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
My mornings are long and filled with the heavy training befitting an Olympic athlete. Be alert. Even as I run through my japa like a conscientious runner, there may be moments when I find myself on my knees begging to serve. Watch for that moment. I have to become more humble. You say you want to improve chanting? Then the most essential element is trnad api sunicena. For example, guruship is a great responsibility. You cannot goof off and be silly with hundreds of people expecting you to guide them in the most important way. There are many ways to be a silly ass; you have to strive to avoid them.
******
Humility doesn’t mean being focused on yourself as grave, as guru. You have to be able to laugh (or cry) at yourself. Humility includes being a well-loved servant of the devotees. It means not indulging in sensual or mental gratification. It means not living only for yourself.
Think of what it means to be humble. If you have no idea and no practice, then how can you chant the holy name? How can you read in that mood?
I am chanting in Pennsylvania. Early this morning in the perfect quiet, I heard the faraway drone of a small-engined airplane. I wondered, “How could such a small plane fly at 3:00 A.M. over an unlit area?” Then I thought of the lonely pilot in the cockpit. Somehow, I too am hovering high above, lost, not focused.
******
I don’t think and feel when I chant. I get up and, restless, turn on the light. The purpose of this written report is not to hit myself on the head. Poor japa is punishment in itself. I am thinking of my thoughtful Godbrothers who also work to improve their japa, and of younger devotees who look to us for a sign. How can we help each other? I have no doubt in the process, but for myself, I can’t seem to focus.
******
I wander like a little plane in the sky with no worthy mission, it seems.
“Why fly at this hour? You’re just an amateur. You have no radar. There is nothing you can do that can’t be accomplished better by the big jets. Why don’t you come down and stop disturbing our sleep?”
That pilot won’t listen. He must fly. He’s a vaidhi-bhakta. He is deeply impelled by something beyond himself.
******
I ask forgiveness. “Where am I in comparison to the all-auspicious chanting of the holy name of Lord Narayana?” (Bhag. 6.2.34). Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura says, “I fall at the Lord’s feet, having taken this maha-mantra” (Arunodaya-kirtana, Part 2, verse 5).
Not waiting for inspiration, no time left in this life for studying Sanskrit, not much use left for English structures either.
******
My morning sadhana practice is like practicing jump shots in a big empty gymnasium. I used to practice those one-handed jump shots until I got good at it, but I was always too short and too shy to be a “jock” in my high school days. Ah, if only I had known of devotion to Krsna then. If only I had known the protection of a guru. What a wasted youth! So now in the swiftly diminishing hours of my life, I burn a candle and wish I could pray. To become a deer living in Vraja, or a peacock messenger, something connected to Vraja service, to guru-seva. Thank you, Gurudeva, for rescuing me. Please allow me, O Lord of the senses, some life duration and concentration on chanting and hearing the most splendid pastimes, beyond all study; allow me to practice my Hare Krishna mantras and one day please You in a simple way.
******
Make a setting for another early rising. It is the way of the Vaisnava saints and I will follow them. A mat is placed before the altar. Matches, incense, candles, pictures, japa-mala, the room itself is solitary, the house quiet. . . .
******
The page and pen await me too. As in japa, so in writing, the pen is merely the medium: there must be a person praying to his guru, praying to Prabhupada. Please accept me, Srila Prabhupada. Give me the taste of my unworthiness. Please give me the holy name. Keep my greed to hear of Krishna alive.
******
This is just one point of view: it seems the simpler and steadier the life, the better I can put aside other concerns in the morning when I do nama-bhajana. Should I take a small airplane into Essequibo (Guyana) or the speedboat? What will I say to the troubled person I have to speak to? You can’t eliminate these dealings, but you can simplify them.
The light of my votive candle illuminates the feet of the Panca-tattva picture I worship. I could turn on the light and read a verse, but I need time just for hearing the holy name. How boldly Srila Prabhupada asserted this “impossible” proposal: “What is the question of controlling the mind? Just hear.”
pp. 108-110
Dear Friends, may this fortunate ex-hunter speak a few words to you?
Please spare the animals’ pain, for your sake and theirs. Excuse me, but you have come to a wrong conclusion if you think that this killing of God’s creatures can go on without the killers suffering by retaliation. Please consider it. I do not wish to disturb anyone. It is a fact I come from an angry race, and I myself tend to be angry. But now I am at peace. I do not wish to blow my conchshell to spoil your savagery or to destroy your honest livelihood. Yet what kind of a life is it that takes pleasure in others’ dying? The cow, deer, rabbit, birds, and even the fish are people, although not as intelligent as you or I.
Most of you sense God’s presence in some way, or at least you have hope that a higher justice will prevail, and that there may be peace in this life and the next. But how can one follow these goals and at the same time, take part in the killing and maiming of other living entities? A human cannot fully explain the ways of the inconceivable Godhead, but this much is clear: We should not kill unnecessarily, and if we do, we will only bring suffering upon ourselves.
The conscience of the killer (of animals or humans) cannot be at peace. Please do not mock my words, I know I am full of faults. Please do not dispute this human and godly plea: “Do not kill.” I am not arguing to defeat anyone, nor do I present myself as an ideal example; I do not seek your votes, nor do I seek power. But I have killed many animals in this lifetime, and only by the grace of my spiritual master have I become free of it. It is therefore my duty to him to speak of this grave subject to others. Had I not stopped killing, I am convinced that I would have had to suffer in the future for the torture I inflicted on others, the dumb creatures of God.
This is the conclusion of the scriptures: Practice ahimsa, never harm others. Some who profess to follow religion are themselves steeped in blood. They justify the killing of innocent creatures as religious sacrifice, but they are wrong on this point. They are in ignorance.
If you who hear these words are even the least bit inclined to consider them, please try to detach yourselves from participation in this murder. It is quite easy to abandon murder and take up the life of nonviolence. People are taking this step in your own neighborhood. Hear from them and try to see the good in it. Do not mind if others think that you are odd. If you prefer to remain anonymous, you can privately and gradually give up directly killing creatures or buying their flesh for your food.
But do not delay. As for myself, I had a heavy karmic load on my head because I directly broke animals’ legs and left them writhing in the forest. Yet even a distant implication or agreement with the act of killing cows and other creatures carries as much responsibility as the killing itself. In this way, karma links up the guilty parties in the conspiracy. Save yourself and break free from it.
Do not face your Maker at the end of life as one who was an enemy of the animals. Do not be deluded that kindness to humans and the killing of animals can go together.
Now that I have been engaged in chanting God’s names and am no longer killing, I am a different person; I am peaceful and rectified. Still, I have dreams of the misery I caused others by the misuse of my intelligence and strength. I sometimes dream that the animals I killed are able to testify against me or to directly come and take their revenge. Yes, my dreams are a kind of mental fantasy, but if I had not given up the killing, these dreams would be indications of what is to come for one who kills.
Of course, killing and torturing human beings is even worse, and I do not even address that here as something that needs to be said. No sane person advocates the killing of human beings. And yet if we do not refrain from violence against animals, how will we curb the tendency to be violent against human beings? The same lusts and perverted instincts that convince us to kill animals—that it is in our interest to do so—the same drives and rationalizations lead us to see fellow human beings as enemies and therefore expendable creatures. Violence breeds more violence and creates a karma that will come back on us—as violence upon our own minds and bodies, upon that of our families and upon our land and country, and upon all humankind.
“Try to read our books. You are the president there, so you must be conversant with all our philosophy. (Letter to Mukunda, January 12, 1974).
Prabhupada states that if the temple standards change, the temple president is responsible. He states, “Try to read our books.” The temple standard must be kept, and this means reading Prabhupada’s books regularly, and such reading is especially important for the temple president.
The temple leader must read the books every day. Thus he will remain soundly situated in Prabhupada’s principles; the temple president can best fulfill his responsibilities to the movement, and he can act as a policeman to catch those wrongdoers who would depart from Prabhupada’s standards.
“Be sure to read my books very carefully, Bhagavad-gita, then Srimad-Bhagavatam, then Caitanya-caritamrta. You should read every day without fail.”
Prabhupada emphasizes that the books should be read every day without fail. We should remember this order of the spiritual master and propagate it without fail. Prabhupada went to great trouble to write the books. He stayed up most of the night, giving up sleep, to translate and write on the books. He says if his disciples do this then they will become realized. So three words are mentioned by him as all-important: it should be done regularly: “Read, chant and preach.”
“And you must all study the books very scrutinizingly, and when the need arises you can repeat in your own words their purport. Also I will be very pleased if you could contribute articles to BTG. By writing regularly, what you read will become realized.”
Prabhupada read a concocted philosophy letter from one devotee, and Prabhupada wrote him back, “I think the best thing you can do is to study our books very carefully and then try to write something.” He says that new devotees and old devotees must write just as they have heard it from your guru, and nothing else. Otherwise your writing is useless. And to another devotee who wrote him a concocted letter, Prabhupada wrote, “It is waste of time, paper, money, ink and labor. What you have written will not attract anyone. He wrote to the devotee he could spend more time reading his books very carefully and to not manufacture anything.
Prabhupada gives the example that Lord Caitanya’s secretary, Svarupa Damodara, would not accept any literary offering that deviated from Lord Caitanya’s teachings, so too does Prabhupada discourage his disciples from writing in the spirit of speculation.
In the mood of a conditioned soul, Lord Caitanya writes, “My dear Lord, You put all of Your energies and Your holy name, but unfortunately, I commit offenses in chanting, and therefore I cannot taste the sweetness.” In a similar way, devotees know that Prabhupada worked tirelessly to give us these books and that Krsna is on every page, but I cannot appreciate them. Such a devotee accepts Krsna as God, but because of his conditioning he fails to appreciate Krsna‘s books. Such a mixed devotee may not be able to act as an expert transparent via medium for relaying the message of the books, but this does not mean he misinterprets them. Only by intentionally acting in a very devious way does one misinterpret Prabhupada’s books.
pp. 6-9
Write your life. Nothing short of that. The whole day (I can’t write in my sleep) and hours throughout the day, and every day of the year. You worried about the volume you are creating, and the problem this presents for the reader, but you can’t stop. Your life into writing. I need it for myself. Each piece I do is in the art of the journal, prose poem, informal essay, joke, satire, direct communication, prayer . . . . And as I do it, I discover myself. I uncover some block of maya. Who will read it? I will. And I can’t even worry whether someone will read it all. I must do my offering for Krishna and keep the hand moving.
Who knows what’s going to happen? A scribe tries to write it down and save it. Make a portrait of a good man who helped. There are many people like that. It’s inspiring to meet them. If the world could know more about them . . . so the scribe tells. Sometimes novelists invent a person they think worth remembering—another way he can live and be passed through future generations.
But I don’t know any persons like that, or I am not so generous to see them that way. I can’t tell of them in an unreal, idealistic way. Therefore, I write of myself, not about one of those self-sacrificing good persons worth remembering. But I am a scribe. The scribe writes the daily life of the scribe.
I’ll tell ya again, this ain’t an ordinary diary. It’s a dirty diry and Lu-lu’s diry, it’s Artlines, Baltinglass. It’s something you don’t know, coming at you like a friendly missile, a constant pounding.
She asked at least twice, “Why do you say this isn’t just a diary?”
Oh Miss, I said you missed the point. In the near diary, the important thing is the facts, the events of place and person and what conspired. It may also be inward. But its main effort is not to sing but to “make diary.”
What I am doing uses the form of daily writing to express poems and shouts
wiggling his hands
the sworn-to-silence monk
made a clear speech
that he was not pleased
with me. I hand-
signaled back—“go
fly a kite.”
O Krishna, the mind is still filled with so many things. The words moving and changing, but I’m committed to free writing, which takes the first ones as best. They are the unaltered raw. If they are too wrong and embarrassing, we can change them later. Here they come like bats out of the cave, flying down to Mexico. Whatever I see, someone has seen before me, and said it too. But it’s also unique, the combinations. Our Lord comes with His varieties of lilas and devotees.
The hand moves like a manual typewriter to the right-hand margin and then quickly back to the left, making its American script, its Hare Krishna teachings from a personal life. They want to know, or they already know and put out some questions to me just so that we can keep a friendly correspondence.
Friends, equals, some juniors—those are the ones I mostly write to. My seniority is barely maintained as the years go by. I forget my small stock of Sanskrit slokas as they increase theirs. They get bhakti-shastri diplomas and attend Vaishnava colleges where they receive systematized education. And I wrangle over my disappointments and try to open these things for others.
You are not a God-man. You are a med-taker, excuse-maker. I see you shuffling from room to room with your shoulders bent forward. You’re no winner. But who knows. Maybe those books will reach out to people who haven’t yet come along.
I am one of you. I know what it’s like. I’m on the same road.
I am and you are too. Let’s be Krishna conscious and believe it’s what the world needs and find a way to distribute. I nourish those already here and those coming in with a brand of rum for the likeminded who likes honest poems and mad joy admitting self is free.
Somehow he is reading Srimad-Bhagavatam and Bhagavad-gita. He is raising his children. Sitting in the cane field writing a letter to his spiritual master. Selling something to pay his mortgage. Behind in rent. Solvency is only a dream. Please help us. They said it is too difficult to keep up. Ugly face. Strict doctrine—you obey or we reject you. You reject our authority and you are not one of us. It’s as simple as that. But what if you guys in authority are sometimes wrong? Follow us anyway; Krishna has put us in charge. Do you believe it or not? Shall we exclude you?
No, I’d like to be included, I just wish you’d make it a little more loving and liberal, a little easier.
pp 40-42
Bugs no bigger than a capital letter landing
all over 18” x 24” airfield of rich
paper: “Close the windows!”
They’re coming in.
I spoke. The credit is all Lord
Caitanya, not me. “Do a reality
check” – hippie language – and see if
you are in illusion or Krishna consciousness and
admit you are just God’s humble
servant.
“To close the windows,” M. said,
“I’ll have to put out all the lights.”
I run into the next room to finish
this poem.
Lord Caitanya. I said I admitted
I don’t have access to India’s religion,
my only hope and connection is His
Divine Grace. I’m not one of these
devotees who absorb India through
their pores, I’m essentially American
No – I’m essentially an
ISKCON-ite created by the Swami,
The Swami.
I’m an ISKCON-ite, a greater one…
I spoke until I felt I overdid it,
said he was hip. Yeah, he was but
I was at a loss for words to give example?
of his hipness. Do they know
what I’m talking about?
Said he was the lead ksatriya who
could lead us against a whole mob.
He had guts and compassion and hipness to
take on Americans – no one else.
So, I overdid it. Claimed I loved him,
said he said English is for worldwide
preaching – Hindi is for fanatics.
I may have been cruel, boastful,
self-centered…
These things happen when you speak nightly
to 50 people, your disciples.
But at least we’re talking of reading his
books as bliss and I can back it up with
daily experience – I’ll get back inside that
maybe only when these folks leave and I go
alone somewhere to woodshed it, be alone
with those blessed books and read prayerfully
2 ½ hours daily – please let me enter
and believe
that they are not for beginners only.
They are for me and give love of Krishna
to whomever carefully reads. I wish to
act on what he teaches.
******
You run out—of things to say. A Blue Bonnet margarine. A carob nut bar from his disciples. Walking together, two ISKCON gurus wearing garlands. “I have to go back now, I’m feeling tired and (he mumbles and points to his right eye) … Some pressure is starting.” The other doesn’t grasp what the headache is but accommodates his friend. “Then go back early. Take care of yourself.” They part, and one gets into the car and is relieved to be out of that pressure participation—where you keep making prostrated obeisances on stone floors and don’t know what the heck it’s all about.
Wait a minute, this is your religion. Yeah, well sorry, but I can’t feel it. Dandavats is not a Bengali custom. It’s a universal principle. You ought to bow down. Krishna is not a Hindu God. He says man-mana bhava mad-bhakto, mad-yaji mam namaskuru. Bow down, mister. Sing it, if you like, in Boy George style. But do it, Bow down, monsieur, amici, lad,
provisioner, poet,
bow down, unhinge the
knee joints, stretch out the whole body of bones on stone floor comma and then why lie there so blank minded? Why not pray, “Help!”?
Pray, “God, give me”
Pray, “You are Truth, You know all. You are Nature and sky and relief and writing ability and Your nature produces flies and mosquitoes and this weakened, dwindling body I have contacted due to maya. Devahuti said – You put me here (in illusion) and only You can get me out.”
Pray on stone floors at least a split second. Please sir, dear mind, don’t move on so quickly looking for it to end as if you detested it like an hour of Physical Education or Algebra at Tottenville High School. Don’t desire simply, “When can I go back to my room alone?” Yet don’t enjoy attention and honor. Serve, give, be there for them.
Hi folks, here is your boy.
Please elect me as Mayor
of Somerville, Mass.
Please don’t kick me in the ass.
I want to serve the people
and live as mayor? in Gracie
Mansion but not as a
politician with all duties.
Poet Laureate-in-residence
with no job but to write.
And give seminars.
Go look at a sketch of Bhaktivinoda.
It will be nice to read his meditation
on hari-nama or read Kabe Ha’be Bolo.
Yes, please elect me mayor of
hermitage and let me go. Let
that be your gift to me, your
garland and sandalwood paste,
and earnest request, “Dear Guruji,
please accept our request that
you go alone for at least four weeks and do your reading and chanting. Please go. We will be all right. When you come back, we’ll know you went alone for our benefit also. Yes, ‘cause you’ll come to us again with new and better books and realizations and advice how to pray. Please, Guruji, go away.
Happy hunting, may no one disturb you, not even your own mind.”
pp 84-87
Srila Rupa Gosvamipada, please keep us in the shower of your nectarean verses and let us never leave this magic circle of friends. Give me the heart to read and hear and always relish. We are rupanugas.)
“Gone is the vanity of male egoism, O Kana. Now I am Your faithful maidservant” (Śaraṇāgati , 4.4.1) Can you believe he has come this far? From an old man lamenting his life of frustrated sense gratification, he has come not only to full surrender, but to his awareness of his eternal spiritual form. He says he has no more male egoism, but that he is now a sakhi or manjari.
“O Lord of Radha, in the groves of Vraja I will perform devotional service as a follower of one of the sakhis.” This is what Bhaktivinoda Thakura most wants to tell us. He is telling us of the most beautiful desire, the best song. “Please accept me as a sakhi-manjari. I will make a garland of forest flowers and tulasi buds. I will place that garland in the hands of the confidential sakhi who is my group leader. She will place the garland on the necks of Radha and Krsna. I will watch from afar.” “The confidante will then say to me, ‘Listen, O beautiful one, you should remain in this grove as my attendant’ (Śaraṇāgati , 4.4.6). He has forgotten Bhaktivinode. Now she is a sakhi in Vraja.
Again and again that perfection is held up for us to see and aspire for. I sit in my chair in the yard, listening to the slow hum of a faraway tractor. The cough in my chest doesn’t go away, or does it? The breeze can remind me. The old man in the driveway can remind me. I have wasted my time and I still have so far to go.
I am eager to see what Bhaktivinode Thakura will give us next, now that we have gone with him to the summit.
There is a verse that states that vaidhī-bhakti leads to rāgānuga. Another verse states that vaidhi cannot produce bhava. You need the rasika Vaiṣṇava to guide you.
Bhaktivinode Thakura next gives more songs of “bhakti-pratikula-bhava varjanangikara,” renunciation of conduct averse to pure devotion. He has given us a full glimpse of the ultimate liberation as a sakhi in Gokula, and now he returns to instruct all jivas how to avoid obstacles on the path. We’ll hear more from him about yearning for the perfect state, but if we want to progress there, we still have a lot of ground to cover. Also, he wants to equip us as preachers so that we can help others.
“This material creation of Yours, O Kesava, is most strange. I have roamed throughout the forest of this universe in consequence of my selfish acts, and I have beheld many strange and curious sights” (Śaraṇāgati , 5.1.1).
Ghettos, torturings. I dreamt I was protected by a powerful and excellently trained dog. I kept him on a leash and he did my bidding. I could go anywhere unafraid. But then the dog became as intelligent as a human and quit my service. He said he preferred .to be unemployed. Without him, I was open to attacks. I had to cross streets where everyone saw me as the enemy to be attacked. O Kesava, this material creation is most strange, and it’s due to my past karma that I have to suffer now. I caused others to suffer in the past and now I have to go into the streets at night where everyone sees me as worth killing.
In this dangerous world, cheating philosophers come forward to deliver me. They offer me material pleasures and liberation. But it is forgetfulness of Lord Kesava’s feet that has brought on my anguish and grief—and these philosophers are averse to His devotional service. They are fatally dangerous.
“Bhaktivinoda, considering refuge at the feet of the Vaiṣṇava as essential, pays his respects to these cheating philosophers from afar” (Śaraṇāgati , 5.1.4).
Don’t play with fire. Having come to devotional service, don’t look back to see if there was anything you missed enjoying in the world or would like to take with you. You can’t bring your old rocks across the river: they will make you sink. You renounced everything and you felt such relief. Kṛṣṇa gave you the strength and courage then. He took away all your old friends. Don’t rummage through the heap of discarded memories and desires. You have already been given the best. Don’t become a crow again.
“I shall never reside at a place unfavorable for devotional practices, and may I never take pleasure in non-devotional works. I will read no book opposed to pure devotion, nor listen to any explanation which disagrees with pure devotional principles” (Śaraṇāgati , 5.2.3-4).
“I vow to completely shun whatever I know to contradict pure devotion. This I strongly promise. Bhaktivinoda, falling at the feet of the Lord, begs for the strength to give up all obstacles to pure devotion” (Śaraṇāgati , 5.2.8-9).
pp 86-89
“O Lord, O energy of the Lord, please engage me in Your service.” That actually has the same meaning as “Please have mercy,” but you have to say it right. Just as when you say the prasadam prayer, you have to say it with real feeling and not just sense gratification for eating. The feeling has to come from a sense of being fallen.
I have a strong attachment for well-being and comfort. I know that the world is dangerous and full of distress, so I try to find a corner of peace. Spiritual life is very helpful in that way: it makes you peaceful against the storms of distress. But that is not enough reason for engaging in spiritual life. Also if you are so attached to peace, you may opt for a peace which is actually material in the mode of goodness. Don’t be afraid of the struggle known as tapo divyam, which you must undergo to attain real spiritual service, eternal service to Krsna. The tapasya of outward services which require effort and sacrifice is very important.
There is also the inner state of breaking down, admitting wrong, staying with contrite feelings because they are so extensive, continually praying to Krsna to help you, and feeling your helplessness. That’s not so comfortable, the inner life, is it?
Last morning in the South France retreat, making my promises, trying to keep a resolution. Pray to Krsna and Prabhupada within. I don’t know what I am going to meet and face once we leave here and fly West. My hope is that even if it is a shock getting away from this lovely peace and quiet, with time for reading and chanting and praying, even if everything is different, I should have even more reason to turn within periodically and pray.
You don’t have to know what to pray, and you don’t have to want to pray, you just have to fall down, make obeisances, and begin to address these two Lords of your life who are certainly dose enough to you and great enough for you to pray to them. No matter what’s on your mind as an obstacle, you can express it. Pray for the removal of such obstacles and pray to the fulfill the will of the Lord.
I just read in the gospel yesterday how Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. How human it was, that he prayed to God and said, “If possible, let not this cup of suffering pass before me.” However, then he said, “No, it’s not my will to be done, it’s Your will,” completely surrendered to the suffering that he knew he had to undergo. His disciples were asleep, so he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Keep awake because at any moment maya may come.”
I have to be awake because, although I am very fallen, still, by Prabhupada’s grace we have been picked up into this boat of transcendental life where we are free from the four sinful activities. For example, this morning I took a little rest at the wrong time, and the face of lust suddenly appeared in my dream. I became so frightened, not having seen that for some time. So it reminded me of what an elevated platform Prabhupada has placed us on. We want to be clear of sins and go further. We don’t want to fall back; we have to pray to the Lord.
Even Prabhupada used to pray to Krsna, “Please protect me from maya.” Maya is so powerful! If she paid attention to us, she could flick us aside in a moment. If we try to stand against her, therefore, we can only take shelter of our protectors—if we wish to be free from lust, anger, fear. I am saying this here because we are talking about prayer and impetus to prayer. So have plenty of impetus if you want to be saved from maya.
pp 63-66
Walking on the beach,
reading the Gita I thought
about selfishness.
I thought about selfishness in
my Godbrothers and of course
in myself, how we
came close to Prabhupada but with
purposes of our own. He must
have seen it, but he allowed
us. He was not selfish.
He lived what he taught:
“Please Krsna.
Make Him comfortable.
That is Vrndavana.”
This poem is selfish too. I’m
writing while waiting for breakfast
for you know who. I glance
at my Seiko watch and want
someone to get me a new
sweatshirt, this one is partly
worn out, give me the moon and
the sun to see.
But devotional service is kind to us.
It makes us pure. When Hari Sauri
asked
how he could come to Krsna
consciousness since he was born in a
low-class family, his
spiritual master said, “It is
like Prahlada Maharaja. He
did not become degraded by
his birth in a demoniac family.”
He is so kind to see it that way.
Prabhupada’s not selfish.
Srila Prabhupada, I want to write
freely
and then give it away freely. To
not take credit, but to live the
vocation.
Is that selfish, a false sense of
possession?
I want to give myself to you,
yet be myself. I walked
along the edge of the
harbor, saw the mild lake
water
rippling in first sunlight,
the jet trail painting
across a blue canvas.
I saw a white lump on the
beach and came closer. It
was a dead lamb and I did
not
approach nearer. I did not
want to see. Is the desire
to be free of that, to
not be bewildered by death,
selfish?
The Gita says that a devotee
is not selfish like a jnani or
yogi.
He’s too busy serving
the Lord to focus on
sense gratification.
I think I understand the
principle, but how to
apply it
except sometimes when
I give you something I
like or do something
because you want me
to?
You want us to work,
convince the world
to give everything to Krsna.
I’ll start with how not to be
selfish.
Offer the breakfast to
Prabhupada.
Sunlight in mid-October reminds me
of sun rays in Tompkins
Square Park when we sang
with the Swami
three hours on warm Sundays.
Nrsimha dasa said, “I can’t
understand some things in
your poems.” I
wrote back, “Poems are not direct
messages like, ‘Zeke
Prabhu, please close the
window. It is starting to
rain. Then go out and sell
a BTG to this man who is waiting at
the bottom of the stairs.’”
Poems pick up
things we can’t normally
express and they try to say
them. Or is that pompous?
“Anyway,” I said, “tell me
what you
didn’t understand.”
Maybe he means he can’t understand
why
they are not a hundred percent sastra.
Lord Caitanya said to Sarvabhauma,
“Oh, I understand Vedanta as clear as
day, but you cover it up. I
can’t understand your nonsense
jugglery.”
Nrsimha dasa may mean that.
I don’t know what he means.
Prasadam left outdoors. A fat
black
cow munches the leftovers.
We sun ourselves like
turtles. Can’t go back indoors
right away—it’s too nice out.
I went back in the hills, over
the creek with its sweet noise
and clear cold water running
over the rocks—prayed to
hear Lord Kona speak in His
verses, mattah parataram.
Krsna, You are the
keeper of cows, the
lifter of Govardhana, the
one source of all.
You are our friend.
We will remember
You, praise You, the
Lord of love,
the inconceivable
supervisor. Knowledge
of You is the confidential
secret of the Vedas.
Knowledge of
Gaura the secret
within that.
pp. 27-29
I was invited to a January 1 committee meeting. I said yes. Not knowing what committee meetings were about, I asked, “What’s it for?” “Today’s is about you and some basic attitudes and schedules.” It sounded suspicious, five people in a room talking about me, but I went along with it, of course. Anything to promote harmony, humility, embrace.
But as I entered the room, and if I had known what the meeting was really focused on, I would have begun with a garbled version of the blues lines,
“As I come before you today,
you will find me wrong, wrong, wrong.
I am guilty as charged.
But before you judge, if judge you must,
let he who has not sinned cast
the first stone. And just remember
the other side of the coin.”
They readied a special seat for me, and I turned to the opening speaker as if to say, “Well, Mr. Swift Executioner, what have you got to say? You all seem well prepared from separate meetings. Let’s get on with the business so I can absorb it kindly and true. And take away the hurts without too much anger or shame. Without too much feeling of injustice.”
They were well prepared and had it boiled down to three topics: (1) Retirement. (2) Boundaries. (3) Vacation. Retirement sounded all right to me. But then one point was that I don’t need driving myself, but I am driving my voluntary workers, disciples. “He who drives too hard drives both himself and others.” They said they did not want me to retire the patient or the guru or the person who they call “Steve” (because in a fit of delirium, when asked who I was, I had once replied, “Steve”), but they wanted me to retire the workaholic. The guru goes on, and the patient too, but the worker must retire. Ollie said, “RETIRE—RETIREMENT.”
Nanda then put it in an emphatic way, saying that they were not as good as I was in many respects in my long service in ISKCON. I was used to receiving orders and carrying them out promptly under Prabhupada’s strict direction and the direction of the other devotees. That was the rule. Don’t be lax. Work like a dog or be looked down upon as lax. “We are not ISKCON—right now. We are limited.” They certainly are ISKCON, but tired out from many, many years of strenuous work on my behalf, work in which they have not been recompensed or even given much thanks for, so they’ve had enough. Nanda said he was about to leave tomorrow for Washington to go back to the work grind, where he is head manager in constructing a skyscraper. So this was his last afternoon. He likened it to the halftime break in the football game, with the team battered and behind and the coach giving a last desperate talk to the men to get it together and push on before it’s too late.
So the message was that the workaholic in me sabotages them. I asked, “What about me giving ideas that can be put on the shelf or on the agenda to be done in the future, such as my ideas to rotate the items in the Web page more quickly?”
“Yes, yes,” said Mukhi. But the others emphasized, “Don’t come back ‘pushing’ on it.” Let it be a vision that they can carry out when humanly possible. There are only four of them. No one else is helping. “And we are little devotees. Please don’t push us to work to the point of sabotage. We want that voice-worker to go and retire.”
Ollie: “RETIREMENT!”
All: “But not the guru/visionary!”
I said I am a writer, and at this retirement stage, I have to write at a retirement pace. I’m a writer of pieces, and I can keep doing that, but I cannot do big, big projects in my present health and under my present mental pressure. I then took them on a bit of a digression about my exchanges with Dainya, where we began to talk about the herculean project of an autobiography. I told him that I could not do it for now. All I can do is write my “little things,” books of about two hundred pages.
Nara said, “May we have a while to catch up our breath?”
Nanda: “Yes, you are Steve in charge of taking care of the patient, and the guru will be protected. Retirement means retiring the ‘worker’ in your head. But if you push yourself, then others will be pushed. But please keep pushing upon us your visions and ideas. Kick the former tyrant workaholic out of your mind.”
I’m a slow thinker, but I began to catch on to their message. They were presenting it somewhat aggressively, desperately, and sometimes with an edge to it that I found not so respectful. But it was all with love. I began to understand that my suggestions are welcome, but not with a time period, and not even with the guarantee that they will be accepted. This goes for any kind of demand that my new books be published within any time period.
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.