create a loving atmosphere. There has to be a sincere understanding for friendship to develop.
Later, he said it is very difficult to accept Krsna consciousness on principle because then you are immediately out of this world, in Vaikuntha orbit. They are afraid to try it, but if they do, everything will be all right, they will leave that orbit and go into Vaikuntha orbit.
Srila Prabhupada said that people don’t know how they are suffering in the material world. If we can save even one person, it is a great service.
The head of the nation is Nixon, and the activity is killing and throwing away grains. Soul-killing civilization. We have to fight and save at least a few.
Life means high qualities. One who is not Krsna conscious is hovering on the mental platform, which comes from non¬permanent things.
Prabhupada was stressing the chanting of Hare Krsna. Just chant and dance. The boy who the night before was arguing about so many things, yoga, etc., came back the next morning and liked the kirtana. People are attracted. American and Europeans become ecstatic. Panditji had lost a book and was looking for it—it was about ceremonies, hymns, etc. Prabhupada said it was not possible to introduce this in the West. He said the fire ceremony we perform is mostly a show only. This is the inner meaning of it. If we simply tell people to chant Hare Krsna, they will not be attracted, so we give them a show. But make it a short-cut show. If you chant Vedic hymns all day, they will not benefit. If you can get them simply to chant and dance all day, that is enough. Chant, dance, take prasadam, and rest. Don’t rest like Kumbakarna (Ravana’s brother who used to sleep twelve years), but just to appease the deficient body. Bhaktivinoda Thakura condemned smarta-class brahmanas. Simply chant Hare Krsna. We should stress this—whenever we have time, chant Hare Krsna loudly or softly, but the tongue should be moving, not officially or blurring it. He told Panditji that to become a smarta-pandita with wooden slip¬pers, dressed like them and going to seek panditas, was a waste of time. Dance. Even if there is no ecstasy, dance and it will come. Dancing is so nice. Is that all right?
Kirtaniya-sada. Chanting is good in every age. Prahlada preached like that in Satya-yuga. The people in those ages were proud of material accomplishments, but they could have simply chanted Hare Krsna. Everything else is additional to the chanting. Gosvamis added some of the old procedures just so smarta-brahmanas wouldn’t reject it as a strange new movement. The main thing is chanting.
On proposed visit by philosopher Albert Ayer: “What is his philosophy?”
Syamasundara: “He doesn’t believe in the existence of God.”
Srila Prabhupada: “I will give him evidence. I will ask him what he means by the existence of God and ask him to make a list of deficiencies of God’s existence.” He proposed how Europe could take to Krsna consciousness. If Christian and Buddhist leaders were convinced to take to Krsna consciousness as the essence, then U,S.A. would follow.
pp. 111-12
To Śrīla Prabhupāda, who encouraged his devotees (including me) To write articles and books about Kṛṣṇa Consciousness.
I wrote him personally and asked if it was alright for his disciples to write books, Since he, our spiritual master, was already doing that. He wrote back and said that it was certainly alright For us to produce books.
I have a personal story to tell. It is a about a time (January–July 1974) I spent as a personal servant and secretary of my spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupäda, founder-äcärya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Although I have written extensively about Çréla Prabhupäda, I’ve hesitated to give this account, for fear it would expose me as a poor disciple. But now I’m going ahead, confident that the truth will purify both my readers and myself.
First published by The Gītā-nāgarī Press/GN Press in serialized form in the magazine Among Friends between 1996 and 2001, Best Use of a Bad Bargain is collected here for the first time in this new edition. This volume also contains essays written by Satsvarūpa dāsa Goswami for the occasional periodical, Hope This Meets You in Good Health, between 1994 and 2002, published by the ISKCON Health and Welfare Ministry.
This book has two purposes: to arouse our transcendental feelings of separation from a great personality, Śrīla Prabhupāda, and to encourage all sincere seekers of the Absolute Truth to go forward like an army under the banner of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda and the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.
A single volume collection of the Nimai novels.
Śrīla Prabhupāda was in the disciplic succession from the Brahmā-Mādhva-Gauḍīya sampradāya, the Vaiṣṇavas who advocate pure devotion to God and who understand Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He always described himself as simply a messenger who carried the paramparā teachings of his spiritual master and Lord Kṛṣṇa.
Dear Srila Prabhupada,
Please accept this or it’s worse than useless.
You have given me spiritual life
and so my time is yours.
You want me to be happy in Krishna consciousness
You want me to spread Krishna consciousness,
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.